9

At Waitrose, I stood in front of the refrigerated shelves of ready meals with a wire basket looped over an arm, perusing the offerings as if I were looking at frocks in the window at Jack Wills. While I pondered the macaroni cheese, another shopper came up beside me, and I shifted over a few inches to make room. But I realized I was being watched, and so I took a quick peek to size up the situation.

“Hello,” he said.

It was Val Moffatt, wearing scruffy brown trousers, a sweater, and that same green jacket he’d worn the first time I’d seen him. His own shopping basket was half full. I noticed a tiny hole in the neck of his sweater, and then remembered the hole in the sleeve of my own. I put my hand over it.

“Oh, hello, Mr. Moffatt,” I said airily.

Neither of us moved as a woman reached round me in a hurry to nab a chicken tikka masala and get on with it.

Moffatt peered in my basket. “You took the last cottage pie, did you?” he asked.

“Sorry?” I looked down at my hoard. “Oh, yes, I suppose I did.”

“I’ll trade you a lemon pepper chicken for it.” He held the container out to me, his face full of hope.

I glanced into his basket. “Can’t you do better than that?”

With what appeared to be great reluctance, he pulled out a different dinner. “I do have this four-cheese ravioli I might be willing to let go.”

“Done.”

We exchanged dinners and smiles, and his eyes crinkled at the corners.

“You wouldn’t be interested in another swap?” he asked. “For example, what would you give me for this fine tub of organic strawberry yogurt?”

I wrinkled my nose. “I much prefer mango yogurt.”

“Do you, now?” he murmured. “I’ll have to keep that in mind.”

Jostled from the back, I remembered where we were and said, “Well, I should get on with my shopping.” But I found myself disinclined to move.

“I don’t suppose—” He hesitated and looked at his shoes. “Did you happen to check your e-mail this afternoon?”

And with that, my spirits dropped to the floor and shattered. “Oh God, they know, don’t they? Your people at Bath College have found out what happened at Middlebank. Did they say no to the project? Did they give up just because of a—” An elbow appeared in my vision as a woman reached in for beef stroganoff. I swallowed my next words. “You know, too, don’t you—you know about the . . . incident?”

“Yes, I heard.”

“So, that’s it? We’re written off as unreliable and attracting the wrong sort and being the scene of a crime—is that it? Is it over?” My voice trembled, and an edge of hysteria crept in until I ended in little more than a warble.

“Hang on,” Moffatt said, and took my elbow, guiding me to the middle of the aisle and out of people’s way. “I don’t believe it’s the end.” He glanced at our surroundings—Waitrose on a Friday at five o’clock was a melee. “Look, do you fancy a coffee? I mean, we could go over a few issues before we decide how to approach them.”

With great effort I regulated my breathing until I could reply. “Yes, all right—how about the café?”

---

*   *   *

We went through the basket till to pay and then lugged our bags up the stairs to the Waitrose café, where we joined the queue. I stood on tiptoe to look over the shoulders of the people in front of me and saw one fruit scone left. Please let no one else take it. Once I’d had a cup of tea, I’d be better able to assess the situation, as bleak as it seemed. My first big idea for the Society shot down because of a murder—doesn’t it just figure?

At the café till, Moffatt asked for a dish of blackberry crumble and a little pitcher of custard with his coffee, and he paid for both our trays. When I protested, he said, “Doing my part in hopes that you won’t shoot the messenger.” I gave in, and we found a table by the windows that overlooked the bottom of Walcot Street and sat on plastic chairs under fluorescent lights.

Moffatt looked admiringly at our surroundings. “I could live at Waitrose,” he said, tucking into his crumble.

“You what?”

“I’m serious. I’m thinking of slipping a cot into that back corner, near the beer aisle. They’d never get rid of me.”

I giggled and he smiled. “There now, that’s better.”

“What is?”

“You were looking a bit glum back there.”

