Dead at First Sight

72 Wednesday 10 October

Just as he was about to enter the observation room again, Grace saw the tall figure of Jack Alexander hurrying towards him. ‘Sir, one of my team has come up with CCTV footage from Withdean Road, from last night — outside the house next door to Withdean Place. The timing fits with the car that was spotted parked there.’

Grace hovered in the door, anxious not to miss the interview that was about to restart, but his interest piqued.

‘Tell me?’

‘It’s very dark and blurry, sir, but distinct enough to make out a figure walking along past it. I thought it worth sending to Haydn Kelly. He came back very quickly — and very definitively — with a match from the person’s gait.’

‘OK? Someone known to us?’

‘I’m not sure whether you are going to like this or not, sir.’

‘Stop playing games, Jack. A match with who?’

‘Your old pal, Mr Tooth.’

Grace’s mind flashed back to the description from the woman at Budget. His wild thought then that it fitted the elusive Tooth, who had made a mockery of everyone in Sussex Police but, fortunately, most of all of Cassian Pewe, after escaping from hospital.

But still he could barely believe it. ‘Tooth?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Haydn’s sure?’

‘He says he’s as certain as if he had a one hundred per cent DNA match.’

Grace’s brain was spinning. Tooth had first appeared on his radar after two murders in Sussex that followed the death of a cyclist in a road traffic collision. The unfortunate victim had turned out to be the son of a New York Mafia capo, and the murders of two of the parties involved were the result of a vendetta by the dead boy’s parents. Tooth was the suspected hitman, who was later presumed drowned after disappearing in Shoreham Harbour. But he had then turned up months later on another killing spree. He’d been less lucky that time. He had been hospitalized, under arrest, after being bitten by a deadly snake as well as several other venomous creatures. But then, Houdini-like, he had once more escaped. He was like one of those bugs that wouldn’t die, no matter what you sprayed at it, Grace thought.

He remembered intel from the FBI on Tooth’s first appearance in Brighton. The man was a former US military sniper and commanded a fee of one million dollars, all paid upfront. He was, in the hitman world, a class act. Apparently considered the first choice for all the New York crime families. A man who delivered. Always.

And from his own experience when Tooth had been his prisoner, subsequently escaping, thanks to Cassian Pewe refusing to sanction a 24/7 guard on him, a very wily creature.

Could he really be back again?

One million dollars was big money in anyone’s language. You would only pay that if much more was at stake.

Thirty million pounds had been scammed out of Sussex residents by internet-based romance frauds last year. There were forty-eight counties in England alone.

Multiply that thirty million by forty-eight and Tooth was looking cheap. Very cheap. The Macy’s bargain basement of hitmen. And in his experience of the man, Haydn Kelly was never wrong.

‘Jack,’ he said. ‘Get someone to contact Budget and see if they have CCTV inside or outside — and if so to get the footage around the time of Mr “Jones” renting the Polo — let’s see if we can confirm a positive ident on him.’

Although he was already pretty certain. Tooth was a master of disguise, but you couldn’t disguise your height too much. The manager at the rental company had said Mr Jones was short and had an American accent. Tooth was short and American. He had been seen in Withdean Road last night around the same time the Polo was seen parked. Almost certainly it was Tooth’s car.

If so, why was he here? What was he doing prowling around outside the house linked to the suspect who was being interviewed? Had Tooth been sent to kill him? Or the man who had made the phone call — or both?