Thirteen paces. Twelve. Eleven. Ten. Nine, he counted. His vision through these goggles was less good than he’d thought when he had tried them out. He could see straight ahead, but had virtually no peripheral vision. He glanced round once more, but still his view was restricted. Then he focused dead ahead, continuing to count the paces, to be absolutely sure.

Eight. Seven. Six.

A hand gripped his shoulder, as hard as a steel pincer.

For an instant his brain froze. He turned, saw a hulk of a figure with a balaclava over its face. He squirmed in panic, somehow tore himself free and threw himself forward, feeling the metal gridding vibrating beneath his feet.

Almost instantly, something smashed into the side of his face, like a southpaw’s punch.

The fucking satellite dish. He reeled, dazed. His left foot suddenly found only air. He windmilled his arms, the wind pushing him sideways. He tried, desperately, to find the grid again with his left foot, crying out in terror. Then he fell, head first. Struck something hard and wet and slippery. He clawed at the roof slates with his gloved hands. He saw the courtyard looming towards him; he was sliding; slithering. Down a steep slope, face forward. The cobbles were getting bigger.

Bigger.

Racing towards him.

He jammed his hands even harder against the wet roof slates, screaming, trying to get a purchase.

Bigger still.

Then he was falling through air.

99

Cleo frowned. The screen had suddenly gone fuzzy, just as Frasier was about to enter the school reunion with the beautiful former prom queen on his arm. She grabbed the remote and stabbed at a different channel number.

Just then she heard a slithering, scraping noise right above her head. It sounded like a horse tobogganing down her roof. A slate, she thought, blown free by the wind. Then she heard a thud, like a sack of potatoes dropped from a height. For a moment she was tempted to get out of bed and see what it was. But she was cold, and it would be even colder out of bed. And really, it was probably just a roof slate; she would check it out in the morning.

Above the howl of the maelstrom she heard a faint noise, a whisper carried by the wind; maybe it was just her imagination. It sounded like someone had just said, ‘Sorry.’

100

Cassandra Jones hated Monday mornings. And today was a particularly bad one. She had a piercing hangover from the wine she had drunk last night, and she had an important early morning meeting in London with a new client. Why the hell had she had that fourth glass? What, she wondered, was that strange logic alcohol instilled in your brain that insisted you would feel better the next day if you had yet another glass of wine, instead of politely declining, or having a glass of water instead?

She showered, dressed, drank a glass of Emergen-C vitamin booster and forced down a bowl of porridge, then opened her front door and wheeled out her bicycle for the short ride to the station. At least the storm that had raged all night had died, and it was a fine late summer – or early autumnal, depending on your perspective – day.

She closed her front door behind her, then noticed the huddled, contorted figure lying on the cobblestones a short distance in front of her. For an instant she felt a flash of indignant anger. What the hell was one of Brighton’s drunk street people doing in here, in this private courtyard?

Then, as she wheeled her bike nearer, she saw the dark stain that lay around the figure’s head. The crimson colour of blood.

She stopped in horror at the totally bizarre sight. A small man, dressed in black, with streaks of black mingled with congealed blood on his face. A black bathing cap lay a short distance from him, and a strange-looking pair of goggles were around his chin. Was he some kind of a Peeping Tom?

She dropped her bike, her eyes darting around the houses. Where had he come from? Had anyone else seen him? Then she took several steps closer, trying to remember a First Aid training course she had done a few years ago. But when she got a clearer view of his face, she saw the top of his forehead was split open, like a coconut, and a brown-grey mass had leaked from it, along with the blood. His eyes stared ahead, sightless, like eyes on a fishmonger’s slab.

Shaking, she swung her backpack off her shoulders, pulled her mobile phone out of it and stabbed out 999.

101

Roy Grace had set his alarm for 5 a.m., but he need not have bothered. He woke at 3 a.m., feeling totally alert. It was 8 a.m. in the UK, where he would have been up for two hours at this point, and probably completed a run of at least three miles.

Cleo was probably awake, and he was tempted to call her. But in case she was sleeping after a feed, he decided to leave it a while. And, he knew, he needed to try to sleep some more, and get rested before what was likely to be a long and hard day ahead.

He swapped his pillows around and lay back. But after a few minutes, he turned onto his right side. Then his left. Then onto his back again. He was fretting about Eamonn Pollock giving them the slip. He was convinced the man was the key, and that at some point he would have the watch in his possession. And then they would have him.

Detective Aaron Cobb worried him increasingly, and he did not want to leave things to him. He wanted to get to Pollock’s hotel himself and find all the possible exit routes – because he was damned sure that Pollock had already established them. With so much at stake, it was highly unlikely the man would be taking any risks.

There was no going back to sleep; he was totally awake, his brain racing. Grace slipped out of bed, showered then shaved. Then he scanned his thirty or so new emails, but there was nothing of any significance. A couple related to the autumn fixtures of the Police Rugby Club, which he ran, and another to a refresher course on Cognitive Suspect Interviewing at Slaugham Manor, the police training and conference centre in Sussex.

He pulled on a T-shirt, tracksuit and trainers, zipped his hotel room card into a pocket, then took the elevator down, emerging into the deserted lobby. A solitary figure stood behind the reception desk, and a tall black security guard, wearing a coiled earpiece, gave him a solemn nod.

He strode along 42nd Street in the darkness for some while, then broke into a jog, turned right and headed up towards Central Park. The traffic was light; just an occasional car or taxi drove past. The sidewalks were deserted. He did not bother stopping at red lights, but just carried on crossing street after street, until he reached the Plaza, where he turned left.

A few minutes later he reached the front entrance of the Marriott Essex House Hotel. He carried on past it, turned left on Seventh Avenue, then left again onto 56th Street and stopped when he reached the rear entrance to the hotel. He tried the door, and to his slight surprise, it opened. He walked down a long corridor, lined with window displays of expensive-looking clothes and jewellery, then reached a bank of elevators.

An alert man-mountain stood guard, eyeing him with curiosity. Next to him, seated on chairs and both fast asleep, were two uniformed cops.

Quietly, not wanting to wake them, Grace showed the guard his UK police warrant card. ‘These guys on watch for Eamonn Pollock, suite 1406?’

‘Yeah.’ He grinned. ‘Not much stamina, right?’

Grace raised his iPhone, took a photograph of them, then emailed it to Pat Lanigan with a terse note.