Sterling plunged down Strand Street towards the High Street. There was no time for a detour around by the Quay. Crossing the road, he slipped back through the alleys and lanes into Market Street. He needed an antidote, and only Angela would do. If he remembered correctly, Monday was half-day closing for the library. He had one thing to do before he might catch her locking up.
The windows of the café were steamed up. It was just after midday, and the lunchtime rush was beginning. A woman and her daughter were going through the door with their shopping bags. People already sat at some of the tables, looking through the menus. Sterling could hear the hiss and roar of the coffee machine, or perhaps it was the internal roar in his ears.
‘Is Jack about?’ he said to one of the waitresses. Her eyes gestured towards the kitchen beyond the counter and he strode on through, noting the ‘In’ sign on the serving door just in time. Jack was hunched over a table talking with Mickey and his chef. As he rose, Sterling grabbed his lapels, swung him around and pinned him back to the wall. He was a big man, a little taller than Sterling and a lot wider, but Sterling had the advantage of anger and surprise. He could smell coffee on his breath, and a dried rivulet of sweat streaked down his temple on to his cheek. The chef Sterling had never seen before. He withdrew, startled and shocked to the far end of the kitchen, a culinary Pontius Pilate. Mickey looked on impassively, as if this sort of thing happened every day.
‘Frank, for God’s sake. What’s going on?’
‘You bastard. You set me up. You’re the one who put the Etchinghams on to me. You’re the one who put the tracker on the Peugeot so I could be followed. That’s why you never asked for money. That’s why you stopped asking questions. You already knew what was going on. I fucking trusted you. I drink with you. You bastard. Why?’
At first, Jack’s eyes had pretended a kind of genial bewilderment. There had to be some mistake. What on earth are you doing bursting into my kitchen and pinning me against the wall? Are you insane? But he could tell there was no way out. He relaxed against Sterling’s hands, feigned confusion replaced in his eyes by a look Sterling did not quite recognise. Not defiance. Something else.
‘Naïve, Frank. Very naïve. You think someone like Gloria Etchingham would ever have heard of Frank Sterling Investigations without input from someone like me? You think a woman like that would look at someone like you? I was doing you a favour, mate. You got a case. You got paid. So what’s a little GPS between friends? Anyway, it was my car.’ He took Sterling’s hands from his jacket and brushed it down in a studied kind of fashion. ‘You need to grow up, Frank. It’s a nasty old world out there.’
‘What did you get out of it, Jack? What did she promise you?’
‘Well, now, mate, what makes the world go round?’ He winked. ‘More than the pint and the few quid you’d give me for a favour. And the rest is between me and the lady.’
‘Keep out of my way, Jack, or I’ll fucking kill you.’
‘Yeah, yeah,’ he said. ‘Noted. Do you mind if I get on with the lunch rush?’ He turned back to the table.
Sterling stumbled, still shaking, out of the café and over the road to the library. As he went through the door, Angela called from inside her office. ‘Sorry, we’re just closing.’
He leaned against the counter, breathing heavily. ‘It’s me,’ he called back.
Angela’s head appeared from behind the office door. ‘Frank. You look dreadful. What’s happened? Come through.’ She opened the counter and led him through to her office. ‘Sit down. I’ll finish closing up and lock the door. Then we can have some peace and quiet.’
A minute or two later, they were facing each other across the small table. ‘In a nutshell, I’ve been used and double-crossed,’ said Sterling.
‘I know what that’s like,’ said Angela softly. ‘From London.’
‘I never really knew about that. We thought there might have been something. You know, the pub crowd. But we thought you just wanted to spend some time out of the big city and in the provinces.’
‘Well, there’s a story to be told sometime. After you’ve told me yours,’ she said.
Sterling left little out, and ended by telling her about Jack Cook and the tracker on the Peugeot. ‘Almost from the beginning, while I was investigating, I felt as though there was a parallel operation going on. And I was right.’
‘And now the puppet’s cut his strings,’ said Angela. ‘I feel a bit bad about Jack. I could have reminded you how dubious he is. It’s not as though he didn’t have form. Good company but chronically unreliable. Hard wired to do a friend down for a quick buck. Talking of which, were you ever tempted to take up Gloria or Keith Etchingham’s offers?’
‘What, go back to Ypres and get the money? ‘Course I was. A dodgy journey for dodgy money. Just up my street,’ he joked. ‘Lucky I didn’t get the chance to explore any details with Keith, what with Smithy turning up.’
Then he could see that Angela had thought of something. ‘Hang on a minute. The Etchinghams sent you off on this wild goose chase to Belgium. The idea was to flush out the PEDU thugs, who were after Keith. Keith didn’t really trust Gloria. The information you were finding was what she needed to get hold of the money, but he changed one of the details – the identity of the bank. She did her own double-crossing by involving Tommy and doing some deal with Smithy. Right. But as things turn out, surely the Etchinghams can get just what they had planned to get. Everything’s even better than they could ever have dreamed. Between them, they’ve got everything they need to access that bank account. Smithy and PEDU are out of the picture. I bet they’re still in contact with each other. What’s to stop them going to Ypres and picking up the first tranche of the cash?’
