Adrian Magson - No Kiss For The Devil

‘I was hoping you’d know the answer to that.’

‘We didn’t get to that level.’ He was aware that his voice was probably tinged with regret. ‘She didn’t talk about herself much,’ he explained. ‘But then, neither did I.’ He held her gaze. If Riley had any thoughts about men’s lack of curiosity about the women in their lives, she wasn’t saying anything. ‘It seemed to suit us both. You’ve done good work. Thanks.’

Riley stood up and dug out the sheet of paper Emerald had given her. ‘Here’s the address. We could take a look tomorrow, if you like.’

He scanned the details. Helen had definitely never mentioned a connection with Hampshire — certainly nobody close enough to have sent money to. ‘Why wait?’ He glanced at his watch, suddenly taken by the idea of doing something positive. ‘Like now.’

‘I can’t.’ Riley waved an apologetic hand. ‘I’ve got a meeting this afternoon to pitch for a job. I have to get my glad rags on and act civilised. You know how it is.’

Palmer knew. Like Riley’s assignments, most of his jobs came along by word of mouth or through Donald Brask. But every now and then, he had to do his own legwork to help things along. The brutal reality was, if freelances didn’t pitch, they didn’t eat.

‘Do you mind if I do it?’

‘Of course not. Just don’t frighten her, that’s all. She could be a frail old biddy with a weak ticker.’

He nodded. It was also highly likely that the woman in Hampshire might not know about Helen’s death. Springing the news on her could be disastrous. It was a lesson he’d learned first-hand in the RMP, when delivering bad news to someone in married quarters, after an accident in training or at a local pub.

He tucked the paper in his breast pocket. He had a sudden thought. ‘Back at the site, did you notice signs of another car?’

‘No. It was too dark. And Pell didn’t say anything. Why?’

‘Because it would have taken two people to get Helen there: one to drive her car, the other to help dump the body, then drive them away. A single man dumping the car and moving away on foot would have been noticed.’ He was trying to picture the scene as Riley had described it. The car had been dumped at a remote spot, but less than two hundred yards from the road. Other than forcing it into the undergrowth, there had been no elaborate attempt to hide anything. Why?

‘Why leave her outside the car?’ Riley wondered aloud.

Palmer shrugged. ‘Maybe they didn’t care. Or they were interrupted while moving the body and didn’t have time to conceal it. I think they took her there in a second, larger vehicle.’

‘Why larger?’

Palmer knew all about VW Golfs; he had spent enough time in Riley’s to know them inside and out. ‘Because a Golf is hardly the best car to drive around with a body on the back seat. Too easy to see inside. They’d have used something bigger.’

‘So all we have to do is find the other vehicle.’ Riley looked sceptical. It would be like looking for a grain of sand — and where did they even begin?

‘We’ll find something.’ Palmer twisted the whisky glass in his fingers. Somehow it had emptied without him realising it. He put it down on the coffee table and stood up.

‘How?’

His face was suddenly dark and stony, as if the complexity of the problem had just hit home. ‘I don’t know, yet. But give me time and I will.’

Long Cottage stood at the end of a neat terrace on the edge of Cotton Hill, a hamlet barely six miles from Basingstoke. Other than a tiny pub, a whitewashed village hall and a scattering of other houses set behind hedges and trees, there couldn’t have been more than a dozen buildings in sight, as if progress had passed them by, leaving a remnant of a time long gone.

Palmer parked his Saab and climbed out. The air was cool after the inside of the car, and he eyed the darkening sky with suspicion. The journey down the M3 from London had been a stop-start series of road works, and it was a relief to be out in the open.

He eyed the cottage. It had a small, crumbling brick wall surrounding a neat front garden of herb borders and shrubs. An elderly woman in a baggy grey jumper was bent over a large terracotta urn, stabbing energetically with a hand fork at the contents as if giving the coup de grace to some unseen enemy.

Palmer strolled across the road and smiled genially when the woman looked up. ‘Mrs Demelzer?’

She straightened her back with a grunt and dropped the fork into the urn as if relieved to be done with it. She had silver hair swept back into a tidy bun, round cheeks and a pleasant face, and laughter lines around keen eyes. Palmer was never good with women’s ages, but he guessed she was somewhere in her seventies.

‘You don’t know anything about slugs, do you?’ the woman said chattily. ‘All my years gardening, and the buggers still keep coming. I’ve tried pellets and stuff, but none of them work.’

‘Have you tried copper?’ Palmer said easily, recalling a fragment of a gardening programme, courtesy of a lengthy surveillance job in his car. ‘I’ve heard that works.’

She gave him a pitying look. ‘Is that right? Well, someone had better tell the local slugs, because they haven’t caught on yet.’ She brushed her hands together and used her wrist to push a stray hank of hair off her forehead. ‘So, what can I do for you, young man?’

‘I’m a friend of Helen’s. She talked about you, and I said I’d drop by if ever I was passing.’ He told her his name and wondered if the approach was as lame as it sounded. But short of telling her the shocking truth, which he had no right to do, he hadn’t been able to come up with a better reason for being there.

The woman tilted her head to one side and smiled, eyes assessing and accepting him all in one look. ‘Helen? Oh, that’s nice. What’s she been up to, then?’ She didn’t wait for an answer, but turned towards the front door of the cottage. ‘You’d better come in,’ she said. ‘Do you fancy a cup of tea?’

‘Helen’s a sweet girl. Her mum was my best friend — ever since school days. She died ten years ago, but Helen always kept in touch, bless her.’

They were seated in the warmth of the cottage’s tiny front room, with a tray of tea and biscuits on a footstool between them. The room was like an antique shop, with ornaments of every kind packed on to every bit of shelving and flat surface, even overflowing on to the floor. It was clear that Mrs Demelzer had never thrown away a single souvenir she’d been given or collected, no matter how kitsch. Figurines, pots, plates and statuettes, most of them bearing a place name in gaudy script, all jostled each other in a mad fight for space. And Palmer had never seen so many heavy crystal ashtrays in one place before. Maybe the old lady was a heavy smoker.

Mrs Demelzer stared into her cup as if reading something meaningful in the depths and gave a vague half-smile. ‘I’m not sure why she bothers, to be honest. We’re hardly related, and it’s only because of my friendship with Margaret, her mother, that we ever met. But we sort of rub along, which is nice.’ Her smile broadened. ‘She keeps me in touch with the modern world, I suppose.’

‘Did you see her often?’ Palmer could have bitten his tongue at his use of the past tense, but she hadn’t appeared to notice.

‘Not really. She comes down three or four times a year, just for a short visit. I keep a room ready for her, just in case. The last time was a fortnight ago. I think she needs some quiet time down here every now and then when life in London gets too much for her.’ She shrugged. ‘It’s always lovely to see her, though, to hear about what she’s doing. She’s forever on the go, looking for the next story. But that’s the thing with young people, isn’t it? You have to keep on top of things, otherwise they find someone else to take your place.’