Drawing the Line (20 page)

So here we were, the other side of the green baize door, but not in a corridor I recognised. Not that I’d have let on if I had seen something familiar, of course. Here the pictures seemed pretty ordinary; the display cabinets were full of stuff I’d have loved to pick over, just crammed in, willy-nilly. The lighting was so poor I’d have been hard put to identify anything. But I wasn’t here to peer and covet. I was here to see if anything rang any bells – and yes, to use a loo.

‘You know what I’ve always wanted to do?’ I heard myself saying. ‘Those “hidden” doors in posh bedrooms. I’ve always wanted to go through one to find what’s the other side.’

‘Would you get bigger or smaller?’

‘Why should I do either?’

He sighed. ‘Alice, of course.’

‘Alice?’

‘You’ve never read
Alice in Wonderland
? Or
Through
the Looking Glass
? My dear girl, where were you
educated?’ He sounded like an uncanny echo of Griff, talking about tea, the day this whole thing started.

I wasn’t about to tell him about Iris and the rest of my upbringing – in any case, up-dragging would be a better way to describe it. ‘I’ll put it on my list,’ I said.

‘There must be a copy somewhere – I’ll look it out for you before you leave. As for the doors, let’s find a bedroom and you can see for yourself.’

Yes! But instead I asked, ‘Do you have many books?’

‘Hundreds of the buggers. Oh, those with the best bindings are in the library of course. Tooled leather bindings, that sort of thing. Some are fake, of course – just fronts glued together on a shelf that’s really a door. You could have a look at that if you wanted. Step through it. So long as you promise not to get any smaller.’

‘You’ve been in that huge, rambling, isolated place with a strange man, all by yourself, without telling anyone where you were! You must have been off your head, Lina – mustn’t she?’ Marcus was almost squeaking in disbelief.

It was nothing to my squeak when he’d turned up on the doorstep, at exactly the same time as Tony. So much for a sexy evening. They got on so well they could have managed without me, except that I was cooking supper, which they were now waiting for, drinking Beck’s from bottles while I toiled. Griff would have danced round producing, with a twiddle here and a tweak there, a pretty and a tasty meal. I was relying on the recipes he’d dictated to me as he cooked them: spelling had never been my strongest point, and I sometimes I couldn’t tell whether I needed a teaspoon or a tablespoonful of something. And with ginger or chilli I reckoned it mattered.

‘It’s certainly not the safest thing to do. Especially if Bossingham’s a mobile black spot. And without telling anyone – you really were putting yourself at risk. Look, I’ve got some leaflets back at the station about how to take care of yourself – the Suzy Lamplugh Trust –’

‘It’s all right. Lord Elham’s no problem. He’s a noble, for heaven’s sake.’ And, though I certainly wasn’t letting on to Tony, maybe my dad. ‘I told you all about him,’ I hissed at Marcus, who at last seemed to get the message and shut up.

‘
Noblesse
doesn’t always
oblige
, Lina.’

‘But he’s lent me a book –’

‘Just to get you to go back again.’

‘Oh, I’m going back all right. There’s two-thirds of the house to explore yet. He’s asked me back for lunch tomorrow.’ More Pot Noodles. Nostalgia was one thing, but if they’d been lampreys, I’d definitely have been surfeited. Or was that music? My bloody memory!

Either for my benefit or Tony’s, Marcus heaved an obvious sigh of relief. ‘Well, you won’t be able to go, will you? You’ll be otherwise engaged, Lina.’

I sat up very straight. ‘I don’t do lies. Not unless I have to,’ I conceded.

‘This has what Griff would call the virtue of being the truth,’ Marcus crowed. ‘Folkestone, Lina – have you forgotten Folkestone?’

‘You’d have to forgive her – it’s not all that memorable,’ Tony laughed.

‘It is if you’ve got a gig there. The Grand Hotel. Doors open to the public at 9.30, remember. That’s why I came round. To offer to help you set up.’

I didn’t slap my face. But I plonked my hands on it hard enough to remind me of the last time I got cross with myself. ‘No van,’ I said. ‘I’ve put it in what you might call a place of safety.’ I smiled across at Tony.

‘Ah. Hence that nice silver Ka I saw earlier. Where is it now? Triple-locked in the garage? So how will you manage?’

‘Pack carefully. Hell, I might really have messed up. How on earth could I forget a fair?’

Marcus said kindly, ‘Easy enough when you were worried about Griff.’

I stared. ‘How did you know about Griff?’

‘The grapevine. The girl in the village shop, actually,
where I got those.’ He pointed to some tulips, which already looked as if they’d got bad headaches, adding quickly, ‘According to her, you should have pierced them with a pin, just below the flower. And then put a teaspoon of sugar in the water.’

