Again the reporter seemed uncertain about his attitude. With a thin smile of acknowledgement he said, ‘Heard you found a skeleton, a woman, down in a storm drain just over there on the site. Is that correct?’
The casual way he asked the question, as if they were remains of no significance, angered Grace. But he needed to keep his cool. There was nothing to be gained by antagonizing Spinella; it was always better, in his experience of dealing with the press, to be guardedly helpful.
‘The remains are human,’ he replied. ‘But so far the gender hasn’t been positively ascertained.’
‘I heard it is definitely a female.’
Grace smiled. ‘You see, I just said you were better informed than me.’
‘So – er – is it?’
‘Who do you want to trust, your sources or me?’
The reporter stared at Grace for a few moments, as if trying to read him. A drip formed on the bottom of his nose, but he made no attempt to wipe it off. ‘Can I ask you something else?’
‘If it’s quick.’
‘I hear you’ve got a new colleague starting at Sussex House on Monday – an officer from the Met, Detective Superintendent Pewe?’
Grace felt himself tighten. One more smug remark and he was going to knock that drip off Spinella’s nose with his bare fist. ‘You hear correctly.’
‘I understand the Met is the first police force in the UK to start cutting down on bureaucracy properly.’
‘You do, do you?’
The reporter’s snide grin was almost unbearable, as if he knew all kinds of secrets he was not revealing. For a wild moment Grace even thought that he might have been leaked something confidential by Alison Vosper.
‘They’re employing civilian clerks to book people into custody, so their arresting officers can go straight back out on patrol – instead of spending hours filling out forms,’ Spinella said. ‘Do you reckon Sussex CID will be learning things from Detective Superintendent Pewe?’
Fighting his anger, Grace was careful with his answer. ‘I’m sure Detective Superintendent Pewe is going to be a valuable member of the Sussex CID team,’ he said.
‘I can quote you on that, can I?’ The grin was getting even worse.
What do you know, you little shit?
Roy’s radio phone crackled. He held it to his ear. ‘Roy Grace?’
It was one of the SOCOs in the tunnel, Tony Monnington. ‘Thought you’d like to know, Roy, we seem to have found our first possible piece of evidence.’
Grace politely excused himself from the reporter and made his way back to the storm drain, phoning Norman Potting to tell him he would be some minutes. It was strange how things in life changed on you constantly, he thought. A little while ago, he could not wait to get out of the storm drain. Now, when the alternatives were either standing in the rain and talking to Spinella or going back to being closeted in the SOCO van with Norman Potting, suddenly it seemed to have a lot going for it.
21
It was Abby’s room-mate, Sue, who had inadvertently changed her life. The two of them had met working in a bar down on the Yarra waterfront in Melbourne and became instant friends. They were the same age and, like Abby, Sue had gone to Australia from England in search of adventure.
One evening, nearly a year ago, Sue told Abby that a couple of good-looking blokes, a bit older than them but very charming, had been in the bar, chatting to her. They said they were going to a barbie on Sunday with a fun crowd of people and to come along if she was free, to bring a girlfriend with her if she liked.
Having no better offers, they went. The barbecue was at a cool bachelor pad, a penthouse apartment in one of Melbourne’s hippest districts, with fine views across the bay. But in those heady first hours, Abby had barely taken in her surroundings, because she had been instantly and totally smitten with her host, Dave Nelson.
There were a couple of dozen other people at the party. The men, ranging from about ten years older than her to north of sixty, looked like extras from the set of a gangster film, and the women, dripping with bling, all seemed to have just stepped out of beauty salons. But she barely noticed them either. In fact, she hardly spoke a word to anyone else from the moment she set foot in the door.
Dave was a tall, lean, rough diamond in his mid-forties with a rich tan, short gelled hair and a world-weary face that had probably been seriously handsome in his youth, but now looked comfortably lived in. And that was how she felt, instantaneously, with him. Comfortable.
He moved around the apartment with an easy, animal grace, lavishly sloshing out Krug from magnum bottles all afternoon. He was tired, he said, because he had been playing poker for three days around the clock, in an international tournament, the Aussie Millions, at the Crown Plaza casino. He’d paid an entry fee of one thousand dollars, and had survived four rounds, building up a pot of over one hundred thousand, before being knocked out. A trip of aces, he’d told Abby ruefully. How was he to know the guy had two aces in the hole? When he had three kings, two hidden, for Christ’s sake!
Abby had never played poker before. But that night, after the rest of the guests had gone, he’d sat her down and taught her. She’d liked the attention, liked the way he looked at her all the time, told her how pretty she was, then how beautiful she was, then how good she made him feel just being there with him. His eyes scarcely left her face in all the hours they sat there together, as if nothing else mattered. They were good eyes, brown with a hint of green, alert but tinged with sadness, as if there was some loss hurting him deep inside. It made her want to protect him, to mother him.
She loved the stories he told her about his travels, and how he had made his fortune dealing rare stamps and playing poker, mostly on the internet. He worked a gambling system which seemed so obvious, when he explained it, and so clever.
Internet poker games took place all over the world, 24/7. He’d use the time zones, logging on to games that were being played where it was the small hours of the morning by people who were tired and often a little drunk. He’d watch for a while, then join in. Easy pickings for a man fully awake, sober and alert.
Abby had always been attracted to older men and this guy, who seemed so tough, yet was passionate about tiny, delicate, beautiful stamps and enthused to her about their links with history, fascinated her. For a girl from a staid British background, he was totally different from anyone she had ever met. And although there was that vulnerability about him, at the same time there was something intensely strong and manly that made her feel safe with him.
For the first time in her life, breaking her own rule with total abandon, she slept with him that very night. And she moved in with him just a couple of weeks later. He took her shopping, encouraging her to buy expensive clothes, and often came home with jewellery or a new watch or an insanely lavish bunch of flowers if he’d had a good poker win.
Sue had done her best to dissuade Abby, pointing out that he was a good deal older than her, that he had a somewhat uncertain past and a reputation as something of a ladies’ man – or, put more crudely, was a serial shagger.
But Abby had ignored all of that, dumping her friendship first with Sue and subsequently with the other friends she had made since arriving in Melbourne. Instead, she enjoyed meeting Dave’s older and – to her – much more glamorous and interesting circle. Big money had always had an allure for her and these people were all big spenders.
As a child, in her school holidays she had sometimes gone on jobs with her father, who ran a small floor and bathroom tiling business. She had loved helping him, but a stronger attraction for her was the houses – some of them really incredible – where rich people lived. Her mother worked at the public library in Hove and their little semi in Hollingbury, with its neat garden, which both her parents tended lovingly, was the extent of their horizons.