‘You have no idea who this man was?’ the reporter asked.
‘None at all – I’ve never seen him before – ever.’
‘Do you have any idea why he was here outside your house?’ she pressed.
Hegarty watched himself shrug and give a bemused smile. ‘Absolutely none at all.’
The interview ended and Natalie looked at him. ‘Is that true?’
He frowned. ‘What do you mean?’
‘You know what I mean. I married you because I love you, but I’m not naive. I know that you work for some dodgy people. A dead body outside our front gate? Was that pure chance or is someone you’ve upset sending you a message? I think you owe me that answer, at least.’
Suddenly both dogs began barking and ran upstairs towards the door. Moments later the bell rang. A long, sharp, insistent ring.
Hegarty saw the instant look of panic in his wife’s face.
‘It’s OK,’ he said.
‘Is it?’
As he approached the front door, the dogs barking even more frantically, Natalie called out, her voice wracked with concern, ‘Use the spyhole.’
‘Don’t worry, I will.’
He raised the flap and peered through the tiny hole in the door. Despite the distorted image, he instantly recognized the man standing a short distance back.
‘It’s OK,’ he said. He unhooked the safety chain, and leaning down, with one hand holding both of the dogs’ collars, opened the door with the other.
Robert Kilgore stood there, all smiles, dapper and faintly flamboyant as ever, in a dark suit with a small green-and-white-spotted bow tie. ‘I’m real sorry to intrude so early, Mr Hegarty, and without an appointment,’ he said, his voice so sincere he almost sounded as if he meant it. ‘Would this be a convenient moment to have a chat?’
‘Come in,’ Hegarty replied tersely.
Kilgore stepped through the doorway, then kneeled and made a massive fuss of the dogs, letting them lick his face, tickling their bellies, then to Hegarty’s surprise digging a couple of treats out of his pocket.
‘All right with you if I give them these?’
‘They’ll love you forever.’ Kilgore seemed very different today from his cold, threatening voice of last night, Hegarty thought.
Kilgore fed the treats from the palm of his hand, then stood up and addressed Natalie, who was standing warily behind her husband. ‘Good morning, Mrs Hegarty, nice to make your acquaintance again.’
She responded with a polite but cool, ‘Nice to see you again, too, Mr Kilgore. Can I offer you some tea or coffee?’
‘Coffee would be good, black, no cream.’ He smiled. ‘My apologies, guess after thirty years in your country I should have gotten used to saying milk rather than cream, but some habits, you know...’ He shrugged.
‘Shall we go to my office?’ Hegarty suggested, then turned to his wife. ‘I’ll do the coffees, darling.’
‘I’ll get them, no problem. One for you, too?’
‘Please.’
As Natalie walked off towards the kitchen, the two men stood for a moment in uncomfortable silence. Then Kilgore said, his voice lowered to little more than a whisper, ‘I’m here on serious business, Mr Hegarty, so I hope you’re not going to mess with me. I’ve come here to save your life.’
69
Monday, 4 November
Because, at the time, Roy and Cleo had wanted the sex of their new baby to be a surprise, after Cleo’s first ultrasound scan, several months ago, the obstetrician had kept the secret. But she had given them a sealed envelope containing the answer written on a note, should they ever decide to change their mind. Last night they had finally opened it. The small sheet of paper inside had just one scrawled word on it, in the barely decipherable handwriting doctors seemed to favour: Girl!
They were having a sister for Noah! Roy Grace, normally reserved about all aspects of his private life, was so excited he wanted to shout it out to the world. But as he sat at the oval table in the conference room at 8.30 a.m. on Monday morning, the only person he’d shared the news with, so far, was a genuinely delighted Glenn Branson. And he’d had to stop Glenn from telling everyone else in the room. They weren’t here to celebrate his joyous news. They were here to find who had killed Archie Goff.
And the more he’d thought about Goff during a restless night, the more he wondered about the connection with Hegarty. Someone had paid his hefty bail of £50,000 to get him released from prison. Within days, the Kiplings, who had appeared on Antiques Roadshow with a potentially genuine Fragonard worth millions, had their house broken into – but nothing taken. Possibly the burglar had been surprised and legged it. Then Goff was tortured and his body dumped outside the home of the well-known art forger. Just what the hell was that all about?
On his notepad in front of him Grace had written, Fragonard – fake or original? Goff bailed in order to burgle Kiplings and steal Fragonard? Punished for failing? Dies. Had his torturers planned to kill him or was death a surprise? Deposition site of his body – random or Hegarty targeted? If so why? Message? For who? And about what?
He addressed his team. ‘This is the first briefing of Operation Porcupine, the investigation into the death of Archibald – Archie – Goff, who was found on the pavement outside a house at 20 Saltdean Close, Saltdean, at approximately 7.15 a.m. yesterday, Sunday, 3 November, and subsequently confirmed as deceased by paramedic Kirsty Nelson, who attended the scene.’
Grace had added to the Operation Canvas team Chris Gee as Crime Scene Manager, DS Exton and DC Boutwood.
‘Operation Porcupine, did you say, chief?’ Norman Potting asked, his voice still croaky.
‘Yes, Norman. Come on, give us what you’ve got!’
‘Well, seeing as you ask, I read a good line about porcupines once in a Len Deighton thriller.’ He looked around. ‘Don’t suppose many of you are old enough to remember him. He wrote a brilliant novel about confidence tricksters, with this great line, something like: “Don’t the spines on your back hurt?” said the dog to the porcupine. “No,” replied the porcupine, “only when I laugh.” ’
‘Do you find that happens to you a lot, Norman?’ Velvet Wilde asked teasingly in her Belfast accent.
Grace looked at him. ‘Is that your best, Norman?’
The DS shrugged. ‘Just saying, chief.’
‘Thank you, Norman,’ he replied and moved on swiftly. ‘Before I go into the full details of what we have so far, there is a likely link between this case and Operation Canvas: a very similar wound behind Charlie Porteous’s right ear and Archie Goff’s right ear that might have been made by the same object. I would stress at this stage it is not evidentially confirmed, but I’ve requested the services of Dr Colin Duncton at Liverpool University Hospital, who is a leading authority in the field of wound comparisons.’
‘He was very helpful on the Jodie Bentley case,’ Jack Alexander said. ‘On snake bites.’
‘Yes, he was, Jack,’ Grace replied. ‘A second, possibly more tenuous link – at this stage – is the deposition site itself. Goff was dumped on the pavement outside 20 Saltdean Close. The owner of that house – the person who discovered the body – is art forger Daniel Hegarty, who has a quality criminal pedigree.’
‘Like his dad before him,’ Potting interjected.
‘And his granddad, Norman?’ Velvet Wilde suggested. ‘You must have nicked him, too, at some point, surely?’
Potting harrumphed.
‘Can we focus, please.’ Roy Grace looked at them both sternly. ‘Archie Goff is – or rather was – a career burglar, as some of you know, specializing in large, isolated country houses. At the time of his death, he was out on bail awaiting trial on a new burglary charge. The Crown Court, to which magistrates on the bench had referred him, set bail at fifty thousand pounds. I’m frankly surprised, considering his past record and that the occupants of the house were in residence at the time of his burglary, that bail was granted at all. I’m guessing we have to thank the overcrowding of our prisons for that.’