Read Online Dead Man's Time by Peter James - Free Book Online

trove.
    Like the house in Withdean Road a few weeks ago. That little old lady knew fine well what she had and she wasn’t parting with any of it, at least not to him. She’d sent him packing
with a flea in his ear.
    Now, he had read in today’s
Argus
that she was dead. Stupid old bat. She should have sold him the items he had wanted. Then he might have left it at that, instead of phoning his
contacts.
    Although maybe he would have phoned them anyway.
    The five grand in folding, his advance on his commission, was burning a hole in his pocket.
    Tax free, too.
    The first benefit of this pub was that no one from Brighton drank here. He’d made a fair number of enemies over the years, tucking people up, and sooner or later in Brighton pubs,
he’d run into someone bigger than him who hadn’t forgotten. The second and far more important one was the rich pickings to be had from this place.
    It was the way he had operated for years. Find a pub in a nice, wealthy pocket of the countryside. Get known and liked and trusted. Sit up at the bar, buy the occasional round, nip outside now
and then for a smoke. Keep your ears open. Sooner or later you’d hear about nice big isolated properties. And sooner or later the locals would invite you to value some of the stuff in their
homes, or their mum’s homes, or whatever. You’d secretly take photographs, make the calls, email the pictures, then after a few months, move on.
    He raised a pint of Harvey’s to himself. He was doing all right, yeah. Life was sweet. A bit quiet in here for a Friday night, he thought. The barmaid he fancied was off sick tonight. But
everything was all right. Very sweet.
    Yeah.
    Out of slight boredom he studied a framed photograph on the wall showing the members of a football team. Written at the bottom in large letters was
WIVELSFIELD WANDERERS.
    Suddenly he felt a vibration in his trouser pocket. He pulled out his iPhone and checked the display; it was a withheld number. He brought it to his ear and answered quietly.
‘Yeah?’
    ‘Ricky Moore?’ asked the caller.
    ‘Yeah.’
    The caller hung up.
    He frowned, and waited some moments, in case whoever it was called back. But the caller had no intention of calling back. He had all the information he needed to confirm the man’s
identity. He was standing out in the darkness, outside the pub, watching through the window as Moore pocketed his phone and drained his pint. His identity proven.
    Ricky Moore put his glass down on the counter, then looked around for someone to play bar billiards with, but didn’t spot any of his regular players. Deciding to head home soon, he ordered
another pint – one for the road – and another whisky chaser.
    His missus, Kjersti, the beautiful Norwegian woman whom he had finally decided to settle down and spend the rest of his life with – after two acrimonious divorces – hankered after a
Rolex watch. Now, thanks to the McWhirter house, he had the dough to buy one – and with any luck he’d buy a stolen one, below retail, from a bent jeweller he knew.
    She’d go nuts when she saw it!
    He downed his drinks and left the pub with a smile on his face. He’d phone her when he got to the car; tell her to get her kit off and be waiting in bed for him.
    *
    Had Ricky Moore been sober, he might have been more aware. But four pints, accompanied by whisky chasers, had dulled his wits. As he stepped out into the darkness, pulling his
cigarettes out of his pocket, he didn’t notice anything out of place. If he had looked around the car park, he might have wondered about the Mercedes limousine with blacked-out rear windows
that really did not belong in a rural pub car park. Nor, above the rasp of a passing motorbike, did he hear its engine start.
    He was preoccupied with thoughts about what he was going to do in bed with Kjersti tonight. She had a very dirty mind; and right now, loaded with drink, he was feeling increasingly rampant.
    As he made his way, unsteadily,