‘Am I being stalked?’ he asked. He did not mean it as light-hearted banter.
‘Look,’ she said, ‘I’m sorry, we got off on the wrong foot back there. My fault.’
‘That’s fine,’ he said, returning his attention to stirring his drink.
‘No harm done,’ she said.
‘None that’s visible.’
She pouted her lips. ‘Ooh, raw nerve touched, I think. I’m sorry if what I said upset you.’
‘It didn’t.’
‘It did. Even I can see that.’
‘OK, it did. Fine, let’s leave it at that. I’d like to be alone and drink my coffee now.’
‘It’s shit,’ she said. ‘The hot chocolate is marginally better, but don’t you find that’s always the case wherever you go? Weird, huh?’
‘Do you never mince your words?’
‘I talk straight. Say things as they are.’
‘I noticed. Now if you don’t mind I’d like to drink my shit in peace. Is that straight enough for you?’
She took out the gum and wrapped in a discarded paper sugar sachet. She took another stick of gum and rolled it onto her tongue. ‘Straight as an arrow,’ she said, but didn’t take it as her queue to leave. ‘Can I buy you a drink to say sorry?’
Gareth held up his paper cup. ‘Sorted, thanks. I don’t want to be rude…’ He was brought up by her startled expression, her eyes wide and looking beyond his shoulder to the wall behind him. Her jaw had stopped its irritating chewing.
‘You’re being tracked,’ she said.
‘What?’ he said incredulously.
‘Followed. I’ve just seem him walk in.’
‘Who has walked in?’ he asked. This is ridiculous, he thought, and getting more absurd by the minute.
‘The black guy, sitting down with a coffee and a fairy cake.’
He looked across her shoulder and saw him. He looked innocent enough. ‘Now how on earth could you know that?’ he said. ‘You have your back to the counter.’
‘There’s a mirror on the wall behind you,’ she said.
He turned. ‘Oh yeah, very James Bond of you.’ A total fruitcake, he thought. He must have a label on his forehead declaring his susceptibility. ‘He’s just a regular guy having a regular coffee and grabbing a bite to eat before heading off.’ He rose from the table. ‘I don’t know what game you’re playing, lady, but I’m not in the mood.’
‘Seriously, you have to trust me,’ she said.
‘Seriously, I have to do no such thing.’
‘You think I’m some kind of nutcase?’ she said.
‘The penny’s dropped at last!’ he said. ‘I’m being followed by a man who likes fairy cakes. I’m all a-tremble!’ He made pretended to check his watch. ‘My train leaves soon. Sorry, got to be going.’
‘The train to Winchester doesn’t leave for another half hour,’ she said. ‘We’ve plenty of time.’
Gareth’s jaw hung open. He closed his eyes and scratched his temple. ‘How do you know I’m going to Winchester? No, tell you what, don’t bother. I’ve had enough. Please don’t follow me or I’ll search out the transport police to haul your crazy arse out of here.’
He grabbed his case and swept out of the cafe as quickly as he could, casting a passing glance at the man eating his cake. He was more interested in the buttercream than anything else, and in reading a dog-eared copy of a fishing magazine.
Gareth was glad to board the train. He’d felt pretty vulnerable stood there on the platform, thinking that at any moment the raving young woman could pounce on him with fresh imaginings. But she never showed her face again, though he searched the crowd of people on the platform even as the train began to pick up speed and pull away from the station.
Naturally she wasn’t quite right in the head, he thought, and he should have reported her. But he admitted that what had come out of that head had unnerved him. It had been one hell of a coincidence that she mentioned the abandoned baby. But that’s all it could be, a coincidence, he told himself. And really, who the hell would set out to follow him?
Maybe it was the police? He’d been unsettled ever since Stafford and Styles had cross-examined him at the station over the murder of the poor young Polish woman in Manchester. Ever since the Cavendish sisters mentioned the strange Canadian he had the feeling that someone was watching him, keeping him under tabs. Or that could purely be his insecurity taking centre-stage again.
His attention wandered to his fellow passengers. A man rattling away at his laptop; another one head back, eyes closed; a middle-aged woman engrossed in a tatty paperback; a wheezy old man chatting away on a mobile. Every one of them appeared thoroughly harmless; every one of them might be a potential threat.
Christ, he thought, rubbing his eyes, you’ve let her get to you that’s all, let her peel back the lid on the tub of fears you’ve been storing up. Time to put the lid back on them.
No sign of the black guy, he thought, then admonished himself. Of course not, he was just a normal guy. The fantasy was in her head.
It was a pretty head though, he mused. Attractive for a complete nutter. He allowed himself a smile and relaxed into his seat. Time to forget about her. He had other things to think about, like meeting Lambert-Chide; like finding his sister.
24
Winchester railway station was smaller than he envisaged, made up of two platforms under painted wooden canopies supported by painted iron pillars. One of the lucky stations to have escaped Beeching’s cuts way back when, he thought. The platforms themselves were relatively busy, given the inclement weather; there was a cold wind driving sheets of fine rain into the sour faces of travellers.
He watched the train snake out of the station and looked at his watch. It had taken over three hours and two changes to get here from Cardiff. He shared the platform with a few groups of sullen-faced people and the odd-person with their head down in a book or newspaper awaiting the next train. A group of Chinese tourists, in lively good humour and clutching cameras and guidebooks, chatted amiably amongst themselves in spite of the freezing British weather. Nothing would stop them enjoying their Jane Austen tour, he mused. He followed them out of the station and into the car park. They hitched a ride in a taxi and he was left pretty much all alone in the rain.
Gareth had made the call. He was put through to a Randall Tremain. He was told he was invited to Gattenby House in Hampshire to meet personally with David Lambert-Chide, who was most eager to thank him in for the recovery of the family heirloom. The man, he was told, would also be delighted if he could stay the night and have dinner with him, taking advantage of everything the house had to offer in the way of swimming pools, saunas and so on. Call it a mini-break, Randall Tremain had said lightly.
He was taken aback by the throwing open of Gattenby House doors to him so readily; Lambert-Chide was a notoriously private man, so the brooch must have meant a great deal to him, Gareth surmised, to go to all this trouble for a nobody, a jobbing photographer. He was also quite surprised at how insistent Lambert-Chide was. They arranged that a car would pick him up from Winchester station and he was sent first class train tickets the next day.
Presently a sleek black Bentley cruised incongruously into the car park and it was only when the door opened and the driver came across that he realised it was meant for him.
‘This is rather plush,’ Gareth said as the driver held open the door and he settled himself down on the luxurious cream leather seat. ‘I expected something a little less stately.’ The driver smiled politely and took Gareth’s overnight bag. The door shut with a solid thud. The driver took the wheel and didn’t say another word for the next fifty minutes or so.
The car passed silently through the chalk uplands and rolling hills of the South Downs National park, looking bedraggled and brown in the winter drizzle, but, Gareth thought, quintessentially English with its hedgerows, trees, patchwork of fields and open grassland. He turned on the radio and half-dozed to the scraping of a violin on Classic FM.