Sterling gave her a little hug. ‘Don’t worry, girl,’ he said. ‘I’ve thought of that. After all, I’m a private investigator.’
By late afternoon the next day, the balmy sunny weather that had enveloped Sandley and Ypres for most of the last fortnight had moved away. Sterling put the telephone down and looked out over the square. A dark cloud appeared over ahead and made the day even gloomier, and shops and businesses were turning on their lights for the last stretch of the day. Rain spat at the window, the drops getting progressively larger. A man and woman in their early sixties emerged in their raincoats from the Spar shop with grocery bags in each hand. Seeing the swift decline in the weather, they put on plastic rain hats and tied the strands beneath their chins. At that age, practicality was clearly trumping ridicule, whereas the young girl who walked past them ignored the water that frayed the bottoms of her jeans and seeped through the thin cotton hood of her top, plastering her fine hair to her forehead.
The wind squalled around the square, rustling the damp leaves. Sterling put on his coat and picked up his umbrella. He couldn’t wait for the weather to ease. He was meeting Angela in the pub, and he had news.
Holy Ghost Alley was dark. The streetlights had not yet come on. He walked through the wind tunnel into the High Street and ducked into the cosy warmth of the pub. Angela was already in the snug. He didn’t see Mike Strange straight away, but a pint appeared in front of him when he sat down. He went back to the bar and leaned right over into the serving area, looking from right to left.
‘Mike, Mike, where are you?’ He appeared suddenly from around the corner from the opposite direction from the one Sterling had been looking in. Sterling started and recovered. ‘I’ve got a bit of an update. Do you or Becky want to come over? I’ll buy you a drink.’
It was Becky who joined them. ‘I’ll tell Mike later,’ she said, ‘but to be honest, it’s the bish-bash-boff he likes, not the boring details.’ They smiled into their glasses. In the other bar, Sterling could see Jack Cook drinking with his other cronies. He had acquired a defiant air. He’d probably be coming in here less often now, to the dubious benefit of the George and Dragon. Everything might settle down between them in time, but there would be no rapprochement, only accommodation.
Angela put her hand on his sleeve. ‘What were you going to tell us, Frank?’
He dragged his eyes back. ‘I just got a call from Andy Nolan before I left the office. He’d got a call from Belgium. My mate Pieters and his boss, Broussart, have just arrested Keith Etchingham as he was coming out of the Dexia Bank in Ypres. They picked up Gloria at a nearby café. Andy Nolan said the Fraud Squad, HMRC and Interpol are all involved. It looks like the Etchinghams are going to be extradited back here.’
‘That’s if Gloria doesn’t get some clever lapdog Flemish lawyer,’ said Angela.
‘It doesn’t really matter. The point is, she’s not getting the money. That’s the worst thing for her. It’s funny. I’ve done the right thing, but in a way I’ve done my own bit of dirty work – with the Etchinghams, and Andy Nolan. I’m more worried about Andy. He wasn’t best pleased when I finally told him about Keith Etchingham’s offer to me – ‘Obstructing police business,’ in his words. He called me some names I couldn’t repeat in any company. But at least he didn’t mess about. He got on to Belgium straight away. He’s a clever bloke. He knows my interests are different now that I’ve left the job. I hope so, anyway. He’s not the kind of friend you want to lose.’ He looked back over to the public bar.
When Becky had drifted away, Angela got out the crossword.
‘Got any dreams for me, before we get going?’ she said.
‘So many, Angie, that I don’t know where to start. Maybe when we’ve done the crossword. You know, I’ve got to think some things through after this case. I still can’t believe how badly I got played.’
‘Yes, well,’ said Angela. ‘I couldn’t say it before, not when you were so agitated, but it was partly your fault – with Gloria Etchingham at least.’
‘How come?’ said Sterling.
‘Well, to be blunt, not enough thinking from what’s in your head, and too much from what’s in your trousers. Remember, I saw her little performance when she came to your office the first time. And I saw her the second time as well. That blue dress. That shimmy. That preposterous little heel adjustment. I bet you were salivating up there in your office.’
‘Salivating? That’s a bit extreme.’
‘You know what I mean. You agree with me too, when you’re being sensible.’
‘Then there’s the homesickness,’ said Sterling. Thinking about Gloria Etchingham, his stupid naivety and the waspish accuracy of Angela’s assessment was too uncomfortable. ‘A few days away and I’m homesick. What’s that about? He punched her lightly on the arm. ‘Now you’re laughing at me. Stop it. And can I do the job without a car? I really don’t want to go down that route. And my moral compass. I worried that that went haywire.’
‘Your moral compass? Where did that come from?’ Angela was really laughing now. Then she paused. ‘Welcome to the 21st century,’ she said. ‘It’s not a game, is it?’
‘No. It’s real. It’s life.’