Evil Turn (Nathan Hawk Mystery) (21 page)

Grogan needed that coffee too. As we sat on the stone bench he occasionally shook his head violently in an attempt to clear it, to bring back the events of the previous twenty-four hours. Unsurprisingly they were a blur. Laura explained to him, later that day, that it was a typical side effect of the drug he’d been given in his bedtime drink: Rohypnol, the date rape drug.

“If you need an ally, Bill, someone to vouch, remember I was there at the time,” I said. “You were right all along. We should have chained the bastard to the wall and kept him there.”

“Why would I need help?” he asked.

“Blackwell’s kicked us both into touch.”

“Suspension?” He stood up, joints creaking, coffee running to his head. When he was sure of his balance he asked what we were going to do about all this, finding Fairchild, Kinsella.

“Nothing,” I said.

“We’re leaving it there? That little sod, he’s taken the piss out of me, out of you...”

“What do you suggest?”

He thought for a moment, unproductively, and again he shook his head. Without being too blokish about it, we were experiencing our first moment of mutual understanding. ‘Leaving it there’ wasn’t an option for either of us. We agreed on something else as well. Blackwell may’ve had all the right motives for what he’d done, using me, lumbering Grogan with a novice, but he didn’t have the expertise to put our mistakes right. The case needed a more ... freestyle approach, less hidebound by protocol. Regardless of his imminent suspension, Grogan said he’d help me ... once I’d decided what to do next.

An hour or so later Grogan received a text from Blackwell, sent from the back of a car heading towards Grimsby. It was apologetic in tone but nevertheless suspended him forthwith. Formal notification would follow in the post.

“Fucking bastard,” Grogan muttered, then he went on to admonish the internet as a place for cowards like Blackwell to hide in. I asked him to write his phone number on the blackboard. He scratched out an Oxford number, just under Bewley’s.

“Matter of interest, what did you want hers for?” he asked.

“Nice to have first-hand intel when the trial begins.”

He nodded and went upstairs to pack.

“Where does he live?” Fee asked, once he was out of earshot.

“He’s got a house in Summertown, I think.”

“On his own?”

“Blackwell describes him as one of nature’s bachelors. Make of that what you will.”

She went back to her e-mails, hoping for one from Yukito, presumably, just as I was. I asked a silly question.

“You really think I ... put it away too readily?”

She gave me an old-fashioned look. “The word is ‘drink’, Dad, the answer is yes.”

I brooded for a moment or two. “Bill’s right...”

“Bill now, is it?”

“...Kinsella’s taken the piss, made fools of us.”

“What’s that got to do with drinking?”

“Both depress me.”

Over the next few days I slipped down another cog or two, nothing to do with gears on a Land Rover, everything to do with my frame of mind. I’d lost the only witness in a double murder trial and any likely trace of a £15 million haul of heroin. I tried to look at it the way Laura did: it hadn’t been my problem to begin with and certainly wasn’t now. The logic of that worked for five minutes at a time, then I returned to being the centrifugal force, the main reason it had all gone wrong. Maybe she was right. Pure vanity.

It didn’t help, of course, that there was absolutely nothing I could do about Kinsella, even though I’d implied the opposite to various people: Blackwell, Grogan, Sillitoe, Bewley, Laura, Fee. Since then, Tom Blackwell had told me to step back; Henry Sillitoe believed he shouldn’t have asked me to step forward in the first place. Those two views made sense, but again in five-minute bursts, so it wasn’t long before I found myself studying the Old Bailey hearings list online to find out when the case against Flaxman was due to start. September 27th, three days on from the depth of self-pity, injured pride and resentment I’d reached. And I’d reached it in my own company. My mood had given Laura an excuse to go to work early, return late, sometimes to Plum Tree Cottage. Her house, not mine. Fee had taken the opportunity to visit her brother Jaikie again, in Chiswick. She’d taken a suitcase with her, anticipating a long stay. Even the bloody dog was steering clear of me.

What I needed was a distraction, Laura said, one that would take my mind off Liam Kinsella and be a target for any residual anguish I felt, and, lo and behold, one appeared in the shape of an e-mail from Yukito Kagayama, the man Fee had broken up with. And I’d got in touch with. Something I was now beginning to regret. His message was brief and to the point.

“Mr Hawk, I arrive at Heathrow, 20.15 hours BST Tuesday. Best wishes to you.”

My response was even briefer, though not heartfelt.

“Good.”

I knew Fee was at a low ebb and my interference in her private life wouldn’t go down well. If I’d simply told her that Yukito was coming to England to reassess their future together she would’ve packed her suitcase, headed for Nepal and her sister Ellie, or Haiti in a search for Con. The situation needed a subtle approach, but I chose to hide it beneath an elaborate disguise. I did some research centred around Yukito’s arrival time, 20.15 on Tuesday, then e-mailed Fee, via Jodie Falconer, her sister-in-law in waiting.

“Fee, I’ve got a slight problem,” I wrote. “Laura’s aunt is arriving from Venice on Tuesday, Heathrow, 20.35. Terminal 5. I’ve said I’ll pick her up because Laura’s standing in for Sheila Bright that evening and you know how rough Sheila’s been. Thing is this aunt’s a bit infirm and ‘difficult’ according to Laura. Would you mind meeting us there? More a safety precaution than anything...”

