Dying to Write (30 page)

I nodded.

‘He came back this afternoon, with a couple of friends. But he found the young woman on reception he tried to rough up had one or two unexpected resources.'

‘Like backup from a number of highly trained officers,' Hugh said.

‘Exactly so. So the gentlemen were duly apprehended –' Chris's eyes sought mine as he teased me with the officialese – ‘and are going to help us with our inquiries.'

‘And I wasn't there to see the fun!' I wailed, not entirely seriously.

‘Haven't you had enough fun? You'll be picking scabs off your knees for the next few weeks as it is. They said something weird. In fact, it was so weird we've sent for an interpreter, although their English seems perfectly good. Something about fescue.'

Hugh started to laugh.

‘Fescue?' I repeated. ‘Wasn't that what you were telling me about?'

‘And bent,' Hugh said. ‘What about fescue, Chris?'

First-name terms, eh? And how would Chris respond?

‘Why shoud you and Sophie be discussing fescue?'

‘Because – at Sophie's instigation – we have just spend this beautiful afternoon, practically the only beautiful afternoon we've had all summer, incarcerated in my office searching for eastern connections. And come up with –'

‘Golf courses?' asked Chris, coolly. But his crow's-feet were twitching. He'd set us up.

‘How the hell did you know?' said Hugh, who didn't recognise the signs.

The crow's-feet were at their most pronounced. And then he smiled. Any moment we would all be laughing.

‘Because of Sophie's friend Kenji. He phoned Rose Road – why on earth did you leave that number, Sophie? You had the poor man dreadfully confused – and the switchboard had the sense to take his number and tell the duty officer, who passed it on to me. And when I called him back – he doesn't seem to like having his beauty sleep disturbed –'

‘Beauty sleep, nothing. He'd be having it off with that American journalist.'

‘Well, she came into it, I admit. But only as far as her investigations are concerned. No high-level corruption, not as far as she can find out. But a lot of strife over who builds what for whom. Some nasty people involved both in Vietnam and in Japan. And in England.'

I don't know what my face showed. But the niggle of suspicion suddenly exploded as if I'd lost a major filling. I said nothing.

‘Hence your unwelcome visitors, Sophie. Of both nations. I suspect we'll find Nyree's husband was brokering the deal, perhaps even Nyree herself. When we've spoken to our Vietnamese friends.'

‘But why kill the goose – the gander – laying golden eggs?' I asked, trying not to sing aloud with relief.

Chris shrugged. ‘We'll have to wait and see.'

‘And how would they do it? And why remove Kate?'

‘Patience never was your strong suit, was it, Sophie? Maybe it'll come out when we talk to them. I must say,' he added more thoughtfully, ‘I'd like to get my hands on that Japanese-driven Merc. It just seems to have left the face of the earth.'

His face and body sagged. He looked the way I felt at the end of a hard term.

Perhaps we all did. We ought to have laughed at the anticlimax, but none of us had. We ought to be congratulating Chris on his quick-thinking, quick-acting colleagues, but neither of us had. Hugh looked surprisingly grim, and I felt a sudden urge to weep. Post-coital
tristesse
, I told myself.

‘So what now?' I asked.

‘I'm off to Harborne to talk to the Vietnamese. I shall have everyone mobilised in case what they tell us leads to Kate.'

‘What about the people here? Do you no longer suspect any of them?'

‘I wish I knew. What I'd like to do is bloody tag you all so I know where you are. Or tail you all. But –'

‘So you think there's someone else involved?'

‘I don't know. I don't bloody know. Of course there must be. Logic tells me someone must be.'

‘The bod who torched my van,' I said.

He nodded.

‘The bod who thinks I was following him to wherever he's keeping Kate.'

‘Thinks! You bloody were!'

‘If he's frightened, isn't there a danger he'll abandon Kate?' said Hugh.

Chris and I turned simultaneously. We'd forgotten he was there.

‘And maybe leave her to die of hunger or exposure?' he continued.

‘What d'you suggest? We just let you all go quietly home?'

‘That's what you promised. We could all go home provided your people knew where we were,' I said.

