Dead Man's Footsteps

rain on the pavement, the puddles, the parked cars, the passers-by.
    And it was the cars and the passers-by that she was watching, like a hawk, through the rain that was still pelting down today. She checked all the parked cars and vans first thing, when she woke up. Only a couple had changed from the night before. It was a neighbourhood where there was insufficient street parking, so once people found a space, they tended to leave their cars until they really needed to go somewhere. Otherwise, the moment they drove off, another vehicle took their place, and when they came back they might have to park several streets away.
    She’d had two visitors yesterday, a photographer from the Argus , whom she’d told on the entryphone to go away, and the caretaker, Tomasz, who had come to apologize, maybe concerned for his job and hoping she wouldn’tmake a complaint about him if he was nice to her. He explained that vandals must have broken into the lift motor-room and tampered with the brake mechanism and electrics. Low-lifes, he said. He had found a couple of syringes in there. But he wasn’t able to explain convincingly to her why the alarm system, which should have rung through to his flat, had failed to do so. He assured her the lift company was working on it, but the damage the firemen had done meant it would be several days before it was working again.
    She got rid of him as quickly as she could, in order to return to her vigil of watching the street.
    She called her mother, but she said nothing about receiving any phone calls from anyone. Abby continued the lie that she was still in Australia and having a great time.
    Sometimes text messages went astray, got sent to wrong numbers by mistake. Could this have been one?
    I know where you are .
    Possible.
    Coming on top of the lift getting stuck, was she jumping to conclusions in her paranoid state? It was comforting to think that. But complacency was the one luxury she could not afford. She had gone into this knowing the risks involved. Knowing that she would only get away with it by living on her wits, 24/7, for however long it took.
    The only thing that had made her smile yesterday was another of his lovely texts. This one said:
    You don’t love a woman because she is beautiful, but she is beautiful because you love her .
    She had replied:
    It’s beauty that captures your attention – personality which captures your heart .
    She saw nothing untoward in the street all Sunday. No strangers watching her. No Ricky. Just the rain. Just people. Life going on.
    Normal life.
    Something she was – for just a short while longer, she promised herself – no longer a part of. But all that would be changing soon.

37
OCTOBER 2007
    Rain rattled down on the roof and the van rocked in strong gusts of wind. Although he was well wrapped up, he was still cold in here, only daring to run the engine occasionally, not wanting to attract attention to himself. At least he had a comfortable mattress, books, a Starbucks nearby and music on his iPod. There was a public toilet close by on the promenade with an adequate washing facility and it was conveniently out of sight of any of the city’s CCTV cameras. Very definitely a public convenience.
    He had once read a line in a book someone had given him which said, Sex is the most fun you can have without laughing .
    The book was wrong, he thought. Sometimes revenge could be fun too. Just as much fun as sex.
    The van still had the for sale note written in red ink on a strip of brown cardboard stuck in its passenger-door window, although he had actually bought it, for three hundred and fifty pounds cash, over two weeks ago. He knew Abby was sharp, and had observed her checking the vehicles daily. No point in removing the sign and alerting her to any change. So if the previous owner got pissed off with people phoning, wanting to buy it, tough. He hadn’t bought it because he needed transport. He had bought it for the view. He could see every window of her flat from here.
    It was the perfect parking spot. The van had a valid tax disc and MOT and residents’ parking sticker. All of them ran out in three months’ time.
    By then he would be long gone.

38
OCTOBER 2007
    It was the same every damn time. Whatever confidence Roy Grace felt when he set off to come to this impressive place deserted him when he actually arrived.
    Malling House, the headquarters of Sussex Police, was just a fifteen-minute drive from his office. But in atmosphere, it