Walk a Narrow Mile (14 page)

‘We’re always finding out new things, sir,’ Hillary said sweetly. ‘We investigate. That’s what tends to happen when you investigate – you find out things. Like if someone’s been telling you lies. Or, shall we say, not being as totally forthcoming as they might have been.’ She allowed her voice to rise slightly at the end of the sentence, thus turning it into a query.

It was an old trick, and she had used it often in the past. When dealing with someone who was trying to hide something, but you had no idea what, sometimes it paid off to simply bluff. If you hinted that you knew all about it, a suspect’s dodgy conscience would often do the rest. That, plus the fact that most people had the subconscious desire to confess, simply because the relief when they did so was so great.

So she gazed calmly across at the other man, and saw Deakin’s skinny frame slowly collapse, like air going out of a balloon.

‘All right. So I didn’t tell you about the money I loaned her,’ Christopher said with a credible stab at embarrassed
nonchalance
. ‘I just didn’t want you to get the wrong impression of Judy, that’s all.’

Hillary nodded. What money?

‘We know how much it was, sir,’ she said smoothly. ‘Financial records, in a serious criminal inquiry, are never as private as the general public seem to think.’

Christopher nodded gloomily. ‘Like I said, I didn’t want you to run away with the idea that Judy was some sort of
gold-digger
, or that she was the money-grubbing sort. She wasn’t. I was happy to loan her the ten thousand.’

Ten thousand, Hillary thought. An interesting sum, that. Not
huge, by today’s standards. But not peanuts either. She glanced around the room, taking in the ergonomically designed chairs, the limited edition prints on the walls bearing famous names in the world of modern art, the arrangement of fresh lilies in a cut crystal vase on a good quality nineteenth century mahogany sideboard.

Yes, he could well afford it. Probably. On the other hand, people didn’t get rich and successful giving money away. But Judy hadn’t been just anyone, had she, Hillary mused? She’d been his lover. So – was it blackmail or genuine affection? She tilted her head and looked at Christopher Deakin thoughtfully.

‘You appear to have lost weight, sir,’ Hillary said, and saw him shoot her a totally flummoxed look. ‘You’re very lean anyway, which is why I noticed. Since it’s hardly likely that you’re on a diet, I wondered if it might be due to stress. Have you been feeling particularly under pressure recently?’ she asked innocently.

Christopher swallowed hard. No wonder Ruth Coombs thought he was acting strangely. Right here and now he was acting the classic guilty man, found out.

‘Oh, just work,’ he said, his voice slightly hoarse. ‘Working in television is always very time-orientated you see. The
pressure
is always on to get things done on schedule because productions over-running are so expensive. And filming on one of our documentaries has hit a snag. Unforeseen
circumstances
and all that – and we haven’t budgeted for it. That sort of thing.’ And then, as if aware he was rambling, he abruptly stopped talking.

Hillary looked at the good-looking, blond man, and felt uneasy. She also experienced an odd little frisson of
déjà vu.
‘Let’s get back to the money you
loaned
Judy. I take it you never got it back?’ When in doubt, follow the money trail. How often had she heard that from her old sergeant, back in the days when she’d still been in uniform?

‘No. Well, she, er … left, and so, of course, she could … didn’t
repay it. Not that I really expected her to,’ he added quickly. ‘I mean, we called it a loan, between ourselves, but we both knew that really it was, well, a gift I suppose.’

Hillary nodded. ‘Did she say why she needed it?’

Deakin hesitated, and then again, just as he had before in their previous interview, quite obviously – to Hillary at least – lied. ‘No,’ he said firmly, his eyes briefly flickering. ‘She didn’t. And I didn’t like to ask.’

Hillary nodded.

And wondered.

Had Judy become truly afraid of her stalker by then? Had she asked her lover for money so that she could run away and hide? To disappear for a bit, to maybe just shake off the man who was harassing her, long enough anyway, for him to get bored and find someone else to torment? And if she had, wouldn’t she have told him? So was Deakin so freaked out because he thought that Judy was alive and well somewhere and in hiding from her stalker, and that cops stumbling around might put a spoke in the wheel? But then, that would mean she’d spent four years in hiding, or so he thought. And if he was still holding a torch, waiting for her, then he was a better man than she’d have given him credit for.

If any of this was true, or he thought it was, then why didn’t he come clean about it now? Obviously, Judy herself might have asked him not to.

Hillary mentally shook her head. No. It was all too
far-fetched
. It was far more likely that their affair had run its natural course and he hadn’t given her a thought since. He had
probably
even been relieved, since it meant the risk of his wife finding out would finally be over. Deakin might simply have seen the money as a good investment if he knew that Judy was going to take it and go out of his life for good.

