Dead Man's Time

are you?’
    ‘Very contented indeed, thank you!’
Dr Alvarez!
Dr Alphonse Alvarez was one of the several aliases that he used.
Dr Alvarez
was his favourite. He liked it when the
hotel staff called him Doctor. Classy. Hey, he was a classy guy!
    He held the door, as the waiter stuck a wedge beneath it, then trundled in the food-laden metal trolley. ‘You like me to set this up for you, Dr Alvarez, on the table?’
    ‘I would indeed!’ Pollock left the waiter and moved through into the bedroom to fetch a tip from his wallet, his mood greatly improved now that his dinner was here, and humming to
himself his favourite Dr Hook song.
‘Please don’t misunderstand me! I’ve got all this money, and I’m a pretty ugly guy!’
    And he did indeed have it all. And tomorrow, he would have even more. Two million pounds, minimum! How nice! How very, very, very nice!
    Hey ho!
    In the next-door room he heard the clatter of crockery and cutlery as the waiter laid the table. He was salivating. What a feast! There were flashing red lights on the television. Police cars.
Some big incident on the local news. A shooting in the Bronx. Didn’t bother him, hey ho.
    He trotted back out into the lounge area, holding a twenty-dollar bill between his finger and thumb, like a laboratory specimen he was presenting for inspection. He liked to make sure waiters
saw what a very generous man he was, in case they simply shoved the tip into their pockets without noticing it.
    Then as he entered the lounge, he froze in his tracks.
    The twenty-dollar note fluttered down onto the carpet.
    The waiter held the room service bill, in a leather wallet, up for him to sign, with a pen in his other hand.
    But Eamonn Pollock did not even notice him. He was staring at the man on the far side of the room, dressed in a thin leather jacket, jeans and black Chelsea boots, who was lounging back on the
sofa, removing a cigarette from a pack.
    His beady eyes shot to the waiter then back to the man. He scribbled his name, like an automaton, on the bill, noticed the waiter hesitating, but just wanted him out, now.
    ‘Have a good evening, Doctor,’ the waiter said, with a forced smile, and lingered.
    ‘Just fuck off, will you,’ Pollock said.
    The startled waiter removed the wedge from the door and left, closing the door a little too hard behind him.
    The man on the sofa lit his cigarette.
    ‘This is a no-smoking room,’ Pollock said. ‘And what the hell are you doing here?’
    ‘You know why I’m here, you fat jerk. I want to know why your gorillas killed my aunt. And you did a runner with the watch . . . Did you really think I wouldn’t find
you?’
    ‘Killing your aunt was not part of the plan. That was never meant to happen. And there’s a five-hunded-dollar fine for smoking in this room,’ Pollock said. ‘Put that out
or I’m going to call Security.’
    ‘Yeah, why don’t you? Ask for those two cops who are standing in the lobby by the elevators.’
    Pollock’s face blanched. ‘What cops?’

94
    Roy Grace was nervous. He did not like being out of control, and that was how he felt right now. Although he had a lot of faith in Pat Lanigan, and two of his team, Keith
Johnson and Linda Blankson, seemed very helpful and competent, Detective Lieutenant Aaron Cobb had continued to give the impression, at their late-afternoon review meeting, that he considered the
presence of the Brits here unnecessary. Cobb was a loose cannon, and in his own manor Grace could deal with someone like him; but here, as a guest in another country, all he could do was to try to
win him over – and that was not happening. Further, it was clear that in the pecking order, Aaron Cobb was the senior of the NYPD detectives.
    Surveillance had been placed on Eamonn Pollock’s hotel, but when Grace questioned Cobb about having only two officers covering the building, he was curtly told that was all the manpower he
had available.
    By 6 p.m. there had still been no trace of Gavin or Lucas Daly. Door-to-door enquiries on all New York hotels were continuing into the night but, as Aaron Cobb suggested, the old man in
particular was probably tired and needed time out to be fresh for the morning.
    Guy Batchelor announced to Roy Grace that what he needed, more than time out, was a cigarette and a stiff drink – and that he knew a place in New York where he could get both.
    The three Sussex policemen walked the fourteen blocks from their hotel to the Carnegie Club on 56th