Once inside, at once she knew herself defeated. Standing between the desks for Aer Lingus and British Midland she observed the vast hall where seemingly thousands of people queued, manipulated trolleys, grumbled, sweated, lugged cases, railed at children or just sat slumped, stuffing food into their mouths.
Now that secrecy was not an issue, Brenda moved boldly if miserably about, staring at the multicoloured computer screens above her head and the brightly lit shopping section. Austin Reed, Tie Rack, the Body Shop—it was like Uxbridge High Street.
If only she knew why Alan had come to Heathrow she’d have some idea where to look for him. He had carried a bag but it was such a small one, more of an attaché case really, that you couldn’t count it as luggage. Which was why she had assumed he wasn’t flying anywhere. But she could be wrong. If this was so then the situation was indeed hopeless for, without knowing his destination, there was no possible way to discover in which area he would be waiting.
Of course he could be meeting some—Brenda stood stock still then, her hand on her pounding heart, her cheeks icing over, understanding at last what an absolute fool she had been. No wonder he had raced out of the house, flung himself into the car, driven like the wind. Simone was coming back!
Oh God, she might bump into them. Hand in hand, laughing and kissing, arms round each other. Making up for lost time. True, they wouldn’t guess why she was here but Brenda knew she would not be able to bear it. She hurried away from the drift towards the main entrance. She passed a burger bar and more shops, not even looking where she was going, anxious only to find a hiding place.
Which is how she almost came to miss him.
Alan was standing in line with several other people on some steps going down to a lower level. Brenda, stepping quickly back, glanced at the brightly illuminated amber and black sign over her head. Left Luggage.
The steps doubled back on themselves so, once Alan had disappeared on to the underneath shelf, as it were, she was able to join the queue without risk of discovery. There were seven people between them.
When she entered the baggage area, she stood to one side near the back wall, as if waiting for someone. From this position she was able to observe Alan queueing for the X-ray machine. The first thing she observed was that, if such a thing were possible, he looked even more ill than he had when she had first seen him.
He was staring at a woman who was wearing a bright sombrero. She had been asked to open her luggage which was then thoroughly examined. Unaware that a one in ten search was normal procedure, Brenda marvelled at the shrewdness of the staff, for the woman looked just like an ordinary holidaymaker. She had even thought to bring along two small children.
Alan put his case on the moving track; a dark outline enclosing a mass of grey scrawl slid by on the screen. Brenda, noticing an Evening Standard sticking out of a waste bin, picked it up. When Alan handed in the case, received a yellow ticket and turned to leave, she hid behind the paper until the scruffy, unpolished shoes had climbed above her head and disappeared.
Brenda hurried after, determined not to lose him again. He didn’t go far. Just a few yards away, high above the crowd, was a pub and several eateries. She watched Alan climb the stairs then, knowing him to be safely contained at least for the next few minutes, relaxed for the first time since she had left the house.
Immediately she thought about her parents and how worried they would be at her sudden, wild departure. There were a few loose coins in her coat pocket and a bank of telephones close by. Brenda put in ten pence, rang home and just had time to gabble some sort of made-up story before she was cut off.
Then, cautiously, she made her way to the foot of the steps. She was standing next to some computer war games, one of which was being ferociously manipulated by a dark-skinned young man in a baggy T-shirt. He kept shouting “Yes!! Yes!!” and banging on the machine with his fist. Every few seconds he drank from a water bottle and pulled his T-shirt away from his skinny body, agitating it to let the air circulate, sweating in the heat of his vicarious battle.
Brenda crept slowly upwards. She wasn’t too afraid of meeting Alan coming down, reckoning that, as he was presumably visiting one of the watering holes, he would by now be safely sitting with a plate of something or, at the very least, a drink. Hesitantly she peered over the parapet.
The set-up was open plan. The frontage of a pub, Garfunkel’s café, a Häagen-Dazs, and Harry Ramsden’s fish and chip restaurant simply ran into each other, without dividing walls.
