She opened the gate. Not a creak from the hinges. If she’d been hiding out, she’d have made damn sure her gate creaked like a Hammer Horror movie door. Four strides and she was at the door. No bell-push that she could see, just an iron knocker in the shape of an ammonite. She gave it a double tap and stood close to the door. No reply, but out of the corner of her eye, she saw a quick spill of light as the curtain eased open.
Breathing faster now, she knocked again and this time she was rewarded by the sound of a key scraping in a lock. The door inched open, the gap curtailed by a chain. Half a face appeared, anxious lines in the forehead. It was the man she’d seen earlier and without his sunhat and wraparound sunglasses, there was no doubt about the identification. ‘Yes?’ There was nothing welcoming in his tone.
Carol smiled. ‘Mr Gardner?’
He shook his head but she saw a flicker of fear before he managed to hide it. ‘You’ve got the wrong house, there’s no Gardner here.’ The door began to close but Carol was too fast for him. She rammed her shoulder against it, pushing it back to the full extent of the chain.
‘I am your worst nightmare, Harrison,’ she hissed. ‘I am nemesis. I am the woman with nothing left to lose.’
His eyes widened and he took an involuntary step backwards. It was all the leeway she needed. Grateful for the solid muscle she’d built during the barn renovation, Carol steadied herself and threw her whole body at the door. The screws holding the chain to the jamb tore free and the door flew open, thudding into Gardner and throwing him off balance. Before he could recover, Carol was inside, slamming the door behind her.
‘Get away from me,’ he screeched, rearing up against the wall. Carol grabbed him by the shirt front and hauled him away from its support then pushed him through the doorway into the room whose light she’d spotted from outside. He stumbled, bumping into a low table and falling backwards over it. He cried out and curled into a ball against a bookcase crammed with paperbacks. ‘Get out,’ he whimpered.
‘Or what? You’ll call the police?’ She marvelled at how easily she’d found her way back to intimidation. ‘I don’t think so, Harrison. Now get up. Don’t make me come and get you.’
He scrambled to his feet. ‘Who the fuck are you?’
‘Never mind who I am. It’s who you are that counts.’ She pointed to an armchair. ‘Sit down.’ When he hesitated she raised her voice. ‘I said, sit down. Do not make me hurt you.’ This was too easy, she thought as he collapsed into the chair. She despised herself for how few scruples she had when it came to threatening a pathetic white-collar criminal. She doubted whether he’d ever thrown a punch in anger or even in drink.
Still, she had a job to do. ‘You think you’ve got away with it, don’t you? All that money salted away, and all you have to do is lay low for a while then slip out of the country once the heat’s died down. Well, Harrison, you didn’t do your research very well. Because one of the people you thought was an easy mark is the opposite of that.’
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’ There was a stubborn cast to his mouth which Carol was unhappy about. She wasn’t comfortable with how easy she was finding it to bully Gardner. She’d hoped he would be a complete pushover.
‘Let’s not play games, Harrison. I know you’re a crook, you know you’re a crook. Ponzi schemes always collapse. You just weren’t smart enough to get out of the jurisdiction before you got caught out. I appreciate you don’t want to go to jail, and that’s where I can help you out. All I’m looking for is a repayment of the money you stole from the person I’m representing. She doesn’t want to go to the police. She’s got a grudging respect for what you did. All she wants is her money back.’ Carol leaned against the mantelpiece and swept her hand along it, consigning a crystal candlestick and a rather splendid carriage clock to smithereens. Shameful, rather than satisfying. But effective, judging by the panic on Gardner’s face.
‘Who? Who sent you? How did you find me?’ His voice was a stutter of syllables crashing into each other.
‘You should not have messed with Vanessa Hill.’
A moment of stillness. His mouth became a thin bitter line.
‘What we’re going to do is very simple. You’re going to access whatever bank account has enough in it to cover what you took from Vanessa. You’re going to transfer that money to her. And then I’m going to walk out of your life. And you should consider yourself very lucky to have got off so lightly.’
‘And what if I don’t? What are you going to do? Beat me up?’ He gave a little snort. ‘I doubt you’ve got the stomach for it. You’re all bluff, I can tell.’
She didn’t know where he’d got his nerve from, but it had come creeping back. ‘You could be right,’ she said. ‘But Vanessa’s another matter. She’s killed before. The only thing that’s keeping you alive right now is the prospect of her getting her money back.’
From behind her, the chilling sound of a familiar voice. ‘She’s right, you know, Harrison.’
48
The strategies the predator uses to stake their claim, to preserve their territorial advantage, to fend off enemies and rivals, are constantly shifting. The faster and more effective the adaptation, the higher that predator climbs up the food chain . . .
From Reading Crimes by DR TONY HILL
The body language was textbook, Paula thought the minute she
