Daniel gave an eye roll at Zed’s weak joke. Then he complied. He dropped into the passenger’s seat and began dripping all over it. He said, “Sorry,” in reference to this.
“Not to worry.”
Zed set off. He was determined to milk the kid for whatever he could, so he drove slowly. He kept his eyes on the road as a way of excusing the lack of speed: paranoid visitor worried about hitting either a sheep or Sasquatch.
Daniel said, “What’re you doing round here again, anyway?”
Zed had already reckoned on his opening, which Daniel himself had inadvertently given him. “You seem worried about the local colour.”
“What?” The boy screwed up his face.
“The pervert remark.”
“Who wouldn’t be?” Daniel said with a shrug. “Place’s crawling with them.”
“Well, the whole bloody district’s thick with sheep, eh?” Zed remarked with a wink. “No one’s safe, I reckon.”
The boy observed him with that adolescent expression that telegraphed you’re a bloody idiot far more effectively than words would have done.
Zed said, “Just a joke. Too early in the morning. Where can I drop you?”
“Lyth Valley. I catch the school bus there.”
“Where to?”
“Windermere.”
“I can drive you there if you like. No problem. I’m heading that way.”
The boy backed away. Clearly, this was pervert territory. He said, “What d’you want, anyway? You didn’t tell me why you’re in the village again. What’s going on?”
Too clever by seven-eighths, Zed thought. “Bloody hell, relax,” he said. “I’ll drop you off wherever you like. Want to get out now?”
Daniel looked at the rain. He said, “Just don’t try anything. I’ll punch you right in the Adam’s apple and don’t think I won’t. I know how to do it. My dad showed me and believe me, it works. Better than the bollocks. A hell of a lot better.”
“Wonderful skill,” Zed agreed. He had to manoeuvre the kid into the conversation he wanted before they reached the Lyth Valley and he started screaming bloody murder or worse. So he said, “Sounds like he worries about you, your dad.”
“Right. Well. We got perverts living next door to us, don’t we. Pretend they just lodge together, but we know the truth. Dad says you can’t be too careful round blokes like that, and now it’s worse.”
“Why?” Hallelujah, Zed thought.
“’Cause one of them’s dead and the other’s going to be on the look for someone new.”
That sounded like a remark coming directly from the horse’s you-know-what. “I see,” Zed said. “Could be the other’ll just move on, though, wouldn’t you say?”
“That’s what Dad’s waiting for,” Daniel said. “He’s buying the farm once it goes up for sale.”
“What, that sheep farm you two live on?”
That was the one, Daniel told him. He brushed his sopping hair from his forehead and settled in for something of a natter. He seemed more comfortable with a subject that didn’t deal with perverts — as he called them — because he adjusted the heat in the car to a tropical level and dug in his rucksack for a banana, which he proceeded to eat. He informed Zed that his dad wanted the farm mostly because he wanted something to pass on to Daniel himself. This, Daniel said, was dead stupid because there was no way in hell that he intended to be a sheep farmer. Daniel wanted out of the Lakes entirely. He wanted to join the RAF. They buzzed the Lake District, did Zed know that? Wicked jets flying about three hundred feet off the ground — okay, maybe five hundred feet — and you’d be walking along when all of a sudden one of them would come roaring down the valley or just above Lake Windermere and it was bloody wicked, it was.
“Told my dad that about a thousand times,” Daniel said. “He thinks he can keep me home, though. All he needs is that farm to do it.”
He loved his dad, Daniel said, but he didn’t want the kind of life his dad had lived. Look at the fact that Daniel’s own mother deserted them. She hadn’t wanted that kind of life either, but still his dad didn’t understand.
“I keep telling him he should do what he’s good at anyway. Everyone should.”
Amen to that, Zed thought. But he said, “What’s that, then?”
Daniel hesitated. Zed glanced at him. The boy looked distinctly uncomfortable. This could be the moment, Zed realised. The kid was about to confess that what George Cowley was good at was offing blokes who lived on the farm he wanted to buy. Silver, gold, platinum, and the rest. Zed was about to be handed the scoop of his life.
