Laver remained standing as well, leaning back against the counter strewn with make-up and the usual performer’s props. Nick supposed it was all in the name of art, but privately, it made him want to puke, even though he came across all sorts in his line. It went with the job. He’d had dealings with transsexuals and all kinds of pervs, had been propositioned into the bargain. He didn’t imagine this guy was in that league, but he’d never forgotten the encounter when he was a young and green copper.
‘So what is it you want with me, Detective Inspector?’ Jeremy said, becoming more and more nervous when the man didn’t speak. His mind was in turmoil.
Surely Daneman hadn’t been careless, he thought, with a rush of fear. Dear God, he hadn’t actually done anything with Caroline, had he? Something unspeakable... ? His mouth went dry, and he found himself clutching the edge of the counter behind him, knocking over several bottles of lotion and not even being aware of it.
Nick was, but since he was here on a little mission of his own that wouldn’t let him go, he put it on hold for now.
‘I believe you once gave the name of a Mr Norman Price as a reference,’ he said, his gaze unwavering.
Laver’s eyes flickered. Then he gave a forced laugh.
‘Uncle Norman? Good Lord, what’s the old boy done?’
‘You tell me. So he’s your uncle, is he?’
Jeremy shrugged. He was starting to gain confidence. This was nothing to do with Caroline’s disappearance, and he guessed it was more likely to be Norman dipping into the factory coffers. His uncle had always been a gambler, and it had been sure to get him into deep water eventually.
‘We’ve never been a close family,’ he told Nick. ‘I can’t remember the last time I saw him—’
‘He has a daughter, I understand.’
Jeremy held himself in check with a huge effort. If his knuckles hadn’t been turning a deathly shade of white, Nick would almost believe he had nothing to hide. As it was, he was damn sure that he did, even if he didn’t have the faintest idea what it was as yet.
It wasn’t even his case — and as yet, there was no case, he reminded himself. If there had been, he’d have sent someone lower down the pecking order to do the initial interrogating, even on a mugging enquiry. In his world, muggings were ten a penny nowadays, for God’s sake. They had become a depressing fact of life, along with baby-snatching and rape.
But this particular attack was different. He didn’t know the details, but somehow Alex Best had an interest, and that was what drew him. None of the pieces were fitting together in his mind yet, unless this luvvie was involved in the uncle’s mugging. Which was what he was here to find out.
‘Yes, there’s a daughter.’ Jeremy answered the question as calmly as he could. ‘But I haven’t seen her for years either. I doubt whether her father knows where she is. They never got on.’
‘And her name would be?’
Jeremy replied quickly, the way people did when they were nervous. ‘Caroline. But as I’ve already told you, I’ve no idea where she is.’
Shock tactics were as good a way as any to make people talk. Nick applied them now.
‘Then since you’re the nearest relative, I must inform you that Mr Norman Price was attacked a few nights ago.’
‘What? Where? How?’
It had nothing to do with anything, Jeremy thought wildly, his senses reeling. The old fool was always at risk of being done over. He antagonized everybody who came in contact with him. Always had. Even Caroline. But God help Daneman if he’d done this mugging for whatever reason his twisted mind had devised. He wouldn’t put anything past him.
‘Your concern is touching, Mr Laver,’ Nick said.
‘Well, he is family, even if we don’t keep in contact—’ They hated one another’s guts, he thought privately.
‘And why is that? Any special reason?’
‘None of your business,’ Jeremy snapped. ‘But if you think I had anything to do with him being attacked—’
Nick gave him a withering look that said he didn’t think Jeremy capable of battering a flea. ‘I don’t. But if you could give me his daughter’s address, I’ll see that she’s informed.’
‘I don’t know it. I’ve already told you we’re not a close family. Why can’t you ask him yourself?’
‘Because he’s disappeared. He discharged himself from hospital before he was fully recovered and he hasn’t returned to his factory or his home address.’
