‘Don’t. Touch. It,’ hissed a voice.
The Librarian was lying flat on his back on the floor, squeezed underneath one of the bookshelves. His arms were by his sides, his head turned towards her. When he saw that she’d spotted him, he said, as if there were nothing unusual about their relative situations, ‘No one touches the books without permission. No one except Isadora Faye.’
‘What are you doing?’
‘What are you doing,’ he mimicked her voice, using a whiny tone. ‘I’m waiting.’
‘Waiting… for what?’
He looked her up and down, his expression that of a scientist who has just uncovered a new strain of stupidity. ‘For Isadora to come back, of course.’
‘Were you… were you here at OAK when she was taken?’
‘Where else would I be?’
‘Oh! I don’t know. On holiday, maybe.’
He smiled a humourless smile that showed his incisors. Then without warning, he rolled at speed out from under the shelf, forcing Bella to jump out of the way. Hauling himself up with the aid of a chair he staggered across to the desk and took his usual seat. He took the top off the decanter with a clink of glass and poured himself some whisky, dribbling at least a shot’s worth onto the desk.
‘My job,’ he said, when he’d taken a swig, ‘is to protect the collection. How do you suppose I could do that if I went on holiday?’
Bella appeared to consider this. ‘You might have holiday cover.’
He swung the glass and knocked it against the centre of his chest, splashing whisky down his filthy waistcoat. ‘I am The Librarian. I am. No one else.’ He got up, rounded the desk and approached her, so close she could feel the fumes singeing her eyeballs. ‘I haven’t left OAK since 1973.’
‘But…’
‘Since 1973.’
She nodded. ‘I see. Thank you. I’ll leave you to your… work.’
He shrugged his shoulders as if it were a matter of utter indifference to him what she did. Then he replaced the empty glass on the desk and rolled back under the bookshelf.
Bella was aware of the presence of cupuli in the building. Before they’d been elusive, now she seemed to see a grim-faced, black-clad figure wherever she turned. There were other faces she didn’t recognise too, field agents who’d been called in to help in the search for Isadora. One of the smaller observatories had been turned over to the search, observe and deploy staff had been seconded to the team not to facilitate kindnesses anymore, but to follow up leads and direct agents to check out reported sightings of Isadora. The police came in to talk to Ben and some of the other directors in the afternoon. When Bella saw them leave, trotting self-importantly down the front steps, she wondered how they would feel if they realised to what extent their search operation was being dwarfed by OAK’s. All information on police computers had already been hacked and followed up by agents almost before the police had started to process it. Despite Finn’s injunction to staff to remain focused on their day jobs, conversations revolved around the latest rumours – where she’d been sighted, who’d set off on the trail, even that she’d been found dead.
They didn’t see much of Ben for the rest of the day. Bella wanted to ask him about Teddy Thatcher but couldn’t get to speak to him on his own. Finn’s urging to be on the lookout for anything suspicious had made her uncomfortable too. Ben had been with her in Le Chêne when Isadora had gone missing, true, but if anything counted as suspicious behaviour it was Ben’s. The secret meeting with James and Lauren in The Royal Oak. His insistence that she keep the attempt on Teddy’s life to herself. She wrangled in her mind all afternoon about whether she should tell Finn her suspicions, but in the end, she decided to give Ben one last chance. She planned to follow him home that evening. Either he’d be going straight home and she could speak to him alone and try to get him to tell her what was going on or he might go somewhere else, which could open up a whole new avenue of investigation. He might go to the supermarket. He might go to an evening class in basket-weaving (unlikely, but you never knew). Or he might go to the place where he was holding Isadora hostage.
He seemed preoccupied as he got into his car, a beautiful Aston Martin in racing green, and drove out of the car park. Other people were leaving too and she let a couple of cars out ahead of her before setting off. At the bottom of the drive, Ben and the car behind him turned left. The next car turned right, and then it was Bella. She hesitated for a moment. The way home was right. What Others Might Think of Her was crouching in her lap, clinging with a painful grip around her waist. What was she doing? To be caught, trailing your boss, would be a remarkably stupid thing to do and one she would have trouble explaining away. She would look like an idiot playing at being a spy in the midst of a very serious situation.
