Kisses for Lula (21 page)

‘IT’S NOT HER THAT MADE OFF WITH THE DOCUMENTS,’ he yelled in my ear.

I rolled my eyes. ‘How do you know? Anyway, I think you’re losing the plot, Arns,’ I said loudly back, noise levels returning to normal. ‘Arriving late for work, for one.’ I looked down my nose at him, my eyes wide and knowing.

‘Ha! I’d forgotten about my tardiness in all the disruption here,’ he replied.

‘Yeah,’ I said, bracing myself for a boring tale of how he’d got a puncture on Albert Street or something.

Arns put his cup down with a bang and turned to me, leaning in with scant regard for personal space. ‘I was right on schedule, Lula, locking up my bike in the
basement, when a car pulled in right next to me. Eight forty-five.’

I closed my eyes to indicate extreme state of boredom and general uncaringness.

‘I was about to stand up,’ he continued, ‘when I heard the guy open the door straight into the car next to him.’

‘Ouch!’ I said. ‘That is such a wronger. Did he leave a note?’

‘Well, I stayed down low to check, and then someone got out of the bumped car and started really going at this other guy.’

‘What? Like fighting?’

‘No, Tallulah, no.’ Arns’s turn for the slow blink. ‘He was just hissing at him in this stressed-out, familiar-sounding voice, but trying to keep quiet at the same time.’

‘Like,
whispering?
That’s odd. I’d’ve been
yelling
about my car.’

‘That’s what I thought. Then the first guy told him to suck it up and asked if he had The Stuff.’

‘The Stuff?’

‘Yes, that’s how he said it.’

‘Okay.’

Arns paused. ‘Then the second guy said of course and he wasn’t going to hand it over till the transfer had gone through.’

‘No! This is so Hollywood!’

‘I know! And even though my legs were cramping, I just kept as still as a stone.’

‘What a man,’ I smirked.

Arnold closed his eyes. ‘You wouldn’t understand, being such a stranger to exercise yourself.’

‘I’m going to let that go,’ I said hotly. ‘You have no idea about my training programme.’

‘Programme?’ he snorted. Rude boy.

‘What happened then? Were there threats? Safety catches taken off powerful weapons?’

Arnold shook his head wearily. ‘The first guy said, “Fine, then you’re going to have to hand it over to him yourself tomorrow morning.” ’

‘Where? When?’

‘They walked away. I couldn’t hear, but I’ve been thinking . . .’ said Arns.

Then Tweedy Mabel wandered closer, almost as if she were trying to hear what we were saying, her face more like a praying mantis than ever. I couldn’t believe she was related to anyone on earth, let alone the town mayor.

‘Hello, Tallulah. Hello, Arnold.’

‘Hello, Mabel,’ we chorused respectfully.

Oh no, please don’t make us converse
, I thought. ‘Hey, Ams, I thought your bike was out of action,’ I said, hoping she’d move on.

‘I can fix a puncture, Talluluh,’ replied Arnold, killing the conversation.

Then the Security guy was back.

‘Tallulah Bird?’ he called.

My turn now? Great. Just great. Now we wouldn’t get a chance to talk to Sophie at her most vulnerable.

‘Sophie,’ I mouthed urgently to Arnold, but he shook his head in that
I’m not going to waste my time
way he does more often than I’d realised before. I stamped on his flip-flopped foot hard as I got up to go.

‘Oops,’ I said lightly, ‘sorry,’ and headed for the door.

Chapter Eighteen

A small area had been set aside for interviews near Mum’s office. Up close the damage looked even worse than my first impression. The thing I hadn’t noticed earlier is that Mum’s desk was actually broken, not just in a crazy mess. The front right leg had snapped and if it hadn’t been for the drawer unit beneath it, itself badly damaged, the whole thing would be on the ground, empty in trays and all.

‘Frik,’ I said, with meaning.

‘Step this way please, Miss Bird,’ said the Security guy, and he led me over to Mum.

I sat down in the chair he gestured to. ‘You okay, Mum?’ I asked.

‘I’m fine, Lu,’ said Mum. She did not look fine. ‘Just thought I’d ask for an independent opinion from you because Dr Gordon can’t be here for several hours, and I’d like to get the office put to rights as soon as possible, quite frankly.’