Brenda looked around the spread of tables in the icecream parlour. Some were black with matching chairs, others, speckled malachite, stood on one leg surrounded by camel-coloured plastic stools. There were lots of potted palms. Alan was at the counter buying a cup of coffee.
Concealed behind a large sign suggesting that customers requiring the Häagen-Dazs Table Service Queue Here, she watched him go into the dining area. He sat close to a huge black and white photograph of a lascivious couple radiant with gluttony. Even from where she stood Brenda could see they were licking each other’s lips, if not actually devouring each other’s tongues. She crossed over to the entrance of Harry Ramsden’s and pretended to read all about the good things they had to offer. When she looked over her shoulder, mere seconds later, Alan had gone.
Wildly now, not caring at all whether she was discovered or not, Brenda flew down the stairs in pursuit. At the bottom of the steps someone barred her way.
“Excuse me.” It was the boy from the war machines. “You got any change, love?”
“What?” Disorientated, she stared at him in bewilderment. “No. No, I haven’t.” She pushed him out of the way and stood staring crazily about her. Then ran back up the steps to get a better view. But it was hopeless. Just a massive, heaving swarm of unidentifiable people.
“What shall I do? Oh, what shall I do?”
Brenda did not realise she had spoken aloud. The boy from the war games machine started to laugh but she did not hear.
Was Alan going home? Should she run back to the car park and try to catch him there?
But surely, if he had checked in his luggage he would later need to reclaim it. In which case he must still be somewhere on the concourse. Unless . . . unless . . .
Brenda screwed up her tense, white face trying to come to a decision.
Behind her back someone else now stood beneath the gobbling, slobbering black and white lovers. Someone whose eyes were suddenly sharp with recognition. And not a little alarm.
Chapter Three
PC Perrot, savagely plucked from his natural habitat, sat uneasily in the reception office at Causton police station. Mulling over what he had heard of DCI Tom Barnaby, Perrot was not a happy man.
Fair, they said, but with a sharp edge to his tongue. Stood square behind his team but had been known to fall on it from a great height should its attention be wandering. Never backward in coming forward to claim credit—pretty common—he was also known for never passing the buck. Could be amiability itself but catch him on an off day and—here Perrot’s confidant had grinned and drawn his thumbnail graphically across his throat.
Of course, Perrot was presently telling himself while shifting uneasily on a hard wooden chair, a lot of this was probably hearsay. You had to allow for the temptation to exaggerate any macho tendencies. The inclination to admire, even revere, hard men was strong.
In his mind Perrot went over his report on Alan Hollingsworth in as much detail as he could recall. It had seemed to him as brief and as scrupulous as accuracy would allow and waffle-free, which is what he had been led to understand was required. He wondered now if perhaps he had overstepped the mark when summing up by suggesting that further investigation of the subject under inquiry was probably advisable. If he’d realised it was going to end up on the desk of some bigwig in the CID . . .
PC Perrot produced a snowy handkerchief, passed it over the droplets of moisture on his brow and tucked it away again. As he did so a fair-haired, very pretty police ser
geant put her head round the door. One look and she gave him the sort of smile usually seen on the faces of dental receptionists approaching intensely nervous patients.
“Constable Perrot?”
He followed her along a lengthy corridor past a series of gun-metal doors, all showing neatly typed cards slotted into metal frames, down some uncarpeted stone stairs, along another seemingly endless corridor then two right turns in quick succession. He thought, I’ll never get out of this alive.
“Someone will take you back.”
“Oh. Thank you.”
Just as he started to feel they must have walked at least twice round the entire building, they turned into a much shorter corridor with a glassed-in door at the end. Sergeant Brierley rapped on this. As they waited, she smiled at him again.
“You’ll be all right. He’s a pussycat.”
Constable Perrot was not consoled. There were pussycats and pussycats in his opinion. Tigers were pussycats. And lions.
From inside the room came a raucous sound. More of a bark than a roar but still not very pleasant. Sergeant Brierley opened the door.
