A Narrow Margin of Error (22 page)

Vivienne tried to look impressed.

Hillary looked at her, knew without doubt that she was simply wasting her time and effort, sighed again and drained her coffee. ‘Come on. We’ll give the other girlfriend a miss. I think we got all we needed to know from Angie.’

‘Right, guv,’ Vivienne agreed, without much interest.

Hillary drove back to HQ in thoughtful silence. As they walked
through the lobby and down into the basement, she told Vivienne to type up a report on the Angie Pryce interview and log it into the murder book. Then she followed the younger girl into the shared office and nodded at Jimmy Jessop.

‘Jimmy, a quick word. Actually, it’s nearly lunchtime, fancy a pint?’

‘Always, guv,’ the old-timer said with a smile.

‘Don’t let the brass hear you admit to that,’ Hillary shot back with a grin of her own. ‘Afterwards, we’ll take a jaunt out to Kebler Road. I want to talk to Wanda Landau again.’

Vivienne watched them sourly as they headed out. All cosy and pals together! As if she cared. She sighed, turned to the computer and started to type up the report. Then she noticed she had email, saw that it was from Tom and smiled widely as she read it.

Hillary Greene was not the only one who lunched outside the office. Eagerly she grabbed her coat and bag and fled, the report on her morning’s activities unfinished and already forgotten.

Hillary bought Jimmy his pint and a pie, and opted for the ploughman’s and a cider shandy for herself. As she bought the loaded tray carefully back to their window-seat table, she heard her phone beep.

She was probably the only person she knew who didn’t have a tuneful or comic ring tone on her phone. She put down the tray, took a sip from her glass and called up her messages.

Jimmy quickly tucked into his pie, just in case they had to shift. He’d lost count, over the years, of the number of times he’d had to eat on the run.

Hillary read the message briefly, frowned, then shrugged, and flipped the phone shut.

‘Work?’ Jimmy asked curiously, taking a hefty gulp of his beer.

Hillary nodded. She rarely got personal messages nowadays. ‘But it can wait until we’ve eaten. It’s not urgent,’ she said, then smiled as the older man shot her an up-from-under look. ‘Relax,
Jimmy. I’m not about to read you the riot act. Now, tell me about your mate and what happened last night.’

As Jimmy and Hillary quietly discussed her stalker, in a pub just a few hundred yards away, Vivienne accepted a glass of white wine and a plate of crab salad from Tom Warrington.

‘This pub’s nice. I’ve never been here before,’ Vivienne said, glancing around. ‘Is this the one with the reputation for being a gastropub?’

Tom smiled and shrugged. He’d taken off his tell-tale jacket, and in his plain white shirt and black trousers, nobody would immediately take him for a copper at first glance.

‘I like to eat well.’ He himself had selected a portion of steamed salmon on a bed of wild rice. ‘So, how’s your morning been?’

Vivienne rolled her eyes but told him. She kind-of liked it that he was so interested in her work in CRT and liked it even more that he was so obviously envious. ‘I know you keep on telling me how you’d give your left arm to work down there, but seriously, it’s right boring,’ she finished. ‘Take this morning, for instance. The girlfriend of one of the murdered man’s housemates – what was the point of talking to her? We didn’t learn anything new. Well, a bit, about the drugs maybe.…’ She paused to take a bit of dressed crab.

‘Come on, that’s got to be better than working in admin like poor old me,’ Tom said with a smile. ‘What’s she going to do next, then?’

Vivienne shrugged. ‘I dunno. Oh, yeah, she’s going back to talk to the landlady. Who the bloody hell knows why, though – I mean, what can the old bat tell her anyway? If you ask me, Hillary Greene’s no great shakes, no matter what her reputation is.’

Tom felt his smile tighten on his face, but he leaned back in his chair and let his foot nudge hers under the table. ‘Taste the wine. It’s Italian. Like it?’

Vivienne took a sip, and agreed that she did. She didn’t normally like wine, preferring breezers and cocktails. Wine could
be too sharp for her palate. But this one tasted sort-of creamy, and reminded her vaguely of vanilla.

Tom watched her eat and fought back his impatience. So Hillary was going back to Kebler Road. But right at the moment, she was out with old man Jessop, having lunch. Perfect. He knew just what to do next.

