Dead Man's Time

them had had similar visits. But the officers carrying out this task needed to make these
into reassurance visits at the same time so they did not frighten people, and to dispense crime-prevention advice. They needed to see if there were any CCTV cameras in the area that might have
picked up anything. Unfortunately Withdean Road and its environs were not covered by the city’s police CCTV network, although plenty of the homes had their own. He needed to establish whether
there had been any similar crimes in the city, or in the county, recently. And he needed to set up an ‘anniversary visit’ check, placing Sussex Police billboards on the street, either
side and to the front of the property, asking if anyone had seen unfamiliar vehicles in the area either on the night of the attack, or the previous Tuesday evening.
    When villains cased a property, he knew from experience, they would often carry this out a week before, checking the movement patterns of the occupants for the same day.
    Something felt wrong about this devastating attack on the old lady, but he could not put his finger on it. This kind of brutal tie-up robbery had, sadly, a long history. But all his instincts
told him there was something more going on here.
    The contents of the bookshelves had been the first thing to catch his eye in here. Then a movement outside distracted him. Through the leaded-light window he saw a sparrow washing itself in an
ornamental fountain, totally unaware of the horror that had recently taken place here.
    Grace had never been particularly interested in poetry, but there was one poem he remembered from his schooldays, because he’d had to learn it by heart and recite it during an English
class. It was by W. H. Auden, and the first two lines seemed so apt here, he thought suddenly.
    Happy the hare at morning, for she cannot read
    The hunter’s waking thoughts . . .
    He stared beyond the bathing sparrow across the terrace of lawns and over to the far side of the valley, a mile distant. This time of the year much of the view of the eastern side of the city
was obscured by greenery, but he could still make out the large rectangle of Varndean School, where he had been a pupil, before becoming a police cadet.
    On the victim’s walnut bureau was a large leather diary, some framed photos of children and adults, all discoloured with age, an old-fashioned red leather address book, a Parker pen lying
on a blotter pad, her blue headed notepaper, and a birthday card with a blank page inside and a blank envelope that she had obviously been planning to send to someone.
The clue might be in the
diary
, he thought, flicking backwards and forwards through a few pages with his gloved fingers. But at a cursory glance the pages were blank except for an appointment note, in three
days’ time, written with a fountain pen in a sloping, spidery hand:
Dr Parish. 11.30.
    Above the bureau, surrounded by a dark rectangle where a painting had probably hung, there was a safe, with a combination lock, and the door to it open. He peered inside but it was empty. At the
back was what looked like a panel on its side, and a second door, as if to a secret chamber in the safe, which was also open.
    He turned his attention back to the bookshelves, and ran his eyes over some of the titles again.
The First 100 Years of the American Mafia. Young Capone. Early Street Gangs and Gangsters of
New York City. Irish Organized Crime. King of the Brooklyn Waterfront.
    There was shelf after shelf of them.
    Why?
    The collection was like an obsession.
    Why had this lady got all these books on the early gang history of New York?
    Aileen McWhirter. That was an Irish name. Did Gavin Daly’s sister have some historic link with American organized crime? Did they both?
    From what little he had gleaned about Aileen McWhirter since being called out here, she had been married to a stockbroker, and widowed for the past fifteen years. Her own children had
predeceased her, but there was a granddaughter and her husband, Nicki and Matt Spiers, and their two children, Jamie and Isobel – Aileen McWhirter’s great-grandchildren – whom the
police were currently trying to contact. She had no record, other than a traffic offence three years ago, when she had collided with a bollard for no apparent reason, which had resulted in her
licence being revoked.
    Perhaps she had once written a thesis on the subject? A book? Was trying to learn something about her family