“Constable Perrot, sir.”
The big man behind the desk was scanning something that Perrot recognised as his Open Text report, riffling through the pages—there now seemed to be an awful lot of them—and frowning.
In the corner of the room, perched on a wide windowsill, was a thin, youngish bloke. Pale and ferrety-faced. Red hair. A mean mouth.
The air was like warm soup. A large fan swirled it round in sluggish circles. Perrot was not asked to sit down. Eventually the DCI said, without looking up, “Ever thought of writing a novel, Constable?”
“Sir?”
“With your eye for detail and feeling for suspense you should make a fortune.”
Unsure whether this was an insult, a compliment or a joke, Perrot remained silent. He kept his gaze forward and slightly cast down, avoiding the eye of the younger officer who he had already decided would give a coldly unsympathetic reception to anything he might say or do.
Next to a stack of trays full of assorted paper on the big bloke’s desk, Perrot noticed a photograph in a silver frame of an attractive woman with curly hair, holding on her lap a little girl of quite remarkable beauty. Like a Pears advert, she was. Perrot, slightly comforted by this sign of domestic normalcy, kept it in his line of vision until one or the other of his superiors saw fit to break the silence.
“Why wasn’t this report marked urgent?”
“Well . . . I . . .”
“We’ve got a man here whose wife has disappeared. He refuses to answer the door until you threaten to break it down. You find him drunk and in an extremely unbalanced mental state. He lies to you about why she’s left, contradicts himself, refuses to give the name of a single friend or relative who might confirm her whereabouts. He can’t produce any note or communication from her. After looking around upstairs—the only moment, incidentally, when you seem to have displayed a single shred of intelligence, let alone initiative—you find Mrs. Hollingsworth has gone without taking any of her clothing or personal effects.” Barnaby broke off here and threw the stack of paper into a wire tray. “Would you say that was an accurate summary of what I’ve just ploughed through?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Cellar floors have been torn apart for less.”
“Sir.”
“I can’t think of a single officer in my nick who wouldn’t have had something like this,” Barnaby swiped the basket vigorously with the flat of his hand, “on a senior man’s desk within half an hour of completing it. And a good proportion of them would have brought Hollingsworth in for further questioning.”
Scarlet-faced with shame and humiliation, Constable Perrot hung on to his helmet and dropped his eyes to the carpet. He yearned for it to split apart and reveal gaping floorboards through which he could crawl away and die. The dreadful pause continued.
“Well, what’s done is done, I suppose. Tell me what you’ve found out since.”
“Pardon, sir?”
“This is dated Sunday. I presume you’ve had time since to make inquiries in the village? Did Mrs. Hollingsworth talk to anyone about going away? What did people think of her marriage? Does anyone know who this Blakeley you overheard her husband speaking to might be? How were the couple regarded? The usual stuff.” Barnaby paused for Perrot to reply. He stared at the policeman who still did not look up. His colour had deepened to a roguish violet and the perspiration pouring down his face and neck increased. He adjusted his helmet, leaving sweat marks on the navy blue nap.
“This beggars belief,” said the Chief Inspector. “Have you done anything, Perrot, anything at all, since you talked to Hollingsworth?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Let’s have it then.”
“And keep it short,” said the man on the windowsill. “Our annual leave starts next month.”
“I was concerned about Mr. Hollingsworth’s physical condition.” The policeman spoke in the manner of someone coerced into public address much against their will. “So I rang Dr. Jennings the local GP and suggested he call round. Which he did. But there was no reply.”
“Was Hollingsworth one of his patients?”
“Yes.” Here Perrot, feeling he was creating a sorry enough impression without cringing, braced himself, raised his head and looked directly into the fierce heat of the Chief Inspector’s regard. An unsmiling countenance. Fierce eyebrows like little black horsehair rugs. High colour. Eyes brown. Perrot had always thought brown eyes could never look anything but warm. Ah well, you live and learn. “Both Alan and his wife were registered but I think Dr. Jim had only actually met Simone.”
