He threw his head back and laughed. I had to join in. At last, he wiped his streaming eyes and asked, ‘You’re sure about these dogs, then?’
‘No. But we can case the joint.’
‘And not take any risks.’
‘Sid, if you’d rather, we can wait until you’ve got a search warrant, I’s dotted and T’s crossed. I just sense you found today a bit of a waste of time.’
He looked guilty. ‘Thing is, Lucy, I ought to wait for a warrant. I’m supposed to be a cross between undercover and doing obbo, not to mention a spot of protection. So I really shouldn’t be in there. Not unless I have a really good excuse.’
‘In that case,’ I said, ‘do you want to keep an eye on things while I have a hunt? – so long as you tell me what I’m supposed to be hunting for.’
Chapter Sixteen
Sid was tempted, there was no doubt about that.
‘That’s one reason why I changed my appearance,’ I pointed out. ‘Van der Poele had already caught me taking an interest in the house and I thought if I turned up as someone else I could carry on working here and have a sniff round if necessary. I don’t usually look like the raddled oldest inhabitant of some inner-city whorehouse,’ I added brutally.
‘I never said you did. But it’s risky, see, now we’re not working – and I’m supposed to be keeping an eye on you, not you keeping an eye open for me.’ Why was he backtracking as fast as he could? ‘I’m supposed to get you back to that posh hotel of yours, too, all in one piece. Plus your shopping, of course,’ he added. ‘You’ve done well today, haven’t you?’
‘How do you mean?’ I kept my voice flat as the Marsh.
‘Buying all this stuff. Pay-rolled by this posh geyser.’
Ah. A none-too-subtle allusion to my past. But I’d keep cool. ‘And his wife. My legal adviser.’
He looked taken aback. Good.
‘Who have made me a loan.’ I stressed the last word slightly. ‘I need essentials, since the police haven’t got round to getting my own gear back. In fact,’ I said, suddenly tiring of the game, ‘why don’t we go and see what’s happening in my Des. Res. right now? Turn left at the end of the road here. No, hang on.’ I grabbed a couple of bags and opened the passenger door. ‘I’m going behind that hedge and no peeping.’
So when we turned up at Fullers, in my clean jeans and T-shirt and lurking under sunhat and sunglasses, I wasn’t recognisable as anyone in particular. Moffatt and his men had done a good job publicising the poor caravan’s demise: there were still a couple of TV vans and several bored looking reporters currently flaking out in the shade of handy trees. I had half a mind to join the reporters and ask a few questions, and was even tempted to duck under the police tape, but rejected both ideas as silly – I wanted to see, not be seen. I nudged Sid, now also stripped down to jeans and T-shirt, into action. ‘Go on, just sidle over to that bunch there and ask what’s been going on. Go on – just think of it as a bit of detective work, but stay in role.’
‘In wha’?’
It took me a second to realise he was sending me up. He winked and set off, rolling his bulk in an exaggerated waddle.
Of course, as we both knew, we could have simply phoned whoever was really working on this case. The question was, who. Last night Moffatt might have been a kind old geyser enjoying playing Santa Claus to a poor vulnerable girl, but by day he’d be sitting at a desk delegating like mad. As for Taz, he was now back in London doing whatever young constables do. I blushed. I’d never even asked him about his real work, as opposed to the Saturday job I’d wished upon him. A few years ago and I’d have hung upon his every word, as he described to me the horrendous pressures of his job – oh, he’d always changed the names in his case-load, in the interests of confidentiality. Come to think of it, I wonder how many fellow-clients he’d told about his whore with a heart of whatever. Funny, such a thought wouldn’t even have entered my head a week ago.
Broiling in the utility. cab, I wondered how much Sid really knew about the set-up. I was sure he’d have a contact number for emergencies, but he hadn’t been awash with information, had he?
