Dead Man's Time

mind. The first was Sarah Courteney’s uncomfortable reaction when he had asked about the cost
of her watch, which he still did not understand. But at the moment, as he pulled into his parking space at the front of Sussex House, there was something more immediate: the suitcase in Gavin
Daly’s hallway. He had watched a documentary on television some months back, about people with second homes in France and Spain. They talked about the cheapness and convenience of hopping on
and off a low-cost flight. The secret, all of them said, was to take no luggage. No wasting time with checked baggage. Just a small carry-on holdall.
    That was a substantial suitcase in the hallway of Gavin Daly’s house. Very definitely it would be checked baggage – unless of course he was flying in a private jet. But even so,
surely a seasoned and wealthy traveller like him did not need to lug baggage around?
    Unless of course he had lied about his destination.
    His phone rang. It was Peregrine Stuart-Simmonds. ‘Roy, I think this will interest you. I’ve just put down the phone from a friend: a dealer in very rare watches, Richard Robbins, in
Chicago’s Jewelers Row. This is a man of impeccable integrity. He’s heard through the grapevine about a Patek Philippe watch, which sounds from the description very much like our
missing one, being hawked around in New York.’
    ‘Does he have any names? Anyone our team could talk to?’
    ‘Yes, several. I’m on it now. Just thought you might want to know.’
    ‘I do indeed, thank you.’
    The moment he ended the call, Roy Grace phoned MIR-1 and put in a request for a search of all passenger lists on outbound flights to New York for the rest of the day. The name he gave them to
look for was Gavin Daly.

80
    The
beep-parp . . . beep-parp . . . beep-parp
of the siren grew closer, six floors below them, racing along Munich’s Widenmayerstrasse. It was a hot, late-summer
day and Dr Eberstark’s consulting room window was open several inches to let in some air – and with it the traffic noise.
    The psychiatrist frowned at Sandy. ‘Are you intending to tell him you are actually alive?’
    ‘Roy?’
    ‘Yes, Roy.’
    ‘No.’ She felt a refreshing waft of breeze, as the siren peaked right beneath them.
    ‘So you are a dead person?’
    ‘
Sandy Grace
is a dead person. That doesn’t make me a dead person.’
    Dr Eberstark was a small man, in his mid-fifties, who had the knack, she always thought, of making himself seem even smaller still. It was partly the suits he wore, which all appeared one size
too big, as if he was waiting to grow into them, partly the way he sat in his chair opposite the couch, hunched up, and partly the large black-rimmed glasses which dwarfed his hawk-like face.
‘Legally you are.’
    ‘Legally I am Frau Lohmann.’
    He gave her a quizzical look. ‘You told me that you got your German citizenship by paying someone. Was that lawful?’
    She shrugged, then said, dismissively, ‘No one died in the process.’
    The psychiatrist stared at her for some moments. ‘No one died, but someone must have been hurt, right?’
    She lapsed into one of her long silences. Then she answered, ‘Who?’
    ‘Your husband, Roy. Did you never think about what your disappearance might have done to him?’
    ‘Yes, of course, a lot. Constantly, at first. But . . .’ She fell silent again.
    After some minutes he prompted her. ‘But what?’
    ‘It was the best of a bad set of options. In my view.’
    ‘And that still is your view, isn’t it?’
    ‘I’ve made a mess of my life. I guess that’s why I’m here. People don’t come to a shrink because they’re happy, do they? Do you have any patients who are
happy?’
    ‘Let’s just focus on you.’
    She smiled. ‘I’m a train wreck, aren’t I?’
    He had tiny, piercing eyes that usually were steely cold and unemotional. But just occasionally they twinkled with humour. They were twinkling now. ‘I would not say that, not just yet. But
you are heading towards becoming one, in my opinion, if you go ahead and buy that house.’
    She fell silent again for the remaining minutes of the session.

81
    ‘So what’s this about?’ Gareth Dupont asked, sullenly chewing gum in the back of the unmarked Ford. He had shaved, and was dressed in clean jeans and a
freshly laundered blue shirt beneath a suede bomber jacket. Prisoners on remand were permitted to wear their own clothes until convicted.
    ‘I thought you might