he’s just spent the week playing mothers and fathers with her-not unless she’s rubbish at that as well.’
‘Smart lady.’
‘All those bloody council brochures, Jo. What am I going to do with them?’
Sometimes it takes an outsider to think of a solution. Jo sensed she was expected to supply one. ‘Does everyone know they were ordered by Fiona?’
‘Not really.’
‘Spread the message, then. Fiona ordered these by mistake. Shout it from the rooftops. It’s ammunition for later. Then get them pulped, like you said. They’ve lost their impact now.’
‘What a waste.’
‘Spoils of war. The reckoning comes later.’
‘He can’t invoice the council for the true cost.’
‘I should hope not,’ Jo said. ‘I don’t want it going on my council tax.’
‘You’d think he’d have been in touch,’ Gemma said, and it was apparent how deep this had gone with her. ‘Muggins is running the show here.’
‘Bosses can do stuff like that, take off when they want. He knows he can depend on you to hold the fort.’
‘Yes, and when he comes back I’ll be shown the fort door. It’s so bloody unfair. I feel like stamping my little foot.’
‘You can do better than that,’ Jo said.
And Gemma responded to the challenge. ‘Nail him to the wall and play darts with him. Put him in the lion enclosure wearing a zebra suit. Dose him with laxative and stand him on guard at Buckingham Palace.’ She sighed. ‘Help me, Jo. What can I really do?’
‘What we need,’ Jo said with a show of sisterly defiance, ‘is a master plan.’
Gemma held up her hand for a high five. ‘Put it there, hon. I knew I could rely on you.’
Jo slapped her palm against Gemma’s without the faintest notion what to suggest.
Fortunately Gemma had it worked out for herself. ‘This may sound sneaky. Well, it is sneaky, but this is war, right? I’m not supposed to know Fiona is off with Mr Cartwright. On the face of it, as the temporary team captain, I ought to be getting worried about her. Not a word has come in. She could have had a heart attack and be lying dead in her house. There’s a four-year-old kid. She’s obviously farmed him out to the father, or some friend, but I’m not to know that, am I? The poor wee bairn could be in that house in total squalor trying to feed raw potatoes to his dead mother.’
Jo was amused and showed it. ‘This is good, Gem.’
‘So I already phoned a couple of times and left messages on the answerphone asking Fiona to get in touch urgently.’
‘That’s good, too.’
‘The decent, caring thing is to go round to the house and speak to the neighbours. Chances are they don’t know anything. I doubt if she told the people next door she’s shacking up with the boss for a week. All this fuss is because we’re worried about the kid. You see where I’m coming from?’
‘It’s being responsible.’
‘Exactement. I knew you’d have the answer.’ She’d supplied it herself, but for some reason she wanted Jo to take the credit. ‘The next step is to try and break in, but that’s a matter for the police.’
At the mention of police, Jo’s heart rate stepped up. She didn’t want another meeting with Hen Mallin. She tried not to show it.
Gemma was still in full flow. ‘They force an entry and listen to the answerphone and look at the letters and find she hasn’t been there all week. After that, it’s in the lap of the fuzz. They may take no further action.’
‘Unlikely.’
‘That’s what I think. They’ll want to know when she was last seen. They’ll probably come here and talk to the workforce. Someone may have seen her getting into Mr Cartwright’s car on Friday afternoon.’
‘Right, and you’ll be in denial, appalled at the idea.’
‘Do you think it’ll make the papers?’ Gemma’s hyperactive imagination was ahead of Jo’s.
‘The absent mother? Could do. In any case, the affair will be all round the office, and none of your doing. All you did was act responsibly.’
Gemma’s big eyes locked with Jo’s. ‘Tell me, wise one. Can it go wrong?’
‘I can’t see how. It may not unfold exactly as we think, but whatever happens they’ll walk into a hotbed of scandal when they get back. He’ll find it impossible to promote her.’
‘Or sack me?’
‘Or sack you.’
‘So will you come with me?’
Jo played the question over.
‘Where?’
‘To Fiona’s house, of course. Doing this alone will spook me out.’
A volley of no’s exploded in Jo’s head. She’d had her brush with the police and it hadn’t turned out nicely. ‘Couldn’t you take someone from work? It would look so much better if you did.’
‘Why?’
‘When you go to the police station they’ll be sure to ask who we are. If I say I’m your friend it won’t sound half so official as if I’m another Kleentext employee.’
‘Does that matter?’
‘It does to the police. They could think you’re wasting their time.’
Gemma heaved a huge sigh. ‘Ain’t that the truth and no mistake. But sweetie, I don’t know who else to ask. Like I said to you the other day, I’m not the flavour of the month here.’
Jo had some sympathy, but nothing would induce her to cross swords with DCI Mallin again.
Now Gemma gave a self-pitying sniff and her eyelashes moistened. ‘Please?’
A compromise was wanted here. ‘Tell you what,’ Jo said. ‘Why don’t I come with you for company, but stay out of sight so it will look as if you’re acting all alone for the good of the firm?’
‘Cool.’
Jo seemed to have got it right.
‘Babe,’ Gemma said. ‘I’m going to pay you the supreme compliment. You’re better than a line of coke.’
Fiona lived in Emsworth, a coastal resort, small, red-brick, and with an unfortunate history. Once noted for the excellence of the local oysters, said to excel those of Whitstable and Colchester, the town supplied some for a civic banquet in Winchester in 1902. Within days a number of the guests became ill with typhoid and died, among them the Dean of Winchester Cathedral. You don’t kill a dean without repercussions. In the enquiry it was alleged and later admitted that all of Emsworth’s sewage was pumped into the harbour beside the oysterbeds. Mischief makers suggested that the oysters owed their unrivalled size and flavour to their food source. The Worshipful Company of Fishmongers imposed a national ban. Cause and effect was never established beyond doubt, but Emsworth oysters became notorious and the industry collapsed overnight. These days the town was better known for its large colony of swans. Fiona had a terraced house facing across the Mill Pond, a less than adequate name for a ten-acre sheet of water that took a half hour to walk round. Here a hundred or more swans were ever-present, along with mallard ducks, coots, and gulls. Jo drove the Panda up the narrow road between the water’s edge and the houses.
‘Here we go, then,’ Gemma said.
‘Here you go,’ Jo said. ‘I’m sitting here. Remember?’
She stopped some way short of the house and watched Gemma step up to the front door and try the bell. No one came, but of course it would have surprised them both if Fiona had appeared. Gemma tried a couple more times and bent down and peered through the letterbox. Then she turned towards the car and flapped her hand to let Jo know she was getting no response.
‘Idiot,’ Jo said between gritted teeth. If anyone was watching they’d know for sure that the two of them were in this together. She looked the other way at a group of swans.
Gemma stepped around the dividing hedge and tried next door. An upstairs window opened and a shaven-
