'You've stil got a hundred per cent record, then,' he chuckled.
66
Her eyes stayed cool as she looked at him. 'So what brings you here, Mr McGuire? And what are you? You're not a community policeman, that's for sure.'
He decided to volunteer a little of the truth. 'Not in the sense you mean. I'm Special Branch.'
Highly predictable body language normal y followed that disclosure.
The other person would draw back slightly, and would throw him a look that registered either consternation or fear, and sometimes both.
Pat Dewberry simply raised an eyebrow. 'Really?' she exclaimed. 'I didn't think that existed any more. You've made my day; it's not often you get to meet a genuine anachronism.' She caught his surprise. 'Stop it. Pat,' she chided herself.
'Sprry to be so flippant,' she continued, 'but my grandfather was an old-fashioned communist, through in Glasgow; one of the Red Clydesiders. He knew Shinwell very well; he was in court with him, although the sheriff decided he was too young to go to jail. I grew up to tales of the Special Branch: Grandpa used to think of them as his regular companions. In fact he was quite friendly with some of them.
'I just thought that when his Party disappeared, so did you.'
'I wish we could,' said McGuire, 'but there really are dangerous people still in the world, and they have to be watched.'
'And in here?' she asked, showing a trace of impatience. 'Have I got a terrorist on my staff?'
He shook his head. 'I doubt it. No, I didn't walk into the janitor's office by mistake. I was looking for him.'
'George Rosewell? What's he done?'
Mario looked the woman in the eye, and decided that she could be trusted with more of the truth. 'Recently? Nothing that I know of; he's my father-in-law.'
'Ahh,' she exclaimed. 'There I go getting my conspiracy theories sorted out, and it turns out to be a family matter. As it happens, I'm looking for the old devil too. He hasn't turned up for work this week, and he hasn't cal ed in sick either. I phoned him, but I got no reply. I suspect you'l find him in the pub, or in the betting shop. When you do, tell him he's in bother and send him back in.'
Mrs Dewberry stopped abruptly as the door opened and Mrs Barnard returned, with a smile for McGuire and coffee for them both. When she had gone, she picked up her mug and glanced at the detective. 'But why do I sense that this isn't really a family visit?'
'Because you're a perceptive lady, that's why. Rosewell ... or Rose, to use his real name . . . walked out on his family more than twenty-five years ago. He lived abroad for most of that time. I've only just learned that he's back in Scotland.'
'So you've come to arrange for him to be reunited with his long-lost daughter?'
'Not quite.'
'Should I be looking for a new janitor?'
'That might be no bad idea. After I've spoken to him, he might not want to stick around.' He drank half of his coffee in a single swal ow.
'Tell me, Mrs Dewberry, have you ever had any complaints about him?'
'What kind?'
'Any kind.'
'From parents or children?'
'Either.'
'A mother complained about him once; she said that he had frightened her daughter. I investigated, of course, but it came to no more than George having spoken sharply to the girl because she was slow in getting back to her class after the break. I told him to leave that to the teachers in future. Since then, I've had no bother.'
She looked keenly at him, as if for the first time he had really interested her. 'You're not trying to tell me he's on a register somewhere, are you?'
'If that was the case, it would have been reported to the education authority at once. No, I'm not trying to tell you anything. But, to come back to your earlier question, I'l come off the fence; yes, you should find another janitor, because I'm going to make absolutely certain that George Rosewell never works in this or any other school again, under that or any other name.'
The teacher nodded, and drank more of her coffee. 'I won't ask how you're going to do that,' she said. 'I'l just report his unexplained absence to the directorate, and insist that he be replaced. I've been here for a while; that will happen automatically. He isn't a union member either, so that won't be a problem.'
McGuire glanced into his mug; his Italian blood rebelled against finishing what was in it. He raised himself from his low chair. 'Thanks for your confidence,' he murmured.
'Thanks for yours. Don't worry, none of this leaves this room.'
'If I was worried about that, none of it would have come into it.'
'What wil you do?' she asked. 'Go to see him at home?'
'Yes, first chance I get, although that won't be today. Listen, if he does turn up for work in the morning, would you give me a cal ? That's 68
my direct line number. If I'm not there, you can leave a message with Inspector Mcllhenney or PC Cowan.' He handed her a business card.
