by Jill McGown
He unbuttoned her top button, and kissed the triangle of skin at her neck. She smiled, loosened his tie, and undid his top button, kissing his throat. The next few buttons; another exchange of kisses. But that was when she realized the implication of what he had just said.
‘What do you mean, ‘‘ To hell with Mr Big?”’ she asked, her voice slow and suspicious. ‘You supposed to be workin’ on that?’
‘Sort of. But the meeting isn’t until tonight.’
His evasive answer didn’t fool her. ‘You said to hell with it,’ she said. ‘ You’re supposed to be doin’ somethin’ now.’ Her eyes widened, as she pieced it together. The meeting. That was what the whole thing had been working up to. ‘Is it tonight you get the drugs, and all that?’
‘Yes,’ he said, tackling her third button.
She smacked his hand away before he got her dress open any further. If he saw the old bruises from that beating now she would never get rid of him, and he was supposed to be in Barton, getting ready for tonight.
He smacked her hand back, in the spirit of the game. ‘Why have you stopped me?’ he asked.
‘You don’t have time for all that. You said that this was the most important part, settin’ it all up. You said if you didn’t do it right, you could get hurt.’
‘I don’t care about that.’ His voice was agonized, his eyes pleading with her.
‘You said it was the best thing that ever happened to you.’ Rachel didn’t want him losing this chance. ‘What do you mean, you don’t care about it?’
‘You’re the best thing that ever happened to me.’
‘Don’t be daft.’ It was said as sharply as she ever said anything.
‘You are the best thing that ever happened to me. And I never get the chance to be with you.’
He never got the chance to screw her, in other words. But Curtis really did think he was in love. And he thought that she was too, come to that, but that was his problem. She had never said she was. She needed him, that was all. And she hadn’t known that his meeting was tonight; that was the last thing she wanted to jeopardize. But she couldn’t just send him away. It had been three months since she’d seen him; she was lucky he hadn’t given up on her already.
‘A quickie,’ she said. ‘Then you got to go.’
Curtis accepted the compromise with alacrity, abandoning the foreplay much to Rachel’s relief. The sooner it was over the better, as far as she was concerned.
Nicola had deposited Nell with the other two dogs, and now she parked in the courtyard, and walked into the cowshed. She heard them before she saw them, in the gloom. And before they saw her.
‘Oh, shit,’ said Rachel, letting her arms fall away from her companion.
He turned to look behind him then, and Nicola could see that it was the TV reporter who was with her, who was jumping to his feet, frantically pulling up his trousers, brick-red with embarrassment.
‘Don’t mind me,’ she said. ‘ Carry on.’
He fled from the cowshed, but Nicola had seen nature in the raw far too often to let the sight of copulation bother her. Rachel was apparently just as unconcerned; she stood up, her skirt falling back down to cover her bare legs, her blue eyes on Nicola’s.
‘He wanted me to look at a cow,’ Nicola said.
Rachel smiled her slow smile. ‘You’re lookin’ at the wrong one,’ she said. ‘The one you want’s down the bottom there.’
Nicola smiled too, and walked along to her patient, who was supremely unimpressed by the goings-on. But she felt anxious, as Rachel went to restore her boyfriend’s dented dignity. It was none of her business what Rachel did, so she hadn’t said anything, but she was taking a terrible risk.
Nicola thought again of the appalling beating her father had given Rachel, much, much worse than anything he had ever done to her, and didn’t know how Rachel dared. She had begged her to leave him, but she wouldn’t; Nicola had no idea why not. She wasn’t frightened to, not like her mother had been; Rachel was frightened of nothing.
Rachel had come to work as a part-timer in the farm shop, just three months after Nicola’s mother had died. He had at first asked her to look after the house and cook his meals, then he had asked her to marry him. Nicola had told him what she thought of the haste, and of the difference in their ages, a gap much wider than mere years. Her father belonged to another age, another era, possibly to a world known only to writers of Gothic romances. She should have known better than to question her father’s actions, but in the end she was given an explanation, of sorts. ‘She’s got time on her side,’ he had said. ‘She’ll bear me a son.’ Nicola was surprised he drew the line at a boy-child.
