Her eye nailed him to the sofa. “You mean, you aren’t going to investigate? Someone dropped half a brick through my windscreen. He could have
killed
me. He could have sent me off the road to kill someone else. And you aren’t going to investigate.”
“There’s no point. I can tell you now, with absolute certainty, we’d learn nothing. All we’d do is stoke up ill feeling in the estate. I’m not rattling a lot of cages when I know it won’t do any good. Most of the time Woodgreen is a slumbering giant. If you wake him up you’d better have the manpower to deal with him, and you’d better have a good reason. Before the month’s out I may have to go in there. I may have a murder to investigate, or an armed robbery, or an abused child. For that I’ll get together all the people I need and we’ll put our necks on the line to do what needs doing. But not for a broken windscreen and a split lip.
“You’re right, it was a crime. He could have killed you and I should be investigating. But I’m not going to light the blue touch-paper when I know there’s nothing to be gained. I think, when you calm down, you won’t want me to.”
“I’m perfectly calm,” Brodie said icily. “Just a little surprised. You always tell me there aren’t any no-go areas on your manor.”
“I’m still telling you that,” said Deacon sharply. “It’s a question of cost-effectiveness. Doing the right thing will cost a lot of time and energy, put good people at risk and provoke disorder. Doing the wrong thing will avoid all of the above, and the bottom line will be the same – we won’t find the culprit. You need to understand –”
“Oh, I do,” said Brodie. “I understand that someone attacked me and Dimmock CID doesn’t think it’s worth the trouble of doing anything about it.”
“That’s not what I said,” growled Deacon.
“That’s what I heard.”
Deacon gave up. “Think what you want. I’ll see you tomorrow. I’ll get the car fixed, you should have it mid-morning on Monday.”
“Good. I’ll be busy on Monday Guess where.”
Deacon’s eyes narrowed. It might have been an empty threat, but he didn’t trust her to make empty threats. “Brodie, let it go. The damage was minimal. Don’t put yourself in danger trying to make someone pay for it.”
“What’s it to you?” she demanded, reckless with anger. “Oh, that’s right — if somebody murders me you might have to go in there after all.”
“I’m going home now,” Deacon said stiffly. “I’d like to think that by tomorrow you’ll have come to your senses.”
“And
I’d
like to think that by tomorrow you’ll be talking to someone who thinks it’s funny to drop masonry on passing vehicles. How fortunate we’ve both learned to handle disappointment!”
Without her car Brodie couldn’t take Paddy riding. The child’s father collected her. “Are you coming with us?”
Brodie tried to see past his shoulder without making it obvious. Julia was waiting in the car. “I’d better catch up on some work.”
John Farrell nodded, not offended but also not surprised. In the last few months his relations with his ex-wife had been easier but he didn’t expect to be forgiven any time soon. He knew he’d hurt Brodie terribly, and regretted that. When they married he’d meant the words he said, couldn’t imagine meeting someone he cared for more. He wasn’t the kind of man who went around letting people down.
“Julia says, if you’re stuck she can do without the Peugeot for a few days.”
It was a kind offer and Brodie was genuinely touched. “Thank her for me. But I should get mine back tomorrow. Jack’s pulling strings, and he doesn’t take no for an answer.”
John smiled pensively, wondering whether to say what was in his mind. “I’m glad. About you and Jack.”
Nine months ago she’d have slapped him down, credited the sentiment to guilty conscience. Now she just nodded. “He’s a good man. I don’t know if we’ll ever take it any further – but if we did, would you have any objections? On Paddy’s behalf, I mean.”
“Of course not. I’d be happy to see you settled.”
Brodie smiled thinly. “Well, don’t hold your breath – we’re pretty settled as we are.”
When the tiny equestrienne had galloped down the
drive and jumped into the back of the car Brodie went back to her phone and the list of numbers she’d compiled, and began dialling.
People called Hood who live in Nottingham are used to getting funny phone-calls. When she said she was trying to trace a friend, their voices took on a weary note that only lifted when his name turned out, in defiance of experience and expectation, not to be Robin. But the first four didn’t know a Daniel either.
The fifth had a brother called Daniel.
Taken by surprise, Brodie blinked at the phone for a moment. “I don’t think it can be the same one. My friend doesn’t have any brothers. At least” – she stumbled, trying to remember how much she actually knew and how much she had assumed – “he’s never mentioned any.”
“How old is he?” asked Simon Hood.
“Twenty-seven. He’s a teacher. Well, he was. He lives in Dimmock.”
“On the south coast? Yes, that’s my brother,” said the man on the phone. Suddenly he sounded wary. “What’s happened?”
