by Penny Grubb
He didn’t look threatening and he probably knew things about Charlotte, but she wouldn’t think of approaching him in such an isolated spot with only Beth for a witness.
A pair of binoculars swung from a strap round his neck. Telescopic sights weren’t the only things with reflective lenses. He looked hot and out of breath. It was possible he’d made it here by road while she stumbled her way down the hill. With his easy, unthreatening look, he’d have no problem hitching a ride.
She watched until he was almost at the front door, then turned and eased herself over the edge on to the twisty path that would take her away from Torran Hill and back to civilization.
Chapter 13
A few moments back in her aunt’s company were enough to show Annie a reinvigorated Aunt Marian, thriving on the stories she’d accumulated, stoking Mrs Watson with mix-and-match theories about Charlotte, the break-in and the world’s security services.
Mrs Watson showed more finer feeling than Annie had credited her with and wrote off Charlotte’s debt rather than pursuing her beneficiaries should there be any. Even so, a sense of unfinished business irritated Annie like a low-level itch. Her aunt and Mrs Watson would propound their theories to all and sundry. What if there was something genuinely nasty below the surface?
‘Be careful what you say, and who you talk to about Charlotte,’ she cautioned before she left. ‘We don’t know what she was mixed up in.’
‘Don’t worry, dear.’ Aunt Marian whispered. ‘I won’t breathe a word about the tapes to anyone.’
Not without guilt, she allowed her aunt to write a cheque for the job, and watched with relief as she settled into Mrs Watson’s routine. To move her away permanently would be like taking a sick patient from a life-preserving drip. It racked up the urgency to return to London to play her part in pulling the company round.
She called Pieternel before she left the guesthouse. ‘I can come straight back now. Aunt Marian’s OK.’
‘No, Annie. Stay on like we planned. Trust me.’
It left Annie dissatisfied and trapped. Whatever Pieternel had cooked up, she didn’t want to jeopardize it. Politics were Pieternel’s game, not hers.
When she arrived at her father’s, he was out. The house sat in silence, no voices, no hum of equipment. No phone rang, no email beeped. She’d forgotten how to operate in a tranquil environment with no deadline clamouring. She needed to talk to someone. There was only one person who wouldn’t struggle to hide irritation when she said she’d just phoned for a chat. There was both comfort and disquiet in the realization of how at ease with each other she and Mike had become.
Her phone came to life with a battery-low warning beep, reminding her she hadn’t charged it since the call to Margot.
She made her way to the hall, but that phone thwarted her too. It hadn’t been switched through from the office. She went for the key.
Opening the door, she stared in amazement. Papers on the desk, the chair pushed back. An office in use. A view of it she’d never seen. Her father must have been called out in a hurry to leave things like this. She approached warily, like a trespasser. Could she justify using his office phone for such a non-urgent reason as wanting a chat with Mike? She told herself she wouldn’t look, wouldn’t touch.
Only, it wasn’t possible. If she looked away while she reached for the phone, she might accidentally disturb the papers. She had to glance at them, but that didn’t mean she had to read what she saw. Even as the thought was in her mind, her eye caught the words. The habits of her job caught her out; years of snatching at any opportunity to speed-read at odd angles, upside down, almost too far for the eye to focus. This was too easy. The words were in her head before her hand reached the handset. She pulled back, her original goal forgotten. The leg in the loch case, and a single fascinating fact. Her father’s hypothesis confirmed. The leg – legs, maybe – had been thrown into the water not far from Mrs Watson’s. They even had tide tables and a precise date and time ‘to within half an hour’.
Without touching anything, she scanned the partial story as she plucked the phone from its rest, her fingers tapping in the number. ‘Mike? Can you talk?’
‘Hi Annie. Are you back?’
‘Nah, tomorrow, but listen, Mike, I’ve found out some stuff about that body in the loch.’
‘I thought it was just a leg.’
