Perfect Strangers

by Tasmina Perry

  He paused to downshift as they turned on to a road, a single-lane blacktop that wound down into a grove of red oaks, the sunshine only leaking through in shafts of brilliant yellow.

  Josh looked at him. ‘Could that have been the FBI back there?’

  Jim shrugged. ‘Why? You something to do with her husband?’

  ‘My father was an old friend of Michael Asner,’ explained Sophie.

  ‘Her house is being watched, that’s for sure. Mine’s the only gas station in three miles, they got to get their reg’lar and their Twinkies somewhere. They been sitting there for months with those wires in their ears.’

  ‘We need to get to Manhattan,’ said Sophie, desperate to get away from Pleasantville.

  ‘If you pay for the gas, I’ll take you all the way. If you’re trying to avoid some folks, that’s the best way to get to the city. No, ol’ Jim knows all the back roads from here to Hazzard County.’

  He winked, and Sophie leant over to kiss his leathery cheek.

  ‘You’re a very kind man,’ she said as Jim blushed.

  He turned to Josh.

  ‘You’ve got a good girl,’ he smiled. ‘You look after her, y’hear? My Martha passed not two years since, and ain’t a day goes by I don’t think of her. Woman couldn’t cook for shit, but she was a good one. You find yourself a good one, you hold on to her, okay?’

  Sophie glanced at Josh, but he turned and looked out of the window, small spots of colour in the centre of his cheeks.

  ‘I’ll try, Mr Bryant,’ he said quietly. ‘I’ll certainly try.’

  35

  Ruth couldn’t quite believe that there were people working out at the gym at eight o’clock on a Friday night. Haven’t these people heard of pubs? she thought as she peered through the glass partition of the Red Heart at a dozen people still working the machines. She looked at her watch, eager to get this over with. Ian Fox had texted her back, clearly intrigued, and they were due to meet when his shift finished at nine p.m.

  ‘Can I help you?’

  Ruth turned to see a cute, ruddy-faced young man wearing the club uniform – a red T-shirt and black jogging bottoms with the logo of a heart doing press-ups. His plastic name badge read ‘Hi, I’m Mike’.

  ‘I certainly hope you can help me,’ said Ruth, flashing him a smile. Steady, Ruth, she reminded herself. Remember what happened last night.

  Reaching into her bag, she introduced herself and handed him a business card.

  ‘I wanted to ask a few questions about Sophie Ellis. I’m sure you’ve heard she’s got mixed up in something?’

  ‘I guessed as much,’ he said hesitantly. ‘The police were here yesterday, going through her locker and everything.’

  He began to look uncomfortable.

  ‘I’m only the assistant junior manager.’ He gave a nervous laugh. ‘Kind of a glorified receptionist, really. Sharif – he’s the owner – is out at a meeting at the moment.’

  ‘That’s okay. It was you I wanted to talk to anyway,’ lied Ruth. Make them feel important, they’ll give you more. Another one of her dad’s maxims. ‘I understand you’re a good friend of Sophie’s?’

  She was amused to see that Mike’s face instantly flushed pink.

  ‘Well, yes. Not close, which is a shame, because she’s lovely.’ Another nervous laugh. ‘I probably shouldn’t have said that, should I? Now you’re going to think I doffed that bloke at the Riverton out of unrequited love.’

  ‘Don’t be silly,’ smiled Ruth, although that exact thought had indeed passed through her head.

  ‘You don’t really think Sophie had anything to do with it, do you? She isn’t a suspect, is she?’ Mike’s expression suggested that he might burst into tears if that was the case.

  ‘Witness, yes. Suspect, no.’

  ‘That’s what the police officer said.’

  ‘Inspector Fox?’ asked Ruth.

  ‘No, someone called Davis, I think.’

  ‘So how was she the last time you spoke to her?’ asked Ruth. ‘Was anything bothering her? I hear she had money troubles.’

  Mike shook his head.

  ‘No, Sophie wasn’t the type to let anything like that get her down. The first time she came in, I thought she was going to be another of those stuck-up Chelsea girls, but she wasn’t like that at all. She got stuck in, never complained about picking up the sweaty towels the customers drop on the floor, nothing like that. She was great.’