Time on her side. He could say that again. She was only two years older than Nicola herself. But Rachel seemed to be working to her own agenda, hanging on as long as she could before she started having babies, and now she was playing around with the TV reporter. Nicola addressed herself to the much less complex problems of the other cow, smiling again at Rachel’s little joke, just hoping that she took more care in future.
Judy had gone home and changed before going back to work. She had got on with what she regarded as more important things until it was time to clear her desk and let it all wait for tomorrow. Then she walked along the corridor, knocked on Lloyd’s door, and went in.
He grinned when he saw her change of clothes. ‘A bit muddy, was it?’ he asked.
‘A bit.’
‘I did warn you that it might be.’
She nodded, and sat down. ‘ There were a few things that you didn’t warn me about,’ she said.
Lloyd looked all injured innocence. ‘ Such as?’
‘Such as there was a television reporter there.’
‘Was there really?’ he said. Are you going to be on the telly?’
He looked as though he really hadn’t known about that. And if he had, he would have gone himself, Judy reasoned, since he was fond of appearing on television. She forgave him very slightly. ‘Yes,’ she said.
‘Oh, we’ll have to watch.’
‘And such as Bernard Bailey is a complete lunatic who only says one word at a time.’
‘I don’t know Bailey, so I didn’t know he was a complete lunatic who only says one word at a time,’ Lloyd said. ‘Anyway – what’s your plan of action?’
‘I’ve got Alan seeing if we can get any sort of lead on the computer program from the print or the graphics, but he says they all do that sort of print, and they all have a drawing capacity, so he’s not exactly optimistic about our chances of success.’
‘Have you ever known Alan Marshall to be optimistic about anything?’ Lloyd said, mimicking Marshall’s polite Glasgow drawl.
‘I thought they seemed a bit adolescent, but he says he thinks it’s someone trying to make it look like that, so that’s not much of a lead. And even if we do narrow it down to a particular program, ownership of such a program won’t exactly prove anything, will it? I’ve suggested that Alan ask a few obvious hostile factions politely about their computers, and I’ve asked if the area car can put in an appearance up there over the next few evenings – more so that Bailey can see we’re doing something than for any other reason. I doubt very much if they’ll catch anyone in the act. I’ve advised him to think about closed-circuit television.’
Lloyd tipped his chair back. Judy had watched him do that for years, and he had never fallen yet. But she was always waiting for the crash. It was how he thought: gently rocking on two legs of a chair. Sometimes quite useful ideas came out of it.
‘No one else lives in at the farm? Just Bailey and his wife?’
‘No one else. But his daughter has a key to the gate, unlike his wife.’
‘Did you speak to his wife?’
‘Not really, other than to say hello,’ said Judy, with what she felt was positively heroic understatement. ‘I tried to see the daughter, but she was out. I spoke to her husband. Nicola Hutchins does all the veterinary work for her father – that’s where she was whe
n I called at the surgery. He’d hardly give her all that work if there was any bad blood.’
‘Probably not,’ said Lloyd. ‘But families are funny things. What about the foreman? Your notes said he had a key.’
‘Unlike Mrs Bailey,’ Judy said again. She must surely resent that, but it had been very obvious that Mrs Bailey was not to be approached, so she hadn’t spoken to her. ‘I didn’t speak to him directly about the death threats, because Bailey didn’t want me to,’ she said.
‘Could someone’s key have been copied?’
‘No. They’re electronic, and they’re issued under some sort of licence system. Only three were ever issued. But it doesn’t have to be a keyholder. Anyone could be doing it, providing they stay out of sight, which is why I suggested CCTV. You can leave without a key, though that’s about the only thing you can do. In effect, anyone could be doing it. Mrs Bailey, for instance, which wouldn’t surprise me. Come to that, it could quite possibly be Bailey himself, trying to drum up sympathy.’
