Normal (10 page)

“Poor Tony. Oh, well,
easy come, easy go
.”

“Well played.” I could have watched her laugh all night, but, “Lock the door.” I slammed it shut, and was alone in the darkness. The fog had settled and thickened, an impenetrable wall circling not twenty feet away. The air was heavy, damp, silent but for the sharp echo of my footsteps; they followed me as I walked to the back of the van, squinting into the mist for any sign of movement, my ears alert to the cracking of twigs, the rustling of leaves. I stood for a moment, my back to the doors, willing the creatures of the night to betray their presence. But there was nothing. Satisfied that I was alone, I turned and unlatched the door.

The bad news was that two of my load hooks had snapped, and the load was no longer secure.

The good news: Tony was nowhere in sight, and the blonde was out like a light.

“That was a lot of clunking around!” Rachel scooted over from unlocking my door. “Find any fare-dodging crooners back there?”

“Sadly, no. Just an upside-down toolbox.”

“Shame. We could’ve had a
moonlight serenade
.” She peered out at the gray blanket enveloping the van. “If there was any moonlight.”

“I could sing, of course, but historically it hasn’t been pretty.”

She smiled and returned to her restful pose against the window. “In that case,” she said, “let’s go home. We can dance naked through the trees another time.”

“I definitely want to do that.” I smiled, making a mental note to clear my schedule as I steered the van back onto the road and left the blonde to sleep off the lesser of two evils behind a holly bush.

CHAPTER
FIFTEEN

Sunday dawned with the fairy-tale splendor of a child’s painting; a ragged patchwork of red and pink and orange blazed across an endless blue-black sky dotted with shimmering stars and cotton-wool clouds. I watched the sun rise over the trees; listened to the distant call of a cuckoo as I sat in the garden with my tea, breathing the sweet scent of honeysuckle and remembering Rachel’s good-night.

I’d stopped in front of her building, and she’d invited me inside. I’d fought my temptation and declined, albeit unable to hide my immediate regret. She’d smiled happily to herself as though I’d passed some unwritten test. She’d expressed her wish to see me again soon. And then she’d slid across the seat, squeezed my hand and kissed me softly on the cheek. The feeling of warmth was unprecedented and exhilarating, and I wanted it again, and again, and again and again and again, and was this what all those songs were talking about?

The sun burned away the clouds as it rose, painting the sky a glorious Wedgwood blue and warming my skin as I rolled the Jensen out of the garage and commenced battle with its new wiring loom, whistling while I worked and generally marveling at the beginnings of a perfectly beautiful day.

I should have guessed, then, that at eleven o’clock, Detective Sergeant Green would show up and ruin it.

“What a rare pleasure,” I said with a welcoming smile as she stepped from the backseat of the BMW before it had come to a full stop. The cheap suit was gone, in its place a more reassuringly casual ensemble. Her top was tastefully cut, but willing to ride up an inch or two as she slammed the door behind her. Her jeans sat on shallow hips and ended several inches above her sneakers. Contrary to my earlier assessment, she had ankles. “We must stop meeting like this,” I said. “Familiarity breeds contempt, or so they say.”

“Hence DI Fairey’s staying in the car,” she said.

The privacy glass at the rear of the BMW rendered Fairey little more than a silhouette, but I could see enough to know that he was honoring me with a single-fingered salute as I peered in at him.

“I take it you’ve got a minute?” she added, redundantly.

“For you, always.” I gritted my teeth. “Who have I murdered this time?”

She turned to the car and smiled thinly at the pair of tailored suits emerging from the front seats. “This is Detective Chief Inspector Lowry,” she said, indicating the shorter of the two men. Fortysomething, hadn’t shaved in a week, slight trace of a limp. Weathered face with what I guessed was a permanent expression of impatience. “And Detective Sergeant Diaz.” Mid-thirties, well-groomed and filled his suit better. Walked with a slight bow to his legs, probably from riding a large motorcycle. He didn’t look like the horsey type. Nor remotely Portuguese, for that matter. “Major Investigation Team,” she concluded.

Fuck.
Funny word, that. So gloriously versatile, and yet so meaningless as a result. I distinctly remember my father, on slicing through his thumb with a bandsaw, proudly honoring the word by using almost every variation in a single outburst. “Oh, fuck me!” he exclaimed. “Shirley, get me a fucking bandage! Shirley? For fuck’s sake, where the fucking fuck... Well, find the fuckers! I don’t give a fuck what you’re doing—look at my thumb, I’ve fucked it right up! Owww,
fuck it
!”

