He stared lovingly at the fitted dust cover, at the flowing contours of the car it was protecting, the gleaming moonstone-white 1962 3.8 Jaguar Mk2 saloon, which took up so much of the floor space that he had to edge past it sideways.
The walls were hung with his tools, arranged in patterns, each item so spotless it might have been fresh out of its box, all in their correct places. His hammers formed one display. His ring spanners, his wrenches, his feeler gauges, his screwdrivers – each formed a separate artwork. On the shelves were laid out his tins and bottles of polish, wheel cleaner, chrome cleaner, window cleaner, leather polish, his sponges, chamois leathers, bottle brushes, pipe cleaners – all looking brand new.
‘Hello, baby!’ he whispered, caressing the top of the dust cover, running his hand over the curved hard roof he could feel beneath. ‘You are beautiful. So, so beautiful.’
He edged along the side of the car, running his hand along the cover, feeling the windows, then the bonnet. He knew every wire, every panel, every nut and bolt, every inch of her steel, chromium, leather, glass, walnut and Bakelite. She was his baby. Seven years of painstaking reassembly from a wreck inhabited by rats and mice in a derelict farmyard barn. She was in better condition now than the day, well over forty years ago, she had left the factory. Ten Concours d’Elégance rosettes for First Place pinned to the garage wall attested to that. They had come from all over the country. He had won dozens of second-, third- and even fourth-place rosettes as well. But they always went straight into the bin.
Later today, he reminded himself, he needed to work on the insides of the bumpers, which were invisible to the normal observer. Judges looked behind them sometimes and caught you out, and there was an important Jaguar Drivers’ Club concourse coming up at the end of this month.
But at this moment he had something more important on his mind. It was a key-cutting machine, complete with a wide set of blanks – for any lock, the advertisement on the internet had said – that had been sitting in the brown packaging marked FRAGILE on the floor beside his workbench since its arrival a couple of months ago.
That was the big advantage of being a Time Billionaire. You were able to plan ahead. To think ahead. He had read a quotation in a newspaper from someone called Victor Hugo, who had said, ‘There is one thing stronger than all the armies in the world, and that is an idea whose time has come.’
He patted the tin full of wax, with the indentation of Cleo Morey’s front door key, that sat heavily in his jacket pocket. Then he began to open the package with a smile on his face. Ordering this had definitely been a very good idea.
Its time had come.
77
Grace pulled his Alfa Romeo into the front car park of the Royal Sussex County Hospital, where he had come to visit an injured officer, and cruised slowly along, looking for a space. Then he patiently waited for an elderly lady to unlock the door of her little Nissan Micra, climb in, do up her seat belt, get her ignition key in the slot, fiddle with the interior mirror, start the engine, figure out what the round wheel in front of her did, remember where the gear stick was and finally find reverse. Then she backed out with the speed of a torpedo propelled from a tube, missing the front of his car by an inch. He drove into the space she had vacated and switched off the engine.
It was shortly before half past two and his stomach rumbled, reminding him he needed some food, although he had no appetite. Visits to the mortuary seldom left him feeling like eating, and the image of the grim tattoo on Sophie Harrington’s back was still vividly with him, puzzling and disturbing.
Because You Love Her.
What the hell did that mean? Presumably her referred to the victim, Sophie Harrington. But who was you? Her boyfriend?
His phone rang. It was Kim Murphy to update him on the day’s progress so far. The most important news was that the Huntington laboratory had confirmed they would have the DNA test results by late afternoon. As he was finishing the call, the phone beeped with a caller-waiting signal. It was DCI Duigan, also calling in with a progress report on Sophie Harrington, and he was sounding pleased.
‘An elderly neighbour living opposite went over and spoke to the scene guard officer about an hour ago. She said she had noticed a man acting strangely in the street outside Sophie Harrington’s building at about eight on Friday night. He was holding a red carrier bag and wearing a hoodie. Even so, it sounds like she had a good look at him.’
‘Was she able to give a description of his face?’
‘We’ve someone on their way to interview her now. But what she has said so far fits Bishop, in terms of height and build. And am I right in understanding from the time-line report he has no alibi for his whereabouts around that time?’
‘Correct. Could she pick him out in an identity parade?’
‘That’s right at the top of the list.’
Grace asked Duigan if they’d managed to find out if Sophie had had a boyfriend. The SIO responded that there was no information on that yet, but they would shortly be interviewing the friend who had reported her missing.
When his colleague had finished, Grace checked his emails on his BlackBerry, but there was nothing relevant to either of the two investigations. He slotted the gadget back in its holster on his belt and thought for some moments. Duigan’s news was potentially very good indeed. If this woman could positively identify Bishop, then that was another significant piece of evidence stacked up against the man.
His stomach rumbled again. Fierce sunlight burned through his opened sunroof and he pulled it shut, grateful for the momentary shade. Then he picked up the bacon and egg sandwich he had bought in a petrol station on the way here, tore off the cellophane wrapper and levered the sandwich out. The first bite tasted vaguely of bacon-flavoured cardboard. Chewing slowly and unenthusiastically, he picked up the copy of the latest edition of the Argus newspaper he had bought at the same time, and stared at the front-page splash, amazed how fast, as so often, they managed to get a story out. At some point he was going to have to get to the bottom of Spinella’s insider sources. But right now this was the bottom of his list of priorities.
Brighton Serial Killer Claims Second Victim.
There was a particularly attractive head and shoulders photograph of Sophie Harrington, wearing a T-shirt and simple beaded necklace, her long brown hair billowing in sunlight. She was smiling brightly at the camera, or the person behind it.
Then he read the article, bylined Kevin Spinella, which spilled over into the second and third pages. It was well dressed up with a series of lifestyle photographs of Katie Bishop, as well as all the usual grief-stricken sound-bites from Sophie Harrington’s parents and her best friend that he would have expected to see. And the small photograph of himself that the paper always wheeled out.
It was typical Spinella, sensational reporting intended to create maximum possible panic in the city, and boost the circulation of the paper over the coming days, as well as to enhance Spinella’s CV and the oily creep’s undoubted ambitions for a position with a national paper. Grace supposed he could not blame the man, or his editor – he would probably have done the same in their positions. But all the same, deliberate misquotes such as ‘Brighton Police Divisional Commander, Chief Superintendent Ken Brickhill, advised all women in the city of Brighton and Hove to lock their doors,’ were not helpful.