Dead Man's Time

history?
    Suddenly his phone rang. ‘Roy Grace.’
    It was Glenn Branson, outside. ‘Boss, Gavin Daly has just been. I was going to get you to meet him, but he’s been called up to the hospital urgently.’
    ‘What’s the latest on Mrs McWhirter?’
    ‘We’ve got an officer there, guarding the ward. He’s keeping me in the loop. It’s not sounding good.’
    ‘It never was,’ Grace replied grimly.
    ‘Something I want to show you in the hall.’
    ‘I’ll be right there.’
    Branson was standing on a SOCO board on top of a frayed Persian rug by a hall table, tapping an A4 leaflet, in a bag, headed with an ornate typeface that was, no doubt, intended to convey an air
of class, but which, in Grace’s view, made it look even more like the work of a spiv.
    R. C. MOORE
    Roy Grace glanced briefly at it.
    Dear Sir or Madam
    In the many years that I have been visiting this area, I have never ceased to take satisfaction from the pleasure people gain from realizing money from some unwanted, often
     forgotten item.
    Then he looked at his colleague. ‘Shit, I thought knocker-boys were a thing of the past. That everyone now sees
Antiques Roadshow
and
Cash in the Attic
and all those
other shows and they don’t get suckered in any more by these creeps.’ He remembered, with anger, his grandmother getting conned out of almost all her few family heirlooms by
knocker-boys when he was in his teens.
    ‘Obviously not completely, boss. I guess wherever there’s a pond, you’ll find something crawling around in the mud at the bottom.’
    Grace smiled grimly. ‘We’ll need to question R. C. Moore asap.’ Then he glanced down at the carpet. ‘Strange – such a beautiful home, filled with, presumably,
lovely things, and yet she had this tatty hall carpet!’
    Branson gave him a sad look. ‘You’re so ignorant!’
    ‘Thanks. But actually I think I know beauty when I see it.’
    ‘Oh yeah? Do you have any idea of the value of this rug?’
    ‘I’d probably give a fiver for it in a car boot sale.’
    ‘You’d be getting a bargain if you did. It looks Persian to me, probably worth several thousand quid. Ari’s dad traded in them, taught me all about them. When they make these
rugs they put flaws in them, deliberately.’
    ‘Why?’
    Glenn Branson smiled. ‘Because in the eyes of those carpet makers, only God is perfect.’
    Grace smiled. ‘I’ll remember that.’ He pulled his phone from his pocket and took a couple of close-up photographs of the leaflet. As he was checking to make sure they
weren’t blurred, he heard Glenn Branson answering his own phone. After a brief exchange of words, Branson ended the call then looked at Grace with his large and, recently, world-weary
eyes.
    ‘That was our officer at the hospital, boss.’
    ‘And?’
    ‘Looks like we are now upgraded to a murder enquiry.’

19
    New York, 1922
    The boy’s aunt was urging him to come in out of the cold, but he refused. He clung for dear life to the stern rail of the RMS
Mauretania
, salty wind tearing
at his hair, a lump in his throat, tears streaming down his cheeks, oblivious to the numbing cold. His eyes were fixed on the steadily disappearing Statue of Liberty as they passed through the
Verrazano Narrows.
    It was tiny now, just a distant speck. It was being swallowed by the mist and cloud, which were relentlessly closing in on it in the falling darkness. He kept his eyes on the statue until it was
gone completely, and then he felt even sadder. As if the cord between him and his pa had now been severed, totally and finally.
    The deck thrummed beneath his feet. There was a strong smell of paint and varnish, mingled every few moments with a snatch of smoke from the funnels. His aunt was saying his name again, and
tugging at his coat sleeve. But he ignored her, and stared down at the foaming wake, a hundred feet below. Every second, the distance between the stern of the
Mauretania
and New York
increased. Every second, he was further away from finding his father. The mystery of his disappearance swallowed up by clouds much darker than the ones now cloaking the Statue of Liberty.
    From inside his pocket, he took out the crumpled piece of newspaper that he had been given a few hours earlier on the pier. The wind ripped at it, making it crackle, and he held on tightly,
terrified of losing it. He looked at the newsprint photograph of his father, then at the clumsily written names and numbers. 9 5 3 7 0 4 0 4 2 4 0 4. Then back