He came toddling back. He really was a small-framed man – yes, lanky, but light with it – who’d put on a huge amount of weight. When I knew him better, I’d talk to him about a diet. I reckon I’d saved several punters’ lives in my day, pointing out the only exercise they ever seemed to get was with me and that I preferred them not to smell of beer and chips. Blood pressure, too – I succeeded in getting one chap off salt when he’d simply ignored the doctor’s threats. Well, it brings it home to a man, the thought of an undertaker collecting him from a bed other than his wife’s. They never pointed out that they’d not be alive to feel embarrassed – perhaps they’d hoped I’d break my rule about mouth contact and give the kiss of life. And maybe I’d massage their hearts, having experience with other apparently lifeless organs.
‘Well, well,’ he said. ‘It seems the poor young lady staying at the caravan is currently fighting for her life in the William Harvey Hospital. Under police guard, of course.’
‘Is she expected to live?’
He shook his head sadly. ‘Terrible facial injuries. If she lives, there’ll be years of plastic surgery ahead of her.’
‘Poor girl. Any idea how it happened?’ The well-placed police vans meant you couldn’t see either the front of Fullers or the caravan itself.
‘There’s talk of a Calor-gas explosion. But no one seems to believe that.’
‘You couldn’t use a bit of your influence and go and look at the house?’
‘You’re off your head, girl. How can a painter get beyond the lines? Hey, you’re really upset, aren’t you? Tell you what, in that outfit you could always claim to be the deceased’s sister, casting her beadies over the scene of death. Nothing odd in that, these days – they even fly relatives to where aircraft have crashed, though I must say it seems dead ghoulish to me.’
Although I’d be unrecognisable, I didn’t think the press’d buy the idea of a grieving relative emerging from a decorator’s ute., so I said, ‘Perhaps we’d better wait till she’s properly dead. OK, time for an early bath, I’d say.’
Sid was backing the van to turn into a gateway when he was tooted loudly, indeed offensively.
‘Effin’ Volvos,’ Sid muttered, offering a small selection of fingers for the driver to count.
‘Just get the hell out of here,’ I muttered. ‘I know you’d like to dot him, but I’d rather you didn’t.’
Obligingly, Sid simply pulled on to the road and drove back towards the hotel. To any onlooker, I was too engrossed in the crime scene to turn my head.
‘Find a lane and pull into it,’ I said, ‘and phone Moffatt or whoever. The bloke who tooted was Clive Granville.’
‘Not a big-time player like him in an effin’ Volvo!’
‘It isn’t just you and me who can go down to the woods in disguise,’ I said. ‘Pull over there and dial while I can still remember the registration number.’
He obliged. I’d have loved to hear the reaction of the person on the other end.
I don’t know what I expected at the hotel. Some sort of welcome committee from the police updating me? I checked with the receptionist when I picked up my key that there were no messages. Nor was there anything on my room’s answerphone. Hmm. Nothing to do except have that early bath, then. As I stripped I slapped my head in anger. I never take a bath without the company of a good book, and I hadn’t had the nous to buy one in Folkestone. Paula wouldn’t really have begrudged me the extra five minutes it would have taken. True, she and the others wouldn’t have demanded to see the contents of a book bag, but a good paperback would have been a better investment than any of the clothes. Well, as good. Slinging that fluffy robe on, I watched a bit of early evening TV, flicking between channels till I found an item on ‘my’ explosion. The footage was pretty poor – just a few hot, sweaty policemen and a load of tape. Would that have been enough to convince Granville th
at he’d got me? That he could lay off and return to his usual occupations of kinky sex and money-making? Certainly the newsreader did his bit, eyes downcast and voice as sombre as if he were commentating on the Queen Ma’s funeral. It was all I could do not to dab away a sympathetic tear.
After the news, it dawned on me that I ought to eat. Maybe a swim first? That was a good idea. A swim, then the early bath. And bother the poor old hair.
But what about a book?
I managed a further dozen or so lengths, then hopped into the Jacuzzi for a few minutes. The subterranean gurglings weren’t all plumbing induced, however. My tum was joining in. I’d have to eat. On my own. In the posh dining room.
I put the process off as long as possible by showering and washing and drying my hair, now the texture of a politically incorrect golly I dimly remembered from my childhood. I even toyed with a meal from room service, but I dismissed that as cowardice. In any case, there was nothing on TV and no book to read as I ate.