She smiled. No time-wasting about why she’d rung, or where she’d found this stuff, or why it should be of the least interest to him. She told him about the times and the tides and how it had gone in near her aunt’s.
‘Both legs? How do they know? Have they found the other?’
‘I don’t know …’ She looked again at the papers, but couldn’t bring herself to move the top ones aside or flip any of them over. He’d know they’d been disturbed. ‘There may have been a witness when it was thrown in. Someone who thought they’d seen trash being dumped. Or …’
The date Mrs Watson’s nephew had seen Charlotte’s guy from his bedroom window at school. What had Aunt Marian said?
He saw him before that too. A week before they got that body out of the water.
The boy had fixed the date by a birthday, so it would be accurate. Exactly a week. So when the legs were dumped, Charlotte’s guy was on the other side of the mountain in sight of the dormitory windows at school. When she explained to Mike, he said, ‘So this guy’s in the clear then. Was he a prime suspect?’
Annie laughed. ‘No, he isn’t in the frame at all. It’s just that if I get the chance to talk to him, I’d like to know I’m not interrogating a murderer.’
‘You be careful, Annie. Why would you want to talk to him?’
‘He knew Charlotte.’
And I think he’s been following me.
Chapter 14
Recharged by her call to Mike and pleased that her father had been vindicated, her lethargy dissipated. Aunt Marian was back to normal. Pieternel was working her magic. Her personal finances were still a concern, but everything would be OK. An unidentified leg and a drugs bust gone wrong weren’t her worries. Her father was on the case. A dull ache labelled Charlotte still nagged at her. A life snuffed out. A person she could have grown to like, but also a person with her own agenda, who’d died in a dead woman’s identity.
Her father already knew about Lorraine and her fall on the moors. Did he need Margot’s tapes too? Annie pulled them out of her bag and looked with distaste, shrinking away from the thought of having Lorraine’s voice in her ear again. Why should her father have to deal with it? He had enough on his plate.
She locked up and left the house, strolling down towards the post office where she stepped inside and plucked a couple of local views from the postcard rack.
‘A book of first class stamps, please.’
‘You sending some cards to your friends down south, Annie?’
‘That’s right.’
‘You write them now and leave them with me. I’ll see they get on their way.’ He handed her a pen.
She addressed one to Dean and one to Mike and wrote a few banalities on each. Weather good. Bit rainy. Very hot. See you soon. With their stamps on, she handed them to Mr Caine and while he busied himself reading them, looked at the row of dolls that hung limply from the rail inside the clutter of the window. They stared with forlorn tattiness, coated in dust, an absurd pretence at being saleable objects. It was only recently Beth had brought a fresh supply. Why couldn’t he at least put new ones in the window? The dolls depressed her. Sometimes, when they appeared in her dreams, she knew that if she could just focus through the sad forms, she’d see her mother’s face.
‘You’re back with your father then?’ Mr Caine asked. ‘Not down at your aunt’s.’
‘That’s right. I’m going back down south tomorrow.’
‘Did you want anything else?’
I’d like to know what makes you tick … why you keep those stupid dolls … ‘No, it was just the postcards and the stamps.’ On impulse, she added. ‘I saw
that young girl the other day, the one who delivers the dolls.’
‘What of it?’
‘It’s a long way for her to walk across the moor. I hope she doesn’t have to do it in winter.’
‘Long way from where?’
‘Uh … where she lives.’
‘I’m sure no one makes anyone do anything they don’t want.’
Clearly, his Doll Maker past was a sensitive area and her father wouldn’t approve of her pushing him on it. She smiled a goodbye and turned to go.
The beginnings of a shower hung in the breeze. She let it caress her skin and smiled to see a family hurrying up from the shore. Father, mother, and two young children. The adults hustled the little ones towards the car park, rushing them to escape the rain.
Is this your first day, she wanted to ask, only this isn’t real rain, the sort you’ve heard Scotland’s famous for? That comes down in cascades, and washes the landscape to a brightness you won’t see down south.