“Yes, and with good reason.” I buttered my scone and spread strawberry jam over half. “Go on, tell me what they said.”

“Oh, various worries about being seen to condone violence and the instability of an organization that has yet to prove itself after the death of its founder. One of our more cynical faculty wondered if this wasn’t a publicity stunt on the part of the Society.”

“Publicity stunt? I’m sure the victim—Trist—would disagree. And if they’d care for a firsthand account, I’d be happy to describe how horrible it is to look down on the corpse of someone you knew.” I sloshed milk into my tea. “Publicity stunt, my—”

“He was talking through his hat,” Moffatt cut in.

“Well, there’s nothing for it but to meet this head-on. I’ll go and talk with them in person. Answer their questions, ease their worries.”

Moffatt nodded, his mouth full. When he’d swallowed, he said, “It’s just what I thought. Look, we’ve a faculty meeting on Monday afternoon, three o’clock. I’ll put us on the agenda—we’ll show them a solid front.”

“Yes, that’s good. And your friend Amanda can put in a good word for us.”

“Amanda? What does she have to do with this?”

“You said it was a friend told you about the idea of a joint venture between the college and the Society. Last Wednesday, I saw that you and Amanda knew each other, so I thought she was the friend who told you about us.”

Moffatt laughed. “Amanda’s not my friend—she’s my student.”

“But then, who is your friend?”

“Adele.”

I felt as if I’d been bopped on the head. “Adele Babbage?”

“Didn’t she mention it?”

No, Adele had been surprisingly mum with this piece of information—even after I’d told her Moffatt was the one who’d been in touch.

“Probably slipped her mind,” I offered, not believing my own excuse. A thought niggled at me, but I set it aside to be examined later. “Right, Monday afternoon. But I’ll be away all weekend and won’t have time to work up anything new. Can we sort out our approach now?”

We did, deciding who would take which talking points. By the time he’d finished his crumble and I’d taken the last bite of my scone, we had our plan—and I had another worry. Would the committee ask me a pointed question about one of those famous detectives in books that I knew nothing about? Would I at last be flushed out for the fraud I was? I shoved that problem into an empty wardrobe in my mind and slammed the door.

“So, you’re away,” Moffatt said. “It’s probably for the best.”

“I’m away every weekend. On Saturdays, I go up to see my mum in Liverpool. And this Sunday, I’ll spend all day with my boyfriend in London—that’s where he lives.” I hadn’t mentioned that to Wyn, but I knew there would be no problem.

Moffatt drained his cup. “Your mum is in Liverpool? Is that where you’re from?”

“No, Herefordshire. When my mum remarried, she moved to Liverpool with her husband. Then he moved to Scotland. They’re divorced now.”

Toying with his coffee spoon, Moffatt said, “And has your boyfriend not come down here to Bath? You know, considering what you’re going through.”

“He’s quite tied up with his work.”

Moffatt lifted his eyebrows. “Where does he work?”

“He works for himself.”

I heard my own words, and added quickly, “He’s an inventor and at a crucial stage of a new project.”

“What does he . . . invent?”

I launched into a vivid and detailed description of Eat Here, Eat Now. “And so, you see, it’s difficult for him to get away at the moment, what with the delicate nature of . . . He and his business partner are sorting out the intricacies of . . .” I floundered and grabbed for the nearest life buoy. “It’s a fully funded start-up.”

Moffatt listened politely without asking questions.

“But I’ll return Sunday evening, so there’s no problem with the Monday-afternoon meeting.”

“But in the meantime, you and Mrs. Woolgar aren’t staying in your flats, are you?”

I arched an eyebrow, half waiting for another reference to how good I had it, but nothing else followed. Perhaps I’d taken his remark about my accommodations the wrong way and he’d only been admiring his surroundings. I certainly admired them on a daily basis.

“Mrs. Woolgar is staying elsewhere tonight.”

“And you?”

“I stayed at Adele’s last night.”

