The Secret Hangman

6

B ack in Bath he got in his own car and made his regular shopping trip to Sainsbury’s. These days he relied mainly on tinned food, pasta and eggs. He was capable of more adventurous cooking, but it wasn’t high in his priorities. Wasn’t everyone supposed to have oily fish two or three times a week? Well, he consumed his quota of tinned pilchards, several times over. The fact that everyone was also supposed to have fresh salad didn’t impress him. Salad was too fiddly. He had better things to do than washing lettuce and cutting up beetroot.

He also shopped for Raffles, his cat. More tins. When the Whiskas ran out, Raffles was willing to stretch a point and subsist on pilchards. Between them they must have sent a thousand empty tins for recycling. ‘We’re saving the world, you and me, puss.’

This evening he picked the cashier he called Fast Edie and was soon through her queue, pushing his trolley of bags to the exit. Traffic permitting, he’d be home for Channel Four News.

Then the usual challenge: where had he left the car? This was one of Sainsbury’s most elegant sites in Britain, at the converted Green Park station, a Victorian building with bold architectural features that tended to distract when you arrived. He clicked his tongue, thought hard, and headed in the right direction. Loaded the boot, returned the trolley to the bay, got into the car, started up, made sure his way was clear and reversed.

Something was wrong. He felt some resistance, as if he’d left the handbrake on. A glance at the control panel told him he hadn’t. He checked in both mirrors and continued reversing and now there was a definite lumpy feeling to the movement. A flat tyre?

‘That’s all I need.’

Then a man rapped on the window.

He wound it down.

‘Can’t you see what you’re doing, you berk?’ the man said. ‘You’re going over your shopping.’

He got out and had a look at a sorry mess. He’d reversed over two Sainsbury’s carriers. The first must have contained at least a dozen eggs and some milk. Egg yolk was dripping from his tyre into a puddle of milk, egg and what looked like jam or pickled beetroot. The second was still wedged under the wheel. Little, if anything, could be salvaged.

He said to the man, ‘It isn’t my shopping.’

‘It’s nobody’s now,’ the man said. ‘It’s history.’

He said by way of an excuse, ‘You can’t see from inside the car. It wasn’t there when I got in. I would have noticed.’

A few more people came over to look. ‘That’s them expensive free-range eggs,’ one woman said, bending for a closer inspection. ‘Extra-large free-range eggs. I can see the packet.’

‘Semi-skimmed milk,’ another woman said. ‘Scottish shortbread. What a waste.’

‘Who does it belong to?’ Diamond asked loudly enough to be heard by everyone. ‘It’s not my stuff.’ He crouched and tried without success to free the second bag. If he could move the car forward a few inches he might save some of the contents. He stepped back inside.

One of the women said, ‘He’s going to drive off.’

‘Hit and run,’ said someone else. ‘That’s someone’s shopping you’ve squashed. Bastard.’ She started hammering on the back window.

Diamond eased the car forward and got out. All the excitement had attracted quite a gathering, and the mood was not sympathetic. Not to him, anyway. He felt under the car and retrieved the second carrier bag. It dripped strange liquid over his shoe.

‘I can smell garlic,’ the woman who’d called him a bastard said. ‘That’s their best pesto sauce.’

Her righteous tone riled him. He looked in the bag. ‘You’re wrong,’ he said. ‘It’s minestrone soup.’ He wouldn’t have spoken if she hadn’t been so quick to condemn. ‘See?’ He lifted out a squashed carton. This is bizarre, he thought, a senior policeman arguing over a squashed packet of soup.

‘They put garlic in their minestrone,’ the woman said, looking round for support. ‘I told you I could smell garlic. What are you going to do about it?’

‘Someone bought this stuff,’ he said. ‘They should be back.’

‘A nice surprise they’ve got coming,’ she said. ‘You’d better speak to the management. Look at the mess you’ve made. That’s a traffic hazard. You’ll get cars skidding in it.’

On this she was right. The mess had to be mopped up. He asked if anyone would mind waiting there in case the owner of the shopping came back while he was getting help from the shop. His main critic didn’t volunteer, but a man with a child in his arms said he didn’t mind waiting.

