What would help more would be to plant her fist in the middle of that mouth. But she’d learned the hard way what others expect from grief, so she lied: “Yes. I have.”
“And taken leave?”
“As much as I need.”
Which had been a day.
His gaze turned towards the windows. These overlooked the park across the road, and because it was mid-morning there was a lot of pre-school traffic out there: women, prams, toddlers exploring grass verges. A car backfired and a flock of pigeons erupted, swam a figure eight through the air, and resettled on the lawn.
“I don’t mean to sound insensitive,” he said, “but I have to ask. Are you okay to continue the assignment?”
He had lowered his voice. This was theoretically a griefmeeting, but they were alone, and she’d known he’d bring up the Needle job.
“Yes,” she said.
“Because I can—”
“I’m fine. Angry, okay, I’m angry with him. It was a stupid thing to do, and he ended up—well, he died. So yes. Angry. But I can still do my job. I need to do my job.”
She thought she’d pitched that right—with the right amount of emotion. If he thought her a zombie, that would be as bad as thinking her hysterical.
“You’re sure?”
“Yes.”
He looked relieved. “Well. Okay then. That’s good. It would be, ah, awkward to have to rejig …”
“I’d hate to be an inconvenience.”
Spider Webb blinked, and moved on. “Keep me abreast of developments, then.” A phrase from another textbook; one with a chapter on how to let subordinates know the meeting was over.
He walked her to the door. There’d be someone outside to take her downstairs, repossess her visitor’s badge, and see her off the premises, but these signs of exile, which once would have loosed bees in her mind, were irrelevant. She was still assigned to the Needle job. It was a done deal. That was all that mattered.
As he held the door, Webb said, “You’re right, though.”
“I’m sorry?”
“Harper shouldn’t have been on the road after drinking. It was an accident, that’s all. We looked into it very carefully.”
“I know.”
She left.
Perhaps, she thought, as she was guided downstairs; perhaps, once this was over, and she’d found out why Min had died, and killed those responsible, she’d come back and throw Spider Webb through that window he enjoyed looking out of.
It depended on her mood.
While Kelly showered River pulled boxers and a shirt on, then roamed the bedroom, collecting clothes. Some, it turned out, were still downstairs. Well, she’d only come round for coffee. In the sitting room he found her shirt; also her shoulder bag, a bulky thing which had shed its load across the floor. He uprighted it, returning to its recesses her mobile, her purse, a paperback and her sketchpad, but he leafed through the sketchpad first: the nearby treeline, the road as it left the village, a group gathered on the patio behind the pub. She wasn’t good at faces. But there was a nice study of St Johnno’s, and another of its graveyard, each headstone a pencil-shaded stubbiness around which long grass wilted; and several aerial studies of the village—Kelly Tropper flew. The last page was strange, not so much a sketch as a design: a stylised city landscape, its tallest skyscraper struck by jagged lightning. Scribbled-over words had been scrawled along the bottom edge.
“Jonny?”
“Coming.”
He carried her shirt up to the bedroom, where she stood draped in a towel.
“You look …”
“Gorgeous?”
“I was going to say damp,” he said. “But gorgeous works.”
She stuck her tongue out. “Someone’s pleased with himself.”
He lay on the bed, enjoying the view while she dressed. “Didn’t know you drew,” he said.
“A bit. Saw my book, did you?”
“It fell open,” he confessed.
“Don’t tell me. I can’t do faces. But you need a hobby round here.”
“And flying is …”
“Not a hobby.” Her green eyes were serious now. “It’s the most alive you can ever be. You should try it.”
“Maybe I will. When are you next going up?”
“Tomorrow.” A smile came and went. A special secret flashed. “But no, you can’t come with.” She kissed him. “Gotta go. Need to do stock before we open doors.”
“I’ll be along later.”
“Good.” She paused. “That was nice, Mr. Walker.”
“I thought so too, Ms. Tropper.”
“But that doesn’t mean you can look at my stuff without permission,” she said, and bit his earlobe.
When he heard the front door close, he rang Lamb.
“If it isn’t 007. Got anywhere yet?”
“Nothing but dead ends and blank looks,” River said. He was staring at his bare toes. “If Mr. B was ever here, he dropped out of sight immediately afterwards.”
“Blimey. So he might be, what,
“If he was ever here. Maybe his feet didn’t touch the ground. Maybe he was heading somewhere else before the taxi driver flipped his for-hire sign.”
“Or maybe you’re useless. How big’s that place anyway? Three cottages and a duck pond? Have you checked the cowshed?”
“Why come all the way from London to hide in a cowshed? If there was one. Which there isn’t.” River noticed a sock hanging from the curtain rail. “He doesn’t live here. Not as Mr. B or under any other name. I guarantee it.”
