Bitter End Part 27

'Actually, I'd rather like to go myself but I don't want to suggest to Buchanan that I should go on the train. He's in a funny mood today because I told him I thought someone was following me.'

'Yes, he told me about it,' Giles admitted. 'What would he say to my driving you?'

Fizz permitted herself a small congratulatory smile. 'I don't know that he'd like the idea if / were to put it to him, but you could suggest it and see what he says. If you give 169. him a ring he'll tell you about the list of Vanessa's Inverness contacts, so you won't have to mention that you've spoken to me.'

She heard him chuckle. 'You slay me, Fizz. You'd think you were as innocent as a newborn babe but there's a devious brain under those curls, isn't there? How long will it take us to get to Inverness? Three to four hours, I reckon. Okay. We'd better get moving. I'll give Tam a bell straightaway.'

Fizz rang off and waited, and about five minutes pa.s.sed before she heard Buchanan open his door and call for her.

She kept him waiting a moment or two before she stuck her head round his door, carefully applying an expression of fragile tolerance. He was back behind his desk with the telephone to his ear and her notes in his hand and he went on listening as he beckoned her in.

'Yes . . . yes, well here she is. I'll ask her.' He covered the mouthpiece with his hand and said, This is Giles on the line. He wants to drive up to Inverness this morning and question these two customers who, it appears, claim to have seen Vanessa the weekend she died. He thinks that, since you have already established contact, it would be better if you were to go with him.'

Fizz moved a shoulder. 'I don't mind.'

'You're sure you can afford the time?' he said, looking very pinch-nostrilled.

'Yes.'

'No lectures this afternoon? I don't want you to feel--'

'I don't feel pressured. When do we leave?'

She couldn't always tell what Buchanan was thinking but she was fairly sure he was ready to ignite. He spoke a few more words to Giles, his consonants snapping like knicker elastic, and then said, 'He's on his way. He'll pick you up by eleven.'

'Fine.'

She left him to it and didn't even say goodbye when she left. She was just in the mood for a nice long drive with a 170. scrummy guy like Giles, a guy who, far from treating her like a backward infant, actually acknowledged that she had a brain of her own. If she had originally viewed Giles as little more than a rather t.i.tillating meal ticket, she was now beginning to appreciate him for the thoughtful and understanding person he was. You didn't expect to find a caring soul who looked like Leonardo di Caprio but Giles was proof that it could happen.

It was a delight to be with someone who chattered inconsequentially as he drove, making her laugh with examples of outrageous claims his company had received in the past and the ridiculous lies claimants had expected him to believe. He had never been this far north before and was stunned by the majesty of the landscape as they crossed the Highland line and saw the Cairngorm mountains away in the distance.

'I hope you didn't have anything pressing to get ahead with today?' Fizz asked him, while she disposed of a haddock fillet in Blair Atholl. There was little on the menu of the restaurant they'd picked other than the universal choice of fish fillet, chicken breast, salad, or scampi but she knew they'd be lucky to find any sort of eating place at this time of year, let alone a more imaginative one, anywhere in the wilderness that lay between Blair Atholl and their destination.

'Frankly, I don't really have anything pressing to do today or any day,' he said lightly. 'Not on Vanessa Gra.s.sick's case anyway. In fact, I suspect I've already wasted just about enough time on her claim as I can afford to.'

Fizz swallowed hastily. 'You're not going to pay up and shut up, surely?'

'What else can I do? There's not a single indication that Vanessa's death was anything other than an accident, is there? There are plenty of suspicious circ.u.mstances, I'll grant you that, but none of them point to Vanessa as the agent of her own demise.' He waved his fork helplessly. 'I 171. can't withhold the claim indefinitely in the hope that some illuminating clue will fall into my lap. I've spent a week here already -much longer than I intended to -but, in terms of a black and white answer to the question of Vanessa's death, I'm not one step further forward. Nor, if I may be so rude, are you and Tam.'

Fizz could scarcely deny that. 'So does that mean you're going back to Manchester?' she asked in a matter-of-fact tone.

'I don't have much choice. They don't pay me to swan around in beautiful places with beautiful women, I'm very sorry to say.' He reached across the table to touch her hand. 'It's only a few hours away and I hope you'll say I can drive up now and then to see you. But, for the present, it's back to the grindstone for me -unless we turn up something really enlightening this afternoon.'

He poked unenthusiastically at his quarter chicken and ate a chip while Fizz strove to look as if she didn't give a hoot whether he stayed or went.

'I was back at the scene of the crime this morning when you phoned me,' he said. 'I thought I might get some more information out of Mrs Armstrong. Flogging a dead horse, I admit it, but that's the stage I'm at. However, the place was like a ghost town. Every house was locked and empty and not a sign of life to be seen -except a chap looking for a lost cat who came along just as I was leaving.'

