by Nick Louth
There was one thing she had decided during her long hours tossing and turning. She would ring Verity and simply ask her about the glasses. If she had a good explanation, that would be the end of it. She made herself a coffee, went online and looked up Ferrari brand glasses. She found that there were many different versions. As Anton had said last night, she was probably making a lot of fuss about nothing. But on the other hand she couldn’t just afford to do nothing about it, and she knew she wouldn’t be able to get on with her day until she had put this particular anxiety to bed.
It was cruelly early after a heavy night out, but she rang Verity at 8:30 a.m. The phone was off, so she left a message asking how she was. She made no mention of the real reason for the call.
For the next hour she paced about. Anton would probably eventually give her a lift to go and get her own car back from the office car park, but he was still asleep. There was another way. She could get a bus to the office now. It would take twenty minutes. Once she had the car it would be quite possible to drop in to see Verity at her house in Walton. That wouldn’t be far out of her way. Yes, that’s what she’d do.
* * *
Leticia had never been invited to Verity’s home, but like many at the probation unit she had been party to the drama of its purchase a year previously. They had all overheard her many phone calls to solicitors and estate agents, the agonisingly long process always seeming close to collapse. She had to admit that she was looking forward to seeing what it was like inside now that she had an excuse.
She found the address easily enough. As she had glimpsed last night, the house was a tidy white bay-fronted Victorian terrace, with a neat front garden and recently clipped box hedge. Leticia parked the car outside and picked up her handbag, which contained the carefully wrapped spectacle arm. It was just gone ten, not too uncivilised a time.
She rang the doorbell. No reply. She pressed the bell again and eventually a very pale Verity in T-shirt and shorts pulled open the door, squinting against the light.
‘Oh, hi, I just sent you a text,’ she said sleepily. ‘How did you know where I lived?’
‘It was the address you gave to the taxi driver last night. I was in the cab with you.’
‘Of course. That’s all a bit of a haze. Come in, I’m just making some coffee.’
‘I just wanted to find out how you were.’ Leticia could see pristine pale carpets, a recently decorated hall with several mirrors. All very tasteful. She slipped off her shoes, and padded after Verity in her socks. She was led into a spacious kitchen with a view out over a neat garden.
‘I’m not too bad,’ replied Verity croakily, sweeping her hair back. Without make-up she looked younger and almost androgynous, like a perfect plastic mannequin. ‘I drank a pint of water before bed and that helped. The briefcase is utterly ruined though. I feel terrible about it, but I’ve had to throw it away.’
‘Oh no.’ Leticia hadn’t even made her own contribution to buying it yet. Jill’s hurried whip-round email was only sent last thing yesterday afternoon. Everyone had been asked to put in a tenner.
‘I feel awful, Leticia. Please don’t say anything.’
‘I won’t. Your secret’s safe with me.’
Verity smiled. ‘I really must thank you, too, for bundling me into a cab and looking after me. That was really kind.’ She began to prepare coffee.
After a couple more minutes Leticia decided now was the moment.
‘Look, Verity, there’s something I need to ask you. When I was fetching your bag from your car yesterday, I found a piece of broken spectacles in the boot.’
The silence was enormous and stretched-out. Verity turned back from the coffee mugs. Her face seemed to tighten, her eyes narrow. ‘Sorry,’ she finally said. ‘What did you find?’
Leticia repeated what she’d said, then added: ‘I know this sounds really stupid, but they look just like the glasses that I saw Neville Rollason wearing.’ She fiddled in her bag and brought out the tissue-wrapped arm, and opened it on the kitchen table in front of her.
Verity didn’t look at it, but stared straight at Leticia. ‘I’ve never met him.’ The hangover voice had transmuted to the work voice. Emphatic, crisp and incontrovertible. ‘So it’s impossible, isn’t it?’
‘Of course,’ Leticia said. ‘As I say, I’m probably mistaken.’
