Walk a Narrow Mile (13 page)

‘Oh sure.’ Naomi waved a plump hand in the air, and fed the dog on her lap a piece of biscuit. ‘The last time I spoke to her, she was asking me where she could take night classes for arts and crafts courses. You know – how to make stained-glass windows, that sort of thing. I think she wanted to design modern pieces for modern houses, rather than the traditional pieces for churches or whatever. She said that nowadays, what with all those telly shows on restoring old homes and doing up houses and what-not, there’d be a market for one-off original pieces of stained glass for front doors and windows in barn conversions
and that sort of thing.’ She finally paused for air and a bite of biscuit.

Hillary nodded. ‘Sounds like a sensible plan. Her mother said that Gilly, for all her hippy ways, had a good head on her
shoulders
.’

‘Yeah, that’s true. In a sort of way. I could imagine her learning the trade and doing OK at it,’ Naomi agreed, then grinned. ‘Though perhaps not sticking to it for long. That’s always been the real trouble with Gilly – she’s easily bored. I’ll bet, whatever she’s doing now, it won’t still be stained glass, but something else. Something she can make money at, and all that, but something different. She likes learning how to do stuff, more than actually knuckling down and doing it as a steady job like. Oh, and she’ll have moved on. She doesn’t like staying in one place too long.’

‘Itchy feet,’ Jimmy said, feeding the dog on his own lap a piece of his own biscuit. The dog on her lap gave Hillary a big brown-eyed look, but Hillary merely smiled down at it. Hard luck, mutt, she thought. You drew the short straw – she’d declined Naomi’s offer of the biscuit barrel.

‘Did Gilly ever talk about her secret admirer?’ Hillary asked casually.

‘The man who sent her flowers and stuff? Yeah, she did. But I don’t think anything ever came of it. She never said anything about him getting in real contact with her.’

Hillary nodded. ‘You never noticed anyone following her, mooning over her, that sort of thing?’

‘No. Why? You think something bad has happened to her?’ Naomi’s muddy eyes widened suddenly in alarm, and the dog on her lap yipped suddenly, as if sensing her distress.

‘We have no reason to think so at this time, Miss Clarkson,’ Hillary lied smoothly. ‘We’re simply trying to trace her. Do you have any idea where she might have gone?’

‘Not really. Well, I can tell you where she
won’t
have gone, if that’s any help at all. She won’t have gone to a city, or even a
town. I know that’s traditionally where most people who “run away from home” go to, isn’t it? The bright lights and glamour and all that. But Gilly hates cities and all that hustle and bustle – she’s a real country gal. So wherever it is, it’ll be some bucolic dream she’s living – a bit like this, really, I suppose,’ Naomi said with a grin, indicating the view outside. ‘I design and make my own jewellery. I have a stall on Banbury market, and some of the boutiques take my stuff and sell it for a
commission
. I get by.’

‘And you think Gilly, wherever she is, will be doing
something
along the same lines,’ Hillary nodded. ‘I don’t suppose she ever got in touch with you?’

‘Oh, no. But then she wouldn’t. Gilly never was much for that sort of thing. She lives in the moment, out of sight, out of mind. That’s Gilly.’

‘All right. Well, thank you, Miss Clarkson.’ Hillary gently lifted her lap-warmer to the floor. ‘You’ve been very helpful,’ she added, again not particularly truthfully.

Jimmy hastily swallowed the last of his biscuit, and drained his mug. Outside, they stood for a while, watching the spring butterflies on the buttercups in the field.

‘Not that I object to getting out of the office, especially on a day like this, guv, but aren’t we just spinning our wheels
questioning
the friends and family of our vics like this? Nobody seems to know anything.’

Hillary nodded absently. But even as her head nodded, the mind inside it was paradoxically moving in the other direction, because that something nagging away at the back of her mind was telling her that the visit to Naomi hadn’t been a waste of time – if only she would pull her head out of a very different part of her anatomy and do some proper thinking.

Her hand started to wander up to the scar on her neck and she ruthlessly caught it in mid-motion. To hell with that. And to hell with Lol. She had to get her priorities straight and start doing some serious work, damn it.

Either that, or just hand in her notice, cruise off in the
Mollern
, and turn her back on all of this once and for all. She was no damned use to either herself or the three missing girls,
floundering
around like this, that was for sure.