Hair apart, I was chic enough as I presented myself in the bar where Moffatt had entertained us last night. When no waiters leapt to my side, I simply bought a drink at the bar. I’d done that time enough in the past, goodness knows. This time I didn’t scan the bar for the potential client, and I asked for it to be charged to my room. Kent Constabulary could surely afford a chilled white wine. Keeping my eyes demurely lowered, I retired to a table by the open window and sat studying the menu as if I was to be tested on it at the end of the evening. At longish last, a waitress sauntered over to take my order. Her body language told me where a woman on her own with no executive briefcase to fiddle with would find herself sitting – in a corner by the service table. My mouth demanded a table on the terrace. She opened hers to tell me that they were all booked, but perhaps she caught something of the steel in my eyes.
So I ate overlooking the golf course, my back to my fellow diners. Logic told me I should be facing the room with my back to a wall, as one or two of my police clients told me they preferred. But I couldn’t face an hour of avoiding eye-contact with people. And the view over that neat grass in the evening light was pleasant enough.
For company I’d brought the notepad and pencil I’d used earlier. A list for the following day was headed by the simple word book. In fact, that was the list. Bored, I turned to what I’d written the previous night. Information. Why had that word stuck? What information had I given? And to whom? The smoked trout and avocado didn’t give me any clues, nor did the herbed chicken. But as I debated the merits of a sweet or coffee, something seemed to fall into place. I must have said something to Sergeant Marsh that had triggered his interest. When had he got up? What was the precise moment he’d said he’d talk to his colleagues?
When I’d said we did jobs of all sizes, one day a pensioner’s bungalow, the next – yes, I’d said we hoped to get the contract to restore the interior of Fullers. Fullers on the Isle of Oxney. It was at that point he’d bolted.
It was back to Fullers I had to go, then.
But how?
Now I came to think about it, it was something I’d rather do without any police assistance. Telling myself I was simply going for a walk in the evening sun, I mooched round to the part of the hotel guests don’t normally see. The bins. The bottle bank. The staff going to and fro. To, in this case, involved a kid on a pushbike, hot and bothered and obviously late for his shift.
‘Hi. My name’s Lucy. Could I borrow your cycle? Just for an hour or two? It’ll be back here when you need it.’
He snorted. ‘Gives you a bit of time then – I’m on till two. Twenty quid. Mal.’ He shoved out a hand. I couldn’t blame him: he was probably earning even less than I was.
‘I’m borrowing it, not bloody buying it! Fiver.’
We settled for one of the Daweses’ tenners.
Fortunately for me the hotel lay to the west of the Isle, so I had a long gentle upwards slope to deal with, not the steep one I’d run up the other day. All the same, for someone not used to a bike – it was true, thank God, you didn’t forget how to ride one – it was bloody hard work, and at last I had to get off and push. It wasn’t as if I was in any hurry.
There were still a couple of cops there, trying to look as if they were doing something meaningful, not just having a smoke and basking in the sun’s last rays. I flipped a mental coin: to talk to them or keep mum? In the event it was no contest. They couldn’t have been as dozy as they looked, because one clocked me, despite my quiet arrival. He beckoned me over, unsmiling.
Good job I’d got a story ready. ‘I’m a friend of Caffy’s,’ I said. ‘They won’t let me see her yet, and I just wanted to see – you know, where she’d been …’ My voice quivered.
‘I’m not sure the SOCO team have finished yet.’
I might have known he’d be a jobsworth, though he was a bit young for that sort of attitude – twenty-five or -six, maybe, and scrawny with it. His hair was thinning already.
‘I wouldn’t touch or anything. The name’s Lucy Taylor.’ I gave my old address.
The older guy shrugged. ‘Why not, so long as you wear these?’ He ferreted in his back pocket and produced a pair of overshoes. ‘You’ll have to take her, mate.’ So he could return to the fag half-concealed behind his back, no doubt.
‘Have you known this Caffy woman long?’ the young cop asked. Marks for knowing the background, at least.
‘Years. On and off. I was telling one of your mates. Sid, I think his name is. Big bloke, drinks a lot of beer I should think.’