  I think someone has a big crush on Little Miss Sophie, thought Ruth, suppressing a smile.

  ‘Actually, for the last few weeks she’s been really upbeat,’ said Mike. He walked over to the gym notice board and pulled off the flyer for ‘Ellis Training’ that Sophie had pinned there. ‘She’d set up this personal training business and had landed some wealthy housewives as clients. And she was house-sitting at that rich Spanish chick’s place, which must have been amazing.’

  ‘That was Lana Goddard-Price? She came to this gym, didn’t she?’ said Ruth, remembering what Francesca Manning had told her.

  ‘Yes,’ said Mike, frowning. ‘It was all a bit weird, though.’

  ‘In what way?’

  ‘Well, I was pleased for Soph, of course, but I never really got why that Lana woman asked her to become her trainer. Sophie wasn’t working on the day they met, so it wasn’t like she mistook her for a Red Heart trainer.’

  ‘So Sophie isn’t a qualified trainer here?’ asked Ruth, her interest piqued.

  ‘Nope,’ said Mike. ‘She’s really fit, and we all had to do a two-day training course when we started working at the gym, learning about the equipment, that sort of thing. But that’s about it. Which is why I thought it was odd. I mean, these rich birds always want the very best people, like some film star’s personal trainer or a massage therapist who’s been name-checked in Tatler. Not a nobody they meet on the weights.’

  Interesting, thought Ruth.

  ‘Yeah, and there was another thing I checked too.’ He rattled a few keys on his computer and swivelled the monitor around so Ruth could see. It was the member’s account page for Lana Goddard-Price.

  ‘What am I looking at?’ she asked.

  ‘Look at the date,’ said Mike. ‘This Lana Goddard-Price had only been a member of the gym for a week when she met Sophie, and see here’ – he pointed at a box with an ‘X’ in it – ‘that means she had been offered a discounted trial session with our best trainer when she joined. It’s standard procedure when you sign up. But she turned it down. Why would she do that, then ask Sophie to train her a few days later?’

  Ruth shrugged. ‘Maybe she was cheaper.’

  Mike shook his head.

  ‘Soph said Lana was paying her a fortune. I wasn’t surprised. This woman used to bring a Chanel handbag into the gym to carry her water bottle.’

  ‘So why do you think Lana Goddard-Price asked Sophie to be her trainer?’

  Mike looked at her thoughtfully, as if he was weighing up whether he could confide in her. ‘To be honest, I thought she was after her.’

  ‘After her?’

  ‘You know,’ he replied, looking awkward. ‘I thought Lana might be a lesbian. Believe me, I’ve seen a few things in the changing rooms. It doesn’t matter if these rich housewives are married. They get bored, ignored by their husbands, they want a bit of a thrill.’

  ‘And you think that’s what happened with Sophie?’

  Mike shrugged, his face pinking a little. ‘I thought it was a bit full-on to be anything else. Getting Sophie to train with her, inviting her to live at her house all in the space of a fortnight . . . It was a bit odd unless there was an ulterior motive.’

  He looked at Ruth, his eyes wide.

  ‘Hey, I haven’t got her into any trouble, have I? I mean, it’s only a guess.’

  ‘Not at all,’ said Ruth. ‘And you’ve been very helpful.’

  Mike smiled proudly, as if Ruth had just handed him a certificate for first prize in the obstacle race.

  ‘Have I really?’<
br />
  Yes, thought Ruth truthfully. And if nothing else, you’ve given me something to talk about with Detective Inspector Fox later.

  He was late, of course. Very late. Ruth looked up at the clock above the bar: less than an hour till last orders. She wasn’t surprised; she had spent enough time with coppers to know that they rarely punched out on the dot like factory workers. If they had been unlucky enough to stumble on an international terrorist cell at ten minutes to the end of their shift, they couldn’t very well wave them on their way with a cheery ‘mind how you go, sir’. Plus she had chosen her local – a quiet pub in the back streets of Barnsbury – as the venue for their ‘date’, and even with the decent traffic, it would take Fox a good half hour to get there from Paddington. But Ruth didn’t mind; it gave her time to think over the information Mike at the Red Heart gym had given her. Not his theory about Lana Goddard-Price’s seduction tactics, but his point of ‘why Sophie?’ It was a question that had been bothering Ruth too. So what would make Lana Goddard-Price welcome Sophie into her life with such open arms? Had she taken pity on her? These women did like to be seen to be involved with charity. But Sophie Ellis was hardly a starving African baby. Was Lana an old friend of the family? No, Sophie would have mentioned a detail like that to Mike and her mother. Mike was right, there had to be an ulterior motive. The question was what?