Jeremy felt a sense of rising hysteria. So the old coot had disappeared as well now. That made two of them. But if he hadn’t returned home — and he presumed the police were clever enough to figure out where home was — he sobered at once.
There was one place where Norman Price could have gone, and almost certainly had gone: Greenwell Cottage. The one place where Norman could go to ground and no attackers or creditors would ever find him. But he was sure as hell not telling this snooper about the cottage and having him go down there and start asking awkward questions around the village.
Jeremy was pretty sure that very few people knew of it. Caroline had become practically agoraphobic since her deafness, and didn’t invite company. Besides herself, there was only his uncle and himself and Daneman... and that bitch of an American journalist and her fancy-man.
Nick saw him pale. But whatever the guy was up to, Nick knew when to quit. Laver had that clammed-up look on his face he’d seen often enough before, both in suspects and witnesses.
It was that I’ve said enough, and you aren’t getting another bloody thing out of me look.
‘Well, thank you for your time, Mr Laver. This is only a routine matter, and nothing for you to worry about.
Oh no? And since when did detective bloody inspectors make it their business to check up on a discharged hospital patient with no good reason?
Jeremy wasn’t born yesterday, and the minute Nick had left the premises, he punched out a series of numbers on his mobile phone. It seemed to take for ever before anybody answered and when they did he was almost frantic.
‘Daneman?’ he hissed. ‘Don’t talk. Just listen. My uncle has been mugged and he’s discharged himself from hospital. The police have been sniffing around here, looking for him—’
‘Jesus Christ, man, that’s all we need.’
‘Will you shut it a minute, and listen,’ Jeremy snapped. ‘You didn’t have anything to do with it, did you?’
‘Don’t be bloody stupid.’
‘All right, I had to ask. Everything’s still all right at your end, then?’
‘If you mean is it still driving me crazy with its whining, then yes it bloody well is,’ Daneman stormed.
Jeremy ignored that for the moment. At least he knew Caroline was still safe — if safe was the word for it.
‘Well listen up then,’ he repeated. ‘My uncle hasn’t gone home, so he may have gone to the cottage instead. Whatever you do, don’t go there. Got it?’
After a small silence, Daneman spoke vindictively.
‘I’m warning you, Jeremy, if this whole thing is about to fall apart after I’d got it cut and dried—’
‘It’s not. I’m just guessing where my uncle’s gone, that’s all. But if he has, and you were to turn up there for any reason, like fetching more of her work stuff—’
‘Don’t worry, I ain’t fetching and carrying for it any more than I need to,’ Daneman snarled.
‘Don’t be—’
‘What? Too hard on it? You stick to your fiddle-playing business, Jeremy-sweetie, and leave me to mine.’
Daneman stabbed at the off button on his mobile, and rammed it back into his pocket. He had been standing with his back to the woman all this time as he always did when talking on the mobile, just to be on the safe side.
Although she couldn’t hear the discussion, he still found it unnerving to have her all-seeing, accusing eyes on him.
He heard her gasp now, and he looked up sharply. Reflected in the mirror in front of him he saw her ashen, disbeliev
ing face from where she crouched on the bed.
Instantly, he knew he had been careless. She had seen his reflection in the mirror too, and had lip-read the one significant word he had spoken.
‘Jeremy?’ Caroline whispered. And then her voice rose to a scream. ‘Did you say Jeremy?’
***
‘That wasn’t bad,’ Norman Price grunted, when he had polished off the meal of tinned ham and baked beans Alex had hashed up, together with some reconstituted mashed potato powder.
From the ingredients she had found, it was clear that Caroline wasn’t a cordon bleu cook, but the end result had been reasonable enough.
‘I think I’ll go down to the village and get some fresh groceries though. There’s not much else here,’ she said.
‘No! You can’t do that—’
‘Yes I can. I’ve been here before, and if anyone recognizes me I’ll just say I’ve rented a place for a few days so that I can work without being disturbed.’
‘Worked it all out, have you?’ Price said.