'I'll do that.'
She opened the door for him, and accompanied him along the corridor.
As they reached the display panel he stopped and looked at the photographs. There, on the bottom row, he saw him; looking a good deal younger than his years, clean-shaven, his face and bald head heavily tanned, gazing out at him with eyes that were chilling in their familiarity.
He would have known him even without the name printed below.
'Can I have that?' he asked.
'You might as well,' she said. 'It's no use to me now. It's a good likeness.' Careful y, she prised it from the board and handed it to him.
'There. Wil you show that to your wife?'
'Good question, Mrs Dewberry; good question.'
Bob Skinner stood at the foot of the driveway and looked up at the big house on Stanford Avenue. It was white-painted, two-storey, with a pillared front and a terrace, which seemed to run all round the house at the level of the upper floor. 'Neo-colonial,' his father-in-law had called it. 'Flashy,' had been Skinner's description.
He shuddered at the thought of Leo and Susannah in that small-town morgue, he with those terrible bulging eyes, she with a towel draped over her savaged neck by a considerate attendant, although his police man's training had forced him to remove it, to see for himself what had been done to her.
He had been very fond of Leopold Grace and his wife. They had never treated him with anything other than affection, even when he and Sarah had gone through their estrangement and when he had gone to the States to visit his son, and to see whether there was any ground on which they might build a renewal. His father-in-law's legal career had made him tolerant and non-judgemental, and while their conversations at that time had been frank, he had never come away from one without feeling at least understood.
The representative of the security company, which monitored the alarm system, was waiting for him at the front door as he approached, with the dutiful Brand and Kosinski at his heels. She was tal and long legged, around the thirty mark, and dressed in a pale blue business suit.
With her shoulder-length auburn hair, she looked vaguely like Sarah.
'Mr Skinner?' she asked, her hand outstretched. He nodded and shook it.
'I'm Kel y Lance. Do you have the court order?'
'Yes.' He took an envelope from his jacket pocket; it held confirmation from a probate judge of the district court that he and Sarah were joint executors of Leo's will. 'You'd better have a look at it,' he said.
She glanced at the official stamp on the outside. 'That's okay.' She undipped a slim leather case and looked inside, eventual y producing a thick, folded document.
Setting the case at her feet, she unfolded the sheet and held it out for 70
him to see. 'This is a plan of the alarm system. It's wired into the nearest police precinct; they guarantee two-minute response if it lights up.'
'Have they had any incidents in the last couple of days?' Skinner asked.
'No; at least none they've told us about, and they would have, since we hold the keys to the property.'
'So where's the control box?'
'In the usual place, just inside the front door. The first sensor has a programmed delay, so that once the owner unlocks he has thirty seconds to key in the code number and disable the system. Shal we go in?'
He nodded. 'Yes; let's get on with it. What's the code?'
Kelly Lance glanced at the plan. 'Eight, nine, two, and seven,' she read. Fine security, he thought. Leo s birthday.
She handed him the keys, as they stepped up to the big, solid, white painted door, indicating which two from the bunch he would need. One was a simple Yale, but the other was for a five-lever, double-locking mortise. He unlocked them both and opened the door, seeing the sensor light flick on as he did so. He saw the smal control panel at once, and flipped back the lid covering the number pad. He looked at the indicators, then at Kelly Lance.
'This isn't active, is it?'
She shook her head. 'No. If it was there would have been an audible signal as soon as the sensor picked you up.'
Skinner frowned as he stepped into the big, familiar house, in which his wife had grown up, in which he had spent happier times himself.
'How long had they been away?' he asked the woman.
'They advised us last Saturday week that they were driving up to the Adirondacks for a month. We have their telephone number at the lake on our files, for use in the event of an incident.'
'But you haven't had one.'
'No. Everything's been silent since then. But it would have been, wouldn't it, since Mr Grace didn't set the alarm.'
'I know they have a cleaning woman. Is it possible that she could have been in and forgot to reset the pad when she left?'
