Страница 53 из 102
Grace did indeed, more clearly than he cared to. He had never forgotten taking a statement from one of Eddie Biglow’s victims. His face had been ripped open in jagged lines by broken glass, down both sides from the hairline to the chin, because he had complained when Biglow barged in front of him at the bar of a pub.
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I remember him.’
‘Actually,’ Biglow went on, ‘I’ve got a bit of cancer myself.’
‘I’m sorry to hear that,’ Grace said.
‘Me tummy, you know?’
‘Bad?’ Grace asked.
Biglow shrugged, as if it was only minor. But there was fear in his eyes.
Jimmy nodded sagely and took another swig. ‘I du
Grace gave him a cursory shrug with his eyebrows, then took his Coke from the waitress and immediately drank some. ‘You and Ro
‘Yeah, we was once, yeah.’
‘Before you went to jail?’
‘Yeah, before then. I took the rap for him, you know.’ He stirred sugar into his tea wistfully. ‘I did an’ all.’
‘You knew his wife?’
‘Both his wives.’
‘Both?’ Grace said, surprised.
‘Yeah. Joa
‘When did he remarry?’
He scratched the back of his head. ‘Cor, that was a few years after Joa
‘To where?’
‘Los Angeles. Her mum died and she inherited a bit from the house. Ro
Their food arrived. Terry smothered his chips in vinegar, then shook out half the contents of the salt cellar on to them. Grace poured some brown sauce on to his plate, then picked up the tomato-shaped ketchup container. ‘Who did she keep in touch with after she went to LA?’
Biglow shrugged and speared a chip with his fork. ‘No one, I don’t think. Wasn’t no one down here liked her. None of us. My old lady couldn’t stick her. And she didn’t have no interest in making friends with us.’
‘Was she from down here?’
‘Nah, London. I think he met her at a lap-dancing place in London.’
Another chip met the same fate.
‘What about his second wife?’
‘Lorraine. She was all right. She was a good looker too. Took him a while to marry her – had to wait two years, I think, to get a divorce through from Joa
Very difficult to get someone who is rotting in a storm drain to sign divorce papers, Grace thought.
‘Where can I find Lorraine?’
Biglow gave him a strange look.
‘I do need looking after, Mr Grace,’ whined Jimmy again.
Biglow turned to his friend and pointed at his own face. ‘See the lips moving? Means I’m still talking, so give it a rest, all right.’ He turned to Grace. ‘Lorraine. Yeah, well, if you want to find her you’ll have to get yerself a boat and a deep-sea diving suit. She topped herself. Went overboard the Newhaven-Dieppe ferry one night.’
Grace suddenly lost all interest in his food. ‘Tell me more.’
‘She was depressed, in a terrible state after Ro
‘Stamps?’
‘Yeah, they was Ro
Grace thought for a moment. ‘I thought I’d read that 9/11 victims’ families got quite big compensation payments. Didn’t she?’
‘She never said nothing about that. She sort of became a recluse, you know, just kept her distance. Like retreated into a shell. When they took everything, she moved into a little rented flat down Montpelier Road.’
‘When did she die?’
He thought for a moment. ‘Yeah. It was November – 9/11 happened in 2001, so this would have been November 2002. Christmas was coming up. Know what I mean? Difficult time, Christmas, for some people. Jumped overboard from the ferry.’
‘Was the body found?’
‘I du
Grace made some notes, while Biglow ate. He picked at his own meal, his concentration now elsewhere. One wife sets off to America and ends up in a storm drain in Brighton. The second jumps off a cross-Cha
‘Last time I saw Ro
Grace thought some more. ‘Other than you, who were Ro
‘We wasn’t that close. We was friends, but not close. There was old Donald Hatcook – Ro
‘Chad Skeggs?’
‘Yeah.’
Grace remembered the name; the man had been in trouble years back, but he couldn’t recall why.
‘See, they’ve all gone. It would have been the Klingers here, I s’pose. Yeah, Steve and Sue Klinger, know them? Live in Tongdean.’
Grace nodded. The Klingers had an ostentatious house in Tongdean Avenue. Stephen had been, as the euphemism goes, a person of interest to the police for as long as Grace had been in the force. It was a widely held view that Klinger, who had started life as a car dealer, had not made his money legitimately and that his nightclubs, bars, coffee houses, student rental properties and moneylending businesses were all money-laundering fronts for his real business: drugs. But so far, at least, if he was a drugs overlord, he ran a tight ship and had ensured nothing could ever be traced back to him.
‘Ro
Grace added Steve and Sue Klingers’ names to the list of people to be interviewed by his team. Then he cut off a corner of fried bread and dunked it in an egg.
‘Terry,’ he said, ‘what was your take on Ro
‘How d’yer mean, Mr Grace?’
‘What kind of a bloke was he?’
‘Fucking psycho,’ Jimmy chipped in suddenly.
‘Shut it!’ Biglow turned on him. ‘Ro
‘He was a fucking psycho,’ Jimmy insisted.
Biglow smiled at Grace. ‘He was a little sick in the head at times, you know, sort of his own worst enemy. He was angry at the world cos he wasn’t succeeding, not like some of his friends – know what I mean?’
Like you? Grace wondered privately. ‘I think so.’
‘Know what my dad said about him once?’
Grace, chewing on a piece of fatty sausage, shook his head.
‘He said he was the kind of bloke who could follow you in through a turnstile and come out in front of you without having paid!’ Biglow chuckled. ‘Yeah, that was our Ro