Walk a Narrow Mile (6 page)

Hillary did. ‘A little. She spent a few years travelling, I think?’

‘Right. I reckon she thought it was as close as she was gonna get to running off and joining the circus. That’s what she wanted to do when she was little, you know,’ Deirdre said, with an indulgent chuckle. She gently nudged Hillary away from the stove and nodded in satisfaction at the softening fruit. ‘Ah, just need to cool down a bit.’ She took the pan off the stove and set it to rest to one side.

‘I blame them books she read as a kid. About some elephant
packing its trunk and what not. You ask any of my other kids what they wanted to be when they was nippers, and they’d have said that they wanted to be astronauts, or train drivers, or actresses or nurses or whatever. Gilly always wanted to run away and join the circus.’ Deirdre Tinkerton sighed and carried on somewhat pragmatically. ‘’Course, there ain’t any circuses any more, can’t afford to keep runnin’ I reckon, and even if there had’a been, our Gilly wouldn’t have been any use to ’em, Lord love her. She couldn’t ride a horse, and she was built too much like me to swing from a wire. She didn’t have no beard neither, and her dad threatened to wallop her backside if she came home with so much as a single tattoo.’

By now she was openly laughing, and Jimmy was also holding a hand over his mouth as he pretended to take notes. ‘So when she upped and left just after her eighteenth birthday with this band of gyppos none of us was surprised. We were just glad and relieved when she came back. Les was half-expecting her to come back with a nipper or two, but she didn’t. ’Course, that never surprised me so much. For all she’s got her head in the clouds half the time, she’s also got it screwed right on her shoulders. If’n you see what I mean.’

Hillary smiled, thinking that she knew very well what Deirdre meant. ‘She was well able to take care of herself, you mean. She might not have had book-learning, but she was canny, like a fox.’

‘That’s it, my love,’ Deirdre said approvingly, and reached for some battered tin plates and started laying out pastry in them, carefully trimming the excess from around the edges. ‘So now she’s gone off again, I ain’t worried this time neither.’

Well, that explained her easy manner, Hillary thought. And instantly felt guilty. For this mother truly believed that her daughter was all right. But was now the time to tell her
differently
? Would it be needlessly cruel to shatter her convictions? Hillary thought that it was – especially since they didn’t have any concrete evidence to go on.

‘When she left the first time, did you hear from her then?’ Hillary asked carefully.

‘Not for ages, no, love. Gilly don’t like modern technology stuff – not computer mad, see, like all her little nieces and nephews. I swear, some of the gadgets they use make my ’ead swim.’

‘I see.’

‘Gilly was always good with her hands, see,’ Deirdre swept on, anxious to make her understand. ‘But not so good with living in the everyday world, like. She was shy as a kid,
something
terrible. She could knit a treat by the time she was ten though. Crochet too, and embroidery. And when she got older she took up painting – lovely little country scenes and what ’ave you. There’s one over there.’

She nodded her head towards an uninspired and not very good watercolour of weeping willows surrounding a small pond full of ducks. But the composition showed the artist had at least some eye for form. And the colours showed a hearty verve.

‘Very nice,’ Hillary said. ‘Before she left, was she acting jittery at all?’

‘Oh, yes, love, I knew she was getting itchy feet. I said to Les, “you just wait and see. Our Gilly’s gonna be off again soon”. And she was.’

‘Did she ever mention being bothered by anyone?’

‘Whaddya mean, love?’ Deirdre asked, retrieving the saucepan and smoothing in a good dollop of cooling rhubarb into one of the pie cases.

‘I mean was a man pestering her?’ Hillary asked.

‘Oh, him. Yeah, Gilly did say someone fancied her. She got a bit giggly about it. Flowers and Valentine cards came for her, and all that sort of thing.’

‘Did they frighten her?’

‘I don’t think so. I think it pleased her. And I thought it did her self-confidence a bit of good, having a lad take a fancy to her, like. But she got sort of impatient with him for not coming
forward. She said it was all very well having a secret and
anonymous
admirer and what have you, but you couldn’t hug and kiss a love letter, could you?’

‘So to your knowledge, she never had any real contact with him?’ Hillary pressed.

‘That’s right.’

‘Do you still have the letters?’ she asked hopefully.

‘Lumme, no. I reckon she took most of her stuff with her. Not that she had much. Didn’t believe in possessions, she didn’t. She said worldly goods just weighed you down.’

