Kingston was getting a sinking feeling that Everard was telling the truth. Nothing in his answers, or the straightforward manner in which he had phrased them, gave Kingston any reasons to think otherwise. He had run out of questions—almost.
“You’re saying you don’t know Alison Greer either? You’ve never met her?” he asked.
“Absolutely not.”
“Well—”
“Sounds like she’s led you up the garden path, Doctor.”
Kingston wanted to say, You don’t know how true that is, but instead replied, “It rather looks that way.”
“Sorry I couldn’t help,” Everard said, as if he meant it.
“Thanks for taking the time to call. I appreciate the courtesy, Mr. Everard—rare these days.”
“No problem.”
“This is going to sound like an odd question, but would you mind if I asked you your height?”
“My height?”
“Yes.”
“That is a strange question.”
“I know.”
There was a pause, after which Everard replied, “Five-nine.”
“Thanks,” said Kingston. “Thanks very much.”
They said good-bye and Kingston put down the phone.
Alison Greer was lying. What other explanation was there? Why would she concoct such a story to mislead him so duplicitously? She had been so convincing. Not only convincing, he had even taken a liking to her. He laughed to himself. On the drive home from her cottage he had toyed with the idea of finagling a way to see her again under more sociable terms. Such stirrings had been rare, almost nonexistent during his many years as a widower.
Oddly, he wasn’t furious about what she had done. He was more at a loss as to her motivation to have gone to such lengths to deceive him. In a perverse way, it was an admirable performance. Nevertheless, he’d made up his mind, regardless of Desmond’s admonitions, that he would confront Alison Greer to find out who had put her up to it and what was going on. He wasn’t going to let her get away with it. Now was as good a time as any. He picked up the phone and punched in the number she had given him.
It rang for some time before he heard the message: “Sorry we missed your call …” Kingston put the phone down, not too gently, and looked up at the ceiling. “That’s odd,” he said under his breath. “We missed your call.” Was someone living with her? Wouldn’t she have said so? Or was it the editorial “we” again?
Kingston lay awake half that night, thoughts and visions of Alison Greer coming and going as he tried to rehash their conversation of that morning at the cottage. By the time first light sliced through the shutters, projecting an abstract light show on the wall, his mind had long since been made up. Today was Saturday and if the weather was half decent, he would take a spin down to Hartley Wintney with the intent of surprising Miss Greer and having it out with her.
Dressed in his navy terry robe, he went into the kitchen and put the kettle on. Waiting for it to boil, he called her again, just in case he had mistakenly dialed the wrong number yesterday. He heard the same message.
Several minutes later, a cup of tea and a bowl of steaming Scott’s Porridge Oats on the table, and Alison Greer off his mind for a while, he cast his eyes over The Times crossword and read a few clues. Cleverly concealed anagrams—some eleven- and twelve-letter words or longer—often appeared. He had become a whiz at ferreting out and solving them. Now and then, just for fun, with nothing better to do, he would look at words in magazines, on packages, in waiting rooms—wherever—and make anagrams of them. By shuffling the letters of “Alec Guinness” he’d made Genuine Class. “Marriage” became A Grim Era. One of his all-time favorites, though not of his making: “Eleven Plus Two” translated to Twelve Plus One. He’d been staring at the Scott’s Porridge Oats package for many years before thinking of turning it into an anagram: Go stir paste, doctors, was the best he’d been able to come up with. Other clues in The Times were even more difficult. One that he’d finally solved yesterday was particularly ingenious. The clue read: Try to measure speed of arrow? You must be patient (4,4,4). The answer was three words, each four letters.2
Two hours later, under a mackerel sky and with the top down, Kingston turned left off the A30 to the village green at Hartley Wintney. He stopped outside Pennyroyal Cottage, looking at the leaded windows as he got out of the TR4 and stretched. They were all closed—unusual for such a warm day, he thought. He knocked on the door and waited, wondering how Alison would react, what she would say, when she opened the door and saw him. After a minute or so he knocked again, this time harder. He knew it had been a gamble to drive down unannounced but, it being Saturday, he’d figured there was a greater than fifty-fifty chance of her being home. Now he was beginning to think he might have acted too impulsively, blinded by the slap in the face he’d received—and it still stung. The damned woman was probably away, that’s why he’d got the answering machine. He was about to give it one last try when he heard a voice calling. He turned to see a stumpy white-haired lady wearing an apron approaching the gate. She had busybody written all over her.
“You looking for the Wilsons?” she asked, wiping her hands on the apron, stopping at the garden gate.
“I was actually looking for a woman named Alison Greer,” Kingston replied as he walked toward her.
The woman looked perplexed. “I don’t know anyone by that name. This is Peggy and Edgar Wilson’s cottage. I’m their neighbor. That’s my place,” she said, nodding in the direction of the whitewashed cottage next door.
Now it was Kingston’s turn to be perplexed. “The Wilsons own it?”
The little lady stiffened. “May I ask who you are?”
Kingston cranked up his best smile, crinkling the laugh lines at his blue eyes. “I’m terribly sorry. I should have introduced myself. Doctor Kingston,” he said, with a slight emphasis on “Doctor.”
