The Chinese Takeout (16 page)

‘You’re really worried about that car, aren’t you?’

‘Once run over, twice shy. All the same… Look, how good an actor are you?’

He goggled. ‘I blacked up for Othello at school once, in the days a white kid could. Why?’

‘Tony always told me to trust my instincts, however oddly they might make me behave. So I’m going to. And my instinct tells me something’s wrong. I want to protect you – No, listen to me. This is self-interest on my part, pure self-interest.’

‘Self-interest? Protecting me?’ He shook his head.

‘When I stop at the White Hart, you and I are going to have a very public row. You’re not going to come in. You’re going to bellow and shout and I’m going to tell you to give me back my camera. And you’re going to drive off in a huff. Real spurt of gravel stuff.’

‘I don’t know whether modern cars run to spurts of gravel.’

‘If you try hard enough they will. Then I shall slam inside with the passion of a teenager.’

‘So we’re not part of a team any longer.’

Were we before? ‘Quite. But – this may sound…’

‘It doesn’t matter how it sounds. Just tell me.’ He raised his hand, but then let it fall.

‘I want you to phone me, every few minutes. Say every twenty. If I don’t reply in person, call back a minute later. If I don’t reply then, get the police in. I know it’s all very
Boy’s Own,
’ I pleaded, ‘but just in case.’

The BMW lurked in a lay-by fifty yards down the road. The driver made no effort to tail me this time: why should he? He knew where I lived, after all. He and his passenger.

‘You’re hysterical! You’re off your head.’ Andy gave my face a remarkably convincing stage-slap.

I reeled but recovered. ‘Listen to you. You’re so full of it. Just give me my stuff and get out of my life. Now!’

And so on and so on. I was better at it than he, of course, and to a large extent reprised a performance I once gave in the middle of Birmingham when Nick had had Tony sent down for the last time. On that occasion, when I’d slung my shoe at the offender – a very high stiletto, as I recall – he’d returned it with a courtly bow you wouldn’t credit from the present all-grey Nick. This time I was wearing soft casuals – all I could bear with the bruises – and I slung first one, then the other, at the retreating Ford. They could lie there in the road for all I cared.

Later on I’d creep back and get them. Ignominiously.

Ignominiously?

Like hell I’d do anything ignominiously. Especially with that pair in the black BMW now watching me from the bus stop lay-by. Barefoot I strode towards them, arms akimbo.

‘And what might you be looking at? You! With
that silly grin! Eh? What are you smiling at? My life’s something to do with you, is it? I don’t think so. So let’s have a bit of respect. That’s better.’

They both dropped their eyes. I’d won. This round at least.

‘I’ve seen you round here before, haven’t I? Well, I don’t want to see you here again. You or your little mate. Get that?’

They nodded in unison. It was hard not to laugh. Or it would have been if one of them hadn’t run me over. It must have been him, surely, in the 4x4.

I started again. ‘Lowlifes like you don’t trail round the sticks like this just because you like a bit of fresh air. You’re under orders. So tell your boss you’ve got to try the air somewhere else.’ I leaned much closer. ‘Understand? No one messes with Tony Welford’s widow. No one. Now, get out of my face. And stay out.’ I nodded home my point and stepped back, arms now folded implacably, to watch them on their way.

If cars had tails, this one’s would have been between its legs. I watched it out of sight. No way was I going to spoil my act by ferreting stiffly for my footwear.

I settled more comfortably on the barstool, transferring the phone to the ear that wasn’t getting irritatingly deaf. ‘The trouble is, Andy, they didn’t recognise Tony’s name. Either they’re not high enough in the pecking order or his reputation no longer strikes fear. I suspect the latter,’ I confessed, knowing he’d appreciate the swing to formal speech. ‘All the same, I reckon you can cancel the twenty minute phone calls. They’ll have to decide what to tell their boss – never nice if you have to admit you messed up – and he’ll need to work out his next move.’

‘I shan’t cancel the phone calls. If you’re in danger, you’re not facing it alone. Especially as it involves the Church. Indeed, the Church involved you.’