‘Do you think that’s likely?’
‘Not really. I think he’s scared. The security has to be seen to be believed. But it was all in place before the first lot of death threats, even, so that’s not what he was scared of to start with.’
‘Does Bailey have any theories?’
Judy sighed. ‘You don’t get theories from Mr Bailey,’ she said. ‘You get ‘‘aye’’ and ‘‘nay’’ and ‘‘happen’’.’
‘Do I gather that you aren’t exactly keen to head this investigation?’
Judy ignored him. ‘ The real question is do we think they are serious threats?’
‘And do we?’ Lloyd let the chair fall back.
‘No,’ Judy said decidedly. ‘If you’re going to murder someone, you murder him. You don’t leave him notes about it. Someone is trying to scare him, upset him … hoping to make him sell the land. I don’t believe that they’re serious death threats.’
‘But you said he was scared of something before all this. Does he think someone’s going to kill him?’
Judy tried once again to explain that she hadn’t the faintest idea what Bernard Bailey thought. ‘I just know he’s got the place wired up as though he has the crown jewels in there,’ she said. ‘ If you think you can devise a method of communication that will reveal what he’s frightened of, feel free. I won’t be a bit offended.’
Lloyd smiled. ‘Never have got on with the strong, silent type, have you?’
No. She preferred the talkative type, like Lloyd, like her father. You could judge their moods, catch nuances. Someone like Bernard Bailey was a closed book to her. ‘Feelings are running high about this road, and this sort of thing happens,’ she said. ‘The death threats are on a par with the graffiti, I think. Just less refined.’
‘Right. Let’s call it a day,’ said Lloyd. ‘Let’s face it – we were being used as a sop to soothe one of Case’s Freemason buddies, and we’ve done that now.’
‘We’ve done that now?’ said Judy. ‘ We? I didn’t see you up to your knees in mud.’
‘And I didn’t see you: Lloyd shook his head sadly. ‘That’s something I will regret for a long time.’
‘Closed-circuit television?’ The end of Mike McQueen’s cigar glowed red, and he blew out the match.
Rachel Bailey nodded. She sat at the other side of his desk, as Curtis Law had done that morning; Mike always kept the desk between them, in case she might actually see the effect his libidinous thoughts were having on him.
He remembered the first time he had seen her, when she had turned up at his door just over a year ago, and had introduced herself, first to Shirley, then to him. Curtis Law was right about his ivory tower; he had known Bailey had married again almost immediately, but it hadn’t occurred to him for one moment that his new wife would be nineteen years younger than him and look like Rachel did. He still couldn’t believe it; Rachel married to Bernard Bailey was an impossible notion, like an Escher drawing.
‘Brought the man back with him,’ she said, in her honey-drenched voice. ‘ He’s there now – sortin’ out where all the cameras’ll go and that. Shows he’s rattled.’
There were no tees at all the way she spoke the word, not even the Geordie glottal stop that he had employed as a child. In her mouth, it entirely lost its onomatopoeic quality, and Mike wondered what her tongue had to do to produce the delightful sound it did make, then dragged his thoughts back to business, feeling foolish. Rachel Bailey had awakened dreams and desires in him that he had thought were long gone, and she didn’t even know she was doing it, which made it all the more potent.
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘ But he’d hardly go to all that expense if he was thinking of giving up and selling as a result, would he?’
‘Maybe not. But he’s not ignorin’ them. Won’t even let me see them, this time,’ she added, with a wicked smile.
Mike had said that he would ignore them, when she had first suggested it. But she had been right; Bailey had called the police in the moment he had seen them. They had overplayed their hand, however, and Bailey had begun to accept them as a fact of life, until she had suggested that a few obscenities would shake him up. She had been right about that too, but it seemed to Mike that it had backfired, if he was getting security cameras put in. It seemed incredible that Bailey could actually be afraid for his life as a result of this nonsense, but it seemed he was; Rachel Bailey knew her man.
