Apportionment of Blame (14 page)

She was lost for words, and the fact that she appeared unable to express her appreciation easily, hinted again at a lonely life, sad and very likely unfulfilled.

“Would you like a cup of tea?” she said it as if she could think of nothing else to say.

“Yes. Thank you.”

I sat down on one of the dining chairs as she turned, a little confusedly I thought, to fill the kettle.

“You said you don't expect to be staying here very long.”

She didn't reply, but busied herself with a teapot and a tin from which she extracted a couple of tea bags. Then she turned.

“Are you here to ask more questions about that girl's death?”

“No,” I said, I hoped not too quickly. “I'm here to thank you for sheltering me during the storm. That's all.”

“Because I don't know anything about that.”

“Yes, you told me when I first came.”

“But people don't always believe what they're told.”

That seemed a strange thing to say and I wondered if it had any significance. But I wanted to steer the conversation away from Helen; to put Ilse at her ease, if that was possible. She looked very tense and wary.

The kettle clicked itself off and Ilse turned back to pour the water.

She was wearing blue jeans which hung loosely from her rather frail frame. Her blouse was a cotton check in a particularly unattractive colour, somewhere between yellow and brown. Old fashioned grips held her straight hair back over her ears. She really did look like someone lost in a time warp.

As she approached the table with the teapot and two mugs on a small tray, I thought how sad and downtrodden she looked. It struck me as a strange appearance for someone who had recently inherited a small fortune and made me wonder if I had made a mistake.

I decided to dig very gently for information. Here was someone very fragile, and very suspicious. The slightest error on my part would put her on her guard, or worse, and end my chances completely.

“I quite like the country myself,” I said cautiously. “Life is so much slower here. It's possible to live at my own pace. Large towns are a bit of a nightmare.”

“I'm used to London,” she said.

“Have you always lived there, then?”

“No.”

Again the appearance of suspicion. I had to go carefully.

I'd been listening for a trace of the accent I'd noticed before, but I hadn't picked it up yet. It was often just certain vowel sounds that gave away a person's origin, like the flat pronunciation of there in Beatles' songs, typical of Liverpool.

“I work in London some of the time. I think I left you one of my cards, so you'll know that.”

“I didn't really look at it,” she said.

Why would she say that? I was almost certain she must have done.

“But I prefer working from home. It saves all the travelling.”

Her face showed no emotion at all.

“I'm sorry there aren't any biscuits.”

I smiled.

“That's all right. I eat too many of them anyway.”

But still she didn't smile. I began to wonder if she could.

We continued to drink our mugs of tea in a silence that remained far from comfortable. I seemed to be getting nowhere, and didn't want to make her feel too uncomfortable or suspicious, so I finished my drink and pushed back my chair.

“Thank you for the tea.”

I rose and offered my hand, which she just looked at as if not being sure what it was.

“Well, I'll be going. Thanks again. Perhaps I could call again if I'm in the vicinity?”

“I don't get many visitors,” she said. A strange reply. I suspected she didn't have any. Perhaps there was a tacit affirmative in her answer. I'd have to see what happened when I called again, because it was certainly necessary that I'd need to.

I led the way along the hall to the front door and opened it. It seemed necessary to take the initiative as Ilse seemed totally at a loss to know what to do with me.

“Goodbye,” I said and I began to make my cautious way through the dripping flowers again. Before I had gone more than a few steps I heard the door close behind me.

I was left with a quandary. Did the rather abrupt closure of the door signify that she didn't want to see me again? Because I would have to see her again if I was to get anywhere with my investigations.

Chapter 8

T
he
following morning I set off to catch my usual morning train. I parked across the road from the station and was just crossing when a motorbike came over the bridge, as if from nowhere.

The sight and sound of it rooted me to the spot, and I had the sudden thought that if I stood still the rider would see me and be able to steer round me. But that was the last thing on his mind. The big bike brushed past my left hand side, giving my arm a nasty blow with its wing mirror and throwing me sideways.

I twisted round to look after it, but all I saw was a registration plate caked in mud and a black crash helmet with a skull and crossbones on the back. Both receded quickly and the bike was soon gone.

No one else had seen what happened and I continued across the road to the station, brushing myself down, straightening my clothes and wondering if it was another attempt to intimidate me, or just a stupid motor cyclist. Whichever it was, I found myself rubbing my left arm involuntarily all morning. The bruise was tender and I could feel the beginnings of a swelling.

Great, I thought. Is this another occupational hazard like the occasional kidnap? Or am I getting paranoid?

On the train I sat trying to read a novel in a carriage full of rather oppressed looking travellers.

I recalled a story told me by a friend of someone who commuted from Surrey, and spent each morning's journey locked between and behind broadsheet newspapers in a First Class carriage. He knew that his train passed a friend of his, as he waited on the platform in Surbiton, and he conceived a plan to jolt his fellow travellers out of their morning stupor.

One day, on the approach to Surbiton, he screwed up his Times, threw it on the floor of the carriage with imprecations related to the tedium of reading the same paper day after day; opened the carriage window and grabbed a copy of a tabloid which was being held out for him by his friend as the train rushed through Surbiton station. Turning to see the effect on his fellow passengers, he realised that no one had turned a hair and the other newspapers had never even budged.

