Dead Man's Time

they’d moved right, to the
construct
side of his brain. Where lies came from.
    Was he taking the law into his own hands?
    All his checking out on Gavin Daly so far had revealed him to be a man with a great deal of charm, but an utterly ruthless business streak. He was a rogue, or certainly had been once, like so
many of the Brighton antiques fraternity. But he had no criminal record. His son appeared to be in the same mould, but without the charm. He needed to get Ricky Moore to talk, but apart from the
man being in hospital, in great pain, Bella had reported he was clearly far too scared to give any names. Maybe putting pressure on Moore when he was feeling better might be a route to follow.
Threatening to arrest him on a murder charge might persuade him to talk. Suspects on murder charges did not get bail. It could be a year to eighteen months for Moore to sweat before the trial came
up. Faced with that time in jail, or naming names, Moore might well squeal.
    One thing he felt certain about was that the knocker-boy was involved – whether in the planning and execution of the burglary, or simply selling on the information. The fact that Moore was
tortured with a similar – but uncommon – torture implement to that used on Aileen McWhirter was evidence enough. If Moore was innocent, he would have made a complaint to the police, so
he was clearly hiding something, scared of someone. But why had he been tortured? And by whom? Old man Daly knew about it, and might have ordered it. For what reason? Most likely, Grace thought, it
was to get the names of the perpetrators, and go after them. And if the old man was involved, it was likely his son was too. People taking the law into their own hands, assuming they could do
better than the police, always worried him, because they invariably made a mess of everything. And he still felt that the reward Daly had put up was bigger than he would have liked.
    He needed to have Lucas Daly interviewed as soon as possible. And to find out his whereabouts late last Friday night around the time of Moore’s torture. A richly funded vigilante campaign
was something Roy Grace seriously did not need.
    It was just after 11.30 p.m. when he set the alarm and drove away from the house. He turned onto the forecourt of the Esso garage at Dyke Road Park, went into the Tesco Express and looked at the
depleted selection of flowers. Most of them looked as tired as he felt. The best of the bunch was a small bouquet of crimson roses. He bought them for Cleo, then walked back out to his car and
drove down to his own house, just off Hove seafront.
    The sale board outside had an UNDER OFFER sticker on it.
Please God, whoever you are, buy the damned place,
he thought, as he unlocked the front door. It would
be one headache less. He switched on some lights, then hurried through into the kitchen, and went over to the goldfish bowl.
    The fish, which he had won at a fairground well over a decade ago, was swimming around and around, as if on a quest, as he always did. And, as Grace had suspected, his food hopper was empty.
    Grace filled it, and for good measure sprinkled several pinches of food onto the surface of the water. Marlon rose and began gulping it down.
    ‘How are you doing, old chap?’
    Marlon continued eating.
    He was a surly creature, who had never been much of a conversationalist. But he was the last living link Roy Grace had with Sandy, who had been with him when he had won him, shooting an airgun
at targets at a funfair in Hove Park. They’d bought a companion for Marlon on a couple of occasions. Each time, a couple of days later, they’d come down in the morning to find just one
fish in the tank – Marlon, looking a tad fatter and smugger.
    If Glenn was really going to move back home, and stay there, he would need to transport the fish to Cleo’s house at some point. But, at Marlon’s age, he was worried about him
surviving the journey and the transition. It was pathetic, he knew, to have this little fish, with its fading gold colour, being the only link to his former life. But he couldn’t help it.
    He thumbed through the stack of post on the table that Glenn had forgotten to bring over to his office. Mostly it was junk, but almost at the bottom was a letter from the estate agent’s,
Mishon Mackay. He ripped open the envelope.
    Inside was a letter from Darran Willmore, the negotiator at the agency who was handling his property. It contained the good news that the