Fizz looked at him with an open mouth, waiting to hear him say that he'd asked the guy if it was Poppy Ford's cat he was looking for. Then she realised she may have forgotten to mention the Fords' moggie.

'What is it?' Giles said. 'Spinach in my teeth?'

'Oh sh-sh-sh--' she started to say and changed it, more or less in time, to, 'sh-surely I told you about the cat?'

Mutely, Giles shook his head, but already his face was starting to say, 'I don't want to hear this.'

'Poppy had a cat. It disappeared at the time of the explosion and everybody -well, the Pringles at least

172. thought it was dead. But I'm afraid it looks very much as though Poppy sent that guy to look for it.'

Giles leaned back in his chair and let his eyes droop shut. Fizz knew exactly how he felt. They'd just missed out on what might have been their best chance of finding someone who would lead them to Poppy and, because of one tiny, apparently unimportant detail, they'd blown it.

She swallowed and said, 'It could have been another cat he was looking for.'

Giles opened his eyes and looked at her with no visible affection. 'It wasn't,' he said bitterly. 'It was Poppy's cat.'

'How do you know?'

'I know by the way he acted. I was just coming out of the Armstrong garden and I had my back to him, fastening the gate, when he appeared round the hedge calling, "Puss, puss, puss!" He must have taken me for Mr Armstrong and said, "Still no sign of Jet, then?" Then he saw he'd made a mistake and shut up.' Giles rubbed a hand down his face and stared out the window at the hills. 'I said, "Lost your cat?" and he said, "Yes," and hurried away. I thought he was perhaps a little simple -you know, the village oddball but, of course, he must have been biting his tongue out. I need scarcely add that he was in his thirties -though if he was driving a Ford Ka, I didn't see it.'

Fizz pa.s.sed her collection of swear words under mental review but found nothing, in five languages, to relieve her feelings. Giles was quite red in the face with suppressed anger and much of it appeared to be directed at her, which, she had to admit, was not unreasonable. She was so totally sicked-off she couldn't even finish her lunch, which was a first for her. The only hope she could find to cling to was that the cat-hunter would return to the scene of the accident, but how long would one have to wait for him to turn up?

Back in Giles's car the atmosphere was no longer festive.

Both of them made sporadic attempts to be chatty but, between times, there were long periods of depressed 173. silence which the suns.h.i.+ne and scenery were unable to penetrate.

They reached Inverness just on three o'clock, after getting hopelessly lost, and diplomatic relations were strained to snapping-point by the time they found their first Rudyard Gra.s.sick customer. This turned out to be a tiny hole-in-the-wall printing company just across the Ness river from the castle and they had already driven past its un.o.btrusive premises at least twice. It was apparently staffed entirely by educationally sub-normal sociopaths with Attention Deficit Disorder who could supply only one word answers and didn't know anything about anything.

Yes, Mrs Gra.s.sick had been there on the relevant Friday afternoon. No, she hadn't said or done anything out of the ordinary. Yes, she had visited them before in person. No, it wasn't likely she'd be seeing further customers, it being nearly five when she was there. And yes, it was possible she had been in a hurry.

'Great,' was Giles's verdict on the interview. He was now beyond even pretending that Fizz's charming company made up for every reversal. 'That was just the type of discussion that makes an insurance investigator's job worthwhile. Can the next one be any worse, I wonder?'

Fizz was in no doubt that it could. It had been a rubber-hose-up-the-exhaust-pipe sort of day from the outset and the best you could hope for was to be still standing at the end of it.

Their second port of call was another small business: this one based in a corner shop in Church Street and running a variety of sight-seeing tours and guided walks.

Fizz had a good look at their display of pamphlets as she and Giles waited to speak to the manager and found them all produced -very well produced -by Rudyard Gra.s.sick.

Presently a chunky guy in a sweater and kilt arrived and ushered them into an office behind the counter. It was as cramped as Rudyard's and not a lot tidier.

'Angus Cameron.' He shook hands with both of them 174. and moved boxes off chairs till they all had a place to sit down. 'Sorry I didn't have time to chat this morning, Miss Fitzpatrick, but almost all our tours set off at ten a.m. and you can imagine the pandemonium. You were asking about Mrs Gra.s.sick's visit?'

'Yes,' Fizz said. 'You probably know that she died early the following morning.'

Cameron nodded soberly. He had a nice open, intelligent face and Fizz was encouraged to hope that perhaps they might have a rational conversation, if nothing else.

He said, 'I was really sorry to hear about that. Mrs Gra.s.sick was such a charismatic woman, so full of enthusiasm.

I always enjoyed her visits.'

'Did you see her regularly?' Giles asked.

'No, not at all regularly. Not any more than once a year.

I don't think any of her Inverness customers merited frequent visits -not like the big concerns she dealt with in Glasgow and Edinburgh. It was more of a customer relations visit.'