‘Thank you for that,’ Alex said sweetly.
He stared at her suspiciously. ‘For what?’
‘Calling me a flashy young lass. I’ve been called worse.’
Jed sniggered, clearly crowing over his brother-in-law, and his father clipped him around the head for his trouble.
Jesus, she had to get out of here, Alex thought wildly. How the hell did she ever come to be part of such a family?
She caught a brief sympathetic look in her aunt’s eyes, and she knew. Aunt Harriet was her mother’s sister, and you couldn’t be responsible for your in-laws. They were all the product of their environment, and if Alex ever doubted herself for getting out of it, she didn’t any more.
Her mobile rang while they were watching the Queen’s Speech on the television. She instinctively knew Aunt Harriet would think of the occasion in capital letters. It was a wonder they didn’t put on hats and stand up smartly to attention when they played God Save the Queen.
She snatched up her mobile and went out of the sitting-room before she had to face too many disapproving eyes at the intrusion.
‘Hey, kiddo, I hope this isn’t a bad time. I just wanted to wish you a happy Christmas, and hope it’s all going well with the old folks at home —’
‘Christ, Nick, am I glad to hear you. Can you invent some dire emergency to get me back to London pronto?’
‘That good, eh?’ he said.
She could hear the smile in his voice, and the sound of glasses chinking somewhere in the background. There was the sound of laughter too, male and female, and she knew he wasn’t having such a soulless time as she was.
She gritted her teeth. ‘I’m joking, of course. Take no notice,’ she lied. ‘It’s probably a touch of last night’s hangover talking.’
Actually, Uncle Bill’s home-made elderflower champagne had one hell of a kick to it, and a few bottles more should get her through the next few days.
‘Do you really want me to send out an emergency call?’
It was so bloody tempting ... but then she remembered the trouble Aunt Harriet had gone to over her room, and how Uncle Bill had fussed over her not getting enough to eat down south, and she knew she couldn’t do it.
‘Of course not. I’ve still got people to see and places to go. But thanks for the call, Nick. And have a great time.’
‘I’m doing that already,’ he said with a laugh, before the line went dead.
She’d just bet he was. She could imagine it. All the singles got together and had a whale of a party on Christmas Day. She wondered whose bed he’d end up in tonight, and blotted out the surge of jealousy.
She’d made her bed and had to lie in it, same as he would. And that was something she preferred not to think about.
‘Sorry about that,’ she said brightly, rejoining her family in time to see Uncle Bill switch off the TV.
What now? Pass the parcel? Charades? But wasn’t this whole bloody day one big charade?
‘Heard about that bit of trouble you had last year,’ Vic said suddenly. ‘Nearly got strangled, didn’t you?’
‘Thanks for reminding me,’ Alex said, feeling the familiar jolt in her heart. ‘Bit different from being just a tally-man, wouldn’t you say, lad?’
She was fast falling into the lingo, but she knew better than to use the classy accent that was more natural to her now. They would hate it and be embarrassed by it. To them, she was still ‘our Audrey’ and while it both amused and irritated her, that’s what families did, she thought.
‘We don’t want to talk about that,’ Uncle Bill said briskly. ‘But why don’t you tell us what you’re up to now, Audrey-love?’
Audrey-love? For a minute she thought she’d been thrown into the middle of Coronation Street, where Tracey-love, the frequently absent daughter of Ken Barlow, always used to emerge from the bedroom a different actress. Which was just what she was, Alex reminded herself. Acting out the part of Audrey Barnes, instead of Alex Best. Or was it the other way around?
She took another slurp of Uncle Bill’s plentiful supply of elderflower champagne, which was his contribution to Christmas cheer, and wondered what they would say if they really knew what she was up to.
Oh, I’m currently investigating a crazy woman’s idea that her son is still alive after being assumed dead for ten years. At least, his hand was dead. God knows what happened to the rest of him. He was involved with druggies and winos, and possibly a religious group, and his schoolfriends might hold the secret ... and there was something about a burned-out hut in the woods that some kids had ignited with fireworks ... just a run-of-the-mill job ...