Chris nodded. ‘Right. But you don't leave till after lunch tomorrow, and I'd dearly love to get it wrapped up by then.'

‘Hercule Poirot lives,' I said dourly. ‘Now who's been reading too many detective stories?'

For reply, he stood up and reached into his pocket for his car keys. ‘I can't speculate any longer. I can't hope. I can only work. See you later. I'll let you know of any developments, of course. In the meantime, for God's sake take care, Sophie. OK?'

‘No! Not OK! Naukez. You haven't mentioned Naukez. What on earth did you want with him?'

‘To ask him some questions. Literally. He must know this area as well as anyone and I just wanted to talk to him about it. Ask him where anyone could hide or be hidden. He and Shazia got a bit worked up. I thought it was best to get Naukez on his own. I got someone to drive him round talking about the place.'

‘And –?'

‘Not and. But. It seems that though he knows Eyre Park inside out, he's not explored much beyond the boundaries yet. After all, he and Shazia have only been here for about six months.'

He nodded wearily. Hugh started to say something, but Chris turned his back and was gone.

Ian came over. He looked at me, then in the direction Chris had gone. He shook his head slightly.

‘Needs a good break with these Vietnamese buggers,' he said.

I hadn't the heart to ask how he was getting on with rereading all the statements.

Supper would have been a chilly affair, had it not been for the weather. As it happened, the flans and salad were just right: no one could have eaten a hot meal. And a barbecue would have been spoiled by the constant glances at the horizon to see how long the thunder might hold off. I ended up sitting between Matt and Hugh, and although both men responded courteously enough to other people when they were addressed, they made it their business to entertain me. In fact, our attempts to resuscitate the curry poem led to considerable if half-suppressed hilarity, and people kept glancing disapprovingly at us, as if we were naughty kids at the back of the class. And certainly I was cheating; but my friends had apparently decided that I too must have a poem to read out in half an hour's time.

It was a terribly depleted group in the lounge, of course. No Agnes, no Thea. I realised, to my shame, I'd given neither a thought since Thursday. No Courtney. No Kate.

Shazia was still arranging chairs. There were a couple of bottles and some empty glasses on a small table. Naukez, looking sullen as much as shaken, put his head and right arm round the door and waved a corkscrew at her. She took it. He looked at us all and withdrew.

All this took place in silence. The footfalls and scraping of chair legs were unnaturally loud. No one was talking. Guilt or first-night nerves? I rather thought the former.

I smiled at Shazia and reached for the corkscrew. She was only at this appalling event out of courtesy. Normally, I should imagine, she might get quite involved with those she considered her guests. But after the insensitivity over litigation and the barbecue – did no one realise she might quite reasonably object to cooking pork sausages even for other people? – I should think she'd be relieved to see the back of us.

Perhaps some wine might defrost the atmosphere. I poured and passed round and was cut by Mr Woodhouse and by Jean, the only remaining grey lady. Gimson nodded silently. Toad took his glass with absolutely no expression on his face. Tabitha and the sci-fi freak were so busy reading their manuscripts that I put their glasses beside them and left them to it. The giggly girl giggled and crossed her legs to show even more fat thigh. The brace-girl moved her lips and kept her eyes closed as if she were praying. Matt and Hugh came in together and sat down together. Red for both of them: they looked up and smiled as I approached.

This time there was no need for Matt to cough for silence, but he coughed for attention. He stood up portentously and raised his glass. ‘Absent friends,' he said.

We responded. And then seemed a good moment for me to ask: ‘How are all our absent friends? Agnes? Thea? Courtney?'

‘You don't class Kate as a friend?' asked Tabitha.

‘I took it as read that no one here knows how or where she is,' I said.

Shazia jumped in: ‘Thea's going home on Monday. They're very pleased with her. Her husband used to be a doctor, and both her sons are GPs. She reckons she'll be safer there than in a hospital.'

There was a little stiff laughter. Gimson did not join in.

‘And Agnes has got to go into her local hospital for a check-up. Something about regularising her drugs. And Courtney – they were hoping to move him out of intensive care today, but I gather they may leave it till tomorrow, now.'

