‘Have you a friend who could give you a lift home and stay with you?’ I asked.
Easing herself from her relaxed sideways position on the trolley Vanessa sat up properly. ‘I've got my car,’ she said, ‘I'll be fine on my own. I do have to get to work tomorrow. That will take my mind off things. I feel fine now, really I do. You being willing to help has done that. And believing me about the man. Would you just watch me leave, though, just to … well, just to make sure?’
‘Of course,’ I said.
I followed her outside to the dimly lit parking bay and waited while she got into a red Mini and drove away. I waved her goodbye and then stayed for a while to make sure no one followed her. No one did. But the thought crossed my mind that out there in the darkness someone might have been waiting for her. And I'd allowed her to go.
Chapter Two
Tuesday is market day in Longborough. From my office window I can see the striped tops of the stalls and the stall-holders unpacking their wares, and in good weather when I have the window open I can hear their sales patter.
This Tuesday the wind blew viciously and from behind closed windows I watched the few customers who braved the early March winds. I'd been about to abandon staring when a red Mini drew up outside Humberstones. I recognised Vanessa Wootten immediately. She was in district nurse's uniform: a navy blue coat unflatteringly long and a round pill-box hat which, as she left her car, she had to pin down with one hand. She wore flat black pumps with matching black stockings. Hubert would definitely notice.
I waited for the sound of footsteps on the stairs and as I did so opened a file so that I'd look busy.
But it was Hubert who appeared first. ‘There's a Miss Vanessa Wootten to see you,’ he said. ‘Are you busy?’
‘Frantic,’ I answered. ‘I'm doing a major investigation of the market. Very time-consuming. I don't think I'll be able to fit her in.’
Hubert's brown eyes glinted like oily prunes and I could see he wasn't in the mood for sarcasm so I said, ‘Send her up, Hubert, will you, before she takes fright at being left at the bottom of the stairs.’
The side entrance of Humberstones, reserved for a steady flow of corpses, was only coffin wide and led into a small hall painted in dull green. From there rose two steep flights of stairs, uncarpeted and unused, apart from Hubert, me, and the very occasional client. A single purple shade covered the ceiling light and sometimes the fringe of the shade trembled with or without wind, breeze or draught. In fanciful moments I suspected the fringe only moved when a fresh corpse entered the building. A sort of salutary greeting.
Living newcomers to my part of the building were sometimes asked to wait just under the stairwell. Hubert had placed there my old jumble sale armchair, maroon floral with a sagging bottom, for clients who had serious intentions. Waiting there for a few minutes was as good as a down payment. It showed real commitment, perhaps even desperation.
Vanessa walked steadily up the stairs, her footsteps sounding loud and purposeful.
‘This is an unusual place to have an office,’ she said, smiling. The bruise on her face had almost faded. Now that I could see her more closely I could see just how well the blue of her uniform suited her. Even the pill-box hat managed to look cute rather than old-fashioned.
‘I like it,’ I said. ‘It's very convenient and there aren't too many distractions, apart from watching the market in action.’
She smiled again as she sat down in one of my dove grey, courtesy of Hubert, office chairs.
‘He's still following me,’ she said, taking off her hat and raking her hair through with one hand.
‘How are you feeling now?’ I asked. ‘Are you sure you feel up to answering questions?’
‘I'm okay,’ she said with a shrug. ‘My boyfriend, Sean, came back for his belongings today and now he's gone off into the great blue yonder and all I want to do is get this other matter cleared up.’
I nodded. ‘Tell me about it. From the beginning.’
She frowned and stayed silent for a while, as though she really didn't want to tell her story, for by the telling and by someone believing it, the situation might become somehow more dangerously real.
Eventually she began, and as she talked she rubbed the inside of her fingers, occasionally cracking one as she bent and straightened each slim digit in turn. ‘It was about three weeks ago I first saw the car, an old black Ford Escort. I'd look in the mirror and see it … At first I didn't take much notice, especially in the early morning when traffic is heavy anyway. But then I began to notice it in the afternoon and sometimes when I went out in the evening I saw the same car parked up the road …’
‘Did you take the number?’
