The Chinese Takeout Page 25

  ‘Just get your car into the garage. Now. Talk later,’ I yelled. ‘Do it, Andy!’

  I’ve always liked a man who can think under pressure. Andy flipped me his car keys and sped to push the garage doors from inside. They opened sweetly. I almost brushed the second one as I nosed the car inside.

  The garage had been built for a narrower car. I couldn’t open the driver’s door far enough to get out. Either door, actually. I could waste valuable seconds by reversing out and coming in off-centre, or I could relive my childhood, pulling myself out of the driver’s window.

  Unfortunately, though I’d judged the driving to an inch, I hadn’t remembered how difficult this manoeuvre was.

  Stuck. I got well and truly stuck. Even when I slipped the camera off my neck, abandoning it in the car.

  Andy thought on his feet. He was in the garage too, closing the doors from the inside and locking them.

  Merciful darkness shrouded my predicament. Or didn’t.

  ‘There’s a light switch by the back door,’ he managed, between gusts of laughter.

  ‘No. Don’t want anyone from the outside to see. OK, I’m nearly free.’

  ‘Allow me.’

  I could hear him shuffling down my side of the car. A mutter under his breath as he trod on something. At last, he took some of my weight and I could kick one leg free. There was no other way: I sagged sideways into his arms.

  OK. Choices, Josie.

  Either turn – much easier said than done in this limited space – and kiss him. Or, while never aspiring to anything like dignity, simply let him put me down and usher me as a guest into his house.

  OK. No choice.

  As my feet reached terra firma, he asked, very coldly, ‘And now, would you be kind enough to explain what’s going on?’

  I matched cold with cold. ‘As soon as you’ve locked your front door, of course.’

  Which is how we came to be facing each other in the hall, lit only by the streetlight outside. ‘Or maybe a better idea, from your point of view,’ I said, ‘would be for us to make our separate ways to the Queen’s Head, where I’ve got a drink waiting for me. Then I can explain quietly, and then go home without any of your parishioners thinking you’re entertaining a strange woman at the witching hours of the night.’ What had I said? I could feel the tension deepening, even if I couldn’t see his face.

  ‘Very well. Let me just find my shoes.’

  ‘You mean you’ve done all that in bare feet? I thought it was only Hindus who walked on nails.’

  ‘Carpet slippers.’

  We didn’t even mutter an au revoir.

  When I got back the landlord’s hand was ready to add my glass to his washing up collection.

  ‘Sorry. Call of nature,’ I said, retrieving it. ‘Josie Welford, the White Hart. What a nice place this is,’ I added, as we shook hands. ‘I don’t suppose you do food on a Monday?’

  ‘None that you’d eat.’

  ‘Try me.’

  ‘I saw you in the wife’s WeightWatchers’ bumf: someone losing all that weight eating crisps? You’ll be asking me for pork scratchings next.’

  ‘Lead me to them. Good heavens, Mr Braithwaite! Care to join me in a tonic water?’

  ‘Half of bitter, please, Bob. Hello, Josie – what brings you here?’

  ‘I just fancied a quiet drive on a lovely moonlit night.’

  ‘Lot of mist about,’ Bob said, approaching with a glass in one hand and a packet of plain crisps suspended between the very tips of his fingers. He dropped it before me and made little finicking gestures as if to dissociate himself from it.

  ‘Tell me about it. I got totally lost. Then I tried a short cut through the woods back there and found myself on some track they could use for the RAC Rally. Scared myself silly, when I realised I could take out the sump any second. Only a Focus – not designed for that sort of terrain. And then I thought someone was following me. You know, a lone woman driver … I thought I’d be safe here,’ I concluded, worried about all the garbled explanation, and smiling innocently up at my host.

  ‘As houses. Until chucking out time. I make a point of shutting up shop at eleven,’ he said, eyeing the bar clock, which stood at ten-thirty five.

  Andy and I toasted each other and him, Andy’s cuff slipping back to allow me to see one of those plastic charity bracelets. At his age! I made sure no one would see my postie’s version.

  Bob was inclined to hover. ‘Who might have been following you?’ he asked.