She shook her head. ‘Let’s get back,’ she said flatly. Not that she wanted to return to the office particularly, but because she couldn’t at the moment, think of anything else to do.

And that thought, perhaps more than any other, was shameful.

But as if fate or whatever passed for it had decided to give her a bit a break, she found something to do the moment she returned to her office.

She had a visitor: and a not particularly pleased visitor at that.

Ruth Coombs looked up from her chair in the lobby, and got to her feet the moment she saw Hillary. The desk sergeant had the grace to drop his pen and disappear behind his desk. It was his job to deal with members of the public, and the HQ was not exactly the local bobby shop, where people wandered in off the streets.

But Hillary let the incident pass without even a sarcastic comment, as Ruth bore down on her.

‘Detective Greene. I need to speak to you,’ Ruth said,
grim-lipped
and obviously in no mood to be denied.

But Hillary smiled at her and nodded. ‘Of course, Miss Coombs. Please, follow me down to the office. It’s not the best location in the house,’ she carried on, as they went downstairs, and installed Judy Yelland’s best friend into one of the chairs in the empty office. ‘Would you like a cup of coffee?’

‘No, thanks.’ The big-boned brunette settled herself into Vivienne’s chair and fixed her gaze on Hillary. ‘Have you found out anything more?’ she demanded.

Hillary smiled briefly. ‘I’m afraid I can’t discuss that with you, Miss Coombs. Even family isn’t always given access to
official
information, and you’re not, technically, even that.’

‘Oh those people,’ Ruth said dismissively. ‘Judy never cared about them or they about her. She only had me. And Christopher, of course,’ she added, reluctantly. ‘It’s about Christopher that I’m here, actually.’

Hillary nodded, not surprised. ‘You seem to find Mr Deakin fascinating, Miss Coombs.’ She decided, abruptly to go on the offensive. Nothing else had worked so far, so perhaps it was time to rattle some cages. ‘Did Judy know that you fancied her boyfriend?’

She sensed Jimmy perk up and reach for his notebook,
immediately
cottoning on to her line of thought.

Ruth flushed. ‘He wasn’t her boyfriend – he was her married lover,’ she snapped. ‘And no, she didn’t know I fancied him, because I don’t. And if I appear to be fascinated by him, it’s because I know he did something to my best friend and got away with it. And you police don’t seem to want to do a damned thing about it. I thought you were different!’

Ruth was breathing hard now and Hillary watched her closely. She looked and sounded indignantly outraged, and Hillary had no reason to doubt the sincerity of either of those emotions. But that, she was sure, wasn’t the whole story.

‘And why do you believe that Christopher is responsible, Ruth?’ she asked calmly.

Ruth took a few deep breaths, and some of her high colour leeched away. ‘Because I’ve been watching him, that’s why. Ever since you first talked to me, I knew that for some reason you were working Judy’s case again. So despite what you say,
something
new must have happened. You don’t just reinvestigate old cases on a whim. Something must have triggered it off. So I decided to watch Christopher really closely.’

Hillary said nothing but made a mental note to herself: Ruth was both clever and resolute.

‘If you’ve talked to me, you must have talked to Christopher,’ Ruth said, her chin angling up and almost challenging Hillary to deny it.

Hillary didn’t oblige her, but merely nodded again. ‘Go on,’ she said, neither confirming nor denying it.

‘So it follows that he must be rattled now,’ Ruth concluded triumphantly. ‘Just think about it! After all this time he thought he’d got away with killing Judy, but now the police come sniffing around. So he’ll be worried. I hoped that he would be worried enough to give something away. I don’t know – maybe even check up on Judy.’

Hillary blinked. ‘Check up on her?’

‘Yes. Go and check wherever it was he buried her. Make sure no wild animals had disturbed her grave, or whatever. He must have buried her somewhere, right? And I’ve read up on the subject – it’s not easy finding a place to bury a body where nobody can see you transport it or dig a hole. And even digging a grave is hard – much harder than you might think. People see it happen all the time on television dramas and think it’s easy, but it isn’t. You have to find a place that’s totally hidden, and that usually means woods. But you can’t dig a deep hole in a wood, because of all the roots. And besides, it’s hard, physical work to dig a proper grave – six feet deep and all that. Even most grave-diggers nowadays do it with one of those yellow digger machines. And although Christopher is fit enough, I suppose, he’s always worked behind a desk. So the most he would have been able to dig was a shallow grave somewhere.’

