Guilty Pleasures (24 page)

But he emerged tight-faced with fury. ‘It seems old friends aren't entitled to ask about the health of people they love and respect.'

‘Not when the old friend's business partner is suspected of putting the patient in the ICU in the first place,' I sighed.

‘Leave it to me,' Morris said, heading towards the front door.

‘Use the landline, for goodness' sake, and press redial,' Griff snapped, heading for the kitchen, where he clashed his beloved saucepans with fury.

I'll swear he even gave them an apologetic pat when Morris rejoined us in the kitchen with his news. ‘She's still very ill. Still touch and go. But the officer guarding her – hell, the police budget won't like that – swears she kept muttering, “It wasn't Lina.”'

‘Wow! Really?' I sat down hard.

Griff stroked my hair. ‘She loves you a great deal, my child. The granddaughter she never had.'

I was up as if he'd stuck a pin in me. ‘Granddaughter! Who wants me as a granddaughter? Bloody Arthur Habgood. Who's a friend of his? Wanted me to go and see his shop? Estelle Sanditon. Harvey's wife,' I explained.

‘I gathered. And this would be the Harvey Sanditon who bought the dodgy snuffbox on my behalf?'

‘Exactly. The Harvey Sanditon who couldn't be arsed – sorry, Griff – to look at the photos I'd sent him to see if he could recognize anyone at the fête where the first one turned up and was nearly stolen.' I subsided. ‘But Harvey doesn't like Habgood one scrap, and relations between him and his wife looked pretty fraught, so maybe I'm seeing things I shouldn't.'

‘And you've already drained your first glass, without it even touching the sides, I'd say,' Griff said. ‘Come, my child, the news of Josie isn't all that bad – and she's certainly helped you a great deal. I think we should calm down and raise a glass to the dear lady, don't you?'

‘Not to mention Robin,' I added grimly.

‘Tell Morris about it while you lay the table in the garden, sweet one,' Griff said, and he thrust a fistful of cutlery at me.

TWENTY-FOUR

‘
Y
ou can't expect my colleagues to report everything back to you, Lina,' Morris said, adding with an ironic smile, ‘they don't even tell
me
what's going on. And that's my own team. Joking. I think. Freya took a huge risk this afternoon consorting with someone else's suspect – I just hope the MIT find an alternative suspect pretty soon, or, mark my words, they'll haul you in and talk to you in a fairly unpleasant way, despite what Josie said. At which point you produce your alibi, like the proverbial white rabbit.'

I nodded, leaning back to savour the last of the evening sun, the good wine and Morris's company, in whichever order, while Griff made coffee. Then I sat up. ‘There is someone who should be reporting back, though. Harvey Sanditon. Hell's bells, the number of times I've put his work top of the list because it was urgent. You'd think he might look at a few photos for me. Well, sixty pretty bad ones,' I conceded.

‘Maybe he's sent the information to me.' He sounded, as he stroked my hair, as if he couldn't care less abut Harvey. ‘After all,' he added, ‘knowing you, he might be afraid of your going haring round the countryside chasing wild geese. Whoops, I've just mixed my metaphors.'

‘Something I can hardly forgive,' Griff declared, making us jump as he placed the tray on the table. He lit a couple of those candles supposed to drive away midges. ‘Morris, you will ensure our dear child doesn't do anything foolish, won't you?'

Morris removed his hand, flushing slightly, possibly because of the word
our
, which made him sound like a co-guardian. ‘Ensure? I can only add my pleas to yours, Griff. And I know which one of us she'll take more notice of.' His voice sounded a good deal more regretful than the words deserved.

Deep breath time. ‘I had a closer look at the farm buildings that back on to Colonel Bridger's place. Tumbledown old wrecks, most of them. And no, I didn't get any further than the verge outside, not with two hounds from hell on border patrol. But if you wanted to conceal something or someone there, I'd have thought it was ideal.'