The car behind her revved its engine. Glancing in her rear-view mirror she raised an apologetic hand then pressed ‘record route’ on her satnav. The last thing she wanted was for Ben to lead her to his kidnapper’s lair and then her horrendous sense of direction to mean she couldn’t tell the police where it was. She indicated left and pulled out onto the main road.
Their little procession of three cars motored along the A-road. As they approached a crossroads, Ben indicated right while the other car looked to be carrying straight on. There was nothing behind her so Bella pulled up for a minute at the turning to provide some distance between her car and the Aston. Setting off again she started to panic – she’d played it too cool. She’d turned onto the road Ben had taken but his car was nowhere in sight and of course, she reminded herself, he was driving a high-performance sports car while she was at the wheel of an Alfa Romeo with a hundred thousand miles on the clock. She put her foot down. The hedges flew past and she prayed there were no speed cameras as she approached a sharp right-hand corner. Around the bend she caught up with him at a temporary traffic light by some roadworks. An estate car was waiting to pull out from a nearby driveway, she waved it out and it pulled up between her and Ben. The lights turned green and they set off.
In front of her, the battered Volvo estate chuntered along at forty. Bella found herself edging closer and closer to its rusty bumper, expletives filling the air like fireworks. When it braked and indicated left, she didn’t even wait for it to complete the turn before putting her foot down and swerving around it. She shot along at seventy miles per hour, slowing for a bend which brought Ben’s Aston Martin into view in the distance, turning right down a dirt track.
She drove past the turning at a crawl. The track that Ben had taken led through fields to a group of farm buildings silhouetted against the horizon. The countryside was quiet, with no other properties in sight. She couldn’t risk driving down the track behind him. Pulling into a layby where she could see the farm across the fields, she watched the Aston Martin disappear round the back of one of the buildings.
Oh God, what to do? What Others Might Think of Her grazed her face with its teeth. Imagine, it seemed to be whispering, imagine Ben discovering you’ve followed him. What will you say? What will he think of you? Much better to give it all up and go home.
But imagine, she thought to herself, if Isadora is being held hostage in one of those barns. It struck her that up until that point she’d only given semi-credence to her own suspicions. Ben turning up at this isolated spot put a whole new spin on things.
There was no movement by the buildings. She rolled down the window and listened. No noise from the Aston Martin’s engine. She gripped the wheel as she tried to make up her mind.
Why would Ben want Isadora out of the way? An ambitious young director, maybe he wasn’t willing to wait around for the death of an elderly woman for his moment of glory? He could have arranged to have Isadora kidnapped while he was on Le Chêne to give himself an alibi. Perhaps Ben was forcing her to hand over the reins, to give him whatever knowledge, codes, access to funds were necessary to run OAK and AC.
She shoved What Others Might Think of Her off her lap, wound up the window and got out. A weapon
– she needed a weapon. Opening the door again, she looked blankly at the contents of the car. There was a pair of old clogs on the floor in the back, but even she couldn’t imagine charging into the barn with a war cry on her lips and a clog in each outstretched hand. There was an umbrella, that would have to do. At the last moment, she grabbed a pen from the centre console and stuck it in her pocket.
‘What are you going to do?’ enquired What Others Might Think of Her. ‘Write him to death?’
Ignoring this jibe she clambered over the gate into the field, wobbling a little on the top bar – in her head, planning how she might relate this adventure should she ever be called upon to do so, she ‘vaulted’ it – and set off at a jog towards the barns.
Overhead a couple of birds of prey were wheeling around, coasting on the air currents. She wished she had their vantage point. One barn was side on to her; another at right angles, to it, its closed door facing her. All she could distinguish of a third building, visible through the gap between the two nearest barns, was corrugated iron.