“Making dollhouse furniture,” Daniel mumbled.
“Say again?”
“Dollhouse furniture. Furniture that goes into dollhouses. Don’t you know what that is?”
Shit, damn, hell, Zed thought.
Daniel went on. “He’s bloody good at it. Sounds daft, I know, but that’s what he does. Sells it on the Internet as fast as he can make it. I tell him he should be making it full-time instead of walking round in the muck with the bloody sheep. He says it’s a hobby and I should be able to tell the difference between a hobby and someone’s life work.” Daniel shook his head. “For him, it’s that stupid farm or nothing.”
Is it indeed? Zed wondered. And what was Cowley going to do next when he learned the farm legally belonged to Kaveh Mehran via Ian Cresswell’s will?
Daniel pointed to an enormous oak sitting just inside a drystone wall. That was where Zed could set him down, he said. And thanks for the ride, by the way.
Zed pulled over, and Daniel got out. At the same moment, Zed’s mobile rang. He gave it a glance and saw it was London. Rodney Aronson ringing. It was a bit early for Rodney even to be at work, and this didn’t bode well. Good news, though, was that Zed could report progress at last after this conversation with Daniel Cowley.
“Watch your back,” was what Rodney said to him, however, without preamble.
“Why? What’s happened?”
“Scotland Yard knows you’re there. Keep your head down — ”
When it was six feet eight inches in the air? Zed wondered.
“ — and keep your eyes on Nick Fairclough. That’s where you’ll find whoever’s been sent up there to dig into Ian Cresswell’s death.”
BARROW-IN-FURNESS
CUMBRIA
Manette didn’t want to face the fact that her former husband hadn’t come home on the previous night. More, she didn’t want to face how she felt about that fact. But it was difficult not to do so.
They’d talked the subject of their broken marriage right into the ground over the years. They’d touched upon every aspect of what had happened to them and what might have happened and what would definitely happen if they didn’t make some sort of change. They’d decided, ultimately, that the lack of romance had done them in, the getting-down-to-business aspect of every part of their lives, and particularly the utter lack of surprise. They’d become a couple who had to check their diaries and make appointments for an interlude of intercourse during which they both had been pretending for ages to feel something that they did not feel for each other. At the end of what had seemed like hundreds of hours of dialogue, they’d decided that friendship was more important than passion anyway. So they’d live as friends and enjoy each other’s company because at the end of the day they’d always enjoyed being together and how many couples could actually say that more than twenty years along the line?
But now Freddie hadn’t come home. And when he was home he’d taken to whistling in the mornings as he got ready for work. Worse, he’d taken to singing while he was in the shower — Freddie, singing, for God’s sake — and he always chose the same damn song, which was driving her bonkers anyway. It was that bloody call to arms from Les Miserables and Manette knew if she had to hear “the blood of the martyrs will water the meadows of France!” one more time, she might water the meadows of the bathroom with Freddie’s blood.
Only, she wouldn’t. Not Freddie. She would never
hurt Freddie.
She went to his office at work. He’d removed his jacket and was bent over his desk in his crisp white shirt and his red necktie with the ducklings on it, and he was reviewing a massive set of computer printouts. More investigation into the books, preparatory to stepping into Ian’s job should her father offer it to him. If he had any sense, he would.
She said from the doorway, “So how was Scorpio?”
Freddie looked up. His expression told her he had no idea what she was talking about but he reckoned it was zodiac signs.
She said, “The nightclub? Where you and the latest date were meeting?”
He said, “Oh! Scorpio.” He laid the printout on his neat-as-a-pin desk. “We didn’t go in, actually. We met at the door.”
“Good Lord, Freddie. Was it directly to bed after that? You’re a sly one.”
He blushed. Manette wondered at what point in their marriage she’d stopped noticing how often he blushed and how the colour washed across his cheeks from his ears after making his ears go completely red at the tips. She also wondered when it was she’d stopped admiring how nicely his ears lay against his head like perfect shells.
