‘Yes. But that doesn’t mean I have to put up with harassment.’
‘You don’t know what harassment is. Not yet.’
Fry drove straight to Derwent Court. She was not surprised to get no answer from Maggie’s apartment. But even here there should be a next-door neighbour with an interest in what went on. They were useful people. She tried the next apartment and introduced herself to a lady called Mrs Dean, who seemed quite happy to talk about Maggie Crew.
‘I don’t know where she is today,’ she said. ‘I thought she’d started going back into her office to work.’
‘Yes, she had,’ said Fry.
‘I am glad. It’s for the best, really. It’ll help take her mind off things.’
‘But she’s not in the office today.’
‘Isn’t she? She went out at her usual time.’
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s~ ‘In her car?’
‘I imagine so. I don’t know.’ ‘On her own?’
‘She’s always on her own these days.’
‘Was there a time when she wasn’t?’ asked Fry. ‘Well, none of us has been in Derwent Court more than a year or two, just since the place was converted. I don’t know anything about her life before that.’
Fry looked at Mrs Dean’s apartment. It looked completely different from Maggie Crew’s, though the layout must have been identical. Instead of being cold and unwelcoming, this one was full of deep-pile carpets and light and mirrors, and a hundred little personal items.
‘She has no family who come to see her, has she?’ said Fry. ‘Any children?’
‘No, no children. She has never married, as far as I know. But there’s a sister.’
‘Of course, yes. Does she come?’
‘Not recently. Some people just can’t deal with it -with physical disfigurement, I mean. They’re frightened they’re going to say the wrong thing, or that they won’t be able to avoid staring. I’d like to think I wouldn’t be that way, if it happened to one of my friends. I’d want to support them, wouldn’t you?’
Fry searched her heart and wasn’t sure. Mrs Dean seemed to pick up on her hesitation.
‘Mind you, it is pretty awful to have to look at, isn’t it? I can see that it might put you off if you were invited round for tea. Are you sure you won’t sit down?’ said Mrs Dean.
‘No, thank you.’
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‘Still. You’d think the sister would make an effort to get here. It’s at times like these that you need your family most, not just in the good times. Don’t you agree?’
‘Of course,’ said Fry, though she was hardly in a position to know. ‘So you haven’t seen Miss Crew since this morning?’
‘I heard her go out about ten o’clock,’ said Mrs Dean. ‘You didn’t actually see her?’
‘No. But I could tell it was her. You get to recognize the noises when you live so close together. You can identify all the familiar sounds. I know the way she closes her door, and the way her footsteps sound in the corridor.’
‘And unfamiliar ones?’ ‘Sorry?’
‘Any unfamiliar sounds. Any sounds of anybody visiting Miss Crew, anybody you didn’t recognize?’
‘I don’t believe so. Not that I’ve been aware of.’ ‘Nobody hanging around the flats?’
‘No.’ Fry looked at the window. She felt drawn to it in a way she hadn’t in Maggie’s apartment. The view was the same, but when she stood close to the window, she could see down into a paved courtyard that had been turned into a car park for residents.
‘She leads a quiet life then, Miss Crew. Would you say so?’ she asked.
‘Oh, very quiet,’ said Mrs Dean. ‘Very quiet indeed. These days.’
351
The two PCs had been deployed on a routine patrol in the Ringham Moor area. They were cruising as a visible symbol of positive police action, designed to make the area safe for law-abiding members of the community. And they were bored out of their minds.
On Hanger Hill, though, they found a little bit of excitement. A Renault coming down the hill too fast had braked on the sharp corner and skidded sideways in a scum of wet leaves. A stone wall had made a serious mess of its nearside front wing, and fragments of glass from a shattered headlamp littered the road. The officers stopped, and got out to help. The female half of the team went to talk to the driver.
‘Had a bit of trouble, sir?’
The driver looked dazed rather than injured. He was trying to straighten out the wheel arch where it had crumpled against the wall and been pushed on to his wheel.
‘Are you a member of the AA or RAC? If not, we can organize a garage to send someone out.’
‘Oh, thanks. It’s not too serious, but…’ ‘It needs to be made safe, sir.’
‘Of course.’
The second PC had done a spell in Traffic. Since then, he had automatically looked at things like tyres and number plates. The thing that drew his attention to the rear plate of the Renault was the fact that it was white. He knew that front plates were white, but rear plates were supposed to be yellow. Car owners themselves often failed to notice this.
He looked a bit closer. He saw that there was a thin
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strip of clean paintwork showing around the edge of the number plate. He concluded that it had recently replaced a