She leaned forward. ‘How’s he going to feel if he gets another lot after the cameras are in?’
Mike drew reflectively on his cigar, his thoughts far away from Bailey’s closed-circuit television. And ludicrous, he told himself sternly. She was over thirty years his junior, for God’s sake. He’d thought he was immune to all this; he hadn’t given it a thought after Shirley had switched to twin beds, or for a long time before, come to that, which was why she had felt justified in doing it. But when Rachel Bailey was here, he was able to think of practically nothing else, like an adolescent. His long abstinence had made him vulnerable to sexual stimuli, he supposed, and all she had to do was smile at him.
‘Will you do some more for me?’ she asked. ‘ Sayin’ cameras won’t keep him safe?’
Mike shook his head. ‘ If the cameras don’t pick up any strangers going through the gate, it will become blindingly obvious that whoever’s putting them up must be someone who doesn’t have to leave the premises,’ he said.
‘Supposin’ the cameras do see a stranger?’
‘And when was the last time Bailey let a stranger through that gate?’
‘He has to let some through. Ramblers. They got right of way – he can’t refuse them. ’ Tisn’t worth the hassle, ’cos they won’t go away. Easier just to let them in. They walk right through the farm. Come back through, when they’re done ramblin’. No way he’s goin’ to see nothin’ till next mornin’, and I could’ve put them up by then.’
‘Give him half a dozen strangers to worry about at once?’ Mike shook his head. ‘ No,’ he said. ‘ It’s too risky.’
Her face fell. ‘But it would make him believe that someone can get right past his cameras and kill him any time they want,’ she said. ‘Please, Mr McQueen.’
‘No,’ he repeated, firmly. ‘ These cameras pan and scan. You’d get caught: He shook his head at her through the heavy cigar smoke that hung in the air between them. ‘No,’ he said again.
‘I wouldn’t get caught,’ she said scornfully. ‘ You think I can’t dodge a few cameras? And he’d be scared, Mr McQueen. He would.’
‘Not scared enough. It wouldn’t make him sell up.’
‘But he thinks someone’s out to get him,’ she said. ‘And closed-circuit TV don’t come cheap. So what when it don’t work? What next? Guard dogs? Security men? They all cost money. He must be gettin’ close to his limit. Just needs nudgin’, maybe.’
‘And what makes you think this road is important enough to me to help you do the nudging?’
She sat back. ‘You don’t want a road,’ s
he said. ‘You want Bernard’s land. Trouble is, you’re buildin’ an estate, and you need a road. So if he don’t give in soon, you’ll have to give up.’
Mike nodded acknowledgement of that, a little surprised at her neat summing up of his situation. ‘ You’re right,’ he said. ‘Work has to start on a road by the beginning of August. And if he’s still hanging on by the end of July, I am going to have to take the other route.’
‘And I’d lose my gamble,’ she said. ‘Reckon we both would. You goin’ to let him win without a fight?’
He had fought. So had she. But sometimes you had to accept defeat. ‘ I don’t know how he’s made it this far,’ he said. ‘ But he has, and I don’t think two more months will break him.’
‘Might break him,’ said Rachel. ‘If he’s payin’ for all sorts of security, he must be gettin’ in deeper and deeper. Maybe the next lot’d do for him.’
He still shook his head, but he knew that he would do it for her. She could persuade him to do anything, and had, with that voice, that golden, shining hair, and those dark eyebrows and dark-lashed blue eyes, and that long dimple when she smiled her slow smile, as she was doing now. Besides, her visits to him had brought him back to life, to an extent that he would not have believed; even getting Bailey’s land seemed less important than it had. But it was still very important to her that Bailey sold, and he might as well give her a last throw of the dice.
He smiled back, a little reluctantly. ‘All right, pet,’ he said. ‘You’ve talked me into it.’ He sighed his disapproval of his own actions, put down his cigar, and switched on the computer. ‘Again,’ he added.
Judy’s image appeared on the television, uncharacteristically windswept, slightly muddy and very wet.