He laughed. “No, no,” he said. “But everyone going inside the place looked round nineteen years old and most of them were dressed like the cast of Rocky Horror Picture Show. So we went for a meal at a wine bar. Rigatoni puttanesca. It wasn’t very good. Rather heavy on the putta and light on the nesca as things turned out.” He smiled at his own silly joke and added in his usual appealingly honest fashion, “I didn’t come up with that. Sarah did.”
“That’s her name? Sarah?” At least, Manette thought, it wasn’t another shrub. She’d rather been expecting Ivy or June-short-for-Juniper as his second foray into Internet dating. But of course, ivy wasn’t a shrub, was it? More like a vine. So … She shook herself mentally. What was going on inside her head? She said, “And?” although she didn’t actually want to know. “Are there grisly details? I have no life, as you well know, so I’m taking the opportunity for vicarious excitement.” She sauntered into his office and sat in the chair next to his desk.
He blushed, more deeply this time. “I don’t like to kiss and tell,” he said.
“But you did it, didn’t you?”
“‘Did it’? What kind of term is ‘did it’?”
She cocked her head and sent him a meaningful look. “Freddie…”
“Well, yes. I mean, I explained all that to you: how things are these days. You know. When people go out together. So, well … yes, we did.”
“More than once?” She hated herself for asking, but suddenly she had to know. And the reason she had to know was that in all the years they’d been together — even when they’d been twenty years old and hot for each other during the six months that they had actually been hot for each other — she and Freddie had never locked themselves into a passionate embrace more than once in a twenty-four-hour period.
Freddie’s reaction was a look of gentlemanly shock. He said, “Manette, good Lord. There are some things — ”
“So you did. More than once. More than with Holly? Freddie, are you taking precautions?”
“I think we’ve talked enough about this,” he replied with dignity.
“So what about tonight? Are you seeing someone else tonight? Who is it tonight?”
“Actually, I’m seeing Sarah again.”
Manette crossed one leg over the other. She wished for a cigarette. She’d smoked when she was in her twenties and although she hadn’t thought about cigarettes in years, she suddenly wanted the comfort of doing something with her hands. As it was, she reached for a container of paper clips and played with it. She said, “I’m curious about this. Since you’ve done it already and that’s been got out of the way, what comes next? Family photos? Or do you get on to surnames and communicable diseases?”
He looked at her strangely. Manette reckoned he was evaluating her remark, weighing it and matching its weight to a response that equaled but did not exceed it. Before he could say what she knew he was about to say — “You’re upset about this. Why? We’ve been divorced for ages and we’ve decided on friendship but I never intended to be celibate for the rest of my life” — she went on with, “Well, will you be home tonight at all or should I expect you to be spending it with Sarah again?”
He shrugged, but still his face maintained that expression, which was something stuck between curious and confused. He said, “I don’t know, actually.”
“Of course. How could you? Sorry. Anyway, I hope you bring her home. I’d like to meet her. Just give me fair warning so I don’t show up at the breakfast table without my knickers on.”
“Will do. Of course. I mean, the other night was rather a spontaneous thing. I mean, with Holly. I didn’t quite know then how these things tend to develop. Now that I do… well, of course, there are arrangements, aren’t there? And explanations and whatnot?”
It was Manette’s turn to look curious. It wasn’t like Freddie to stumble round with his words. She said, “What’s going on? God, Freddie, you didn’t run off and do something… something rather mad, did you?” She didn’t know what that madness would have been. But madness of any kind was out of character for Freddie. He was an arrow, straight and true.
He said, “No, no. It’s just that I didn’t tell her about… well, about you.”
“What? You didn’t say you’re divorced?”
“She knows that, of course. But I didn’t tell her that you and I… well, that we live in the same house.”
“Holly knew, though. That didn’t seem to be a problem for her. Lots of blokes have female flatmates and such.”