She sauntered on past them, to show how good it felt to be out in the gentle breeze and the mist that was scarcely rain. Father and mother bundled their offspring into the car, not giving Annie a glance. The small boy’s gaze caught hers and he stared with curious eyes.
Then she saw a lanky form by the water’s edge and the family was forgotten. Charlotte’s guy, the man who might have been following her, stood by the rail staring out over the loch.
She began to move towards him, her gaze fastened on his face, half-turned from her. His hair was light brown and wavy. As she watched, his hand came up to push it back. She saw the silver sheen of the mist where fine water droplets clung. He was older than she’d judged. Forty maybe, but something in his face made it hard to guess his age with any confidence. His hair looked soft, and as fine as the mist that coated it and now made him hunch into his jacket, as he looked briefly up at the sky.
She leant on the rail a couple of yards from him, knowing he was aware of her.
‘Why have you been following me? What do you want?’
He gave her a glance, neither unfriendly nor surprised, and turned his back to the water. Leaning elbows on the rail, looking first up into the mountains, then turning warm brown eyes on her, he asked, ‘D’you know what happened to her?’
‘Um … do you mean Charlotte?’
Had he heard about the crash? Charlotte’s name hadn’t yet been released.
‘Charlie, yeah. Where’d she go?’
The rather timid creature Annie thought she’d known was hard to mesh with the easy nickname, Charlie.
When she hesitated, he gave her that half-smile again. ‘I just want to know. She took my car.’
Her stomach knotted. He didn’t know. She didn’t want to be the one to tell him, but what could she say apart from the truth?
‘She … There was an accident. It was in the papers. The high pass.’
‘I don’t bother with papers. How is she?’
‘I’m sorry, I’m afraid–’
‘She copped it, did she?’
‘I’m afraid so, yes.’ She looked up into his eyes, saw them cloud at her words. Then he put the smile on again, as though to reassure her. She smiled back. There was something insubstantial about him, not just his appearance, but his manner. It gave her an odd feeling. No solidity. If anyone leant on him the way she leant on Mike, there’d be nothing there. She wondered what Charlotte meant to him. He’d absorbed the news of her death as though accustomed to playing a difficult hand.
‘Poor cow. How did it happen?’
‘I don’t know. Sorry.’
‘Don’t suppose you know what happened to the car?’
‘I know it caught fire. I don’t think there was anything of it left.’
‘What about her?’
‘She was thrown out. She didn’t burn, but it’s a hell of a drop. She didn’t stand a chance.’
He tipped back his head, squinting as the rain washed across him. ‘That’s that, then.’
‘What’s what?’
‘I thought she’d taken off with my car. It’s been a hassle trying to find her.’
‘How do you mean, your car? It was a hire car.’
‘Yeah, I know. I’ve been following you,’ he returned to her original question, ‘because I wanted to know what happened to her. She just upped and vanished. I thought about knocking on that house where she stayed but the one time I went there, the old biddy looked set to run me off. So I came looking for you, but you kept getting out of reach, or you had an old biddy of your own in tow.’
Annie laughed, but didn’t let on that her aunt had recognized him. ‘Who hired the car? They know it wasn’t Charlotte.’
He looked down and made a pretence of batting water off his jacket front, his expression sheepish. ‘It was me.’
‘Oh, come on …’ Annie was annoyed. Why should he lie?
‘Look …’ He held his hands wide. ‘She didn’t want to get it in her own name and I’ve no papers that a place like that’d accept. She had this other woman’s driving licence. I said she should use it, but she went on at me until I did, said it’d work, no trouble. I never thought it would, but she was right. They didn’t look twice. Frock and a hat. Can’t you see it?’ He stood tall and posed.
Yes, she could see it. She believed him. The tall, lanky Julia Lee described by the hire firm was none other than this guy in drag.
‘Where did she get the driving licence? Was it someone she knew?’
‘Search me. Look, I don’t suppose …?’
When he stalled on the words, she prompted, ‘You don’t suppose what?’