Bother flower arranging. The girl on the checkout. That’d be Shaz, the one who’d made her dad give me a lift to the farm. Had someone found out from her where I was staying? She wasn’t the sort of girl who’d even heard of Griff’s theory that the least you said about anything to anyone at any time the better. If the person asking for me had been clutching a convincing-looking bag, she’d only have got her dad to give him a lift too, wouldn’t she? I’d better talk to her. Now. Londis would be open till ten. I stared at the vegetables lying chopped, all ready for their stir-fry. Could I think of an excuse to nip out? If only I smoked. But there was no way either of these lads would let me walk even that far unaccompanied. I wouldn’t mind an escort, come to think of it, though it wasn’t anything like dark yet. But I just didn’t want them in the shop with me. What would curl them up to see me buy? I nipped up to the bathroom, returning looking as flustered and embarrassed as I could.

‘Trust me, you don’t want to know,’ I insisted as we set out. ‘Just tell yourself you’re going for a nice stroll on a pleasant summer evening. Or it might still be spring. You could even pop into the Rose and Crown and set up a round. We might do better to eat there, come to think of it. I’m no Delia, remember. Not even Jamie’s Jools.’

‘No way. Not after we’ve psyched ourselves up for whatever it is. Come on, Lina, even you can’t ruin a
stir-fry.’

‘What do you mean, “even you”, Tony Baker? Griff insists I’m a woman of parts.’

‘Some of them very nice too,’ he said, but without much enthusiasm. He’d taken the arrival of Marcus with no fuss at all, not at all the reaction, I’d have thought, of a young man with his mind on one particular part, the one he’d been after last night. He’d not shown any more sign of locking horns with Marcus than Marcus had with him. It was fine by me. Last night’s sleeplessness was catching up with me. Passion? I could think of absolutely nothing nicer than an early night tucked up with Tim the teddy.

The first words Shaz spoke were to ask me if my friends had managed to find me. ‘They’d been so worried, they said, you leaving your new shoes in their car. They wanted to know which cottage you lived at, but I sent them off to your caravan. I didn’t say anything about your row with Mr Tripp. Everything all right between you now? And how is he? Fancy me forgetting to ask that! Oh, I am sorry.’

No point in asking how she knew about that. The whole village was probably wringing its collective hands at Griff’s injuries, not to mention sucking its collective teeth at my goings on. ‘Fine. Oh, bad enough for the hospital to keep him in a bit.’ That wasn’t quite a lie. ‘So I’ve got a friend staying over.’ Neither was that.

‘Not that gorgeous looker that popped in for some flowers? Scrummy. Let me know when you’ve finished with him!’

‘Promise.’ For some reason I had to put in, ‘And it was only a bit of a tiff, Griff and me, not a real a row. You
know what families are like.’ I was just about to leave, when I added, ‘I had a couple of lifts that day: I suppose you wouldn’t remember what sort of car it was?’

She was shrewder than I’d thought. ‘They weren’t real friends then? I’m ever so sorry. I wouldn’t have told them. In fact, I offered to look after your shoes for you – save them the trouble. But they really insisted.’

‘Don’t worry, Shaz. You did your best. But the car – any ideas?’

She turned to look down the street. ‘Look – that one there!’

‘Ah. A Ford Focus!’ Surprise, surprise.

‘No. I mean yes. That Ford Focus. The one that’s just parking now.’

‘You’re sure?’

‘Well, it looks like it. Mind you, I suppose they all look the same now. Hang on – there’s a passenger getting out. That bloke –’

I peered, but unless, like Shaz, I pressed my nose against the window, I could see nothing but my own reflection.

‘Were there two men last time?’

‘No. Just the one. Before you ask, he was just ordinary. Dead ordinary.’

I risked shoving my head round the door. In the dusk, all the colours and distances flattened, this man looked dead ordinary too. Suddenly it all seemed a waste of time. All I’d done was confirm what I already knew: that someone had found where I lived by asking Shaz. I was no nearer to knowing who. At least the van and the frontispiece were as safe as I could make them. More importantly, Griff was out of reach, too. I grabbed the
tampons and marched towards the pub. More or less. Pretending to be completely preoccupied stowing the tampons, I drifted along. My eyes were peeled, of course, and my ears straining. But to a vicious driver I was positively inviting a hit and run. I didn’t mind pretending to be bait.

Especially as absolutely nothing happened.

While the men washed up, I nipped into the living room to phone to check that Griff was still all right.

‘My dear Evelina, of course he is. There’s hardly been time since your last phone call for him to have had a relapse.’

