Sour Grapes

by Natasha Cooper

  ‘It might work,’ said Jag.

  The doubt in his voice put Willow on her mettle and she realised that she was childishly determined to show him that she knew better than he did. Privately amused by herself, she hurried him off the train when they reached Leeds and through the ticket barrier to the taxi rank. They got to the security company’s offices with five minutes to spare.

  ‘Can I help you?’ asked the receptionist. She was a very young woman with a mop of bright brown hair and a cheerful smile.

  ‘We’re hoping to talk to Terry Lepe,’ said Willow, trying to smile just as warmly back at her. ‘I gather he’s likely to look in some time soon.’

  ‘Yes. Probably any moment now. D’you want to take a seat?

  There are some magazines and you can make tea or coffee from that machine there. He shouldn’t be long.’

  ‘Thank you.’ Willow took a magazine and a chair but avoided the drinks.

  Jag made himself a plastic cup of black coffee and sipped it. They said very little to each other, pretending to read their chosen magazines and looking up every time the swing door opened to let in a new person. Eventually a thin man in his twenties, with a narrow, sharp-featured face and very short brown hair, came in and dumped something hard down on the reception desk.

  ‘There’s a lady and gentleman waiting for you, Terry,’ said the receptionist, pointing to them.

  He nodded to her, said something inaudible, which made her smile and blush, and then swaggered over to where Willow and Jag were still sitting.

  ‘And what c’n I do for you then?’ he said, his London accent sounding harsh against the rounder, softer sounds of the northerners they had spoken to since leaving the train.

  ‘We need your help rather badly,’ said Willow, hoping that there was only the sound of pleading in her voice. ‘I wondered if we could buy you a drink and tell you about the problem? Jag here… Look, is there a good pub near by?’

  ‘Maybe. What problem?’

  ‘I’Il tell you when we get there,’ said Willow, opening her well-stocked handbag with much the same gesture she had used so effectively on George Tedsmore. ‘It is worth a lot to us.’

  Jag stood up, topping Terry by at least four inches. Suspicion and avarice chased each other through his sharp eyes. Watching them. Willow wondered what his attraction could have been for Susie. Terry was not a particularly good-looking man, with his acne-scarred skin and thin lips. Then he smiled and she caught a hint of cleverness and even a modicum of charm. Remembering the depths of poor Susie’s doughy plainness, Willow realised that Terry might have seemed sophisticated and exciting to her.

  ‘The Lamb and Flag’s OK,’ he said eventually.

  ‘Then let’s go there,’ said Willow, smiling over her shoulder at the receptionist, who waved as she leaned sideways to answer her ringing telephone.

  The pub was barely four minutes’walk away, and there were not many customers when they walked in. Two old men were sitting peacefully nursing their drinks and pipes in silence at a small table in one corner of the room well away from the fruit machine and the jukebox, and a couple in shell suits and trainers were perched on high stools at the bar, drinking something that looked like weak fizzy orange.

  Willow asked her two young men what they wanted to drink and went to the bar to order their pints and her own draught cider. She also asked for some crisps, paid and carried the trayful to a corner table where Jag had managed to persuade Terry to sit down near the fruit machine. Willow sat in the only free chair, which neatly cut off Terry’s exit. She was glad to see that the publican had a clear view of their table and that there was plenty of light. It seemed unlikely that Terry would try on anything particularly violent in the circumstances.

  ‘OK. So what d’you want?’ he said, ripping open one of the crisp packets without waiting to be asked. ‘And what’s it worth to you?’

  ‘This may come as a shock to you,’ said Willow, reverting to her old civil service manner, ‘but Susan Peatsea has given us your name as one of two possible fathers of her child, and—’

  ‘Never heard of her,’ said Terry with an unpleasantly confident smile playing about his thin mouth.

  ‘I think you have,’ said Willow. ‘She told us all about you, and we got confirmation from your previous employers. There’s no room for doubt.’

  ‘Oh, the silly bitch!’ Terry banged down the hand that was holding the crisp packet. The packet burst, crisps flew everywhere and the publican stared menancingly at them. ‘OK, it’s true I knew her. But I haven’t seen her in years. If she’s got herself up the spout, it can’t be mine.’

