They slowed with the traffic, which eventually ground to a halt. Somewhere up ahead, through the rain and the enveloping fog, she could make out flashing orange lights. ‘Tom, I went out on a limb for you before, but…’ She knew her resolve was weakening.
‘It’ll be easier for Janet Greeves if there’s another woman in the room. You know that, don’t you?’
Sannie nodded.
‘This is nice. More what I expected England to be like — rolling green hills and little villages with thatch- roofed houses,’ Sannie said.
Tom looked across at her and smiled. He noticed she was drumming her hand on the car door. He was driving as they travelled through the biscuit-tin countryside of Buckinghamshire.
Tom knew the road well, as the Prime Minister’s country residence, Chequers, was a little further along from where they would turn off. He’d been there on many occasions, protecting various politicians and dignitaries who attended meetings there or wanted to be seen at church with the PM on Sundays in the village of Little Kimble.
He knew she was nervous, but having her here was important to him. Not only, as he’d said, because he thought having a woman present might put Janet Greeves at ease, but also because it gave him a sense that he was helping move the official side of the investigation — albeit the South African side — further along. It was better than sitting around waiting for the axe blow which would end his career. Also, he liked being with Sannie. At a time when he had no one in his own country, professionally or personally, it was good to have her by his side again. She’d been his partner in Africa and he could trust her implicitly. She was also beautiful, and her perfume set his senses on edge.
‘Here we go.’ He turned left into Haw Lane, just after they passed Saunderton railway station. The road snaked upwards, bare winter trees flanking the approach to the upmarket village of Bledlow Ridge.
At the top of the hill Tom turned right and slowed until he found the name of the Greeves country estate — Ingonyama — in a cast iron sign on a gatepost. The wooden gate was open.
‘That’s Zulu for lion.’ Sannie folded down the sun visor on her side and checked her hair and makeup. Tom thought she needn’t have bothered. She looked cool, professional and sexy as hell in her black pants suit, boots and simple white blouse, open at the neck and showing a tantalising V of skin in spite of the cold. She’d checked into the Thistle Hotel near Waterloo, where overseas and out-of-town visitors to Tom’s branch often stayed, and quickly showered and changed while he’d waited in the lobby. She wore a gold necklace made of many tiny links, but from a distance it looked solid. It followed the curves of her collarbone, caressing her tanned skin.
Tom drove up a long gravel road flanked by autumn-bare poplars. The rain had stopped, but the sky above was the colour of cold gunmetal.
‘Kites.’ Sannie pointed up at the three birds of prey wheeling above them. ‘They look a lot like the yellow-bills we get at home.’
‘Is that a good omen or a bad one?’
She shrugged. ‘Bad if you’re a snake.’
‘Well, we don’t have too many of those here in England. Let’s enter the lion’s den, shall we?’
Sannie frowned, opened her car door, then shivered. ‘Lions don’t have dens. Let’s get this over with.’
Tom followed her along the flagstones. He was no historian or architect, but the house symbolised history and money: old red brick, bare wooden beams and well-kept thatch. The winter garden was drab but manicured.
The door opened before they could knock. Janet Greeves — Tom recognised her from pictures in the newspapers — stood waiting for them, unsmiling.
She was dressed for a walk, in jeans and green Wellington boots, and a dark olive Barbour jacket.
‘Detective Sergeant Furey?’
Tom nodded. ‘Morning, ma’am. This is Inspector Susan van Rensburg of the South African Police. She’s involved in the African end of the investigation.’
Surprise and unease were plain on Janet Greeves’s face, though she shook hands with both of them. ‘So this is now an official visit?’
‘All we want, Mrs Greeves, is to find out who abducted your husband and Bernard Joyce and where they might be now. Anything you can tell us that will help the authorities here and abroad to meet those aims will be appreciated.’ She nodded and Tom thought he’d done a pretty good job of not answering her question. The woman was clearly off balance, though, and that wasn’t a bad thing from his point of view.
‘Very well. I thought we’d walk, if you don’t mind. My daughter’s inside, staying with me, and from our earlier conversation,’ she looked at Tom, ‘there might be some matters that she’s better off not hearing about.’
Tom wasn’t happy. Interviewees had no home-ground advantage when you questioned them in their own surroundings. What was on the walls, on the mantelpieces and stuck to refrigerators with magnets was often as interesting as a person’s words.
‘Um, if you don’t mind, Mrs Greeves, I need to use your bathroom, please.’
Janet sighed. ‘Of course.’
Good girl, Tom thought. Sannie was thinking the same way as he, and had found an excuse to get past Janet and into her inner sanctum.
‘I’d better show you the way. It’s a bit of a rabbit warren, this old pile.’
Tom hovered in the entryway as Janet led Sannie through the living room and pointed down a corridor towards the rear of the house. Tom noted the way Sannie’s eyes scanned the walls, the coffee table, the piano, the fireplace. Tom heard a dull bass beat from upstairs. The gothic daughter, he presumed.
Janet walked back to where Tom stood, effectively quarantining him just inside the door. ‘I wasn’t expecting this,’ she said in a low voice.
‘Inspector Van Rensburg is making good headway in tracking down the suspects, ma’am.’
‘Stop talking like a politician, Mr Furey. You gave me a clear indication that we would be talking off the record. I don’t want anything I say to reflect badly on my husband’s name — for the sake of the government, our children, and for my sake.’ She folded her arms. ‘Perhaps you should just leave.’
She was an attractive woman. Blue eyes and auburn hair, held back in a simple ponytail. She was slender — about five-six, he reckoned — with flawless English rose skin but the wrinkled upper lip of a heavy smoker. He smelled tobacco on her as well. She was in her midforties, he thought. Greeves had chosen well. Looks, breeding, and money — and a few years younger than himself.
‘Like me, ma’am, Inspector Van Rensburg has no official jurisdiction here in England.’
‘That’s a very frank admission. I definitely think you should leave as soon as she’s finished.’
‘What it means,’ Tom held out his open hands, ‘is that we’re not here to record what you say or take down a statement. I’ll be honest. We — that is, the detectives involved in the case — are running into dead ends both here and in Africa.’
‘All very well but, as I told you on the phone, I’ve told the investigating officers everything I can remember about Robert’s movements leading up to his last trip.’
Janet turned at the sounds of Sannie’s footsteps behind her. ‘You have a lovely house, Mrs Greeves.’
She nodded. ‘Shall we walk?’
Sannie nodded too and winked at Tom behind Janet’s back as she led them down the flagstones towards a converted barn which, judging by the lace curtains in the window, didn’t house animals any more. Sannie lengthened her stride until she was walking beside the other woman.
‘Your husband really loved Africa,’ Sannie said. ‘Did you travel with him often?’
‘Once, on an official visit — for a conference to which spouses were invited — and once on a holiday, with the children.’
Tom had the same thought as Sannie, evidently, because she said, ‘But he went several more times for pleasure, didn’t he? By himself?’
‘It wasn’t always convenient for us to take holidays at the same time, and you’re not quite right. Sometimes he tacked on a few days of recreation at the end of his official trips. That ghastly newspaper the World tried to make out he took holiday trips at the taxpayers’ expense, but they were wrong.’
Sannie murmured that she understood. ‘Did you ever consider investing, buying property in Africa?’
‘He spoke about it every now and then.’
‘Where was Mr Greeves’s favourite place in Africa?’
‘Lake Malawi. Look, what’s all this got to do with his death?’ Janet slowed her stride to make eye contact
