Guilty Pleasures, page 18
‘I know just the place.’ His grip tightened.
For a bulky man, he was surprisingly swift on his feet. He propelled me through the gaggles of Japanese photographers, guiding my steps as Griff did when he taught me to dance the waltz. I was ready to panic, we were moving so fast. Where was he taking me? Was he trying to kidnap me in broad daylight? Was he part of the whole evil plot? Why didn’t I call out, or try to break away? Our progress away from the shops and the tourists was breathless and inexorable.
At last I realized that we were heading towards the Cathedral itself, via the clergy steps, not the tourist queues, and started to relax. I’m sure I’d have been turned back, but he said something inaudible to the gatekeeper and sped me on my way across the green towards the Cathedral itself. It was all beginning to make sense. Possibly.
My feet stopped of their own accord as we went inside. ‘It’s one thing talking to God,’ I hissed, ‘quite another doing it in front of all these people. It’d be like praying in a museum. Too . . . too ostentatious.’ Actually, with the noise a bunch of French school kids were making, alongside even more Japanese photographers, it would have been like praying in Disneyland.
‘So it would. Rather like that complacent Pharisee. But come into this chapel, Our Lady Martyrdom – it’s set aside for people like you. Take no notice of Dean Boys and his bones – in those days they were into gruesome reminders of our last end.’
They were as well. All those skulls, with an old guy sitting on them looking as if he’d got toothache.
He smiled and gave my shoulders a little pat. ‘Take as long as you want.’ And he was gone, before I could even thank him.
‘Robin’s on what?’ Freya squeaked down the phone.
‘Retreat. According to this clergyman I met this afternoon,’ I explained. He’d been waiting for me when I emerged blinking into the sunshine, basking, as he’d put it, like an elderly seal, on a convenient bench.
‘And who is this guy?’
‘He said his name was Tom – he’s a rural dean, apparently. And he nipped into the diocesan office and asked.’
‘Are you sure he’s kosher?’ Freya sounded terribly suspicious.
‘I’m sure you could check. There can’t be all that many rural deans, can there? The thing is, we can’t get to talk to Robin, because retreat’s a time when he’s deliberately excluding the pressures of the outside world.’
‘That’s a lot of fucking use!’
‘But he – Tom – will get a message to him asking him to let us know he’s OK.’
‘And pigs may take to the air. Let me know if you get any hard news, will you? And when you stop believing in Father Christmas.’ She cut the call.
Griff was a little more encouraging, but not much, not even breaking off as he chopped onions. ‘You can see why she’d rather have had a more comprehensive identification of your new friend. After all, she’s paid to be suspicious. And you must admit it’s very strange that Robin’s not allowed to take calls or even letters.’
‘Tom said that that’s what a retreat’s all about. And the state he’s been in, Robin needs time to contemplate and do whatever you do on retreat. And give up smoking,’ I added, less idealistically and probably less realistically.
‘True. Now, you’ve just got time to shower and change before our supper guest arrives. Shoo, dear one, shoo.’ He touched an oniony finger to my lips.
So it must be someone I’d want to see. I’d no idea who. Morris was in Belgium by now, and Harvey, who’d always been a fairly welcome and very charming guest in the past, had really annoyed me, both by his attitude to his wife and by shoving my urgent request for help to the bottom of his in-tray. Aidan?
Funny, I reflected as I tried to scrub away the memory of the blood-smeared tiles, how many of our friends were male. Josie had been right when she said I needed a woman friend to talk lippie and shoes with. Not that Griff wasn’t an expert in both, of course. Would Freya and I ever be mates? As she hadn’t pointed out, she was almost old enough to be my mother, but when she wasn’t treating me as a village idiot – and she obviously made a habit of that – she might be at least becoming a friend. No, perhaps not. But we were closer than just acquaintances. I think. All the same, she didn’t strike me as the sort of woman I could share lipstick secrets with. And I would like to know one of those.
As I dressed and applied slap, I made a To Do list:
Ask after Josie
Nag Harvey
Ask Freya about the tyres still in custody
Ask Freya about the buildings behind Bugger Bridger’s place (I’d have liked to find another word beginning with B, but couldn’t)
Repair a few vases, even if it means working later than Griff likes
Not think about Morris too much
Do something about that poor folio
There. That felt a lot better. As if I was taking control of my life again.
