The Runaway. Ali Harper

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СКАЧАТЬ had a point. There were other, more attractive cars parked along the street. ‘Which is Tuff’s?’ I asked.

      ‘Tuff doesn’t have a car.’

      ‘Oh. How did he get back from the party?’

      ‘Should I ring the police?’

      ‘He must have come back in a car. The party was in Lincolnshire.’

      Jan stood blinking at the Volkswagen like she was willing the glass back into the panes. I looped around it and tried to read the message it sent. Anger. Raw, unchannelled anger, you could smell it. Every single body panel was dented, same for the bonnet. It looked like it had been attacked with a baseball bat.

      ‘Didn’t you hear anything?’

      ‘You don’t think Nikki …?’ Jan’s voice tailed off.

      I frowned as I considered the idea, but it didn’t add up. ‘Don’t think so. I mean she’s worried, but she didn’t strike me as angry. Least, not this angry.’

      ‘What should I do?’ Jan turned to me and I realized she’d got worried for the first time.

      ‘Phone the police. Report it.’

      ‘And tell them Matt’s missing?’

      I still find it difficult to think of the police as anything other than the enemy. Too much soft drug consumption. That’s my soft drug consumption, not theirs. But I remembered the roasting we’d got from not involving them earlier in our last case. ‘Don’t think you’ve got a choice,’ I said. I peered in through the driver’s window. Or the space where the window once was. ‘Radio’s still there. Doesn’t look like anything’s been stolen.’ The glove box was closed. I pulled my head back out. ‘Is Tuff insured? To drive it?’

      ‘I’m not dealing with this,’ Jan said. She held up her hands in front of her like she was trying to stop traffic. She turned towards the house. I still had my notebook and pen in hand so I wrote down the registration number and followed Jan back across the road.

      ‘I don’t know anything about it,’ she said, talking to herself. ‘This is Tuff’’s problem.’

      I followed her into the house, back into the front room. She picked up a denim jacket from the back of the settee. ‘I don’t know anything. I haven’t got time. I’m late. They’re not the only ones with deadlines.’

      ‘Why don’t I tell Tuff, then he can sort it?’ I said. ‘You said he’s at the library?’

      ‘Not my drama,’ she said, still shaking her head.

      I stuffed my notebook into my bag. We were obviously leaving. ‘What time will he be there till?’

      ‘Don’t know. He works Thursdays.’ She grabbed a bag and a ring binder from the floor in the hall.

      ‘Works where?’

      ‘The bookshop.’ She was out the front door, standing on the step waiting for me to leave so she could shut the front door. ‘The one opposite the uni.’

      I stepped out of the house and she slammed the door behind me, locked it and put the key in her pocket.

      ‘What time does he start?’

      But she didn’t hear me. Or if she did she didn’t acknowledge it. She was already out of the gate and headed down the street towards town. I watched her stride away until she turned left at the end and disappeared from sight.

       Chapter Six

      I caught the bus to Hyde Park Corner and threaded my way through the streets back to the office. Aunt Edie was at the computer, two-finger typing and swearing under her breath as I slung my bag onto my desk. I noticed Jo was wearing her hangover lipstick – dark purple, like crushed blueberries.

      ‘Where’ve you been?’ she asked.

      ‘Matt’s house.’

      ‘Why didn’t you answer your mobile?’

      ‘Oh.’ I pulled open my desk drawer and rummaged. ‘It needs charging,’ I said, holding my new iPhone aloft.

      ‘You’re supposed to charge it at night so that it’s ready every morning,’ Jo said, snatching it off me and plugging it into the wall socket. ‘How many more times?’

      ‘I went for a run – had a chat with Matt’s housemate, Jan. She said he disappeared once before – didn’t show for days.’

      ‘Told you,’ said Jo. ‘He’ll show up with numb nuts and a hangover, I’d bet money on it. Or he knows she’s preggers and he’s moved to the Outer Hebrides. You know what men are like.’

      ‘But,’ I said, crossing the room and pulling the file from the cabinet, ‘his car’s been done over, like, seriously done over.’

      ‘Crap,’ said Aunt Edie.

      I frowned at Jo. ‘What’s she doing?’

      ‘She’s doing my head in, that’s what she’s doing.’

      I glanced back at Aunt Edie. Her glasses had fallen to the tip of her nose and her lips were pursed but she didn’t appear to have heard Jo’s comment. I raised my eyebrows at Jo. We both know Aunt Edie doesn’t take criticism well.

      Jo shrugged her shoulders like she didn’t care. ‘She’s typing up Martin’s notes. Thought I might as well get her doing something, seeing as how we didn’t know where you were.’

      I put my notes from my interview with Jan into the file and thought about what we had. A possible date in Old Bar today at 2 p.m. And Tuff. We needed to speak to him – it looked like he was the last person to see Matt – and maybe he could shed some light on what had happened to Matt’s car. The bookshop was opposite the university Union, which housed Old Bar. It made sense to combine the two appointments, not that Tuff knew we were coming. A glance at the clock above the filing cabinet told me it wasn’t even ten. I dropped the file with my notes onto Aunt Edie’s desk so she could type them up later. She peered at her computer screen and cursed again.

      Call me sensitive, but I was picking up on an atmosphere. Luckily, I’ve been mates with Jo long enough to know what she needed. ‘Why don’t we take a drive to see the flats where the woman’s body was found? Martin said they overlook Roundhay Park. There’s got to be a café round there somewhere. I’ll buy breakfast.’

      Jo and I left the office together. I didn’t even take my jacket. The van was parked just round the corner, and I clambered into the passenger seat and got that buzz I always get when I know we’re leaving our normal. A trip. Probably I need to get out more.

      We had to negotiate the mad ballet dance that is the Sheepscar Interchange, which involved a few car horns and Jo sticking the Vs up out of the window as the satnav lady fired directions at us. We eventually joined Roundhay Road, which takes you out to the north-east of the city.

      Leeds 6 is a СКАЧАТЬ