As they all looked at her expectantly, she wondered if she had really said the words out loud.
‘I’m looking into a young boy’s disappearance,’ she said lamely.
‘That’s a job for bobbies,’ Vic snapped. ‘Not for a —’
‘A flashy young lass like me?’ Alex said. ‘Well, the police have had their chance, and now it’s down to me.’
‘Well, it sounds like a nasty kind of work,’ Aunt Harriet said. ‘And best left to the men, I say.’
‘Oh, Aunt Harriet, that’s so outdated —’
‘Mebbe ’tis, but so am I. Now then, who wants mince pies and cream?’ she said, dismissing it completely.
That summed it all up, Alex thought later. Time-warp, comfy-cosy. Nice to come back to but not to stay. She lay in bed with everything loose, feeling as if she was floating on a sea of cream and elderflower champagne and would never fit into her jeans again. All those weeks of trying to slim down and firm up her wayward thighs were coming to nowt.
She giggled into the darkness. Oh yes, two weeks here, and she’d be back to where she started which was why it was going to be no more than two more days. Then back to London, back to packing, and off to Bristol to begin another new life. It no longer sounded as bleak as it sometimes did. A new challenge was just what she needed. Coming back here had done her favours after all.
*
Since half the country seemed to take the entire week off after Christmas, Alex had persuaded the ‘Man With Van’ she found in Yellow Pages to move her stuff two days before New Year’s Eve, by blatantly using a husky voice over the phone. What the hell? You used what methods you could to get results. And when he and his mate called to the flat, she gave them her sexiest smile, and didn’t miss the way they assessed her tight black jeans. Too bloody tight now, Alex thought, swearing to lay off everything remotely smelling of chocolate for the foreseeable future.
Nick had helped to bring all her office equipment to the flat, so everything was boxed up and ready to go.
‘I’ll be following behind you in my car,’ she told Man With Van briskly. ‘You’ve got the address, haven’t you?’
‘Sure have, lady.’ He consulted a grubby sheet of paper. ‘17, Whiteleigh Road, Old Market, office premises downstairs, flat above. Right, love?’
‘Right,’ she said.
Suddenly she didn’t want to prolong this any longer. She had insisted that Nick should stay away. This flat held many memories for her, good and bad. The raunchy times she had spent with one Gary Hollis, virile biker; Nick’s chameleon-like personality — the hard-nosed copper, the tender lover; Charmaine, the model-cum-wannabe-actress in the flat below, to whom she had donated some of her CDs; other friends who had come and gone ... and the horrific, evil man who had tried to strangle her for revealing his crimes.
She shuddered, finally glad to lock up the flat and leave it as anonymously as she had arrived.
*
Four hours later, she had finally seen off Man With Van and his assistant after persuading them to put up her bed and get most of the furniture in place, and paying them way over the top for the privilege. She’d also bought them a meal in a motorway service station (how the hell did they pack so much food away?) and since given them cake and soft drinks, as she hadn’t yet tracked down her coffee and kettle. Besides which, she didn’t want them settling in. But paying for their
time had been worth it. Once the heating had come on, the place seemed less like an icebox than it had when she arrived, and by the time she had unpacked most of her other things, the new flat was looking and feeling reasonably like home.
She took a breather, made some coffee at last and glanced at the small collection of letters that had been lying on the mat inside the office door.
Junk mail followed you everywhere, though most of it was addressed to the previous owner. The gas and electricity people requested her to read the current meters and send back the information on the enclosed cards.
There was a jokey ‘New Home’ card from Nick, with the message inside that if she got fed up living in the sticks, she could always come back to his place, and there was a letter in handwriting that looked vaguely familiar, addressed to Miss Alexandra Best.
The letter inside was handwritten as well, and one look at the signature told her what she should have guessed. She’d seen it once before on a cheque, and Jane Leng wasn’t going to let go of her now that she had found her.
