‘Nice sweater,’ said DCI Gorman absently.
He’d pushed aside the file he was studying when Hazel brought in her envelope. Noting with approval the way it had been opened, he armed himself with gloves, tweezers and evidence bags before taking the photograph out. Now it lay on the desk in front of him while Hazel looked over his shoulder.
‘You don’t often wear pink.’
‘It’s not pink, it’s claret. And most of the time you see me I’m wearing navy-blue with a stupid little bowler hat.’
‘Fair point.’ He looked at the back of the photograph. ‘It’s a DIY job rather than commercial stock. Good DIY, but DIY. No point asking round town if anyone printed it for him.’
‘The joys of the digital revolution,’ sighed Hazel.
‘So when were you in the bookshop in your claret sweater?’
She shrugged an apology. ‘Once or twice a week for the last couple of months? Gabriel and I tried to narrow it down, but we couldn’t. Neither of us could remember what I was wearing when.’
‘You haven’t got a coat on.’
‘I can usually park at the door. So I leave my coat in the car.’
‘And you don’t remember anyone pointing a camera at you?’
‘It probably wasn’t a camera. It was probably a phone. He probably looked as if he was making a call, not taking a picture.’
Gorman looked more closely at the image. He couldn’t tell, but Forensics might be able to. ‘Well, I think you can say you’ve got yourself a fully paid-up stalker. The question now is whether he means you any harm.’
‘Nothing he’s done so far suggests that he does,’ Hazel ventured.
‘No. That, unfortunately, is no guarantee of his future intentions. Have you given any more thought to that holiday?’ He didn’t wait for her to reply: her expression was answer enough. ‘No, I suppose not.’ He considered for a moment. ‘I probably shouldn’t be the one to suggest this, but is your firearms certification up to date? You could ask to draw a personal protection weapon.’
Hazel looked at him as if he was mad. ‘I’m not taking a gun home so I can feel safe in my own house! Not because someone’s left me chocolates and photographed me in a public place in broad daylight!’
‘Fair enough,’ agreed Gorman reluctantly. ‘I just … I don’t have a good feeling about this, Hazel. If he is an admirer, he’s not content to admire from afar. I’m worried he’ll get bored with leaving you presents and try to get up close and personal.’
‘In which case I’ll find out who I’m dealing with and know what to do about it. I don’t think we should over-react, Dave. Yes, it’s a bit unpleasant and I’m feeling a bit twitchy about it, but in terms of what he’s actually done, it’s very small beer. It’s probably some pimply teenager suffering his first hormone rush. Either he’ll get himself a real girlfriend and lose interest in me, or he’ll pluck up the courage to ask for a date. In which case I’ll give him an ear-wigging and send him home to his parents, with the suggestion that they confiscate his camera-phone for a while.’
‘OK. Just … be careful.’
She smiled. ‘I’m always careful, Dave.’
‘That must be why you never get into any kind of trouble,’ growled Gorman.
He reached for an evidence bag to slide the brown envelope inside. As he did so, his cuff caught the edge of the file he’d been reading when she arrived, tipping it over the edge of his desk and spilling its contents on the floor.
Hazel bent to gather them up. As she handed them back, though, she froze.
‘What?’ asked Gorman, trying to see what she was looking at.
‘This man. Who is he?’ Her voice held an odd edginess.
‘Leo Harte. The Birmingham operator Trucker Watts was trying to get in with before he died.’ He frowned. ‘Why?’
‘Because that’s the man who handed me that envelope.’
‘What possible business could someone like Leo Harte have with Maggie Watts?’ Ash had his worried face on again.
‘What possible business could he have with me?’ countered Hazel. ‘And if he was looking for me – and I can’t imagine why he would be – why would he look in Mill Street? At Meadowvale, yes; at my house, possibly. But nothing more than random chance took me to Mill Street. I didn’t know I was going there, so how could he?’
Ash had no answer for that.