Her heart was hammering in her chest, her breathing ragged. At any moment, Ben might appear around the corner of one of the buildings and see her jogging towards him. Ben, or an accomplice with a gun. What would she do then? Throw her umbrella at him? Threaten to take down his particulars with her trusty pen?
When Bella reached the nearest barn, she flattened herself against it, catching her breath. She strained her ears. Outside the barn, she could hear the wind rustling the leaves in a nearby clump of trees, a distant train, a slight hum from electricity lines crossing the field. Inside the barn, nothing. She started to shuffle along the wall. When she’d progressed about five feet along the side of the building, her fingers touched the edge of a hole in the wooden planking, about the size of a tennis ball, at waist height. Bella bent down and peered in.
At first, all she could see was a thin door-shaped square of light on the opposite side. As her eye grew accustomed to the gloom, she could make out something bulky – hay bales? Yes, they definitely looked like hay bales. And then she found it didn’t matter if they were hay bales or elephants because someone had grabbed her arm and she’d snapped upright, striking out hard with the umbrella. The grip on her arm loosened and she spun round to see Ben nursing his jaw.
‘What the hell, Bella?’ Shock and pain were written across his brow in furrowed lines.
Her heart was pumping like it was supercharged, rebounding off the walls of her chest. What Others Might Think of Her was bouncing up and down at her side, urging her to apologise and beg forgiveness.
‘What are you doing here?’ She tried to make her stance convey a confidence she didn’t feel, feet planted firmly on the scrubby grass, umbrella outstretched.
The shock fell from his face like a crumpled sheet tugged straight, and he laughed.
‘I love that. You trail me all the way from work, smack me round the face with an umbrella and then ask me what I’m doing here!’
Heat rose in Bella’s face as anger flooded her body.
‘Isadora’s been abducted. Teddy Thatcher’s been attacked. Arran Finn is telling us it’s an inside job.’ With each point, she jabbed her umbrella at him and took a step closer, until the final jab caught him in the chest. ‘You leave OAK this evening and drive to this place, which – unless you’re moonlighting as a farmer – seems suspicious. So yes, I want to know what you’re doing here.’
He took hold of the wrist that held the umbrella and moved it aside. ‘I’ll tell you, but without your lethal weapon being involved if you don’t mind. I’m here because I saw you shadowing me as soon as we pulled out of the OAK gates. I could think of two reasons for that. One, you’re trying to keep tabs on me. Two, you want to speak to me alone. Either way, this seemed like a nice deserted place to end up.’
She could still hear the blood rushing in her ears. His hand still held her wrist, and now his other hand was resting on her upper arm, she could feel the warmth of his fingers through her shirt.
‘I want to know what happened with Teddy Thatcher,’ she said.
His gaze dropped from her eyes to her lips and back again. ‘He’s alive. I can’t tell you more than that. I wish I could, believe me. But at the moment it’s too dangerous.’
She stared into his eyes, trying to read him. There was sincerity in his tone, she felt convinced of it, but was that because she was willing it to be true?
‘Is that it?’ She frowned. ‘That’s all you’re going to tell me? And I’m supposed to be okay with that?’
‘I’m sorry I can’t tell you more. It would be a hell of a lot easier for me too. But seeing as I can’t, you’re going to have to trust me. Ask yourself, based on everything you know about me, if you think I’m capable of kidnap and murder. What’s the likelihood?’
She asked herself and her mental swingometer, right at that moment with his face inches from hers as she breathed in the familiar citrus scent, was thundering towards ‘no’. He sounded truthful. Didn’t he?
‘I have to take a leap of faith, then, is that what you’re saying? On the basis that you don’t seem like a murderer?’ Bella’s tone still held some defiance, as if to overcompensate for her deteriorating resolve.