  ‘Someone in a white van. Maybe I’d carved him up or something. You know, caused a bit of road rage. Funny registration,’ I lied. I wouldn’t have had a moment to check, even if I’d thought of it. ‘Looks like fowl.’ I flapped my arms and clucked. ‘You know, one of those personalised ones.’

  Bob frowned. ‘Rings a bell, somewhere. Anyway, best leave you good people to it.’

  Neither of us argued.

  ‘It happened exactly like that?’ Andy asked, unamused.

  ‘Almost. But I do know what annoyed white van man. I was taking photos of a scrapyard. I just happened to walk past it yesterday and they set the dogs on me. OK. Dog in the singular. Living daylights time, I can tell you. So I had to take a long diversion to get to church. Hence my dishevelment.’

  As if on automatic pilot, Andy said, ‘Dishevelled. Funny we don’t use the word, “shevelled”. Like “couth” and “uncouth”.’

  ‘Indeed. So tonight I had to have another look, only they must have clocked me. Hence the chase. Then, when I’d parked my car up in the least visible part of the car park, I thought of yours, just sitting there waiting to be torched, or whatever, and the rest you know.’

  ‘Not quite. Why did you come to Langworthy in the first place?’

  ‘Not to harass you. I told the simple truth. I was afraid the driver knew a different way out of the forest and might be lying in wait for me on the main road. Fifty per cent chance either way, of course. But not if I came straight across the crossroads.’

  He nodded, as if weighing it as an excuse and not yet faulting it.

  I said nothing. It was his turn, after all.

  ‘Why should they confuse your Saab with my Focus?’

  ‘My car is still lying low. I swapped the Fiesta for a Focus – the colour’s a coincidence.’ Slow down, Josie: too much data.

  ‘I see.’

  ‘I’ll ask Bob to get me a taxi home. Safest.’

  He nodded.

  I suited the deed to the word.

  Bob stared. ‘Won’t Mr Braithwaite be running you back?’

  ‘Not if there’s someone on the look-out for a Focus. Silver, you see. That’s what he drives, remember.’

  ‘Hm,’ he said, as if he thought the less of Andy, as I was tempted to do, and stomped off, presumably to phone for a taxi.

  I returned to the table. Andy was regarding his half as if it were poison.

  If he wouldn’t talk, neither would I.

  Within three minutes, Bob came toddling back. ‘Sorry, Josie. Bill’s on a call. Won’t be back till after midnight.’

  And the pub closed at eleven sharp. ‘No problem. I’ll just have to pay extra attention to my rear-view mirror.’

  ‘Keep your mobile on,’ he urged, eyeing Andy again.

  ‘Indeed.’

  He nodded at us both, and went back to the bar, eventually disappearing with what looked like a full bin of bottles.

  ‘Mr Corbishley came to supper the other night,’ I said brightly, as I finished the last crisp. ‘One of a party. They didn’t half mess me about, changing their minds over this, that and the other. Poor Lorna could hardly keep up. At least they tipped her handsomely.’ I drained my drink and stood up.

  Staring at a beer mat, he said something inaudible to my maturing ears.

  ‘I’m sorry?’

  ‘I said, please sit down again. I should have explained. Bishop Jonathan received a letter complaining I was neglecting my parish duties to jaunter round the countryside with you.’<
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  ‘From Corbishley? The bastard!’

  ‘I can’t tell you who from. All I can say is that Bishop Jonathan advised me to consider my position. My business is to serve the Lord, not the local police, he said.’

  ‘Nothing to do with Corinthians? Those chapters before the one you based your sermon on the other day? The ones with a lot of advice about celibacy?’

  Startled rabbit didn’t come into it. His blush gave him away, but he ignored the point. ‘He told me – advised very strongly, which comes to the same thing – to spend what time I wasn’t doing my diocesan or parish work in quiet contemplation. He actually used the word “retreat” but can see I simply don’t have time.’

  ‘Retreat in the military or religious sense?’

  If anything, he looked more shamefaced. ‘Both, I suppose. And he asked me not to contact you again.’

  ‘And you forgot you’d invited me to evensong. OK. Anyway, time for me to be off.’ My smile was possibly compassionate. But my curiosity got the better of me. I pointed to the bracelet. ‘What on earth is that? Ecclesiastical electronic tagging?’