‘Of course, Kate. When I realised I wasn't imagining things, I took the number and told the police. The car had been stolen. He must have known we were on to it, because he stopped following me for a couple of days and when he started again he was driving a different car.’
‘What colour is it this time?’ I asked, trying to keep the increasing scepticism from my voice.
She looked hurt and didn't answer my question.
I felt guilty. ‘I'm sorry, Vanessa. I didn't mean it to sound like that. Could you describe the driver to me?’
She paused for a moment and stared at some point on the wall facing her. ‘I can't,’ she answered miserably. ‘Not properly. He always keeps well behind me. I think he's got dark hair but whenever I've tried to have a good look at him I've nearly had an accident or he's lowered his head so that I can't see his face. And I feel too scared to get a closer look.’
‘How tall do you think he is?’ I asked, feeling dispirited about a man with no face and an ever-changing car.
‘Average, I suppose. Unless he's got a cushion under the seat.’
‘Build?’
She frowned. ‘Average again, I suppose. This isn't being much help, is it?’
‘Not a lot,’ I agreed. But I was writing everything down and trying to decide if this case was going to be worth while, financially or professionally.
‘Can you afford to hire me?’ I asked. ‘I'm sure the police will do something if this carries on.’
‘I can afford it, I've got savings,’ she said firmly. ‘Will two hundred a week be enough to retain you? I'll pay you another three hundred when you catch him.’
Retain me! I thought. Two hundred a week. That was almost enough to make me start thinking about buying smart suits and having holidays abroad. I could buy a new lamp for my office or a telephone answering machine or even make a down payment on a computer …
‘Will you take the case then?’ Vanessa was saying. ‘I'll pay you two weeks in advance.’
I tried not to appear too keen. I knew now that if she was neurotic, at least she was a solvent neurotic and more than willing to pay for a cure. Paying the bills had been a problem since I opened eight months ago and Vanessa Wootten was only the second to offer cash in advance.
‘Of course,’ I said, ‘I'd be pleased to.’
The bank would also be pleased and so, too, would Hubert who was always finding me the strangest people to act for and then was disgruntled when I turned them down.
As Vanessa left I promised to spend as much time as I could following her and hopefully following her unknown admirer.
‘I hope that's what he is,’ she said with a wry smile, ‘an admirer.’ ‘What do you think he is?’ I asked.
‘I think he's a killer,’ she said, fear glinting in her needlesharp eyes.
I walked with her to the second set of stairs and watched her descend to the hallway and then pause as she gazed up at the purple fringe of the shade, watching as it fluttered very slightly. And then she turned her head upwards to look at me. Her face seemed pale in the purple gloom but it was her expression which disturbed me, and the hunted look in her eyes. But resignation was there also, as though she had seen death and it wasn't death itself that scared her, but its prelude.
Hubert came up immediately. I'd left my off
ice door open because I knew he'd appear as soon as he saw Vanessa leave. Just lately he seemed far more interested in my prospective clients than his already dead ones.
‘Is it a goer?’ he asked, peering round the door.
‘It's a goer,’ I answered. ‘And you can come in.’
He walked in and sat down on the edge of my desk, a habit which irritates me but I say nothing, thinking charitably that maybe he's trying to save the wear and tear on my office chairs.
‘This one could be quite lucrative, but there are complications.’
‘There usually are with you.’
‘Your confidence in me, Hubert,’ I said, ‘is truly underwhelming.’
He smiled then, which improved his face not one jot, because his eyes seemed to disappear, leaving only shining false teeth and a nose set in a pastry-coloured skin beneath a balding head. A top hat and a sombre expression made him look relatively normal. Not that I gave him much to smile about, but he was at the moment my best friend, managing to be miserable with fortitude and occasionally enjoying a wary kind of happiness. He didn't expect much of life; knowing only too well how it all ends.