‘Don’t suppose you could give me a lift back across to town? It’s a pisser without a car, relying on your thumb.’ He held out the digit and tipped it at the empty road.
She hesitated, but after all, why not? ‘Wait here. I’ll bring the car down.’
He gave her another flash of the brown eyes. ‘Thanks, Annie. Charlie said you were a good ’un.’
It seemed inevitable that everyone round here should know her name. She looked the question at him. ‘Jak,’ he said, holding out his hand for her to shake. ‘Jak without a c.’
Annie jogged to where her car was parked outside her father’s house, knowing how strongly he’d disapprove of her offering lifts to strangers.
Except for a moment’s tension at the top of the pass, he was a relaxed passenger at her side as they drove away from the village and across the mountain. Deliberately, Annie kept the conversation light. She’d like to know more about his relationship with Charlotte, but didn’t want to question him when she couldn’t concentrate on the body language of his answers.
He guided her to a run-down area of town.
‘Come in for coffee or something, Annie, please. You can’t come all this way and go straight back again. You’ll have me feeling bad about myself, and I don’t do that sort of stuff.’
She looked him over, decided that if push came to shove she could deck him with little trouble. He must know things about Charlotte, things her father needed to know.
He ushered her into the dank hallway and had to stand back to allow a morose and scruffy figure to shuffle past.
‘I’m dossing with Dish while I’m here. It’s not up to much, but he offered and I didn’t think they’d be keen to have me where Charlie was staying.’ Annie noted Jak’s stare follow the shambling figure, and felt some empathy. She’d had to forge allegiance on occasion with people she’d rather disown.
He was right about Mrs Watson’s. The No Vacancies sign would have been up for him. ‘So you’re based in London? Same as Charlotte was?’
‘Yeah, I had some work down there.’
‘What d’you do?’
‘Whatever’s going.’
‘So how do you know Charlotte … Charlie?’
‘Said she wanted to know something. She came to me.’
‘Why you?’
‘She found out I knew people round here. She wanted to know something.’
‘Know what?’
‘I dunno. She never got round to spitting it out.’
‘I heard her talking to you on the phone, Jak. You sent her a text. I got the impression she wasn’t expecting to hear from you.’
He looked up, surprised. ‘That what she told you? She called me up a few days before, said she was here, asked me to come. Said she had a job for me. I didn’t say yes or no. I texted her when I got here.’
It was plausible. Charlotte hadn’t said anything about Jak. Annie had surmised all she knew from the overheard call. She looked at him again. There was no feel of a hidden agenda as there’d been with Charlotte.
‘You wanna drink while you’re here?’
‘Coffee?’
‘I don’t think Dish runs to coffee. He’s got some nice booze in though. How about this?’
Jak slid a crate from behind a heap of boxes and pulled out a bottle Annie could see was a very respectable single malt. Her eyes widened in amazement.
‘What’s up?’
‘Uh … nothing …’ She thought about the crate that Mrs Watson had reported as stolen.
He let out a sigh. ‘Look, I didn’t ask where it came from. I think Dish bought it off a guy in a pub.’
‘Just a small one. I have to drive back.’
‘I’ll get something to put it in.’
She looked around the room. Boxes, heaped in towers against the walls, seeped their contents where the weight from above bulged the sides and split the corners. They seemed filled with ragged material and more boxes. The air was musty, stale. An unmade bed took much of what floor space remained and the only places to sit were a wooden chair, propped three-legged against the box mountain and a canvas foldaway seat with a rusty frame. She chose the canvas.
He returned with two chipped cups. ‘Best I could do.’
He poured the amber liquid, and passed hers across. ‘Absent friends.’
She raised hers to him, knowing she shouldn’t do this. It was Mrs Watson’s single malt, delivered via a guy in a pub, or maybe direct from the scruffy figure who’d shambled out as they arrived. There ought to be indignation on Mrs Watson’s behalf but all Annie could muster was amazement that her aunt’s landlady kept such quality malt.