The Woodcutter (43 page)

‘Thank you,’ she said. She felt there was something else she ought to say but couldn’t imagine what it might be.

The woman, who’d been staring fixedly at her during this exchange with her husband, now stuck her head out of the window as if to take an even closer look. Alva had to force herself not to flinch before that fierce, assessing gaze.

Doll said, ‘That colour, how do you get it?’

It took a second to register the reference was to her hair not her skin, though in both cases the answer was the same.

‘Actually, it’s natural.’

‘Oh. Pity. Wouldn’t have minded giving it a try. Nice to meet you, dearie. You’re ever in Chingford, give us a call.’

She handed Alva a card. Then the window wound up and the Toyota pulled away.

So what’s happened here? wondered Alva. The card suggested that Doll Trapp anticipated meeting her again, and probably not to discuss the colour of her hair.

The one subject they had in common was Wolf Hadda.

If Homewood hadn’t offered her a drink, she would have been in her car and on her way home before Trapp left the prison. She might even have escaped George Proctor’s interception. So she’d have been home by now enjoying a pleasant evening in front of the telly instead of driving along, her thoughts moving in time with the screen wipers between Hadda and Proctor and Simon Homewood.

One thing her encounter with the Trapps had made her recognize was that the line she had drawn under Hadda had been for emphasis not closure.

By the time she drew up in front of her flat, a screech from her wipers as they swept drily over the screen told her the rain had stopped. It also did something else, bringing together the three men who’d been dividing her thoughts during the drive.

Proctor had said Homewood needed to know everything to do his job properly.

But now she’d had time to examine their encounter with the emotional temperature turned down, there were certain aspects of the Director’s knowledge that puzzled her.

For a start, when she said she’d run into Hadda he’d instantly assumed it was in Cumbria rather than in Manchester, where he knew she had been staying with her parents.

OK, that might not be all that significant. But later he’d referred to her spending the night at Birkstane even though she’d deliberately avoided mentioning it.

A lucky guess, perhaps.

But the final thing couldn’t be put down to guesswork. He’d mentioned her foot.

So how the hell did he know about the sexual charade Hadda had played with her to find out if the surveillance audio really was switched off?

3

Toby Estover was wondering whether it were time for a change of secretary.

It wasn’t that Morag wasn’t as efficient as ever in her professional duties and as obliging as ever in her personal services. The trouble was that in the first couple of weeks after his return to the office in the New Year she had shown signs of looking for something more from their relationship than a regular desktop bang.

To start with she had tried to engage him in an exchange of idle chit-chat about the Christmas holiday, giving him more details of her family celebrations than he needed to hear, then leaving a gap that he was clearly expected to fill with more details of his festive break than he cared to give.

Also after kneeling astride him and bringing him to climax, she no longer immediately rose with a friendly smile and retired to the washroom, emerging a few minutes later, perfectly composed and ready to take dictation. She had taken to sinking forward against him, offering her lips to be kissed and murmuring inanities like, ‘Was that good for you, lover?’

When by his responses he made it clear that he wasn’t in the market for either idle gossip or post-coital
tendresse
, she desisted, but the experience had not been pleasant. So, time for a change, perhaps. Not in terms of size, of course; he liked his office furniture well upholstered; but colouring was another matter. Morag was fair and freckled, her generous breasts milky pale and small nippled. He found himself fantasizing about a brown-skinned girl with nipples like thumbs set in a boss of plum-dark crushed velvet . . .

The thought made him languid and he looked with displeasure on Morag as she entered his office after a barely perfunctory knock and said, ‘You’re no’ forgettin’ you’re lunching wi’ Kitty Locksley?’

Was his hearing faulty or had her Scots accent grown more intrusive in the past few days? She really would have to go. He’d have a word with Miss Jenner, the office personnel manager. She would arrange for a transfer to general duties downstairs. No drop in pay, but they usually got the message and left of their own accord after a week or so.

He said irritably, ‘Of course I haven’t forgotten. Though why I’m lunching with the bitch, I’ve no idea. Still, always best to keep the press on board.’

