A Martini, perhaps? Or a Manhattan?
He looked at the cocktail menu the barman gave him. Two businessmen in suits, with conference tags on their lapels, sat next to him, drinking pints of beer. A beer might be more sensible, he thought. He didn’t know how long he might have to wait. Another man in a suit, further along, was drinking what looked like a gin and tonic from a highball glass.
There was an assortment of cocktails he had never heard of. The barman placed a fresh bowl of peanuts in front of him, and Potting began to munch his way through them, spilling some. Would she show up? There was no telling. Whatever, he had a feeling it might be a long evening.
In his well-rehearsed Californian twang, he ordered a Perrier with a slice of lemon in a long glass. If she did show up, at least it would look like the gin and tonic he was craving at this moment.
The next hour passed slowly. He whiled away some of it by checking his iPhone. All the time he kept an eye on the door, ready to act if Jodie did appear. Then his thoughts went back, as they always did whenever he had time to think, to Bella.
His heart heaved and he felt sad.
She had been a genuinely good person. They had had such a wonderful future in front of them. After so much shit, he had finally found the love of his life. Then she had gone and done what any police officer would have done in those circumstances, whether on duty or off — and she had lost her life.
The barman interrupted his thoughts, asking if he needed another drink.
He did, badly. Instead he dutifully asked for the same again, consoling himself with the knowledge that he was having a better time this evening than the two poor Surveillance Team guys, in their car out in the darkness somewhere close by, doing their tedious twelve-hour shift guarding him. He supposed it was comforting to know that for the duration of his time undercover, there would always be two officers never more than seconds away if he needed them. All he had to do was push one button on his phone.
His drink arrived and he stared at it bleakly. Then he asked the barman to bring him a gin and tonic, and make the gin a double.
When it came he downed it in two gulps.
100
Thursday 12 March
Determined not to fall foul of another Walter Klein, Jodie Carmichael had spent the past two hours rigorously checking out J. Paul Cornel on the internet.
His Wikipedia tallied with what she had read in the paper. His humble origins growing up on the Whitehawk Estate. His education, first at Brighton’s Dorothy Stringer School, then winning a scholarship to study computer sciences at MIT — Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Followed by a five-year spell working under Dr Josef Kates, in Toronto, one the world’s first pioneers in computer time-sharing, and later in traffic systems. Then his move to Microsoft in California, before making his first fortune in his own Silicon Valley-based technology company developing facial-recognition systems for the US military, before funding a succession of highly successful tech start-ups. With his passion for classic cars, he had built up a highly valuable collection.
One thing that particularly excited her about him was his lack of heirs. In his only marriage he had produced two children, a son born with cystic fibrosis who had died at nineteen, and a daughter who had died in a TWA air disaster out of New York. His wife had died from cancer.
He had twice been thwarted in attempts to buy major US baseball teams, and during the past decade had given many millions to charities, including those for cystic fibrosis and genetic engineering research.
She actually found herself feeling sorry for Cornel.
And thanks to the newspaper interview, she had a strong clue where she might find him right now, here in Brighton.
She began to google images of Cornel’s wife. And as she did so, Jodie smiled. The wife had been slim and attractive, brunette and glamorous. With her new hairstyle, she would fit very nicely into that template.
Shortly after 6 p.m., she began to get ready.
Tooth sat at the desk in his hotel room, smoking a cigarette and drinking whisky, watching Jodie on the cameras he had concealed around her house. She was sitting in front of the dressing-table mirror in her bedroom, applying her make-up carefully. Her computer screen was not visible to any of his cameras. What had she been looking at on the internet? he wondered.
What was she dolling herself up for tonight? When did this woman stop? Her husband had only just died and she had brought him home to bury him. He had to admit to a sneaking admiration for her. She was a predator like himself.
He stood up and hobbled around the room. The discomfort in his ribs was lessening. The bruising in his right leg looked a little better now. In a few days he should be fit enough.
Shortly after half past six he watched — and heard — Jodie Carmichael order a taxi to take her to the Grand Hotel. She booked it in her alias, Judith Forshaw.
‘Have a nice evening, Judith,’ he said, quietly. ‘Stay out late. The later the better.’
The opportunity had come sooner than he had expected. But as he had been trained in sniper school, you always had to be ready for when a shot presented itself; you might not get a second opportunity.
He stood up and removed his clothes, and began to reapply his make-up. Afterwards, going over to the closet, he pulled out his dress, shoes, coat and wig.
Fifteen minutes later, Thelma Darby, with the aid of her walking stick, limped along the corridor, clutching her large handbag, took the lift down to the lobby, then headed out across the road to her rental car.
101
Thursday 12 March
The buzz of the gin had worn off and Norman Potting — or as he had to keep reminding himself, J. Paul Cornel — was contemplating ordering another. He was also wondering just how long he would have to stay here before declaring Jodie Carmichael a no-show.
The bar had filled up and although he had done his best to defend the seat next to him he’d finally had to concede it, and was now sandwiched between a large man, who sounded Scandinavian, engaged in loud conversation with a Brit beside him, about nuclear power, and a couple of gay guys talking affectionately to each other. He’d had the liberal policies of Sussex Police drummed into his head by Roy Grace, under pain of being kicked off the Major Crime Team, so he was doing his best to be more broad-minded. But he was in a world that had changed so much since he had first joined the police, and he found it increasingly hard to understand.
A stunning woman entered the bar. He’d been a copper long enough to tell the difference between someone casually glancing around and someone casing a joint.
She was casing the joint.
And her eyes alighted, fleetingly, on him.
She was in her mid-thirties, in a silky grey dress that clung to every contour of her slender body, and stopped short of her knees. Her legs were long and slender, and she wore glittering high heels. Her hair was long and dark, elegantly styled, and her neck and wrists were adorned with tasteful jewellery and a classy watch.
She gave him a second glance, and possibly a smile, before sitting a few places away, at the end of the bar.
Was that her?
And if it was, how did he make the next move? He had a dinner reservation for 8.00 p.m. An hour’s time. He was peckish and looking forward to a good meal, courtesy of Sussex Police.
Maybe, if he played it right, he could get her to join him. If it was Jodie Carmichael.