Elizabeth George - This Body of Death

He said, “It’s the money. He wants the money. Not you. You see that, don’t you?”

She said, “No. That’s not the truth.”

He said, “And I expect you’ve had your doubts all along.”

“He loves me.”

“If that’s how you see it.”

“You’re a rotten person.”

“I suppose I am.”

He’d said that he would cooperate with her plan to return to the holding and stake her claim. He would be gone, but it would take time to effect the sort of disappearance that was required. She asked how long and he said he wasn’t sure. He would have to speak to certain people and then he would let her know. She could, naturally, ring up the media in the meantime and make some additional cash that way. He said this last bitterly before he’d walked off. What a mess he’d made of everything, he thought.

And now Gina. Or whoever the hell she was. He told himself that if he hadn’t decided to replace the bloody fence of the bloody paddock, none of this would have happened. But the truth of the matter was that the first event that had brought him ultimately to this moment had occurred in a crowded McDonald’s when let’s jus’ take him had led to let’s make him cry had led to shut him up! how do we shut him up?

When Zachary Whiting showed up at the Royal Oak pub a few hours after his arrival at the work site, Gordon was up on the roof’s ridge. He saw the familiar vehicle pull into the car park, but he felt neither nervous nor afraid. He’d prepared himself for Whiting’s eventual appearance. Since they’d been interrupted during their last encounter, Gordon knew the chief superintendent was probably unwilling to let that moment between them go uncompleted.

The cop signaled him down from the roof. Cliff was handing a bundle of straw up to him, so Gordon told him to take a break. The day was as hot as every day that had preceded it, so he said, “Have a cider,” and he said the cider would be on him. “Enjoy,” he told him. “I’ll be along directly.”

Cliff was happy to comply although he muttered, “Anything wrong, mate?” as Whiting approached. He likely didn’t know who Whiting was, but he could sense the man’s menace. Whiting wore it like skin.

“Not a bit,” was Gordon’s reply. “Take your time in there,” he added, with a nod to the doorway. And he repeated, “I’ll be along.”

With Cliff out of the way, he waited for Whiting. The chief superintendent stopped in front of him. He did his usual, getting in too close, but Gordon didn’t pull away from the man.

“You’re out of here,” Whiting said.

“What?”

“You heard. You’re being moved. Home Office orders. You’ve an hour. Let’s go. Leave the pickup. You won’t be needing it.”

“My dog’s in-”

“Fuck the dog. The dog stays. The pickup stays. This-” with a jerk of his head towards the pub, by which Gordon reckoned he meant the thatching, the job he was doing, his source of employment. “This’s done for. Get in the car.”

“Where are they sending me?”

“No bloody idea and even less interest. Get in the fucking car. We don’t want a scene. You don’t want a scene.”

Gordon wasn’t about to cooperate without more information. He wasn’t about to get into that car unprepared. There were any number of isolated lanes between this spot and his holding near Sway, and the unfinished business between him and this man suggested that he wouldn’t be driven home directly, no matter what Whiting was claiming. He had no way to be sure the cop was even telling the truth, although Jemima’s death and the presence of New Scotland Yard in Hampshire suggested that it was likely.

Still, he said, “I’m not leaving that dog here. I go, she goes.”

Whiting took off the clip-on sunglasses and polished them on the front of his shirt. It was clinging to him where he was sweating. Heat of day or anticipation. Gordon reckoned it could be either. Whiting said, “Do you think you can negotiate with me?”

“I’m not negotiating. I’m stating a fact.”

“Are you now, laddie.”

“I expect your brief is to take me somewhere and hand me over. I expect you’ve got a time line involved. I expect you’ve been told not to cock it up, not to cause a scene, not to make it look like anything other than two blokes having a chat right here, with me climbing into your car at the end of it. Anything else and it’s likely to attract notice, eh? Like the notice of those people in the beer garden over there. You and I have a dustup and someone’s going to ring the cops, and if it’s a proper dustup-a head-banging sort of dustup-then it gets even more attention and someone wonders how you managed to make such a mess out of something so simple as-”

“Fetch the sodding dog,” Whiting said. “I want you out of Hampshire. You pollute the air.”

Gordon smiled thinly. The truth of the matter was that sweat was dripping down his sides and pouring like a waterfall along his spine. His words were hard but there was nothing behind them except the only means he had to protect himself. He went to the pickup.

Tess was within, thank God, dozing across the length of the seat. Her lead was looped through the steering wheel, and he took it up swiftly and dropped it on the floor where it was safe to fumble round. Tess awakened, blinked, and yawned widely, exhaling a cloud of dog breath. She began to rise. He told her to stay and climbed inside. With one hand he attached the lead to her collar while with the other, he made himself ready. He had a wind-breaker, so he donned it. He flipped down the sun visors. He opened and closed the glove box. He heard Whiting approaching across the gravel car park, and he said, “I expect you don’t want me to go into the pub. Cliff’ll need a note,” and he was thankful he had the presence of mind to say that much.

Whiting said, “Hurry it up then,” and returned to his car. He didn’t get inside but rather lit a cigarette and watched and waited.

His note was brief, This is yours till I need it, mate. Cliff didn’t need to know anything else. If Gordon had a chance later to get the vehicle back, he’d do so. If not, at least it wouldn’t fall into Whiting’s hands.

He’d left the keys in the ignition, which was his habit. He removed the cottage key from the ring, told Tess to come, and climbed out of the truck. The whole procedure had taken less than two minutes. Less than two minutes to alter the course of his life once again.

“I’m ready,” he said to Whiting as he and the dog-wagging her tail as always, as if the wanker in front of them was just another someone who might pat her damn head-approached the man.

“Oh, I expect you are,” was Whiting’s reply.

LATER BARBARA HAVERS WOULD THINK WITH SOME ASTONISHMENT that everything ultimately had come down to the fact that Lyndhurst had a one-way traffic system in the heart of the village. It formed a nearly perfect triangle, and the direction from which she was traveling forced her to follow the triangle’s northern side. This put her into the high street where, midway down the street and just beyond the half-timbered front of the Crown Hotel, she was meant to turn into the Romsey Road, which would take her to the police station. Because of the traffic light at the Romsey Road junction, a tailback formed during most hours of the day. This was the case when Barbara followed the curve round the expanse of lawn and thatched cottages comprising Swan Green and set her course into and through the village.

She found herself caught behind a lorry belching a hideous amount of exhaust fumes through her open windows. She reckoned she might as well have a smoke as she waited for the light to change. No point in avoiding an opportunity to add to the pollution that was blackening her lungs, she thought.