Evil Turn (Nathan Hawk Mystery) (28 page)

We’d dressed down for the visit, back to normal. Grogan was in sweater and anorak, me leather jacket and T-shirt. I hadn’t packed a jumper and was regretting it. Grogan offered the observation, “You should’ve brought a pullover, guv.” It wasn’t worth responding to.

Sheraton Motor Hire was busy, with it being early in the day. There were twenty or so vehicles standing on the tarmac, all shapes and sizes, none of them shouting too loud that they were hired: just the company name on the doors with a phone number below it.

Inside, the front office was pretty standard: white walls, grey carpet tiles and a chrome and black leather sofa. Beside that was a glass-top coffee table bearing some car magazines and the local paper. On the other side of the panelled counter sat a woman of forty called Jackie, according to a name plate. She was trying to look younger than she was. Her hair was a shade too black to be real, her face heavily made up, mascara like a panda. She’d put on weight lately, or simply bought clothes that she planned on slimming down to. Meantime, they wrinkled slightly at her stomach. None of that prevented her from handling customers with knife-like efficiency, one eye on her computer, the other on those who had just walked in through the door.

She smiled at us and I asked if we could speak to Mr Rahman. She reached under the counter and pressed some kind of intercom through to his office, I imagine, before asking the nature of our business. We were anxious to trace a van rented from this firm in the first week of September, I said. In spite of my smiles and frankness she kept her finger on the intercom. I nodded at Grogan and lowered my voice. It was the only place we could think of that he could have left his briefcase, I told her.

“We’ve had nothing handed in,” said Jackie.

“I pushed it well under the seat,” said Grogan. “I mean if my head wasn’t screwed on, well, you know...”

Jackie didn’t know and waited for the rest of the sentence.

“...I’d have left that in your van as well,” he said.

“If you’d like to take a seat...” she began.

Sajid Rahman appeared at the door through to the workshop and took over. He was a baggy-looking man in his mid-forties, with real black hair and eyes to match. His face was puffy, the skin rough as if pitted by some childhood epidemic.

“Can I help you gents?” he said.

“Hope so,” I replied.

Jackie lifted a counter flap as Rahman beckoned us to follow him.

The workshop was small but alive, three or four mechanics calling to each other, yelling along to music from a local radio station. Rahman’s office was a partition in one corner, glass and plasterboard, and was furnished with a single desk, two chairs, a telephone and a portable computer. Nothing else, not even a carpet: no files, no records, no proof that he’d ever been there, should proof be called for. He offered us the chairs and perched on the desk.

He smiled, something he did with untrustworthy ease. “You didn’t leave no briefcase in one of my vans, mate.”

“No, no, we didn’t,” I replied.

I’d made a quick judgement. The best way to handle this guy was to give him a version close to the truth. It throws some people off balance, usually liars, and Sajid Rahman was as tricky as they come.

“We’re ex-coppers,” I said.

I felt Grogan flinch.

Rahman remained as smiley as ever. “So?”

I lowered my voice to a paternal level. “We’re trying to trace a young woman. Her disappearance is worrying an awful lot of people.”

He laughed. “You don’t look like the worrying type, mate.”

There was a slight pause. My eventual response surprised Grogan, surprised me as well. The demon on my shoulder was urging me to take Rahman’s head and introduce it to the desk. A louder voice said we were close to getting the information we needed.

“The van was hired on the third of September, probably used over...”

“She in trouble?” he asked, the smile suddenly gone. “She used my van for dodgy business?”

“No, no, moving furniture to a new house.”

“And she forgot to give you her address?”

“I’m sure it was an oversight, but yes...”

He nodded and weighed up his options. The smile returned, though not quite as readily as before. “So?”

“We’re just wondering if she told you where she was heading or if you keep mileage records.”

“We check everything that concerns us, mate.” He held up a fist and raised fingers as he counted off the points. “State of the vehicle, petrol in the tank, mileage before, mileage after.” He spread both hands and explained. “Some guy drives five hundred miles a day, five days? I don’t care where he goes, but I should pay the wear and tear? Fuck, no!”

“So you can’t tell us where she went, but you could tell us the round trip mileage?”

He let his head fall to one side. “Sure I could, but I ain’t heard no reason to do that.”

“How’s about fifty quid?”

“Sounds promising.”

Grogan stood up. His eyes were roaming the room, focussing on various points as he went. I’d seen it before. It was a sign that he was about to lose control, and Rahman must’ve felt the same vibe. He tapped on the glass and a series of calls went across the workshop, directed at a young man, white, bald and the size of a buffalo. He ambled towards the office.