And now, years later, here it all came back to potentially bite him in the backside.

Yes, that might be it.

Then again, it might not.

No. It might not.

Hillary nodded. ‘Well, thank you for your time, Mr Deakin. And please don’t lie to us again. If you think of anything, anything at all, that you think we should know, please give me a call. You still have my card?’

‘Oh yes,’ Deakin said, smiling with visible relief, and stood up when they did.

Hillary nodded, turned and walked to the door, then stopped halfway and turned back. ‘Oh, and Mr Deakin, if you want to file a complaint against Ruth Coombs, you can also do that through me, if you like.’

Christopher smiled shakily. ‘Oh, no. Ruth’s fine. I mean, she’s just a little … no, it’s fine.’

Hillary nodded. At that point she would have bet money on him saying just that.

Once back outside, they hit the rush hour proper and sat for nearly half an hour in stalled traffic on the Banbury Road.

Hillary said nothing, although once or twice she saw Jimmy glance across at her curiously. But by now Jimmy knew enough about his guv’nor to know when to talk and when not to
interrupt
her when she was thinking.

And Hillary
was
thinking, at last. For what felt like the first time since taking this dog’s dinner of a case, she felt as if she was beginning to properly function again. Act like the cop she was, and always had been.

The only trouble was – what she was thinking was insane. Indeed, it was so insane that she had no intention of voicing her theories out loud. Apart from anything else, Steven would yank her off the case before she could complete so much as a full sentence.

No. She needed to gather evidence, and the rock-solid,
incontrovertible
kind of evidence at that. If what she was beginning to suspect was even remotely true, then it was so far off the wall, that only an air-tight argument would do. Otherwise they really
would be sending for the men in white coats to come and take her away.

But where the hell did she start?

T
hat Friday night, Tom checked his appearance in the mirror. He was wearing tight fitting, good quality denim jeans that showed off his powerful thigh muscles to perfection, and a plain white T-shirt, again, stretched tight to show off his pecs. He slung a fashionably beaten-up leather jacket over his shoulders and smoothed back his hair.

He was taking Vivienne to a pub-cum-restaurant in the nearby village of Hampton Poyle and he was feeling rather flat. Why couldn’t it be Hillary that he was dressing to impress? He scowled at his image in the mirror, then smiled slowly as he turned and reached for the three envelopes on his desk.

They were all brown padded envelopes, with
computer-printed
address labels on the front. They all had self-seal tabs on them, and he’d used water to paste down the stamps. Each was addressed to Hillary Greene and each had a small item inside that he’d been almost loathe to part with. He’d enjoyed gloating over them over the years, imagining delicious scenarios concerning their original owners. It would be a shame to give them away.

Still, it was in a good cause. He needed to up the game. Since he’d discovered she was being guarded and watched day and night by that bastard Steven Crayle’s lackeys, he hadn’t been able to do much. She might be wondering if he’d forgotten about her or given up on their game, and he couldn’t have that.

He smiled when he thought of her getting his latest gift via the services of Her Majesty’s Royal Mail, and what her reaction would be. She’d be intrigued, and surely relieved to hear from him.

He picked up the envelopes with a tuneless whistle and
pocketed
his car keys and then, still whistling, checked his mobile. He’d been left one text message, but he recognized the number and ignored it. He was due to meet a guy who had a caravan for sale, but it could wait. He probably only wanted to change the time when they’d agreed to meet so he could look it over, and he had more important things on his mind just now.

Running down the stairs into the hall, he called a vague ‘goodbye’ to his parents, who he could hear listening to the telly in the living room, and went out to his car. He drove to the small village and decided to use the post box there to mail his letters. He took a quick look around and on finding the village lanes deserted, he mimed kissing the back of each envelope,
imagining
it was his Hillary’s lovely lips he was kissing, popped them into the iconic red box and then took off his driving gloves and walked into the pub.

Vivienne was late. But then, she nearly always was.

Tom used the spare time to buy the drinks, and think about how he was going to kill her. When she finally arrived, she was dressed in one of those flowery summery print dresses that reminded you of your granny, but were now back in fashion. With her curled long dark hair and expertly made-up pretty face, she instantly attracted the attention of every man in the room, but Tom took one look at the frilly Laura Ashley confection and knew that Hillary wouldn’t be caught dead wearing it.

He forced a smile. ‘I was beginning to wonder if you’d stood me up.’

‘Nah, just busy. You wouldn’t believe what the mad cow has got us doing now,’ Vivienne said, missing the sudden tightening of his smile and the way his cat-green eyes glittered angrily.
‘She’s only got us sorting through any costa cons that one of our missing girls might have got mixed up with.’