As if.
I heard Griff greeting someone and the sound of a reply.
There was only one man with a voice like that. I was halfway down the stairs before I realized I’d only got one sandal on. Kicking it off, I ran barefoot.
‘I thought you were in Brussels!’ I said, flinging my arms round his neck regardless of Griff’s interested smile.
‘I’ve been stuck under the bloody Channel for more hours than I care to remember. The French strikers. They usually let Eurostar through, but not today. And I thought of Griff’s cooking and the way you’ve always got some white wine chilling and here I am.’
So how would Griff react to knowing that Tim the Bear would be ousted tonight?
As if he read my mind, he added, ‘Only one problem: I can’t drink too much of the wine. I’ve got to get back to London tonight. Leda’s babysitter’s just phoned to say she needs to get home tonight – some sort of family emergency. So she can’t stay over as she usually does when the orchestra’s working away from London. How’s Josie?’
‘I was just about to phone,’ Griff said, obligingly disappearing into the office.
Perhaps he approved of Morris all the more since he wouldn’t be under our roof tonight.
But he emerged tight-faced with fury. ‘It seems old friends aren’t entitled to ask about the health of people they love and respect.’
‘Not when the old friend’s business partner is suspected of putting the patient in the ICU in the first place,’ I sighed.
‘Leave it to me,’ Morris said, heading towards the front door.
‘Use the landline, for goodness’ sake, and press redial,’ Griff snapped, heading for the kitchen, where he clashed his beloved saucepans with fury.
I’ll swear he even gave them an apologetic pat when Morris rejoined us in the kitchen with his news. ‘She’s still very ill. Still touch and go. But the officer guarding her – hell, the police budget won’t like that – swears she kept muttering, “It wasn’t Lina.”’
‘Wow! Really?’ I sat down hard.
Griff stroked my hair. ‘She loves you a great deal, my child. The granddaughter she never had.’
I was up as if he’d stuck a pin in me. ‘Granddaughter! Who wants me as a granddaughter? Bloody Arthur Habgood. Who’s a friend of his? Wanted me to go and see his shop? Estelle Sanditon. Harvey’s wife,’ I explained.
‘I gathered. And this would be the Harvey Sanditon who bought the dodgy snuffbox on my behalf?’
‘Exactly. The Harvey Sanditon who couldn’t be arsed – sorry, Griff – to look at the photos I’d sent him to see if he could recognize anyone at the fête where the first one turned up and was nearly stolen.’ I subsided. ‘But Harvey doesn’t like Habgood one scrap, and relations between him and his wife looked pretty fraught, so maybe I’m seeing things I shouldn’t.’
‘And you’ve already drained your first glass, without it even touching the sides, I’d say,’ Griff said. ‘Come, my child, the news of Josie isn’t all that bad – and she’s certainly helped you a great deal. I think we should calm down and raise a glass to the dear lady, don’t you?’
‘Not to mention Robin,’ I added grimly.
‘Tell Morris about it while you lay the table in the garden, sweet one,’ Griff said, and he thrust a fistful of cutlery at me.
TWENTY-FOUR
‘You can’t expect my colleagues to report everything back to you, Lina,’ Morris said, adding with an ironic smile, ‘they don’t even tell me what’s going on. And that’s my own team. Joking. I think. Freya took a huge risk this afternoon consorting with someone else’s suspect – I just hope the MIT find an alternative suspect pretty soon, or, mark my words, they’ll haul you in and talk to you in a fairly unpleasant way, despite what Josie said. At which point you produce your alibi, like the proverbial white rabbit.’
I nodded, leaning back to savour the last of the evening sun, the good wine and Morris’s company, in whichever order, while Griff made coffee. Then I sat up. ‘There is someone who should be reporting back, though. Harvey Sanditon. Hell’s bells, the number of times I’ve put his work top of the list because it was urgent. You’d think he might look at a few photos for me. Well, sixty pretty bad ones,’ I conceded.