It was a simple enough request but produced a barrage of questions from Fee. What was this aunt called? Eileen. Did she live in Venice? Yes. Where would she be staying? Plum Tree, with Laura. How old was she, how infirm, what exactly did I mean by ‘difficult’? It all sounded like the Fee I knew, which was a good sign, and eventually she said yes, she would meet me at Heathrow, Tuesday, 7.45 in the evening. She was thinking of coming home anyway; she had things to talk about concerning Jaikie and Jodie.

If I’d been her I would’ve smelled a rat at the first mention of Heathrow, but I’d briefed Laura on the deceit so when Fee checked with her, the following morning, the story about Aunty Eileen checked out.

Tuesday came and I was nervous. An e-mail from Yukito said he was about to board the plane at Narita. I replied immediately, reminding him that we’d agreed not to tell Fee of our plans. He didn’t respond.

The day crawled by and much earlier than I needed to I drove to Heathrow in Laura’s car, parked and settled in Carluccio’s. It wasn’t just the pastries I was after. The place offered a long-distance view of arrivals.

Fee showed up bang on 7.45, by which time I had enough sugar and caffeine in my veins to fly to any of the destinations on the board, without a plane. She’d brought her suitcase with her, which meant she was returning to Beech Tree, but as if to make out that she’d never been away she insisted on putting her stuff in the car immediately. As we went to the multi-storey I was jittery, she said. No need. We had plenty of time. Eileen’s flight was due at 8.35. She wouldn’t clear customs till at least nine.

It wasn’t 8.35 I was bothered about. It was 8.15.

Back at Carluccio’s Fee ordered coffee and cassatedde and I sat back and watched her drink one, eat the other. I’d found us a different table, with an even better view than I’d had before. I could see right down to the sliding doors marked ‘Arrivals’. Fee had her back to them.

“You’re still on edge, Dad. It’s only an old lady, for God’s sake.”

“No, it’s Jaikie and Jodie,” I said.

“What about them?”

“You wanted to talk, I guessed that meant a problem...”

“No, no, just ... more change. I think they’ll marry.”

I thought we’d had this conversation before. I nodded all the same. “He’d be mad not to ask her.”

“Would she be mad to refuse, though? I mean can she cope with him flying off to work with some of the most beautiful women in the world?”

“Or being out of work?”

She sighed over her coffee cup. “Half-empty, eh, Dad, not half-full? Give me just one positive, for a bloody change.”

“Good-looking grandchildren.”

She shook her head with pleasure disguised as weary resignation. “The vanity of the men in my family...”

“You’re the third person this week to use that very word to describe me.”

“First?”

“Laura. The second was Grace Fairchild.”

“Hey, didn’t I always say you’d find Petra?”

“No, you said I should give it a go.”

She nodded at the top of my head. “No wonder you’re losing it, all that hair splitting.” She was licking the ends of her fingers now, wondering whether to get another pastry. “Will you recognise this Aunt Eileen?”

“Oh, yes. She’s sort of tall, smartly dressed ... bit like her niece.”

“You said she was infirm.”

“I think she’s got a touch of arthritis. I mean, eighty years old? Apart from that, much like any other elderly woman.”

“And the ‘difficult’ bit?”

“Outspoken, spade a spade, doesn’t suffer fools.”

She smiled. “Dad, that isn’t difficult, that’s normal.”

I pointed down the concourse to a clump of arriving passengers who’d just come through the doors. “There she is.”

Fee turned and, like I had done, she focussed on a young Japanese man pushing a wire trolley with a couple of bags in it. She looked back at me. I looked down at the floor. Grey carpet tiles with Carluccio’s insignia woven into them. She rose from the table and glared down at me.

“Look at me, Dad, look me in the eye.”

I did.

“How bloody dare you interfere in my life?”

I mouthed an apology and expected her to accept it before she walked out to greet Yukito. She stayed put.

“I am sick to death of people trying to shove me around!”

“Who else does it?” I whispered.

“Jaikie.” She rocked her head to indicate his nagging. “Why don’t I stop slagging the guy off, step back and ask myself if he’s the one?”

“Sense.”

She head-butted the air in front of her. “What’s it got to do with any of you? Was Laura in on this?”

I shrugged. It could’ve meant yes or no. Yukito was getting closer, still thirty or forty yards away. People in the café were looking at us. Fee gave it one last burst of fury.

“Jesus!”

She turned and walked out onto the main drag, turned to face the oncoming traffic. It was a toss-up at that point. Would she stay or would she go?

Strange as it may seem, those approaching appeared to catch on instantly to what was happening and melted away to the sides, the better to watch this magic lantern show of lovers reuniting. When he caught sight of Fee, Yukito stopped and pushed his trolley aside. He was certainly an impressive-looking bloke. He wasn’t tall, but neither was he as short as she’d led me to believe. Full head of black hair, slim, fit, wearing a classy suit. And I’m pretty sure it wasn’t my imagination, they really did walk slowly towards each other, pause with a yard or so between them and exchange a few words. Then, without smiling, they stepped in close, he took her in his arms, and they kissed. In public, as my mother would’ve added. It was the best thing I’d done for about three weeks.

And as I watched them my phone vibrated and moved a fraction across the table. It was a text from Marion Bewley, informing me that all the preliminary to-ing and fro-ing was over, the trial of Aaron Flaxman began in earnest tomorrow. His parents were anxious to meet me.