Anyway, “Very pleased to meet you,” I lied, politely. Lowry took my extended hand and shook it more energetically than his demeanor might have led me to expect. “Likewise,” he said, throat full of gravel, accent distinctly Home Counties.

Diaz’s shake was tauter, more powerful. “Morning.” He smiled, revealing a missing incisor and nothing about his genealogy.

“Do you know why we’re here?” Lowry asked, presumably hoping I might save him some time and confess.

“I’m afraid I don’t,” I replied, giving them each my best attempt at hope-I-can-help bemusement. “What can I do for you?”

Lowry, expressionless, flipped a glossy seven-by-five print from his jacket pocket and angled it in front of me. Shapeless black blazer, forced smile, blue velour drape. School portrait. “We’re investigating the disappearance—” it was an altogether different feeling, almost reassuring, knowing where the sentence was going this time, even if forewarned did not necessarily equal forearmed “—of Erica Shaw and Sarah Abbott—” a second photo slid out from behind the first, with all the pizzazz of a cheap card trick “—both of whom have been missing since February.”

This was awkward. Green certainly knew the identity of the half-dressed urchin she’d encountered yesterday; indeed, she took a peek at the picture and then, just to emphasize my predicament, nodded to Lowry and in turn to me with an almost playful explain-that smile. Denial, therefore, was not an option, unless I wanted to spend the remainder of the morning in the back of an unmarked car, waiting for the rest of the force to come and dig up the garden.

The other option, facilitated by the revolver hidden in my waistband, was to take more affirmative action and do the digging elsewhere. Which would lead, inevitably, to a similar conclusion.

After a moment’s deliberation, I chose the third: don’t try to hide the recognition; display slow-dawning confusion; express innocent alarm. “Missing?” I whimpered, perhaps overplaying the meekness a little since it raised one of Green’s eyebrows quite noticeably.

“Do you recognize either of those girls?” she asked.

“Well, obviously,” I replied, pointing to Erica’s portrait. “Else you wouldn’t be asking. What did you say her name was?”

Green rolled her eyes and quietly shook her head, seemingly having heard this one before.

“Shaw,” said Lowry. “Erica Shaw.”

“She told me it was Mary,” I muttered. “I suppose you’re going to tell me she’s fifteen, as well?”

The chief snapped the photos back into his pocket with a flourish. “She’s not fifteen.” He smiled. “But apparently she
is
alive and well, which makes it all the more imperative that we talk to her. Is she here?”

I took
here
to mean
here among us in the driveway
, so there was a valuable ring of truth to my “No, I’m afraid she’s not.”

“How well do you know her?” Diaz. West Country, maybe?

“She told me her name was Mary,” I repeated.

Green bowed her head to hide a wry grin.

Diaz tried again. “How
long
have you known her?”

I forced my eyes top-left and my hands by my sides and did some quick mental arithmetic. “About thirty-seven hours,” I guessed.

Green was the only one whose lips didn’t move when she counted. She was also the first to arrive at the answer, but she kept quiet and let Lowry work it out for himself.

“Nine o’clock, Friday evening,” he deduced. Give the man a lollipop. “And, what, you met socially, or...?”

Yes, socially sounds good. Feel free to prompt me all you like. “I met her in Murphy’s,” where the students pass through three hundred at a time, no one stays for more than one drink and all the girls look exactly the same. Because no one’s looking at their faces. “Two bottles of wine and I’m anybody’s. Dark bar, short skirt...you know what it’s like.”

Lowry’s hands wandered to meet front and center, fingers furtively turning his wedding ring as he blankly shook his head.

Green chewed her lip introspectively.

Diaz nodded. “So she stayed here Friday night, and then what?”

“And then I took her to the bus station, and she went home.”

“Home being...?”

“...where she lives,” I confirmed. “A dwelling of some kind. A house, maybe, or a flat.” All three fixed me with an impatient stare. “I don’t know,” I said. “In the city somewhere.”

“Okay.” Lowry nodded. “When are you seeing her again? Maybe you’ve got a number for her?”

“No, apparently if I can’t call her, I can’t call her at the wrong time. Which is another way of saying I’m a disappointment when sober.”

“Convenient.”

“Yes, for her.” I might just get away with this.

Might.

Lowry looked up at the house, across to the barn, behind him to the garage. “So, like you said, no reason to assume she’s here right now...”

I laughed. “I’m not keeping her chained up in the basement, if that’s what you mean.”

Green glanced round at the house, narrowed her eyes. “Basement?” she mused.