‘She packed her bags?’ Hillary said sharply, clearly taken by surprise.

‘Well, yerse, I think so,’ Deirdre said slowly. ‘Like I said, she never had much. But a few of her favourite clothes were gone. And some money she’d earned from making and selling some of her own jewellery at Bicester market. Beaten copper she said they were. Bit bulky for my taste, but she sold enough to get by.’

Hillary nodded and glanced at Jimmy. No doubt they were both thinking the same thing: it didn’t quite fit the pattern. Both Judith Yelland and Meg Vickary had vanished without any sign of premeditation.

‘Did Gilly have a bank account? Credit cards, that sort of thing?’ Hillary asked sharply.

‘Oh, no, love. Gilly didn’t hold much with the … whatchamacallit – how did she put it? Being part of the
establishment
. That was it. She always kept her money close. Said banks were in league with the Devil – well, as good as.’ Deirdre laughed again. ‘I reckon most folks would now think the same thing, right?’

Hillary nodded and agreed. ‘So what do you think happened to her, Mrs Tinkerton?’

Deirdre’s smile faltered just a little. ‘Maybe she found some more gyppos to run off with. Or she’s gone abroad to where they live in them big tent things. She mentioned them once or twice. Out in Israel or some such place. I told her she didn’t
want to be going out and messing in them sort of places. Can’t really remember what they’re called now.’

‘A kibbutz?’

‘Some word like that, I reckon. Oh, she’ll have found herself some sort of comfy little hideaway somewhere – she was always good at landing on her feet. Bit like a cat, like that. You’ll see, she’ll be fine.’

And Hillary could see that Deirdre Tinkerton truly believed it. Apart from a lingering doubt perhaps, which was surely both natural and inevitable, that’s what Gilly’s mother genuinely believed.

‘OK. Well, thank you, Mrs Tinkerton. We’ll be in touch if we think of anything else we might need to know.’

‘That’s fine, my love, call any time. Sure you don’t want one?’ Deirdre nodded to a freshly crimped rhubarb pie.

Hillary sighed, but again declined.

She was silent in the car as Jimmy drove them back to HQ. Once again things had taken an unexpected turn. Even though it was early days, she could sense that this case just wasn’t going to play by the rules.

Gilly, it seemed, had planned to leave. Her mother was sure she’d packed up at least a back-pack’s worth of stuff. And her mother was also convinced that she was safe and alive
somewhere
. Was that just a case of so much for a mother’s instincts? Or was she in denial and simply unable or unwilling to think the worst? Or was it not Deirdre Tinkerton’s thinking that was at fault here?

Hillary twisted unhappily on her seat.

‘You seem a bit pensive guv,’ Jimmy said suddenly, glancing over at her.

Hillary sighed in acknowledgement. ‘I don’t like the way this case is going Jimmy,’ she admitted at last. ‘This is the second time I’ve felt something is a bit off. Like we’re not seeing the whole picture. Or we’re approaching it from a wrong angle. Or … oh, I don’t know. Perhaps I’m just a bit off my game.’

‘That’s understandable,’ Jimmy said quietly.

Hillary sighed impatiently. ‘It’s not just the stalker. There’s something else … oh forget it. It’s early days yet.’

Jimmy nodded. ‘You’ll get there guv. You always do,’ he said.

And if his voice sounded just a tiny bit unsure, neither of them acknowledged it.

Back at HQ, Geoff Rhumer was waiting for her outside her
ex-stationery
cupboard. She unlocked the door and waved at the tiny office space. ‘I’d offer you a seat, but you can see how it is.’

The DI grinned. ‘No worries. Just thought I’d keep you updated. We’ve got a trace installed on both your office phone and mobile, so if he calls or texts we might get lucky.’

Hillary nodded, but said nothing. They were both very much aware that her stalker was unlikely to be caught out so easily.

‘I’ve also got my team started on trying to run-down any likely looking lads on staff here.’ He handed Hillary a folder with three full sheets of names. He grimaced. ‘I know. Even with narrowing down the criteria, it’s still a lot of possible suspects. We’ve kept it to men aged between eighteen and forty, and physically fit. But as you can see, that doesn’t eliminate a whole lot. We’re going to concentrate on those who worked MisPer or sex crimes, since the shrink who’s doing the profile on him thinks that’s more likely where chummy would have
gravitated
.’