‘Come on, Bella. Think about it. If I was a murderer, I could have got rid of you in that basement in Le Chêne. I wouldn’t have risked letting you go so you could tell people about Teddy.’
Their faces were so close now that she could see his hazel eyes had a narrow circle of bright green around the iris.
‘You could be planning on getting rid of me now, out here,’ she said. His breath tickled her cheek, making the hairs on the back of her neck stand up.
‘That’s not what I’m planning at all,’ he said, just before his mouth touched hers.
One part of Bella’s brain was jumping up and down and screaming that this wasn’t in the plan, but it was soon overpowered by the bit of her brain that was finding Ben’s latest argument irresistibly convincing.
Chapter Fourteen
Driving home later that evening, she glanced in the rear-view mirror and plucked a piece of hay from her hair.
She reflected on her detective skills. Although she could vouch that the main barn contained nothing other than scratchy hay bales, she hadn’t investigated either of the other buildings.
At this moment, Isadora could be tied up, mumbling hopelessly through her gag, at the sound of Bella’s car disappearing off into the night. Miss Marple would never have let the trail go cold while she took a vigorous roll in the hay – but then Miss Marple had never met Ben.
She placed the palm of her hand on the back of her neck, recalling the warmth of his arm underneath it as they’d lain side by side.
‘Do you trust me now?’ he’d asked.
She snorted. ‘Why would I trust you any more now?’
He propped himself up on one elbow and looked at her, mock-shocked. ‘You mean you’d do this with someone you don’t trust?’
‘I’m planning on making a habit of it.’
She pulled him down with a hand on the back of his head and their mouths were smiling as they kissed.
After Ben had watched Bella’s car disappear down the dusty track, squinting his eyes against the setting sun, he turned and re-entered the barn. A scrap of blue fabric caught his eye, sticking out at the foot of the stack of hay bales. Bending down to retrieve it, he realised it was Bella’s umbrella.
He shook his head as he picked it up. It was one of those extra light ones, even in the hands of a seasoned martial arts exponent it wouldn’t be much of a threat. What had she been planning to do with it?
On the way back to his car, he popped his head into the other buildings to check all was well and that the little yellow kit car was still well camouflaged behind stacks of straw.
When Bella got home, she felt happy and reckless. She got out her phone and called Zoe.
‘I’ve done something stupid,’ she blurted out as soon as Zoe answered.
&n
bsp; ‘Oh good, what?’
‘It begins with a B. Or rather he does.’
There was silence and then, ‘Ben! Hooray! Tell me all.’
Bella flopped down on the sofa and flicked the TV on with the remote. Her next words stuck in her throat as the picture came on.
‘Bella?’ Zoe prompted. ‘Still there?’
‘Sorry, Zoe, there’s something weird going on, I’ll call you back.’
The national news had finished and they’d switched to local broadcasts. The kidnapping story was big news for the region and had been the headline on all local TV and radio bulletins since Isadora had gone missing, despite the lack of any firm information. The coverage reminded Bella of when the Duchess of Cambridge had gone into labour with her first child – journalists interviewing other journalists about nothing in increasing desperation as they waited for the birth of a prince. Except in this instance, it felt very much like they were waiting for a death.
Tonight, they’d found something to vary the monotony.
‘After crucial hours passing with no developments in the Isadora Faye kidnapping story, West Country Tonight has uncovered an important new angle. Local woman, Maggie Thatcher, claims that Miss Faye is not the only Acorn Consulting employee to have been abducted. We join our reporter, Shobha Sharma, for this exclusive report from Acorn Consulting in Halfway.’
Bella turned up the volume, eyes fixed on the screen. The reporter’s bronze bob gleamed and the camera zoomed out to reveal Maggie standing beside her, looking off to one side.
An attempt had been made to smooth down Maggie’s hair but one intransigent tuft stuck out above her right ear. Her pale green jumper had a dark stain on it and her glasses were askew. Behind them, the iron gates of Acorn Consulting stood open as usual.
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