Dead Man's Footsteps

Grace looked at his watch. ‘I’m in a rush—’
    ‘Yeah, OK, I won’t keep you. Just wanted to alert you, that’s all. This woman they freed – late twenties, very pretty – I felt something wasn’t right.’
    ‘In what way?’
    ‘She was very agitated.’
    ‘Not surprising if she’d been stuck in a lift.’
    Spinella shook his head. ‘Not that kind of agitated.’
    Grace looked at him for a moment. One thing he knew about local newspaper reporters was the range of stories they got sent to cover. Sudden deaths, road crashes, mugging victims, burglary victims, families of missing persons. Reporters like Spinella met agitated people all day long. Even at his relatively young age and experience, Spinellaprobably had learned to recognize different types of agitation. ‘OK, what kind?’
    ‘She was frightened about something. Refused to answer the door the next day when the paper sent a photographer round. If I didn’t know better, I’d say she was in hiding.’
    Grace nodded. A few thoughts went through his mind. ‘What nationality?’
    ‘English. White – if I’m allowed to say that.’ He smirked.
    Ignoring the comment, Grace decided that ruled out her being an imprisoned sex slave – they were mostly from Eastern Europe and Africa. There were all kinds of possibilities. A million things could make you agitated. But being agitated wasn’t enough reason for the police to pay a call on someone.
    ‘What’s her name and address?’ he asked, then dutifully wrote down Katherine Jennings and the flat number and address on his pad. He would get someone to run it through PNC and see if the name got flagged. Other than that, all he could do was wait to see if the name appeared again.
    Then, as Roy pressed his card against the security panel to step through into the Major Incident Suite, Spinella called after him again. ‘Oh – and Detective Superintendent?’
    He turned, irritably now. ‘Yes?’
    ‘Congratulations on your promotion!’

44
11 SEPTEMBER 2001
    Ronnie stood in the sunshine on the empty boardwalk and checked once again that his mobile phone was switched off. Very definitely switched off. He stared ahead, past the benches and the beach-front railing, beyond the deserted golden sand, out across the expanse of rippling ocean, at the distant pall of black and grey and orange smoke that was steadily staining the sky, turning it the colour of rust.
    He barely took any of it in. He had just realized that he had left his passport in the room safe back at his hotel. But perhaps that could be helpful. He was thinking. Thinking. Thinking. His brain was all jammed up with thoughts. Somehow he needed to clear his head. Some exercise might do it. Or a stiff drink.
    To his left the boardwalk stretched out as far as he could see. In the distance, to his right, he could see the silhouettes of the rides in the amusement park at Coney Island. Nearer, there was a messy-looking apartment building, covered in scaffolding, about six storeys high. A black dude in a leather jacket was engaged in a discussion with an Oriental-looking guy in a bomber jacket. They kept turning their heads, as if checking they weren’t being watched, and they kept looking at him. Maybe they were doing a drugs deal and thought he might be a cop. Maybe they were talking about football, or baseball, or the fuckingweather. Maybe they were the only people on the fucking planet who didn’t know something had happened to the World Trade Center this morning.
    Ronnie didn’t give a shit about them. So long as they didn’t mug him they could stand there all day and talk. They could stand there until the world ended, which might be pretty damned soon, judging by the events of today so far.
    Shit. Fuck. What a day this was. What a fuck of a day to pick to be here. And he didn’t even have Donald Hatcook’s mobile phone number.
    And. And. And. He tried to shut that thought out, but it kept knocking on his door until he had to open up and let it in.
    Donald Hatcook might be dead.
    An awful lot of people might be fucking dead.
    There was a parade of shops, all with Russian signs on them, to his right, lining the boardwalk. He began walking towards them, towing his bag behind him, and then stopped when he reached a large sign in a green metal frame with an arched top, framing one of those YOU ARE HERE ! maps. It was headed:
    RIEGELMANN WALKWAY. BRIGHTON BEACH.
BRIGHTON 2ND STREET.
    Despite all that was going through his mind, he stopped