Her name was Jane Carpenter, but she was currently luggage. And if nobody found her soon, she’d be lost.
The car was parked midmorning at a motorway service station. The restaurant there was brightly lit, and its furnishings fixed in place, so the symmetry didn’t spoil. Laminated menus offered pictures of the food on offer, and the sound system regurgitated an inoffensive medley to match. A man in jeans and scuffed black leather jacket left the counter carrying a tray with the mixed-grill option and a large mug of tea. He hadn’t shaved for a while, nor shampooed, by the look of it. He took a seat near the corner, facing out towards the car park. There weren’t many people in the restaurant, and he wasn’t sitting near any of them.
“What about him?”
“Whom?”
She liked it that he said “whom.”
The couple talking were Peter Mason and Jennifer Holmes, and they’d been an item for somewhere approaching eight months. In that time they’d done most of the usual getting-to-know-you dances, and made one or two of the usual surprising discoveries about shared interests and passions. They’d spent a few weekends together, and enjoyed what they’d learned, but this was the first time they’d come away as a couple — they were heading for a party in a cottage Pete had got hold of, up in the Peak District; somewhere pretty isolated — and their mood was a little scatty. A bit off-the-leash. On the way here they’d talked about their respective weeks at work, then moved on to mildly salacious hints about what the weekend might hold, before reverting — not to get too ahead of themselves — to inconsequential stuff: movies, music, childhood friends. Now they’d stopped for coffee, which had turned into coffee and sandwiches, and Pete had been talking about people-watching; a hobbyhorse of his. It was amazing, he maintained, what you could tell about someone just by observation. Provided you looked in the right way, and picked up on the available clues.
“With a name like yours, this shouldn’t be any big surprise.”
“Jennifer?”
“Ha, ha. Holmes, pumpkin. As in Sherlock.”
“The great detective.”
“Who could deconstruct a character soon as look at him. No villain was safe. No secret undiscovered.”
“Didn’t he have expert knowledge, though? Couldn’t he always tell, I don’t know, that you had your hair cut by a one-armed barber who plied his trade on the Strand every second Tuesday? That kind of cheating knowledge no real person could have?”
“Well, yeah. But the theory is absolute. Observation brings knowledge.”
“You reckon.”
“I reckon.”
“What about him?”
“Whom?”
Jennifer nodded towards the man who’d just sat down on the far side of the restaurant. Sitting side by side the way they were, both were facing him, though he was facing the window. “Him.”
Jeans and scuffed black leather jacket with a faded tee underneath. Probably with logo or slogan, though it was impossible to see from here. He must have been early forties, with shaggy dark hair and a sallow complexion.
“...Well?”
It was meant as a challenge, he could tell.
They couldn’t be overheard. There was no harm in this. The man was a stranger.
Peter said, “Okay. He’s used to these places. Motorway service stations.”
“Everyone is. We’ve all been places like this.”
“But they’re a way of life with him.”
“Evidence.”
“He’s not looking round. He’s focused on his food, see? The surroundings mean nothing to him.”
It was true: He was.
“Maybe he’s hungry.”
“Maybe he is.”
“And it’s not like the surroundings are worth paying attention to.”
“I wouldn’t say that. They’re not tasteful or pleasant, true, but that doesn’t mean they’re without interest. I notice you took in what the menu had to offer. And you checked out the coasters and everything. The posters on the walls.”
“Is that shallow?”
“No. I did too. I’ve been places like this before, but I’ve never been to this particular place. There’s always something new. But I’m guessing there’s a saturation point, and our man’s reached it. Because he didn’t look around when he came in. He barely glanced at the menu. It’s like everything is so familiar to him, it’s not worth paying attention to.”
“Good,” she said. “More.”
Peter thought. “Okay. When he was fetching his food, he didn’t have to puzzle out the system. He already knew what was going on, that you fetch your food that side and pay this side. And where the drinks are, and everything. He didn’t have to go back and fetch a teacup once he’d got to the hot-water urn. He knew to pick up the cup first.”
“I didn’t see any of that.”
“Well, I did. Trust me. And another thing. See where he’s sitting?”
“What about it?”
“Perfect place. He can eat and still keep an eye on his vehicle. That’s the kind of precaution you take when we’re talking about livelihood.”
“Ah. He travels for a living.”
“I think what we’ve got so far is bringing us to that conclusion, yes.”
“Salesman?”
“He’s not really kempt enough for a salesman, is he?”
“Kempt,” she thought. That was up there with “whom.”
“So I don’t know. Maybe a courier of some sort.”
Jennifer turned and looked out into the car park. There were no delivery vans out there. One estate car had writing down the side panels — something about double-glazing — but they’d decided he wasn’t a salesman.
Peter was ahead of her. “There’s all kinds of couriers these days. You don’t have to wear a uniform and drive a brown truck. Maybe he delivers cars.”
“Cars?”
“You rent a car to drive to the airport, but for one reason or another you don’t need it for the return journey. Maybe you’re flying back somewhere else, because you got a deal on the flight or you’re going to visit your mother or something.” He shrugged. “Somebody has to fetch the car, take it back to its starting point.”
“You know so much.”
What he liked about this was the absence of any trace of sarcasm.
“It’s all just speculation,” he said modestly.
“Well, of course it is. But what speculation. Tell me more.”
He said, “Well... Looks to me like he’s on the skids.”
“I’ll go along with that.”
“But he used to be prosperous. This motorway service-station life, this is something that’s happened to him. It’s not the way he started out.”
“Evidence,” she said again.
He was ready for this. “Take his jacket. It’s nice, but old. You buy a jacket like that because you want to look good, you want to look cool.”
“Leather jackets get cooler the more worn they are.”
“Point. But you have to wash your hair for the full effect. Nobody interested in their appearance is going to leave their hair unwashed for so long that you can tell from this distance it’s dirty.”
“So what do we deduce from that, Sherlock?”
Peter said, “Like I said, he’s on the skids. He used to be a man who wears a jacket like that, and now he’s a man who’s still clinging to the jacket, but can’t do the rest of it anymore... Watch his hand as he raises his fork to his mouth... There!”
“He’s not wearing a wedding ring.”
“Clever girl. But what else?”
“You’re going to tell me there’s a white band of flesh there. That he used to wear a ring but doesn’t now.”
Pete was shaking his head in admiration before she’d finished. “Damn, but you’re good at this.”
“Sure. Except I don’t believe it. I can’t see any such thing from here, and you can’t either, can you?”