It worked every time. Her tenseness and the quizzical look disappeared like thistledown in the wind. “Well, nice to meet you, I’m sure, Doctor. I’m Millie—Millie Watkins.” She smiled at last and looked suitably impressed, so Kingston continued.
“I was here about a week ago, visiting the lady I mentioned—Alison Greer. She led me to believe it was her cottage.”
“Well, the Wilsons have lived here for about—” She looked up, creasing her already deeply wrinkled brow. “Oh, at least five years, I would say.”
“They own it?”
She paused, obviously wondering whether she should be divulging all this to a complete stranger. “No, they rent.”
“Forgive me,” said Kingston. “I’m sorry to be asking so many questions but how would she—the woman whom I mentioned—have been able to entertain me for several hours in this very cottage?” The instant the words were out of his mouth, he realized how they must have sounded. He felt his face flush, and tried to cover his tracks. “When I said, ‘entertain’I meant that we just chatted and had tea and biscuits, that sort of thing. I had every reason to believe it was her house.” As he talked, he realized how easy it would have been for Alison Greer to pull it off. A few strategically placed photographs, making tea in the kitchen, it would have been all so easy if she knew she had the place to herself for a few hours.
“This lady—what did she look like?”
“About your height—petite, I guess you’d describe her. Dark hair, on the short side and blue eyes—very blue.”
Millie looked off to the side, thinking for a moment, then turned back to Kingston. “Now you mention it, there was a lady here once. I chatted briefly with her. Oh, months ago it was. I was coming back from the shops and it looked like she was letting herself in. The Wilsons were away that time, too. I asked, from across the front lawn, who she was and what she was doing. She said not to worry, that she worked for the leasing agent who looked after the property. She held up the key for me to see and mentioned the agent’s name but my memory’s not what it used to be, I’m afraid. She wasn’t what you’d call talkative
but she was well dressed and seemed quite nice, so I took her at her word.”
“Do you recall if she had dark hair?”
“I believe so but I wouldn’t be certain. I never saw her close up so I don’t know about the eyes. I only saw her that one time.” She shrugged. “Could have been her, I suppose.”
“If it was, it would certainly explain how was she was able to let herself in.” Kingston looked back at the cottage. “Where are the Wilsons now, may I ask?”
“I shouldn’t be telling you all this, but they’re on holiday. Coming back this Wednesday, they are.” She paused, frowning again, clearly trying to fathom what it all meant. “They’re retired and travel quite a lot. I always keep an eye on the cottage while they’re gone.” She shrugged and took on a defensive air. “I can assure you it’s all been very normal since they left—nothing out of the ordinary. I would have noticed if there had been.”
“Do you know who owns the cottage?”
“Now? I’m not really sure. The lady who used to own it passed away.”
“Did she live here?”
“Yes, for a long time. Dear old soul she was. Marjorie.” Millie looked melancholy, her eyes downcast. “Poor thing died of pneumonia, always ailing she was. She was in her late eighties, so she’d had a good innings. I never knew any of her family, though I know she had a son. She was real proud of him. She must have left the cottage to somebody, I suppose.”
“Do you recall Marjorie’s name? Her surname?”
Millie put a finger up to her lower lip. “Let me see—I believe it was Walsh. Yes, that right, Marjorie Walsh.”
Kingston nodded. “It makes sense—yes, it makes sense,” he muttered. It was supposition of course, but Marjorie Walsh was most likely Adrian’s mother and it was he who had bought the cottage for her. After she died, he got it back. Being privy to Walsh’s affairs, Alison knew about the cottage and where the key was kept. Most likely, one was kept in the office, too.
“Well, you’ve been very helpful, Millie. Thanks for answering my questions.” He flashed the Kingston smile again. “I have one request before leaving. Would it be impertinent of me to ask if I could see inside the cottage? Only for a minute—there’s something I want to check.”
He knew from the look on her face that he was pushing his luck. Reading her mind wasn’t hard: being outside, in the relative safety of the village green was one thing, but being alone in a house with a total stranger twice her size was another matter entirely. He could see that she was struggling to find a suitable answer, not wanting to give the impression that she didn’t trust him.
“You don’t have to come in with me,” he said. “You can watch from the door if you like. I’ll stay in the living room. It’ll only take a minute.”
She had knotted the corner of the apron and was twisting it nervously.
“Promise I won’t nick anything,” he said, smiling.
“All right,” she said, at last. “Let me go get the key.”
In a minute she was back. She opened the door and let him in.
Kingston looked around the living room. Everything was the same except for one thing: The photographs of Alison Greer were gone. In their place: framed family photos of what he took to be two or three generations of Wilsons.
Outside on the front porch Kingston thanked Millie, got in the TR4 and drove off. First, before heading for home, he was going to make a pit stop at a nearby pub that came highly recommended by Andrew: the Shoulder of Mutton. He needed a pint and then some lunch. He had a lot of thinking to do.
