He needed to win that, and much more, back urgently. A dark thought had been occurring to him for some time now, and it was becoming more tempting. All gamblers went through streaks. Just as surely as you knew a winning streak would turn into a losing one sooner or later, you also knew that a losing streak, so long as you could stay in the game, would turn back into a winning streak. He had sole control of his clients’ money. Currently, because of uncertainty in the stock markets, he kept several million pounds liquid, waiting for signs of an upturn or good opportunities. That’s what his highly paid team of analysts were there to do. Advise him when and where to place funds.
But only he could give the instructions to the bank to move those funds.
If he put any into his own account he would be breaking the law. But so long as he paid the money back and quickly, no one would ever have reason to notice. He could do it, he argued with himself, if he really had to. But the thought made him very nervous.
Back upstairs, Stacey had a large wine glass in her hand, already half empty. ‘I just can’t believe you let Mungo out of your sight. Talking to a bloody client. Do your clients mean more to you than your family?’
‘Stace, the Amex Stadium is one of the safest places on earth. Police everywhere, a million CCTV cameras. And no, my clients don’t mean more to me than my family. All through our marriage I’ve worked my butt off to give us a good lifestyle. Where do you think this house came from? Where did the Mercedes you always wanted come from?’
‘One of your rare gambling wins,’ she retorted, the barb striking home, painfully. And a bit too truthfully.
So much that she said these days stung him. He stared at the photograph of the two of them, next to the one of Mungo and Kayleigh, on the antique dresser behind her. They were leaning back against the terrace railing of a mountain café in Zermatt, Switzerland, with the Matterhorn rising out of a crystal-blue sky behind them. Both had their fancy ski jackets unzipped and were wearing dark glasses. Stacey, with her wild blonde curls, was grinning at the camera, her hand behind his neck, teasing his hair as she loved to do. No woman he’d ever met had turned him on like she did. And until Kayleigh’s death, he’d never had such a close mate as Stacey.
God, they had been so happy. Back then.
While Kayleigh was alive.
Until that dreadful morning of her birthday. She’d been so pleased with that hoverboard. He remembered the moment of panic on his daughter’s face as she had suddenly shot forward out of the park. Out into the road. The screech of brakes. The scream.
The silence.
Stacey had sought solace in booze ever since. She was high-maintenance. She’d told him her secret one day, soon after they’d married, that she’d been sexually abused by her father. The monster had abused not only her but all three of her sisters — and her brother. And her weak mother had been in denial throughout their childhood, desperately trying to cover everything up in an attempt to hold her train crash of a family together.
It had left Stacey deeply insecure. In need of proving something to herself — a sense of self-worth. At nineteen, she’d been a Mayfair Magazine nude centrefold, in an attempt at shocking her family and getting attention. She went from that to horses, taking up eventing; then to starting an escort business; and then she’d designed a range of handbags.
Kipp first met her soon after he had started to make serious money as an Independent Financial Advisor, when she’d set herself up in yet another business venture, this one finding homes in the Brighton area for the upwardly mobile. He’d registered as a client. She found him a house on the smart Barrowfield Estate — and by the time he’d exchanged contracts, they’d fallen in love and she’d agreed to move in with him.
But after their kids were born he realized, too late, where he had gone wrong. He’d thrown himself into expanding his business, at first failing to recognize Stacey’s postnatal depression after Kayleigh’s birth, and her need for attention. And boozing.
And then Kayleigh had died.
‘Stace,’ he said. ‘He’ll be OK, we’ll get him back.’
‘And if we don’t?’
‘We will.’
‘Oh, sure we will, just like that, eh? Just like your winning horses, right? Just like your killer poker hands, yes? Just like you have all those can’t-fail roulette systems. Mungo will be back. Just like your numbers will turn up, right? Just like they always don’t. You’re such a loser. I can’t believe you let him go.’
41
Saturday 12 August
20.30–21.30
At this time of year, on a balmy Saturday evening, many people in the city of Brighton and Hove were on their big night out. Filling the restaurants and bars, some getting ready to start clubbing. Tonight many would be commiserating over their home team’s 2–0 defeat by Manchester City, but at the same time they would be celebrating their team’s first ever Premier League game. The police would be out in force, too. Every Thursday, Friday and Saturday night, all year round, Operation Marble did its best to prevent downtown Brighton from becoming a booze- and drug-fuelled war zone. There would be fights, spitting, swearing and arrests. Scantily clad chavs, Hens in daft outfits and vomiting Stags in stupid hats.
Far removed from all this were the patients in the wards inside the large building that was currently masked by hoardings, cranes and bulldozers. The Royal Sussex County Hospital, some distance away from the action, was going through a much-needed renovation, with temporary entrances everywhere and makeshift signs.
The helmeted medical student on the Kawasaki motorcycle, whose name was Gentian Llupa, cruised slowly past, along Eastern Road, and then up the side of the vast, sprawling site, taking mental notes of opportunities, checking for CCTV cameras. He didn’t need to take that risk. It was almost fully dark, but why rush? And hey, the guy he had come to see wasn’t going anywhere tonight.
If his plan worked out, the man wasn’t going anywhere ever again.
Other than to the mortuary.
42
Saturday 12 August
20.30–21.30
Major Crime was housed at the Sussex Police Headquarters, in one of a group of featureless brick buildings that were originally dormitories for police recruits. The Intel suite was housed on the first floor, a modern, airy conference room with a long white table, black and chrome chairs and a charcoal carpet. There were large wall-mounted monitors and it was wired with all comms systems, prepared 24/7 for any Major Enquiry or Incident team to move in within minutes and be instantly operational.
Seated around the long rectangular table were Roy Grace and his rapidly assembled team of detectives, analysts and researchers.
On the wall behind Grace were mounted three whiteboards. One contained a family and association chart of all Mungo Brown’s known family and friends. On another was a series of photographs, taken from the Amex’s CCTV cameras, showing Mungo Brown and his father arriving at the stadium, Mungo talking to another boy, then both of them disappearing into the throng of people heading to the entrances. On the third whiteboard was a sequence of photographs of a man in a red baseball cap. The first showed him leaving his seat shortly after the start of the game. Subsequent pictures tracked him through the stadium until he disappeared, shortly after a sign reading SOUTH STAND WASTE MANAGEMENT — NO UNAUTHORIZED ACCESS, where a camera was not working.
‘The time is 8.45 p.m.’ Grace turned to DS Exton. ‘Before we get started, welcome, Jon, we’re delighted to have you back — you’re looking well, your break has obviously done you good.’ Then, glancing down at his notes, he addressed the rest of the team. ‘Right, this is the first of what will be regular briefings around the clock for Operation Replay. I’d like to remind everyone this is a crime in action, currently being run as a covert operation owing to threats made to the father of the kidnap victim about not contacting the police.’