‘Why did we let her talk us into this?’ Tim asked as they stood outside the Railway Inn, staring through the lighted window at the pub quiz teams assembling inside.
‘I don’t remember her doing it,’ Mac admitted. ‘But it seems to be like that with Rina, you find yourself doing things and she tells you you agreed to it and somehow you end up remembering that you did.’
‘False memory syndrome,’ Tim said and nodded wisely. ‘Do you think she’s a government agent or something. Special training and all that?’
‘I wouldn’t be at all surprised. Right, well, seeing as we’re here I suppose we’d better go in and join our team.’
It had, he thought, seemed like an all right sort of idea when they’d talked to the landlord. The team had to be flexible, he had said. There were core members but a couple of people worked shifts and so they tried to keep reserves for those occasions when they couldn’t play. Come along and try out, he’d said. It’s just a friendly match this week. You’d be very welcome, he’d said.
Mac pushed open the door and sidled in. The noise seemed like a solid mass and Mac pushed against that too, making his way across to the bar.
‘You came then?’ The landlord smiled. ‘What’ll it be, gentlemen? Hey, Dicky,’ he called across the room, his voice somehow slicing through the fog of noise, ‘your new lads are here.’
Mac left the ordering of drinks to Tim, and watched the balding man in the baggy jumper as he hurried across the lounge, weaving between tables, hand already outstretched and a broad smile stretched across a plump and equally baggy face.
‘Dicky Morris,’ he said. ‘And you must be …?’
‘Sebastian McGregor. Mac. This is Tim Brandon.’
Dicky pumped Mac’s hand hard and then turned to deliver the same treatment to Tim. ‘Good, good,’ he approved. ‘Come and meet the rest of the team.’
Tim rolled his eyes and handed a pint to Mac. ‘Think we’ll need more than orange juice,’ he said. ‘Any way of sneaking out the back?’
‘I don’t think so.’ He took a deep breath. ‘Inspector Eden reckons this is a good way of improving community relations anyway.’
Tim didn’t look convinced. ‘Doesn’t that depend on whether or not we win?’
George had been trying to get hold of Mac to tell him about the blond-haired man. Unusually – in fact, George thought it might even be a first – Mac’s mobile had been turned off and the fact that he’d tried to call Mac three times in one evening had Cheryl’s nose twitching.
‘If there’s something wrong, George, then you must tell me. I know you’ve got a good relationship with Inspector McGregor, but he’s a busy man and you aren’t his responsibility.’
‘It’s nothing,’ George told her. ‘Nothing important.’ But he was painfully aware that his behaviour told her a different tale. In the end he tried Rina and discovered that Mac and Tim were out for the night.
‘They’ve gone where?’ George burst out laughing, the tension he had felt since seeing the blond man receding for a moment or two at the thought of Mac and Tim being in a pub quiz.
‘Anything I can do?’ Rina asked.
George was aware of Cheryl hovering in the doorway. He wished, fervently, that he had a mobile phone. One he could use in the privacy of his room. He tried to think of a way of telling Rina what he wanted without Cheryl hearing and demanding further explanation.
‘Cheryl, can I make myself some tea?’ Ursula asked, appearing suddenly in the hall behind her.
‘Course you can love.’
‘Do you want one? Do you think Christine will? Shall I go and ask her?’
George whispered a prayer of thanks to the god of friends. ‘Just tell him I’ve seen the blond man,’ he said. Then a little more loudly: ‘He promised to get me some information I needed for my homework. I just wondered if he’d had the time, that’s all, only it needs to be in next week.’
‘Having trouble with ear wiggers are we?’ Rina asked. ‘All right, George, message received. I’ll catch him when he comes back tonight.’
‘Thanks Rina,’ George said. He lowered the receiver and glanced round. Cheryl was still talking to Ursula but looking his way with a slight frown creasing between her eyes. It was clear that she knew she was being hoodwinked but she didn’t seem to have heard enough of the conversation to know why or over what.
‘Are you struggling with the homework, George?’ she asked sympathetically. ‘You must have a bit of catching up to do. If you find you need an extension, you know you should just have a word with me and I’ll have a chat with the school. Don’t let it worry you, will you?’
‘Thanks,’ George said, reminding himself grudgingly that she was only trying to do her best but still resentful at the way she kept sticking her nose in. ‘I’ll give Ursula a hand, shall I?’
‘Did you get through?’ Ursula asked once they were in the kitchen.
‘I talked to Rina. She understood. I don’t expect Mac will get in touch until tomorrow.’
Ursula grimaced anxiously. ‘What is that man still doing here?’ she worried. ‘You said he left the day your dad died so …’
‘I dunno,’ George told her. ‘And I never saw the other one before.’
‘Hope we never do again,’ Ursula said.
Mac had enjoyed himself and that came as something of a shock. He didn’t really think of himself as a man who generally enjoyed himself. The fact that he was a police officer had not been slow to emerge and he had expected to be faced with the usual barrage of questions and comments and complaints that generally accompanied this disclosure. Tonight, however, he had got away fairly lightly, the focus of attention being squarely on the contest which, he and Tim soon discovered, was a serious enterprise for all concerned.
‘George called here,’ Rina told him. ‘He’d been trying to get hold of you but your phone was off.’
‘Did he say what he wanted?’
Rina nodded. ‘He was finding it hard to talk. I suspect someone was listening but he told me that he’d seen the “blond man”.’
‘Blond man?’ Mac was momentarily confused.
‘I expect he means the man who helped his father to steal George away from his poor mother. If you remember, the blond man was there, on the cliff the day that Edward Parker died …’
Mac’s good mood evaporated. ‘Did he say when or where?’
Rina shook her head. ‘No, as I say, he was having to be evasive, but it must have been today.’
Mac glanced at his watch. Much too late to go to Hill House tonight. There were way too many coincidences lately. ‘Did he sound OK?’
‘He sounded scared,’ Rina said.