TWELVE
The crush in the Slug and Lettuce was getting too much, so they decided to look for a meal elsewhere. Jo asked Jake if he was vegetarian. He gave his slow smile and said, ‘No. Does that surprise you?’
‘I was thinking with you being so keen on, em… ’
‘Hugging trees?’
‘I wasn’t going to say that.’
‘I know.’
‘What I meant is that you respect living creatures.’
Jake nodded. ‘But vegetables have a life, too.’
She wasn’t certain if he was serious. The smile had gone.
They went for a Chinese meal in the Hornet and ordered mainly rice and vegetable dishes with some chicken. Using chopsticks, he helped her to some of each, saying this was the custom.
‘Have you been to China, then?’
He shook his head. ‘I had a Chinese cellmate.’
After some talk about their surroundings, Jo said, ‘I’m glad the others didn’t want us to spend all evening with them.’
‘Me, too.’
‘It’s not that I dislike them. Just that in company Rick is… I don’t know what the word is.’
‘A gadfly?’
‘You’ve got it. Makes me feel uncomfortable. What was that business about Gemma’s boss, when she said he was history now and Rick said he was tomorrow’s news, or something like that, and they laughed and went all secretive?’
‘Rick went secretive,’ Jake said. ‘Gemma wanted to let us in on it.’
She recalled the moment now and Jake’s memory was spot on. ‘Right,’ she said. ‘Rick closed her down, as if you and I couldn’t be trusted. It went from joking to deadly serious. What did he mean by “tomorrow’s news”? They know something we don’t. I’m sure of that.’
‘Sounds as if they expect he’ll be found dead.’
‘That’s what I took it to mean.’ She thought about what she was agreeing with and changed it. ‘No, it was stronger than that, as if they know he’s dead.’
‘Maybe they do.’
Surprised, she asked, ‘How do you mean?’
‘The police could have told them to say nothing.’
‘Why would they do that?’
‘The next of kin are told first.’
‘That’s what it was about, then.’ But in truth she doubted if the police had anything to do with it.
Hen’s car was across the street from the Mill Pond, parked in Bridge Road. She and Gary sat waiting in the dark, passing the time listening to a local radio phone-in about policing and how it had changed, mostly for the worse.
Once Hen muttered, ‘Give me strength.’
Another time: ‘Who are these people?’
Finally, after a sharp, impatient breath. ‘Any minute now one of them is going to say when he was a boy he was caught nicking apples and the local bobby clipped him round the head and it did him no harm and he’s been a model citizen ever since.’
The caller wasn’t the next, but the one after. The clip round the head was for letting off a firework in a bus, but the effect was just as long-lasting, about seventy years of blameless living.
Gary stared at Hen wide-eyed, as if she’d picked the Grand National winner. ‘How did you know that was coming, guv?’
‘It’s a gift, Gary.’
‘Really?’
‘You could pick it up. Listen to enough old coots like that and you’ll be as good as I am.’ She switched to another station.
Tedious as the wait was, they remained on watch. Their position was ideal. There was only one route away from Fiona’s house. Every vehicle had to come towards them and make a turn. They were perfectly placed to follow.
‘You tell them good, guv,’ Gary said.
‘What are you on about now?’
‘Porkies. The bug in the car. I believed every word.’
‘Good. Let’s hope Francisco did.’
‘“S for Security” was a brilliant touch.’
‘If I’m right,’ Hen said, ‘he’s been into the house and seen inside that filing cabinet. He’ll have nicked the registration document from there, so, yes, it ought to worry him.’
‘D’you think he killed her, guv?’
‘One step at a time, Gary.’
‘Step one: he leads us to the car.’
‘He could lead us to some nightclub where he’s on the door.’
‘Christ, I hope not.’
Forty minutes had gone by since they’d driven away from the house and parked here. No way could Francisco have eluded them. Hen thought it possible that up to an hour would pass before he made his move. Even if he was not wholly convinced by her story about the homing device in Fiona’s car, it would prey on his mind.
‘Do we know what he drives?’ Gary asked.
‘You saw the cars along there.’
‘There were only two anywhere near the house, both of them old heaps really, a yellow 2CV Dolly and a beaten-up green Land Rover.’
‘Somehow the Dolly doesn’t sound right for a nightclub bouncer.’
A few spots of rain appeared on Hen’s windscreen and when she used the wipers the whole thing smeared. She found a cloth and asked Gary to clean up. He was outside and wiping when some headlights approached from the Mill Pond.
‘Get back in.’
He wouldn’t be recognised in the dark, but they needed to move off sharply if necessary. He was quickly into his seat.
‘Can you see what it is?’
‘Looks like the Dolly.’
When it turned left they saw the driver. Unless Francisco had disguised himself in false boobs and a blonde wig, he still hadn’t made his move.
‘If he wanted to be sure of avoiding us,’ Gary said twenty minutes later, ‘he wouldn’t use the car at all. He could walk right round the promenade and come out the other side. He’d reach the High Street that way and we’d never know.’
‘And where would he go then?’
‘Don’t know, and we wouldn’t find out.’
‘Aren’t you a tonic to be with?’ She leaned forward. ‘We’re starting to mist up. Where’s that cloth?’ She cleaned the inside of the windscreen in time to see another set of headlights approaching. This looked more like the shape of a Land Rover. She started up and watched.
The vehicle waited for a gap in the traffic and swung right, in the Chichester direction. In the short time it was side on, two things became clear. This was a Land Rover and the driver had Francisco’s cropped head.
