Читать книгу The Runaway - Ali Harper - Страница 8

We trudged back up the hill towards the office. We hadn’t found out a right lot, and it was hard not to feel a bit deflated. We decided we’d wait till teatime to go round to Matt’s house on The Turnways again, see if anyone turned up. Before that we were meeting Martin Blink.

Martin arrived at the offices on the stroke of half past four. He limped through the front door, and Jo jumped up from her desk and hugged the life out of him. They’d spent a lot of time together, after our last case, when Jo was in hospital recovering from her surgery on her shoulder, and I was trying to handle the chaos of the aftermath of what had happened. I think now he sees her as his protégée.

I hung back, tried to position myself so that Aunt Edie wouldn’t see Jo’s eyes tight shut in the embrace. ‘Good to see you,’ I said. ‘How you doing?’

He didn’t answer me, staring instead at Jo, running his eyes up and down her frame like he was looking for weak spots.

I tried to see Jo through Martin’s eyes. I know I take her for granted. She’s the stronger one, I mean, mentally – the least neurotic person I ever met. To Jo everything is black or white. There’s the wrong way and the right way. Good versus evil. If there’s ever anything on her mind, she’ll go out, get hammered and forget about it. She doesn’t have brain worms – the things that wriggle around in your headspace, won’t let you go.

I had noticed that since the last investigation she was smoking and drinking a bit more than she used to, and I was keeping an eye on it. But who wouldn’t be, in her position, after what had happened? She’d been shot and the physical scars were still healing. The mental scars might take even longer. She’d get there though. I’d make damned sure of that.

Jo seemed to pass Martin’s inspection, because he took a step back, nodded and said, ‘Doing all right, kid.’

And I felt my shoulders give a little.

‘I’m hanging in there,’ said Jo.

She pushed a chair towards Martin and as soon as he sat down he didn’t look old. His face tells a lot of stories – frown lines buried deep in his forehead, but laughter lines like spiders’ webs criss-crossing from the corner of his eyes and disappearing into his hairline. When he’s not trying to walk you’d think he was in his fifties.

‘Doing just fine,’ said Aunt Edie.

‘Any ghosts?’ said Martin, setting a battered leather briefcase on the desk.

Jo glanced at me and a wash of something that felt like acid burned my veins. I know she hates talking about the fact she killed a man. Even a man as bad as the one she killed. I tell her she did the world a favour, but I know she doesn’t believe me. Not yet.

‘I’m coping,’ said Jo.

‘It’s ace to see you, Martin.’ As I said the words I felt my breathing deepen, so that air made it past my chest and into the rest of my body. ‘What brings you here?’

‘Private matters.’ He tapped one finger against the side of his nose and then glanced across at Aunt Edie. ‘If your receptionist here could make us a cup of tea, I’ve a thirst like the Sahara. You got a room we could talk in?’

I think I actually ducked. When I did dare risk a glance in Aunt Edie’s direction, she was holding on to the back of her office chair, her knuckles white under the fluorescent lights.

‘I’m the office manager, not the receptionist,’ she said in the tightest of voices.

‘Sorry, love.’ Martin held up his hands. ‘Didn’t mean to cause offence.’

Aunt Edie bridled but managed to bite her tongue. She pushed her chair under the desk. ‘I’ll happily put the kettle on,’ she said. ‘And I was going to leave a bit early tonight, so no need to go through to the back. You can have the place to yourselves. Talk about your privates to your heart’s content.’ She stared unblinking at Martin as she spoke.

I felt my cheeks burn.

Once Aunt Edie had switched the kettle on and her computer off, she buttoned up her coat and let herself out.

Martin loosened his tie.

‘Got off on the wrong foot there.’

‘Don’t worry. Her bark’s worse than her bite,’ I lied. ‘So, come on, spill.’

‘I want to hire you girls.’

‘Hire us?’

‘Women,’ said Jo.

‘I want to hire you women?’ asked Martin. ‘Really?’

Jo nodded and put her feet up on the desk.

‘OK,’ said Martin, shrugging his shoulders. ‘I want to hire you women.’

If I’ve got a weak spot, it’s lonely old men. You see them, shuffling round Morrisons, mismatched clothes, in need of a haircut. I can’t bear to think of them fumbling with the tin opener and being unable to reach out to people. Jo gives me hell for my sexism and it’s true – I don’t worry about women in the same way. I guess I think women have an advantage.

I knew Martin was divorced, that he lived on his own, but I didn’t like to think of him living with the ghosts of the disappeared.

‘You’re missing someone?’ I wondered who it might be. He’d never mentioned much about his private life.

‘Been thinking, since you solved that last case. You found the answer to something that happened seventeen years ago. You went back and found something we all missed.’

‘Couldn’t have done it without you,’ I said. ‘And the—’

‘Enough, already. Don’t need to be damned with your faint praise, thanks all the same. Never doubted my investigative skills.’ He fiddled with the clasp on his briefcase and pulled out a newspaper. ‘But sometimes you got to wait till the window opens.’

‘Go on,’ said Jo, taking the paper from him.

‘Page thirteen.’ He pulled at his tie and loosened the knot. ‘Another one I never got to the bottom of. And this one nags me, buzzes round my head like an angry wasp. You know, when the 3 a.m. gets you?’ He looked to Jo and I found myself feeling resentful. I’m more than familiar with the early hours, thank you very much.

Jo read while Martin continued, ‘One that won’t let me lie. And I thought well, if you could have a go at it, maybe the time is right.’

‘The body?’ said Jo.

‘Let me see.’ I peered over Jo’s shoulder, saw a small article, only a few lines with the headline: ‘Police discover woman’s body in garden of luxury flats.’

‘It’s worth a crack, that’s what I’m saying.’

We heard the kettle whistle in the kitchenette out back. Martin Blink looked up at the clock. ‘Sun’s almost over the yard arm. You gi— women got a local?’

Martin doesn’t know about my issues with alcohol. Not that I’ve had a drink since the last case. And I try not to beat myself up too much about that one. Surely anyone in that situation, faced with the immediate prospect of their own death, would succumb to one last shot? Especially when it was one of the finest whiskies money could buy. So fine that when I close my eyes, I can still taste it.

But before that one slip, in extreme circumstances, it had been nearly a full twelve months since I’d given up drinking.

I know now that that’s the difference between the addict and the social drinker. To the addict, it doesn’t matter how long it’s been since the last one, because they’re focused on the next. The social drinker can enjoy a drink, the one they have in their hands – as a self-contained event, an occasion all in itself. Which is a nice idea, but a single drink doesn’t exist for the addict. The addict is thinking about the future, about what will happen when the one in their hands runs out. To the addict one drink is only ever the start.

Addicts are people who have never experienced enough. Enough of what, I don’t know. Therapists would tell you they haven’t had enough love. I don’t know about that. I just know there’s never enough alcohol to get me out of my mind.

‘Well?’ asked Martin.

I nearly said no, but I caught the look on Jo’s face. And, I reminded myself, it’s good for me to be challenged. An opportunity to reassert my faith, my resolve. Least, that’s what the textbooks tell me.

I switched the phones over to the night-service and unhooked my jacket from its peg. ‘There’s The Brudenell,’ I said as Jo’s eyes lit up. ‘Just round the corner.’