‘Maybe he’s sent the information to me.’ He sounded, as he stroked my hair, as if he couldn’t care less abut Harvey. ‘After all,’ he added, ‘knowing you, he might be afraid of your going haring round the countryside chasing wild geese. Whoops, I’ve just mixed my metaphors.’
‘Something I can hardly forgive,’ Griff declared, making us jump as he placed the tray on the table. He lit a couple of those candles supposed to drive away midges. ‘Morris, you will ensure our dear child doesn’t do anything foolish, won’t you?’
Morris removed his hand, flushing slightly, possibly because of the word our, which made him sound like a co-guardian. ‘Ensure? I can only add my pleas to yours, Griff. And I know which one of us she’ll take more notice of.’ His voice sounded a good deal more regretful than the words deserved.
Deep breath time. ‘I had a closer look at the farm buildings that back on to Colonel Bridger’s place. Tumbledown old wrecks, most of them. And no, I didn’t get any further than the verge outside, not with two hounds from hell on border patrol. But if you wanted to conceal something or someone there, I’d have thought it was ideal.’
‘Why didn’t I meet the dogs when I had a look? And funnily enough I don’t remember a fence.’ He fished out his phone. ‘I don’t like wasting time with you making phone calls, but—’
‘Go ahead,’ Griff said. ‘The best signal’s by the washing-line whirligig.’ He made a rotary gesture until Morris twigged. He added, when Morris was possibly out of earshot, ‘He’s doing the right thing, my child. As I said earlier, this is work for experts. You wouldn’t want Freya tackling one of your repairs, now, would you?’
From inside the house, we heard a phone. Griff preferred his old-fashioned phone, complete with fax, answerphone and firmly attached handset, to all the more modern and user-friendly phones I’d tried to push on him. So one of us would just have to go and pick up said handset – or, of course, leave the work to the answerphone. Knowing he simply couldn’t do that, and knowing he shouldn’t scuttle after a big meal, I ran inside myself.
I came back feeling sick. I said to Griff and Morris equally, ‘That was Aidan. He reckons someone’s been hanging round his place all afternoon. Tenterden,’ I reminded Morris.
‘He uses the same top-grade security system as us,’ Griff said, a bit pettishly.
‘I think there’s more to the story, isn’t there, Lina?’ Morris said, taking my hand.
‘The someone looks like me.’ I sank weakly on to the chair next to Griff.
‘Excellent,’ said Morris, rubbing his hands. ‘Nice touristy place. CCTV coming out of its ears. And you, Lina, with a pretty well watertight alibi; I can’t imagine prosecuting counsel trying to tell Freya Webb that you weren’t together, can you? No, with luck, we’ll pick up not just your lookalike, but also her car and its lovely all-revealing registration plates.’ He fished out his mobile and, retreating to the whirligig, apparently left a message. ‘Freya’s got her phone switched off, and who can blame her at this hour? Look, I’m so sorry, but I really must go. Use every security device at your disposal. Tell your friend to do the same, Griff.’ They shook hands. I followed him into the house, where he kissed me pretty thoroughly and then pushed me away. ‘No, Lina, don’t even think of seeing me to my car.’
‘I’m not thinking, I’m doing.’ But I stopped dead by the front door. ‘Wait there. Just wait.’ I turned and hurtled.
He didn’t wait. He followed me to the security console and watched me bring up footage of the past hour. As he did, he let fly as comprehensive range of swear words as I’d heard in a long time. ‘So what did he attach to my car?’ he asked at last. With a few extra words in-between.
‘A tracking device, I suppose. Why on earth didn’t you park in our yard? Anyway, take the hire car. I’ll go online and sort out the insurance. Morris, you know that’s what you have to do. Just give me your keys and your licence details and push off. Before I change my mind.’
‘What an ignominious way for such a nice car to depart,’ Griff observed early next morning, as Morris’s Saab was waiting to be hauled off on a tow truck to have what Freya called a complete forensic examination. ‘But your quixotic gesture last night has left you without transport, I’m afraid, unless you care to use our van. And I’ll tell you straight, I don’t care for you to use it.’