She hadn’t even moved in properly yet. Her computer and printer and fax machine weren’t even plugged in, and if she had any sense she shouldn’t bother reading this letter until she’d had something to eat and got her breath back. But she wasn’t like that. Some people could ignore the phone ringing, or delay opening mail, but not her. She had a child’s curiosity to know what was inside.
Dear Miss Best, Jane had written, I know you’ll be busy what with Christmas and all, and me and Bob won’t be moving back to Chilworthy until Feb, like I told you, so I won’t be calling on you until then. But I thought you’d want the names of Steven’s friends at the time in question. Yours faithfully, Jane Leng (Mrs Bob Leng).
Alex thought it a sad little letter. Humble and hopeful at the same time, and sure that Alex Best, PI, would perform the miracle that the police couldn’t, and find her son alive and well. Sans one hand, of course.
And pigs might fly. The unconscious irony didn’t escape her as she glanced down at the list of names Jane had included. Steven’s friends. There was a TV play or film with a similar title. Peter’s Friends. She remembered it now. Stephen Fry et al. Marvellous, funny, racy and poignant ...
But back to the present, even if she was so damn tired she could sleep standing up. In the last few days she had driven to Yorkshire, back to London, and now here, with all the traumas of Christmas and moving thrown in.
The Suzuki was a gem, but she had a right to be tired. And Jane Leng had a right to get full value for the generous fee she was paying her. Alex gave the list of names her full concentration.
Cliff Wilkins
David Wilkins
John Barnett
Keith Martin
Lennie Fry
Nothing there to stir the senses, she thought. And no other details, just a list of names. The first two could be related. Brothers, perhaps. Alex sighed, her brain beginning to fuzz. She really should get to bed, and in best Scarlett O’Hara style, think about it tomorrow.
Unfortunately, she was intrigued now. Names made the whole thing more real. It brought five people into focus, even if she knew nothing more about them, and the stack of local phone directories that the previous occupants had kindly left behind in the flat were staring at her like a reproach.
She plonked them down on her sofa beside her. It wouldn’t hurt to just take a look and see if any of the names were listed. One thing she was sure about: the boys had attended the same comprehensive (once Grammar) school, and hopefully, would still be local.
‘And this is the one and only thing I’m doing for you today, Jane Leng,’ she muttered firmly, resisting the urge to go one better on Scarlett and say that not only tomorrow, but next year was another year ...
*
She rewrote the names alphabetically in a notebook and went through the phone book. There were four Barnett, Johns, with Bristol addresses. Others lived in Bath, Portishead, several in Weston-super-Mare, and in Somerset villages with names Alex had never heard of. This one looked like involving a long weeding-out process.
There was no Fry, L, although there was a large number of Fry subscribers, and she supposed Lennie could have been a nickname anyway.
Martin, Keith William, had his name in full and sounded important. She checked the business addresses and found that he had a hardware shop in Bath.
Wilkins, Cliff and David, had the same address and phone number, confirming her thought that they could be related. Yellow Pages supplied the information that they operated a haulage firm. Not bad for twenty-six-year-olds.
She found herself yawning, and decided that was enough for one night. She’d made a start, though on what, she didn’t really know. It was all going to be a non-event, anyway. Steven Leng was long dead, and eventually his mother was going to have to face up to it.
Uneasily, Alex wondered how the news was going to affect her once there was no other option. It was probably the only thing in her empty life that kept her going. With a drunken husband who gave her no support whatsoever, and precious little affection, she guessed, her entire world was going to collapse if and when Alex discovered anything. The temptation was suddenly huge to fabricate her findings, going through the motions but holding back from anything that might be conclusive, thus leaving the woman with some hope. But that would be just as cruel, and anyway she couldn’t and wouldn’t do it. She had ethics.
*
Winter sat lightly in the south-west, with none of the bitter winds and early snowfalls of the Dales. Apart from the early morning chill in the air, and the thin sunlight, it could almost have been an early spring. Not bad for December going into January.
