Her attacker’s car had been parked at the roadside, and she hadn’t realised which it was until he opened the door for her, so she never really saw it from the outside. Bob said he opened the passenger door and beckoned her to get in. As soon as she dropped into the low seat she started shivering and shaking. He climbed in next to her and saw that she had turned white, her wide eyes taking in the instrument panel, glove box and everything else.
The traffic cop’s wife made them tea and Eileen slowly regained her composure, sitting in their kitchen. “I’m sorry,” she’d sobbed, blowing her nose.
“There’s nothing to be sorry about,” Bob had assured her. “What can you tell me about the car?”
“It was one of them,” she’d declared. “Definitely, but it had a little animal on the front, like a Jaguar does.”
“Find it, Bob,” I ordered, when he finished his story.
“Might not be easy, it was written off.”
“Well find where the bits went. We need that car.”
There was a note on my desk from the twilight detective, who just happened to be Rodger. Two of them alternate, afternoons and nights, because their wives work shifts at the General Hospital, and it suits them. I’d asked for a watch to be kept on Silkstone, when times were slack, and the note said that he’d fallen into the habit of strolling along to the Anglers for a meal, usually between six and seven. I grow restless when a case stagnates, like to jolly things along a little. It was time to go pro-active, I decided. We’re big on proactive policing at the moment. First thought was to take Annette with me, but I changed my mind. It would be better if I was alone, my word against his. Except I would have a witness. I rang our technical support people and asked to borrow a tape recorder.
Annette came into my office just before five, carrying a coffee. “Hi, Annette,” I said, pointing to the spare chair. “Sit down and talk to me.”
“Coffee?” she asked.
“No thanks.”
“You’ve been after me.”
“Yes,” I replied. “I rang you because I’m going to accidentally — on-purpose bump into Silkstone, in that pub near his place, and I thought it might look more natural if you were with me.”
“No problem,” she replied. “What time?”
“It’s OK, there’s been a change of plan. I’ve decided to be alone, in the hope that I can tempt him into the odd indiscretion.”
“But it won’t be worth a toss,” she informed me.
“I know, but if it were he wouldn’t say it, would he? We could have a drink after,” I suggested.
“Socially?”
“I suppose so. You’ve been avoiding me since…since the weekend.”
“I don’t think so, if you don’t mind, Boss.”
“It’s Boss again, is it?” I said.
“I’m sorry, Charlie,” she replied, shaking her head. “I don’t know what to think.” She looked more unhappy than I’ve ever seen her.
“I cocked-up on Sunday,” I admitted. “I know I did. Something just happened inside me. I was scared, but for you, not myself. I thought I’d got you into something. Maybe it was the music, or the words of the songs. I don’t know. We need to talk, but this isn’t the place. Let me come round to your place, later.”
“I don’t know.” More head shaking, her hair covering first one half of her face, then the other, as it tried to keep up. I glanced out of the window across the big office. Nobody was watching us, trying to decipher the touching scene between the DI and the attractive DC.
“Friday night,” I began. “I thought it was rather special. I thought that, you know, it said something about how we felt for each other.”
“So did I, but…”
“But what?”
She gave a violent shake of the head and started sobbing. I looked out and caught David Rose glance across. He quickly looked away. “I’m sorry, Annette,” I said. “Maybe I read too much into it. OK, it’s back to strictly a working relationship, if that’s how you’d prefer it. I don’t want to lose you as an officer and I can switch it off, live a lie, if you can. Shall we just…call the whole thing off?”
She sniffed and looked at me for the first time. “Yes, I think we should,” she replied.
“Right.”
“I’m sorry, Charlie.”
“Me too, Annette. Me too.”
I did paperwork until just after six, then hared off to the Anglers. In the car park I tested the tape recorder, running the tape back to the beginning and pressing the play button.
Male voice: “Hi, Annette. Sit down and talk to me.”
Female voice: “Coffee?”
Male voice: “No thanks.”
Female voice: “You’ve been after me.”
Male voice: “Yes, I rang you because…”
I pressed the stop button and ejected the cassette. There was nothing there that I wanted to save for posterity; nothing I could play back to her later, and watch the colour rise in her cheeks until I reached out and cooled them with my fingertips. I hooked a thumbnail under the tape and pulled it from the spools, heaping it on the passenger seat until no more was left and ripping the ends free. I clicked the spare cassette into position and concealed the tape recorder in my inside pocket. The microphone was under my tie. It worked, and that was all that mattered. I locked the car and went into the pub.
I tried the steak and kidney pie but didn’t enjoy it. I was stabbing a perfunctory chip with my fork — there’s something oddly irresistible about a plate of cold chips — when a movement outside caught my eye. Another Ford Mondeo had joined mine in the car-park, and it was closely followed by a Peugeot. The place was getting busy. My phone rang and I grabbed it from my pocket. “Charlie,” I whispered into it.
“He’s with someone,” I was told, “in a Ford like yours. I’ve done a vehicle check and it’s owned by a Julian Maximillian Denver.”
“Cheers, I know him.” I looked up at the door as I slipped the phone back into my pocket and saw Silkstone, accompanied by Max Denver, ace reporter of the UK News, heading my way.
Denver, a grin on his face, was all for joining me, but Silkstone didn’t want to. I’d never been formally introduced to Denver, but recognised him as the character who’d confronted me outside the station a week ago, and his name was plastered all over the articles. He was wearing a belted leather coat a size too big, faded jeans and a slimy smile on one of those faces that has punch me writ large across it. I scratched my armpit and switched the tape on. If Mohammed wouldn’t come to the mountain…
They ordered drinks and food at the bar and took a table several places away from me. I waited until they were settled and wandered over, glass in hand.
“Well well,” I said, pulling a chair from an adjoining table and placing it at the end of theirs. “I’d have thought this was a bit downmarket for a pair of hotshots like you two.”
“I was thinking the same myself,” Silkstone sneered.
“Sit down, why don’t you,” Denver invited, somewhat superfluously as I already had done.
“Thanks. On the other hand, in your reduced circumstances, Silkstone, I’d have thought you’d have taken advantage of the two-for-one, before six o’clock.”
He turned to Denver, asking: “Do we have to listen to this?” but Denver would listen to anyone, and the more aggro the better.
“Or is this little treat on your new-found friend’s expense account?” I asked. “Signed a contract with him, have you?”
Denver said: “Killed any unarmed men today, Priest?”
“No,” I replied, “but there’s time.” I turned back to Silkstone. “How much is he paying you then? Enough to replace the fifty thousand you donated to the Kevin Chilcott holiday fund?” A red shadow spread from Silkstone’s face, stopping as it reached his bald head, like the British Empire on an old map of Africa. Denver looked from me to Silkstone and back again, his brow beetled in mystification. “What!” I exclaimed, “hasn’t he told you about the fifty thousand?”