'No,' I said. 'It doesn't matter. Thank you.'
I sat in the car for a long time. I don't remember how I got there, but I could feel the wetness striking through my clothes. Feel it as an observation, oblivious of the discomfort.
'It's Charlie,' I said, when the duty sergeant answered the phone, when I felt coherent enough to speak. 'Could you do me a PNC check, please?' I gave him the number.
'Are you all right, Boss?' he replied. 'You don't sound your usual chirpy self.'
'Tired, Arthur, just tired.'
'Don't go away.'
He was back on the line in a minute or so. 'You don't mess about with nonentities, do you, Chas?' he said. 'It's come back as a smoke silver Mercedes 420, keeper details: Audish Trading, at a London address. Do you need chassis and engine numbers?'
'No, that's fine thanks.'
'Anything else?'
'No. I'll try not to bother you again. Goodnight.'
'No bother. G'night, Boss.'
So that was Xavier Audish. I didn't need telling who the woman was. We were old friends, or I thought we were.
Apart from the Gary Glitter CD, on which they had deliberately left the price tag showing that Woolworth's had sold it at a loss, Sophie and Daniel, Sparky's kids, had also given me Nigel Kennedy's Four Seasons.
It was totally inappropriate, so I put it on. I'd arrived home safely, after cruising up the motorway in the slow lane and having a long stop for supper at the Woodall services. I sat in front of the fire, my coat and shoes still on, nodding my head in time to the music and occasionally conducting with a raised finger. Love him or hate him, he plays like an angel. Each time it ended I pressed the replay button and heard it again, until the heat from the fire was burning my legs and stinging my eyes.
I crawled into bed with Vivaldi's frantic rhythms pulsating through my head, leaving no room for other thoughts. At two o'clock a cat started yowling in next door's garden; at three I heard a train pulling a heavy load up the gradient towards Manchester the wind must have been from the West; and at four thirty my central heating switched itself on with a clunk that reverberated through the house. I had a shower and found some clean clothes.
Unpredictability is a quality I've tried to cultivate over the years.
If I realise I've fallen into a habit, I change my behaviour. It wasn't habit that took me to work that morning, it was a determination not to do what anybody might have expected of me. I could have driven to Cape Wrath and studied the sequence of the waves. I could have put my boots on and hiked over Black Hill and Bleaklow until hunger drove me off the tops. More sensibly, I thought about ringing Sparky's wife and offering to take Sophie and Daniel off her hands for the day. Two films at the multi-screen, followed by a beefburger and chips, with all the fixings, would have been a handy diversion. But I went to work.
I cruised through the morning briefings, deployed the troops, feigned interest when answering the phone. I read reports and information sheets, made notes and generally created an impression of busyness. At ten to twelve I received a message from Scarborough saying that Rodney Allen had been granted bail on condition that he stayed at North Bay House. He was off my list of suspects. He couldn't possibly have shot Dr. Jordan. It was just the excuse I needed to dash over there to see him.
The home wasn't in the same league as the White Rose Clinic. It dated from early in the century and every attempt at modernisation had gone to the lowest tender. The walls were dirty above the easy reach of an underpaid cleaner and ribbons of electric cables for phones, power and monitoring were stapled on top of oak panelling that would have had the green lobby crying into their tofu. I saw Rodney but hardly spoke to him. He didn't remember our phone call the siege or hitting a policeman. There are stories about Yorkshiremen knowing when to be slow, but his condition had been encouraged by the application of certain class B substances. They'd doped him to make him docile. The doctor hadn't found time to make a statement, so I persuaded her to write me a brief assurance that Rodney had been at the home on the night of the crime, and I left. I had fish and chips in Scarborough and sat in the car for nearly an hour listening to the news and watching waves crash over the Marine Drive. A scientist in California was claiming to have identified a gene for homosexuality and an MP had been found dead in his Westminster flat with a plastic bag over his head and his trousers around his knees. Foul play was not suspected.
As my mother used to say, there's always someone worse off than yourself.
Sometimes, before an interview, I run through all the likely answers. I choose my questions carefully and consider as many responses as I'm capable of imagining. More often, these days, I just make it up as I go along. I ask a few sighting questions, to test the range and the direction of the wind, then let go with the big guns. This time I didn't know what to do, because I knew the outcome was already settled.
Annabelle's little car was on her drive as I reversed in behind it. I'd been home and shaved. I was going to change my clothes but decided not to. What you see is what you get. I switched off the engine, pulled the brake on and left the gear in neutral. It was ready for a smooth, unhurried getaway.
I pushed the doorbell, but didn't go in.
'Hello, Charles,' she said, softly, when she saw me standing there. 'I thought I heard a car. I wasn't expecting you.'
'I won't keep you long,' I said, following her in. She sat at one end of the settee, but I stayed on my feet. 'About the note I left,' I said.
She was wearing grey trousers in a silky material, with an emerald green blouse outside them. Her face looked pale against the bright green. 'I… I was going to ring you,' she began. 'I don't know what to say…'
'I'll make it easy for you,' I told her. 'The note is withdrawn. I rang your hotel last night and left a message. Did you receive it?'
'A message? No. I received no message. What did you say?'
'I said I was coming down to the Post Chase, to take you to dinner.'
She swallowed and looked shaken. 'I was asking for you at the desk when Audish walked in. I saw you with him, Annabelle. I saw you kiss each other. I saw the way you tilted your head as you spoke to him, and watched the swing of your skirt as you walked away from me.'
Her eyes were filling with tears. 'I've got to say this,' I went on, 'although I know the answer. We could start again. We had something special, Annabelle. You don't throw that away lightly. I don't know anything about Audish, except one thing: he's not for you.' I left it at that. Slagging him off would be counter productive. 'Come with me,' I begged. 'Now.'
Tears were running down her cheeks. She sniffed and wiped them away with her fingertips. 'I didn't want to hurt you, Charles,' she sobbed.
'You've been so good to me. I didn't know what to do.'
'I thought you loved me.'
'I did love you. I still do.'
'So come with me.'
She shook her head.
'You love Audish more?'
'Yes,' she sobbed.
'Right,' I said. 'Right. You can keep my things. Take them to the Oxfam shop, if you still remember where it is.' At the door I turned back to her. 'I always knew I'd lose you, Annabelle,' I told her.
'Deep down, I knew that one day you'd hurt me, that I could never hold on to you. But I thought it would be the kind of hurt I'd cherish for the rest of my life. I thought you'd be in Africa or India or somewhere, maybe married again, but we'd always be friends. I'd get a card from you, at Christmas; that sort of thing. I knew you'd hurt me;
I never dreamed you'd… you'd… do this to me.' I never dreamed you'd disappoint me. That's what I nearly said.
I opened the door. 'You know where to find me,' I told her. 'But I won't be waiting.'
I'd run out of things to do, places to go, dogs to kick. You can only drive up on to the tops so many times to watch the lights in the valley until they blur together in a yellow swamp. I was a big boy, now. I tuned-in to the