She paused and looked at Hillary defiantly. ‘As I said, I read up about it. Serial killers and true-crime stories and all that sort of thing. And a lot of them went on about how hard disposing of a body is.’

Hillary nodded. She was impressed. Disposing of a body was by far and away one of the hardest things to do, and it was usually bungling this – and being grassed up by those in the know – which led to the majority of killers being caught and convicted.

‘You’ve done your homework,’ she acknowledged briefly.

‘Right. So ever since you came to me, I’ve been driving over to Chris’s place and watching him.’

‘And did he drive to any remote woods?’ Hillary asked gently.

Ruth flushed. ‘Don’t be so bloody superior! If he had, I’d have called you straight away and told you to bring some cadaver dogs.’

Hillary had to smile – just a little twitch of the lips. ‘Yes, Miss Coombs, I’m sure you would. So, Mr Deakin hasn’t
checked up
on Judy. What has he done?’

‘Nothing much. The first night he went to one of his lock-up facilities, but that’s only where he stores some filming
equipment
and the expensive cameras and stuff. It has good security. He’s been working long hours,’ she added reluctantly. ‘But he’s acting oddly,’ she insisted defiantly. ‘I can tell. He’s upset and worried.’

Hillary looked at Ruth for a long moment. Just what did this strange, obsessed woman regard as acting oddly she wondered.

‘Oh?’

‘He’s losing weight. I mean, visibly, I can tell. And it’s only been a few days. You don’t lose weight that fast unless you’re really stressing, do you?’ Ruth said flatly.

Hillary blinked. Just how closely was this woman watching Christopher Deakin that she noticed if he’d lost a few pounds?

‘Is Mr Deakin aware of your, er, activities, Miss Coombs?’

Ruth’s eyes flashed. ‘Of course not! Give me some credit. I keep my distance.’

But have a good pair of binoculars, I’ll bet, Hillary added silently.

‘I’m telling you, he’s the one you want. You need to speak to him again,’ she said stubbornly.

Hillary nodded. ‘Very well, Miss Coombs, I’ll be sure to do that.’

‘When?’ Ruth asked aggressively, and for once, looked surprised, but then satisfied, as Hillary got to her feet.

‘Right now in fact, Miss Coombs. Let’s walk you out. I dare say you can tell me, is Mr Deakin at work now, or at home?’

‘Oh he’ll be at work,’ Ruth said at once. ‘He never knocks off early, even though it’s a Friday afternoon.’

Hillary, Jimmy and Ruth Coombs, walked back through the CRT rabbit warren and back up the stairs into the warm May afternoon and out to the car-park. There they saw her safely off and then headed for Hillary’s old car.

‘I’m glad that woman hasn’t got her sights on me, guv,’ Jimmy said with feeling, as they drove out into the gathering rush-hour traffic. Unlike Mr Deakin, apparently, a lot of other less
conscientious
workers had left work early, and they had to endure the usual stop-start-stop fiasco of traffic jams all the way into the city. Since they should have been going in the opposite direction from the main flow Hillary couldn’t understand it for a moment, until she realized that most of the traffic was due to the school runs.

She idled behind an old Volvo that had a faulty exhaust and rubbed the back of her neck tiredly. She hoped Steven was going to come over tonight. She liked lying next to his long, comforting length in bed; to have him there, to touch when it got to be three o’clock in the morning, and everything seemed that much darker.

‘You think Deakin knows what she’s been doing, guv?’ Jimmy asked, coughing a bit on the Volvo’s exhaust fumes, and rolling up his window.

‘Well, there’s only one way to find out,’ Hillary said laconically.

Christopher Deakin welcomed them into the same office they’d visited previously, and did indeed look a little more gaunt than he had before. Hillary could almost imagine the I-told-you-so look on Ruth Coombs’s face as she took the seat the television producer offered her.

‘So, this is still about Judy, yes?’ he asked, looking from Hillary to Jimmy. ‘Have you found out anything new?’

Hillary caught the uncertainty behind the question, and felt her hackles rise. Ruth Coombs might be a woman obsessed, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t be right about certain things, and something in the way that Christopher Deakin’s hazel eyes moved restlessly from her to Jimmy, told her that this man was indeed feeling very uncomfortable.