‘It was my nosiness that involved me. I could simply have done the sensible thing and nagged the fuzz a bit harder and more often. They’ve got the resources and the manpower.’

‘I’m not sure about their commitment. And the
tension between Lawton and Nick seemed to be bringing out the worst, in Lawton, not the best.’

‘Funny thing about sex,’ I agreed, ‘you can never predict how it’ll make people react.’ There was a long silence. ‘I’ll give them another call. That nice kid Bernie Downs’ll take some notice, surely.’

A couple of villagers mooched in, two
middle-aged
men who could, probably would, make a pint last a whole night. I might not get much custom from them but they could offer something far more valuable: protection. Smiling, I gestured one minute.

‘The bar’s filling up,’ I told the still silent Andy. ‘I must go. Talk to you later.’ So why had I stooped to the current cliché, as if acquiescing in his repeat calls, and not merely said goodbye?

The regulars notwithstanding, I was reluctant to risk Lucy’s taking my place in the bar – just in case. So when she appeared, beaming with apparent pleasure at the prospect of spending an evening writing an essay between demands for booze, I shook my head.

‘What I really need you to do, love, is something my back won’t let me. Not at the moment. Would you mind making up the beds in the staff accommodation – the ones Father Martin’s parents will be using?’ That’d take her ten minutes, that was all. ‘After that, you just get on with your assignment, eh? I can fend off the rush down here.’

‘But—’

‘Look, Lucy, this barstool may look hard and unyielding to you, but it’s the most comfortable chair I’ve found since my accident. And I’m giving it up to no one!’

The two drinkers were soon joined by a couple of men from the St Faith and St Lawrence choir. They’d been putting in an extra practice just in case Father Martin’s family wanted their service, they said. Four or five others trickled in minutes later. Suddenly the snug was living up to its name.

‘Tell you what, Josie,’ one said gruffly, ‘you’re doing right by that young man and no mistake. Both of them, truth to tell.’

‘So are you people,’ I said, nodding at his colleagues. ‘Going the extra mile.’

‘Only right, isn’t it?’ He leaned closer. ‘Not like some you could mention.’

I knew better than to ask outright. ‘Surely we’re all…’

‘Oh, no. There’s those who don’t want to get involved.’ He mimicked – badly – a refined accent.

I fished. In the name of conversation of course. ‘You mean Mr Malins and Mr Corbishley? Why wouldn’t they want to be involved? Come on, I bet you can’t name me a single person in this village who won’t do everything they can to give Tim a decent funeral.’

‘Well, you just named them. Keep themselves to themselves. That’s fine, that’s folk for you. But I say Christian is as Christian does: it’s all well and good
pouring money into a church that’s got burned down, but what about one that’s still intact, that’s what I want to know? We’ve still got subsidence and dry rot and leaking gutters. A bit of their cash wouldn’t have come amiss. After all, we’ve still got a congregation – I know some of them women can backbite, Josie, and don’t blame you for moving on. But you must have seen how few were going to St Jude’s. Why not pool our resources, that’s what I’ve always said.’

Another nodded. ‘It’s a sad fact we can’t keep all the churches going. But some are more important than others. St Faith and St Lawrence is big enough to hold all the congregations, and room over.’

Special pleading? But this was getting me nowhere. ‘So why do you think they’re so wedded to St Jude’s? If they had a different vicar it would make sense, I suppose. But the five churches have been sharing the same one for years, haven’t they?’

‘Maybe it goes back to the time when they didn’t,’ the first – Mike? – mused. ‘Before my time, of course – twenty-five years ago, I should think. Maybe more.’ Just yesterday, then, in the eyes of the average villager. ‘Tell you what, I’ll ask around, shall I? Discreet, like – don’t want to tread on any toes, do I?’

‘Not with the funeral coming up,’ I said.

‘If they let us hold it here,’ he observed, glumly.

‘Who’d stop us?’ I asked, neatly returning myself, or so I hoped, to the village fold.

‘Well, there’s talk of cathedrals and such. We want the service here: he was our parson after all.’

I wouldn’t talk about my hotline to the ecclesiastical bigwigs. ‘I’m sure if you talk to the church wardens, they’ll take your case right up to the bishop, if necessary.’