‘Why didn't I meet the dogs when I had a look? And funnily enough I don't remember a fence.' He fished out his phone. ‘I don't like wasting time with you making phone calls, but—'

‘Go ahead,' Griff said. ‘The best signal's by the washing-line whirligig.' He made a rotary gesture until Morris twigged. He added, when Morris was possibly out of earshot, ‘He's doing the right thing, my child. As I said earlier, this is work for experts. You wouldn't want Freya tackling one of your repairs, now, would you?'

From inside the house, we heard a phone. Griff preferred his old-fashioned phone, complete with fax, answerphone and firmly attached handset, to all the more modern and user-friendly phones I'd tried to push on him. So one of us would just have to go and pick up said handset – or, of course, leave the work to the answerphone. Knowing he simply couldn't do that, and knowing he shouldn't scuttle after a big meal, I ran inside myself.

I came back feeling sick. I said to Griff and Morris equally, ‘That was Aidan. He reckons someone's been hanging round his place all afternoon. Tenterden,' I reminded Morris.

‘He uses the same top-grade security system as us,' Griff said, a bit pettishly.

‘I think there's more to the story, isn't there, Lina?' Morris said, taking my hand.

‘The someone looks like me.' I sank weakly on to the chair next to Griff.

‘Excellent,' said Morris, rubbing his hands. ‘Nice touristy place. CCTV coming out of its ears. And you, Lina, with a pretty well watertight alibi; I can't imagine prosecuting counsel trying to tell Freya Webb that you weren't together, can you? No, with luck, we'll pick up not just your lookalike, but also her car and its lovely all-revealing registration plates.' He fished out his mobile and, retreating to the whirligig, apparently left a message. ‘Freya's got her phone switched off, and who can blame her at this hour? Look, I'm so sorry, but I really must go. Use every security device at your disposal. Tell your friend to do the same, Griff.' They shook hands. I followed him into the house, where he kissed me pretty thoroughly and then pushed me away. ‘No, Lina, don't even think of seeing me to my car.'

‘I'm not thinking, I'm doing.' But I stopped dead by the front door. ‘Wait there. Just wait.' I turned and hurtled.

He didn't wait. He followed me to the security console and watched me bring up footage of the past hour. As he did, he let fly as comprehensive range of swear words as I'd heard in a long time. ‘So what did he attach to my car?' he asked at last. With a few extra words in-between.

‘A tracking device, I suppose. Why on earth didn't you park in our yard? Anyway, take the hire car. I'll go online and sort out the insurance. Morris, you know that's what you have to do. Just give me your keys and your licence details and push off. Before I change my mind.'

‘What an ignominious way for such a nice car to depart,' Griff observed early next morning, as Morris's Saab was waiting to be hauled off on a tow truck to have what Freya called a complete forensic examination. ‘But your quixotic gesture last night has left you without transport, I'm afraid, unless you care to use our van. And I'll tell you straight, I don't care for you to use it.'

‘And I don't care to use it. I don't even care to open the yard gates. I don't care to let Mrs Walker, with or without her poet, risk working in the shop. Look, we've got enough food to hunker down for the day. We've got a backlog of Internet enquiries and sales to deal with. And I've got a very sad row of pots just crying out for my attention. Let's – what do you call it? – make virtue of necessity.'

He hugged me. ‘Let us indeed. We'll have a nice quiet day.'

We had about a minute's worth of quiet.

It was broken as one of the Saab's tyres exploded.

Actually, that's an exaggeration. It just sounded bad in the quiet street. But, as Freya phoned to explain later, if you'd been driving, you'd have called it a blowout. If you'd been driving at thirty, it would have been inconvenient. If you'd been passing someone in the outside lane of the M20, it might have been a bit more than inconvenient.

‘Thank God Morris took the hired Fiesta,' I breathed.

‘Thank God indeed. Next time you're in the Cathedral, you might light a candle on his behalf. At least it's done one good thing. It's stepped up police interest – we don't like it when one of our own is involved,' Freya said.

‘Involved?'

‘I think the blowout was meant to happen later; that it was planned and someone's plans misfired, if you'll forgive the pun.'

‘Someone sab—'

I think she took my hesitation as disbelief, not a sign that I'd forgotten the word. ‘Quite. Someone sabotaged the tyre.'

