Robert Goddard - Name To a Face

“I should have thought of it sooner.” Hayley’s remark, made about the recorder, seemed to hint at an answer that lay in the Foxton twins’ childhood. They might have shared the recorder, after all. They were twins. As far as Harding knew, there was only one person living who had any close knowledge of their childhood. He phoned her from his room at the Cortiina.

“Hello, Ann.”

“Mr. Harding. You got my message?”

“No.” He had still not turned his mobile back on. “Have you… heard the news?”

“Yes. The police contacted me this morning. I was horrified to hear what had happened.” She did not sound horrified. But, as he was well aware, she seldom allowed her self-control to falter for long. “Nathan had referred them to me as someone with whom Hayley might have been in touch.” Nathan, of course. They would have gone to him first, since Hayley had selected him as her go-between. Harding hoped they had given him a hard time. “But she hasn’t been. I suspect she decided to spare me any involvement in the dreadful course of action she’d embarked upon. Hence she resorted to Nathan to pass her message to Barney Tozer. I’m sorry for what you’ve endured, Mr. Harding. It must have been dreadful.”

“Not as dreadful as it was for Barney.”

“Are you phoning to tell me Hayley’s been arrested?” she asked, conspicuously failing to take the opportunity to express any regrets about Tozer’s death.

“No. I’m not. The German police are still looking for her.”

“Poor Hayley They’ll show no mercy now, will they?”

“Whatever happens, she’s brought it on herself, Ann.”

“I appreciate everyone will think that.”

“Don’t you think it?”

“I’m not sure what to think. Especially in the light of this other… puzzling development.”

“What development?”

“There was a break-in at the Foxtons’ old house over the weekend, Mr. Harding. A very strange kind of break-in.”

Hello?”

“It’s me, Carol.”

“What… what time is it?”

“Early.”

“Has there been… some news?”

“No. Hayley’s still on the run, as far as I know. I just phoned… to say goodbye. I’ll be leaving shortly.”

“Right. OK.”

It was absurd, in so many ways, to be having a telephone conversation with Carol when her room was a two-minute walk away. But it was an absurdity born of the drastic change in their relationship. Two minutes or two hundred miles made no difference. Their separation seemed to know no limit.

“It’ll probably be tomorrow… or Friday… before we can finalize transport… for the coffin. But… I’ll be in touch when we get back. Or Tony will.”

The use of we and the hint that she might communicate with him through Whybrow in future could have been calculated insults, although Harding suspected they were merely all too accurate reflections of the way Carol’s mind was working. Either way, he would have preferred to ignore them. But Unsworth’s revelations about Starburst International meant he could not. They indeed were why he had rung, when he would have preferred an unannounced departure-as perhaps would Carol.

“I’ll say goodbye, then, Tim.”

“One thing, Carol.”

“What?”

“Barney never involved you much in the business, did he?”

“You know he didn’t.”

“You should… tread carefully.”

“What d’you mean?”

“Tony will only tell you what he wants you to know. Which’ll be what he thinks is good for him. Not necessarily what’s good for you.”

“I don’t need warning not to trust Tony Whybrow, Tim. I’ll meet the lawyers. And the accountants. I’ll take a long cool look at everything.”

“Even so…”

“What is this? Are you worried about me?”

“Maybe.”

There was a brief silence. Carol seemed to have been taken aback by the very idea. But she soon recovered herself. “Well, you know what, Tim? I’d say it was a bit late for that. Wouldn’t you?”

He could have done more to alert Carol to the danger she was in. Harding admitted as much to himself during the train ride out to the airport. But he was not sure she would have believed him. Nor was he absolutely sure she was unaware of the dark side of Starburst International. There were too many secrets and grievances between them now for him to risk showing his hand. Though eventually, with Unsworth breathing down his neck, he might have to.

But that threat at least was vague and distant. The lure of an entirely different and more urgent kind of secret was drawing him on. According to Ann Gashry someone had broken into the Foxtons’ old house in Dulwich-now occupied by the Billingsley family-on Saturday night. Or, rather, there had been an intrusion. Nothing had actually been broken. Nor had anything been taken, as far as the Billingsleys could tell. They had not even reported the matter to the police, so vague and puzzling was the evidence that there had been an intruder at all.

But there had been, of course. Harding knew that. There was a strand of logic connecting this with all the other events that had culminated in Hayley’s murder of Barney Tozer. It was there, waiting to be grasped. And he could not abandon the search for it. It was, in so many ways, the only thing left for him to pursue.

He did not collect Polly’s painting of Hayley from the airport left-luggage office before boarding the flight to London. He regretted now that he had removed it from the storage depot in the first place. The memory of doing so was a standing rebuke for his foolishness in believing there could be a place for him in Hayley’s life. It was not so much that she had deceived him as that he had deceived himself. The knowledge angered him. And only by seeking out the truth could he hope that the anger would die.

It was early afternoon when he reached Dulwich. Ann Gashry was expecting him. He had told her he would come straight there from Heathrow. As he headed along Bedmore Road, however, he saw she had another visitor. Nathan Gashry was hurrying out of the house to his car with the flushed and fretful air of a man with plenty on his mind and none of it pleasant.

He had yanked open the driver’s door of the Porsche and was about to climb in when he noticed Harding and froze on the spot.

“Hi,” said Harding as he neared the car.

“What are you doing here?” Nathan demanded, his voice tight with suspicion and hostility.

“I might ask you the same.”

“I was visiting my sister.”

“In the middle of a working day. Spur of the moment, was it?”

“Mind your own business.”

“Could be my business. Considering I was at Nymphenburg when Hayley shot Barney Tozer and you were the source of the message that took us there.”

“I’ve told the police everything I know. I don’t plan to tell you anything.” With that Nathan flung himself into the driver’s seat, slammed the door and started the engine.

“Hold on,” shouted Harding, rounding the bonnet and standing beside the car so that Nathan could not pull away without driving into him. “We’re not done yet.” He tapped with his knuckle on the driver’s window.

Nathan glared at him, then lowered the window.

“I want to know how Hayley seemed when she spoke to you.”

“You do, do you? Well, what I want you to know is this: I’m leaving now. And if you don’t want to get run over, I suggest… you get out of my fucking way.”

Dora let him in, the King Charles spaniel eyeing him mournfully from behind her. Ann was coming down the stairs as he stepped into the hall. She looked as flustered as he could ever imagine her allowing herself to appear. Nathan’s visit had evidently not been an agreeable experience.