The Chinese Takeout (15 page)

‘Oh, Josie! I’d no idea it could be so exhilarating! It’s wonderful! I never want it to stop!’ Unfortunately Andy was yelling all this into his mike, not my ear.

But I mustn’t let him disturb my concentration. For flying I was, if not – in the event – solo. Flying literally, too.

‘Josie, why have I never tried this before? It’s so beautiful! Wow!’

I started to laugh. With pleasure, as much as anything. And at myself, too.

‘Oh, Josie, thank you, thank you!’

‘Don’t mention it.’

‘Look at it: all spread out like a living map,’ he continued.

Wet blanket I might be, but eventually I had to point downwards. We weren’t flying for fun, not really, but to do the sort of thing I’d rather hoped the police might have done: to scan for buildings, outhouses, whatever, where people might slaughter or process chickens. My job was to fly the
helicopter: Andy’s was to photograph possible sites and record them on the map.

So far, it had to be said, we’d had little success. I might be a qualified pilot, but I was relatively inexperienced, and I was far too respectful of the machine to risk violating any of the flying height regulations. Besides which, as I’d told Andy, we didn’t want to draw attention to ourselves. That was why he had my biggest and best telephoto lens to shoot through. I just hoped I could trust him with it.

‘There! Down there!’ I shouted.

‘It looks more like a scrap metal yard, with those tarpaulins covering spare parts.’

‘Make a note anyway,’ I said, as I had on several other occasions. ‘It’s time we headed back.’ I only hired this thing by the hour, and even that cost an arm and a leg.

‘And there! Yes, there!’

Possibly.

I returned us neatly to Exeter Airport, with Andy still as joyous as a kid. I let him stand me a cup of tea, and together we peered at the circles he’d scrawled on the maps.

He pointed. ‘What about this one?’

‘It looked too well organised and public to be anything other than legitimate. I’d bet a weekend’s takings it was a bona fide battery farm.’

‘But then, how many times does a genuine business front a dodgy one?’ He flushed crimson. ‘I mean – I do apologise!’

‘For implying that the White Hart’s an extension of Tony’s empire? So you should. The cleanliness of my books shocks my accountant.’

His voice sounded hopeful to the point of pleading. ‘So you never profited from your late husband’s criminal activities?’

Was he mad? ‘Of course I did! How do you think I survived all those years when Tony was in the nick? He wouldn’t let me work, objected to my thinking of studying formally—’

‘Despite the books you shared?’

‘Possibly because of them. I was much younger than he. He thought I’d get shacked up with hairy students and forget about him. Just to make sure, if I started getting close to anyone, anyone at all, he’d get them warned off. And I must never ask where my weekly allowance was coming from.’ Was it Andy’s fault he’d caught me on the raw? I controlled my voice, continuing more reflectively, ‘To all intents and purposes I was just a con’s wife, living on benefit in a not very nice council estate in Birmingham. He made sure I had just enough money for a few extras without attracting anyone’s attention. And by anyone I mean the police, the taxman, the nosy neighbours on whom I depended for support and friendship and a set of in-laws that would have given Lucretia Borgia the willies.’

His efforts to pour tea from the empty pot were probably just to give himself time to frame the next
question as inoffensively as possible. ‘So all your income now derives from the White Hart?’

‘No. And if that’s a problem, you’d better take a taxi back.’ Getting to my feet, I flipped a
twenty-pound
note on his plate. I’d gone from confiding to incandescent in one breath.

He left it there but stood to meet me eyeball to eyeball. ‘It depends what you do with the rest.’

I held his gaze. ‘That’s between my conscience and me, Andy. One day you may find out. But you don’t tell a single soul. Understand?’ I jabbed towards his chest.

To my amazement a slight smile flitted across his face, not eliminating his fury but irretrievably softening it. Pompous ass or frail human? He opted for the latter, succumbing at last to a laugh. ‘Tim warned me you were formidable.’ His face softened still more. ‘He was very fond of you, you know. And very grateful for the pavilion. He loved his cricket.’

‘They say it’s like human chess,’ I said, falling into step with him after I’d picked up the note, which, to make some point, though I wasn’t sure which, I popped into a charity box. ‘But it’s never grabbed me. It’s quite sexy when they play in white, but those garish pyjamas leave me cold.’