“Nothing,” she said quickly. “Nothing to worry about. I’m just trying to speak to him. Someone said he was visiting family.”
“He was here a couple of days ago,” confirmed Simon. “Then he left. I thought he was going home, but maybe not.”
A puzzled little frown wrinkled Brodie’s forehead. There was something just a little odd about this conversation and she couldn’t put her finger on what it was. Nothing he’d said; nothing he hadn’t said. So it was how he’d said something. As if they were talking about a casual acquaintance, someone met on holiday who’d dropped in for a drink one evening then gone on his way. There
was no note of kinship in Simon’s voice, no suggestion of concern.
Brodie framed her response cautiously. “You’ve rather taken me off-guard, Mr Hood. I’m a good friend of Daniel’s but I didn’t know he had any immediate family left. I was looking for a cousin or something. I know he used to live with his grandfather.”
“That’s right,” said Simon guardedly.
“So – who else do I not know about?”
In the pause that followed she knew he was asking himself if it was any of her business. He only had her word for this friendship: she might have been a creditor, a jilted lover, anything. But then he thought, Daniel? – and dismissed the idea. “He has three brothers. Daniel’s the youngest. And there’s our mother.”
“Mother?” It came out as more of an exclamation than she intended. Probably Simon was beginning to think she was a very rude person, but Brodie was used to that. “I’m sorry. I just can’t believe he hasn’t mentioned any of you.”
The voice at the other end of the phone was growing cool. “Mrs Farrell, if you want to know about Daniel’s background you should ask him. If you were hoping to find him here, I’m afraid he’s gone. If he hasn’t gone home I don’t know where you should look.”
“Could you give me your mother’s number?” asked Brodie. “Maybe he told her.”
“That’s not likely,” said Simon firmly. “I’m sorry, Mrs Farrell, there’s nothing more I can tell you. I suggest you keep trying his house until you get him.”
“He’s
selling
the house. Didn’t he tell you?”
“No. Obviously you know more about his plans than I do.”
After her lesson, Paddy’s father and stepmother took her
home for Sunday lunch. Brodie thought she’d go into town and check the netting-shed on the off chance that Daniel was home, just not answering his phone. She was groping in the dresser drawer for her car-keys before she remembered she had no transport. So she’d walk. It was about a mile: how hard could it be? Daniel did it all the time.
Daniel didn’t do it in women’s shoes with stupid pointy toes and stupid narrow heels. She felt the first blister burning before she was halfway.
But she’d reached the top end of Dimmock, within hobbling-range of a pub, a cafe and a taxi-office. She didn’t like drinking alone and was too embarrassed to have a taxi take her half a mile, which left
The Korner Kaff.
Only sheer discomfort persuaded her to go through the door. She didn’t generally patronise people who couldn’t spell.
She kicked her shoes off and ordered coffee and waffles; and when those were gone she ordered more coffee and croissants. When those too were gone she reluctantly inched her feet back into her shoes and reached for her handbag.
It wasn’t there.
Something’s there or it isn’t: you wouldn’t think the mind would have difficulty distinguishing between the two. But the mind believes what it thinks it knows ahead of what the eyes can see. Brodie knew she’d put her bag on the seat beside her and hadn’t touched it since, so it had to be there. Like rebooting an AWOL computer she went through the sequence again from the beginning. Food eaten, time to go, feet in shoes, reach for handbag …
It still wasn’t there. Not on the seat, not under it, not kicked under another table by passing feet. There was only one explanation.
“I’ve been robbed,” she told the waitress; and though
the girl had heard a lot of excuses from people trying to avoid paying she was convinced by the mix of astonishment, anger and embarrassment in the tall woman’s voice. Also, she remembered Brodie had a bag when she came in. Unless the waffles and the croissants and the coffee had left enough room for her to eat a big black leather organiser as well, she was telling the truth.
“Do you want me to call the police?”
“I suppose,” said Brodie, still floundering. “Tell them it’s Mrs Farrell.”
The waitress made a note. “Why, are you” – she didn’t know how to put this delicately – “known to them?”
“One of them knows me pretty well,” admitted Brodie.
Constable Batty took the details. The duty sergeant had asked if she wanted Detective Superintendent Deacon informed but Brodie saw no point. It was petty crime to everyone but her.
“And you didn’t notice anyone hovering round you?” asked Batty.
“I didn’t,” said Brodie helplessly. “There were a number of people in here over the forty minutes, but nobody seemed to be paying me any attention and I didn’t pay them any. Of course people brush past you on their way in and out, but I didn’t suspect a thing until I went to pay and couldn’t.”