‘What does she want you to do, Kate?’ he asked.
‘She wants me to find the man who's following her.’
Hubert's eyes rolled upwards. Then he laughed, short and dry, more like a cough than a laugh.
‘What's so funny?’ I asked.
‘Kate, you're a bit naïve at times. She's real crumpet, you know. There's probably half a dozen men in Longborough following her about.’
I thought about that for a moment. ‘Hubert, she's scared. I mean really scared.’
‘In that case,’ said Hubert, ‘she must know who he is.’
I'd thought about that too. ‘Sometimes, Hubert, you can be annoyingly right.’
He grinned sheepishly and left.
I stared out of the window again. If she did know who this man was, why on earth wasn't she telling me?
I sat for some time alternating between doodling and staring out of the window. Then Hubert reappeared, framed in my doorway like some lost actor looking for the right set in a film studio.
‘I've been thinking,’ he said.
‘That's good, Hubert.’
‘There's no need to be cheeky.’
‘I'll make you some coffee,’ I said.
While I made the coffee Hubert too couldn't resist staring out of the window.
As I handed him a mug he said, ‘I'm worried about this one, Kate. She's got a confident way of walking. She wouldn't be that scared over some bloke who just fancied her, would she? And has she been to the police yet?’
‘Yes, Hubert, she has been to the police and no she would not be that scared of a mere … a mere …’
‘Admirer?’
‘Yes. And what do you mean about you being worried about this case? It's my case.’
Hubert's face assumed its crestfallen expression. ‘I was worried about you,’ he said. ‘I was only joking about her being followed by lots of men. I mean this one could be a real psycho.’
‘I'll go to the police if I get time, Hubert.’
‘You could spare some,’ he said. ‘Just lately you've spent more time staring out of that window than trying to bring business in.’
‘Hubert, do I tell you to go out and bring in more corpses?’
He shrugged and walked slowly towards the door, where he stood with one hand on the doorknob as if about to insult me and then do a runner. ‘I do my best,’ he said. ‘I have to rely on fate. You could make more of an effort.’
‘I'm trying,’ I responded as he opened and closed the door behind him. ‘And I can manage quite well on my own, thank you.’
I wasn't sure if he'd heard me and if he had, no doubt he would have smiled to himself. The trouble is, I could probably manage without Hubert's help but it wouldn't be half as much fun.
The police station in Longborough is tucked away on the outskirts of town, an afterthought, built in the sixties when Longborough was expected to expand to take what was known as the London ‘overspill'. The locals had anticipated a crime wave but the wave was merely a ripple because the promised relocation of jobs didn't happen. Those who did come were wealthy Londoners looking for the isolated thatched cottage, stripped pine, Laura Ashley soft furnishings, Barbours, green wellies and a chance to hang their onions from the ceiling. The reality was that if no one comes to see you living in trendy rural isolation you can't show off your good taste or your magnificent onions and quite soon depression and homesickness set in.
I'd gleaned the crime statistics from listening to the regulars of the Swan pub who were experts on both past and present crimes and criminals. Crime, it seems in the nineties, has escalated to correspond with the emergence of the video shop as a new species of entertainment. Car thefts and joy-riding had replaced poaching as a night-time occupation and the occasional rampage had replaced the evening stroll. All this criminality was due to weird reading schemes in the first year of primary school or to single parentage or, and one old man was quite convincing on this, to the lack of home-cooked meals in general – and boiled cabbage in particular.
I stood outside the police station looking at the three-storey building and wondered how exactly the police occupied their time. One or two patrolled the streets, of course, but what on earth did the others do? Surely they couldn't be too busy to watch out for one of the local district nurses?
The desk Sergeant, overweight and with a head like a square block, was busy filling out a form and while he kept me waiting I looked round the office. A huge phallic-shaped cactus in an equally huge pot stood in one corner and on the walls framed pictures of haymaking and lakeside views were hung in tasteful groupings. It looked very much like an upmarket dentist's waiting room, and was nearly as quiet as Humberstones' chapel of rest.