  ‘It’s over two years old,’ said Willow, devoutly grateful that she was not bound by any of the police rules of evidence-gathering. She had not even told Jag that she had a minute tape recorder attached to the lapel of her suit, which she had activated when she bought the drinks. Nothing she persuaded Terry to say could ever be used in evidence, but it ought to be enough for Emma’s needs.

  ‘What are you, Child Support Agency? That’s a dirty trick, that is: telling a man you’ve got something to say to his advantage and then trying to trap him into paying for some other man’s kid. Well it won’t work. You can tell that cow that I know the facts of life even if she doesn’t. It can’t be mine. If you don’t believe me, get a DNA test done.’

  Willow and Jag exchanged glances.

  ‘It’s true. I never even fucked the stupid cow.’ Terry took a long swig of his beer, put down the glass, wiped his lips on the back of his hand and appeared to get some kind of control over himself. ‘I’m not saying I wouldn’t of, but I didn’t. It’s what I went for, I won’t deny. But the silly bitch got scared, and I’m not one to force myself where I’m not wanted.’ He preened in front of them, shooting his cuffs and slicking back his hair. ‘I can get girls easy enough without that.’

  ‘Yes, I’m sure you can,’ said Willow, seeing that Jag was obediently leaving her to ask the questions. ‘But let me get this straight. Are you telling us you never slept with Susan Peatsea at all? That there never was any sexual congress?’

  ‘Are you deaf? Whatever she claims, I never fucked her, I said.’

  ‘But her story was so full of circumstantial detail,’ said Willow, pretending concern. It struck her that she might be putting Susie in some danger, but she needed confirmation of the story too much to let him go, even in the interests of Susie’s safety. Hoping that his obviously well-developed sense of self-preservation would keep him miles away from the Peatseas, Willow went on, ‘She told me that you collected her one wet evening nearly three years ago in a large and glamorous car she’d never seen before, and that you took her to some woods in…where was it, Jag? Berkshire?’

  ‘Buckinghamshire, she said.’

  ‘Oh, was it? Well, that’s not particularly important. Nothing is except this question of the child’s father.’

  ‘Fine. That’s it then. It’s not mine. Couldn’t be. I’m off. You want to fix a DNA test? Feel free. You know where to find me.’

  ‘Yes, we do,’ said Willow, smiling and refusing to move out of his way. ‘But before you leave us, there is just one other aspect to all this that we’d like to get straight before we can let you go entirely.’

  ‘Oh, yeah?’ Terry smoothed back the sides of his hair again and sat down, clearly deciding that it was more important in the circumstances to look cool than to force his way past Willow’s knees, particularly when Jag was taller than he and at least a couple of stones heavier.

  ‘Yes. It’s this car you were driving. It was a large dark-green car, with a CD, wasn’t it?’

  ‘If you say so.’ His eyes had turned watchful. Willow began to wonder if it might not have been better after all to have asked Jag to talk to Terry man to man and got the information out of him that way.

  ‘Susie says so,’ she said, smiling and showing no sign of her sudden self-criticism.

  ‘You think anyone would believe anything that silly bitch claimed to remember?
She can’t hardly write her own name.’

  ‘Was that why you fancied her, Terry?’ asked Jag, taking a hand again. His voice carried just a suggestion of a taunt, not quite enough to provoke retaliation. ‘That doesn’t sound too likely. A clever bloke like you. I’d have thought you’d have gone for something a bit tastier than her. For one thing, she’s fat.’

  ‘Yeah,’ said Terry with a familiar grin that made Willow want to hit him. ‘But the ugly ones are much easier than the real babes. You can give them cheap tat for presents, and they’re as pleased with a half of shandy as the rest are with poncy cocktails. Girls like Susie don’t hardly cost a thing to take out, and you usually get your money’s worth.’

  ‘But I thought you said you didn’t get anything out of Susie,’ Jag said, still taunting. ‘Changing your story now, are you?’

  Willow hoped that Jag knew what he was doing and how far he could go.