‘I’m afraid we haven’t got long. I don’t get a full hour for my lunch break. What say we meet up again tonight sometime, and have dessert then?’ he asked, forcing himself to smile like a lovesick calf.

Vivienne smiled over her wineglass. ‘Got that line from a film, did you?’ she teased.

Tom laughed and nodded. ‘Damn, you noticed. I was hoping to sound smooth.’

‘Play your cards right, and I might even give you coffee
afterwards
,’ she said, this time doing the nudging with her foot under the table.

Tom tensed, and reminded himself it was all for Hillary. But this stupid, fatuous girl was seriously beginning to get on his nerves.

He wasn’t sure how much longer he could put up with her. He wanted it to be Hillary sitting opposite him, laughing, talking, sharing wine, with that look of promise in her eyes.

She had to hurry up and solve her case soon or he would go mad. He could feel the frustration building up inside him. He just had to hold her in his arms soon. The moment, the very moment, her case was over, he’d make his move.

His heart pounded the more he thought of it. How would she react, their first time together? Would she be scared? Would she struggle? Or would she know, would she
understand
, and be sweet to him? He felt himself break out in a cold sweat.

‘So how’s the case going?’ he asked, hoping that the
desperation
he felt wasn’t too apparent in his voice. ‘I bet she’ll make an arrest any time soon, right?’

Their lunch finished, Hillary drove them back towards HQ. ‘I’m going to have another word with Wanda Landau, see if she had any idea about Dwayne Cox being Rowan’s go-to man for his highs.’

Jimmy nodded. ‘If she was aware of there being drugs in the house, she might have had something to say about it. Specially with her fighting for custody of the kiddie, like.’

‘That’s what I was thinking,’ Hillary agreed. She couldn’t
seriously
see it, though. From what she remembered of the set-up, the landlady lived a fairly separate life from the students, being down in the basement and out of the way. Besides, surely Rowan and Dwayne would have been careful to be discreet. Still, at this point, she couldn’t afford to overlook even the remotest leads.

‘But first, something interesting might have come up. Want to take a brief trip to Traffic?’ she asked.

Jimmy didn’t, particularly, but knew she must have her reasons, so nodded contentedly. Besides, the pie and pint had gone down well.

Her reason for dropping in on the Traffic Division had just been seen to by a bored officer, and they were just in time to hear Darla de Lancie get a fine and several points added to her driving licence for driving without due care and attention.

Her telephone message had been from Sam, who’d picked up on the motoring offence thanks to a red-flag being sent down to CRT. She guessed that he’d fed the names of the main players in the Rowan Thompson case to Handley, and asked that a computer watch be put out, so that anything interesting on their suspect pool came to their notice straight away.

‘Darla, hello again,’ Hillary said, as Rowan Thompson’s
one-time
girlfriend began to trudge down the steps towards them. She skidded to a somewhat comical stop, and a brief look of dismay crossed her face as she spotted the two of them.

Her eyes flickered from Hillary to Jimmy again, then restlessly, to the space behind them, and lingered longingly on the door and the freedom it promised.

Like a well-oiled machine, and in perfect silence, Hillary and Jimmy each took a tiny step towards each other, blocking the other woman’s egress.

‘I heard about the motoring thing,’ Hillary said, making her voice sound both sympathetic and soothing. ‘I hope it wasn’t anything serious? No one was hurt?’

‘What? Oh, no, nothing like that, thank… No. I just reversed into one of those bollard things. I wasn’t drunk or anything. I blew into the bag and all that.’ Darla tried for a nonchalant laugh, but didn’t quite bring it off. ‘I was just unlucky that a policeman was there and saw…. Oh, well, what’s it matter? I’m normally a very careful driver. This is the first time I’ve ever had anything like this happen, so….’

She paused for breath, and Hillary smiled. Darla looked tired and pale and was acting very jittery. She might not have been drinking, but she could see why the traffic officer had been
suspicious
of her manner. She seemed to be all over the place. Not to mention, incapable of finishing a sentence properly.

‘Do you want to go somewhere for a cup of tea? Sorry to mention it, but you seem a little stressed out,’ Hillary said. ‘I imagine things have been preying on your mind a bit just lately?’

‘Yes. Well, obviously this thing with Rowan, to be honest. I still haven’t told my husband about it, and I don’t want to, but I keep thinking … oh well, it doesn’t matter.’

