In that moment, Carol experienced an unexpected flash of insight. The first case she’d worked with Tony, more years ago than she cared to count, they’d been tracking a killer who had made beautifully crafted medieval torture engines to harrow his victims. Had she unconsciously been building a weird link to their past with that choice to work in wood? Or was she just reaching for any connection to their joint history?
Carol breathed deeply and ran through a couple of her exercises. ‘Put it out of your mind,’ she muttered. What she had to concentrate on now was figuring out how to track down the fraudster who had been reckless enough to cross Vanessa. There wasn’t much to go on. A name, the suggestion of a trust, a vague hint at location. At least Harrison Gardner was an uncommon name. Thankfully, these days, records of births, marriages and deaths were accessible online. No more traipsing down to London and poring over registers till your eyes burned and the skin on your fingers grew dry from turning pages. She could glean that information in a matter of minutes. Probably.
But what then? Carol knew that it was possible to search the Land Registry by name to discover what properties were owned by that individual. She also knew from past experience that this was an index available under strictly limited criteria. Doing Vanessa’s dirty work didn’t remotely fit any of those criteria. In one previous investigation, Carol’s Major Incident Team had had to get a warrant from a judge before they were allowed to interrogate that list. But now she was no longer a police officer, she had no conceivable standing to apply for such a warrant.
On the other hand, when legal options were unavailable, there were sometimes other possible approaches. And Carol was no stranger to unorthodox methods. She hated asking favours on her own account, but she could swallow her pride and ask on Tony’s behalf. Especially since the person she’d be making demands of would understand very well what was at stake.
Satisfied that she’d figured out the first couple of steps, Carol turned to head back home. There was no defined path for the first part of her descent, so all her attention was on her feet as she moved swiftly across the rough grasses dotted with clumps of bilberry and heather. On days like this – the larks filling the air with streams of song, the breeze stirring the gorse bushes and not another building in sight – it was hard to believe the urban sprawl of Bradfield was only forty minutes’ drive away. When she finally met the narrow track that led to the converted barn she’d turned into an enviable home, she was able to look around again, to appreciate the long vista across the moorland to the rise of the next range of hills. But her scrutiny was rudely interrupted as her gaze travelled over the slates of her roof.
A sleek black car sat on her driveway alongside Carol’s Land Rover. She didn’t recognise the car and she wasn’t expecting visitors. Two unheralded callers in one day was unheard of. She felt a familiar tension build in her chest, the precursor to a choking sense of panic. Instead of giving in to it, she remembered the exercises she’d learned in Edinburgh and slowly stretched her arms out, pushing against an imaginary weight, sweeping them round to the sides as if thrusting something away from her. Again and again, she repeated the exercise and gradually, the anxiety receded a little.
Carol crouched low to the ground and breathed deeply. She practised the tiny eye flicks Melissa Rintoul had shown her, fleeting glances to either side. Ten, fifteen, twenty-five, till at last she felt her heart rate slow to something approaching normal. Now it was safe to look. Now she could think rationally about what to do.
There was nothing to see. Just a stranger’s car parked outside her home. Nobody got out to ring her doorbell. Presumably they’d already done that while she was concentrating on Vanessa’s problem or on her fancy footwork coming down the hill. Her first instinct was to stay put. They’d leave eventually. Bound to, she thought. If her visitor was an urban dweller, they might not think to look up the hill to see whether she was there. So she could wait them out and return to the security of her four stone walls.
But they might have already spotted her. If it had been Carol or one of her well-drilled team, they’d have rung the bell then, when there was no reply, scanned the hillside to see whether she was anywhere to be seen. If they’d been acute enough to do that, they’d know she was out on the hill. They’d know they could stay in the warmth and comfort of their car while it got cold and dark on the exposed hillside. That she’d have to come down eventually.
And there was no guarantee that they weren’t watching her right now. Carol wasn’t wearing bright clothes, but that didn’t mean she was camouflaged against the mixed yellows, greys and greens of the moor. Even though Flash was belly-down beside her, the dog’s black-and-white coat stood out like a waving flag among the vegetation.
Carol stood up and started moving down the hill at a steady pace, gaze shifting constantly between the uneven path and her destination. She knew Melissa wouldn’t approve. It would come under the heading of reckless behaviour, no doubt. But on balance, this wasn’t a Mexican stand-off she could win. Better to get it over and done with and confront whoever was in the black car while she had the energy to seize the upper hand.
As she neared the level ground behind the