‘That smarmy old git? ’Twas he who confirmed our three. Didn’t like seeing him lay his greasy paws on their little heads, I can tell you.’

I couldn’t stop myself nodding – in any case, nodding was something landladies had to do, I told myself, whether they were in agreement or not. ‘But everyone at St Faith and St Lawrence is united,’ I prompted.

‘Ah.’

But that was all I got from him. And at that point my phone rang.

‘I said I’d check if you were all right.’

‘Perfectly safe, thanks Andy. I’ve pretty well got a football team in here: better than the Household Cavalry!’

‘And have you phoned the police?’

‘Next thing on my agenda,’ I declared gaily. And cut the call. Since everyone had stopped talking and all eyes were on me, I said, ‘Just a friend. I had a spot of bother with a couple of lads earlier.’

‘Them two in the big black car? Nasty pieces of knitting, they looked. Been around the village quite a bit.’ You could see Mike’s shoulders bracing for action. Major action. Before he became a central
heating engineer Mike had played rugby for Cornwall. ‘Not giving you any trouble, are they?’

The people of Kings Duncombe might not like me, but as a resident at least I had the edge on invaders from outside.

‘Not after the mouthful she give ’em earlier,’ his mate declared. ‘She’s a tough old bird, our Josie.’

Yes, in one breath I’d become one of them. I nearly wept. Worse, I nearly stood drinks for everyone on the house.

‘What I can’t understand,’ said DI Lawton, the next morning, her mouth turning down disapprovingly, ‘is why it took you so long to tell us you’d been tailed. Twelve hours. More. Fighting crime isn’t a nine till five job, you know.’

‘Indeed, my late husband often used to lament the fact,’ I beamed, pouring her more morning coffee and pushing forward the pastries plate. ‘From inside his prison cell. Come on, don’t tell me you didn’t check me out. Anyway, I gave them an earful. The chief reason was to detain them long enough for Mr Braithwaite to deliver the bag of Tang’s garments we’d found. I take it it arrived safely? And will be extremely useful?’ I prompted. ‘No, we didn’t open it, so it shouldn’t be contaminated, should it?’ I added, having received singularly little response.

‘It did arrive safely, and it’s already at the forensic science lab,’ she said stolidly. ‘But I really must
insist, Mrs Welford, that there’s no need for all these mock heroics. This is work for the police.’

‘Of course. Any idea why the young men should have tailed me back from Junction 26? And have hovered outside the rectory? And then tailed me here?’

‘I would have thought you were the one to tell me that. They’re presumably to do with your husband’s past.’

‘Why?’

She flushed an unendearing pink.

I spared her the further embarrassment of a blustering reply. ‘When Tony died I severed all my links with his past. He’d always made sure I had the barest minimum of contact with the criminal world anyway.’

‘Why do I have such difficulty believing you, Josie?’

‘Mrs Welford. I don’t know. You can see the White Hart’s books whenever you want. My bank statements. Whatever. Which is why I repeat, why should they be following me?’ I stepped up a gear. ‘If I came and made a formal complaint of harassment, would I have to explain why they were doing it? I should have thought I had enough reason to make a complaint,’ I added, rolling up my sleeves to display my bruises. ‘And your colleague never implied I’d brought this upon myself by being Tony’s widow. Nor did A and E ask if it was
self-inflicted
.’

Digesting this diatribe, she nodded gravely, but not, I thought, apologetically. ‘So why didn’t you simply phone the police from the rectory and ask them to take charge of the black sack?’

‘We’d no idea what the BMW people intended. Did they want us or what we’d found? It was in the compost heap, by the way, in case you want to tell your search team.’ I paused but she made no note. All the same, I thought she would do an excellent job of bollocking her colleagues. ‘You wanted us to barricade ourselves in and wait for your people to come storming over? This isn’t a city with rapid response vehicles waiting in every cul-de-sac. It’s rural Somerset. How long would it have taken? Mr Braithwaite and I thought it was more prudent for him to take the sack, but for that I had to return him to his car.’ I edited the spurious row. Actually, I’d edited quite a lot, come to think of it. But I wasn’t under arrest, so didn’t think it could count against me, legally. ‘I dare say I’d be able to pick them out from photos for you. And I already told you the car number.’

