He grabbed it, the display showing No Caller ID, slipped out of bed, went through into the bathroom, closing the door behind him, and switched on the light. ‘Roy Grace,’ he answered quietly. The time on the display was 12.43 a.m.
‘Roy? It’s Norman — sorry — Paul.’
Potting sounded pissed, his voice alternating between his Devon burr and his assumed Transatlantic accent.
‘You shouldn’t be calling me direct. It’s all meant to go through your Cover Officer.’
‘I know that, Roy, but I just wanted to let you know as well — cut the bureaucracy out.’
‘It’s not so much red tape as protocol, Norman. OK. I appreciate you calling, but it’s dangerous, OK? This is a breach of procedure.’
‘OK, chief, if you say so.’
‘So?’
‘I’ve made contact.’
‘I’ve been informed from Surveillance.’
‘Had a pretty interesting evening.’
‘So it sounds.’
‘Huh?’
‘Boozy time?’
‘Well, I had to keep up with her. I think she likes me. She’s a fast mover. Our plan worked, I think she mus — must — have read the Argus piece and figured out who I was. You know?’
‘Cornel.’
‘Thash— that’s— me!’
Alarm bells were ringing at the sound of his voice. ‘Nice work, Norman — sorry — Paul. So?’
‘I’m seeing her again tomorrow. She’s suggested going to hers — she’s cooking me dinner at home tomorrow evening, and you’ll be able to pick the address up from my tracker when I get there.’
‘Good, well done, but don’t call me again.’
Grace ended the call feeling worried. Many officers in Sussex Police felt that Potting, with his non-pc attitudes — albeit less extreme these days — was well past his sell-by date. With the historic thirty-year service to retirement, few officers in Sussex Police were older than fifty-five. But with recent unpopular revisions to the pension scheme, working past the age of fifty-five was going to become the norm. And the DS, a late entrant to the police, would not be completing his thirty years until he was almost sixty. Another few years to go. As one of the officers to have worked closely with him over a number of years, Roy Grace saw qualities in the strange but kind character that eluded those who knew — or saw — only the old-school cop in him, and the values that came with that. Grace knew better and had fought Potting’s corner several times in recent years, saving him from disciplinary action — and potential dismissal on more than one occasion — because he believed in him.
He hoped to hell that Potting wasn’t going to let him down now. But even more importantly for the DS’s personal security, he hoped he wasn’t going to let his guard down. If Grace was right — and he was pretty sure that he was — Jodie Carmichael wasn’t someone it was safe to get drunk with.
105
Friday 13 March
Tooth rose at 5.30 a.m., adrenalin pumping, not wanting to miss what should be the big event of the day. He went over to his desk, opened his laptop and checked the cameras in Jodie Carmichael’s house. She was still asleep in bed, just like most of her fellow reptiles. The only activity in that room was in two of the glass vivariums — the one containing the cockroaches and the other the mice. All of those crawling, wriggling, twitching, darting creatures, unaware that the sole reason for their existence was to be fed to their neighbours in the other vivariums all around them.
Just as Jodie Carmichael was at this moment unaware of what lay ahead for her in her garage.
Enjoy your last few hours on earth, sweetheart, he thought, squatting down on the floor to begin his regime of recuperation exercises.
When he’d finished, he showered and shaved, then began applying his Thelma Darby make-up. Shortly after 6.30 a.m., the breakfast he’d ordered on the card he’d hung on the door last night arrived. ‘Thank you, madam,’ the young room-service boy said gratefully, palming his tip.
He ate whilst continuing to watch the sleeping woman, then packed his bag, slipped out of the hotel and headed over to his car. He didn’t plan to return, but he didn’t want the hotel to know that. Let them think he was still here for the three more days he had booked and paid in advance for. It all helped to cover his tracks from smartass Detective Grace. But, with luck, by the time the police came to the hotel looking for him, he’d long be back home with Yossarian.
Fifteen minutes later he drove along Roedean Crescent, checking out the stationary cars he remembered from last night. All of them had misted windows, including the Range Rover he had parked behind.
He continued past No. 191 to the end of the street, made a U-turn and parked up on the opposite side to her house, a couple of hundred yards away, with a clear view of the entrance to her driveway. He switched the engine off, moved his seat back, put his computer on his lap and logged on via his 4G phone connection, once more checking the cameras.
She was awake.
Good.
Jodie sat up in bed, sipping water, trying to resist taking some paracetamol for the hangover that seemed to be worsening by the minute, intending instead to go to the gym and do an hour’s hard workout. She had drunk too much last night, far more than had been wise, and she was thinking hard for anything she might have let slip about her past to Paul Cornel. J. Paul Cornel. Julius Paul Cornel. But she reckoned she had it covered, and he’d had a skinful too.
And she couldn’t believe her luck. Inside she was smiling. She had found him in the first bar she’d entered and they had got on so well. What a brilliant night, it had gone better than she could have possibly imagined! And the bonus was she actually did like him, a lot. He really could be the cash jackpot she had been hunting for for so long. All that money and no children alive! Her immediate task would be to prevent him from doing the stupid thing he had talked to the newspaper about, giving all his money away to charities. She needed to get that ring on her finger fast. Sometime during their evening yesterday he’d said he was intending to return to California next Tuesday. Which gave her just the weekend. Between now and Monday she had to have him invite her to go to California with him — and make him think it was all his idea. She did not want to risk any time apart. Not even a day.
He wasn’t the greatest looker in the flesh — he’d seemed more attractive in his newspaper photograph — but he had a sense of fun that she liked. And hell, she had slept with a lot worse. She was going to give him the best night of his life. And the best morning in bed, too. By the end of the weekend he was going to be sated, and he was not going to want to be without her. No man she’d slept with since she had matured ever had.
Rays of sun were streaking through the window and, despite her headache, the day felt full of promise. She glanced at her clock. 7.05 a.m. She needed to get up and on it.
She was meeting Paul at the Grand at 12.30 p.m. He was going to take her for a bite of lunch, then on a tour of his Brighton, the Brighton he remembered from his youth. Then she planned to cook him a meal here this evening. He’d already told her his favourite foods last night. If she got up now she’d have time to go to the gym, get her hair and nails done, do the food shopping and be back in good time.
She pulled on her tracksuit and trainers, and went down to the kitchen, trying to remember the disturbing dream she’d had during the night, which she had woken from crying out for help, but it eluded her. She put it out of her mind, focusing on what lay ahead. She took a strawberry yoghurt drink from the fridge, shook it and swallowed it, then went upstairs and opened the entrance to the reptile room.