Kitty Locksley was the news editor of one of the slightly more literate tabloids, the kind that people he knew sometimes admitted to reading.

He stood up and waited. Morag usually went into the cloakroom to fetch his overcoat and help him into it. Today she didn’t move. That did it. She definitely had to go. He got the coat himself and as he struggled into it he said, ‘I should be back by three. Ask Miss Jenner to come and see me then, will you?’

Morag waited till she heard the lift door close, then took out her mobile and dialled.

‘Hi, Mr Murray,’ she said. ‘He’s on his way.’

‘Good girl. Got to go. Talk later.’

She put the phone down and strolled round Estover’s expansive desk and settled into his very comfortable leather swivel chair. She prided herself on always trying to see things from other people’s viewpoint and things certainly looked very different from here. Not that she was complaining. She’d come into the job with her eyes wide open. She’d have had to be very naïve indeed not to recognize what was on Toby Estover’s mind as his eyes ran up and down her body at the interview. Well, that was fine, he seemed a nice enough guy, and she was a thoroughly modern girl with no hang-ups about enjoying sex for its own sake, plus there were all kinds of perks as well as the Christmas bonus. So it had merely amused her when some of the other girls felt it their bounden duty to tell her that on average Estover’s secretaries lasted three years. There would come a time when Miss Jenner, the office manager, would approach her, shoot some shit about moving staff around to give them a variety of experience, then invite her to leave her comfortable ante-room outside Estover’s lofty office and dive into the common pool below.

‘That’ll be nice,’ she’d replied with a smile. ‘I really look forward to seeing more of you guys.’

On her return to work after the Christmas break, she’d been almost immediately approached by her Scottish friend. He had a new proposition that took her aback. Keeping Murray apprised of Estover’s movements was no more than a bit of harmless disloyalty. But, however you wrapped it up, accessing, copying and selling Estover’s confidential records was unambiguously criminal.

The money Murray offered had been good. And she liked the guy. So she hadn’t refused him out of hand. Next time they met, he brought up the proposition again, upping his offer from good to generous. Also he assured her he was working for the good guys and that nothing would happen to Estover as a result of her actions that he didn’t deserve. Which, from her own knowledge of Toby’s working practices, suggested the poor bastard was in for a very bad time indeed!

Still she hesitated. As well as being a thoroughly modern girl, Morag was also an old-fashioned sentimentalist. She didn’t expect declarations of eternal love from Estover, still less did she have any hope or indeed desire that he should make an honest woman out of her. But she did feel that after what they’d been to each other for the past couple of years, there must be some affection there.

Since then she’d given Estover every chance to show his regard for her, to demonstrate he regarded her as something more than just a high-class wanking machine.

He hadn’t taken the chance. So a few days earlier she’d taken the plunge. Next time she saw Murray she’d passed over the tiny flash drive he had given her.

‘Everything’s on there,’ she said. ‘A lot of it’s encrypted.’

‘No problem,’ he said. ‘I’m grateful.’

Then he’d leaned forward and looked into her eyes and she’d thought, here it comes – he’s going to hit on me!

But instead all he said was, ‘If you ever fancy a job back in Glasgow, I might be able to fix you up.’

She was surprised to realize how disappointed she was his proposition was commercial rather than personal!

‘I’ll think on it,’ she said coolly.

‘Good,’ he said, sitting back. ‘Now some time soon, a journalist called Kitty Locksley is probably going to want to fix up a meeting with your boss. Over lunch, I’d guess. I need to know where and when.’

Back to business, she thought. They’re all the same! One way or another, they’ll squeeze every last drop of use out of you, then it’s
On your bike, girl!

He was muttering something else that her irritation made her miss.

‘Eh?’ she said.

‘I was just wondering,’ he said rather awkwardly. ‘Maybe you and me could meet for a drink some time, you know, just to meet.’

‘Like a date, you mean?’ she said, hiding her pleasure.

‘Aye.’

‘I’ll think about it.’

Well, now she’d thought about it. A date seemed good. And as she had no intention of letting the bitches downstairs get in their cracks about her being rolled off Estover’s desk a year earlier than the average, what Murray had said about working in Glasgow sounded good too. She’d had enough of the fucking Sassenachs – in every sense.