'That's possible, but unlikely. We require our clients to give us the names of all key-holders, even those who might only have access for a few days. There's no one on their list other than Mr and Mrs Grace themselves, and Dr Sarah Grace Skinner, their daughter.'
'... Who has definitely not been here in the last ten days.' He looked over his shoulder and cal ed to the FBI agents, who were waiting outside.
'Come on in, lads.'
Kosinski stepped into the entrance call, with Brand close behind.
'Everything okay, sir?' he asked.
Skinner shook his head. 'No. My brain's not working very well. Have you got a number for Lieutenant Schultz?'
'Yes, sir.' He dipped two fingers into the breast pocket of his jacket and drew out a business card.
The Scot's cellphone was in his hand as he took it from him. He glanced at it to make sure that he was tuned into a network, and dial ed the number shown. 'New York State Police, Loudonville,' drawled a nasal operator.
Schultz was in his office. 'Deputy Chief Skinner,' he said. 'What can I do for you?'
'You can find the guy who kil ed Leo and Susannah. Failing that, tell me something. Before I got there yesterday, were there any personal effects removed from the house? Specifical y, I mean keys.'
'No, sir, none at all. That was in accordance with your request.
However, since your visit we have removed certain valuable or sensitive items; the books, for example. And keys will be among those; let me check, please. This may take a moment. Would you like me to cal you back?'
'No, I'l hold.'
As it happened, Schultz was gone for less than a minute. 'I have them here, sir. I'm looking at al the keys that were recovered from the cabin.'
'Okay. I'm looking for a brass five-pointed key, with no manufacturer's name, and for aYale-type latchkey, again without a manufacturer's name.'
'They were supplied by my company,' Kelly Lance whispered to him.
'As part of our security they are unmarked in any way.'
'No, sir,' Schultz replied, in a slow, deliberate tone, after a few seconds'
perusal. 'I have nothing like that here. I two Chubb keys, and two mailbox keys, and that's al .' He paused. 'Can I ask what this is about, sir? Do you have a problem in Buffalo?'
'I think we might have. In fact, I think your investigation's just moved about three hundred miles west.'
'We'd better get there, in that case. I'll clear it with my boss.'
'Put a hold on that for a bit,' said Skinner. 'I'l have a look around here; after that we'll get back to you.' He ended the call and turned to the two special agents. 'Leo Grace might have been over seventy,' he told them, 'but he was as meticulous a man as I ever met. No way did he call 72
Ms Lance's office to report that he was leaving town, then forget to set his alarm.
'Somebody's been in here.'
'Impossible,' Kelly Lance protested.
'No it isn't,' snapped Skinner. 'Nothing's perfect, nothing's foolproof.
How do you keep your records?'
'On computer.'
'Al of them?'
'Yes.'
'And if someone hacked into it, would you know?'
'Yes, we'd know straight away.. .' She hesitated. '...Ifthe system was in use.'
'Exactly. But if it wasn't you'd have to check back to know that it had been accessed. Do that; cal your office and have them do it now.'
His eyes flashed back to the FBI men. 'Whose bloody jurisdiction are we in now, out here in the suburbs?'
'This stil belongs to the Erie County Police Department,' Brand answered.
'Okay. I want them here, now. I'm not going to see Sheriff Dekker; in the circumstances I think it's better that he comes to me.'
'Ah bet you thought I'd have cotton wool stuffed in my cheeks.' Beppe Viareggio's voice boomed around the room, drawing sharp glances from his mother and sisters. The look that Maggie gave him was a mixture of genuine bewilderment and forced tolerance. From the moment he had stuffed an envelope ful of cash into her hand at their wedding reception, she had never cared for Beppe.
Hopefully he looked at her, eager for the slightest sign that she understood his joke. 'Marion Brando, ken?' he offered, final y giving in.
'In The Godfather That's how he was able to mumble like that; he had his cheeks stuffed with cotton wool.'
Mario laid a hand on his uncle's shoulder. 'Okay, Don Beppe,' he said quietly, with a grin and a mock Italian accent. 'I come to you and I ask you humbly for your aid. I ask you to do me a smal favour, as my godfather and as my friend. Please to knock off the Mafia patter. You know it real y annoys my nana, and my mum looks none too happy either.'