Harry woke at lunchtime to the near-constant hangover that had become a part of his life. Drinking didn’t really help, but if he drank all night it made him sleep all day, and it didn’t matter so much that he had no work to go to.
Culver’s puzzled but co-operative widow had told him that she had accompanied Culver during the last week of August, when he had been a member of a well publicised delegation of MPs touring the North to nod gravely at one another about inner-city decay, so he and Rosemary Wright had not met in August after all; Harry had felt his advantage over the Yard slipping away. And his sudden revelation about the letter had seemed so significant, but without the resources of the police, with no back-up or even encouragement, Harry had finally given up.
All right, he had thought. It’s all just a coincidence. Bugger the lot of them.
He pulled on his clothes, and looked out at the quiet London street. He must get a job, he told himself. The money was running out, and he couldn’t live like this for much longer. He ran a hand over his stubbled chin, and walked barefoot down the corridor to the kitchen, pulling the paper from the letterbox as he went. It wasn’t his paper, but every now and then he struck lucky when the woman upstairs left early for work.
A packet of cigarettes lay open on the kitchen table. Harry took one and searched for his lighter, which he rescued from sliding irrecoverably down the side of the armchair. A lungful of smoke, a cough, and a cup of tea constituted Harry’s breakfast these days. He filled the kettle, dropped a teabag into a mug, laid the paper on the table, and scanned the headlines, turning the pages as he waited for the kettle to boil.
He made his tea. Damn Annie Maddox, he thought, then frowned, the mug half-way to his lips. What on earth made him think about Annie?
He’d seen something. He put down the steaming mug, and picked up the paper. He’d read the word Amblesea, just now. Somewhere in this newspaper there was an item about Amblesea. He turned the pages quickly, checking the headlines, but that didn’t help. An advertisement? Maybe. He checked the ads quickly, then more carefully. Not an advertisement.
But damn it, he’d read the word ‘Amblesea’, he was sure of it. As he drank his tea, Harry started at the first page, and slowly, methodically, despite his throbbing head, he read enough of each and every item to establish that it did not mention Amblesea. And then, on page four, there it was: Grisly Find for Workmen.
He didn’t stop to wash or shave. He barely stopped moving long enough to throw some things in a bag and put socks and shoes on. Harry was in his car, heading for Amblesea, trying not to think about what he might find.
Three thirty found Harry in the Wellington car park; the hotel was bathed in bright sunlight in the crisp, clear, cold afternoon. He heaved himself and his aching head out of the car and into the hotel.
Christine looked up with surprise, laid down her pen, and regarded him.
‘You look terrible,’ she said.
‘Thanks.’ He lifted his bag on to the desk. ‘Is she in?’ he asked, with a jerk of his head towards the door marked private.
Christine shook her head.
Harry rubbed his eyes. ‘Well, am I allowed to wait?’ he asked.
Christine sighed, and reached behind her for her handbag. ‘Here,’ she said, handing him a key. ‘You can use my room. Take the staff lift – third floor, third door on the right.’
‘Thanks, pet.’ Harry picked up his bag. ‘You’re a gent,’ he said.
‘I hope you’ve brought a razor,’ she called after him.
Harry waved confirmation without turning round.
An hour later he was shaved, bathed, and wearing his change of clothing. Christine came in as he was getting ready to leave.
‘All right?’ he asked, presenting himself for inspection.
‘Better,’ she said candidly. ‘What have you been doing to yourself?’ She caught the sleeve of his jacket. ‘That’s hanging off you.’
‘Right,’ he said, ignoring her, and zipping the jacket up. ‘I’m away to find lodgings now that I’m respectable.’ He grinned and picked up his bag. ‘Thanks, Christine, pet – I won’t tell her if you don’t.’
‘You’d better not!’ Christine said. ‘She’d kill me.’
‘Scout’s honour.’ He opened the door.
‘Can I talk to you?’ she asked suddenly.
Harry stopped in the doorway. ‘Of course you can,’ he said. ‘What’s up?’
She looked uncomfortable, obviously in two minds about speaking to him. ‘Mum,’ she said.
Harry closed the door. ‘What about her?’
Christine sat down on the bed, and looked at her hands. ‘You wouldn’t—’ She stopped and glanced up at him before dropping her eyes again, as if to check that he was still there. ‘Will you talk to her?’ she asked earnestly.
‘What about?’ asked Harry.
‘Anything,’ Christine said. ‘Anything to stop her mooning about.’