‘More or less. Now then, are you sure you’re quite comfortable?’ she said, and then stopped. She had been on the point of plumping up the cushions behind his head, and she realized she was starting to act out the role of nurse or surrogate daughter far too efficiently.
‘I can manage,’ he grunted, and she knew he had realized it too. ‘But thanks. You didn’t have to do any of this.’
‘It’s my job, remember?’ she said briskly.
She left the cottage and walked towards the village. One or two people nodded at her, and then she came face to face with the vicar, his face as unwelcoming as ever. Whatever happened to good old-fashioned geniality — and wasn’t the church supposed to be the be-all and end-all of turning cheeks and kissing my.
‘So you’re here again, miss. What brings you back this time? Are you still looking for that friend of yours?’
‘No. I’m just buying some groceries. I’m taking a sort of work-combined-holiday down here for a couple of days.’
She spoke glibly, thinking that even vicars must go on holiday sometimes, but she was willing to bet that this one didn’t often bother. It would come into the category of Sodom and Gomorrah, the evils of the flesh and all that rot.
He didn’t ask any more questions, and she went on her way, swinging her tote bag, and hoping he’d dismiss her from his mind as the city slicker beyond redemption.
The village shopkeeper was more interested, and Alex invented a rented cottage outside the village where she could get some much-needed peace and quiet to do some work.
‘It’s not easy to concentrate in London where everybody calls on you for business reasons,’ she elaborated. ‘This area is just perfect when you want to be left alone. People appreciate the need for privacy here, don’t they?’
‘Oh. they do that, miss,’ the shopkeeper said, secretly agreeing that if the snooty piece didn’t want to talk to folk, then that was up to her.
Alex left the shop with some meat, fruit and vegetables, bread and butter, and fresh milk. The basics, including powdered milk, which she detested, were already in the cottage. She daren’t buy too much though, in case it seemed as if she was stocking up for a siege. And that would create curiosity in the village, which she didn’t want.
In any case, she couldn’t stay in Wilsingham very long, and with a few good meals inside him and his confidence restored, she guessed that Norman Price would be glad to get back home — wherever home was. It occurred to her that she didn’t know that yet.
‘Where do you live?’ she asked him over a steaming cup of coffee some while later. ‘I see no point in your holding out on me now that we’ve gone this far, do you?’
‘Chelmsford. Not that it’s relevant.’
‘Would that be the family home, where Caroline grew up?’
‘It would — and that’s enough about that.’
Alex saw that he was immediately reverting to his old aggressiveness. He was presumably successful enough in business dealings, but his social graces were minimal and never lasted long. She wondered about a wife. There must have been one once, if there wasn’t one now.
‘Won’t your wife be worried about what’s happened to you?’ she asked casually.
He snapped back, seeing through her at once. ‘If you want to know if I’ve got a wife, why don’t you just ask me?’
‘Do you have a wife?’
‘No. She died when Caroline was six.’
‘Oh. I see.’
He glowered. ‘No, you don’t see. That’s the kind of stupid remark everybody makes, when they don’t see anything at all. My wife died and I brought up Caroline alone with the unavoidable help of do-gooders and child-minders until she was old enough to fend for herself. Does that answer the rest of your damn-fool questions?’
She’d certainly got more than she had expected out of him now, Alex thought. She spoke more gently. ‘I was merely trying to get the full picture, Mr Price. It may help—’
‘It won’t help you to find her, which is what I’m paying you for. And right now you can get me some more bloody painkillers and let me get to bed. I’ve had enough chit-chat for one day. I’ll take Caroline’s room. If you’re staying, you can take the other one.’
Oh yes, he was back on form all right, thought Alex. Just when she thought there was some good in him after all, he went and spoiled it. She might have known it.
Silently, she delivered the aspirins and a glass of water, and made no attempt to assist him up the stairs, despite the fact that his bruised ribs were clearly still troubling him. Sod him, she thought sourly. She deliberately turned on the TV and tried to forget him.
