A streetlight was the only obvious choice, so I staggered to it, clinging on like a person trapped in a sudden flood that threatened to wash them away. A fumbling hand found my phone.
‘Hello,’ I stammered breathlessly.
‘Felicity?’ It was Vince calling me, no doubt wondering where I might have gotten to given that I was now fifteen minutes late for my date. ‘Felicity, are you all right?’
I gasped to get a breath in so that I could calm myself and answer without sounding like I’d just narrowly avoided being John Ramsey’s second victim.
‘I’m fine,’ I wheezed, certain I didn’t sound it. ‘I’ll be there in two minutes. I’m in the car park down the road.’
‘I’ll come to you,’ he snapped out as a fast reply and the phone went dead.
He didn’t need any more information to find me; there is only one carpark in Aylesford. He was coming to me. An entirely unnecessary gesture since I was completely okay and not in the slightest bit shaken. That was what I was going to tell him anyway.
Cursing myself for being so easily frightened, I forced my legs to obey my commands and started toward the restaurant. I got three paces before the sound of someone running reached my ears. They were coming my way and two seconds later, Vince Slater appeared.
He was wearing a smart, yet casual, jacket and shirt combination but despite his office clothes, he looked almost predatory as he stepped into the carpark looking for me. His expression was intense and dangerous, enough so that it made me question his past. Was he ex special forces or something? Was he a former member of MI5? Catching myself fantasising about him as if I were some lovesick schoolgirl, I waved to make myself visible.
‘Over here, Vince. I’m fine. I told you that.’
He jogged across to me, his eyes roving all around as if looking for danger. Slowing to a walk as he closed the last few yards, he scrutinised my face.
‘Your pupils are dilated, Felicity. What happened? Did someone attack you?’
‘No!’ I protested, then accepted that lying to the man was unfair. ‘Sort of,’ I admitted.
He looked around the carpark again, his eyes hungry for someone his hands could deal with.
‘Goodness, will you calm down, Vince. He’s gone, okay. He drove off.’
Vince let go a breath he’d been holding, relaxing as he focused his attention solely on me. ‘Who was it?’ he requested to know.
I had no good reason to tell him anything and I was getting hungry, but I took a minute to tell him about my day, the events at the Bleakwiths’ house, and how John Ramsey and I were old enemies.
‘He works here?’ Vince asked, pointing to the printing business I had just pointed out to him.
‘Yes. He co-owns it with Derek Bleakwith, the man he shoved off a balcony today.’
Vince made his eyebrows do a double flip thing, up and down twice in swift succession. Accompanied by a wolf’s smile, I knew he was about to do something naughty.
‘Perhaps we should have a look at what he has been up to,’ he suggested, going around me to head for the rear of the row of businesses.
I was left staring at his back, bewildered for a moment. ‘What? Wait, what? What do you mean we should have a look at what he has been up to?’
Vince wasn’t waiting for me though, he was already fiddling with the gate that led into the printer’s backyard.
‘Standard procedure in any investigation, Felicity: look where they don’t want you to look, find out what they are trying to keep people from finding out. If he tried to kill his business partner, there has to be a reason. You said he wanted Derek to stand down and to name another employee as his successor, right.
‘Tarquin Tremaine. That’s his future son-in-law. Derek’s daughter works at the firm too. It’s a family business.’
‘Right.’ Vince nodded. ‘So John is super urgent to get Tarquin into the role of CEO and that to me sounds highly suspicious. Tarquin must be a puppet or something. John must be planning to control him. Maybe he plans to swindle the Bleakwiths out of their half of the business somehow.’
‘That sounds like something John might do.’ To be fair, I didn’t know John well enough to make such a comment, but he had just scared me, and I wasn’t feeling very charitable.
Vince shot another pirate’s smile. ‘We’ll just have a poke around the office.’
The gate popped open and he vanished through it. Once again, I was in the carpark by myself.
My jaw hanging open, I said, ‘What?’ for the third or fourth time.
Vince’s big smiley head poked back out through the hole in the wall. ‘Come on, Felicity. It will be fun. They’ll hold our table a while longer.’
Vanishing again, I felt compelled to go after him.
‘Vince, you can’t just break into a property and dig around for clues,’ I hissed at the dark shadow in front of me.
‘Over here,’ I got in reply from my left.
What I took to be Vince was, in fact, an old tarpaulin over some logs. The old buildings would still have real fireplaces inside, but it was a surprise that people might still employ them.
Following his voice in the dark, I arrived as he got the rear door open.
‘How did you even do that?’ I wanted to know. ‘No, forget I asked. Please close the door and come away. No good will come of this. We’ll get caught and go to jail,’ I was about ready to grab him and insist he take me for dinner. My heart was pounding again. Not like it had been arguing with John, but thumping in my chest,