‘Can I speak to him, please?’

‘He’s preparing for bed.’

‘I’ve seen him in his dressing-gown before now.’ As I was sure Aidan had.

He gave a brief snort, presumably at my lack of logic, but I heard the clatter of the handset being out down. There was a long silence: Aidan wouldn’t do anything as vulgar as yell.

‘Lina, dear heart, isn’t it your bedtime too?’ Griff grumbled gently.

‘As soon as I’ve got rid of my two male chaperons,’ I said.

‘Two!’

‘Tony Baker and Marcus Copeland. They both thought I needed looking after.’

‘I wonder why. Tony, yes, but young Marcus? How could he have known?’

I was just about to tell him about Shaz when I stopped. Yes, what had brought Marcus to the village in
the first place?

‘It’s a good job he did – I’d have forgotten about Folkestone. The Grand. Tomorrow. Any instructions?’

‘Good quality. Nothing too heavy.’

‘Yes, we’re talking about genteel retired people on good pensions – right?’

‘Absolutely right. Good girl. Now, rid of those swains of yours and hie you to your bedchamber – you have to make an early start tomorrow. Good night, my child.’

‘And you, Griff. Sweet dreams.’

I pushed the kitchen door slightly ajar.

While Tony washed up, Marcus was drying the dishes. What had really brought him to Bredeham? Why had he supplied me with all the information about his cousin’s contacts? Was it really because he was my mate? Or – I stared down a tunnel of doubt that was all too familiar – was he yet another person I’d trusted only to find them betraying me at the first opportunity? Hell, I’d been so naïve! It’d make sense for him to want to get hold of
Natura Rerum
, just as it would any dealer. Find that and he’d be able to cut loose from his cousin and build up his own business.

Did that mean I thought Marcus was capable of stealing it?

Stealing was what people did, wasn’t it? In my old world at least. But in Griff’s you didn’t even steal information. Which world was Marcus in? Somewhere in between?

‘What’s the latest?’ Tony asked, over his shoulder.

‘Fine. He says thank you both of you for looking after me,’ I invented.

‘I’ll look after you tomorrow, too,’ Marcus declared,
dumping the damp tea towel on the table.

I shook it and hung it on the rail. ‘I shall be fine.’

Tony chimed in. ‘It’d make sense. He could go with you to Bossingham Hall and –’

‘I shan’t be going to Bossingham Hall tomorrow, shall I? Not if I’m working. I’ll phone Lord Elham and cancel.’

‘Why not suggest you go later in the day? It’s not very far out of your way if you went via –’

‘I’m not taking a car full of china up his drive, and I certainly wouldn’t risk parking it where I couldn’t keep an eye on it. So it’ll be another day –’

‘– another dollar,’ Tony concluded.

‘OK, what I’ll do is sleep over here tomorrow night. Then I can go with you on Monday.’

‘Marcus, I am seeing Lord Elham on my own. There’s no earthly reason for you to turn up – a total stranger – as my muscle, thanks very much.’

‘But –’

‘Leave it, Tony. Listen, both of you: I’m quite happy to let someone know when I’m going and when I expect to be home. Griff, for instance. Coffee?’

As I made it – instant, since I was pissed off with both of them – I tried to work out how much alcohol Marcus had had. Failing, I asked point blank.

‘About twice the legal limit, I should say,’ Tony replied for him. ‘Better let Lina look after that shiny motor of yours, mate.’

‘Gee, thanks.’

‘So how will you get home?’ I demanded, determined to make one thing clear without having to spell it out. ‘The last train ran ten minutes ago, if I know railways.’

‘Come on, Lina – you’ve plenty of room here.’

I shook my head. ‘Griff’s house, not mine. And you can imagine what the village would make of it: Griff’s away, so Lina’ll play. And it’ll grow. By tomorrow lunchtime it’ll be, Lina was snogging her bloke while Griff was having emergency open heart surgery.’

Tony at least nodded that he understood. ‘Looks like there’s only one thing for it, mate – my sofa. So now we’ve fixed that, how about some of that nice Scotch you always offer me, Lina?’

Another shake of my head. ‘Griff’s whisky, not mine. And since I’ve got to be up at six tomorrow to sort out the Folkestone stock, I’d better be turning in.’ I stood up, the technique my social workers had always used to say the interview was over.

Tony grabbed me as I staggered – well, I would, the way my knees buckled. He looked at me anxiously. I wasn’t going to tell him how scared I used to be.

Come on, Lina. Talk your way out of it. What about the tampon excuse? Yes, that’d do
. ‘I always feel a bit wobbly at this time of the month. All I need is a hot water bottle and a good night’s sleep and I shall be fine.’