Tom, fighting the urge to slap her silly face and warn her to watch her foul mouth when talking about Hillary, felt himself suddenly stiffen.

‘What do you mean?’ he asked sharply. ‘What costa cons?’ Then, realizing that she was surprised by the tone of his voice, quickly forced the smile back. ‘I mean, it sounds dangerous. You shouldn’t be talking to real villains; it’s not as if you’re a real copper yet.’

‘Oh that’s sweet! You’re worried about me,’ Vivienne teased, taking a sip of her drink.

Tom smiled. He couldn’t care less what trouble the silly bitch got herself into, but he needed to get to the bottom of this. It didn’t make sense, and that worried him.

‘Which missing girl we talking about then?’ he asked casually, looping one leather-clad arm around her shoulders and splaying his fingers tantalizingly across the top of her arms. He gently rubbed her skin with one thumb, and took a sip of his own pint.

‘The one who worked in the posh solicitor’s office,’ Vivienne said, putting a hand on his thigh under the table. Bloody hell, it felt as if it were made of iron! ‘Apparently, the outfit she worked for did a lot of the defence work for a load of ex-pat villains. It’s how they make a lot of their money, apparently.’

‘Why does she want to know about them for?’ Tom asked, genuinely curious.

Vivienne sighed and shrugged. ‘Dunno. Who knows how her mind works? Still, I’m not complaining, not really. It gets me and the ginger minger out of the office and doing something a bit more interesting. Mind you, all we’ve been doing this
afternoon
is chatting to her workmates at the office and trying to find out who she was close to. We’ve got some names, and we’re going to try and interview them on Monday morning, so that’ll be a bit of excitement. I’ve never met a career criminal before. I’ll
bet you have,’ she said, flatteringly, nudging up a bit closer and digging her fingers suggestively into his flesh.

Tom smiled enigmatically. The only criminals he knew were the boozed up tossers who cut each other in knife fights every weekend, or vandalized bus shelters. ’Course. They’re all right, some of them. Just you be careful though,’ he added, realizing that she was expecting him to say something like that. ‘But what’s she thinking of? Has she said why she wants you to find out about them?’

It worried him when Hillary did stuff that he couldn’t figure out. What had she got hold of that he hadn’t? The more he thought about it, the more likely it seemed that she had thought of something that he’d missed, and that thought left him
breathless
in equal parts of admiration and unease.

But what could it be? It made no sense. Unless…

‘Meg Vickary,’ he said casually. ‘You’ve been talking to her workmates you say. So,
was
she close to any of them? Any of the costa villains, that is?’

Vivienne sighed. To be honest, Sam had done most of the chatting, since all the secretaries were women, and they seemed to take to him; the stuck-up cows hadn’t wanted to give
her
the time of day. And she hadn’t liked to ask Sam what he’d found out, because then she’d have to admit that she hadn’t come up with much herself.

But she wasn’t about to admit any of this to Tom, so instead she sighed again. ‘Come on, lover boy, you know I can’t talk about it,’ she cajoled. ‘Hillary Greene would have my hide. She’s always going on about our need for discretion and keeping our mouths shut. Anyone would think we were working for the Secret bloody Service or something. I tell you, that woman’s unhinged.’

Tom nodded understandingly, but his hand, curled around his pint glass, tightened until his knuckles showed white. What the stupid cow meant was that Hillary Greene was a
professional
, through and through. Being forced to work with
sub-standard dregs like Vivienne, the old geezer and Sam Pickles must really rankle. It made him want to go up and shake the top brass by their silly bloody necks and ask them what the hell they thought they were playing at, treating their star player like this.

He forced himself to push the anger away and concentrate, knowing he could be in serious trouble here. He’d always known that Hillary, his wonderful Hillary, was clever. Tenacious; the best bloody cop at HQ, but he didn’t like the way her mind seemed to be working.

He didn’t like it one little bit.

He only hoped the three envelopes would distract her. Otherwise … well, otherwise, he’d have to speed things up before it all got spoilt. And he couldn’t let it get spoilt.

‘Have I told you I’m seeing a man about a caravan this weekend?’ he said softly, turning to nibble on Vivienne’s earlobe. ‘Me and you are gonna have to make plans to start spending some quality time alone together. All alone, in the woods somewhere…’ – he let his voice lower softly – ‘where
no-one
can hear you scream,’ he added with a twinkle in his green eyes.

Vivienne smiled smugly. ‘
Now
you’re talking!’