  ‘Someone’s deep in thought.’

  She looked up and saw Fox. She felt a flutter of surprise – or was it pleasure? – and smiled.

  ‘Sorry, miles away,’ she said, slightly flustered. ‘I was thinking about the case. You know me, I find it hard to switch off.’

  ‘In which case, I think you need another drink,’ said Fox, taking the chair opposite and pushing a glass of red wine across to her. ‘The barman told me you were on Rioja.’

  ‘Thanks. To switching off,’ said Ruth, raising her glass, chinking it against the policeman’s pint. Fox looked around at the pub’s cosy interior and unbuttoned his suit jacket.

  ‘So I take it this is your local? I sort of imagined you hanging out in sophisticated nightclubs with lots of neon and expensive cocktails,’ he said, his narrow eyes glinting under heavy brows.

  ‘Well, Elton John did call me, begging me to come out. But I said I was meeting my friend Ian who’s much more important.’

  ‘Oh it’s Ian again, is it?’ smiled Fox, taking a sip of his pint. ‘You must want something. I thought you were going to give me information.’

  She searched his face, trying to guess what was going on in his mind. He had come out to meet her, after all – that must mean something. In her experience, police only co-operated with a journalist when they wanted something: some detail on the case, even a name-check on an article to boost their profile. And then there were officers like Dan Davis who were in it for the money or bragging rights in the canteen after they’d got into a reporter’s panties. She was sure Ian Fox was not one of those detectives . . . or was he?

  ‘Just making conversation,’ she said. ‘Not that it would do any harm to compare notes.’

  ‘I’m not sure how well that would go down with the Met Commissioner,’ he smiled.

  ‘So I assume you’ve not heard from Sophie?’

  Fox shook his head. ‘I’ve got to make a decision on that one this weekend.’

  ‘You mean list her as missing?’

  He nodded.

  ‘The longer she goes without making contact with anyone, even her mother, the more we have to worry about her. My guess is that she’s just scared. According to Julia Ellis, she phoned up two days ago and said she wanted to work out who killed Nick.’

  ‘So she’s gone underground to play Nancy Drew.’

  ‘It seems that way.’

  ‘What do you know about Lana Goddard-Price?’

  ‘Who Sophie was house-sitting for?’

  Ruth held up her hand. ‘You don’t have to tell me anything if you don’t want to, but can I just think out loud here? It’s just that I can’t work out why Lana would ask Sophie to house-sit for her. It’s the one thing about this story I can’t get my head around.’

  ‘The one thing?’ said Fox wearily. ‘Most days I think this thing’s like a box of snakes, can’t make head nor tail of it.’

  ‘I take it you’ve tried ringing Lana’s phone? I couldn’t get through.’

  ‘Yes, Ruth,’ he said gruffly. ‘I’m a police inspector, not an idiot. We tracked down Simon Goddard-Price in Geneva, who gave me the landline of their house in Cap Ferrat.’

  ‘So you’ve spoken to her.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And what did she say? Come on, Fox, give me something!’

  Fox took another drink and shrugged.

  ‘She was shocked, upset, as you’d expect. Although I suspect she was more worried about the scandal of having a house-sitter who was mixed up in a murder than she was about Sophie’s well-being. The husband was more bothered about the house. In fact, he made the housekeeper come back from holiday to do an inventory of the property to check for theft.

  ‘And was anything taken?’

  ‘No. Unless you count the unauthorised use of some rather expensive dresses.’

  Ruth saw an opening.

  ‘Burglary wasn’t Nick’s style anyway,’ she said casually, giving him a sideways glance. ‘How much do you know about the fraud operation he was involved in?’ She was fishing of course; all she knew about Nick’s past was what Barbara Beddingfield had told her in the café.

  ‘You mean the wine scam?’ said Fox.

  Bingo.