  ‘In a way. It’s fashionable amongst young Christians. Bishop Jonathan told me to wear it.’

  ‘So what do those letters stand for? I know AMGD, but not WWJD.’

  ‘“What would Jesus do?”’

  What indeed? And what would his representative do?

  Not, in the event, what he might have planned to do.

  From the car park came a loud bang, followed by another. Voices were raised.

  The lad now gathering glasses abandoned his haul and legged it after his boss, dodging back almost immediately. ‘Would the lady with the silver Focus come round the back, please?’

  I grabbed my coat – I’d seen enough stolen in bars from people responding to such calls – and did as I was bidden.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  There was a lot of broken glass and plastic around, including what looked like a red and orange tail-light cluster, but not much sign of anything else wrong. Something, however, had made Bob fume.

  ‘Bloody louts. Come here taking out my CCTV camera! And why should they do that, Mrs Welford? Unless they wanted to have a go at a car? And which car might that be?’ He pointed. Mine stood in solitary splendour, nursing, now I came to look more closely, a shattered windscreen. Bang had gone the fifty pounds excess.

  I fumed. Not just the money: the inconvenience. The car hire people used their own repair team or the agreement was invalidated. Would they willingly come out to the back of beyond at this time of night?

  Quite.

  Over to Bob’s taxi friend, or, indeed, to Andy. WWJD?

  Bob agreed to lock his car park with the poor invalid in it, opening it when the windscreen team appeared. He was inclined to think that was enough, the loud bangs I’d heard having been bottles shattering on the retreating van and, he said, arms akimbo, ‘inflicting damage’. He nodded the point home with some satisfaction, grinding some of the coloured shards under his heel.

  ‘I suppose the camera didn’t pick up anything useful?’ Andy asked, materialising beside me like the Cheshire Cat minus its grin.

  ‘We can but look. But they were canny. One got busy with black spray paint while the other did for your motor, Josie. Tell you what,’ he said, checking his watch and not bothering to smother an enormous yawn, ‘tomorrow is another day. You look done in, if you don’t mind me saying so, Josie. How about you run the lady home, Vicar? Those lads won’t be after anyone in a hurry.’ What a load of interfering busybodies we publicans were.

  ‘I could wait at the vicarage for the taxi?’ I temporised.

  ‘Yes.’ Andy set us in motion.

  ‘You want me to give Bill another shout then?’ Bob sounded shocked.

  ‘If you wouldn’t mind,’ I smiled. ‘We’ll just hang on to see if he can make it. Finish our drinks.’

  Following him quietly, we practically walked into him, stock still in the doorway to the bar. After a moment’s silence, he let rip a stream of expletives that would have lost him a week’s wages at the White Hart. Or maybe not, given the justification.

  All the squabs had been pulled from the bench seats and every easy chair. Nothing else. Just cushions everywhere.

  ‘One man for the camera, one for the car and one to search the bar,’ I said. ‘Is it time to call the police? In which case we should leave this as it is, I’m afraid.’

  ‘Bugger that for a game of soldiers. You talk to the police if you want, but not in my bar, thank you very much. And now, if you don’t mind, I’d prefer your room to your company.’

  ‘And who could blame you?’ I smiled ruefully. ‘I’m sorry I’ve brought this on you.’

  ‘Ah,’ he said, sucking his teeth with a fervour that made me fear for their future. ‘And if they can do this to mine, just think what they can do to your place, if they find out who you are. Best get her back there straightaway, Vicar, if you don’t mind me saying so.’

  To my surprise, Andy grinned. ‘I give enough advice to other people not to mind a bit coming my way. See you, Bob. Josie, your chariot awaits.’

  I hung back in the doorway. ‘Bob, they’ll know I’m lurking somewhere: do lock up securely behind me, won’t you?’

  ‘And that,’ I continued to Andy as we scurried up the vicarage drive, ‘is what worries me now. They won’t have gone far. Not unless Bob did real damage to their van, so much they’ll want to limp it home. I do rather wonder whether calling the police might not be the best move, best friends though we’re not.’

  He shot a look at me. ‘I understand you were very good friends, with one of them at least.’