Five minutes later Diamond returned with a Sainsbury’s employee with mop and bucket. The crowd had dispersed except for the man and child. Diamond thanked them and scanned the car park to see if anyone was searching for their missing shopping. He didn’t like to leave without offering to pay for the crushed items.

Just as he was thinking about leaving his phone number in the shop, he spotted a woman in the next aisle but one, turning her head as if she’d forgotten where her car was.

He went over. ‘Excuse me, but you’re not by any chance looking for two bags of shopping?’

‘Do you know where they are?’ she said. ‘I feel such an idiot. I put them down, and I can’t find them.’

At least she didn’t look the sort to make a scene. She stared at him with anxious, nervous blue eyes, her blonde tinted hair in disarray where she’d been rubbing her head. She was probably in her mid-forties, a few years younger than he was, dressed simply in a pale blue top and jeans.

He cleared his throat. ‘I, em, I’m afraid your shopping came to grief, ma’am. I ran over it in my car. Didn’t see it when I was reversing.’

She said, ‘Oh.’

‘I’m really sorry.’

But she was going to be reasonable. She shrugged and said, ‘Never mind. It’s obviously an accident. My fault for leaving it in a stupid place.’

‘It’s over there where the man is mopping up. I don’t think there’s anything left,’ he said. ‘Listen, why don’t we fill your trolley again and let me pay?’

‘You can’t do that,’ she said. ‘It wasn’t your fault.’

‘But it was. I should have noticed. A driver is responsible for the damage he does.’

‘It’s all right,’ she said. ‘I’m blaming myself, not you.’

‘That’s generous, but not quite right. I’ll sleep easier tonight if I’ve taken my share of the blame. At least let me help with the bill.’

She smiled. ‘You’re a true gent, but-’

‘It will ease my conscience.’

She gave another shrug and her lips curved again and she started walking towards the shop with Diamond at her side. ‘You’re probably wondering why this happened, why I abandoned my shopping.’

‘I’m curious.’

‘I was on my way to my car and I saw a child, a young girl of eight or nine, with a puppy on a lead. One of those gorgeous little dogs they use in the Andrex commercials.’

‘Golden Labrador.’

‘Right, very appealing. But the collar must have been loose because it pulled away from her and slipped its head free. It was off straight away and the child burst into tears. I saw this and put down my bags and set off in pursuit. A puppy running free in a busy car park isn’t going to last long. I wish I could say I caught it.’

‘You mean this has a sad ending?’

‘No, someone else picked up the pup. At least I was able to say whose it was and return it to the little girl. I met the mother and we tightened the collar a notch and all was well again. Happy ending.’

‘Depends what you mean by happy. In the meantime I’d destroyed your shopping.’

She gave the sort of smile that forgives without a word being spoken.

‘It wasn’t a pretty sight,’ he added.

He collected a trolley and they started shopping. She said she couldn’t remember what she’d bought.

‘Don’t you have a list?’

‘In my head usually,’ she said. ‘All this has played havoc with my concentration.’

He named the free-range eggs and the minestrone and told her about the dispute with the woman who could smell garlic. She laughed and said she hadn’t realised what a rough time he’d had. They walked the aisles trying to refresh her memory. A few items went into the trolley, but not enough to fill two bags. He suspected she was keeping the bill down.

At the checkout he gave his credit card to the cashier.

‘You said help with the bill, not pay it all.’

‘It’s OK.’ He had already keyed in his pin number.

On the way out she said with more seriousness, ‘It isn’t OK. I’m sorry, but I’m uncomfortable with this.’

‘Don’t be. I drove over two of your bags. This is only one.’

‘At least let me buy you a drink.’

‘Now? I’ll be driving home and so will you, I expect.’

‘Later, then.’

He was unprepared. He didn’t know how to respond.

She said, ‘My treat.’

‘Tonight, you mean?’

‘Say about eight thirty. Are you local?’

‘Not far.’ This had thrown him. He’d turned down her offer of a drink more sharply than he intended. She was insistent that she wanted to square things. She couldn’t have been more reasonable about losing her shopping. To walk away now would sour a pleasant encounter. ‘All right. You’re on.’

‘How about meeting here?’

‘The scene of the crime.’