  ‘That was why he was in London, wasn’t it?’ said Ruth smoothly.

  Fox nodded.

  ‘Our information is that Nick was touting bottles of expensive vintage wine at the Chariot party for twenty per cent under the market value. The Serious Fraud Squad seem to think it might have been counterfeit.’

  ‘So you think there was enough money in the scam to warrant murder?’

  ‘Ruth!’

  ‘All right, all right!’ she said, holding up her hands. ‘Sorry. It’s just . . .’

  ‘Just what?’

  She looked at Fox, hesitating. Ah, what the hell, she thought. She was feeling a little giddy from the red wine she’d drunk waiting for him. Plus if anyone would understand, it was him.

  ‘Look, I know this sounds mad and probably a little bit sad, but I don’t really have anything much in my life right now apart from this job.’

  She blushed. Does he think I’m mental? Probably. Still, she ploughed on.

  ‘So when I get a story like this one, a story my gut’s telling me is something special, I can’t seem to leave it alone. I keep picking at it, pick, pick, pick. In fact, this morning I actually called in sick so I could sit at home drawing a big flow chart on my living room wall, trying to fit all the pieces of the story together.’

  She thought it best not to tell him about poor Chuck Dean. She wasn’t that close to Ian Fox, yet. Besides, avoiding the office all day had given her the chance to brainstorm at home.

  ‘You think I’m a saddo,’ she added, looking up.

  ‘Yes, I do,’ said Fox. ‘But you’re only describing the average copper. Well, perhaps not the average copper, but there are plenty of us who eat, sleep and dream their cases.’

  She looked down at his left hand for a wedding ring and he caught her.

  ‘Forty-three and never married,’ he smiled. ‘Beats being a divorced, alcoholic police cliché.’

  He paused. ‘Do you want to show me?’

  ‘Show you what?’ she asked distractedly.

  ‘Your flow chart,’ said Fox.

  She started to laugh nervously.

  ‘Listen, I’m not Dan Davis,’ he replied quickly. ‘You said you wanted to compare notes, so here’s your chance.’

  ‘Is that allowed?’ she teased, aware that she was being flirty.

  ‘I’m not offering to log you on to the police database, Ruth,’ said Fox with irritation.

  Oh cra
p, she thought. He was offering to do exactly what I wanted and now I’ve scared him off.

  Fox took a deep breath. ‘Sorry, long day,’ he said. ‘Look, quid pro quo here. You’ve told me about your life, here’s mine: being a detective really isn’t like it is on the telly. Whenever you see a cop drama, they have a murder or whatever and they spend weeks working on that one case. In real life, we’d have that case and a dozen others heaped on us all at once. And even if we don’t, we’ve got piles of paperwork or court appearances from stuff we worked on a year before, then there’s our superiors hassling us about targets and budgets . . .’ He gave a wry smile. ‘It’s like having a real job. So actually, it’d be nice to just focus on one thing.’ He raised his eyebrows. ‘If the offer’s still on, of course.’

  Ruth stood up.

  ‘I’ll get some bottles from the bar.’

  As Ruth turned the key in the lock to her Islington apartment, she offered up a prayer of thanks. At least the flat was tidy. Well, tidy-ish. Given that she so rarely had visitors and only had herself to please, she had spent the past few years living in happy disarray: she had a place for everything, and that place was often on the floor or draped over a chair. But as she had so recently moved much of her stuff over to David’s, her little flat was unusually free of clutter. As long as Fox didn’t look in the kitchen, she might just get away with it.

  ‘Where shall I put these?’ He held up the bottles of beer they had bought at the pub.

  ‘I’ll take them,’ said Ruth. ‘Why don’t you go into the living room, make yourself at home.’

  She winced. Did that sound like a come-on? Was it a come-on? The truth was the three large glasses of wine she’d consumed on top of the alcohol still in her system from the previous night’s binge had made her a little tipsy. She slipped into the bathroom and checked her make-up. It’s not a date, Ruth, she scolded herself. But a girl had to look her best at all times, didn’t she? There was no harm checking your hair wasn’t sticking up like a gonk, especially when you had an attractive police detective in the house.

  Satisfied, she went back into the kitchen and poured some nachos into a bowl – ah, the domestic goddess – and took them through with the beer and her wine.