Dead Man's Footsteps

acting the part of the sick lady, walked slowly out through the door and climbed into the rear of a turquoise and white Streamline taxi, thanking the young assistant again for his kindness.
    The driver, an elderly man with a shock of white hair, closed the door for her.
    She gave him the address of her mother’s flat in Eastbourne before sinking down low in her seat, so she could just see out but hopefully not be seen, and pulling her jacket up over her head.
    ‘Like me to put the heating up higher?’ the driver asked.
    ‘I’m fine, thanks,’ she replied.
    She looked hard for Ricky or the rental Ford as they drove out through the car park. No sign of him. Then, at the top of the incline, as they reached the junction with the main road, she saw the car. The driver’s door was open and Ricky was standing beside it looking around. His face, beneath his baseball cap, was a mask of fury.
    She shrank down, below the level of the window, and covered her head completely with her jacket. Then she waited until she felt the taxi pulling away, making a right turn up the hill, before sitting far enough up to be able to see out of the rear window. Ricky was looking away from her, scanning the car park.
    ‘Please go as quickly as you can,’ she said. ‘I’ll give you a good tip.’
    ‘I’ll do my best,’ the driver said.
    She heard classical music playing on the radio. Something she recognized: Verdi’s ‘Chorus of the Hebrew Slaves’. Ironically, this was one of her mother’s favourite pieces. A curious coincidence. Or was it a sign?
    She believed in omens, always had. She had never bought into her parents’ religious convictions, but she had always been superstitious. How strange it was that this was playing, right at this moment.
    ‘Nice music,’ she said.
    ‘I can turn it down.’
    ‘No, please, turn it up.’
    The driver obliged.
    She dialled her mother’s number again. As it started ringing, she heard the insistent beep of an incoming call. Which could only be one of two people. The wording Private number appeared.
    She hesitated. Tried to think clearly. Could it be her mother? Unlikely, but…
    But…
    She continued hesitating. Then she accepted the call.
    ‘OK, bitch, very funny! Where are you?’
    She hung up. Shaking. The sick feeling back in the pit of her stomach.
    The phone rang again. Same Private number . She killed it.
    And again.
    Then she realized she could play this a lot more cleverly and waited for it to ring again.
    But it remained silent.

71
13 SEPTEMBER 2001
    Nothing in his life prepared Ronnie for the devastation that lay ahead of him as he made his way from the subway station towards the vicinity of the World Trade Center. He’d thought he had some idea of what it might be like from all he had seen on Tuesday with his own eyes, and on television subsequently, but experiencing it now was shaking him to the core.
    It was just past noon. His hangover from his drinking binge with Boris yesterday wasn’t helping and the smell of the dusty air was making him very queasy. It was the same rank stench that he’d woken up to in Brooklyn these past two days, but far stronger here. A slow line of emergency and military vehicles moved down the street. A siren wailed in the distance and there was a constant cacophony of roaring and clattering from helicopters hovering what seemed like just feet above the tops of the skyscrapers on either side of him.
    At least the time he had invested in his new best friend had not been in vain. Indeed, he was beginning to look upon him as his local Mr Fixit. The forger Boris had recommended lived just a ten-minute walk from his new lodgings. Ronnie had been expecting to enter dingy, backstreet premises and find a wizened old man with an eyepiece and inky fingers. Instead, in a smart, bland office ina modernized walk-up, he had met a good-looking, expensively suited and very pleasant Russian man of no more than thirty, who could have passed for a banker or a lawyer.
    For five thousand dollars, fifty per cent in advance, which Ronnie had handed over, he was going to provide Ronnie with the passport and the visa he wanted. Which left Ronnie with about three thousand dollars net. Enough to tide him over for a while, if he was careful. Hopefully the stamp market might recover soon, although the world stock markets were still in freefall today, according to the morning news.
    But all this was small beer compared to the riches that awaited him if his plan