Robert Goddard - Name To a Face

“Hoping to see her?” Harding repeated incredulously.

“She asked me to give you this.”

Jeanette handed him an envelope. His name was written on it in broad capitals. TIM. He tore it open and stared in stupefaction at the note inside. Sorry. Truly. H. It occurred to him, with hopeless irrelevance, that strictly speaking he could not be sure she had written it. He had never seen her handwriting. But Jeanette was not lying. He felt leadenly certain of that-if of very little else.

“Can I give you a lift somewhere?” came the chirpy enquiry.

He asked to be taken to Heartsease, pointless though he knew returning there was. The house was silent and empty. Shortly after Jeanette had driven away leaving him staring in at the blank basement windows, an Isbister & Sons van pulled up. Four men had arrived to finish the clear-out. They knew nothing about Hayley and suggested he phone their boss, Clive Isbister, which he did-to little purpose.

“Good morning, Mr. Harding. I’m afraid I’ve heard nothing from the police about the ring. I must say, even though it wasn’t part of the auction, I was surprised you didn’t-”

“Forget the ring. I’m looking for Hayley.”

“Miss Winter? I saw her briefly on Tuesday morning. She said she was going away for a while. Can’t say I blame her, after the burglary.”

“Did she say when she was coming back?”

“No. But I don’t suppose she’ll be gone long. At least, that’s the impression I got. Why?”

“Never mind.”

She must have regretted letting him stay the night. She must have decided to end their relationship before it had properly begun. But why, in that case, had she phoned him in London, twice? Why had she encouraged him to believe she was waiting for him in Penzance when, in reality, she had fled to Spain? It made no sense. To change her mind was one thing. To deceive him like this was something else again. And it did not fit with his reading of her character. It did not fit with anything.

He walked aimlessly towards the sea after leaving Heartsease and found his way to the churchyard at the bottom of Chapel Street, where he sat on a bench among the graves and gazed out despairingly into the grey cold, unconsoling ocean.

He had to find her. He had to persuade her that it could not end like this. But how? According to Jeanette, she had been tense and largely silent during the drive to Newquay and had conspicuously failed to say where in Spain she was going. She had been catching a plane to Gatwick. Her destination beyond that was anyone’s guess.

When Harding’s phone rang, he thought for a crazily hopeful moment that it was Hayley calling to say it had all been a terrible misunderstanding. But it was not Hayley. Instead, he heard the smooth, familiar voice of Starburst International’s finance director.

“Tim? This is Tony Whybrow.”

“Tony?”

“Where are you?”

“Penzance.”

“Really? According to the Mount Prospect, you checked out two days ago. Trying this number was a last throw of the dice. Barney said you’d lost your phone. But he might have got confused. He’s not thinking straight at the moment.”

“Isn’t he?”

“Anyway, thank God I’ve got you. You have to come back, Tim. Right away.”

“Come back?”

“I guess it’ll take most of the day for you to get up to Heathrow from Penzance. But it can’t be helped. I’ll book you on the eight p.m. flight to Nice and meet you when you arrive.”

“What are you talking about?”

“We need your help to sort this mess out. If it can be sorted.”

“What mess?”

“Sorry. Getting ahead of myself.” He paused. “There was a break-in at the penthouse last night. Carol was alone at the time. An intruder threatened her with a knife.”

“My God.”

“Don’t worry. Carol’s unharmed. Physically, at any rate. Fortunately, she was able to talk the intruder into putting the knife down and leaving peacefully. She’s badly shaken up, though, as you can imagine. And Barney’s spitting blood. He wanted to call the police in immediately. But I recommended we get your input first.”

“My… input? What-”

“The intruder was Hayley Winter, Tim. And you and I have a great deal to talk about.”

It was eleven o’clock local time when Harding’s plane touched down in Nice. He retained little awareness of the journey that had filled most of the day. The train to Reading; the coach to the airport; the long wait in the terminal; the evening flight across France; they had been a blur somewhere at the margin of his thoughts, barely impinging on his consciousness.

Whybrow had declined to elaborate on his stark report of Hayley’s mercifully aborted attack on Carol. “I’ll give you all the details when we meet.” That had left Harding prey to as many dreadful speculations as his imagination could conjure up. Yet none was more dreadful in its way than the frightening realization that he had understood nothing as it truly was. He had been deceived. He had been manipulated. He had been made a fool of. And just how big a one he suspected Whybrow was going to explain with unsparing clarity.

Whybrow was waiting outside the customs hall. He appeared, as ever, cool and elegant, dressed in a dark suit and open-neck shirt. He was carrying a slim briefcase in one hand and a rolled copy of the Financial Times in the other. He had the fluent carriage of an athlete and the disconcertingly direct gaze of a powerful thinker. He kept his thinning hair bristlingly short and his chin baby-smooth. For all his undemonstrative, quietly spoken manner, there was something narcissistic about him, something faintly scornful of others. Whenever he had made up a drinking threesome with Harding and Tozer, he had always finished the soberest of them by some way with the least about himself revealed. Happiness was control in the world of Tony Whybrow.

“Bad business, Tim,” he said, tapping Harding on the elbow with his newspaper in greeting. “You don’t look so good.”

“I don’t feel so good. Think I’ll feel any better when you’ve told me exactly what happened?”

“No point pretending that’s likely.”

“Are we going to Barney’s now?”

“No. It’s late. And he’s been hitting the bottle. Go and see them in the morning. He’ll be more rational then. And Carol will be calmer. I hope.”

“It must have been a terrible experience for her.”

“Yes. It was.” Whybrow glanced in the direction of the exit leading to the car park. “I’ll drive you to your place. We can talk on the way.”

“OK. But-”

“Let’s go, shall we?” Whybrow cut him off, with a hint of impatience. There was much to say. But the time to say it had not quite come yet.

“You’re sure it was Hayley who did this, aren’t you, Tony?” Harding asked as they settled into Whybrow’s Lexus. “I can’t really believe she’s capable of threatening anyone with a knife.”

“How well do you think you know her?” The car started almost inaudibly and glided out of its parking bay with little apparent intervention from its driver. “You can’t have met her more than a couple of times.”

“I haven’t,” said Harding defensively. “Even so…”

“Here’s the deal, Tim. I only learnt the identity of Gabriel Tozer’s housekeeper after Barney had talked you into going to Penzance on his behalf. I wouldn’t have allowed the situation to develop as it has if I’d known sooner. There were simply too many risk factors. As events have resoundingly confirmed.”

“Hold on. Are you saying you knew Hayley… before?”

“Knew of her, yes. I’ll come to that later. Barney and I are in the midst of some particularly delicate negotiations at present. I may have taken my eye off the ball where his family problems are concerned. He certainly did so himself. Hence the impossible position he put you in.”