She picked up the desk phone and punched in Miss Jenner’s number.

Estover, meanwhile, was finding his welcome at the restaurant more to his taste than his departure from the office. As the pretty blonde on reception helped him off with his coat, she said, ‘Nice to see you again, Mr Estover. Miss Locksley’s already at your table.’

‘Thank you,’ he said, giving her a warm smile. Pity she was so willowy. And fair-skinned too, so probably no crushed velvet there.

‘Miss Locksley?’ said a man’s voice. ‘That Miss Kitty Locksley?’

He turned to see a man in the courier’s outfit of crash helmet and leather jacket standing behind him. He was lanky, what was visible of his face had an impatient expression on it, and he had a Scottish accent which at the moment Estover felt was a strong strike against him.

‘Who are you?’ he said in his most patrician fashion.

‘Courier. Got a package for her. Here, chum, could you take it? The bike’s on the pavement, probably being clamped by now!’

He thrust a small package into Estover’s hand then turned and left.

Bloody cheek! thought Estover. The Celtic fringe seemed to be in a conspiracy to irritate him today.

‘Shall I take that, sir?’ said the receptionist.

‘No, that’s all right.’

At the table Kitty Locksley smiled up at him as he approached. He stooped to give her a perfunctory kiss. Small, fine-boned, with not enough flesh on her to feed a hungry bluebottle, she definitely wasn’t his type.

As he sat down he said, ‘This is for you.’

‘A late Christmas present, Toby?’ she mocked.

‘No! Courier was leaving it as I came in.’

She slipped it into her bag down at her feet and said, ‘You’d think they’d let me enjoy my lunch in peace!’

‘But this is a working lunch, surely?’ said Estover. ‘You haven’t just asked me out because you’ve taken a sudden fancy to me, have you, Kitty?’

‘Definitely not,’ said the woman, rather too emphatically for Estover’s liking. Even where he did not desire, he liked to be found desirable.

A waiter interrupted them to ask if they’d like a drink and they chatted in a desultory fashion till her gin and tonic and his large scotch came. When he was talking to journalists, Estover liked to have a prop to hand, in every sense.

‘So, Kitty, what’s this all about?’ he said. ‘My secretary said you were quite mysterious.’

‘I certainly didn’t mean to be,’ she said. ‘It was just a rather odd thing. Does the name Arnie Medler mean anything to you?’

Now Estover was glad of his prop. He took a long pull at the scotch and said cautiously, ‘It does ring a bell.’

‘DI in the Met, till he retired to live in Spain.’

‘Yes, of course. That’s how I know the name. The fuzz. In my line one has to make contact from time to time.’

He was sounding a little too jolly, perhaps. He resisted the temptation to take another drink and said, ‘So?’

‘I’m glad he’s not a friend,’ she said. ‘Because he’s dead.’

‘Good Lord!’

‘Yes. He died in a rather macabre accident some time over Christmas. You didn’t know?’

‘No, why should I? Was it in the papers?’

‘No. Not a trace. Mind you, so many good stories about rows over Christmas dinner turning into family massacres that an expat’s death in sunny Spain was hardly going to stop the presses. So what was your connection with him, Toby?’

By now Estover was fully back in control.

‘More to the point, Kitty, as it’s you who got me here, what’s your interest?’ he said.

She shrugged. ‘Nothing sinister. Someone rang the desk with the story and said there was a link between you and the dead man that might be worth following up. Also they intimated it was something you’d prefer to discuss face to face, so, as a girl’s got to eat, I thought why not get a lunch on the paper with my dear old chum?’

What the caller had actually said was, ‘You might like to have Estover where you can watch his reaction, preferably some place he can’t have his secretary primed to interrupt him with an urgent call.’

So far the watching had been interesting but a long way from suggestive.

He said, ‘Well, as I say, I barely remember the name and I’d need to check back to see what the nature of my acquaintance with the man was.’

She said, ‘The caller mentioned something about helping with Medler’s purchase of a villa in Spain. Didn’t know you went in for that kind of stuff, Toby.’