The young man shrugged.
‘If I’m Lucy, what’s your name?’ I did a bit of hip-swinging, just to encourage him. It was awful how familiar the routine remained, though I hadn’t practised for years. Perhaps I should have used it on Taz, after all.
He responded with a swagger of his bony shoulders and narrow hips. Bingo. ‘Simon. Simon Wallace. You won’t touch anything, will you?’ The way he was standing he might have meant the direct opposite.
‘Cross my heart,’ I promised, doing just that.
He registered breasts even I had always thought quite good.
We turned the corner and suddenly I didn’t feel so perky. The side of the caravan had been blown off, breaking some of Fullers’ windows. They’d been boarded over. Despite myself, I gasped and covered my mouth, turning away instinctively. Wrong. I turned towards the caravan, not away from it, as I’m sure I’d have done if I really was imagining a friend’s suffering. But Simon didn’t seem to notice.
‘Must have been a nice place before. We have to make sure it isn’t looted, of course,’ he said proudly, nodding at the caravan.
‘Anything left in one piece?’
‘Not a lot. Still, they’re stinking rich and there’s always the insurance.’
‘What about the house?’ I wasn’t much good at this, was I?
Simon shrugged. ‘Needed a lot doing before – just needs a bit more now. Fancy taking on a dump like that.’
‘Caffy said it was nice inside,’ I said wistfully. ‘I suppose I couldn’t …’ But the team who’d boarded up were used to people like me, and there wasn’t a single crack I could press an eye to. I shook my head regretfully and turned to go. I knew the lie of the land, now, and there wasn’t much point in hanging round. After all, if the house were being used for people smuggling or whatever, then all the fuss on the TV would make sure it wasn’t used again, at least while there was a police presence. Unless Marsh put his cronies on guard, cutting them in on the deal. Now that was worth thinking about. Meanwhile, if I went quietly this first evening, maybe I’d get friendly with young Simon and wheedle him into letting me into the house. Something else had occurred to me: if my sleeping quarters were almost undetectable, then I’d bet my teeth that there were other hidden places. Priest holes, cellars for smugglers and their booty. There’d be something, wouldn’t there? And if anyone could find it it’d be people like Paula and me. The only question was whether we should come back illicitly, as in my original pla
n, or be open about it to Sid. I’d give it thought as I headed back to the hotel. At least it was almost all downhill.
I hitched myself on to the bike.
‘Oi, Lucy Whateveryournameis, where d’you think you’re off to?’ Simon’s mate yelled.
I nearly fell off. ‘Back home,’ I said inaccurately.
‘Not on that bike, you’re not. No lights. And it’ll be pitch dark before you get back to Ashford.’
‘Cycle lanes,’ I said with more hope than confidence.
‘Still need lights. Don’t she, Simon?’
‘Absolutely.’
‘I shall have to push the bloody thing,’ I said.
‘I’m sure young Simon’d be happy to give you a lift, soon as we finish here. Tennish, that’ll be.’ He jerked a thumb at the police car.
‘I suppose you can’t leave till someone else takes over,’ I said, all winsome.
‘That’s right.’
‘Well, bollocks to that.’ But I only said it in my head. And I did what I’d seen kids do, dab a foot on a pedal, shove off, and swing the spare leg across the crossbar while on the move. I couldn’t quite manage the leg bit, not without risking intimate acquaintance with a healthy bank of nettles, but I managed a damned fine scoot. It wasn’t until the men were beyond earshot that I stopped, pulled under a tree and got on properly. Good job I did, actually. A police car swished past me, right down the road I’d been heading for. I found what claimed to be a bridlepath going roughly the same way. Roughly indeed. It was so rutted my teeth were nearly shaken out of my head. But I stuck it out. And, at last having picked up a proper tarmaced road, I had time to wonder exactly why they’d been so keen to bring an errant cyclist to book that they’d abandoned an important crime scene. Pity I was simply too knackered to cycle all the way back up again and take advantage of their absence to let myself into Fullers. No, not to hunt for priest holes. To rescue a book.
Scar Tissue Page 16