“OK. Well, the first thing you need to do is get home so nobody’s emptying the flat while it’s empty. I’ll take you there now, make sure they haven’t beaten us to it. Then I’ll check your office. Then you need to get your locks changed – I’ve got the out-of-hours number of a locksmith - and to notify your bank that your credit cards have been lifted. After that there’s a limit to how much damage he can do. Was there much cash in your purse?”
Brodie shrugged. “Some, not a lot. There was other stuff that’ll be harder to replace. My driving licence. Medical cards for me and Paddy. Some photographs, personal things — all of it irreplaceable, none of it worth tuppence to anyone else!”
“You might get some of it back,” said Batty, more in hope than confidence. “He’ll take the valuables and dump the rest. Someone may hand it in.”
Brodie was jotting her name and address on the cafe bill. “I’ll get back to you with this tomorrow.”
The waitress shook her head. “The least we can do –”
“I’ll settle it tomorrow,” Brodie repeated.
As Batty drove her back up the hill towards Chiffney Road it occurred to Brodie that she never had got as far as the seafront and the netting-sheds. Daniel might have been there all along. The way her luck was running, though, she doubted it.
The locksmith was there when John brought Paddy home. Brodie explained. His long face between greying sideburns was sympathetic. “You’re not having much luck just now, are you?”
Brodie had to concede that, forty this year, he was still a handsome man. A better looking man than Jack Deacon was or ever had been. Once that might have mattered to her. She was pleased to note that it didn’t now.
She gave a grim chuckle. “As long as that’s all it is. It’s beginning to feel personal.”
His eyes were wary. “You’re joking, right?”
“Of course I am.”
And it was only a joke when she said it. Given voice, though, it took on a kind of reality. The car, the bag – they might be no more than random misfortune but they could be connected. Behind her eyes she was considering
the possibility that someone was doing this to her. Someone with a grudge, too cowardly to face her, content to snipe from deep cover. The idea was a nasty taste in her mouth and she made a face.
“What?” asked John.
She shrugged. “Nothing. I’m just in a foul mood.”
“No change there, then,” he said with a careful grin.
Nine months ago she’d have had his head for a remark like that. Now she only wrinkled her nose and shooed him away.
It wasn’t even true. She’d been a good wife to him. She’d been a much nicer person then than she was now. But that was all right too because being a bit of a cow was more rewarding. She liked people handling her with caution.
She gave Julia a wave. “Thanks for taking Paddy.” If it was true that John was a better-looking man than Jack Deacon, she thought complacently, shutting the door, she never had to worry about comparisons with the second Mrs Farrell. Nice woman, kind; a librarian. Dull as ditch-water, comfortable – and the same basic shape – as a pillow.
When she collected the car at ten o’clock on Monday, instead of returning to the office she headed for the Woodgreen estate. She had no excuse. She called Geoffrey Harcourt looking for one but he didn’t answer the phone. She drove out to Woodgreen anyway.
She was very aware of the walkway as she passed under it. If there’d been a way to avoid it she might have done, although she might not. She didn’t like feeling scared, but on the whole she’d rather be scared than scared off. In any event there was no one on the walkway. She parked at the foot of the eastern tower block and went looking for someone to chat to.
Once upon a time, old people and young mothers would have been the only ones about during the day, the men at work from before eight until after six. But things change. Unemployment in Woodgreen affected one in three, many of them young men who’d never had a job. Young mothers, on the other hand, left their babies with relatives in order to work, while the old people had mostly been shuffled off into residential care.
Drifts of purposeless men and teenagers imparted an air of casual menace to the places where they congregated. Even the locals were careful where they parked their cars, noticed who was walking behind them, and often thought better of using the lifts even when they were working.
Brodie set her jaw, gripped her second-best handbag tight under her elbow and kept her keys in her hand for use as a weapon if the need arose. Noticing a group of youths watching from a balcony, she headed their way. She began by telling them lies. “I’m looking for an address but I can’t seem to find it. This is Senlac House? Then where’s number 258?”
They traded downcast glances and giggled: not because they meant her harm but because they had no idea how to behave around someone of a different age, sex and socio-economic group to themselves, and were embarrassed.
Finally one found his tongue. “There isn’t one.”
“There must be. Mrs Taplock, 258 Senlac House. See?” Brodie showed him the piece of paper she’d readied on the way up.
The youth shrugged. “Somebody told you wrong. You’re on the right landing but the numbers stop at 30.”
“Damn!” she said with well-feigned astonishment. “Well, thanks for saving me some time. I’ve obviously
taken the address down wrong. I’ll have to wait for her to call again.” As she turned away she seemed to notice the walkway for the first time. “Is that …?”