“I don’t have one,” I said. “You’re welcome to have a look around, though,” I suggested, urgently mentally ransacking the place to make sure I meant it. “I’m sure DS Green has some curiosity she’d like to satisfy, too. Perhaps she could, um...kill two birds...?”

She studied my face, swallowing a game smile.

“Trust me,” I said, none too subliminally, “I really don’t mind. My house is your house. Door’s open. The garage opener and the van keys are on the hook in the hallway. Beer in the fridge. Knock yourselves out.”

Green and Diaz stood in silence for a moment, eyes boring tunnels into me as Lowry nodded in pensive approval. Finally, the inspector turned to his sergeant and commanded, “Come on, Eli. Get that twat out of the car and let’s get this over and done with.”

I wished I could share his optimism.

* * *

“I’d like to apologize again for DI Fairey’s behavior yesterday,” said Green, returning to her scrutiny of my face once the murder detectives were out of earshot. “I just hope you’re not one to hold a grudge, because those guys need all the help they can get, and I’d hate to think we’d shot ourselves in the foot where Sarah Abbot’s concerned. This isn’t a trivial matter.”

“I agree entirely,” I assured her.

“Then why,” she asked matter-of-factly, folding her arms across her chest and leaning casually against the car, “did you just string us a line of utter bullshit?”

She had a strong poker face, I’ll give her that. I erred on the side of caution and gave a simple, “What do you mean?”

“Oh, come on,” she groaned. “Bit of a coincidence, isn’t it? Girl goes missing for two months, presumed murdered, and I just happen to find her in your house, where I’m questioning you about—what was it?” She propped her chin in mock deliberation. “Oh, yeah. Kerry Farrow, missing, presumed murdered.”

“Hey, that’s not fair,” I reminded her. “You said yourself that prostitute business was a stitch-up.”

“No, I bloody didn’t!” she gasped. “A product of unreliable information, maybe, but we don’t just pluck names out of a hat. I’m not
that
fond of paperwork! You know—” she waggled a correctional finger “—I’m a lot more straightforward than you give me credit for. Protect the innocent, serve the public trust, uphold the law. Like Robocop, only less...metally.”

“Isn’t that what you all say?” I laughed.

“Probably,” she replied. “But whatever, now we know she’s alive, Erica’s got some serious questions to answer, not least of which is how often she goes out drinking with a dressing gown and curling tongs.”

Oh, shit. Since even I hadn’t believed a word I’d said, I’d fully expected her to find a hole in the plot. This was a chasm, though, and she filled it with a glare to wither a charging bull.

“And,” she continued, “I’m sure if you think those questions through, you’ll see sense and help us out, because hiding her makes you complicit either in something she did or something she knows, and whichever it is, it’s going to land you in a whole heap of shit. I know you know more than you’re saying, and I know you don’t want to cause yourself any unnecessary problems, so you’d better start playing along before anyone gets the wrong idea about you. Or before you get yourself hurt.”

I gave her a purse-lipped nod I hoped was compliant but nonconfessional. “Of course.” I smiled. “I’ll help you in any way I can.”

Green didn’t reply. Her stern expression didn’t falter. She stood stone still, her eyes fixed on mine, and I was dimly aware that she was waiting me out. It took me a good ten seconds to catch up.

“Wait,” I said, and when she took a breath I realized she hadn’t been doing that, either. “What do you mean,
get myself hurt
?” No reply. “
Something she did?
Are you telling me you think she killed her friend?”

Green gave me a tight shake of the head and said, “I’m not telling you any such thing.” She glanced over her shoulder, satisfied herself that we were alone. “I
am
telling you,” she told me, “that not being convicted of stabbing your stepfather with a pair of scissors isn’t the same thing as not having done it.”

I was getting used to the stomach flip of doom by now, but the brain freeze was a new one on me. “I’m...” I’m...I’m what, surprised? Really? “I’m sorry,” I stuttered, “she did what?”

“Right in the arse, just after he broke her mum’s nose. A temporary derangement of the mind, the witch doctor said.” She shrugged. “Far be it from me to second-guess him, but I think it’s only right that you know.”
Just enough rope to hang yourself.
“I’ve only got your best interests at heart,” she said, smiling unconvincingly.

I blew out a cartoonish sigh of relief. “Right,” I said, without any hint of sarcasm whatsoever. “So you really are the good cop, then.”

She gave a cynical half laugh and offered me a Lucky Strike. “Shades of gray, big man,” she said. “Shades of gray.”