Something, a light or a reflection, flashed from the back of it.
Slowly she raised a hand, shielded her eyes and stared. The flash came again. A brief square of white light. Then nothing. Maybe it was a window opening and closing. Someone in the bungalow was moving around. They might be watching her.
She dropped her hand, shrugged the collar of the jacket up around her neck, went back to the car and drove half a mile along the lane into the trees at the bottom of the hamlet. There was a small ingress on the right. She pulled into it and parked the car deep in the trees where no one would pass, deadlocked it, got out and followed a small footpath that led away from the ingress in the direction of the bungalow. The path was overgrown and choked with nettles, but it climbed steadily towards the hamlet. She stopped when the trees cleared and she found herself at a low brick wall, looking at the bungalow’s back garden.
It was large and unkempt, spreading away across the hillside: grass and the first dandelions were coming up through the brown skeletons of last year’s bindweed. Brambles had strewn themselves across the lawn like tentacles, and everywhere fibrestone lawn ornaments nestled in the wet grass: cats and dolphins, a Pegasus with a broken wing, a donkey next to a manger. Plastic bird feeders, in faded sherbet shades of pink, orange and yellow, hung in the trees and saplings. A Siamese cat, a real one, the colour of crème brûlée, sat under one, blinking sleepily at Flea.
The house was as shabby as the garden. The paint on the window frames had once been a deep red but had faded with years of sun and rain. It, too, was studded with animal statuary: chipped and peeling butterflies flew up the walls; three cast-concrete cats squared off at each other on the roof ridge and another appeared to be crawling head first into the chimney. No windows were open. But she could see where the sun’s reflection had come from – not a window. On the patio, next to french windows, a telescope was mounted on a tripod. Next to it, also on a tripod, was a camera.
She climbed stealthily over the wall. She walked quickly to the side of the house and the sun-cracked hard standing where a faded old Volkswagen sat, covered with white bird shit. The house was almost silent – just the faint sound of a TV playing inside, a high-octane voice, shrill, rising. She took a step nearer the french windows. Listened again. No one was moving in there. The telescope was just feet away. She stared at it, trying to work out what it was focused on. She looked down at the road. You could see the tyre tracks from here. They were like a beacon. You couldn’t miss them.
Enough. This was enough. Someone here might have seen the accident.
She went back down the garden the way she’d come. She got to the ingress and, sitting on the Clio’s warm bonnet where she couldn’t be seen from the road or the house, pulled out her phone and plugged in the force communications number.
She and Thom had to be very, very careful. Any risk, however small, had to be taken care of.
29
In the bottom of Flea’s navy Bergen there was an ID card for a dive conference she’d attended last month. Now she slung it round her neck, pushed all her hair up into a peaked baseball cap, and headed back up the path to the bungalow. The communications department held logs on every address in the jurisdiction. Called STORM logs, they recorded details of residents and their contacts with the police. The logs said the name of the bungalow’s owner was Mrs Ruth Lindermilk, and that there had been only one incident in the last ten years to which the police had been called: an assault by a middle-aged female on a male. An airgun had been voluntarily surrendered and taken to the armoury at HQ, but no one was nicked.
The doorbell didn’t work and there was no knocker, so she banged the letterbox two or three times. No answer. She knocked again, then stepped back off the doorstep and peered up at the eaves. From there she could see that the cat’s tail sticking out of the chimney was faded and cracked.
She looked back at the rest of the hamlet. This was the only cottage that had the vantage-point of the road. ‘Stunning views of the Westbury white horse’, it would say, in an estate agent’s blurb. She was turning to go back to the terrace when the sound of a chain being pulled came from the front door.
‘Yeah? What?’
The front door had been opened a crack, through which a pair of baggy eyes peered out from beneath a sailor’s cap. They belonged to a woman, you could see that from her size and the soft quality of her eyes. A wary, mistrustful woman. She was very tanned and her nose was flattened, as if she’d lived a man’s hard life outdoors and still bore the scars.
‘Hi.’
The eyes studied her suspiciously. ‘What are you? Jehovah’s Witness? Better get off my land.’
‘No.’
‘If you’re selling something you can eff off too. Don’t like fuckin’ salesmen knocking on my door.’
‘No. I just want a word.’
‘You have to be joking. Better get off my land now.’
‘Are you Ruth?’
There was a pause.
‘Ruth Lindermilk?’
‘Who are you?’
Flea took off her cap and rubbed a hand through her hair, showing herself as plainly as she could. ‘My name’s Phoebe.’
‘Yeah – but who are you?’
‘I’m from the…’
‘The?’
‘Highways Agency.’ She flashed the ID, her finger over the bit that said ‘ACPO Delegate’.
‘The council, you mean?’
‘Yup.’
Something in Ruth Lindermilk’s face changed. ‘About the letters?’
‘The…? Yes. Can I come in?’
Ruth Lindermilk glanced up and down the lane to see if they were being watched. ‘Are you on your own? No one else with you?’
‘No one else. Just me. Can I come in?’
She hesitated. She gave Flea another once-over, taking in the T-shirt, the combats. Then, with a grunt, she let the door swing open. Flea stepped inside. Mrs Lindermilk slammed the door and headed away down the narrow little corridor. It was dark here. Flea followed the ghostly white blob of the woman’s cap, keeping her neck slightly bent because she sensed the ceilings might get suddenly low, like at home. There was a smell in the house, a mixture of dinners cooked long ago and alcohol. Not whisky. Something sweeter than that. Rum with mixers, maybe.
‘I’m like a snake.’ Mrs Lindermilk stopped in the dark, breathing harshly. A faint light filtered from under a door ahead. ‘A fuckin’ snake.’
‘Sorry?’
‘Like a snake in an aquarium. They’d all come and peer at me if they could. Peer and point. The wankers. Only interested in making my life difficult. Now, you never made no appointment so you take me as you find me. OK?’
‘Fine.’
Ruth Lindermilk opened the door to reveal a large, dishevelled room. The french windows at the far end were hung with vertical blinds, but they stood slightly ajar and a small fan of sunlight came through, illuminating the crowded furniture: chairs, small tables and lumpy armchairs. Magazines, paperbacks and miniatures crammed the shelves – bad copies of Dresden shepherdesses, fat children in bonnets kissing, horses rearing, cats sleeping. Every piece of wall space was covered with framed photographs of different shapes and sizes. In the corner the TV flickered: QVC. A hefty blonde girl in hotpants was struggling to balance on a gym ball. Through the small gap in the blinds Flea could see the shiny eyepiece of the telescope on the patio outside.
‘That’s it. Feast your eyes. This is how I am and I ain’t making any apologies.’ Mrs Lindermilk pottered around, switching on lights, shooing cats off chairs. ‘Sit down. Sit down.’ She indicated a sofa at the other end of the room. Now Flea could see her better she saw she was stout. Dressed in white shorts and a pink polo shirt with an anchor insignia on the breast, she had short, muscular legs jammed into stiletto sandals, with narrow ankles and hardened calves like a man’s. Her thin hair under the jaunty cap was worn short and dyed an anaemic ochre red. ‘Push the cats off. Sit down or die standing. It’s your choice.’