Wriggling his toes experimentally in his sodden Doc Martens, he stepped out into the wet. The wind was coming in hard off the sea and he had to hold his cap on with the hand that wasn’t holding the torch and nudge the car door shut with his knee. Inside the car he saw a brief flare as Wendy Clissold lit up. God, but she was a beautiful woman.
It took him five minutes to check the estate car park and a further eight to run the torch along the line of vehicles outside the Lazy “W,” ensure that neither of the clapped-out hulks outside the Londis mini-mart was a nearly new Vauxhall Astra, and seriously alarm two young men who were smoking skunk in a Ford Capri on the sea front.
He got back to find that Clissold had switched the heater on. The patrol car smelt of hot dust and the peppermint scent of her breath-freshening spray.
“Any good?” she asked, as he bundled his wet kit over into the back seat.
“Course not. Give us one of those smokes.”
As he lit up Wendy Clissold steered the car slowly out of Dersthorpe and back towards Marsh Creake. Halfway between the two, she pulled into a layby and switched off the engine and the lights, leaving only the faint hiss of the police intercom. On the seaward side of the road they could see the silent leap of the spray.
They sat in silence as he finished his cigarette.
“Are you sure your wife doesn’t suspect?” asked Clissold eventually.
“Doreen? No, she’s too busy with her soap operas and her lottery cards. Tell you the truth, I wouldn’t care if she did.”
“What about Noelle?” asked Clissold gently. “You said she’d just started at that new school.”
“She’s going to find out sooner or later, isn’t she?” said Mudie with finality. Opening his window an inch and flipping out his cigarette butt, he reached for Clissold.
A minute or two later she drew her head back from his.
Mudie blinked. “What is it, love?”
“Those holiday cottages on the Strand? There was a light in one of them.”
“Brancaster, Marsh Creake and Dersthorpe, Whitten said. Nothing about the Strand.”
“I still think we should look.”
“When they pay us the extra money, we’ll go the extra mile. Until then, bollocks to ’em.”
She hesitated. Rain beat at the windows. Dead air rasped from the intercom.
“Besides,” he said, his hand squeezing the warm flesh above the waistband of her uniform trousers, “we’re due back in Fakenham at half past. That gives us, what, fifteen minutes?”
She shifted doubtfully but pleasurably in her seat. “You’re a bad man, Sergeant Mudie, and you’re setting me a bad example.”
“What are you going to do about it, PC Clissold?” he murmured, his face in her hair. “Arrest me?”
39
How’s your fish?” asked Bruno Mackay.
“Long on bones and short on taste,” said Liz. “A bit like picking cotton wool out of a hairbrush. This wine, on the other hand, is seriously fabulous.”
“These out-of-the-way places sometimes do have good things in their cellars,” said Mackay. “No one ever orders them so they lie there for years.”
“Just waiting for a discriminating chap like yourself?” said Liz archly.
“Basically, yes,” said Mackay. “Ah, here’s Bethany with the tartare sauce.”
“Who, like the wine, has been quietly maturing downstairs…”
“You know something,” said Mackay. “You’re a very judgemental woman.”
Liz was searching for a reply when her phone sounded. It was Goss.
“Just calling to say that we might have a name for our shooter. Mitchell’s been looking at photographs all day, and he’s made a provisional identification. Would you like me to e-mail you the data?”
“Definitely.”
“What’s your address?”
“Hang on a sec.”
She handed the phone to Mackay. “Tell Steve Goss your e-mail address. We’ve got an ident on the shooter.”
He nodded, and she placed her knife and fork in the six o’clock position to indicate that she was giving up on the fish.
It was ten minutes before the pictures came through. They were sitting in Victory, Mackay’s room. He had saved the wine and their glasses, but the pervasive smell of cheap air freshener put Liz off drinking any more.
“Makes the gorge rise,” Mackay agreed, as the attachment downloaded. “It’s a pity Ray Gunter couldn’t have been offed on the beach in Aldeburgh-there are some wonderful hotels and restaurants there.”
She nodded at the computer on the dressing table. “You know who this is going to be, don’t you?”
He frowned. “No, do you?”
“I’ve got a pretty good idea,” she said, as a dust-coloured portrait of a man in a mujahidin cap materialised on the screen.
“Faraj Mansoor,” he read. “So who the hell’s Faraj Mansoor?”
“Former garage worker from Peshawar. Known contact of Dawood al Safa and holder of a forged UK driving licence made in Bremerhaven.”
He stared at the image on the screen. “How do you know? What haven’t you been telling me?”
“What hasn’t Geoffrey Fane been telling you? He’s the one who picked up on this guy after German liaison flashed us about the driving licence. Are you really telling me you don’t know anything about this man? You’re Mr. Pakistan, after all.”
“That’s exactly what I’m telling you. Who is he?”
She told him the little she knew.
“So ultimately all we’ve got is a name and a face,” said Mackay. “Nothing else. No known contacts, no-”
“Nothing else that I know about, no.”
“Damn!” He sank down to the bed, which was covered with a faded green candlewick bedspread. “Damn!”
“At least we know what he looks like,” said Liz, looking at the slight, sharp-featured figure. “Quite handsome, I’d say. I wonder what’s going on between him and the girl?”
“I wonder,” said Mackay drily. “The police are getting posters out, I assume.”
“I guess so. It’s a start.”
He nodded. “There can’t be too many people looking like that in East Anglia.”
“I’m not so sure. He’s very pale-skinned. Shave him, give him a fashionable haircut, dress him in jeans and a down-filled jacket, and he could walk unnoticed down any high street in Britain. My instinct is still to cherchez la femme. If we can identify her, and put her life under the microscope, I reckon we can find the pair of them. Did you get any inspiration-anything at all-from that Eurostar passenger list?”
“Only a confirmation of life’s unfairness.”
“What on earth do you mean?”
“Can you imagine the start in life it would give you to have a name like Adrienne Fantoni-Brizeart or Jean D’Alvéydre?” asked Mackay. “Every introduction would be a declaration of love.”
“Were those two names on the list?” asked Liz. Something, some urgent thread of an idea…
“As far as I can remember, yes?”
“Just say it again,” said Liz flatly. “Say those names again.”
“Well, there was a woman called Adrienne Fantoni-Brizeart, I think, and a man called Jean D’Alvéydre, or something very like it. Why?”
“I don’t know. Something…” She squeezed her eyes shut. Damn. “No. Lost it.”
“I know that feeling,” Bruno said sympathetically. “Best to file and forget. The memory’ll throw it up when it’s ready.”
She nodded. “I know you went to Lakenheath today; did you go to either of the others, Mildenhall or Marwell?”
“No. I’d hoped to take in Mildenhall but the station commander was away. I’m due there tomorrow morning. Want to come?”
“No, I think I’ll stay here. Sooner or later someone’s going to spot that hire car. Whitten’s had people looking for it all over the-”