‘Annie?’ he said. ‘Mooning about?
‘Well, no, not really,’ Christine began loyally, but then her lips came together in a defiant line. ‘Yes, she is!’ she said. ‘She keeps going down to the beach and just walking about.’
‘What for?’ asked Harry, mystified.
‘She says it helps her get over Gerald,’ Christine explained. ‘I can’t say I’ve noticed.’
Harry sat down beside her. ‘What do you want me to do about it?’
‘You helped before,’ Christine said.
‘I got slung out,’ he corrected.
‘She’ll turn into one of these loonies that walk about talking to themselves,’ Christine muttered darkly.
Harry smiled. ‘I doubt that,’ he said.
‘She was there when they found that body,’ she said. ‘And that’s just made things worse.’
‘It would,’ Harry solemnly agreed. ‘But I don’t see what good you think I would do.’
‘She’s worrying me.’
‘I can see that.’ Harry rubbed his now smooth chin, and rather missed the stubble. ‘Where is she?’ he asked dubiously.
‘She’ll be at the beach. She really does go every afternoon, practically. Please, Harry.’
‘She goes there to think about Culver, and you want me, of all people, to interrupt?’
‘Yes.’
Harry stood up. ‘All right,’ he said. ‘All right.’ He picked up his bag, and walked to the door.
‘Pretty women,’ he muttered, on his way out.
Harry saw Annie, standing by a rock, keeping her distance from the pier, now firmly locked off with a constable on guard. He had asked around at the hotel about the body, but no one knew much. Just guesses and rumours.
Annie walked along the shore, then stopped again. He drove past and stopped, walking back down to where she stood by the sea wall.
‘Hello,’ he said, straddling the railing, ‘I thought it was you.’
Annie didn’t betray any knowledge of his presence.
‘I happened to be passing,’ he continued, in polite, sociable tones. ‘And I thought, “Isn’t that Mrs Maddox doing her Widow of Windsor impersonation?” I’ve always found that one particularly diverting.’
There was still no reaction.
‘How are you?’ he asked.
Annie shielded her eyes from the sun as she turned to look at him, and sat down on the wall. ‘What are you doing here?’ was her less than friendly response.
‘The Grisly Find,’ he said, nodding back towards the pier. ‘Variously described as a skeleton, a body . . .’ He paused. ‘Remains,’ he said, his voice sepulchral.
‘Stop it.’
‘Well, whatever it is, it was in your pleasure pier, and it wasn’t very pleasant.’
‘What’s it got to do with you?’ she asked.
‘I want to find out what’s going on here,’ he said.
‘Lambert of the Dole Queue?’
It was meant to hurt, and it did.
She slid off the wall, and Harry lit a cigarette as she walked away over the pebbles. To hell with her, then, he thought. But Christine’s worried face came into his mind, and he swung his leg over the railing, jumping with a crunch on to the beach.
‘Don’t you care who killed your boyfriend any more?’ he called, above the sound of the surf and the gulls’ cries. ‘Do you just want to be in mourning for him?’
‘I just want you to go away,’ she said.
The freshening breeze lifted the end of her scarf, and it flapped against her face. She turned out of the wind, away from him.
‘Did your husband rate all this?’ he shouted.
She looked back, then walked away, going out of sight behind a cluster of rocks.
Harry zipped his jacket up further, and went after her.
‘Did he?’ he asked again, his voice too loud in the quiet rocky shelter. It wasn’t so cold there, out of the breeze. ‘Did you go into a decline for him?’
He leant against the rock, waiting for a reaction, but there wasn’t one.
‘Were you happily married?’ he asked, after a moment.
‘People said we were,’ Annie replied.
He raised his eyebrows, surprised to have got an answer. ‘But you didn’t think so?’ he said.
‘I don’t know.’ She scooped up a handful of pebbles, and dropped one into a pool that had formed at the base of the rock. ‘We married young.’ There was a pause before she carried on. ‘We grew very close,’ she said. ‘But I don’t know that that’s always a good thing.’ Another pebble plopped into the water. ‘Eddie and Annie,’ she said. ‘No one ever referred to us singly. We were Eddie and Annie, always.’
Two pebbles dropped in with tiny splashes. ‘When Eddie died, I felt as though there ought to have been a physical change in me. As if I should have been walking with a limp.’ Her fist clenched round the pebbles.
‘Chrissie had just left school,’ she said. ‘We’d been running a pub in Cambridge, but the brewery wouldn’t let me keep it on. Not on my own.’