Her inability to focus for more than a moment or two made Hillary wonder just how stressed she was. And why.

‘Is there something you wanted to tell me, perhaps? About Rowan, or what happened back then?’ she coaxed gently.

‘What?’ Darla went, if anything, even paler than before. ‘No. No, of course not, there’s nothing to tell. I mean, I told you
everything
before. It’s just … the baby’s teething, and now this stupid thing with the car, and I’ve got to get the tail light fixed and I’m just tired, that’s all. It’s not that I’m feeling guilty. About Rowan, I mean. I mean, I have nothing to feel guilty about.’ Darla took a deep breath, and then made a determined move to walk around
Hillary and Jimmy on the steps in front of her. ‘Anyway, I have to get back. I can still drive, can’t I?’

‘Of course, you can,’ Hillary agreed. ‘You weren’t banned from driving or anything.’

‘Right. I’ve got the car outside. I mean, it’s not as if I’ve been banned or anything, is it. Sorry— that’s what you just said, isn’t it? Really, I don’t know what made me say something so silly. Please, forget I said that, will you?’ she asked, all in one
breathless
rush, then turned and all but ran for the door.

Hillary and Jimmy watched her go, both of them somewhat bemused.

‘She’s heading for a nervous breakdown at the rate she’s going, guv.’ Jimmy wasn’t above stating the obvious.

‘Yes,’ Hillary agreed. But was it just down to sleepless nights, a teething baby, and the stress of keeping her past from catching up with her and her new husband? Or was something else troubling the woman?

‘Could be a guilty conscience maybe?’ Jimmy unerringly mirrored her thoughts. ‘Not all killers are the cold-blooded type. If she did off her boyfriend, and now the chickens are coming home to roost, she might be up for a bit of confessing, if we press a bit?’

Hillary thought about it. ‘Maybe. But we need something to press with, don’t we? And so far, we’ve got nothing new. Best leave it for now.’

Tom Warrington was parked well back from Wanda Landau’s house in Kebler Road, but he saw Hillary’s old Volkswagen the moment it turned into the road. It was as if he was somehow attuned to her. He seemed to spend his every moment looking out for her, hoping for a glimpse. His heart beat faster and he leaned forward eagerly in the seat, anxious to see her.

He loved this part of the courtship. It was all so new and exciting. He felt like one of those lovers in the poems he’d started reading about recently. Hillary had been right to take a BA in English Literature. Keats had been a revelation to him.

It was yet another thing he had to thank her for.

Now he was looking forward to watching her find her next gift. He’d gone to some trouble to set the stage for it this time. Wouldn’t she be surprised?

He watched her park and get out of the car, his heart falling to see the grey-haired figure of Jimmy Jessop emerge from the passenger seat. Damn. He’d rather she’d been on her own.

He watched them walk towards 8 Kebler Road, and wished he could have parked closer to get a better view. He’d have liked to have seen her face when she realized how clever he’d been. He briefly contemplated getting out of the car and walking casually down the road. He could easily cast a quick look into the garden as he went by the gate, and if she’d been alone, he might have done it.

But not now.

Still, he could imagine the scene, and he smiled, his green eyes flashing with glee. Then he quickly turned on the engine of his car and drove away. Once she’d found his present, she’d be clever enough and quick enough to scan the street for anyone watching, and a lone male in a parked car would be bound to draw her eye. She’d take down his licence plate and that would move things on to the next level much too quickly.

No, he would never underestimate her. It would be an insult to her.

Besides, they were having so much fun, weren’t they? He didn’t want it to end just yet, and he was sure she didn’t, either. And the growing pressure he could feel to finally consummate their courtship was exquisite as well as painful. Already he was dreaming of the scenario every night. He’d even bought a black ski mask and gloves in preparation.

Tomorrow, he’d take a good look around Thrupp and scope out the best place to grab her.

As Tom Warrington drove away, banging his hands against the steering wheel in a frenzy of frustration and anticipation, Hillary pushed open the gate to number 8 and started to head towards the place where Rowan Thompson had lost his life.

Her eyes went from the path, to the steps leading down to the basement flat, and stopped there. She didn’t even lower her eyes any further.

Because, there on the first step, was a wooden cross.