  ‘At least? At least! Do you “understand” I shagged my way through the entire Somerset Constabulary? You understand wrong, my friend. And just supposing I had,’ I continued, grabbing his wrist, and turning it painfully, I hope, ‘what does that say? WWJD? I rather think He’d have said something to the effect of “Go and sin no more”.’ Releasing him, I dug in my pocket for my mobile. Hell’s bells! No bloody signal! It took me all the will of which I was capable not to fling it down and jump on it. That and the realisation that I was so tired I could hardly stand, unsurprising with just half an hour’s sleep and all the evening’s excitement. As I steadied myself against a porch support, I managed a self-deprecating smile, adding, by way of explanation, ‘Endless prison chaplains, remember.’

  ‘Are you sure you’re all right?’ Perhaps Bob’s observations were just sinking in.

  ‘Fine,’ I lied. ‘I’d murder for a coffee, though.’

  In the streetlight he pulled a disapproving face. ‘This time of night?’

  ‘There may be quite a bit of it left,’ I said, ‘if we call the police.’

  The vicarage was a cheerless place, cold and still stacked with boxes. It reminded me for a weird minute of Nick’s caravan when he’d first settled in Kings Duncombe. Floods had washed away both caravan and contents, which is how he’d originally come to take up residence in the White Hart. Part of the deal with Social Services had been that he’d stay on as a surrogate father to the Gay kids, something he took quite seriously, with the boys especially. My theory was that he was hoping to do a better job than he had as real father to Phiz. Perhaps his illness up in Brum would provide an opportunity for the two to be reconciled, but just at the moment I could have wished him fit and well and down here. Ex-DIs might antagonise one Somerset police officer, but surely not all.

  ‘I’ve not worked out how to override the central-heating timer yet,’ Andy said.

  ‘Lead me to it.’

  He winced. ‘You’re a very practical woman, Josie.’

  ‘When you’ve spent as much of your life on your own as I have, you learn to be self-sufficient.’ I let him infer all he might want. ‘So where’s this control unit? And by the way, you need to do it, not me. Give a man a fish or teach him how to fish?’

  Soon we were shivering less, but I had no intention of removing my jacket. �
�They were after my camera, I should say,’ I observed, applying myself to the sinful drinking chocolate he’d substituted at my behest for coffee. Biscuits too, but supermarket basics, so I stuck at one.

  ‘I told you you should have got a phone like mine,’ he said, perching on the second kitchen stool.

  ‘You’re right. I just didn’t get round to it.’

  ‘But you had time to get your hair done.’

  Was that appreciation or accusation? It was safer to ignore it, even if it meant reaching for another biscuit. At the last minute I switched on my willpower. Conversationally, I continued, ‘The camera’s in your car, by the way. Where did you put the film for safe-keeping?’

  I’d never seen him impish before, but that was his expression now. ‘Guess!’

  My yawn was too big to suppress. ‘Indulge me.’

  ‘In a plastic box in a polythene bag in the upstairs loo cistern.’

  ‘Well done.’ I hadn’t the heart to tell him that was one of the first places professional burglars looked.

  I had no memory of reaching the sofa in a cavernous living room better suited to PCC meetings than a family evening, still less of being swathed in a duvet with a purple cover – did Andy have aspirations of bishophood? But that was where I was when a couple of teenage police officers loomed over me. I felt for all the world like an invalid receiving the family doctor: they must have unearthed a long dead memory of measles or mumps.

  They took solemn details, and looked distinctly more interested when I referred them to DCI Burford and the MIT. But not in a spirit of cooperation, I suspected: rivalry seemed more accurate. Tony had always stressed that he never took rural forces for granted. They might lack day-to-day experience of the worst crimes, but the officers were all multi-skilled and anxious to be bigger fish in the still small pond.

  Their profound advice was to stay where I was until the morning, by which time they’d have had time to run a check on the vehicles possibly involved. They agreed that another hire car might be a sensible option. Mentally I added one for Andy, too.

  ‘Look out for a Mercedes van with the number-plate looking like FOWL. Or,’ I added, by way of valediction, ‘one with a cracked driver’s door mirror.’ In addition, of course, to the one Bob had trashed, and another with possible damage caused by its attempt at a rally special stage.