“Rest assured,” says Steve, “I’m always happy to help out the Hampshire Police.”
The detective sizes up the room of people in front of him. “Look, I don’t know who you all are, or what you’re all doing, but we’re trying to investigate three murders here.”
“Gosh,” says Rosie. “Imagine.”
The younger detective looks at her. “Are you Rosie D’Antonio?”
Rosie waves this observation away.
The older detective looks at them one by one. “I’m going to ask all of you not to leave the country.”
At any other time, thinks Steve, that would be music to his ears.
79
A lot of people are finding it hard to sleep tonight. All for their own reasons.
• • •
Steve Wheeler is finding it hard to sleep, because Trouble is insisting on sleeping on his chest. Steve feels that is fair, given that he has been away for so long. Trouble doesn’t ask much from him.
So Max Highfield is Joe Blow.
He’d made the connection as soon as he’d read the files. Cross-referenced with the information Henk had given him. Max Highfield of all people. Steve had stopped watching the Rampage movies after Rampage 3. No way someone fires a bullet on the Space Shuttle.
Add in his connection to Felicity Woollaston and he has to be involved in this. And he’s currently in Dubai, home of Rob Kenna. Isn’t that convenient?
Actually, it’s not convenient, because it means Steve has to take yet another flight first thing in the morning. At least he got to do the quiz, though.
Rosie’s coming with him; Jeff is staying where he is. Loubet thinks Jeff might be dead, and Jeff wants to keep it that way for now. He’s going to go back to the office and see what else he can find.
Steve gently strokes the sleeping cat’s head as he thinks about what is to come. He feels his eyes begin to close. Perhaps this will be the first night he doesn’t need to walk through the streets of Axley? To sit on the bench and talk to Debbie?
But won’t Debbie miss him? Sitting there all alone?
• • •
Rosie D’Antonio is wide awake, because she is waiting for the lightest of taps on her bedroom door from Jeff Nolan. She is in Steve’s spare room, and Jeff is downstairs on the sofa, despite her fairly unambiguous invitation. She will give him another five minutes before taking a handful of melatonin on top of a bellyful of whisky.
She feels safe at least. Steve is in the room next door, Jeff on the downstairs sofa, and Henk across the village in Tony Taylor’s house. That’s some fairly hefty security.
She hopes Jeff will knock. They usually do in her experience. And she hasn’t slept with anyone in over two weeks. She has ruled Steve out now. She sees his vulnerabilities and, while ordinarily she would be happy to take advantage of them, she feels it would be inappropriate. Her therapist often accuses her of having no boundaries, so it shows what he knows.
There was Kevin the bodyguard; he was a contender. Something could have happened there, couldn’t it? If he hadn’t tried to kill Amy? Even then you never know.
Carlos Moss at the airport, of course. Been there, done that, but would recommend to others. The drug dealer on St. Lucia, Nelson. He had a certain something until Steve shot him in the leg. Again, even then…
The TV host in Ireland? She would have loved a crack at him, but there was a helicopter waiting. Often the way, in her experience. Even Eddie Flood has a certain rugged charm, though she is increasingly coming to suspect that he has been hired by a Russian chemicals billionaire to kill her. What a way to go, though.
All that frustration, all of those missed opportunities, and still she hasn’t turned her headlights on Steve. That’s real progress. She looks forward to reporting back to her therapist on this with well-earned pride. See, Jonathan? I do have boundaries.
In fact, now she thinks about it, Jonathan was the last person she slept with.
• • •
Jeff Nolan can’t sleep. The two nights in a ditch, idyllic and “back to basics” though it was in some ways, have not been kind to his back, and Steve’s sofa is finishing the job. He misses the lovely spare-room bed, but he was never going to take that from Rosie. He is half tempted to tiptoe upstairs, knock on Steve’s door, and ask if they could share for the night. But Steve’s only experience of him so far involves him faking his own death and then breaking into his house, so it might still be a little early in their relationship to be roommates.
At least this sleeplessness is giving him time to think. He will head back to London in the morning. Steve had composed a simple email to send to Loubet’s encrypted email address.
Dear Mr. Loubet,
We know you are in Dubai, and we know about Max Highfield and Rob Kenna. We are coming to find you.
There’s really no point in sending it, but Steve was very keen. “Let’s flush everyone out” had been the logic.
Jeff is a little jealous that Trouble is upstairs with Steve. He thought they had a bond.
• • •
Henk van Veen is wide awake, walking down the high street. Tony Taylor’s sofa had been surprisingly comfortable, and he was settling very nicely when the sounds of vigorous lovemaking reached him from the floor above, and he thought it might be a good time to take the air. Upon returning an hour later, he found that the noises were, if anything, louder still, so he headed straight back out again.
Max Highfield, though? Really? And does he trust Jeff now? Well, no.
Henk finds a bench by the pond and sits down. There is a plaque on the bench dedicated to a woman named Debbie. Nice to be remembered. Nice to be loved. Henk doesn’t see his family so much. One day he would like to again, but how does one go about healing wounds?
Perhaps he can heal his wounds with Jeff too? They were a good team.
• • •