Another silence. Verity glanced down as if even seeing the object would implicate her: ‘Ah! I think I know. The Ferrari symbol is the giveaway. They’re my brother’s. He borrowed my car last week. It’s probably from his spare pair. Keeps all sorts of junk in the boot.’ She gave a high little laugh that sounded forced. Back to the old Verity who didn’t know how to smile. Crapped-upon bathmat Verity.
‘I think it’s broken.’ Leticia pointed to the bent hinge wire. ‘He’ll probably need a new pair.’
Verity picked up the plastic arm and inspected it. ‘Why did you wrap it up like this, with a tissue and everything?’
Leticia laughed. ‘Actually, to preserve any fingerprints.’
‘What?’ Verity’s mouth hung open in shock.
Now it was Leticia’s turn to give a high-pitched nervous laugh. She rolled her eyes and said: ‘I was thinking, you know, it was in case you had bumped him off and I had to go to the police about it. I know, I know, it was stupid. I watch too many detective dramas.’ She was aware she was flapping her hands about nervously. ‘I wasn’t thinking straight.’
‘No, I can see that. You obviously don’t have a very high opinion of me.’
Verity’s complexion was ashen, her lips almost pewter. Leticia realised that even to have someone casually consider you capable of murder was not very nice. Verity turned away and fiddled with the coffee things. She spilled some milk, and tutted. A teaspoon jangled and fell onto the floor. They both bent to retrieve it, their heads almost clashing. She could smell Verity’s breath, last night’s wine mixed with something a little bit sour. The stare she gave her on the way up was hostile.
Coffee was made, and while Leticia sat at the kitchen table Verity turned away and fiddled with her phone, tapping out a text.
‘Did you mention this to anyone? You know, thinking you had discovered Rollason’s spectacles in my car?’
‘Only my boyfriend. He thought I was imagining things.’
Verity’s forced laugh again. ‘Sensible boyfriend.’ She was still standing by the kitchen counter working her phone.
Leticia laughed again. She was feeling very uncomfortable and unwelcome now. She wanted to go but the coffee was too hot to be drunk rapidly. She didn’t want to be rude and leave her drink untouched, but she was getting fidgety. They made small talk for a few minutes, then Verity asked casually: ‘So you’ve been to pick up your car have you?’
‘Yes, it’s outside.’
‘Right. Did you say you were coming here?’
‘To Anton? No, he was still asleep.’
‘Right,’ Verity said absent-mindedly. ‘Late hours at the restaurant, huh?’
‘Yes, always.’ Leticia sipped her coffee and suddenly felt a real chill in the atmosphere.
Verity turned to her, licked her lips and gulped. She looked paler than ever.
‘Are you all right?’ Leticia asked.
Verity nodded. ‘I’m fine.’ She wasn’t. Leticia could see her flat stomach flexing, as if she was about to heave.
There was the sound of a key at the door. A deep male voice called something out, and Verity replied: ‘She’s in here.’
The door from the hall burst open. A large scruffy man wearing a camouflage jacket strode in, a huge sports bag in hand. His brown eyes were focused wholly on Leticia, and she immediately sensed he intended her harm. She stepped back and opened her mouth to scream, but before she could take a breath, a pale chill hand was clamped over her mouth, with a handkerchief in it. Verity’s hand.
She fought like crazy but the struggle was unequal. The man was enormously strong and she couldn’t breathe properly through the smelly rag. Oblivio
n came quickly.
Chapter Thirty
Verity watched as Gary folded up the unconscious woman, tying her wrists behind her back with cable ties and binding her ankles. He then unzipped the holdall and pulled out a very large canvas builder’s bag. Quite gently he lifted her up and placed her inside the bag.
‘I can’t believe it’s come to this,’ Verity said. ‘I never wanted to do it in the first place.’
‘Until you were offered the money, as I recall.’
‘Yeah, thanks for reminding me. It wasn’t my idea. I said it was stupid. We’re going to get caught.’
‘Not if we keep our heads,’ Gary said. ‘It’s quite straightforward. We’ve got her car keys. I’ll carry her out to her own car. I think she’ll just fit in the boot.’
