Serena Butler said, ‘You obviously liked what you could see.’
‘You didn’t happen to get her phone number, did you?’
‘Sir! I think you’re getting into this a bit far. She was nice, though. Everybody seems to be. It’s not like you imagine it.’
‘I try not to imagine it, to be honest. So she didn’t give you a surname, obviously?’
She looked at him and could see that something had changed. The humour had gone and the tragic-comic impersonation of David Smith, security magnate and insecure husband was at an end. Instead, on his face now was a look of intense concentration.
‘No, we didn’t get that far. What is it? What’s the matter?’
He lifted his glass.
‘Drink up. This cocktail isn’t half bad and it cost me an arm and leg.’
‘Sir? Is it time to go and see Sarah and Sean, then?’
There was a pause while he brought to an end whatever was running through his mind.
‘No – change of plan. I’ll explain when we get outside. We’ll make our excuses and leave. I’ll just finish this in case I have to shake hands with Sean again. You’d better not have any more, come to think of it – you’re driving.’
‘Go on, then, explain. I was just beginning to enjoy myself, sir.’
Reeve was right – Serena Butler was a talented actress but Smith had heard of the dangers of The Method. He could use a cigarette, too, but wouldn’t smoke in anyone else’s car, and there were half a dozen other thoughts vying for his attention.
‘Well, if you want to pop back in your own time, feel free. I fancy they don’t insist on everyone having a spouse present as long as their face fits. Or some other part, I don’t know…’
She was listening and waiting.
‘Anyway, the lady who came over to have a chat while I was being fleeced at the bar - I strongly suspect that I have seen her before, on two occasions now.’
‘But she didn’t know you, did she? I never saw a sign of that, sir.’
‘Oh, I don’t know her – I said that I’d seen her, didn’t I?’
‘Where?’
‘Sitting on a desk on the gas platform where our friend James Bell recently started work.’
‘Sitting on a desk? I’m sorry, but…’
He left it with her for a moment, thinking, it’s just after ten o’clock – what will Alison Reeve be doing on a Saturday night? She should be out gallivanting but if he was right, this wouldn’t wait until Monday, and sometimes she went in to work on a Sunday, thinking that he didn’t know.
‘A picture! Whose desk?’
‘You should be able to get that as well, if you’ve any sort of memory for names.’
It took her another five seconds.
‘Not the Nordco man – first the money, then the phone number and now this?’
‘I think we just met Marion – if that’s her real name – McFarlane.’
Her next expression was a little unladylike but Smith let it pass.
Then she said, ‘I can see why we came out, now. If we’d-’
‘Yes, quite. We don’t want to flush out whatever is lurking in this undergrowth just yet.’
‘If it is her, we got lucky, didn’t we?’
‘Did we? I wish people would stop saying that, or we won’t recognize real luck when it does come along.’
Oh, she thought – he sounds a little bit cross. Then he looked round at her, and she could see that his expression was more amused than angry.
‘What I mean is this. Why were we there tonight? What led us to go there at all?’
‘The card thing, the pass or whatever it is.’
‘Which we found where?’
‘In James Bell’s flat.’
‘And we think that there was some sort of unpleasantness in that flat before he disappeared. So we’re investigating where he went before he disappeared. We’ve already done the pubs and the betting shops. That card was a good indication, a good possibility, so we came to have a look. No luck involved so far, is there?’
‘No. But the fact that she was here tonight, the same night as we came?’
‘Might be luck, might not. Maybe she’s here every other night. I’m not saying that there’s no luck involved – I said that in the office – but that’s not the same thing as being lucky, not in my mind. Through a decent if somewhat dodgy bit of police work, we put ourselves in the right place to get a little bit of luck, that’s all.’
Looked at that way, she thought, you can’t really argue with him – and then she smiled in the darkness and had another thought, that she hadn’t had so much fun on a Saturday night in a long time.
She said, ‘If you are right, sir, it’s not looking good for Mr McFarlane.’
Smith said, ‘Could just be a coincidence. Maybe she never met Jimmy Bell.’
Now it was her turning towards him – the single raised eyebrow she saw there said it all.
He said, ‘You do realise, darling, that after tonight things can never be the same between us? We’re going to need to talk this through…’
‘And be completely honest about our needs.’
He groaned and covered his eyes with a hand.
‘Take me home. I’ve had enough excitement for one night.’
Chapter Seventeen
After a short night of troubled sleep, he had risen very early and driven east into the dawn. Along the coast road, the dove-grey and pink-flushed sea to his left and the low, dark hills of north Norfolk to his right, there had been little traffic, and he had taken the long-familiar bends just a little more pacily than usual, enjoying the demands that made and how it took his mind away from other things. That Audi had been nice, he had to admit, and he remembered Reeve’s words to him – that he had enough put away and still coming in to afford something decent. And Charlie’s son would do him a deal… Maybe it was time to trade the old girl in. He’d have to give it some thought.