Next morning, after a night in an unfamiliar bed where she found it very difficult to sleep, and with her unwanted companion snoring his head off in his daughter’s bedroom, she awoke to the raucous sounds of country birdsong.
‘Do you want some tea?’ she yelled outside the other bedroom door.
‘And breakfast. Did you get any bacon and eggs?’ he bawled back.
‘I did not. You’ll have toast and like it,’ she snapped.
But she grinned, because for a moment she had gloried in scoring over him in such a small and unintentional way. She simply hadn’t thought about breakfast food at the village shop, and anyway, there was a jar of marmalade in the pantry to go with the toast, and that would have to do.
By the time they both appeared downstairs, she could tell that he was feeling better. He had more normal colour in his face now, and the visible bruises were fading. She soon discovered that any softening on his part, towards Caroline, or anyone else, had gone just as quickly.
‘I’ll stay here one more day,’ he announced. ‘I don’t want to leave those buggers meddling about at the factory for too long, but I don’t want ‘em to see me looking as if I’ve done ten rounds either. I’ll phone in and tell ‘em to expect me tomorrow. In any case I’m not cut out for country living.’
‘Fine,’ Alex said, after his grand speech, recognizing the dictatorial boss only too well. ‘Then I’ll leave at the same time, once I’ve outdone my usefulness.’
He didn’t even notice the sarcasm.
‘Right. You’ll need to get back to town. You still haven’t done what I’m paying you for.’
She counted to ten. ‘I assure you I’m making progress. You must be aware that some people who disappear are never found at all, and at least I know where Caroline sends her crosswords—’
He gave an explicit oath. ‘Is that all you’ve done so far? What the hell’s the good of that?’
Alex looked at him coldly. ‘It tells me that she’s still alive, Mr Price, since she’s still sending her work to the publication concerned. That is the most important thing to know, I would have thought.’
As far as she knew, the continuing work-submission angle may or may not be true. She wouldn’t find that out until she heard back from Mrs Selby-Jones, but she certainly wasn’t letting on to Price about that. He growled a reply.
‘Of course it is. She’s my daughter, isn’t she?’
It was a bit late in the day for showing paternal feelings, Alex thought. But she supposed it was something that he remembered to mention them.
And she had been just as remiss in neglecting to ask one very pertinent question. She threw it at him now.
‘You’ve never told me just how much money Caroline is due to inherit on her birthday, Mr Price, just that it’s a substantial sum. Would you mind telling me?’
‘I don’t see that it has anything to do with anything, but if you must know, it’s a quarter of a million.’
‘Wow! And her cousin will get it if she doesn’t claim it on her birthday — is that right?’
‘That’s right. But don’t bother thinking he’s your suspect. He’s always got his head in the clouds with his music-making, and he’s too much of a weakling to have done anything about it.’
That was a matter of opinion, thought Alex, remembering the way he’d accosted her and Gary at the cottage, together with the fact that he must have sent the anonymous note to get her there. Oh no, as far as she was concerned, Jeremy Laver wasn’t out of the frame yet.
‘How does she claim it?’ she went on, knowing she should have checked on all this weeks ago, and hoping Price wouldn’t question her incompetence. ‘There must be a solicitor involved in the legalities. You don’t just get a huge cheque like that through the post.’
‘Oh aye. When the time comes she’ll have to prise herself out of here and go to the offices in London.’
‘Would the solicitor be acquainted with her cousin?’
Price gave a short laugh. ‘I told you you’re barking up the wrong tree there, girl. Laver’s got no gumption in that department, and the firm of Walton, Walton and Bradbury is as solid as a rock, old school-tie partnership and all that.’
Alex’s faint idea that Jeremy could be working in conjunction with a crooked solicitor vanished as fast as it had come. It had been a non-starter, anyway, but exploring any idea, however fanciful, was better than having none at all.
Thicker Than Water (Alexandra Best Investigations Book 1) Page 18