Robert Goddard - Name To a Face

“A man reading The Cornishman joined the train at St. Erth. He left the classifieds section on the seat when he got off at Penzance. I picked it up. And there was Gabriel’s ad for a live-in housekeeper. Pure chance. Or maybe you’d call it fate. If you believe in fate.”

“I think I might.”

“But have you ever been to Colchester?”

“Not that I recall.”

“Or Durham?”

“Once.”

“When I was a student there in the early nineties?”

“No. Not then.”

“What about the brasserie in the Park Lane Hilton when I was playing the harp? Or when anyone was playing the harp?”

“No.”

“So you see, Tim, if fate has brought us together, it isn’t for a second time.”

“Maybe not. But I can’t-”

He had glanced out through the window they were sitting by as he spoke. Suddenly, his attention was seized by a familiar face among the passers-by on the quay. His gaze was met, coolly and cockily by Darren Spargo.

Harding jumped up and made for the door. The pub was busy a Sunday lunchtime crowd milling at the bar. By the time he had forced his way through and made it outside, Spargo had vanished. Harding looked along the quay and the main shopping street. There was no sign of Spargo. The winding, twining back streets and alleys that led off in all directions offered a wealth of escape routes. Pursuit was not merely futile but impossible.

“Sorry about that,” he said to Hayley as he made a shamefaced return to their table in the Sloop.

“What happened?”

“You wouldn’t believe it.”

“Try me.”

Harding sighed. “I saw someone who I’m more or less certain stole my mobile yesterday. At the Turk’s Head in Penzance.”

“Really?”

“His name’s Darren Spargo.”

“Darren?”

“You know him?”

“Oh my God.” Hayley’s eyes widened. “I’m sorry, Tim. I’m really sorry.”

“Why?”

“Darren’s my problem. But now it looks as if… he might be yours too.”

Hayley had met Darren while shopping at Morrison’s. He had broken off from shelf-filling duties to chat her up and ask her out. She had found him instantly and profoundly resistible and had turned him down. But Darren had not taken no for an answer, then or later. He had become first a nuisance, then a plague on her life, haunting the route she walked into town, materializing in her path when she emerged from a shop and now, it appeared, harassing any man he deemed to be a rival for her affections.

“He must have been at Heartsease yesterday afternoon and seen you come and go from my flat, then followed you to the Turk’s Head.” Via Morrab Gardens, Harding silently calculated. “I can only imagine he stole your phone to see if there were any messages from me on it.”

“He’ll have been disappointed, then.” Or maybe not, Harding reflected grimly. What use might Spargo seek to make of evidence, as he saw it, that Harding was two-timing Hayley?

“Unfortunately, seeing us together today will only make him more suspicious, however little he learnt from your phone.”

“Has he followed you before like this?”

“Not quite like this, no.”

“Have you reported him to the police?”

“No.”

“Maybe I will.”

“You can’t prove he stole your phone.”

“What do you suggest I do, then?”

“The same as me. Ignore him.”

“How long have you been ignoring him?”

“Quite a while.”

“Maybe it’s time to try something different, then.”

“Like what?”

“Do you know where he lives?”

“Yes.” Hayley looked solemnly at him. “But I don’t think I’m going to tell you.”

“Why not?”

“I don’t want to be responsible for anything… extreme.”

“You wouldn’t be responsible.”

“Let me talk to him. Ask him to see reason. Return your phone. Leave me alone. Call a halt to this before it gets out of hand.”

“Seems to me it already is.”

“Let me try.”

Harding sighed. “All right. But if it doesn’t work…”

A ghost of a smile crossed her lips. “Then I’ll tell you where he lives. Meanwhile…” Her smile strengthened. “I have a question for you that may take your mind off Darren. Did you speak to anyone while you were at the Turk’s Head-such as Ray Trathen?”

It was Clive Isbister who had alerted Hayley to Harding’s interest in Ray Trathen. She had spoken to him at the end of viewing and he had mentioned Harding’s enquiries about where Trathen could be found. There seemed no point in denying it, nor in holding back anything Trathen had told him. Hayley had probably heard it all before anyway. She certainly did not react as if any of it was a revelation. She did warn him not to trust Trathen, however, a point she returned to later in the afternoon.

They had visited the Turner exhibition at the Tate by then and retreated to the gallery café for tea. Harding had found it impossible to focus his mind on art and was surprised to discover Hayley had been similarly distracted.

“I didn’t take much of that in,” she freely admitted.

He grinned ruefully. “Neither did I, to be honest.”

“I’m not sure Ray Trathen isn’t a bigger pain than Darren.”

“You don’t mean that.”

“Conspiracy theories are self-replicating, you know. They’re like a virus. That diving accident’s become Ray’s private little Paris underpass, with Kerry Foxton standing in for Princess Di.”

“Maybe so. But I can’t pretend I wouldn’t like to take a look at Metherell’s video.”

“Ray’s got you hooked. First the video. Then some other titbit. You’d do better to trust your instincts. For example, is Barney Tozer capable of murder?”

“I imagine we all are. In the right circumstances.”

“You really believe that?”

“Yes. I think I do.”

She nodded solemnly. “You’d better ask Metherell to show you the video, then. And see what you make of it.”

The afternoon was turning towards evening by the time they left St. Ives. They had seen no more of Spargo. Hayley’s conclusion was that he had been frightened off by being spotted spying on them. Harding was far from convinced, though he did not say so. It seemed to him that the young man posed more of a threat than Hayley thought. He did not share her confidence that she could, as she put it, “handle Darren.” But he could hardly reveal why he was so doubtful. The theft of Harding’s phone gave Spargo the means to meddle painfully in his life. Whether he would was another question.

Harding sensed Hayley was similarly holding back her reservations about his declared intention of probing the circumstances of Kerry Foxton’s diving accident. She thought he should leave well enough alone. That was clear. But she never actually said so. It was his decision. And she was happy to let him take it.

It was a more complicated decision than she could know, of course. There was more to whet Harding’s curiosity than Barney and Carol’s conspicuous failure ever to have mentioned the incident. There was the need Harding was beginning to sense to arm himself against the unexpected-to learn as much as he could about two people he evidently did not know as well as they had let him suppose. Leaving well enough alone was not an option.

He and Hayley parted outside Penzance railway station. During the train ride back from St. Ives, he had decided to ask her to dine with him at the Mount Prospect the following evening. He was surprised how disappointed he felt when she turned him down. But his disappointment did not last long.

“I can’t tomorrow. But how about Tuesday? You’re not leaving until Wednesday are you?”