He brought up Sarah’s account of a more recent interview with the same woman. This was about Elaine Trumpler, a girl murdered in the sixties whose skeletal remains had been found under the West Pier. She’d been a girlfriend of the gangster John Hathaway. Laker was in the frame for that too. White had been interviewed because Trumpler had been her flatmate at university.
Williamson cleared his throat. There it was. In the very first line: ‘Interview with Claire Mellon, The Lighthouse, Beachy Head.’ Suddenly Lesley White had changed into Claire Mellon.
FORTY-EIGHT
Sarah Gilchrist and Bob Watts walked along the towpath of the Canal du Midi past barges bigger than any Gilchrist had ever seen in Britain. She’d once been persuaded to go on a barging weekend with a boyfriend and it had been one of the longest two days of her life. Her idea of hell — a tall woman trapped on a narrow boat going at five miles an hour with someone she realizes she doesn’t like very much.
She looked across the width of the canal and down its length, straight to the horizon. The rows of tall plane trees on each bank narrowed to a point on the horizon like an art class exercise in perspective.
‘What’s the plan?’ she said as she kept pace with Watts’s long stride.
‘Lunch, I’d say. This place on the right is supposed to be good.’
They’d flown from Gatwick to Toulouse the previous afternoon and hired a car to drive over to Homps. She felt awkward and had done so since they’d met at the airport to take the budget flight. This would be the longest time they had spent together and, given their history, it wasn’t the easiest situation. Especially as a part of her felt rejected that he had been trying to get back with his wife.
Not that she wanted him, she told herself repeatedly; it was simply a pride thing.
Both tall, they had been scrunched up on the plane, their knees tucked under their chins. It hadn’t been much better in the car they had rented, the smallest in the rental agency’s fleet but the largest they had available at short notice.
Gilchrist had driven the thirty kilometres to the inn they’d booked just outside Homps. Conversation had been desultory.
‘Jancis Robinson is supposed to have a place round here,’ Watts said.
‘Jancis-?’
‘The wine writer?’ he said.
Gilchrist liked wine but didn’t know anything about it.
‘How do you want to play this?’ she said.
‘I want you to take the lead,’ Watts said.
‘He’s going to be armed, you know,’ Gilchrist said.
‘Depends where we find him,’ Watts said. ‘We find his house but we don’t necessarily go there.’
‘Wait for the cocktail hour, you mean?’ Gilchrist said.
‘Or the morning trip to the
‘My French isn’t great,’ Gilchrist said. ‘The where?’
‘To pick up his French stick,’ Watts said.
They’d scouted around, then Watts had insisted he go off alone to ‘do a bit of business’. Gilchrist had bridled at this, which is perhaps why they’d slept in separate bedrooms. Any other notion hadn’t seemed to come up. Gilchrist had been cross but she was curious about Watts’s reasons for not bringing it up.
The restaurant on the right was set back about twenty yards from the canal bank. A brightly lacquered barge was moored on the water directly in front of it. Gilchrist saw Watts pause as they passed it and give it the once- over.
There were wooden tables and chairs laid out in a courtyard, then a rustic-looking two-storey restaurant with a wall of glass facing out on to the canal.
The entrance was at the side and when they walked in they saw that it was in fact only one storey, with a very high, oak-raftered roof. The restaurant was half full. They were seated at a table by the large window. They could see both the restaurant and the courtyard.
Gilchrist sensed Watts’s awkwardness. He ordered a carafe of wine.
‘We’ve got to be alert,’ she said.
Watts looked at her intently.
‘You’re thinking he might come in here?’
‘Aren’t you?’
‘Well,’ he said, looking at the white tablecloths and the silver cutlery on each table. ‘This might be a bit posh for him. There’s a pizza place in town that’ll be more his style. We can relax and enjoy the Languedoc. Do you know about the Cathars?’
Gilchrist punched his arm.
‘Don’t start.’
He rubbed his arm.
‘You pack a punch.’
‘That’ll teach you to go off on secretive missions leaving me to tend hearth and home.’
‘They also serve who only stand and wait.’
He put his hands up quickly in a pacifying gesture.
‘You’ll see why I went off alone.’
He smiled at her, almost shyly, and they looked at each other, then both looked down. She found herself thinking that Watts’s voice when it was low was immensely seductive, as she vaguely recalled from their drunken first night.
Bernie Grimes walked in as they were sharing a cassoulet and Gilchrist was feeling flushed from the wine. She flicked a glance, then looked back at Watts and reached out to take his hand as Grimes scanned the room.
Watts, surprised, started to withdraw his hand but she squeezed tightly whilst giving him her best approximation of a lingering look.
He got the message. He leaned towards her.
‘Alone?’ he murmured.
She gave him a brilliant smile and nodded slightly.
‘OK, then,’ he said.
She laughed as if he’d said something hilarious. Grimes was being seated at the table for two directly behind Watts.
Gilchrist had been expecting bling. But Grimes was wearing a conservative suit with a crisp white shirt open at the neck. Admittedly, three buttons were open to show off his tanned chest but there was no gold chain round his neck. He was trim and would have looked like a lawyer or accountant on holiday except for his face.
Not his face per se. His face was fine — regular features, neat haircut. His eyes and the mouth were the giveaway. Gilchrist could only flick quick glances because Grimes’s eyes were roving, but she could see how cold those eyes were, how tight the mouth. This man chilled her.
She leaned closer to Watts, who also leaned in. She could smell the wine on his breath.
‘I used to think that stuff about killers having cold eyes was writers’ rubbish,’ she said. ‘You know — poetic licence. Eyes are muscles, right? They can’t possibly show emotion or killer instinct or anything.’
‘But then you started seeing killers’ eyes. Gary Parker maybe?’
She glanced over Watts’s wide shoulder to see if Grimes was listening. She’d bet the house he would know the name Parker. Grimes was looking at the menu.
Watts said: ‘The first time I looked into your eyes, I remember thinking that you would have trouble with the tough guys.’
She frowned, her guard rising.
‘Why?’
‘Because,’ he said, his voice falling to a whisper, ‘you can’t disguise your essential softness.’ She started to jerk her hand away. He held on to it. ‘That wasn’t meant as an insult,’ he almost hissed. ‘Your eyes reveal your