  ‘No. Stupid cow wouldn’t let me.’

  ‘Whose car was it, Terry?’ asked Willow, deciding that it was time for her to take a hand again. ‘Did you nick it?’

  ‘What is all this? Coming in here, criticising a man, accusing him—’

  ‘We need to know.’ Willow tried to smile ruefully. ‘Look, Susie’s worrying about it. That’s how we got involved in the first place.’

  ‘Silly cunt.’ Terry’s eyes closed as though he could barely contain his exasperation.

  ‘You’d better tell us the whole lot,’ said Jag, ‘and then if you’re not the father of her child, we’ll go away and leave you in peace.’

  ‘Who are you?’ Terry looked from Willow to Jag and back again. ‘You’re not from the CSA at all, are you? If you were, you’d have been on to me long ago. And you’d not be bothered with the car. What’s your game?’

  ‘We’re private detectives,’ said Willow firmly, hoping that he was not going to start considering who could possibly have employed them or for what reason. ‘Look, Terry, we just need confirmation of what happened that evening. You can see why we’re worried after what we heard from Susie.’

  ‘What was that then? You’d have to be barking to believe anything she told you.’

  ‘Well,’ said Willow, pretending to consult her notes from her bag, ‘she told us that there was an accident that night. She’s very worried about it, worried that someone might have been hurt.’

  ‘Well, there wasn’t,’ said Terry, almost shaking he was so angry. To Willow’s amazement, the fury seemed to have overtaken every other emotion in him. ‘She’s so stupid she can’t remember anything from one day to the next. I done an emergency stop, see, when an animal, fox prob’ly, ran across the road. We skidded. She banged her face on something. It wasn’t nearly bad enough to spring the airbags, but she got a bang of a sort. That’s what she’s remembering. Silly cow’s prob’ly muddled it up in her stupid pathetic brain with something she’s seen on the telly since. You don’t want to listen to her.’

  Willow sipped her cider and smiled at him, hoping that she looked as though she believed him.

  ‘It is true that she didn’t seem exactly needle-witted,’ she said, making Terry laugh.

  ‘I believe you. Needle-witted, I like that. That’s a good phrase, that is.’

  ‘Thank you. Well, now that we’ve got it clear that there was no accident, all we need to find out is where you got the car. We know you couldn’t have afforded to buy it, and it doesn’t sound as though you’d spend that much hiring it to take Susie out in.’

  ‘Too right.’ Terry looked at her again and she showed him a blandly interested expression. ‘If you must know, I borrowed it.’

  ‘Oh, well that explains it,’ said Willow. ‘Why didn’t you say so and save all this trouble? Tell us who you borrowed it from so that we can get confirmation and that’ll settle the whole thing.’

  ‘I borrowed it from a bloke at work. He left his keys with me.’

  ‘Come on, Terry. You can’t expect us to believe that.’

  ‘Why not?’ He glared at Willow.

  ‘Because you were a security guard at a large firm of accountants. We’ve got all that already. That size of car is driven only by the most senior people. None of them is likely to lend it to a junior security man. You picked it, didn’t you? Come on.’

  ‘I borrowed it,’ said Terry firmly. He was beginning to look less cool and as though he was trying to work something out in his head as he talked. After a moment, he added, ‘Look here, I was going off duty. It was pissing down and I was on my way to the tube when I see this bloke get out of his car in the street. He was in such a rush he didn’t even lock it, let alone set the alarm. He was sopping wet and he ran right past me; didn’t even see me. I had a good laugh because he was a git, see. I thought I’d impress that little cow if I turned up in a car like his was. I knew he’d be in the office for hours or he wouldn’t of bothered to repark it, and I knew I could get it back in time. It was weeks since I’d had me rocks off and I needed a screw. I thought the car might just swing it with Susie, and I’d kill two birds with one stone.’

  Willow could not help wincing at the phrase, remembering the two people who had died. She wondered if Terry really could be so sure that no one would ever believe Susie’s account of that crash.

  ‘So what happened?’ asked Jag, looking dangerously threatening without even trying. Suddenly distracted, Willow realised she would not have been surprised if Emma had reacted with fear if he had ever looked like that at her.