“Yes, of course. But Sarah… It felt different being with Sarah. It felt like a risk that I didn’t want to take.” He picked up the printouts and he tapped them neatly together on the top of his desk. He said, “I’ve been out of action for ages, Manette, as you well know. I’m going by feel with these women.”
She said tartly, “I’m sure you are.”
She’d actually come to his office to talk to him about Tim and Gracie and about her conversation with her father as well. But now, that conversation didn’t feel right to Manette. And as Freddie himself had just pointed out, in a new situation one was wise to go by feel. She got to her feet.
She said, “I won’t expect to see you, then. Just take care, all right? I wouldn’t like to see you… I don’t know… hurt or anything.” Before he could reply, she got herself out of his office and set off in search of her brother. She told herself that Freddie had his own life and she had hers and it was time she did something about that latter fact, just as Freddie was doing. She didn’t know what that something was going to be, though. She couldn’t imagine launching herself into the unknown world of Internet dating. Into bed with total strangers to see if a proper fit existed? She shuddered. To her that seemed to be a recipe for being cooked in a serial killer’s oven, but perhaps she’d been watching too many detective programmes on the telly over the years.
She found Nicholas in the shipping department, a warehouse that served as a modest step up from where he’d laboured the previous six months. Then he’d been working on the tops of cisterns, the bowls of toilets, and kitchen sinks, seeing to the application of porcelain to the moulded clay and sliding them into the enormous kiln. In that part of the factory, the heat was intolerable and the noise was just as bad, but Nicholas had been successful there. In fact, he’d been successful in every job he’d been placed in during the last two years.
Manette knew he was working his way through all possible jobs in the factory. She’d developed a grudging admiration for this although the why of his doing it gave her a bit of concern. Surely he couldn’t think that a few years of puttering round Fairclough Industries superseded the decades she and Freddie had worked there? Surely he didn’t expect to be named managing director once their father stepped aside? The thought was ludicrous.
Today’s employment for Nicholas involved bathroom bas
ins, Manette saw. At the loading dock, with a clipboard in one hand and a pen in the other, he was comparing sizes and styles on shipping boxes to sizes and styles on an order. The basins had been delivered on a pallet by a forklift. Once Nicholas had checked them off, he would load them into a waiting lorry, the driver of which had reversed it to the shipping gate and was waiting round, smoking and generally being unhelpful.
Because the huge shipping doors were open to the lorry, it was cold in the warehouse. It was noisy as well because there was music blasting from speakers in the building, as if someone’s proclivity for Carlos Santana oldies might raise the ambient temperature a bit.
Manette approached her brother. He looked up and gave her a nod of hello. Above the music, she shouted, asking him if she could have a word. His response of, “It’s not near my break time,” irritated her.
She said, “For God’s sake, Nick. I think you can take five minutes without being sacked.”
“We have a shipment going out. He’s waiting.” By he Nicholas meant the lorry driver, who didn’t look exactly desperate to be on his way. He’d gone to the driver’s side of the lorry and had opened its door, true. But he emerged with a Thermos from which he poured himself something that steamed in the air. He looked happy enough for the break in his routine.
She said, “I need to speak to you. It’s important. Ask permission if you want to. Or shall I do that for you?”
Her brother’s supervisor was approaching anyway. He tilted his hard hat back on his head, greeted her, and called her Mrs. McGhie, which rather stabbed at her heart although it was indeed her legal surname. She said, “C’n I have a word with Nicholas, Mr. Perkins? It’s rather important. A family matter.” She said this last as a way of reminding the man — as if he needed reminding — who Nicholas was.
Mr. Perkins looked towards the lorry and clocked the lounging driver before saying, “Five, Nick,” and moving off.
Manette led the way to a quieter location, which turned out to be round the side of the warehouse. This was the gathering place for smokers, she saw, for although none were present at the moment, the ground was littered with evidence of their presence. She made a mental note to talk to Freddie about this. Then she crossed out the note and made a second one telling herself to handle it on her own.
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