‘And I don’t care to use it. I don’t even care to open the yard gates. I don’t care to let Mrs Walker, with or without her poet, risk working in the shop. Look, we’ve got enough food to hunker down for the day. We’ve got a backlog of Internet enquiries and sales to deal with. And I’ve got a very sad row of pots just crying out for my attention. Let’s – what do you call it? – make virtue of necessity.’
He hugged me. ‘Let us indeed. We’ll have a nice quiet day.’
We had about a minute’s worth of quiet.
It was broken as one of the Saab’s tyres exploded.
Actually, that’s an exaggeration. It just sounded bad in the quiet street. But, as Freya phoned to explain later, if you’d been driving, you’d have called it a blowout. If you’d been driving at thirty, it would have been inconvenient. If you’d been passing someone in the outside lane of the M20, it might have been a bit more than inconvenient.
‘Thank God Morris took the hired Fiesta,’ I breathed.
‘Thank God indeed. Next time you’re in the Cathedral, you might light a candle on his behalf. At least it’s done one good thing. It’s stepped up police interest – we don’t like it when one of our own is involved,’ Freya said.
‘Involved?’
‘I think the blowout was meant to happen later; that it was planned and someone’s plans misfired, if you’ll forgive the pun.’
‘Someone sab—’
I think she took my hesitation as disbelief, not a sign that I’d forgotten the word. ‘Quite. Someone sabotaged the tyre.’
‘Those other tyres – the ones from Trev and Robin’s cars—’
‘Quite. Now I feel entitled to push the forensic tests on those tyres further up the list. Budgets and prioritization, Lina – a major juggling act, believe me.’
I knew all about that from the business Griff and I were trying to run. ‘Griff, who used to be an actor, remember, is convinced that all the people we’ve been threatened by have been made-up: the guy who got into the cottage, the so-called policewomen who got to me before the real officers, the old man planting tracking devices and thingies to blow up tyres. Is there any make-up artist living in the area? Or an ex-actor?’
‘As I’m sure Griff would say, tap on the woodwork and you’ll get an army of ex-actors. We can’t interrogate all of them: think what Equity would say,’ she added with a laugh that sounded a bit hollow. ‘The same with make-up artists – take a look round House of Fraser or Fenwick’s.’
‘I didn’t mean the ones who try to sell you wrinkle products when you’re not yet twenty-five,’ I said. ‘I mean those with serious skills in latex and stuff. Think The Elephant Man.’
‘I’d rather not. OK, I know what you mean. I’ll get someone on to it,’ she said, sounding as if she’d much rather not. ‘Now, I must fly – we’ve got a briefing two minutes ago.’
‘I don’t see why I shouldn’t scrape round the recesses of my memory,’ Griff said, when I reported the conversation. ‘Before you so much as squeak, all my investigations will be done online. While you toil in the heat of the workroom, I shall exert myself in the office.’ He added, ‘Have you heard from Morris yet? He’s intimately concerned, after all.’
‘It’s a bit early for a man caring for a baby, isn’t it?’ I hoped my voice didn’t give too much away.
‘What did you say when you phoned?’
‘That there was a bit of a problem and that he might want to call me or Freya. Maybe he chose the second option, to get the facts.’
‘A veritable Gradgrind! No, I suspect there’s a feeding or a nappy problem, my love. And let us not forget that it’s barely nine. It’s going to be a glorious day, too, far too good for incarceration indoors,’ he added wistfully.
‘Lunch in the garden,’ I said briskly, heading off upstairs so I didn’t have time to think about Morris.
We’d both earned mid-morning coffee in the garden. Griff had dealt with half our Internet orders, and the parcels, plump with bubble wrap, sat in the living room. When and how they’d get to the post office neither of us cared to ask. I’d made some progress with a very tricky piece of Meissen, but my hands weren’t as steady as I really liked, so I’d turned to another wretched Toby jug, one with a particularly idiotic expression on its face, although it was Royal Worcester. As soon as I’d managed to match the sides of his broken hat I could sign him off the sick list; with luck he’d be the last for a while.
As soon as we sat down to bask, of course, the phone rang. So I trotted back inside, blinking at what seemed near darkness. The mouse, the modem and the screen standby lights glowed eerily. No wonder people worried about global warming and light pollution.
