Love You Dead

64 Friday 6 March

Tooth watched a man, in his sixties, warmly wrapped up, who appeared at the same time every day, so regularly he could set his watch by him. He was walking along the street towards him now, reading a novel, holding it so high he had to tilt his head upwards to read it.

Some days Tooth walked the round trip of several miles here and back to the hotel for exercise, and being on foot gave him a good opportunity to look carefully around. Also, and importantly, there were Neighbourhood Watch signs displayed in the windows of several of the houses. Someone vigilant would be likely to report seeing a car in the area, for several days running, with a lone occupant. He was less noticeable on foot.

As he strolled around the vicinity of Jodie’s house, he noticed some of the other regulars, too. The sad-looking man who pushed his wife along in a wheelchair, their fat dog waddling along beside it. The mad-haired woman in a white SUV who drove to the end of her drive and then spent a good sixty seconds checking in both directions before pulling out into the deserted street. The school-run mums. The newsagent in his little Mazda stopping outside houses and running in, then out again. The postman, in his red van, at 9.30, doing his delivery round.

The postman had only delivered three items to Jodie’s house all week. Tooth entered after it was dark to check them. All of them were circulars addressed ‘To the Occupier’.

He kept an eye on the house each day from eight in the morning until it grew dark, around 6 p.m. The weather had been good to him all week until this morning, when it had rained hard. That was fine, it meant fewer people were out walking around. But now it was dry a gain and there were patches of blue sky. He wondered how she was enjoying her cruise on the Organza, paid for out of the counterfeit $200,000 she had stolen, perhaps?

At 10 a.m., a grimy white van turned in through the gates of No. 191 Roedean Crescent and went down the steep drive.

Tooth strolled along the street. As he drew level with the entrance to No. 191 he glanced down and saw that the rear doors of the van were open, and a rugged-looking man in his forties, in work clothes and gum boots, was busily pulling some gardening tools out of the interior. On the van’s side panel was written ‘Stepney Garden Maintenance Services’.

He sauntered casually down the drive, and up to the man. With his fake English accent he said, ‘Hi, we’ve just moved in and are looking for a gardener.’ He jerked his thumb vaguely over his shoulder.

‘I’ll give you a card,’ the man said. ‘You’ll need to go through the office. Hang on a sec.’

Tooth waited while the gardener went to the front of the vehicle. A moment later the man handed him a card with green writing on it.

‘The people who live here, they’d be able to give a reference for you?’ Tooth asked.

‘It’s a lady on her own,’ the man said. ‘Hardly ever see her.’

‘Right. What’s her name?’

The gardener shrugged. ‘I dunno. I work for the company and just do the addresses they give me. I’ve probably not spoken ten words to the lady in two years.’

‘Does she rent the house or is it hers?’ Tooth asked.

‘Couldn’t even tell you that, sir, sorry.’

Tooth left him and walked back up the drive, then headed down towards the sea, thinking about the mysterious woman. Very few photos in the house. No contact with her household staff. No messages on her landline answering machine. It seemed she liked to keep herself invisible. That suited him very well indeed.

It could mean that it would be a long while before anyone started to miss her. Time for him to be long gone. With the memory stick. Wherever she had hidden it, he would find it. She would tell him.

Not wanting to draw attention to himself, and starting to feel hungry, he walked back towards the centre of Brighton, deciding to resume his vigil later. As he strode along, he remembered a burger place called Grubbs, where he had eaten last time he was here, that made what he called proper burgers. He navigated his way along St James’s Street to it.

After his meal, he headed towards the sea, took the steps down to Madeira Drive and crossed over the road. Then, heading west, with the tracks of the Volks Railway to his left and the deserted pebble beach beyond that, he was thinking hard as he walked, but was distracted every few minutes by the clatter of a bicycle or ping of a bell on the cycle lane at the edge of the pavement. A cold, blustery, sou’westerly wind was blowing against him.

Where would he have hidden the memory stick? He’d searched every inch of the house, the loft, the garden shed. He wasn’t comfortable being in Brighton. Although he had travelled here under one of the aliases he used, he knew he was still a wanted man in this city. After his escape at Shoreham Harbour last year, he’d checked out the local news online from back home. That detective, Roy Grace, and his team had stated that he was missing, presumed drowned. But from his dockside wrestle with the black cop, he knew they were likely to have his DNA on file. The sooner he got out of here, the better.

He was feeling frustrated and aimless. How long was he going to have to wait for this bitch to return? He wanted to be back home, out on his boat in the warmth, with his associate.

He missed his associate.

Missed him more than he’d ever missed any human.

As he walked by the pier with its stalls out front — Moo Moos, the best Shakes in town, Donuts & Churros, Delicious Donuts, Crepes, The Hot Dog Hut — the clock tower over the entrance, with a pyramid sign in front of it advertising The Best Fish & Chips in Brighton — he was suddenly reminded of his childhood vacations in Atlantic City with one of his foster mothers. Hot summer days ambling alone, aimlessly, along the boardwalk, avoiding tourists in push carts, while she played the slots.

She played them all day long, coins stacked up beside her, plastic beaker of beer in one hand, yanking the handle or pushing the buttons, peering at the revolving fruits through curling smoke from the cigarette dangling permanently from her lips. When she was winning, she’d bribe him with a handful of coins, and he’d immediately go and spend them at one of the shooting galleries.

He always tried for, and normally succeeded, in getting the maximum score. When he didn’t he got angry, and on more than one occasion cracked the glass or wrenched the grip of the gun so hard that it broke.

There was an aquarium to his right and, across a busy intersection, a cream and red building advertising Harry Ramsden Fish & Chips.

Ahead, across the far side of the intersection, was the yellow and white Royal Albion Hotel. A stack of beer barrels was piled on the sidewalk. He ambled on, passing a café to his left and a flint-walled groyne. How long before the bitch came back from her cruise?

He crossed the cycle lane and waited for a green light at the pedestrian crossing, heading back to the modern slab of his hotel, unsure what the rest of the day held for him. Waiting. He was OK with waiting. He was fine with waiting. Letting time slide by. Maybe he’d catch a movie in town or on his hotel television.

The light changed to green. He was about to cross the road when he had a thought. He’d check the pier out, why not? See if it had any shooting galleries. It was something to do.

He turned back, totally forgetting the cycle lane. As he stepped forward he heard the ping of a bell, a clank and a shout then a loud squeal of rubber on metal. An instant later a shadow descended on him. He felt a crashing blow that hurled him off his feet. He saw the sidewalk coming up to meet his face.

Then a firework show inside his head.

Then silence.