“Dr. Jim?” The red-haired man sniggered. “Jesus.”
“You’ve nothing else to add to this pathetic story?”
“No, sir.”
“You’ve been buried in the sticks too long, man. Right, I shall be at Fawcett Green within the next hour or so. Make sure you are as well.”
“Yes, sir.” Silently Perrot prayed that this would be the end of his ordeal. And vowed to make up for his foolish mishandling of matters so far. To be crisp, alert, observant. To show them that a country copper was not necessarily a dud copper.
“You certainly know how to play it by the book.” Barnaby nodded once more at the exuberantly detailed report and rose. Perrot gulped as he got the measure of the man. “But if you want to get anywhere in this business you’ll have to learn to play it by ear as well.”
Perrot, deeply contented where he was and with no ambition even to make sergeant, especially if it meant mixing with mean-lipped bastards with eyes like hailstones, mumbled, “Thank you very much, sir.”
“It was a reprimand, Perrot, not a compliment.”
The man on the windowsill burst out laughing then falsely pretended to disguise it as a cough.
“How long have you been in the force?”
“Thirteen years.”
“And your present posting?”
“Seven, sir.”
Yes, far too long, thought Barnaby. They got settled and over-comfortable staffing these rural outposts. A little sortie from time to time for a refresher course or an update on legal or ethnic matters then back under their security blanket. You couldn’t blame them. Their brief, after all, was to get really dug into the community. Frequently they got so well dug in that there was hell to pay when they were moved on. Especially if the locals had taken a shine. It was certainly about time they got this one shifted. Barnaby could imagine the style of policing employed by Perrot. Paternalistic, kind but firm. Caring—whatever that devalued word now meant. All well and good, but not if it left him incompetent to handle anything but the simplest of misdemeanours. The man appeared to be about as useful as a cat flap in a submarine.
Perrot read his senior officer’s mind and his heart turned over.
“Right, Perrot. You can go.”
“Sir.”
Somehow Perrot’s feet covered the carpet as f
ar as the door. The knob slipped in his sweaty fingers as he tried to turn it. The tighter he gripped it the more it slipped. He used his handkerchief. A hundred years passed before he found himself once more outside in the corridor. He stood for a moment braced to hear derisive chuckles from the room he had just left but there was only silence.
Troy was still enjoyably reflecting on Perrot’s interview as he drove Barnaby’s Rover Four Hundred swiftly along the A4020 towards Chalfont St. Peter, the windows wide open against the warm, pressing air. Nothing entertained him more than another’s discomfiture. It had been good, the chief’s crack about writing a novel. Troy only thought of smart remarks and snappy put-downs hours, sometimes days, after their natural insertion point into the dialogue had passed.
“He’s a throwback, if you like,” he said. “I bet that bloke on telly years ago was like Perrot. Apparently he’d pat the villains on the head, give them a stern talking to and a lollipop to make it better. My nan’s for ever on about it.”
“Dixon of Dock Green.”
“That’s him. A right anachronism.”
Every now and again Troy, who was always coming across words he didn’t understand, took the trouble to look them up in his daughter’s dictionary. Once aware of the meaning, he would flaunt them till he got bored or until the next enigma turned up. Last month it had been cognisance. Before that, pachyderm.
Barnaby rolled an ice-cold can of Orange Fanta, snatched from the Automat just before leaving, against his cheeks, hoping to cool them down.
“I trust you know where you’re going.”
“Roughly. It’s not far from Compton Dando.”
“Never heard of it.”
“Course you have,” said Sergeant Troy. “That manor house full of New Age weirdoes. Where the old geezer in the long nightie got stabbed.”
“Oh. Yes.”
“I’d go mad living out here.” Troy looked out of the open window and down his nose. It was a pale, narrow nose. Jutting out only slightly, it descended in an elegant straight line, like the nosepiece on a Roman helmet. “I mean, look at that.”
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