‘It’s a Mini!’
‘They’re bigger these days.’
‘But then what? Kill her as well? She’s a colleague!’
‘I’ll have to see what the boss says,’ Gary replied.
‘None of this would have happened if you’d been more careful when you moved Rollason. Why didn’t you check the boot?’
‘Why didn’t you check it?’ he retorted. ‘It’s your car. I’ve got enough to do.’
‘What are you going to do about her phone? I can’t get into it.’
Gary smiled. ‘I can. I’m going to reply to any messages, so that it appears she has left here. I’ll drive near to her place, so it looks like she’s gone home, then I’ll turn off the phone. Then I’ll nip back home through some back routes away from the road cameras. I’ll leave the car in Mum’s garage, and we can move her to the shed without being seen.’
‘You can’t leave that car at Mum’s! She’ll go spare.’
‘She doesn’t have to know. It’ll only be for a few hours. When it’s dark, I’ll take it out somewhere and burn it.’
Verity nodded.
Gary looked up at her and said: ‘I saw a pair of water voles at Hurst Meadows yesterday.’
‘Do I look like I give a fuck?’
‘You can be horrible sometimes,’ he said, shouldering the heavy bag.
Verity folded her arms. ‘Yeah, says the man who is going off to kill my colleague!’
* * *
The first Leticia knew was coldness, dark and pain. Everything hurt, especially her head. The next was the discovery that she was bound and gagged, still clothed, but spreadeagled on an old single bed frame. There were cable ties on her wrists and ankles that held her to the metal grid. There was something in her mouth too, hard like a golf ball, which made her jaw ache and rattled against her teeth. She couldn’t push it out because of the gag. The darkness settled out into shadows and shapes, radiating from a skylight above her, where a faint orange glow indicated streetlamps not far away. It was set in a pitched wooden roof full of cobwebs. Turning her head a little, she mapped out a large wooden shed. Spiky silhouettes distilled into a lawnmower, a rake and a hoe, plus smaller tools hanging from nails in the walls. Her head was muzzy, as if she had been drugged. Yes, the handkerchief.
Every one of her senses had to be put to use. The shed looked fairly new and smelled of creosote. She could not detect any other odour. She listened intently and heard the distant hiss of traffic, plus the movement of the occasional vehicle nearer by. A woman was talking to herself as she walked, her heels clicking on a hard surface, no more than twenty yards away. Two discernible words. ‘Steve’ and ‘pizza’. She was on a mobile. Leticia envied her freedom and her voice. After a fading minute the clicks and voice attenuated to nothing, leaving Leticia bereft, as lonely as an astronaut on the moon as the last Earthbound ship departs. She didn’t even know where she was. Still at Verity’s home or somewhere else? She tested her bonds, rotating her feet and narrowing her hands, checking to see if she could slide them back. No. She was firmly attached to this squeaky bed frame, unable to move even an inch. She bucked her body and found that the frame rattled. But it did not move along the floor.
Oh God. She had been so stupid. She should have gone with her first instinct, which was to tell the police. But when she’d seen Verity that morning, so hung-over, skinny and pallid, it had seemed ridiculous to suspect she was capable of abducting anyone, especially a dangerous man. Only then had she got up the courage to admit to Verity what she had found in the boot. The frosty response, she had assumed, was because her former boss was insulted to even fleetingly be considered a murderer.
Everything changed the moment the big scruffy man arrived. Of course Verity hadn’t been working alone. She was the brains, he the brawn. Someone powerful to seize and kill the captive, and dispose of the body. She had called him Gary. One of the last things she had heard before losing consciousness was: ‘Not so tight, Gary.’ It was when he was tying the gag around her mouth. He was a lumbering scruffy individual, with a bald patch and a mane of long greasy hair around it. There was dandruff on his shoulders. She distinctly remembered seeing it. He couldn’t possibly be her boyfriend. Her brother perhaps? Tina had said they didn’t get on.
Then there was someone else. Someone referred to as the boss.