“And you will tonight as well?” Moffatt asked with an insistent tone.

“No. I’m perfectly safe at Middlebank. We’ve changed the locks and the security code. I refuse to be frightened out of my own home.”

Moffatt leaned in and whispered fiercely, “Yesterday morning you found a man murdered in the library. There’s no point in trying to be brave about it.”

“I don’t need to be brave,” I retorted. “This doesn’t have anything to do with—”

“You should stay with Adele!”

“I want to sleep in my own bed!”

My voice echoed off the walls of the café as silence fell round us. I dropped my eyes to the table, wishing I could slide beneath it and hide.

“Do you think anyone heard that?” I asked quietly.

“Oh, I’d say everyone heard it.”

I cut my eyes up at him and saw the smile he tried to hide. I returned the smile and then giggled. Without warning, the giggles exploded into shrieks of laughter. I clamped a hand over my mouth, but it did no good, and only resulted in a series of snorts. Tears streamed down my face, and when I took a gasping breath, it began all over again.

Moffatt’s grin vanished, replaced by a look of concern. I knew I should stop, but I couldn’t figure out how until he put a firm hand on my arm, forming a bridge back to reality. I began to calm down, and at last, panting, I wiped my eyes and blew my nose on one of the tiny paper café napkins. It disintegrated under the strain.

“I’m all right now,” I assured him and myself. “Really I am. It’s all just . . . you know.”

Moffatt held out a clean paper napkin. “Sorry, I don’t carry a handkerchief. Look, you’re allowed a bit of a breakdown—this is a terrible business. And you can shout at me again if you like, but I still say you should—”

I held up a finger. “Wait—I have a solution. The police are sending a patrol car down the street every hour, and uniforms on foot along Gravel Walk behind. I’ll ring and ask if they would meet me at the door.”

His face lit up. “There now—that’s good thinking. Let them look round indoors before you go in.”

Sergeant Hopgood answered his mobile promptly and commended me for my forethought. I was so proud. It was only after I ended the call and said, “Sorted—officers will meet me at Middlebank within thirty minutes,” that reality struck.

I leapt up from the table. “I’ve got to go! It’ll take me at least that long to walk back.”

Moffatt leapt up, too. “I’ve my car—I’ll drive you.”

We dashed off, almost forgetting our shopping under the table, and then legging it to the car park, where he stopped at a dark red Renault that looked as if it had been through the wars. Our shopping safely stowed in the boot, we were off, pulling up to Middlebank only ten minutes later to find a police car at the curb and two uniforms milling about on the pavement.

“Hello,” I called, “here I am, thank you so much for waiting.”

When I’d unlocked the door and turned off the alarm, the officers took over. “You stay here,” the woman PC said, “and we’ll have a shufti.”

And so I waited in the entry as they took the key to my flat and searched Middlebank from top to bottom for any untoward visitors. Bunter sat in the doorway to my office, his radar ears going berserk, and Moffatt took my sacks of groceries from his car, handed them over, and then waited outside.

It didn’t take the police long. “Right, Ms. Burke,” the PC said as she handed back my key. “No one else here . . . Your friend who lives downstairs is out for the evening?”

My friend—I’m sure Mrs. Woolgar would love to hear that one. “Yes, she’s away. Thanks so much for checking.” They walked out, and as I pushed the door closed, I added my thanks to Moffatt.

“You’ll ring if you need anything,” he said.

“Yes, I will.”

I closed the door, threw the lock, set the alarm, and skipped up the stairs to my flat, where I locked myself in. Kneeling on a chair, I unlatched and pushed open the front window and leaned out to look down at the street. Moffatt stood on the pavement and, when he saw me, gave a nod of satisfaction. It was silly, but I felt a tiny bit like Rapunzel, as if I should let down my ponytail and . . . Get a grip, Hayley.

“Good night, Mr. Moffatt.”

A smile. “Good night, Ms. Burke.”