Jayne drummed her fingers on the steering wheel. This felt strange. Really strange. Almost a year since she’d left, and here she was again, the monotony of keeping watch.
She was outside The Oaks, the hotel where Barbara was staying.
This had been the worst part of her old job. The waiting.
There had many other unpleasant parts, like serving injunctions on violent partners, making sure they got the piece of paper but with enough space behind her to run if she needed to. Private investigating had a glamorous ring, but the reality was much different. It was as mundane as most jobs get to be in the end, and it was part of the reason she’d moved to Manchester. There had to be more to her life.
She’d been a psychology undergraduate once, but she’d dropped out as Jimmy enveloped her. That seemed like a long time in the past now. Her memories were of carefree student parties, everyone excited at the hopes and dreams of the future. Then it became about giving excuses why she couldn’t make the parties or the pub crawls, until people stopped asking her. It had become the easiest choice: the questions about who she’d been talking to ended up making the thought of going out unbearable.
She found it hard to believe she was the same woman, but she knew for certain that she would never again be the person she’d been before Jimmy.
She glanced towards the hotel to try to push away the dark thoughts that always seemed to be close by. There was no sign of movement.
Dan had given her a description of Barbara. Middle-aged, dark side-parting, slacks and pearls, her voice plummy, out of keeping with the northern bluntness she was used to.
The Oaks was one of those hotels that had once been the grandest place in town but now survived on weddings and those people who thought it might have retained some old charm.
She stepped out of her car. She wanted a closer look.
Some of the old charm was still there. In the reception, by the bar, there was a large fire, and the look was dark wood and patterned carpets, paintings on the wall and low lighting. The luxury was faded though. The doors were coated in peeling paint and there was a worn track along the floor, darkened by years of footsteps and spilled drinks.
Jayne slid onto a bar stool. The barman sidled over, wearing the standard hotel uniform of a waistcoat, white shirt and thin black tie.
As he poured a beer, he asked, ‘Are you a guest?’
‘Meeting one. He hasn’t booked in yet though. Will he get a room?’
‘Here? Tonight?’ He laughed. ‘He could have any room he wanted. Almost empty.’
She raised her glass. ‘I’ll take a seat by the fire, just so I can look out for him.’
Her seat gave her a good view into the lobby and right through the restaurant, the stairs at the end. She didn’t have to wait long. A woman sauntered through, elegant, confident, of the right age, but it was the pearl necklace that gave her away. She came into the bar and ordered a gin, before she sought out a secluded corner. Jayne had been able to make out her accent as she spoke to the barman. That was all she needed.
More than an hour passed before anything happened, and Jayne had become resigned to a long evening pretending to be waiting for someone, all the time watching, until the woman slammed the paper down and rushed towards the car park at the rear of the hotel.
Jayne sat upright and muttered, ‘Shit,’ to herself, before heading through a different door and to her own car, parked at the front. She switched on her engine and got ready to follow, smiling when she heard an engine through her open car window and the glow of rear lights cast a red glow around the edge of the hotel wall.
Jayne leaned forward, her fingers gripping the steering wheel, waiting for Barbara to appear from the side of the hotel, heading for the exit just ahead.
Barbara didn’t head out that way. Instead, the red glow faded, the engine noise too. Jayne was confused.
She waited a few minutes, in case Barbara emerged, not wanting to meet her in the narrow entrance, but there was no sign of her. Jayne had no choice but to go into the car park. She drove along the narrow drive towards the hotel.
The driveway opened out and took her to the rear of the hotel, where Barbara had parked, but, as she got there, Jayne groaned. There was another exit, arrows pointing towards a lane that ran between hawthorn hedges and led to a narrow country road. The hotel had a one-way system.
She’d lost her.
Jayne slammed her steering wheel in annoyance. Her first day back in her old life and it had gone wrong already.
She set off for the exit, cursing herself, not paying attention, when someone stepped in front of her car.
Jayne slammed on the brakes, the tyres crunching on the gravel.
It was Barbara.
Jayne thought about reversing, but as Barbara walked towards her window she knew there was no point.
Jayne wound down her window and gave an embarrassed, ‘Hi.’
‘Why are you watching me?’
‘I’m just waiting for someone.’
‘Please, young lady, don’t show yourself up. I saw you in the hotel, and now you’re out here.’ She leaned in. ‘My son was murdered in this town. Now, you’re spying on me. Do you think I wouldn’t be looking out for someone just like you?’
Jayne sighed. ‘It’s not what you think.’
‘You don’t know what I think. Do you know something about my son’s murder?’
‘No, no, it’s not that.’
‘What is it then?’
Jayne thought about what she could say, until she realised that the truth was probably the best version. ‘Dan Grant wanted to check that you were on the level, because he doesn’t normally get the parents of victims calling on him.’
‘This case is unusual, that’s the point. You just haven’t got the intelligence to see it.’
With that, Barbara walked to her car, parked further along the lane.
Jayne didn’t have the heart to follow. Her words stung, and there’d be little point now. Barbara knew she was being followed.
She set off, giving Barbara a wave as she went past, some lame effort at an apology, and headed away from the hotel.