Harry flicked his half-smoked cigarette into the rock pool, where it landed with a hiss.
‘I saw this job advertised,’ she said.
She walked past him out on to the beach and up towards the promenade, the breeze ruffling her hair. She looked over the railings at the emptiness. ‘I came here when I was a little girl,’ she said, and nodded across towards the waste ground. ‘There was an amusement arcade there.’
He had joined her, but she still had to lift her voice against the busy, blustery breeze. ‘There were penny-in-the-slot machines, and a little mechanical grab that picked up sweets.’
‘If you were lucky and it wasn’t fixed,’ Harry said, prosaically.
‘And a Test Your Driving Skill machine,’ she continued. ‘I was too small to reach it. By the time I was tall enough, it was gone.’ She smiled. ‘And pinball, and those football things with the men on rods – there was even a What the Butler Saw. And a juke-box that played Lonnie Donegan and the Everly Brothers.’
She put her hand lightly on his shoulder, and pointed. ‘At the very end of the pier, there was a concert hall, and right along the end there were coin-operated telescopes,’ she said, her eyes shining with memories. ‘That part was lost in a storm.’ She dropped her hand.
‘They found the body on the pier,’ she said, and turned away, walking back down to the rock. ‘In the theatre.’
Harry followed her. ‘Which is the theatre?’ he asked.
‘The big building at this end.’ She pointed. ‘There used to be shops and stalls, and a bandstand. But best of all,’ she said, ‘was the camera obscura.’ She smiled. ‘It was very primitive, I suppose, but it was wonderful. You went into a little dark room, and you could see the whole pier, and everyone moving about. It was magic,’ she said, turning to face him. ‘That’s why I applied for the job, I suppose. Trying to recapture childhood security, or something.’
‘And you discovered it looked like this?’
She nodded. ‘But it was a good job, and I was offered it. We moved here about three months after Eddie died.’
‘Christine was very fond of her father, wasn’t she?’
‘Yes, of course,’ Annie said.
‘She didn’t like it much when you took up with Culver, I believe.’
‘You have been busy,’ Annie said. ‘No, she didn’t like it much. Not to start with. She was like you – she thought Gerald was using me.’
‘And wasn’t he?’
‘No, he was not!’
‘What was he offering you? What did he ever do for you?’
‘He made me laugh,’ she said. ‘And that wasn’t easy, not then.’
She had dropped her voice almost to a whisper. He moved closer to catch the words.
‘The Wellington was a disaster. There was no one staying, no one wanted to know about conference rooms, and I thought I was going to lose my job. Christine was off on holiday with a friend from Cambridge – I couldn’t afford it, but I’d promised. There was me and a part-time chef who didn’t speak English. I was on my own, and broke, and I was never as miserable in my life.’
The tears weren’t that far away now, Harry thought. But it might just be the cold wind. ‘And Culver came along when you were nicely vulnerable,’ he said.
‘He booked in and ordered dinner,’ she said. ‘He was alone in the dining room, and he started talking to me.’ She rubbed the smooth surface of the rock with her fingertip, round and round, as she spoke. ‘He made me laugh, and I didn’t want him to go off to his room and me to mine. So he stayed and had a drink,’ she said.
A gull soared over, crying like the damned. Harry glanced up. A star had appeared in the dark blue, a frosty halo of light round it.
‘And I asked him to stay with me,’ she said, leaning her elbows on the rock, and looking out at the sea, dark and restless in the wind. ‘Are you shocked?’ she asked.
Harry shook his head. ‘No,’ he said. ‘Should I be?’
‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘You seem a bit old-fashioned, sometimes.’
‘Sometimes,’ Harry admitted. ‘But I’m not shocked.’
‘Gerald was, I think,’ she said. ‘But he stayed.’
‘Well,’ said Harry. ‘He would, wouldn’t he?’
‘Maybe,’ she said. ‘We came down here once or twice. But he didn’t like it when I talked about how it used to be. He said you had to live in the present.’
‘Then he wouldn’t think much of what you’re doing now, would he?’ Harry asked.
‘No,’ she said. ‘But I wish he was here.’
Harry touched her shoulder. ‘I’m here,’ he said.
She didn’t turn round. ‘And what are you offering me, Harry?’ she asked.
‘Not much,’ he said. ‘No job, no money, and no prospects.’
Another star, and another. The sun was gone, but the sky still held some light.
