Dead Man's Footsteps

bottle of wine, on top of a whisky or two – and sometimes make good progress on a second bottle, as well.
    At his recent medical, the doctor had asked him how many units of alcohol he drank a week. Lying, Grace had said seventeen, under the impression that around twenty was a safe number for a male. The doctor had frowned, advising him to cut down to under fifteen. Later, after a quick check on a calculator programme he had found on the internet, Grace discovered his average weekly intake was around forty-two units. Thanks to last night, this week’s would probably be double that. He vowed silently never to touch alcohol again.
    Bella Moy, opposite him, was already stuffing her face with Maltesers at this early hour. Although she never normally offered them around, she pushed the box towards Grace.
    ‘I think you need a sugar hit, Roy!’ she said.
    ‘Does it show?’
    ‘Good party?’
    Grace shot a glance at Glenn. ‘I wish.’
    He removed his chewing gum, ate a Malteser, followed, moreishly, by another three. They didn’t make him feel any worse. Then he swigged some coffee and popped the gum back in his mouth.
    ‘Coca-Cola,’ Bella said. ‘Full strength – not the Diet one. That’s good for a hangover. And a fried breakfast.’
    ‘There’s the voice of experience,’ Norman Potting interrupted.
    ‘Actually I don’t do hangovers,’ she said dismissively to him.
    ‘Our virtuous virgin,’ Potting grumbled.
    ‘That’s enough, Norman,’ Grace said, smiling at Bella before she rose any further to the bait.
    He then returned to the task in hand, reading out the information Norman Potting had produced at the previous evening’s briefing meeting, that Joanna Wilson’s husband, Ronnie, had died in the World Trade Center on 11 September 2001. When he had finished, he turned to Potting. ‘Good work, Norman.’
    The DS gave a noncommittal grunt, but looked pleased with himself.
    ‘What information do we have on Joanna Wilson? Any family that we can talk to?’ Grace asked.
    ‘I’m working on it,’ Potting said. ‘Her parents are dead, I’ve managed to establish that. No siblings. I’m trying to find out if she had any other relatives.’
    Shooting a glance at Lizzie Mantle, his deputy SIO, Grace said, ‘OK, in the absence of immediate family we need to focus our enquiries on the Wilsons’ acquaintancesand friends. Norman and Glenn can concentrate on that. Bella, I want you to contact the FBI through the American Embassy in London, see if you can find any record of Joanna Wilson entering the USA during the 1990s. If she was intending to work there, she would have required a visa. Ask the FBI to check all records and computer databases to see if they can find any record of her living there during that period.’
    ‘Do we have a point person at the embassy?’ she asked.
    ‘Yes. I know Brad Garrett in the Legal Attaché’s Office. He’ll give you any help you need. If you have a problem, I also have two friends in the District Attorney’s Office in New York. Actually, the smart thing might be to go straight to them. It’ll cut out some red tape. When we need the formal evidence, we will of course go through all the right channels.’ Then he thought for a moment. ‘Leave Brad to me. I’ll give him a ring and run things past him.’
    Then he turned to DC Nicholl. ‘Nick, I want you to do a nationwide search on Ronnie Wilson. See if there’s anything on him cross-border.’
    The young DC nodded. He looked as exhausted and pale-faced as usual. No doubt he had spent another sleepless night experiencing the joys of fatherhood, Grace thought.
    He turned back to Lizzie Mantle. ‘Anything you would like to add?’
    ‘I’m thinking about this Ronnie Wilson character,’ she said. ‘On the balance of probability, he’s got to be our number-one suspect at this point.’
    Grace popped the gum from his mouth and dropped it in a bin close to his feet. ‘I agree,’ he said. ‘But we need to know more about him and his wife, understand their lifetogether. See if we can find a motive. Did he have a lover? Did she? See what we can eliminate.’
    ‘Once you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth,’ Norman Potting cut in.
    There was a brief moment of silence. Potting looked as pleased as hell with himself.
    Then Bella Moy looked at him and said acidly, ‘ Sherlock Holmes . Very good, Norman. You and he are about the same generation.’
    Grace