Dead Man's Time

where he was. He heard a drilling sound. For a moment he thought it was men digging a hole. But it was a bell. The phone, he
realized. He was in his study, and must have fallen asleep in his armchair. His cigar lay in the glass ashtray, with a ring of ash on the end, next to his glass of whiskey, with the ice long
melted. His head ached; he’d drunk too much this evening.
    He took a moment more to fully orient himself, then picked up the receiver. ‘Gavin Daly,’ he said.
    ‘Hey Gavin, it’s Julius Rosenblaum here. Apologies for calling so late – hope I didn’t wake you?’ the treacly voice of the New York watch dealer asked. ‘But I
thought you’d want to hear this right away.’
    Daly looked at his watch. It was 11.30 p.m. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Well, no, not really – I’m – I’m still in my office.’ He was still feeling a little
disoriented, not fully awake, but perking up fast. This was the call he had been waiting for, he realized.
    ‘The guy I told you about,
Mr No Name
, who called me on Tuesday about the Patek Philippe, came in this afternoon.’
    ‘Yes?’
    ‘I’ve got the pictures of him and the watch, which I’ve pulled off our CCTV, and just emailed you. Thought I’d give you a heads-up. Do you want to check your mail and see
if it is your watch?’
    ‘Yes – yes, Julius. Can you give me a few minutes?’
    ‘Take your time.’
    ‘You’re still in your office?’
    ‘I’ll be here for another ten minutes, then I have to go to a dinner. I’ll give you my cell and you can call on that if you miss me.’
    ‘Thank you. So – what did you think of the watch?’
    ‘He only brought in photographs, but the timepiece looks authentic enough. Quite a bit of damage – the crown and winding arbor are bent, the crystal is cracked and there’s a
dent in the rear casing.’
    ‘That sounds like it,’ Gavin Daly said.
    ‘I asked him about the provenance. Said it has been in his family since the early 1920s.’
    ‘Did he now?’
    ‘Handed down from his grandfather.’
    ‘That’s a touching story,’ Daly said. ‘Remind me of his name?’
    ‘Robert Kenton. Does that mean anything to you?’
    Daly thought hard for some moments. ‘No.’
    ‘I asked him how much interest he’d had in the watch, and he was cagey about who he had talked to, but said he was expecting offers next week – subject to the watch being what
the photographs show – and he would take the best offer by close of business on Wednesday. I told him I was extremely interested, buttered him up a little, and he’s going to be bringing
it in to me on Monday morning, at 11 a.m. If you could get over here, I could bring you into the room, then you’ll be able to see the piece for yourself. If it is yours, I just have to press
one button, all the doors will lock, and the police will be on their way.’
    ‘I’m very grateful.’
    ‘Check the photographs and call me back.’
    Daly eased himself, stiffly, out of the chair, went to over to his desk, sat down and logged on and opened the zipped file. Moments later he was looking at a sequence of low-grade CCTV images.
First of a man entering through a door. He was in his mid-sixties, overweight, with short, curly grey hair, and dressed in a blue blazer with silver buttons, open-neck white shirt and paisley
cravat. The next image showed a closer and clearer image of the man’s face. The third showed the front of the Patek Philippe watch.
    He was certain that it was his watch, with the bent crown and winding and the busted crystal. But to be sure he had another hard rummage around for any photographs of it. He opened all the
drawers of his desk, rummaged around through all the other old papers in there but still could not find one. He cast his mind back to when he had last seen one.
    He was, he knew, getting a little forgetful. A couple of times recently he had lost important documents, or misfiled them inside others. It would turn up; no matter. He looked back at the
screen, at the image of the watch, and began to tremble with anger. The bastard. The fat bastard.
    Out of curiosity, he entered
Robert Kenton
into Google. There were over twenty hits. He then went to
Images.
None of them remotely matched the face on the photographs he had
just looked at. Then he had another thought. Into the Google search he typed
Eamonn Pollock
.
    Moments later he was staring at an old
Argus
newspaper headline from 1992.
    BRIGHTON CHARITY PATRON SENTENCED
    The whole story