‘Mind,’ he said. ‘Your sex life wouldn’t depend on West Ham getting into Europe.’
She turned slowly, smiling despite the tears. ‘Why do I feel so at home with you?’ she asked.
When he kissed her, it reminded Harry of the sailor and his girl at Harmouth. And that stirred a thought that he couldn’t catch hold of. Sailors, ships, tearful kisses.
‘I’m afraid,’ she said. ‘I’m really afraid.’
He put his arms round her. ‘No, don’t be,’ he whispered. ‘Don’t be.’
‘But something terrible’s happening here!’
‘Looks like it,’ Harry said. ‘Do they know who it was that they found in the pier?’
‘No.’ Her voice was unsteady. ‘Tom Webb says the body’s been there eight or ten weeks. And that means it could have happened on New Year’s Eve, doesn’t it?’ She was shivering as she laid her head tiredly on his shoulder. ‘I have to tell him about Gerald. I know I do,’ she said. ‘But I’m afraid to.’
‘Then don’t,’ Harry said quickly.
She raised her head. ‘Harry – four people are dead.’
‘Telling the police that you were on Culver’s B-team isn’t going to bring them back,’ he answered sharply.
She stiffened, and stepped away. ‘You never miss a trick, do you, Harry?’ she said.
‘What good will it do?’
‘They were all here at one time or another! The police don’t realise that.’
‘No, they don’t,’ Harry said. ‘But I do.’
‘What can you do on your own?’ she cried.
‘Lambert of the Dole Queue? Bugger all!’ He pushed past her, and stood in the stiff breeze, breathing in the salty air, his hands thrust in his jacket pockets. When she came to him and slipped her arm through his, he ignored her.
‘I shouldn’t have said that,’ she said.
Harry didn’t speak. She’d said it because it was true. He was trying to beat Webb and the Murder Squad and everyone else to the punch. But Barbara thought he could do it – she’d said so. He pulled his cigarettes out of his pocket, disengaging himself from Annie in the process.
‘I won’t tell them,’ she said, in a defeated voice. ‘Between you and Grant, the police don’t stand much of a chance.’
‘Grant? What’s his problem?’ Harry asked.
‘He doesn’t want the police asking questions at the hotel,’ she said. ‘He doesn’t like the police.’
‘Why not?’
‘It was when he was a young boy, I think,’ she said, linking her arm in his again as they began to walk up towards the promenade. ‘During the war, and just afterwards. I think he was in trouble with the KGB or something. He had a bad time with some sort of police, anyway.’
‘So did I,’ said Harry, with feeling.
‘No you didn’t,’ Annie said. ‘You had a good time, and you blew it.’
‘Thanks for the sympathy.’
‘It was your own fault,’ she said. ‘Don’t start comparing your life with his – terrible things happened to his family.’
‘Speaking of which,’ said Harry. ‘His wife’s been gone eight to ten weeks, hasn’t she?’
Annie stopped walking. ‘That’s a horrible thing to say!’
‘Maybe it’s him you should be with,’ he said, pulling away. ‘If he’s so deserving.’ He walked quickly ahead of her, to the railings.
He looked down at the pier, remembering the new rope tying the gates together, that he had thought looked out of place. Whoever dumped the body there must have tied the gates up again. If he’d only thought. That would have taught Webb a lesson, if he’d discovered the body. But whose body?
Grant’s wife seemed rather to have been mislaid, as well as his car. He was very careless with his belongings.
‘He took me out,’ Annie said, arriving at his side.
‘Grant did?’ he snapped, his new train of thought uppermost in his mind.
‘Yes.’ She stepped back a little, surprised at his reaction. ‘Does that annoy you?’ she asked.
‘No,’ Harry answered. ‘You’re right to stay in the First Division. It gets rough down here in the Fourth.’
‘If that’s how you’re going to—’
‘No, no – I’m delighted to hear that you slip into something more comfortable than your widow’s weeds now and then.’
‘Less comfortable,’ she said, with a smile. ‘I was scared of him,’ she said. ‘Silly, isn’t it?’
‘I don’t know,’ Harry said, grinding his cigarette into the pebbles. ‘What did he do?’
Annie moved closer, her eyes looking steadily into his. ‘He brought me flowers,’ she said. ‘Gave me dinner, paid me compliments, and kissed my hand when he said good night.’
‘You’ve none of that to fear from me, pet,’ Harry said quietly. ‘I just want to go to bed with you.’