I didn't like the sound of that. Poor Tina. Poor Courtney. Poor Kate … Yes, absent friends.

There was a great deal of coy demurring on the order of reading, at last cut short by Matt, who asked Toad to start. Toad was writing a screenplay on the subject of Jack the Ripper. What he needed was enough copies for each character, plus a narrator, but he chose to read all the parts himself, including the action and camera shots. He complicated it somewhat by abbreviating ‘interior' and ‘exterior' in a way which would of course have been clear enough on the page but which lost me altogether.

‘“Ext. Night,”' he began. ‘“A mysterious alley, no, London alley, probably in Soho.” I'll have to check that out of course, find out exactly where it all happened.'

‘You could always watch one of the many films on the subject,' said Gimson.

‘“Fog swirls round in a mysterious figure, dressed in typical Victorian clothes.”'

‘A crinoline?' put in the giggly girl.

I felt a sudden distaste. I always hate it when students bait one of their colleagues, and if I felt vulnerable at the moment I was sure even Toad must. I did what I would do in class – shot a cold look at the offender. She blushed and subsided. I didn't expect to have any trouble with her for the rest of the evening. I also caught Gimson's eye, but he responded only with a supercilious lift of one nostril, a movement I would no doubt find useful in boring meetings if only I could emulate it.

‘“A rat moves in the gutter. Diving under a cabbage leaf, a cheaply dressed young lady, young woman, I should say, screams and lifts her shirt, sorry, skirt. The mysterious man lifts his cane and with devilish accuracy swipes and kills the rat. He then scoops it up on the end of his cane, shows it her and throws it in the gutter. Man: If you're afraid of rats, my dear, you should not be out alone at night. Young woman: Sir, you are too kind. I haven't a mama or a papa, I'm just a poor working girl. Man: I cannot believe that such a beautiful young girl as you is poor, there must be many men as would like to make you rich …”'

I set my face into lines of severe concentration. My lips would not pucker in amusement nor would my jaw sag into a yawn of boredom. Then I allowed my thoughts to swan off where they would. Hugh, of course: I thought a great deal about Hugh. Tomorrow was the last time we'd be together unless we wanted to push the relationship further. It went without saying I did. There can't be many such attractive young men in Birmingham. Intelligent, funny, sexy. Rich. Oddly that could be a problem. Almost all of my friends are politically on the left, and I couldn't see Hugh criticising the hand that nurtured business.

But then my attention surged back to Toad. What was he saying? Something about punishment? His reading had certainly changed – from that awkward monotone to something approaching liveliness. But even as I cursed myself for not concentrating, Matt interrupted: ‘I'm sorry to cut you off there, Garth. But we agreed ten minutes maximum, if you remember, and I'm afraid I've let you do nearly twenty already. Thanks. There's a lot of potential there. Now: Jean?'

Fifteen minutes of a nice lucid story.

‘Thanks, Jean. I'm sure we'll be hearing that on Radio Four soon. Remind me to give you a list of
Short Story
producers before we leave tomorrow. Ted?'

Ted was the sci-fi freak, thin, in John Lennon glasses. From him, read in a series of staccato stutters that made my heart bleed for him, a very short story about the plague striking modern-day Manchester.

Mr Woodhouse's sonnet.

Tabitha's erotic story, which sounded to me more like an expedition into a particularly foul-mouthed building site.

A two-hander from the girls – a pilot for a sitcom series. It made everyone laugh, politely.

Then Gimson: a reminiscence of his childhood, so rich in colour and smell and taste I was jealous. It wasn't fair that he should write like that when I could offer nothing of my own. After that it would be cheap to read the cooperative curry poem. I caught Matt's eye and shook my head as unobtrusively as I could. A tiny nod in return – point taken.

‘Those that can, do, and those that can't, teach,' said Toad with a vicious mixture of accuracy and complacency. ‘You'll have to stand in the corner, Sophie.'

‘Another drink, I should think,' said Matt, jovial as Falstaff. ‘Come on, Sophie – get busy with that wine!'

Shazia hunched her shoulder away from Toad as I filled Matt's glass. ‘I'll be glad when
he
's gone. I reckon it was he who fingered Naukez.'