Skin

41

Flea parked in the shaded trees, just out of sight of the road, and walked up the path to Ruth Lindermilk’s bungalow. The heat of the day was just leaving the air. The hamlet was quiet, the only sound a dog barking furiously inside one of the cottages. Flea didn’t go up the path to the door. She opened the gate and went around the side of the building to where the land dropped away sharply towards the road.

Ruth was about ten feet away, her back turned. Hatless, dressed in a short white skirt and a denim jacket, she was busy dropping birdseed into one of the feeders.

‘Hello.’

Ruth looked round, saw Flea, put the seed on the ground and began walking towards the house.

‘Ruth – please.’

‘Eff off. I’m going to get my gun.’

‘You haven’t got a gun. The police took it.’

‘Got another one. Going to get it.’

‘Christ, Ruth, this isn’t The Beverly shagging Hillbillies.’

She stopped in her tracks and turned slowly to Flea. Without the cap she seemed older. Her badly dyed hair was cut short and greying at the back. Her makeup was caked in the corners of her eyes. She was sweating, breathing hard. ‘You’ve got some fuckin’ neck, showing your face round here.’

‘I’m sorry about last time, but the neighbours didn’t send me. You should at least believe that.’

Ruth shook her head. ‘Then who are you? With your combats and your hat. Hasn’t no one never told you those are boys’ clothes? You look a right wanker.’

‘I’m a private investigator.’

‘A private…? How comes you told me you were from the Highways Agency?’

‘It was the first thing that came to mind.’

‘I should’ve known you weren’t from the council straight away. Council’d never come out to see me. Now, if I was on the social it’d be different – if I was on the soash they’d have been straight round…’ She trailed off. ‘A private investigator? What do you want out of me?’

‘Can we talk? Inside? Don’t want to give your neighbours a show, do we?’

Ruth’s mouth twitched. Her foxy little brain was working on the situation. She glanced at the road – at the other houses in the hamlet. Behind the puffy skin her eyes were grey and hard. Uncompromising. ‘You’ve got five minutes. Then I’m calling the police.’

They went into the living room. It seemed bigger with the french windows wide open, and it smelt of cleaning fluid and burnt toast. Flea pushed some cats away and sat down on the sofa. ‘I’ll be absolutely honest.’

‘It’s not in your nature.’

‘I’ll be absolutely honest. Even though I shouldn’t, I’m telling you the truth. I’m in trouble.’

‘So what? Don’t confuse me with someone who gives a shit.’

‘This case is my last hope. If I don’t get it right I’m basically going to lose my job. That’s why I lied to you. I was desperate.’

‘Desperate?’ Ruth licked her lips. ‘How terrible for you. What? Down to your last million, are you?’

‘It’s a difficult case. My client’s husband’s been having an affair. He came home drunk last week. He’d had an accident. The front grille of their car was dented. He told my client he was parked in Bristol at a work do and that someone had driven into it in the car park.’

‘And?’

‘My client didn’t believe him. She thought he’d been seeing his girlfriend over at Tellisford. If he’d been in Tellisford he’d’ve had to drive along this road to get home. I think whatever happened to his car happened down there on the road. There are skidmarks. When I was looking at them yesterday I saw your telescope from the road. That’s why I came up.’

She held Ruth’s eyes steadily. ‘My client’s accident was last Monday. Some time before midnight. Do you know anything about it?’

‘Course I do. He hit a deer.’

‘How do you know it was a deer?’

‘I could tell from the noise of the collision.’

‘You didn’t see it, then?’

‘I heard it. That was enough. The deer must have limped off because when I went down there later with the camera there was nothing. It probably died in one of the fields, the poor-’ She broke off, eyeing Flea suspiciously. And then she grinned. A gap-toothed beery smile. ‘Oh,’ she said. ‘There you go again – taking me for an idiot.’

Flea looked at her stonily. ‘Are you going to talk to me or not?’

‘Depends.’

‘Depends on what?’

‘On what you can give me in return.’

‘I don’t know what I have to give you in return. What were you thinking?’

‘What do you think I was thinking?’

‘Money, I suppose. But you won’t get far with that. It’s against the ethics to pay for information.’

‘Ethics? Whose ethics?’

‘Mine. My company’s. My client’s.’

‘Oh, I’m sure you could find something. Ten K. That’s all I want. It’s not a lot. Not to someone like you.’

‘You’d be surprised what’s a lot to people like me.’

‘That’s fine.’ Ruth went to the bar and picked up a cracked glass with a drink in it. She raised it to Flea. ‘If it’s interesting enough for you, then it’ll be interesting enough for someone else.’

Flea got to her feet.

‘Where’re you going?’

‘There’s no money. I’m going home.’

Ruth shrugged. She put down the glass and went to the computer table. Pulled a cellophane envelope from the top drawer and slid out a black-and-white print. ‘My evidence.’ She came across the room and held it out. ‘I never got all his registration, only the last three letters. Otherwise I’d have called the police on him.’

Flea looked at the photo, her heart thumping low and hard in her chest. Taken from the patio, it showed the road at night. A double set of tyre tracks ran down the centre and at the head of them, where it had come to rest, a car was parked, the driver’s door open. A man was standing at the back, as if he’d just slammed the boot. He had turned away from the camera, and although he was too far away for Flea to see what he looked like, if you knew Thom you’d know it was him standing there.

The numbers on the plate were illegible because of the lighting, but the letters were clear: GBR. And just peeping out above the numberplate a tiny slip of something dark. Unless you were close to it, you wouldn’t notice it was there. But Flea noticed. And knew it was a section of velvet coat. He’d already put her in the boot and was leaving… So you didn’t see the whole thing. You heard the collision, but you didn’t know it was a person he’d hit. You didn’t see him put Misty in the boot. That’s why you thought it was a deer…

She reached for the photo, but Ruth was quick. She shovelled it back into the cellophane, went to a small bureau in the corner, pushed it inside and turned the key. She looked back at Flea, smiling, something sly crossing her expression. ‘No, no, no,’ she said. ‘It would be too easy, wouldn’t it?’

‘Lend me the photo, Ruth. It would prove my client’s husband was there.’

‘No.’ She dropped the key down the front of her bra. Winked. ‘I don’t think I’ll do that.’

‘I’ll make a copy of it. It’ll take me a few minutes just to run it down to a copy shop. Then my case’ll be over and I can leave you be.’

‘The price has just gone up. Fifteen grand. That’s what it’ll cost you.’

Flea opened her mouth. Closed it. What did the photograph prove? That Thom had stopped. That he’d got out of the car to check what he’d hit. They’d have to work that into his story. They’d position Misty far enough into the field for it to be believable that she’d been thrown through the hedgerow and that when he’d got out to check he hadn’t been able to see her from the road. Then he’d say he’d assumed it was a deer that had limped off. Just the way Ruth had told it.

‘I don’t think so.’ She checked her watch. It was six thirty. She was meeting Mandy and Thom in Keynsham in forty-five minutes. ‘I’m sorry but I really don’t think that’s going to happen.’