It was raining again, but nothing could dampen Paget’s spirits this morning. He had set the alarm for six-thirty, but he was in no hurry to get up. Lying there, listening to the rain, he was tempted to pinch himself to make sure he hadn’t dreamt the last two days. Grace would be getting ready for work now. Should he phone her for no other reason than to wish her good morning? Better not; she wouldn’t want to be held up. On the other hand …
He rolled over and picked up the phone.
“Good Christmas, then, was it?” asked Len Ormside, looking pointedly at the clock. “Audrey’s brother and his wife get here all right?” Ormside had heard all about Philip.
“It was all right.” Tregalles poured himself a mug of coffee from the pot Ormside kept beside his desk, then wandered over to survey the boards.
Sleeping on the pull-out bed for one night was tolerable, two nights were bearable, but last night neither he nor Audrey had had much sleep, and he wasn’t looking forward to spending the rest of the week on it. And Audrey’s reminders that she had been telling him for the past couple of years they needed a new pull-out bed hadn’t done much to improve his temper.
But what had really annoyed him this morning was trying to get into the bathroom. Philip had taken it over early, saying he hoped no one minded, but he wanted to get off to Shrewsbury as soon as possible because he’d arranged to be at what he’d called a working breakfast meeting with the executive at eight-thirty. Even that wouldn’t have been so bad if Lilian hadn’t slipped in after him and stayed there for forty minutes. By the time he got in there, he was already late for work.
“And how was your Christmas, Len?” asked Ormside of himself as he came to stand beside Tregalles. “Very nice, thank you,” he continued. “So kind of you to ask.” He took a sip of coffee. “Get out of the wrong side of the bed this morning did we, Tregalles?”
“As a matter of fact, yes,” Tregalles growled, “except it wasn’t our bed, it was the bloody pull-out downstairs.”
Dangerous ground, Ormside decided, and waited to see if Tregalles was going to elaborate—which he did at considerable length. “So, when do they go back?” Ormside asked.
“Sunday,” Tregalles told him glumly.
Ormside switched to safer ground. “You might be interested to know that London had recorded one hundred and eighty-two sightings of Mary Carr as of eight o’clock this morning,” he said, “and they’re still coming in. We’ve had four from around here so far, but only one of them looks promising. A Mrs. Boxmore runs a B and B in Parkside. She says a woman answering Mary Carr’s description, and a younger man purporting to be her son, stayed there for four nights. Came in on the Wednesday, November first, and left the following Sunday. She reckons the man would be in his mid-twenties, and they gave the name of Carleton. Maureen and Mark Carleton. Same initials.”
“A couple of weeks before Paget was attacked.”
“That’s right, but we know that Mary Carr was at Paget’s house talking to Mrs. Wentworth on the Friday of that week.”
“Does this Mrs. Boxmore know where they were going when they left?”
“No. But they had their own car. A grey Renault. She couldn’t tell us anything more than that, but her young son—he’s eleven—says it was a Clio Oasis, L reg.”
Tregalles grunted. “Which only leaves a few thousand to check,” he said uncharitably. “Anything else?”
“I’m running a check on the chance that it was stolen,” Ormside told him. “According to his record, Michael Carr used to nick cars when he was a kid in Lambeth, and with him and his mother moving about all over the country, I reckon they might be changing cars from time to time.”
“It’s possible, I suppose,” Tregalles agreed grudgingly, “but without a number it won’t be easy.”
“Oh, I don’t know,” Ormside demurred. “Of all the cars in the world to choose from, how often have you heard of anyone pinching a Clio Oasis?”
“This is the largest bag we carry, sir,” said the man at the counter in the medical supplies shop. “It’s for use at night; just put it on the floor beside the bed. It’s very strong and quite leakproof, and as you can see, the tube that fits onto the catheter is extra long, allowing the wearer to move about in bed without worrying about disconnecting it. The handles make it easy to carry, and all you have to do to empty it is turn this spigot, and this short length of tubing allows you to direct the flow.” He demonstrated. “We sell a lot of these,” he continued, “but we do have the strap-on leg-bags as well. There’s the regular size, and what we call—” He stopped himself in time. He had been going to say “the piddling size,” an inside joke appreciated by some, but this one didn’t look as if he’d smiled in years. “The
small size. It’s long and narrow; fits on the inside of the leg, and no one would ever know it’s there.”
Marshall picked up the larger bag. Very sturdy, very pliable. Rolled up it would fit into one of the large pockets of his anorak. To be used at night, the man had said. He snickered to himself. How very appropriate. He nodded. “That’s the one I want,” he said.
“Very well, sir. The tubing is non-latex, of course. No risk of an allergic reaction there. So many people have that problem these days. Just the one, was it, sir?”
“Just the one.” He didn’t care what the tubing was made of; it would be coming off as soon as he got home in any case, and he’d use the heavy-duty tubing he’d bought from the DIY Wine and Beer Shop earlier in the day.
“Anything else for you today, sir?”
“No, thank you.” Marshall paid for the purchase and left the shop. Clever of him to think of this. He’d felt the plastic pouch, soft and pliable, yet strong. Much better than the bin bags he’d used before. Even using two of them together for added strength, he’d found them barely strong enough, as well as very awkward to handle. This would be much better for what he had in mind.
Later, as he rode home on the bus, he kept touching the package in his lap and smiling to himself. He’d soon have Kate home again. Once she realized she had no one else to turn to, and nowhere else to go, she’d come home. Proudfoot had made a bad mistake when he’d pushed his way into the house and threatened him.
Marshall snickered. Big man, throwing his weight around. Well, he hadn’t been so clever, had he? Flashing his card like that. Because now he knew where Proudfoot lived. Not that he’d be living there much longer, he told himself, and laughed out loud. He patted the bag. Come to that, Proudfoot wouldn’t be living anywhere much longer.
The woman next to him shifted in her seat and put both arms around her shopping bag as if she feared he might take it from her. That was the trouble with buses. You never knew who might be sitting
next to you these days. If he’d any manners he’d stand up and let that old dear standing next to him sit down, but men didn’t do that these days, did they? And he had a funny smell about him. Drink, most likely. In the old days she could have called the conductor and had him thrown off, but not today. Oh, no, not today.
The woman wrinkled her nose and sniffed her disapproval. She rubbed the misted window with her hand. Four more stops to go. She hoped that he would get off first.