“Two hundred quid,” said Rahman.

“Hundred and fifty,” I said.

He smiled and nodded, then turned to the window and waved the buffalo back to work. The situation became a little tense again as I checked my wallet. I was about sixty quid short of the agreed price and turned to Grogan, who just looked at me.

“Gents, no problem. I take a credit card, you get a receipt for services rendered. We all know where we stand. Follow me.”

We went back to the front office where Rahman took my credit card, then asked Jackie to bring up the details for the first week in September.

“A van,” I said. “Second, third, fourth of the month.”

Her hands flashed across the keyboard and ten vehicles were listed on the screen, seven of them cars. Three vans.

“The Transit,” said Rahman. “The other two are runarounds, postman size.”

“What name did the lady give?” I asked.

“Mrs V Smart,” said Jackie. She saw the simple irony at the same moment I did, only she thought it was amusing. “Mrs Very Smart. I like it...”

“Not smart at all,” said Grogan. “If you want to stay under the radar, you don’t get clever.”

“Your PIN number, please,” said Rahman. “Then press enter.”

He pushed the card machine towards me. I could’ve been at a restaurant, a filling station, a Waitrose checkout and any second now he’d ask if I wanted cashback. I entered my PIN, kissed 150 quid goodbye and took back my card.

“Miles on the clock when hired,” said Jackie, writing the figures down on a slip of paper, “8,742. On return, 9,146. That’s 404 miles driven. I’ll do you a receipt.”

What we needed was a ten-year-old, not just to do the cutting and pasting required but the maths thereafter.

On the way back to our hotel we stopped off at a Martin’s. Grogan stood beside me as I chose four Ordnance Survey maps to cover the land north, south and west of Grimsby. I then bought a small roll of Sellotape for sticking them together, a roll of parcel string, a small deck of thumb tacks, a twelve-inch ruler and a hard pencil. It all came to about fifty quid. My investment in finding Vic and Freddie’s murderer was increasing and I wondered if I’d ever see a return on my money. Grogan wasn’t helping. The look on his face was asking what he’d done to deserve this.

“Bill, for fuck’s sake, could you be a little more optimistic?” I muttered as we stood in the queue to pay.

“I haven’t said a word.”

“That’s kind of the point.”

“Sorry. I’m hopeful. Very.”

Our relationship was turning into a bad marriage, the kind where one partner wants a fight and the other refuses to be drawn.

Back at the hotel we went up to my room and laid out the four maps on the floor.

“Sod it!” I said. “We didn’t buy scissors. We need to cut the edges off the maps.”

He said he had a tool in his bag that would do the job and popped next door to fetch it. He returned with what he called a multi-tool, an object which owed its design to the Swiss army knife. This creature was far more elaborate, though, and could saw, screw and drill anything that crossed its path. He found the scissors on it and went to work. When he’d finished we Sellotaped the edges together and ended up with a pretty acceptable map, the size of a hearthrug. We tackled the maths.

“What’s the scale on this thing, Bill?”

He picked up one of the trimmings.

“One in 250,000,” he said. “Two point five kilometres per centimetre.” He chose the moment to vent some of his frustration. “In the last five hundred years, every time we fought the bloody French we won. How come we use their measurements?”

I nodded at his iPhone. “What’s 202 miles in kilometres?”

In time he said, “325.087488. See what I mean? It makes things twice as complicated.”

I closed my eyes to keep the basics from drifting away. “Three hundred and twenty-five divided by two point five. That’s...”

I lost the thread.

“One hundred and thirty centimetres,” his phone told him.

“Cut me a piece of string ten centimetres longer.”

He measured out the parcel string with the ruler I’d bought. I tied one end of it tightly around the pencil, looped the other end round a thumb tack and pressed it right through the heart of Sheraton Motor Hire. We measured the Heath Robinson device to exactly 130 centimetres, winding any surplus string round the pencil. He then drew a circle while I held the thumb tack in place.

“Mind if I ask why I’ve done that?” he said.

“Is there anywhere on that radius that rings a bell?”

“Eastwards, you’re out into the North Sea. Most of the west covers the Irish Sea. Above that, the Scottish borders; below it, the South Coast...”

“I want names.”

“Bristol, Southampton, Bournemouth, Dover. Northwards, Dumfries, Kielder Forest. Can’t see a young couple starting a new life in those places...”

He took a moment to correctly phrase the point he wanted to make.

“Nathan, this may be the bleedin’ obvious, but we’re measuring as the crow flies, 130 centimetres. There’s no such thing as a straight road to anywhere. And what if she took a detour?”