The weekend was one of those golden ones that mark the end of spring and the beginning of summer. The sun showed its true strength, and on the
Mollern
, Hillary and Steven threw open all the windows and took to the outdoors. The ducklings were growing apace, and the swallows, all now arrived, were busy swooping along the khaki-coloured water of the Oxford canal, scooping up beaks full of liquid to help them to construct their mud nests.

Lying on top of the roof on fluffy beach towels, they spent the days sipping chilled wine, reading, talking, and sunbathing before going below to fix light meals.

Steven had taken the whole weekend off, and Hillary
appreciated
the pampering. At night, they wandered to The Boat for their evening meal, then spent the nights together in her small bed. Sunday morning, they went for a long walk northwards, passing the village of Kirtlington’s Three Pigeons Lock, the hamlet of Northbrook, and as far as the villages of Lower and Upper Heyford, before turning back. She taught him what cuckoo flowers looked like, and the difference between
buttercups
and celandines. He told her about his past marriage, his ambitions for the future, and how he loved the minuscule proportions of her ridiculous bed.

It was one of those moments in life that should never have to come to an end, but when it did, and she followed him into work the following Monday morning, she knew that something fundamental had changed in her life.

And she wasn’t sure that she knew what to do about it.

On the plus side, she’d not thought about the fading scar on her neck once.

Before Vivienne and Sam set off for the Smoke, where they were due to talk to three fairly low-level and now fully retired
criminals
about Meg Vickary, she gave them another task.

Vivienne, who was impatient, stood restlessly beside her desk, glancing tellingly at her watch and sighing elaborately. Hillary ignored her.

Sam, however, listened carefully.

‘When you get back from London, I want you to check out any rural artistic-type retreats you can find,’ she told him. ‘Go country-wide, but they have to be set in the countryside – converted farms, barns, mills, anything of that sort, and they have to be artisan-based,’ Hillary explained. ‘No religious
overtones
, or anything political. I don’t think either of those are Gillian Tinkerton’s thing at all.’

Sam nodded. ‘You think she might have run off to some place to paint butterflies or something, guv,’ he said, grinning.

Jimmy, who knew damned well that Gillian was dead,
looked up curiously, wondering why Hillary was giving them this particular task now. Even if Gillian had gone off to join some sort of artist’s colony to escape her stalker, it was clear she hadn’t made it. But perhaps the guv thought that he might have followed her to wherever she’d gone and then snatched her from there? In which case, the youngsters might just uncover a witness. But it was a hell of a long shot, in his opinion.

Hillary smiled briefly at Sam, giving nothing away. ‘Something like that. Concentrate on those that provide live-in accommodation or provide solid business links with the local community. I can’t see Gillian being taken in by any outfit where the artists end up paying the management for the privilege of staying there. And she’s canny enough to want to be sure to make a living out of what she’s doing. So any fly-by-night or dodgy set ups is out. I think she’s canny enough to have checked them out beforehand, so concentrate on those that have been going for some years and have a solid rep. You can do most of it on the net I expect, or by phone. I want a list of possibles on my desk as soon as you can.’

‘Right, guv.’

‘Can we get going now?’ Vivienne whined.

Hillary smiled patiently, and waved them away.

Jimmy watched her leave the office and go on through down to her own small space. He didn’t know how she could stand it in there – it would drive him mad. Still, she lived on a
narrowboat
, so obviously claustrophobia wasn’t one of her problems.

He frowned, wondering what she was up to. Usually he could follow her thinking and get some idea of where she thought the case was going, but not this time. So far, she’d solved both of the cold case murders that the super had given her, and his confidence in her was only growing. But this case was obviously giving her trouble, and Jimmy wasn’t so sure that being stalked could account for all of it. He didn’t believe she’d lost her nerve, but her confidence wasn’t as strong as it should
have been. Her mind though, he would have bet his last pay packet, was as razor-sharp as ever.

But for the life of him he couldn’t figure out her strategy. Was her mind really not on the job? Being attacked and nearly knifed to death had to affect you, no matter how tough you were. Was she still feeling so distracted by the thought of being the next target of a serial killer that she really couldn’t think straight?

Jimmy didn’t think so. He believed he had the measure of Hillary Greene by now and, when it came down to it, he’d place his bets on her any day of the week. If her stalker thought he’d got the better of her, he’d better think again.

Besides, so far, between the super, himself and his old pals, they’d been keeping her covered every moment of every day, and she knew it. And, needless to say, chummy hadn’t made a move on her. Knowing they had her covered had to help her feel secure.

He knew that the super had spent the entire weekend with her, and not just because he wanted to keep her safe either, but Jimmy didn’t let himself speculate about that. It was none of his damned business. But she did look more relaxed and happy than he’d seen her in a while, which said it all, really.