Harry dressed quietly, but the room was unfamiliar, and he stumbled into Annie’s dressing table. He heard her stir; she sat up with a sleepy, puzzled sound, and switched on the lamp.
‘Sorry,’ he said.
She looked at the clock, then at him. ‘It’s five o’clock in the morning,’ she said.
‘I know.’
‘Why are you dressed?’ she asked drowsily. ‘Are you going somewhere?’
‘Not me,’ he said. ‘I don’t have to catch the team bus.’
She frowned, her eyelids heavy. ‘You don’t get up at this time every morning, do you?’ she asked in an appalled whisper.
‘No fear,’ he said, sitting on the bed to put on his shoes. ‘I sleep like a log, me.’
Annie closed her eyes. ‘Then why aren’t you sleeping like one now?’
‘I’ve got work to do,’ he said.
The truth was that he couldn’t sleep. This was when he had been stumbling off to bed for the last month, his mind fogged with booze. Today, his mind was sharp, ready for anything. Ready for asking the right questions of the right people this time.
‘Working’s more fun, is it?’ Annie’s sleepy indignation made him smile.
‘More fun than listening to you snoring,’ he said.
‘I don’t snore! Do I?’
‘No,’ he said, with more gallantry than truth.
‘We should go to the police,’ Annie said.
Harry twisted round to face her. ‘Look,’ he said, as he slipped on one shoe. ‘What’ll happen if we do? They’ll say that you obstructed their enquiries, and they’d be right. Next thing you know, you’ll have heavy-footed coppers all over the shop, asking personal questions. How would you like that?’
A faint smile appeared, and she opened her eyes. ‘I don’t know how I’d cope,’ she said.
‘Well, you couldn’t just tell them to sod off, believe me,’ he said. ‘And Webb would probably clap me in irons – and you wouldn’t want that, would you?’
‘I don’t know,’ she murmured.
‘It was all right, though,’ he said with a smile, as he turned back to find his other shoe. ‘Wasn’t it?’
‘Yes,’ she said, and turned over. ‘It was all right.’
Harry smiled to himself. Being accepted by Annie was much more important to him than he had realised. She had told him a lot about herself, and Christine, and the hotel. It made him feel good to be part of that. She had said she was glad to have someone to listen to her problems with Grant, like the business with the Friends of the Earth, and the pier exhibition. Someone who would just say ‘poor Annie’ and not give her sensible advice, like Linda did.
Something occurred to him about that, and he turned to speak to her, but she had fallen asleep again. Harry tiptoed out of the room, and cleared the coffee table of its bowl of fruit, substituting an ashtray. He found some paper and a pen on the sideboard, and sat down, taking out his cigarettes. He sighed at the empty packet, and searched his pockets for change.
Creeping out to the bar past the night porter, he felt like a thief. He persuaded the machine to sell him a packet of cigarettes as quietly as it could. The night porter slumbered peacefully throughout, his head on his hand, as Harry tiptoed back. He pushed the door to the private corridor, just as the lift doors opened to reveal Grant. It was hard to tell who was the more startled.
‘Can I help you?’ Grant asked, frowning slightly.
‘No thanks,’ Harry said breezily. ‘Just getting some cigarettes.’ He held the packet up by way of proof.
‘It’s Mr Lambert, isn’t it?’ Grant, big and powerful, blocked Harry’s progress. ‘I didn’t know you were a guest here, Mr Lambert.’
‘In a manner of speaking,’ Harry said.
Grant smiled frostily. ‘Forgive me, Mr Lambert, but this part of the hotel is private.’
‘I’m a guest of Mrs Maddox,’ Harry said.
‘Ah.’ Grant didn’t move out of the way. ‘You’re a very early riser, Mr Lambert.’
‘Like you,’ Harry said, full of cheerful bonhomie. ‘You know what they say.’
‘Yes, indeed.’ Grant stood aside. ‘But I do hope we’re not after the same worm, Mr Lambert,’ he said as Harry passed, then pushed open the corridor door, and left.
Harry watched the door as it closed slowly and silently, shrugged, and carried on into the sitting room. Lighting his first, he began to write down the sequence of events, if sequence it was. It must make sense. Somehow, it must make sense. The first thing you did when you found a body was check who was missing. Mrs Grant was missing, or, at least, no one knew where she was. This was not a revolutionary thought; his brief conversations with hotel staff suggested that this was popular opinion as to the identity of the Grisly Find.