‘You want my opinion? Not my fingerprints?’

‘Those first,’ said the Security guy, and he began rolling the top of my fingers over a purple pad of ink, then rolling them one by one on a white page with T
ALLULAH
B
IRD:
PART-TIME LIBRARY WORKER
typed at the top.

‘How did your desk break, Mum?’ I blurted out. A thought occurred to me and I looked at the Security guy. ‘I don’t remember seeing it broken when we first came up this morning. Were you guys a little clumsy with your investigation in there? That desk is two hundred years old, you know.’

‘It wasn’t them,’ said Mum, and she dropped her head in her hands.

‘Mum?’ I asked, suddenly uncertain.

‘Could we have a few minutes, please?’ asked Mum. The Security guy nodded and hovered uncertainly outside Mum’s office doorway.

‘What’s going on?’

‘Sophie Wenger –’

‘I knew it!’ I raised my arms in triumph. ‘Call me Jack Bauer! Call me Bond – James Bond! Call me Supersleuth!’

Mum was not smiling. ‘This is not easy for me to explain, so I’m just going to spit it out.’ I dropped my arms. ‘It turns out that Sophie Wenger is, um, prematurely – and I must stress that I think this is most unnatural, Tallulah – she is . . . um . . . sexually active.’

‘Exactly! Mum, I sent Alex a text because I think Sophie Wenger is going out with Vincent Harrow – Harry Harrow’s son! Alex will know for certain. As soon as she gets back to me, we –’

Mum held up her hand for silence. ‘Will you just let me finish?’

‘Sorry.’

‘Sophie came into the building after hours, with a friend, and had intercourse on my desk.’ My eyes bugged out so far I thought if I blinked I might lose them. ‘And during the, um,
rigours
of their action, the desk leg broke. The desk obviously crashed down, damaging my drawer unit.’

‘Yowzer . . .’ I breathed.

‘Precisely. When the couple eventually got off the desk, that spider you lot trapped at the annexe had already begun to crawl out of the drawer.’

‘You hadn’t taken it to the zoology department?’ I whispered. ‘It could have died! How did it get out the box?’

‘The first drawer literally smashed open, and obviously the box along with it.’ Mum shook her head. ‘I can’t believe I’d forgotten all about that spider.’

‘Then what?’ I asked, impatient.

‘Well, panicked by the commotion they’d made, and with the spider on the loose, Sophie threw herself out of the office, but she tripped because her, um,
clothing
was around her ankles and she fell into my office door.’

‘Oh, geez.’

‘Sophie’s partner abandoned her, concerned that Security would be on their way with all the noise, and
he crashed into several desks on the way before he found the fire doors.’

‘Oh, man.’

‘Sophie was quite thoroughly, um, tangled, and cut up, but she saw the spider crawl under the drawers –’

‘Sweet . . .’

‘– across the office –’

‘Frikking . . .’

‘Up the walls, and round the top of the doorframe.’

‘Mercy.’

‘She left promptly – hasn’t seen or spoken to her partner since.’

I had too many questions to be able to speak. My skin was so raised with goosebumps I was afraid it would hurt if I moved.

The Security guy appeared out of nowhere. ‘Some story, huh?’ he leered. ‘She won’t say who loverrr boy is, but we’ll get to the truth.’

Ugh.

Mum’s eyes narrowed. She was about to say something but then he waved my sheet of fingerprints. ‘You’re clear,’ he said.

I ignored him, my eyes still uncomfortably far from their sockets. ‘This is such a mess, Mum. Was Sophie in there for action or info?’

Mum rubbed her forehead. ‘I thought you’d be able
to tell me that, Lu. I don’t know. I just don’t know.’ Our eyes met. ‘Mr Michael Burdon next, please, Frank,’ said Mum, turning to the Security guy. Then, ‘Go home, Lula. Have some lunch and relax for a bit.’ Her head tilted ever so slightly in a meaningful nod. ‘Maybe chat with Alex. The office may be back to normal on Monday, but there’s going to be no work for you to do here until everyone’s been questioned and the office properly examined and cleaned.’

‘Sure,’ I said uncertainly. Was she telling me to check out Alex’s info? She nodded at me again. She was.

