‘Why?’
‘You know. Vancouver.’
Right. I was a Canadian.
I’d already hung up the phone when it occurred to me: I didn’t have a car.
There was certainly a bus that went to Kingsbridge, but when I got back to the B &B and checked out Biozencorp on the Internet, I learned two things: it was a scientific research company claiming every major pharmaceutical company among its clients, and it was a good distance from the town center, on the Tacket Wood side.
Suddenly, like the Grinch, I got a wonderful, awful idea.
I told Paul what I was up to and invited him along. From his spot on the chaise lounge, he fanned the page proofs with his thumb and screwed up his face. ‘I’m not even halfway there, Hannah, and now my damn fool editor wants to change the title.’
‘To what?’
‘From Euclid to Riemann. Idiot! You’ve got to throw CGI into the equation if you want to grab the attention of high-school students.’
‘Of course you do, sweetheart.’ Euclid was the ancient Greek who invented geometry, so I figured Riemann was some modern dude, but otherwise I had no idea what Paul was talking about. Checking equations and formulas requires intense concentration and an eagle eye, I knew, so I gave my husband a swift kiss on the cheek, waved my iPhone under his nose so he’d know we would be tethered by AT &T and zipped out the door.
It took me less than five minutes to reach the car park at the Visitors’ Center where – Hallelujah, there is a God! – Cathy’s rental car was parked exactly where I’d left it.
I opened the back door, located the ignition key under the floor mat where I had been instructed to leave it, and climbed into the driver’s seat. If Europcar hadn’t picked the car up by now, I reasoned as I started the engine and pulled out on to The Quay, the little Corsa couldn’t be an all-important cog in their enormous fleet. It would be rotten luck if Europcar decided to collect the car that day, of course. What if they reported it stolen? What if my image was captured on one of the CCTV cameras scattered about town, following my every move?
A light went on in the vast, empty attic of my brain. CCTV!
In true Big Brother style, the UK has one CCTV camera for every fourteen persons, or so they say. Did the police have a videotape of the vehicle that ran Susan down? If so, they were keeping mum. I hadn’t noticed any cameras on the Embankment or in the Gardens, but that didn’t mean they weren’t there. As I turned south on the familiar road toward Torcross, I adjusted my sunglasses, pulled my ball cap a bit further down over my eyes, and made a mental note to look into it.
At Torcross, I turned west, heading inland toward Kingsbridge. I had entered Biozencorp’s address into Cathy’s GPS, and followed the voice she’d chosen – John Cleese. Does a GPS get any more trustworthy than that? On the outskirts of Kingsbridge, ‘John’ directed me with confidence down a narrow paved road that ended at a compound of concrete block buildings surrounded by a ten-foot-high chain-link fence, topped by coils of barbed wire. A sentry box stood to the left of a sliding electric gate, which was closed. Two private security guards wearing brown uniforms, arm patches, and humorless expressions appeared to be on duty.
I pulled to the verge behind a passenger van and several other cars, parked, and climbed out. Keeping the cars between me and the road, I strolled along the narrow verge, casually checking each one of them for damage.
Alf’s much-decorated car was at the head of the line. As old as the car was, it seemed to have all its parts, and there appeared to be no damage to the left front fender. The finish, once a metallic blue, was now so bleached that any repair would have stood out like the proverbial sore thumb. It would have taken a body shop mechanic with the skills of Michelangelo to match that weather-worn, sandblasted blue.
Olivia, the youngest of the picketers by far, was easy to spot. Her red headband had been replaced by one in blue, which matched a tailored blouse tucked into a pair of white jeans. She stood to one side of the gates along with the usual WTL suspects, their number augmented that day by half a dozen representatives – according to their picket signs – of organizations called Uncaged and the British Union for the Abolition of Vivisection.
I needed to draw Olivia away from the pack.
I leaned against the bonnet of Alf’s car, warm against my bum, and thought. Did Kingsbridge have a newspaper? I pulled out my iPhone, opened the Google app and tapped in a search. Yes! The Kingsbridge and Salcombe Gazette came out weekly, and was owned by the same family that published the Dartmouth Chronicle.
I would be a reporter, then, but what would I do about my accent? I’m lousy with accents. The price one pays, I suppose, for being born in Ohio where our accents are about as nondescript and boring as we are. If I tried on a fake one, I’d be no more successful than those British actors who play Americans on TV and seem to suffer from the delusion that all Americans drawl and come from Texas.
I should begin with the tall guy, I thought, the one with the rasta braids, the one waving the sign declaring ‘To Animals, All People Are Nazis’. Definitely the Alpha Dog. Excuse me, sir - work the eyelashes overtime, Hannah – but I’m wondering if you have a moment to answer a few questions for the Kingsbridge Gazette?
I was rehearsing the dialog in my head when, out of the corner of my eye, I saw Olivia shift her picket sign nervously from one hand to the other. No Bible chapter and verse for Olivia today. This time the message she carried was unambiguous – a picture of a sad-eyed, brown and white spotted dog bearing the caption, in red letters dripping blood, ‘Born To Die’. By the rigid set of her jaw, I knew Olivia was clenching her teeth, probably fretting that I’d blow her cover.
I was scrabbling in the depths of my handbag for the little notebook and ballpoint pen I keep in there somewhere, when I heard Olivia shout, ‘Oh my God, if it isn’t Mrs Wingate! What the heck are you doing here, Mrs W?’
My head snapped up in time to see Olivia prop her picket sign against the chain-link fence. She turned to Alf, who was standing next to her holding a sign that said, ‘Stop EU Chemical Tests’, and said something to him. Alf shrugged, then went back to waving his sign. Olivia retrieved her handbag from the ground and hurried over to join me.
‘Quick, let’s get out of here.’ She kept her voice low, husky. ‘I told him you were my sixth-form science teacher. L-O-L.’
‘Don’t you think he’ll wonder what a former teacher was doing way out here?’ I asked as I hustled Olivia back in the direction of Cathy’s rental car.
‘That’s why I said science,’ she explained.
‘Olivia,’ I said, keeping my voice steady. ‘I checked Alf’s car just now. There’s not a sign of any damage.’
Olivia reached for the car door and wrenched it open. ‘Not that one, Hannah. Alf drives a BMW. Keeps it in a garage, like. Doesn’t let nobody drive it but him.’
‘Have you seen the BMW recently?’
‘No.’
‘Where does Alf keep the car?’
‘That’s what I want to show you.’
Now that I had a real live girl to issue driving instructions, I turned ‘John’ off via the GPS. Olivia directed me west through Kingsbridge for what she said would be a twenty-, thirty-minute drive, max, to Totnes. At the Palegate Cross Roundabout, we headed north on the A381 and when I got to the main road I asked, ‘What reason could Alf have had to run Susan Parker down?’
‘Well, they had words.’
‘Words?’
‘You know. Shouting, like.’
‘It’s hard for me to imagine Susan Parker shouting,’ I commented as I slowed to let the car that was tailgating me pass.
Olivia colored. ‘It’s Alf doing the shouting, I guess you’d say.’