Dead Man's Time

discontinued
tone. But just in case the man was still alive, he googled his name. To his surprise he found a simple website giving
an email address and what looked like an overseas phone number. He dialled and it rang. Three times. Four. Five.
    Then he heard a click, followed by Diplock’s very distinguished, cultured voice.
    ‘You’re still alive?’ Daly said.
    There was a moment’s pause. ‘Who’s that?’
    ‘Gavin Daly!’
    ‘Well, well, well! It sounds like you’re still alive too!’
    ‘Just.’
    ‘It must be twenty years.’
    ‘All of that.’
    ‘So, to what do I owe this pleasure?’
    ‘I need some family history checked out. Are you still working?’
    ‘I live in Tenerife – retired here over fifteen years ago. But I keep my hand in – thanks to the Internet, it’s easy to keep up with old acquaintances and developments.
Why?’
    ‘This is probably a long shot, I don’t know. I guess I’m long enough in the tooth to have learned not to dismiss coincidence.’
    ‘You know what Einstein said about coincidence?’
    ‘Something about
God’s calling cards
?’
    ‘Kind of. He said it was
God’s way of remaining anonymous
.’
    Daly smiled and drank some more wine. ‘It’s good to speak to you, Martin. How’s Jane?’
    ‘She’s well. She’s in rude health. Sunshine is good for people.’
    ‘It’s bad for antiques.’
    ‘So, what information do you have for me?’
    ‘There’s a man named Eamonn Pollock,’ Daly said. ‘His current main residence is on a yacht based in Marbella called
Contented.
As I said, it’s a long shot.
But I’m happy to pay whatever you charge these days to find out if he is related, in any way, to a man in New York back in the 1920s called Mick Pollock. I think he would have been Irish, and
a member of the White Hand Gang.’
    ‘Do you have any more details than that, Gavin?’
    ‘Back then, Mick had only one leg – I gather he got gangrene in it after being shot in a gang fight. He had the nickname of
Pegleg
.’
    ‘
Pegleg Pollock.
Anything else?’
    ‘No, I’m afraid not. Could you try to prepare as detailed a family tree as you can?’
    ‘I’ll see what I can do, but I can’t promise anything.’
    ‘Give me an address to wire some money to.’
    ‘There’s no charge. Tell you the truth, I’m bored. Be good to have a challenge. Is there any urgency?’
    ‘Everything’s urgent at our age, Martin.’

56
    Like most police officers he knew, Roy Grace always felt uncomfortable entering a prison. In part it was the knowledge that prisoners had a pathological hatred of the police,
and in part it was the loss of control. As a police officer you were normally in control of any environment you found yourself in. But from the moment the first of the prison’s doors was
locked behind you, you were in the hands of the Prison Governor and his or her officers.
    Convicted policemen, given custodial sentences, were treated by other prisoners on a par with paedophiles.
    Sussex had two prisons: Ford, an open, Category D prison, filled mostly with relatively minor and low-risk offenders, as well as some lifers approaching the end of their custodial terms,
gradually getting accustomed to the world they were soon to re-enter. The other, Lewes, a Category B, was a grim, forbidding place. Roy Grace had passed it many times, as a child with his parents,
and back then it had always both fascinated and scared him.
    Built like a fortress, it had high, flint walls and tiny barred windows. When as a small boy his dad once told him that the
bad people
were locked up in there, Roy Grace used to imagine
bad people
as monsters who would rip people’s heads off, if given the chance. Now, with his years of experience in the force behind him, he knew a little different. But he was only
too aware that if anything were to kick off when a police officer was inside a prison, for any reason, he – or she – would be damned lucky to get out unharmed.
    Which was why, to Roy Grace’s relief, having checked in at the registration office where he had to leave his private and police phones in a locker, he was greeted by Alan Setterington, the
duty Governor, who told him he had an interview room reserved for him in the main office section.
    Setterington, a lean, fit-looking man with a fine physique from being a weekend racing cyclist, was dressed in a smart suit and a bright tie with his white Prison Service shirt. As with every
prison Grace had ever been inside, all