‘He might have had business with Maggie,’ said Hazel slowly, ‘if he was lying to Dave Gorman about his meetings with Trucker. If more passed between them than just an approach and a rebuff.’
‘You mean, if Trucker’s approach worked and he was already on Harte’s pay-roll?’ Ash thought about it. ‘In that case, something he was doing for Harte might be what got him killed.’
This time the coffee pot they were sharing was at Highfield Road. Ash had already put his sons to bed, and with very little encouragement would have tucked Hazel up under a quilt on the sofa. The latest development, concerning as it was, was still only just enough to stop her nodding off: she was struggling to stay awake long enough to sleep until morning and rise with her body clock reset.
‘Maybe he was killed by someone Harte had him put the frighteners on.’ Hazel had a certain fondness for pulp fiction.
‘Well, maybe,’ said Ash diplomatically. ‘Although if Leo Harte wanted to put the frighteners on someone’ – he pronounced the phrase carefully, as if he’d never heard it before – ‘why would he send Trucker rather than the highly professional muscle we know he employs?’
‘John Carson,’ nodded Hazel. ‘Maybe it was a test for Trucker, to see if he could do the job as well as he said he could.’
Ash was unconvinced. ‘An entrance exam? But Harte wouldn’t send an untried wannabe up against someone dangerous. He wouldn’t mind Trucker coming away with a cauliflower ear, but he wouldn’t want the inconvenience of him turning up dead. If he had issues with anyone that violent, he would send Carson.’
‘Probably. Then why would Leo Harte visit Maggie Watts?’
‘Two possible reasons,’ mused Ash. ‘Trucker had something which Harte wanted. Or he felt guilty about how Trucker died and wanted to do right by his mother.’
Hazel gave a hoot of mirth that turned into a yawn. ‘This is still Leo Harte we’re talking about, is it? Leo Harte who organises illegal gambling and sends John Carson to collect his debts. Leo Harte who ships goods all over the world, with who-knows-what hidden inside them. I’m not sure guilty is in his emotional lexicon.’
Put that way, it didn’t seem too likely.
Another possibility occurred to her. ‘You don’t think he’d hurt Maggie, do you?’
‘Conceivably. If Trucker had taken something of his and he wanted it back, and now he couldn’t ask Trucker himself where it was? – yes, I imagine he might. But would he go in person, in broad daylight, and be seen near her house? – no. Not to hurt her, and not to threaten her. For either of those purposes he’d send John Carson, and he’d send him after dark.’
‘What’s left? He wanted to express his condolences?’ One canted eyebrow said how likely Hazel thought that was.
‘What did Dave say?’
‘Dave thought I should go away on holiday.’
‘I think you should go away on holiday.’
‘Why? Because I bumped into someone on the street who might, but equally well might not, know something about Trucker Watts’s murder? Even if he does, why would that make Leo Harte a danger to me?’
‘Perhaps it doesn’t,’ conceded Ash. ‘But Leo Harte isn’t the only one you need to worry about. There’s also the man who’s been leaving you presents and taking your photograph.’
Weariness was now overtaking Hazel like a flood tide. She hauled herself to her feet, groped her way into her coat and headed for the door, her car and home. ‘Tomorrow,’ she promised. ‘I’ll worry about that tomorrow. Tomorrow is another day.’
And, being Sunday, it brought no post. But Monday morning did. It brought another stiffened brown envelope, which Hazel opened when she got home from work. This time the photograph showed her parking her smart new car round the corner, which was still as close as she could drive to her front door; and this time she knew when it was taken. Workdays she’d been leaving home and getting back in darkness. The photograph was taken in daylight. And she’d worn that coat as recently as yesterday.
Yesterday. She could cast her mind back to pretty well the exact moment that picture must have been taken. Even knowing that someone had been watching her, had been taking photographs of her, she couldn’t remember seeing anyone in Alfred Street. ‘Oh, you’re good,’ she murmured. ‘And you’re not just a pimply teenager with a crush, are you? Have you done this before? This, or something like it? Or are you just putting a lot of thought into making it work?’