‘That's our new image,’ said the Sergeant proudly as he looked up from his form and flashed me an all-purpose ‘community' smile. ‘How may I help you, madam?’
‘I'd like to speak to someone from CID, please.’
‘Wouldn't we all, madam. Wouldn't we all.’
‘Inspector Hook if possible,’ I said firmly, hoping a bit of namedropping might be useful. It was not.
‘He's in a meeting, madam. Quality Assurance – Man Management or Community Relations, I'm not sure which.’
‘What happened to crime-busting?’
‘That's old hat, madam, gone with Dixon of Dock Green and Z Cars.’
I was beginning to get a little irritated so I squared my shoulders, lowered my voice, and said, ‘Would you stop calling me madam, Sergeant, and suggest whom I could see regarding a criminal matter.’
‘No need to get shirty, madam,’ he said. ‘I'm only trying to keep the public informed about current trends.’
‘I do read the Guardian,’ I said with a weak smile. ‘But I would be very grateful if I could liaise with someone.’
He grinned cheerfully. I'd cracked the language barrier! We were now speaking the same language. Liaise was obviously a key word.
‘Our liaison officer is also in the meeting, madam, but if you'd care to wait?’ Signalling with his open hand he showed the array of empty chairs.
‘I'll come back,’ I said. ‘My name's Kate Kinsella, by the way, of Medical and Nursing Investigations.’
For a moment amusement flickered in his slightly bloodshot eyes, then he said, ‘Well, why didn't you say you were in the same game, love? DS Roade is available. I'm sure he'd have a chat with you.’
‘Thanks. Wasn't he invited to the meeting?’
The desk Sergeant smiled. ‘We always keep someone available, stashed away in case of a crisis. Is this a crisis?’
‘Could be, for someone I know.’
‘Right you are, love. Come this way.’ He lifted the counter flap and indicated that I should come through. He pointed out a door along a narrow deserted corridor where the only sound was the ponderous noise of very slow typing. ‘Second on
the left,’ he said, ‘marked CID.’
The door was open and DS Roade was mid-finger in his typing and with his free hand midway into a Mars bar. At the sight of me he dropped the chocolate as though it had become red hot and his mouth opened and closed in an expression of startled embarrassment.
‘I'm glad I've found you,’ I said.
He pointed to the chair in front of his desk, threw the remains of his Mars bar into the bin, crossed his arms and leaned back. ‘What's the problem?’ he asked in a resigned tone.
I sat there and tried to ignore his youthfulness and his acne and that he had begun to look at me with the same lusty fervour he extended to the Mars bar. His acne had worsened since I last saw him and I wondered if he was still troubled by indigestion.
‘It's about Vanessa Wootten,’ I said. ‘The district nurse. She came to see you, I believe, about being followed by a man.’
DS Roade adjusted himself back into his chair, recrossed his arms as if to say ‘don't press me' and sat silent. I waited. I supposed he was just showing me who was boss. Eventually he said, ‘We didn't think there was much in that story.’
‘Who's we?’
‘Inspector Hook and me. We think she's neurotic.’
I moved forward slightly and drummed my fingers softly on the desk. I said nothing.
‘She is, you know,’ he said as if I'd argued. ‘If I were you I'd leave well alone.’
‘How can you be so sure she isn't being followed?’
‘I didn't say she isn't being followed.’
‘Well then, why won't you help her?’
‘Let's say we've had dealings with her before.’
‘So?’
‘She's trouble.’
‘Detective Sergeant Roade,’ I said, ‘I know MENSA turned me down once but I can understand really simple explanations. If you talk slowly I'll probably catch on.’
‘There's no need to be sarcastic,’ said Roade, ‘I was only trying to save you bother.’
Deadly Admirer Page 2