‘False.’ It was as much a dismissal of me as an accusation against the driver.

‘Only to be expected, I suppose. But I could ID the faces,’ I repeated. ‘Never forget a face in my profession. Actually,’ I pointed out, ‘half the village could too. The incident did not pass unnoticed.’

Completely impassive she made an
unenthusiastic
note. But she gave herself away. ‘And what
does ex-DI Thomas have to say about it all?’

‘You’ve got his number,’ I said, relishing the ambiguity. ‘Why don’t you call him yourself?’ But perhaps I should let her off the hook. ‘He knows nothing about it. He’s still working away from base, remember, and I didn’t think he needed to know. It would worry him. He might think he ought to come hotfoot back here. Now, if you don’t want me to look at mug shots, I’d best get on. Mr and Mrs Martin are coming down.’

‘They’re staying here? I thought you’d cleaned out the vicarage.’ It sounded like an accusation.

‘Rectory. Yes, I did, because I didn’t want their memory of their son’s home to be of a pigsty. I know I’d hate it. Scruffy, yes, because you can blame that on the church not decorating it properly before he moved in, but not a mess of dirty underwear and s – socks,’ I corrected myself smoothly. No need for her to know he’d smoked spliffs.

I didn’t think she clocked the hesitation.

‘Very kind of you,’ she admitted, huffily. ‘So why are they staying here, if you’re being harassed?’

‘I didn’t know I was when I issued the invitation. Look,’ I said, deciding almost to make a clean breast of it all, ‘it all started when I started asking about—’

Her mobile rang. She didn’t even check the caller before taking the call. Neither did she excuse herself or even turn away.

Bother her. I got up and ostentatiously reviewed the lunch and evening bookings. In our morning’s mini-meeting, the lads and I had agreed to offer as an on-the-house extra vegetable the freshly delivered wild garlic, gently braised in butter. (We’d marked up the specials’ prices enough to cover it. No such thing as a free portion, remember, especially at £10 the kilo.) Dan had gone away with a batch of scones, grumbling slightly in the way some men do when you spare their partners work.

Robin had forgotten to reserve a table for the Martins. I pencilled it in. They might of course prefer to eat in their quarters, or even in my flat, if I felt sufficiently well-disposed. We didn’t have a full house by any means, but then, who did on Tuesdays? So long as we had enough clients to justify a chef, that was all I asked. Most Tuesday evenings I hopped into Taunton for WeightWatchers, but, though I was eternally grateful to them, I no longer depended on them. Sooner or later our relationship would draw to an end.

Which is what Lawton’s call was doing now.

‘Tell you what,’ she said, eyeing the last remaining pastry, ‘you could come in and have a go at IDing the BMW pair, if you like.’

‘Or, better still, you could send a minion down here with a laptop full of images,’ I said, getting to my feet. ‘A plainclothes minion, preferably. I don’t want to worry my clients. Now, I have food to
prepare: wild garlic.’ I rubbed my hands, and smiled as if she shared my pleasure.

She merely registered my request with an elevation of a cold eyebrow – more wrinkles in the bud – and stood up. Her eyes were drawn to the pastry as if by a magnet. Tough.

This time the BMW was silver, and a Five, not a Three Series. And the couple inside were not a pair of lads but a sleek man and his expensive-looking wife. The White Hart’s gastronomic reputation was such that by now I no longer expected them simply to be asking for directions, but to be badgering me to let them book a table for an overfull Saturday night. They themselves seemed to be checking something on a piece of paper with the
newly-painted
inn sign.

I made it my business to open the front door to water the tubs of polyanthus and pansies with which I greeted my guests, and happened to follow their gaze.

‘It’s rather nice, isn’t it?’ I said. ‘There’s a lad round here trying to revive the craft, so I gave him a commission.’ The fact he was a recidivist trying to go straight entered into the equation, but there was no need to tell them that.