Dead Man's Time

auctions?’
    ‘Car boot sales?’ said Potting, facetiously.
    ‘I don’t think so, Norman,’ Grace said. Then he turned to DS Annalise Vineer, the manager for the analysts, indexers and typists on the enquiry. ‘Do you have anything to
report?’
    ‘We’ve run a nationwide check for home-invasion robberies with a similar MO, chief. So far all but one of the matches show the perpetrators of those to be in prison.’
    ‘And that one is?’ Grace asked.
    ‘Amis Smallbone.’
    The room went quiet for a moment. Then Glenn Branson’s mobile phone rang. With an apologetic glance at Roy Grace, he answered it.
    ‘Oh, no!’ he said. ‘Oh, shit. I’ll be right there.’
    He stood up, looking ashen. ‘I’m sorry, I have to go to the hospital. It’s Ari.’
    Ari was Glenn Branson’s wife. Grace followed him outside. ‘Tell me, mate, what is it?’
    ‘I dunno exactly. They said she’s broken some bones. Knocked off her bike by a pedestrian on the seafront cycle lane.’
    ‘Call me.’
    Branson nodded and hurried off.

30
    It was meant to be summer, but the relentless late-August rain rattled against his basement window, with its dismal view of a row of dustbins and stained walls. The meagre
light leaking into this crummy bedsit made it feel, at 4 p.m., that summer really was at an end. His first summer as a free man for twelve years.
    But Amis Smallbone, in his busted armchair, cigarette smouldering in the ashtray beside the half-drained bottle of Chivas Regal, was feeling in a particularly upbeat mood. A lot of money was
about to come his way. A shedload!
    Just one wrinkle. A very greedy wrinkle. Gareth Dupont. He knew the man was a bit flaky by reputation, but after twelve years inside, a lot of his best contacts had gone away, or died, which was
why he’d gone to him in the first place. Now he regretted that. And he cursed the reward money on offer. He was damned if he was going to be blackmailed by that little shit. Dupont was a
problem and had to be dealt with. He would figure something out.
    At least, on the brighter side, in a few days he was out of here. Into much nicer accommodation, provided his Probation Officer approved, and he had no reason not to. It was a rented town house
in a gated development in the centre of Brighton’s North Laine district. His mate Henry Tilney, who, unlike himself, had managed to avoid any residency at Her Majesty’s Pleasure, had
stood referee and guarantor for him on the tenancy agreement. And very soon he would be able to repay Tilney the five-grand deposit he’d put down on his behalf.
    And equally soon he would be able to repay Detective Superintendent Roy Grace for depriving him of twelve years of his life, which he had spent in some of England’s biggest shithole
prisons.
    The floor plans of his soon-to-be neighbours’ house lay unfolded on the crappy coffee table in front of him. Cleo Morey’s house. There was what looked like an easy route across the
rooftop fire escape to her house. In his original thinking, he was going to hire someone to do the deed. But why should he pay good money for an act that would give him so much pleasure to commit
himself? Whatever that act was. Maiming Cleo, perhaps. Or killing the baby.
    There were endless possibilities. He could visualize lifting the baby from its cot. The stupid, dumb little infant, Noah, and hurling it through the air onto the cobblestones below.
    Thud.
    He liked that sound.
    Thud.
    Oh yes.
    But far more he looked forward to seeing Detective Superintendent Grace’s pain. His grief.
    Then he heard a thud. Followed by another. On his door.
    He glanced down at his gold Rolex, which had been stored these past twelve years in a safety deposit box that the police had not managed to find. 4.20 p.m. He wasn’t expecting any
visitors. But he
was
expecting his pay-off anytime now. A cut of the ten million pound haul from the Withdean Road heist. He stood up, swaying from the alcohol inside him, and made his way
towards the door.
    The cheapskate landlord of this dump hadn’t put in either a spyhole or a safety chain, so he had no way of finding out who his visitor was other than shouting through the door. ‘Who
is it?’
    ‘Father Christmas!’
    The voice was dimly familiar. If they were coming to pay him off, he did not want to turn them away. But he did not feel entirely comfortable. He unlocked the door, and the two safety bolts, top
and bottom. Then he opened it a fraction. An instant later,