Leticia’s thoughts returned to her own safety, and to realising that everything hinged on Anton. She had no idea what the time was, beyond knowing that it was evening and all of Saturday had slid away while she was unconscious. If this Saturday was typical, her partner would have been up by eleven and probably wouldn’t have thought anything of her absence. He didn’t have to hurry to the restaurant. The sous chef at J’adore Ça would handle the lunch preparations and Anton would have gone in for midday, just to check things over. She had been in a hurry to catch the early bus and had just texted him a quick greeting while she was on the way, saying she was going to pick up the car and then some groceries. She had implied that she would be back before he left, but stupidly had not mentioned she was going to Verity’s. The reason? Because Anton would have thought she was wasting her time spending even another minute on this daft theory of hers. Worse still, he knew that she had a fairly elastic weekend schedule. He would probably have sent her a quick text during the afternoon, but it would have been early evening at least before he started to get concerned that he had never heard back from her. The first time he would be really worried was if she was not back by the time he got home from the restaurant.
Which could be one a.m. or later.
She didn’t think it was that late yet. Too much traffic noise. But at this time in the summer it must be after eleven to be so dark.
Would Anton report her missing even then? His distrust of the police was so ingrained and his faith in her common sense so robust that it might well be Sunday morning before he seriously got round to thinking she was in danger.
In the meantime, they were probably going to kill her. She had information that would implicate them. Verity and this other man hadn’t just killed Neville Rollason, but presumably the other person whose body was found on the island. She couldn’t get her head round why, but that didn’t matter so much now. Something else made sense, too: Verity’s vomiting episodes. They could well have been stress and anxiety. Maybe someone was forcing her to be part of this. Even after what she had experienced, Leticia still couldn’t quite accept that her former boss was a cold and calculating killer. She had known her for long enough to be sure of that. She must be doing this under duress. Her unique access to the details of Neville Rollason’s new identity could have led someone else to put pressure on her.
Leticia caught herself, making excuses for a woman who might well kill her. Even now, she didn’t want to believe the worst of anybody. Anton had said he liked this quality in her, but right now it looked like it was going to cost her her life.
Verity would have her phone. It was locked, so at least she wouldn’t be able to tamper with her messages. The police would be able to trace it, but only if someone reported her missing quickly. She had no resources and she knew it. She was entirely at the mercy of her captors. She wanted to cry, and she could feel the tears welling u
p. But she couldn’t afford to feel sorry for herself. She had to think, to put her brain to use. Right now, there was no one to rely on but herself. And that meant she had to keep it together.
* * *
At the same time a few miles away, Anton was hard at work in the restaurant kitchen trying to coordinate hors d’oeuvres for a late booking of a table for ten when Saskia, from front of house, came to the kitchen hatchway.
‘Anton, is Leroy around?’
‘No. I’ve not seen him tonight.’
‘There’s a woman asking for him. He said he would be here, apparently.’ Saskia gestured to a tall pale woman with hair the colour of weak tea. She was wearing a raincoat with the collar up, as if she was cold, despite the warm evening.
‘I can pass on a message. Who is she?’
‘She said her name was Verity.’
Anton was suddenly totally focused. He wiped his hands on a tea towel and emerged from the kitchen. He’d never met Leticia’s boss but she matched the description, with that prim moue of superiority. He’d had no idea she knew Leroy, though he could guess why.
‘Hi. I’m the owner, can I help?’ The image of her vomiting into her leaving gift, so graphically described by Leticia, fired a smile that threatened to turn into a chuckle. He quelled it by thinking of the other story Leticia had told him, about the spectacle frame. Anton had in his early life known quite a few people capable of killing. This pallid stick insect was not one of them. Surely the only thing she could justifiably murder would be a steak and kidney pudding.
‘I was looking for Leroy. He said he would be here.’ Her big green eyes roamed the restaurant as if her contact was somehow hiding there.
‘I can text him for you,’ Anton said.
‘It’s okay, I’ve already done so.’ She looked behind her, and to either side, still apparently not believing what Anton was saying to her.