I was trying to work out an approach that would be more fruitful when everything changed. The noise in my ears suddenly stopped altogether. For a few heart-stopping seconds I thought she'd discovered the bug. Then I heard a dialling tone and the click of numbers being keyed in. Maybe I'd be able to identify the number when I had the chance to analyse the tape at more length. The phone at the other end rang three times before it was picked up. An answering machine clicked and a man's voice said, 'I'm sorry, I'm not taking calls right now. Leave your message after the bleep, and we'll talk soon.' The voice was cool, with a suggestive edge that made me smile rather than squirm.
After the tone, the woman said, 'Hi, it's me. It's just before seven. I'm going round to my mother's, then I'll be at Colin and Sandra's. See you there. Love you. Bye.' There was a click as she put the phone down. I scrambled out of the car and hurried down the street towards the van. The last thing I wanted was for her to become suspicious of the Fiesta.
I had just shut myself into an atmosphere of stale pizza when a square of light from the front door spilt over the drive of my target's house. The light disappeared as she shut the door and opened the garage. I concentrated on the features. The hair might change, the clothes might change, the height might change with the shoes, but the face wasn't going to, especially the profile. I registered small, neat features, sharp chin, face wider across the eyes. Just like Diane Shipley's sketch. A couple of minutes later, a white Metro emerged and drove past me, heading south towards Hazel Grove. I'd gambled when I parked that if she was going to drive off anywhere, she'd be heading north into Manchester. Wrong again. I did as quick a three-point turn as I could manage, which wasn't fast enough. By the time I reached the end of the road, she was gone. There was just enough traffic around to make it impossible to guess which set of distant tail lights were hers.
There was nothing else for it. I'd just have to go home and bring my own unique blend of civilization to some unsuspecting barbarian tribe. Maybe this time I should develop map-making ahead of ceremonial burial…?
When I got home, my answering machine was flashing. I pressed the playback button. 'Kate, Bill here. I've just got back from PharmAce. We need to talk. This is the number where you can reach me this evening after seven.'
He rattled off a Didsbury number, which I failed to recognize. Hardly surprising. Bill changes his girlfriends as often as Rod Stewart in his bachelor days. When I dialled the number, true to form, a woman's voice answered. While I waited for her to fetch Bill, I conjured up the image her voice generated.
'Twenty-five, Home Counties, graduate, blonde, smokes,' I said when Bill answered.
'Well done, Sherlock. You're two years too generous, though,' he said.
'You said we need to talk. Will the phone do, or shall I come over and meet you for a drink?' I asked maliciously.
"The phone will do nicely,' he said. 'First, the good news. Brian Chalmers is delighted, and has sacked the senior technician on the spot, with no reference. And tomorrow I'm meeting someone from Knutsford CID to see if they'd like to pursue the company receiving the stolen goods.'
'Fine,' I said. 'And the bad news?'
'It wasn't a PharmAce van that ran you off the road. They had a call today from the police in Devon. The van that was stolen from PharmAce was written off in some village on Dartmoor on Friday morning after being used in a supermarket robbery down there. So it couldn't have rammed you on Friday night. Kate, whoever had a go at you on Barton Bridge is still out there.'
15
I could get used to being waited on hand and foot at breakfast. What I couldn't handle is the early rising that seems to go hand in hand with business briefings over the bacon butties. The following morning, I was back in the dining room of the Portland at Josh's invitation. 'I've got someone I want you to meet,' he'd said mysteriously on the phone, refusing to be drawn further.
I approached with caution, since I could see Josh's companion was a woman. I hoped he hadn't dragged me out of bed to tell me he was getting married. That was news I couldn't handle on an empty stomach. I saw Josh spot me and say something to his companion, who glanced over her shoulder at me. She didn't look Josh's type. For a start, she looked in her middle thirties, which made her at least ten years too old. The most striking thing about her was her hair, the colour of polished conkers, hanging down her back in a thick plait.
When I reached the table, Josh half-stood and said, 'Kate! I'm glad you could make it. Delia, this is Kate Brannigan, the private investigator I told you about.'
A potential client, then, I thought. I smiled. Josh continued, 'Kate, this is Detective Chief Inspector Delia Prentice. She's just been transferred to the Regional Crime Squad. We were at Cambridge together, and I thought the pair of you ought to meet.'
I tried not to look as gobsmacked as I felt. There aren't a lot of women who make it to the rank of DO, especially not at the sharp end of crime. Delia Prentice smiled and extended her hand. 'Pleased to meet you, Kate,' she said. 'At the risk of making your heart sink, Josh has told me a lot about you.'
'I wish I could say the same about you,' I replied, shaking a dry, firm hand. I sat down with a bit of a bump. I didn't expect to be dragged out of bed at sparrowfart to meet a copper. Especially not a ranking woman officer. I gave her the quick once-over. Deep-set greenish eyes, good skin, the kind of strong bones that look lumpy in teenagers but become more attractive with every year that passes after the age of thirty.
'He tries to keep me under wraps because I know where the bodies are buried,' she said, as she gave me the same scrutiny. 'I could tell you a tale…'
Josh cleared his throat and said hastily, 'Delia's something of an expert in the kind of fraud you seem to be dealing with in your conservatory case,' he said. 'I rather thought she might be of some help to you.'
'I've just done eighteen months with the West Yorkshire Fraud Squad,' Delia said. 'Now I've been transferred to the RCS to be the operational head of a fraud task force.'
'How are you finding it?' I asked.
'It's always a bit of an uphill struggle, learning to work with a new team.' Of course. She wouldn't have climbed that far up the ladder if she hadn't been something of a diplomat.
'Made five times worse because you're a woman?' I asked.
'Something like that.'
'I can imagine. Plenty of that dumb insolence, literal interpretation of orders and no respect till they decide you've earned it.'
Delia's twisted smile said it all. 'What we're doing is working with banks and other financial institutions on the kind of small-scale fraud that doesn't warrant the attentions of the Serious Fraud Office. Usually, it involves forgery or the kind of deception where people assume someone else's identity for the purposes of obtaining goods or cash.'
'At the risk of sounding like the punters I meet at parties, that must be fascinating,' I said.
She smiled. 'It can be very satisfying to put together the pieces of the jigsaw.'
'Yes, you get a better class of villain in your line of work than your colleagues who get lumbered with the ram raiders and the drug dealers,' I said. 'For me, it's a little out of the usual run of things. I'm more accustomed to poking about in computers' memories than fronting people up.'