It didn’t bother Alex that she didn’t know anyone yet with whom to celebrate New Year’s Eve. It was the one time of the year she hated. Her father had died at that time, and it always seemed a depressing occasion.
Instead, she decided to take a couple of days off, the same as everybody else, and explore her new home on foot. It would be good for the figure too, she thought nobly. To begin with, there was a huge area of green above the city, known as the Downs, and Brunel’s graceful suspension bridge that spanned the river Avon. It was a businesslike city with a lot of history behind it, and Alex liked that.
She was gazing down at the ribbon of river far below the bridge when she heard the roar of a powerful motorbike along one of the many linking roadways over the Downs. For a minute she felt a sense of déjà vu, wondering if she would turn around and see Gary Hollis, bike courier, one-time lover, coming towards her.
Crazy, of course. The guy pulling up near her now was nothing like Gary. He was older, for a start, in his thirties, she guessed, with streaked blond hair falling over his forehead beneath his helmet and ruggedly good-looking. The outdoor type, and a dedicated biker, she guessed.
‘Some view, isn’t it?’ he said, nodding below.
‘Pretty impressive,’ she agreed.
‘You don’t sound like a local. Live around here, do you?’ he said.
‘I do now. Still finding my way around, as a matter of fact.’
‘I could help you in that,’ he said with a grin. ‘The name’s Phil, by the way.’
‘Alex,’ she said, realizing she’d hardly spoken to anyone but shopkeepers for the last few days. He was friendly enough, even if it did sound like a pick-up. But, she was over twenty-one, and not averse to male company.
‘So what do you do, Alex? Are you a model or something?’
‘Nice of you to think so! No, it’s something far more boring. I’m a private investigator.’
She didn’t usually come right out with it. It often put people off. They imagined she was about to start probing into their affairs, and uncovering secrets they’d rather keep hidden. But hey, she was proud of what she did, so why shouldn’t she show it!
Phil was staring at her admiringly now. ‘On a case, are you?’
She laughed. ‘No. Just having a breather.’
‘Do you want to come to
a party tonight? All kosher, of course. You don’t want to be alone on New Year’s Eve, do you?’
‘I do, actually.’ He had some nerve!
‘No worries. Some other time then.’
Before she could say anything else he had revved up the bike and turned it around to go roaring off. She didn’t know whether to be glad or bloody annoyed at his offhand manner. He could have tried persuading her.
She turned her attention back to the river below, and seconds later she heard the roar of his bike again. It skidded to a halt beside her, causing an older couple of walkers to tut-tut. He was laughing at her now.
‘Only kidding, Alex. Really, it would be fun. A group of uni students and tutors are getting together at the Greenbelt — it’s a nightclub just outside town.’
‘Uni students? Kids, you mean?’
‘Hardly. And did I forget to mention that I’m Head of Sports? Philip Cordell if you want to check me out. Here, you can have my card for starters. And if you fancy learning a bit of karate, I’m your man.’
The card he handed her certainly looked impressive enough. Her mouth twitched. ‘Actually, I did a course on karate myself once — and isn’t a nightclub called the Greenbelt a bit lowering for an expert like you? I’d have thought you were a black belt.’ And muscly with it ...
‘I am,’ he grinned. ‘So what do you say? Do I pick you up around nine o’clock? Sort of initiation into city life, you might say. Where do you come from, anyway?’
‘London,’ she said dryly.
And then she relaxed. Why not? Why the hell not? It was a sure bet Nick wouldn’t be staying in tonight wallowing, and she needed to meet people. It also occurred to her that if Phil was a tutor at the university, he might well know something about the people she was going to trace — and about the Followers. She felt her heart beat faster. Fate was a funny thing. It sometimes found you even when you weren’t looking for it. Even when you damn well wanted nothing to do with it.
‘Nine o’clock then? Give me the address and I’ll be there.’
Deadly Suspicions (Alexandra Best Investigations Book 3) Page 4
