‘He was waiting by the car when I went out. He said he’d been walking all night.’
‘Oh, for goodness’ sake! You’ve got to stop this, Jacks. It’s ridiculous. He’s not your responsibility.’
Jackson stifled a sigh. ‘We’ll talk about it later. I just wondered if he was there, that’s all.’
‘Not that I know of . . . unless he’s in his room. Do you want me to take a look?’
‘No,’ Jackson said sharply. ‘Let him be.’
Daisy’s voice grew clearer, as if she’d moved out of the bar into the corridor. ‘What’s going on?’ This time her tone was suspicious. ‘Why are you so worried about him suddenly? You’re not his
Jackson watched a lean figure emerge from behind a transit van fifty yards away. ‘Forget it,’ she said curtly. ‘I’ll talk to you later.’
‘That’ll be a change,’ came the acid reply. ‘I hardly get a look-in these days.’
Jackson’s expression was grim. ‘Give it a rest,’ she snapped. ‘I hate this kind of thing at the best of times, but it really gets on my nerves when there’s no reason for it.’
‘Then tell him to stop treating me as if I don’t exist,’ Daisy hissed. ‘That’s what’s getting on
‘You’re too touchy-feely for him. He feels threatened by you.’
‘Is that what he’s told you?’
‘Yes.’
‘And you fell for it?’
‘I certainly took on board that he has no idea how to respond to a sexy lesbian with a cleavage,’ Jackson answered. She lowered her voice as Acland drew nearer. ‘He’s on his way back. I shall have to stop in a minute.’
‘Well, tell him, if he thinks I’m going to dress in a burkha, he’s got another think coming,’ Daisy said crossly. ‘It’s my blasted house, for Christ’s sake. If he doesn’t like the way I do things, he can take himself off.’
‘Which is precisely what he does when he comes with me,’ Jackson murmured, ‘but you don’t like that either.’ She flipped the mobile closed and waited for Acland to come within earshot. ‘I’m not a taxi service, Lieutenant. Another time, I’ll drive away without you.’
‘You should have done it this time,’ he told her. ‘Your next patient’s only two streets away. I’d have met you there if you hadn’t waited.’
‘Thanks for telling me,’ she said acerbically. ‘Couldn’t you have left a message . . . saved me the bother of trying to track you down?’
He gestured towards the transit van. ‘I could see you from over there. If you’d climbed straight into the car, instead of making the phone call, I’d have come running.’
She opened the boot and put her bag inside. ‘Why didn’t you, anyway?’
Humour lines appeared around Acland’s good eye. ‘Perhaps I was testing you. Perhaps I wanted to see how long you’d hang around.’
‘Cut the crap,’ she said impatiently. ‘I’m not in the mood for jokes.’
He eyed the mobile which was still in her hand. ‘Daisy been giving you a hard time again?’
‘No.’ She tucked the gadget into her pocket. ‘What’s with the van?’
‘Nothing. I was using it as cover, that’s all.’
‘For what?’
‘To look into one of the flats in that block.’ He jerked his chin towards a modern brick construction opposite the parked transit.
‘Great! So now you’re a Peeping Tom as well as a stalker?’
The humour lines deepened round Acland’s eye. ‘It’s Jen’s flat, and some of the stuff belonged to me. I wondered if any of it was still there. I moved it in when we got engaged.’ He shook his head at Jackson’s expression. ‘Nothing to see. The curtains are pulled.’
She held his gaze for a moment, recalling his insistence that everything he owned was in his kitbag. Like the police, she’d questioned how anyone could exist on so little. ‘I didn’t think you had any property in London, other than what you carry with you.’
‘I don’t, not any more. Jen appropriated the lot. I was just curious to see if she’d kept any of it. There were some artefacts that I got from South Africa a few years back—’ He broke off, as if he’d said too much.
‘Are you sure you weren’t trying to catch a glimpse of Jen?’ Jackson asked as she took her place behind the wheel.
Acland shook his head. ‘I saw her leave in a taxi about fifteen minutes ago. That’s why I went down for a look.’ The side of his mouth lifted slightly. ‘She had a punter with her . . . fat little fellow about so high –’ he raised his palm to shoulder height – ‘I couldn’t see too well, but it was probably a Jap. She always said Japs were the most gullible.’
‘About what?’
‘The difference between Uma Thurman and a cheap whore.’
*