The thought of this story had amused me during many a journey. I guessed it was apocryphal, but I dearly hoped it was true. Returning to my book I found myself half reading and half speculating on the case in hand as the train sped on.

There had been threats in London and now there were threats nearer home. Would anything happen now I was back in the capital? Where was the guy on the motorbike going? Off to London to bother me again, or just on his own sweet way, oblivious to the case I was working on?

Where was the truck? Lying in wait somewhere? Would I find another note at the office?

When the train arrived I soon found myself battling across the forecourt at Liverpool Street Station, but eventually I made my way down to the tube. As I crossed the bridge to the west bound Circle Line platform I realised it was even more busy than usual, and as I descended the stairs I became part of a solid, moving mass of people.

Despite all my best attempts to break free, the crowd propelled me off the staircase and onto the platform.

There was no train, but I could hear one approaching, so I tried to push my way through the crowd towards the platform edge, in the hope of finding a seat when the doors opened. Then I was suddenly aware that by pushing I was moving too quickly towards the edge. My efforts had added impetus to the current already carrying me along, and as the train was pulling into the station from my right I realised I wasn't going to be able to stop.

I tried, but my forward momentum was too strong, and just when I thought I must fall in front of the train I was grabbed by both arms and pulled back. The train rushed past my face, almost a literal close shave, and I found myself held firm, my mind a blur of thoughts and what ifs.

“You all right, mate?” said a voice to my left.

“I think so.”

I looked towards the voice and saw a craggy featured, middleaged man wearing a boiler suit covered with paint stains.

“You ought to be more careful,” the craggy face said.

“Was it you who caught me?”

“Me and ‘im,” he said, and he gestured beyond me to my right.

I turned and came face to face with Stuart Hemsley.

“Greg?” he said.

“Surprised?” I found myself saying. Perhaps the threats were suddenly explained.

“Well yes, of course. You nearly had a nasty accident.”

“I'm glad about the nearly part. What are you doing here?”

“I work near here. I'm on my way to see a client.”

“And you just happened to be on a crowded platform at the same time as I was being pushed in front of a train.”

“Meaning what exactly?”

I tried a sarcastic shrug, but there wasn't room enough to move.

“Come on,” I said. “We need to talk. Let's try and get off this platform and find somewhere a bit more quiet.”

I began to push my way back through the crowd to the stairs and climbed back up towards the upper exit. When I turned, I was rather surprised to see that Stuart had followed me. I couldn't read his expression. I was looking for disappointment, or perhaps anger, but he looked blank.

“Joyce told me you work for a Travel Agency,” I said. “What sort of a travel agent makes house calls?”

“Do you think I'm following you?”

“It certainly looks as if you might be.”

“Why should I want to?” The hidden aggression I had experienced in his flat was showing itself. Interesting, I thought.

But in fact he had asked a good question. If he had been involved in Joyce's snatch, his question was a bluff. If not, he could have no idea what had happened four days before. Which was it? How was I supposed to know?

“It is rather a coincidence, you being on that platform at the same time as me, after I went to see you only a few days ago about someone who fell in front of a train.”

“You think there's a connection? You still think Helen died because of me?”

He said it as if challenging me to provide proof. He was either a very good actor, or totally innocent. I needed to find out one way or the other.

“Look,” I said. “Can you spare five minutes to talk something through?”

“What something?” He stared at me and I still couldn't read his face at all.

“Just five minutes.”

He glanced down at his watch.

“Will this help find out what happened to Helen?”

“It could help narrow things down.”

“All right. Let's go out here.”

We left the station by the upper exit and crossed the road to a coffee house. I bought two espressos and joined him on a black leather sofa.

“Are you able to tell me where you were four days ago during the afternoon?”

“That would be Monday?”

“Yes.”

“I will have been in the office all afternoon booking winter breaks for clients.”

“And can anyone vouch for that?”

“Several people can. Why? What happened on Monday?”

“Someone kidnapped Joyce, bundled her into a car, then dumped her outside my office with a threatening note pinned to her coat.”

“Bloody hell! And you think that was me?”

“Whoever it was, I'm sure they had something to do with Helen's death. The threats make that clear.”

“I told you before. I would never hurt her.”

“I know you told me, but if I believed everything everyone told me, I wouldn't make a very good detective, would I?”

That stare of his was boring its way into my eyes. What it saw was my anger at a near fatal accident.

“No. Fair point.”

“If you can confirm absolutely that you were in your office all Monday afternoon, then I shall have to try to believe that today's meeting was just a coincidence - although a very remarkable one.”

“Well you can believe it, because I was, and it is,” he snapped.

“Where is your agency?”

He searched for a card in his inside pocket and passed one across to me.

“Why would anyone want to grab Joyce?” he asked.

“Someone involved in Helen's death is trying to scare me off. When they took Joyce, they used her as a threat. Basically saying that what happened to Helen is likely to happen to me if I don't stop asking questions.”