The first breath of sea air, even before he had unlocked the caravan, more than compensated for the lack of sleep and the unearthly time at which he had set off. He stood on the steps and breathed it in several times; along the line of caravans he could see a car or two but most of them would still be empty so early in the year – and that was why the two of them always said that spring and autumn were their favourite seasons here. Well, it was one reason – there were many others. Unlocking the door then, the memories came back to him, like the migrant birds that came back to the woods every spring – Sheila could name most of them – but it was the autumn that was always strongest for him. Then the scent of pine resin is at its most powerful, strange fungi push up through the soft carpets of fallen needles, and out on the vast marshes are the haunting cries of the wild geese that come in their thousands to spend the winter. Pink-footed geese, Brent geese, Greylag geese – those he could name – and sometimes much rarer ones that brought the birdwatchers with their camouflage coats, telescopes and cameras, as seasonal in their appearance as the birds that they pursued.
Always after the winter, the faint smell of disuse. He left the door open and pushed all the windows wide. No sun as such but it was bright now and the breeze was sufficient to move new air through the caravan and take away the staleness in a matter of minutes. On every surface, too, a thin film of inactivity had settled and he went back to the car for the brushes and dustpans and cloths and cleaning fluids that he had brought to wipe it away.
As he worked, he wondered about the events of the previous evening – not so easily wiped away, he concluded. Alternative lifestyles? Perhaps. He had spent his entire career as a policeman confronting people with lifestyles very different to his own; by definition almost, that had to be the case, and so how were the members of the married singles club – he was still having problems with the name of it – any different? He had no need to confront them at all, of course, because they were committing no crime in the strict sense of the word, and that was the only sense that had any meaning for him professionally.
But personally? In that sense, yes, it bothered him.
He picked up the mats one by one, took them outside and beat them with a hand-brush, watching the dust drift away towards the sea. It might be just another age-related thing. Serena Butler had found it funny, intriguing even, but not in any way shocking, and he suspected that would be the attitude of many in her generation – twenty eight, isn’t she? And yet, despite that, she herself had already been involved in the misery that infidelity can bring, to the point that it had affected her career. ‘Playing with fire’, his mother would have said, and she was, bless her, not wrong; nothing hurts more than a burn.
Smith had told himself that he did not want to think about work this morning. He had called Reeve on her mobile at 22.45 last night. She sounded a little sleepy and he thought, well, she’s at home, gone to bed early on a Saturday evening, a nice-looking woman like that… But it could have been worse he thought, visions of Sarah and Sean briefly before him again, and, of course, Alison Reeve wasn’t necessarily alone.
She had woken up when he gave her the news, though.
‘OK. Well done, both of you. I don’t know about you but I think it’s time we started talking to some people, forensics or no forensics. Pay McFarlane a visit on Monday if he isn’t on the platform?’
No, he said. Philip Wood – let’s hear his explanation first, see if there is any possible connection with McFarlane. What was he doing with that mobile phone? Wood looks like a bit of a low-life who’ll play the game in the lower divisions if he can play at all; the same will not be true of the company man. They agreed an eight o’clock start in the office on Monday morning. Philip Anthony wouldn’t be an early riser.
He could hear a car on the single-track gravel drive between the caravans. Jo Evison had taken the news of his changed plans on Saturday quite cheerfully – he had told her that it was work but not exactly what he was doing or what he would be wearing, staring into his wardrobe with trepidation as he talked to her. She might stay over anyway, she had said, if her meeting with the Richardsons went on for a while. It would be easy to find a B and B in March, wouldn’t it? Was she wondering whether he would offer her the bedroom again? It didn’t sound that way but she was difficult to read, and because he was uncertain, he had not done so. But then, when he had said casually what he had planned for Sunday she had said, well, if I do stay over, I could come up and see this famous caravan, couldn’t I? Where is it exactly? And he had told her.
He went to the door but it was only Harry, Shirley’s groundsman-come-handyman, doing the rounds in his truck. Seeing Smith, he pulled over and they talked about the snow last January, and the winds of last week and how it was going to be a busy old season, with bookings already up. That’s a simple life, isn’t it, Smith thought as he watched Harry drive away. And then he thought, Pinehills is a long way round on the journey from Lake to London. She won’t turn up here today.
‘It’s bigger than I expected.’
If indeed she had never stayed in a caravan, then she was judging them all by the boxes we see being towed up and down the motorways – a static is a very different animal.
‘But it’s still sort of cosy. I like it. It must be lovely when the weather is fine – what about when it isn’t?’
‘Even cosier, we always said. When the rain is drumming on the roof and you can feel the surf pounding out on the beach… Turn on the gas fire and you can toast crumpets in front of it, if you don’t mind the wait. That’s not allowed, of course, but they taste all the better.’
She laughed and said, ‘Like a lot of things in life!’
He had been re-tuning the television and not heard her car arrive; he turned at the knock on the door, expecting to see Shirley Salmon or one of the neighbours from another caravan, and then Jo Evison’s face had appeared. One of those moments then, when the separate parts of a life successfully compartmentalized suddenly and irreversibly run into each other and meld, forming something new and unexpected.