I gave Frank the meathead a cheery wave and winked at Mum, pulling my bag to my shoulder before taking a last look at the office on the way out.

I got a text from Alex on the way home.

Sophie and Vincent in love. Matching tongue studs.

So was Vincent Harrow shagging Sophie Wenger in Mum’s office? Pretty damn likely. My pulse quickened.
Video surveillance
, I thought to myself, and began to thumb my phone to thank Alex.

Before I could press send I got another message.

Psycho girl. I’m not stalking you. Don’t flatter yourself.

I flushed crimson as I hit delete. Right! Out-and-out hatred for Jack de Souza was the only way forward. He
was
the lurking type – I was sure of it! It must have been him! I texted Bludgeon and nearly fell into an open water-mains manhole on Hill Street so my message only got as far as:

Any news on the stalk

before being sent. Knowing Bludgeon, he’d think it some kind of secret code and would puzzle over it for hours. I shook my head and tried to think positive. Maybe Mr Kadinski could shed some light . . .

So for the first time in nearly sixteen long and terrible years, I headed voluntarily up the steps to the Setting Sun.

Mr Kadinski was in a rocking chair on the veranda in a shady corner. You couldn’t even see him from the road.

He had a newspaper over his head and torso and wasn’t moving. I only recognised him by the shoes. There was a truckload of pine needles stuck to the mud on the bottom of them.

Hmm. Pine needles. ‘Have you been to Coven’s Quarter, Mr Kadinski?’ I asked.

The newspaper rustled slightly. Other than that – no motion.

‘Mr Kadinski?’

‘Huh.’

‘Hambledon doesn’t have many pine trees.’

Mr Kadinski snatched the paper from his face. ‘So. Now you want to talk.’

‘And you don’t.’

‘I’ve decided to keep my nose out of it.’

‘Out of what?’

Mr Kadinski coughed and folded up the newspaper carefully. ‘I knew your grandmother, you know. When she was still a Hewson.’

‘Wow,’ I said. ‘Did she ever put a jinx on you?’

He laughed. ‘Not exactly.’

I looked at him carefully. ‘You sure about that?’

This time he really hooted, and I found myself smiling in response. ‘Sit down,’ he said, nodding to another rocker beside him. I obeyed, and he went on, ‘Coven’s Quarter has some sentimental value to me. Quite a lot, actually. That’s where Sally Hewson and I first kissed. And we’d still be together if it weren’t for your father’s father.’ His expression darkened, but I could see he was only half serious. ‘He had a way with words, just like your award-winning parent, and I guess I really had no chance.’

I felt suddenly sad.

‘But no regrets,’ he said, catching my eye. ‘I can’t imagine my life now without the ecstasy of Lorraine Greenwood, who followed soon after.’ He whistled.

‘Ew,’ I said.

He held up a placatory hand. ‘I do apologise; I digress. The point is that I don’t want Coven’s Quarter disappearing in a molten pile of concrete. I’ve been trying to corner you all week to say I overheard something in the woods on Monday morning.’

‘Really!’ I leaned forward in excitement and the rocking chair almost catapulted me out into the Sun’s begonia bed.

‘Two men arguing about not being able to get documents out of the library. I’m convinced one was Dirty Harry himself, the developer. A short stocky man with pale hair and a square head. Light-coloured eyes, big lips, drinker’s nose. Sound familiar to you?’

I shook my head. ‘Never seen Harry Harrow, but if that really was him he sounds nothing like his son. Who was the second guy?’

‘Now that man . . . I can’t quite place him. Distinctive kind of waddle to his walk. But the worst is I think they saw me.
And
, ever since, there’s been someone hanging around the area.’ Mr Kadinski sighed and leaned back in his chair, his face turned up to the veranda roof. ‘Yep. They definitely saw me.’ He turned his head to look at me seriously. ‘I heard Harrow say that the council will never get to see the documents. I got it all on my cameraphone, and took it to the police first thing Tuesday morning, but they’ve done nothing with it. Nothing. Can’t even confirm the identity of the other man.’ He sighed again. ‘It’s maddening – we
know enough to confirm Harrow is behind the missing documents, but not enough to prove a case against the development.’