FIFTEEN
Settled at a corner table in the dark-paneled lounge of the Shoulder of Mutton at Hazely Heath, Kingston took a sip of beer while studying the lunch menu. The decision made, he leaned back and thought about Alison’s Greer’s deception. Why would she go to all that trouble just to tell him about Everard? Come to think of it, she’d lied about her conversation with Becky, too. He’d rehashed their conversation that day at the cottage more than once, and was still unable to come up with another reason for her wanting to see him personally. If it was only about Everard, she could as easily have told him on the phone.
After a minute or so, he gave up trying to figure out her motive. Regardless of what or who put her up to it, he was convinced of one thing: she knew much more than she was telling about Stewart, Walsh, and Everard. However, it was now immaterial. If she had done a vanishing act—and it looked that way—he might as well forget about her; too bad, because she was the only link to the three men. Once again, it was stalemate.
A waitress arrived and took his order for lunch plus another half pint of best bitter. Not yet noon, the pub was still relatively quiet but Andrew was usually right; it looked like the kind of place that would fill up quickly. He smiled to himself and thought about Andrew eating and drinking his way through New Zealand. He gulped down the remainder of his beer and took stock of the situation. His search for Stewart was all but over and he knew it. The chilling message was no idle threat and he wasn’t out to prove otherwise. It had crossed his mind, too, that they—whoever they were—might be keeping tabs on him. It wouldn’t surprise him, with so much at stake. Now that he thought about it, there had been little discussion, with the police or anyone else, about the billions of dollars to be made if the biological desalination process was proven industrially viable and cost-efficient. When announced—if that day came—it would get international media coverage and governments in arid regions of the world would be the first ones clamoring for it.
Kingston traced a question mark in the droplets of beer on the polished surface of the tabletop. Much as he tried to forget her, he couldn’t get Alison Greer off his mind. It was something she had said. A moment later it came to him. Why hadn’t he thought of it before? Why hadn’t he called her place of work—Walsh’s construction company? Surely, there couldn’t be many construction companies in Farnborough. A Google search would find it in a flash. As he was thinking about it, the waitress appeared with his lunch and another beer. Feeling a little more bucked up—at least he had one more avenue of investigation—he took a sip of beer and tucked into his Dover sole meunière.
By the time Kingston had reached the Chiswick Flyover—ten minutes from home—it was raining stair rods and the TR4’s aging windscreen wipers were chattering like false teeth on a frigid night. He’d best get them replaced in the next couple of days. At last he reached the garage. Locking the car inside, setting the alarm, he braced himself for the walk to his flat. In the few minutes it took, his umbrella blew inside out twice and by the time he reached the front door he was drenched. From the thighs down it was as if he’d been wading in one of Desmond’s pools.
In the living room, dressed in an Irish wool pullover and corduroy pants, he sat in front of a newly lit fire, PowerBook on his lap and a glass of whisky on the table at his side. A search had turned up nearly two dozen construction companies in Farnborough, none under the name Walsh. He ran the cursor down the list again and stopped at AW Construction. That had to be it. He glanced at his watch. It was near five. He picked up the phone and entered AW’s number, hoping it wasn’t going to be one of those infuriating “If you know the extension number of the person …” jobs.
“AW Construction, how may I help you,” a cheery woman’s voice interrupted his thoughts.
“My name’s Lawrence Kingston—Doctor Kingston. I’m calling about one of your employees, a Miss Alison Greer. I understand she was Adrian Walsh’s secretary.”
After a pause, the woman replied. “I’m sorry, Doctor, there’s nobody by that name on our staff.”
It was not the response he was hoping for. It looked as though his assumption was wrong and the AW initials had nothing to do with Adrian Walsh. “You’re sure of that,” he asked. “Not even in the past?”
“Yes. I’ve been here for six years. I suppose she could have worked here before that.” She paused again. “You say she was Mr. Walsh’s secretary?”
“That’s what I’m told, yes.
” Kingston was thinking about what she’d just said. “There is a Mr. Walsh then?” he asked.
“Well, there was. He passed away recently, though. Were you aware?”
“I was, yes,” he replied, trying to give the three words a sympathetic edge, at the same time trying to suppress a sigh of relief that he hadn’t been wrong after all. “Most unfortunate,” he added.
“His secretary left the company. We’re trying to fill that position.”
“May I ask what happened to her?”
“I’m sorry, I’m not permitted to give out information about our employees. It’s a company policy.”
“I fully understand,” said Kingston, not about to give up. “I’m not asking for personal information or even a name for that matter. I’m working with the police on a missing persons case and Miss Greer’s name came up in a recent inquiry. We’re trying to locate her, that’s all.”
“Will you excuse me a moment, sir?” she asked.
“Of course,” he replied.
In less than a minute she was back. “I’m going to have you speak with Mr. Gordon, our personnel director. I’ll transfer you now.”
A young-sounding Gordon came on the line. “Good afternoon Doctor, I understand you were asking about Adrian’s secretary.”
“I was. I explained that it was in connection to a missing persons case I’ve been working on—cooperating with the police.”
“Yes, Cynthia mentioned that. What would you like to know?”
“You’ve no record of an Alison Greer ever having worked for your company?”
“Not in my time, no.”
“Adrian Walsh’s last secretary, what were the circumstances concerning her leaving?”
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