First she had handed him the bottle-shaped bag from an off-licence that he did not recognize. He looked inside and then took out the whisky that it contained – he didn’t recognize the whisky either: Blue Hanger Blended Malt, 9th Limited Release.
She said, ‘I could see that you are into the single malts, so I thought I’d take you out of your comfort zone, challenge your preconceptions. Sorry – that’s not a very polite sort of apology!’
He examined the bottle more closely, running a finger over the embossed label and thinking that blended or not, those don’t come cheaply.
‘It wasn’t necessary, but thank you. It looks interesting.’
Then she had had the brief tour and admired how cleverly the beds folded away so that you could sleep six people here. She shook her head at that, said no, that would be too many, surely, and he had to agree – in his own time here there had only ever been the two of them. Now they sat at the table, one either side, waiting for the kettle to boil, and he was glad that he had remembered to bring fresh tea and coffee – he had almost brought a flask, would have done so if he had not been so keen to get onto the road before first light.
He wondered whether he should tell her where he had spent the previous evening. She would have something to say about that, something insightful and funny probably, something that might even be useful, but in the end he left it. He was trying his best to have at least a day away from work… And he might not like what she had to say, had no idea where her own values lay in relation to his own.
Instead, he let her ask him questions about life on the caravan park, about how often his caravan was let out and how all that was managed. He told her, and when she asked how much it cost for a week, she was surprised.
‘Really? Get another three or four of these and you could afford to give up work!’
‘That’s only in the peak season, of course. It’s lower in April and May, September and October – half that price. And sometimes they’re let just for long weekends.’
She said, ‘It’s still not that much when you consider the cost of anywhere nice abroad. And a lot less hassle. I’ve had enough of airports, lately. Somewhere like this you can drive to in a couple of hours, no booking in or parking problems, no luggage issues, no queuing… Getting to know somewhere, just one place intimately. I can see the attraction of it.’
He went into the kitchen, which was behind where she was sitting, and filled the cafetiere. From there he could see the back of her head and then her profile when she turned to look out of the window. A faint smile as if she really did like what she could see, and the peace and quiet, and the brief sense of otherness that comes from being away from bricks and mortar, from offices and roads and ordinary days. The same outdoor jacket, he noticed and another pair of walking boots. She would not have visited the Richardsons like that, so she had put those on before setting off from Lake this morning, had packed them – which meant that she had at least considered that she might be staying overnight. Was she hoping for another walk along the coast, this time without the snow? Should he offer?
She was looking through the window at something particular now.
She said, ‘It must be wonderful for dogs. Look at this Husky!’
He stooped and looked out through the tiny kitchen porthole.
‘Oh, I’ve met them at the clubhouse. He’s French, she’s English, but I can’t recall their names offhand. They’re from London. I don’t where the dog’s from…’
‘Really? Doing what I just said. They own one of these?’
‘Yes – one of the really flash jobs nearest to the woods. I think he’s in finance or something, a banker maybe. I can’t remember – you meet all sorts up here these days. He gets a good return on his money for a few years, and free weekends away.’
‘He’s beautiful.’
‘Well, I know the French are said to have a certain charm but-’
‘The dog!’
‘Oh. Yes, it’s a good place for them. The site owner’s very hot on clearing up
after them, though. You have a dog?’
She shook her head.
‘I’d like one but I’ve been away too much. And living on your own? It’s not fair to shut them up all day. So I resist temptation. You?’
He brought the coffee through on a tray with two matching tiny cups and saucers, a matching bowl for the brown sugar and a matching miniature jug of milk. She smiled.
He said, ‘No, not now – same reasons, I suppose. We had one when my wife was at home. They both loved it up here. If she saw me with certain bags, she knew it was a weekend at the caravan, and she’d jump into the boot and sit there panting until we were ready. I’m talking about the dog, obviously.’
She didn’t know whether she should laugh when he said things like that, he could see, and he was aware that whenever he spoke about Sheila, Jo Evison would leave a short silence, a short, respectful silence, perhaps.
After the pause she said, ‘What was her name?’
‘The dog?’
She put down her cup, folded her arms and regarded him with a cross smile.
‘Marilyn.’
Now she had to laugh.
‘Marilyn! Why?’
‘Well, she was small and had this sort of long, wavy, straw-coloured coat. I said she’d be a dumb blonde – begging your pardon,’ with a gesture towards her own pale hair.
‘First of all, what breed was she?’
‘Just a mongrel thing, a rescue dog. We didn’t have her as a puppy. A sort of terrier-come-spaniel mix-up.’
‘And was she dumb?’
‘Yes – so dumb that she lived a life of luxury, and never did a day’s work in her life.’
‘And you loved her very much…’
He drank some coffee, and after a moment she said, ‘This coffee is good. What is it?’
‘Australian Skybury. It was on offer.’
‘Worth the full price. You were drinking coffee the first time I saw you, and you asked about it in the French restaurant. Now this. You have an addiction.’
Luck and Judgement Page 22