But she had left, or disappeared, in mid-December; the taxi driver had died on New Year’s Eve, Culver on the 9th of January, and Rosemary Wright on the 28th. If they were connected, how? He could place Culver and Fowler in Amblesea on New Year’s Eve, but not Karen Grant or Rosemary Wright. And Mrs Wright, Mrs Grant, and Fowler were probably all there in August, but not Culver. And yet they had to be connected. He still needed answers to questions – answers he probably wouldn’t get. For them, he needed an ally. And he knew just the girl.
He drew thoughtfully on his cigarette, trying to capture the fleeting thought that kept eluding his mind’s grasp. He could see the ship, getting ready to sail, its dark bulk dwarfing the harbour buildings, looking too impossibly large to move. And the sailor and his girl, locked in an agonised embrace, oblivious of him. Why were they so obstinately revisiting him? Time. The time was wrong. Arrivals, departures – it was something about when. Ships and sailors and long farewells. Ships. Sailors. Sailors.
Wright was a sailor. But he knew that – that was why he had concocted his fanciful drug theory. He sat down. Wright was home for Christmas. For Christmas, Harry thought. But he’d sailed again soon after, hadn’t he? Mrs Thomas had said almost the whole holiday. He’d sailed again, and he hadn’t sailed from bloody Watford. He and Rosemary had said their goodbyes somewhere, soon after Christmas.
He grabbed the phone, and dialled, impatiently waiting for it to be answered.
‘Barbara?’
‘Harry? Do you know what time it is?’
‘Do us a favour, pet.’
‘Oh, I don’t trust you when you go all Geordie.’
‘Wright. Your friend Wright. He was at sea when his wife died – and he left just after Christmas. Find out where from and when, there’s a lamb.’
‘Find out where and when Wright’s ship left,’ Barbara repeated, spacing the words as she wrote them down.
‘Thanks, pet – and come to the Wellington Hotel, Amblesea, when you’ve found out.’
‘Is this my story?’
‘I think so, bonny lass.’ He smiled. ‘Don’t ask me what it is yet, though. I don’t have the foggiest.’
He was pacing the floor when he heard the gentle knock; it was eight o’clock, he realised, to his surprise, and opened the door.
‘Oh,’ Linda said, looking less surprised than she sounded. ‘I thought you were Annie.’
‘It’s just the way I’ve combed my hair,’ he said, but Linda wasn’t amused.
‘I heard you moving about,’ she explained heavily. ‘I thought it was Annie.’
‘She’s still asleep.’ He moved out into the corridor, closing over the door, so as not to wake her. ‘Can I give her a message?’
‘You could try telling her what time it is,’ Linda said coolly. ‘She’s normally up by now.’
‘What’s the good of being the boss if you can’t have a lie-in?’ Harry asked.
Linda shrugged. ‘Suit yourself,’ she said. ‘She won’t thank you.’
Harry smiled broadly, but skipped the retort. ‘Have I done something to upset you?’ he asked.
‘I don’t know what you mean,’ she replied.
‘You do.’
‘I’d just like to know how you swung it, that’s all,’ said Linda.
‘Christine asked me to have a word with her mother,’ Harry said innocently. ‘She thought it was high time that Gerald’s ghost was laid.’
‘I think you’ve got your wires crossed somewhere,’ she said. ‘When are you having a word with the ghost?’
Harry grinned. ‘Don’t you approve?’ he asked.
‘It’s not up to me to approve,’ she said.
‘Look,’ said Harry. ‘While you’re here. Do you know of any reason why Grant should be up and about at half past five in the morning?’
Linda shook her head. ‘No,’ she said. ‘I didn’t even know he was here last night – I’d heard he’d moved back into his own house.’
‘Not yet,’ Harry said. He wondered what had made him change his mind. Grant seemed worth a closer look, what with his wife disappearing and his recent financial history.
‘Gil might know – he might have said something to him.’
‘Who’s Gil?’
‘The night potter.’
‘Him! You could drive a Centurion tank through here and he wouldn’t notice.’
‘Don’t you believe it,’ Linda said. ‘He saw you creeping about all right.’
Harry nodded. ‘Of course,’ he said. ‘So this wasn’t a social call on Annie at all? You were checking up on me?’
‘I had to see it to believe it,’ she said.
‘Yes,’ Harry said slowly. ‘You did, didn’t you?’
Linda worked mornings and evenings, and she would have been on duty when he and Annie arrived last night. But she hadn’t seen him. No one had.