The Trawlerman, стр. 60
‘You don’t think I haven’t considered taking a few to tide me over?’
‘You wouldn’t do that, Bill.’
‘Says you.’
‘Not that you don’t deserve it, Bill.’
‘Life’s not fair, Alex.’
She stood and turned to face him. ‘What did you do with the body, Bill?’
‘Secret,’ he said.
‘Last time I arrested you, I remember I cried,’ she said. ‘I couldn’t even get the proper bloody words out.’ She leaned forward and kissed him on the cheek.
‘It’s OK. Somebody has to believe in all this stuff. It might as well be you.’
She sat next to him for a long while, and eventually said, ‘Can you get us a ride home, Bill? I’m done in. I’m too tired to cycle.’
He looked confused. ‘Aren’t you arresting me now?’
She stood. ‘Not today, Bill. Maybe another day.’
‘I don’t get it,’ he said.
‘Nor do I, really, but there’s something important I have to do first.’
She shook her head, then reached her hand out to him to help him stand.
Forty-three
They rode home together in the farmer’s Land Rover pickup, Alex’s bike in the back.
Bill got out at Arum Cottage. ‘I’ve been keeping the bird bath topped up for you,’ she said.
‘Bloody thing. You know you’re going to have to do that when I’m back inside?’
‘Sure.’ He turned and sighed. After the farmer had said her goodbyes, Alex wheeled her bike up the track, leaving him alone. Zoë was at the house when she let herself in.
‘How was Tina?’
‘I like her. She’s nice.’
Alex thought of the way Tina had let down the jacks, one after the other, on top of her husband. Not nice, perhaps, but understandable. Frank Hogben’s mother had been right all along. Tina had been a murderer. Alex had figured out who had killed Mary Younis; now she knew who had killed Frank Hogben. She should be satisfied with the way she had made something of vague shapes in the dark.
‘You look done in, Mum.’
‘Yeah. I am.’
‘What about Bill? Did you find out why he’s hiding from you?’
‘As a matter of fact I did. Did you?’
‘No. He never told me. He just asked me to trust him.’
‘And you’ve been seeing him every day?’
‘Some days. I took him food and stuff. Is he back?’
Zoë’s grin was pure and uncomplicated. And she was running out of the door to welcome him back before her mother could say anything else.
At eleven Zoë was not back. She would be staying over at Bill’s, which was good.
The curtains in Terry Neill’s bedroom were open, but there was no moon tonight, and the tides were getting higher. The new moon was bringing a seven-metre tide with it. A low pressure system was moving down the North Sea. The summer weather was about to end and the pumps out on the marsh would be working hard again soon.
She could hear the waves from up here; the small thump as the water fell, the regular, gentle hiss as it retreated. At around one she heard a car pull up outside, then the key in the door, and finally the feet on the stairs.
When the light came on, it was absurdly bright. She was blinking when Terry exclaimed, ‘What the hell—?’
‘I let myself in,’ she said.
‘Obviously.’ He stood at the top of the stairs at the end of the house that faced the road.
She sat at the opposite end, on the window seat. ‘I couldn’t sleep.’
‘What a lovely surprise, to find a gorgeous woman waiting for me in my bedroom.’
‘Creep.’
‘It’s the truth, Alex. Can I ask how you managed to get in?’
‘I’m a police officer – allegedly, at least. I saw where you leave your spare. Your alarm code is 1974, which I saw you enter last time you brought me back here and which is also confirmed as your date of birth as displayed in your passport.’ She held it up.
The smile left his face. ‘Ah.’
‘I had already guessed why you were hiding it from me on the boat trip. I just wanted to be sure.’
He walked a few more paces into the room. ‘Drink? Wine?’
‘I’m fine.’
‘Something stronger?’
‘No thanks.’
‘Coffee maybe? You look tired.’
‘Yes, I am. I’m very tired indeed. More tired than you would ever bloody believe.’ She flicked through the passport. She had found it in a drawer of his desk downstairs. ‘Five trips to Guatemala in the last three years.’
He approached her. ‘Are police officers allowed to go rummaging through people’s drawers? I could make a complaint.’
‘You invited me into your house, Terry. I was just acting like a suspicious lover. You could try complaining but it wouldn’t stand up. You’re a cold one, aren’t you?’
He shrugged. ‘You’ve got me wrong.’
‘I believe I did get you wrong, yes. You called Ayman Younis your best friend.’
He pouted slightly. ‘And he was.’
‘But you didn’t mind defrauding him of over four hundred thousand pounds for a forestry project in Guatemala that doesn’t even exist. It was the money he had saved for his son.’
He kept a straight face. ‘What makes you think it was me?’
‘Of course it was you. How else do you live like this?’ She waved her arm around the house. ‘Don’t tell me that this is all your pension. I looked into that, too. You were asked to leave your university under a cloud after several warnings about your drug use. I doubt your pension was stellar.’
‘Maybe I had a big inheritance.’
‘Maybe you did. Or maybe you are the con man.’
He frowned. ‘Even if it was true, which it isn’t, you wouldn’t be able to prove anything. Hypothetically speaking, obviously.’
Alex sat there for a while looking at him. ‘Are you sure about that?’
For just a second he looked nervous, his head jerking back a fraction, and she knew right then absolutely that she had been right.
‘Fairly confident,’ he said eventually. He was right about that too, unfortunately. She had spoken to an old friend at the Met who specialised in this kind of crime. That was how these scams worked. There would be no trail at all that led back to Terry