  ‘Nothing,’ said Terry quickly. ‘The stupid cow liked the car, specially as we picked up speed, but she squealed like a stuck pig when I took her up to ninety and then did the stop. To be fair, she did get a bruise on her face from the window; could’ve been cut too. Till then I thought I was in with a chance. Get them gee’d up like that with a bit of a fright and you’re home, usually. But she was too stupid even for that and once she’d hit the window it was hopeless. She was whimpering to be taken home. So I took her, di’n’I?’

  ‘Straight home?’

  ‘Yeah.’ Terry’s eyes narrowed in suspicion. ‘Hey, what else has the stupid cow been saying? I told you, you don’t want to believe anything she says. She can’t tell what’s real from what she’s seen on the telly, and that’s a fact.’

  Jag leaned forward to pre-empt anything that Willow might say. ‘She wouldn’t tell us what happened, only cried when we asked. That’s why we had to find you.’

  They both saw Terry relax.

  ‘What did you do with the car?’ asked Willow.

  Terry shot his cuffs again and looked much more pleased with himself than his situation warranted.

  ‘Left it back near the office, at five past ten, di’n’I? Near where I found it, but not in the same place. If he’d been looking before I got it back there, he’d think he’d forgotten where he’d put it. Then I got the tube home and had a wank to make up for what that prick-tease done to me.’ Terry looked as though he was trying to shock Willow, and she took a perverse pleasure in pretending she had not understood him.

  ‘You mean you left the car unlocked? Anyone could have taken it.’

  ‘Stands to reason. I didn’t have no keys. I know how to start ’em up, but not lock and alarm them. It’s not my fault if someone took it. Someone could of. But the firm wouldn’t lose. They’ve got insurance.’

  ‘I think that’s all we need ask then for the moment,’ said Willow brightly. ‘If you would just give Jag the name of your GP, we can write to arrange the DNA test if it proves necessary to test the child after all.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Jag, taking out a pen and a piece of paper. ‘But it does sound more likely that it’s the other man, doesn’t it?’

  ‘Oh, yes,’ said Willow blandly.

  Terry dictated a name and address that she was almost certain would prove to have been as imaginary as their story, and then they let him go.

  ‘I’m sorry I stopped you,’ said Jag as soon as Terry had banged the pub door shut behind him, ‘but I thought if you pushed h
im any further or let him know what you really suspected we could be in for something nasty. He was quite near the edge at one moment.’

  ‘I know. Presumably he’s been keyed up ever since it happened, waiting for someone to come and ask him about that night.’

  ‘Yes, I think so. And rehearsed his version over and over again.’

  ‘It was quite fluent, wasn’t it?’

  ‘Sure. By now he’s probably almost persuaded himself that it’s the true one.’

  ‘Maybe,’ said Willow. ‘But he’s a fool all the same. If he’d denied all knowledge of the car that night, we’d be no further on. As it is, the police may have kept all the evidence from the case and be able to track down his prints in amongst all the ones they took from the car.’

  Jag laughed. After a moment she nodded and reluctantly smiled with him.

  ‘I know. We’re not much further on as it is. At least as far as the police or the courts are concerned. All Terry’s got to say if they do find his fingerprints among the ones they took at the time is what he told us, and he’ll probably get away with the suggestion that Susie is too thick to tell the difference between what really happened and what she read in the paper. Any clever lawyer could muddle her in the witness box without any difficulty at all. She’d never convince a jury.’

  ‘You’re probably right,’ said Jag. ‘And he might do it. That was quite a slick story he told. It covered the bruise on her face, and it made it possible to believe that someone else could have stolen the car after he’d returned it.’

  ‘I know,’ said Willow. ‘Help, look at the time. I have to get the next train back. Do you mind hurrying?’

  ‘Not at all,’ said Jag, downing the rest of his beer.

  They had to run part of the way to the station, but they caught the train Willow had planned to take so that she would be back in time to give Lucinda her bath.

  ‘What’s worrying you so much?’ asked Jag after they had exhaustively discussed everything Terry had said and its implications for Emma’s work.