‘So you prefer football?’

‘Not since someone tried to explain the offside rule to me. And rugby’s a closed book. I’m not a team player, that’s the answer.’ I irritated the
automatic doors by standing still. ‘Andy, you may have found out about my donations, but I’ll thank you to keep your mouth shut. The villagers would only see it as trying to buy my way into their affections.’

‘Is that the only reason?’ He set us in motion again: the doors closed behind us with a sigh. ‘It isn’t, is it?’

It’s so hard to have an argument when you can’t stand still.

‘Oh, surely you’ve heard the advice,
Do good by stealth
,’ I said, deciding to end the discussion by setting off at my briskest towards the car park. I should have remembered that it was my briskest minus quite a lot for bruises. He easily fell into step with me and seemed about to pursue the matter further. I’d better sidestep him.

‘What else did Tim tell you about me?’

He produced a reminiscent smile. ‘He said he thanked God you were on his side, because he’d hate you as an enemy. You’d be implacable, he said.’

‘Sounds OK to me.’

‘Not forgiving?’

‘Depends on who’s done what to whom, doesn’t it? I can forgive on my own behalf, but not on others’. That’s why I can tolerate Corbishley being rude to me, but if he’s in any way connected with those lads’ deaths I’ll hound him till one of us drops.’

‘Why Corbishley? I can see you might have a personal grudge against him – who wouldn’t, in your position?’ He swallowed whatever he’d meant to say.

‘Whichever position that happens to be,’ I agreed, affably enough to make him blush.

‘But I get the feeling you think he’s somehow connected with the – the outrage.’

I zapped the Saab’s central locking and we both got in. ‘Everyone tells me he’s got fingers in a lot of pies. Don’t you think I’m qualified to say that that sounds suspicious? And when I tried to find out how he’d made his loot he clammed – even more than I do!’ Would a grin help?

‘Tim thought he was a God-fearing man.’

‘Who obviously hadn’t been listening to Tim’s sermon about the Good Samaritan. Not that I had, mind you. Tim’s sermons weren’t great, poor kid. There were times I wanted to say to him, “Tell me what you want to say and give me half an hour and I’ll knock up a decent piece for you.” All those college essays,’ I added by way of explanation or apology. ‘Now, I know Corbishley put time and money into the church, lots of both. But isn’t there some argument about faith or good works? Why don’t you talk to him again? You’ve got the excuse of the funerals, which never really got resolved. Malins, too. Just a quiet ordinary civil servant, I hear. But very quickly promoted in the hierarchy here. A decent man, then. Maybe.’ I
hadn’t meant the last word to sound quite so doubting, but I couldn’t rewind it now.

‘I meant to involve them anyway, but thank you for a timely reminder,’ he said, stiffly enough to knock about a week off our acquaintance.

Having no idea why he’d put his formal hat on again – or maybe I mean dog-collar, since he’d been notably open-necked on our flight – I started the car and turned for the M5, a nasty enough road in its way, but nothing like as grim as the A30 or its friend the A303; despite its splendid new improvements in this section, I couldn’t forgive it its tedious single-carriageway, no-overtaking expanses with no decent loos for miles.

Andy had left his car at the White Hart, so there was no need for discussion about where we were heading. And I simply drove. Let him talk when he wanted to.

In fact we were near the Wellington junction when he said, audibly relaxed, ‘You’ve no idea what a luxury it is to be driven. And in such a nice car, too.’

‘Bought out of White Hart profits, just so you can carry on enjoying it!’

‘I deserved that. Usually I seem to bum lifts with middle-aged curates with beat-up Metros and long tales of woe. Your silence is so restful.’

‘It would be, after my mouthful earlier.’ We exchanged a sideways glance. Somehow I didn’t think my past would arise for quite some time.

‘I was wondering if we might stop off at the rectory. Just to make sure it’s all right for his parents.’

‘That’s a very womanly worry.’

‘Marcia must have bequeathed it to me. She was house-proud to a fault. If we went away, she’d clean the bathroom before we left, so the chambermaid didn’t have to wipe her toothpaste out of the basin. And strip the bed. A good woman,’ he summed up.