‘These are the ones highlighted in yellow?’ Hillary asked.

‘Yeah. Could you take some time and go through them, see if any names stand out? Although the shrink seems to think it more likely that chummy won’t have had any prior contact with you. He said something about the pathology of it being wrong. But still….’

Hillary nodded in understanding. ‘Yeah. I’ll go through them all carefully tonight and let you know if anyone sets off alarm bells.’

Geoff nodded. ‘Anything your end?’

Hillary gave him a brief run down of her activities, and concluded grimly, ‘So, nothing that’s standing out so far.’

‘OK. Well, we’ll let you know if anyone acts twitchy at
interview
. We’re using a cover story of missing inventory as our reason for sniffing around, but I don’t know how long that’ll hold water.’

Hillary nodded. ‘It won’t fool him for a minute.’

Geoff shrugged. ‘That’s not really the point, is it?’

Hillary smiled wanly. ‘No. I don’t suppose it is.’

Steven Crayle stood and stretched, glancing at his watch as a knock came at the door. It had just gone 6.30 in the evening, and he was more than ready to call it a day.

‘Come in.’

Jimmy Jessop stuck his head around the door. ‘Just wondered if I needed to keep obbo tonight, guv,’ he said quietly.

‘No. I’ll see to it tonight,’ Steven said flatly. ‘I’m going over to her boat for supper and I’ll be staying the night.’

Jimmy was careful to keep his face utterly neutral. ‘OK, guv. See you in the morning.’

Steven sighed as the door closed. Of course, he knew that it was all over the station by now that he and Hillary were an item, but he was not so sure what the consensus was. He had an uncomfortable feeling that most of them probably thought she could do better.

At first, he and Hillary had deliberately cultivated the rumour of their affair in an attempt to try and flush out Hillary’s stalker. But somehow the lie had become a reality, and Steven, after some initial misgivings, was glad that it had.

And was becoming even more glad the longer it went on. The fact that she was older than he worried him not at all. And he found her no-nonsense independence reassuring, rather than emasculating. But the fact that he sometimes found himself envious of her success and reputation, however, did cause him a few sleepless nights.

He left HQ and drove the short, barely five-minute commute to the neighbouring village of Thrupp, situated on the Oxford canal. He parked next to Hillary’s old Golf, as usual, impressed by the beauty of the scenery. Kidlington and work was only a stone’s throw away, yet here along the tow path, where yellow iris were beginning to bloom, and ducks were proudly showing off the first of the season’s ducklings, it was a different world. The evening sun made even the khaki coloured water of the canal glitter like silver gilt and the gentle chug-chug of a passing narrowboat added to the sense of calm.

The more he visited Hillary on her narrowboat, the
Mollern
, the more he could appreciate why she chose to live in such a cramped, narrow environment. There was also something
nest-like
and comforting about living in such a cocooning space. And knowing that you could just cast off a rope and take yourself and your home miles away whenever you felt like it, was so liberating that it was unbelievable. Since they’d been together, they’d spent most weekends chugging up north to Banbury, or going south to Oxford and beyond.

Now he walked to the grey-painted boat, with its black roof and white and gold trim. Hillary had already explained to him that
Mollern
was the old country word for heron, and that her boat was painted to reflect that water bird’s colouring. In contrast to the cheerful boats that favoured the more
traditional
green, yellow, blue and red, it was an elegant-looking boat and, as he approached it, he saw the back metal doors open and Hillary’s head with its distinctive chestnut hair, appeared.

‘I thought I heard footsteps. It’s herb omelette, salad and warm fresh baked bread. With some peach ice cream for dessert.’

‘Sounds ideal,’ Steven said. ‘We got any of that white wine left?’

‘Still in the fridge,’ Hillary assured him. She watched him come aboard, amazed, as she so often was, that someone so tall
and elegant seemed not to mind the fact that his head was always barely a scant inch away from the ceiling.

She watched him take off his jacket, slip off his tie and shoes, and make himself comfortable in her favourite chair. The sight of him brought a lump to her throat. He was both sexy and gorgeous, and fast becoming an ever-growing presence in her life.

And she still didn’t know what she really felt about it.

She broke the bread apart and put butter on the table, then mixed the eggs. Steven poured the wine.