‘Those other tyres – the ones from Trev and Robin's cars—'

‘Quite. Now I feel entitled to push the forensic tests on those tyres further up the list. Budgets and prioritization, Lina – a major juggling act, believe me.'

I knew all about that from the business Griff and I were trying to run. ‘Griff, who used to be an actor, remember, is convinced that all the people we've been threatened by have been made-up: the guy who got into the cottage, the so-called policewomen who got to me before the real officers, the old man planting tracking devices and thingies to blow up tyres. Is there any make-up artist living in the area? Or an ex-actor?'

‘As I'm sure Griff would say, tap on the woodwork and you'll get an army of ex-actors. We can't interrogate all of them: think what Equity would say,' she added with a laugh that sounded a bit hollow. ‘The same with make-up artists – take a look round House of Fraser or Fenwick's.'

‘I didn't mean the ones who try to sell you wrinkle products when you're not yet twenty-five,' I said. ‘I mean those with serious skills in latex and stuff. Think
The Elephant Man
.'

‘I'd rather not. OK, I know what you mean. I'll get someone on to it,' she said, sounding as if she'd much rather not. ‘Now, I must fly – we've got a briefing two minutes ago.'

‘I don't see why I shouldn't scrape round the recesses of my memory,' Griff said, when I reported the conversation. ‘Before you so much as squeak, all my investigations will be done online. While you toil in the heat of the workroom, I shall exert myself in the office.' He added, ‘Have you heard from Morris yet? He's intimately concerned, after all.'

‘It's a bit early for a man caring for a baby, isn't it?' I hoped my voice didn't give too much away.

‘What did you say when you phoned?'

‘That there was a bit of a problem and that he might want to call me or Freya. Maybe he chose the second option, to get the facts.'

‘A veritable Gradgrind! No, I suspect there's a feeding or a nappy problem, my love. And let us not forget that it's barely nine. It's going to be a glorious day, too, far too good for incarceration indoors,' he added wistfully.

‘Lunch in the garden,' I said briskly, heading off upstairs so I didn't have time to think about Morris.

We'd both earned mid-morning coffee in the garden. Griff had dealt with half our Internet orders, and the parcels, plump with bubble wrap, sat in the living room. When and how they'd get to the post office neither of us cared to ask. I'd made some progress with a very tricky piece of Meissen, but my hands weren't as steady as I really liked, so I'd turned to another wretched Toby jug, one with a particularly idiotic expression on its face, although it was Royal Worcester. As soon as I'd managed to match the sides of his broken hat I could sign him off the sick list; with luck he'd be the last for a while.

As soon as we sat down to bask, of course, the phone rang. So I trotted back inside, blinking at what seemed near darkness. The mouse, the modem and the screen standby lights glowed eerily. No wonder people worried about global warming and light pollution.

‘Lina, my darling,' came familiar plummy tones.

However did I once think I fancied him? ‘Hi, Harvey. How are you?'

‘All the better for hearing your voice. And you?'

‘It depends what I hear your voice say.' Was I being gracious or taking the piss? I wasn't sure myself.

‘It's going to tell you that I may have placed a face in one of those appalling photographs. I'm only halfway through, but I thought you should know. What I've done is email the image and indicate who it is – oh, some clever program Estelle uses to separate the foreground from the background. You'll see.'

‘I'm picking up the emails now,' I said, clicking away. ‘Yes, here we are. It's just going through the Digital Image thingy now. Wow, that's clever.' Harvey had managed to cloak everything in a sort of grey screen except the face of one man. ‘Who is it?'

‘Darling Lina, before I tell you, you must promise me absolutely not to go haring after him yourself. As far as I know, he's an ordinary decent man, but I do not want you putting yourself at risk. Promise?'

‘I suppose so. An ordinary decent man?' I prompted.

‘He had a most respectable career when I knew him. He was a junior science teacher at my public school. Burgess Rushton.'

‘That's the school or the teacher?' I asked, deliberately pert.

‘The teacher,' he said tartly. ‘But he left, as I recall, rather precipitately, as if under a cloud. Lots of rumours why – he was only a year or so out of university. So you can tell your policeman boyfriend that. Now, I have another call coming in—'