‘How long have you been on your own?’ He wasn’t the only one used to phrasing questions tactfully.

‘Five years now.’ He reflected, no doubt wanting to tell me about her last illness. ‘A good woman but one very hard to live with.’

I was so surprised I nearly missed the junction. But I hadn’t worked behind a bar all those years to know that to be a good listener you needed to do more than nod and incline a listening ear.

‘She should have been a martyr. Was one, to her various illnesses, all unexplained. I sometimes wonder if she’d made less fuss we’d have – I’d have – taken more notice when she got something serious. You see, she’d complain of this ache or that, and then insist on spring-cleaning a room or making new curtains, all to the accompaniment of pained sighs and sniffs. The end result was a wonderfully spruce home, but a very frayed marriage. Had it not been for my position – more, hers, since she rated any spurious status far more
highly than I – I’m sure we’d have ended up apart. There was nothing to keep us together. Apart from the wedding vows we made when we were hardly out of our teens.’

‘No children?’ Lest the question seemed intrusive, I made a great show of checking the road as I took the island for our B road. How long had that black BMW been behind me?

‘One son. He emigrated post-haste to Australia, where he married immediately and started a family. The message was crystal clear, believe me. And he was right. There was no way my wife could have let his family alone. It would have ended in matricide.’

I smothered a laugh at the precision of the term.

‘Anyway, one day she insisted that a letter had to go in the post, though it was tipping down with rain and she had a vicious cold. The next day she had bronchitis, I thought, and when she wouldn’t let me call the doctor I made her an appointment at the surgery. That morning. An emergency one, with a locum. I did, Josie. I did everything I could. I even got the car out. But she insisted I was just making a fuss. When I brought the doctor in that evening, she had pneumonia and she died two days later.’ He dropped his voice but the words were clear. ‘And I was so relieved.’

I was near to panic. This conversation should surely have taken place with his boss. Or even his Boss. Not with me, on whom half the villagers
would have pinned a nice big scarlet letter A. Not unless he was about to make a pass at me, and then I could have told him straight out that I didn’t do clergymen. Not no-how. They came with
consciences
and guilt and a life already pledged to someone rather more important.

Having nothing useful to say, I stayed silent; he sat staring at his nails. The BMW had dropped to a discreet distance, but was still there. Paranoia or years of Tony’s training? I slowed down long enough to clock the number, which I made Andy write down, and then accelerated hard.

Three miles later, it was still there. Without signalling I took a right, taking us back on our tracks, then nipped straight across the main road into the back lane into the village – one that conveniently passed the rectory.

‘What was all that about?’ Andy asked, as if only now having enough breath to speak.

‘Precautions. Look, open the garage doors, will you? Quickly!’

I reversed in as swiftly as Reg – or it might have been Don – had shown me years ago. When Andy joined me, I shut the doors again, and opened the back one, which led on to the garden. We could make a quick exit if only on foot.

If there had been a black sack in Tim’s garage, there was no sign of it now. Nor, as I sniffed the air, any indication of it ever having been there. He’d made a rather pathetic attempt to over-winter some
geraniums and what might once have been fuchsias: now everything was a dried out mess, home to woodlice and a colony of spiders.

‘Compost heap?’ Andy asked, picking up a couple of terracotta pots.

‘Only place.’

To my amazement, there was a pair of new green plastic compost converters in the garden: quite out of character with the rest of the place, which, lawn apart, was both undernourished and overgrown. He’d obviously come with good intentions. One converter was quite empty. The other smelt unpleasant, not the sweet rotting moistness of my converter but of unwashed male.

I pointed.

Andy gaped. ‘He thought it important enough to hide it here!’

‘And I think it’s important enough to take it hotfoot into Taunton nick.’ I bit my lip.

‘Can you trust me to do it?’ His humility sounded genuine. ‘I mean, you’ve got responsibilities.’

‘Trust? I was about to beg and implore! I know there are no meals tonight, and the lads are more than capable of running the whole place without me… All the same.’ I thought of the black Beamer. ‘And, while you’re about it, could you drop the film in for overnight development? Two sets of prints. No, three. Stick one set in your church strong box, with the negatives. One set of prints for me; the other for the police.’