Page 53 of Murder in Shades of Fire and Ash

Tom blushed. “I’ve decided I quite like this music.”

“We certainly hear enough of it.”

“Are you two grown men being bossed around by two teenage girls?” Eddy asked and then laughed when Tom and Charlie both nodded vigorously. Charlie laughed, too, but it wasn’t funny.

“Be right back,” Charlie said and limped upstairs for fresh clothes and dry shoes. Tom left Eddy in the living room and followed Charlie. Once they were in their bedroom with the door closed, Tom enfolded Charlie in his arms.

“How’re you doing?” he asked.

“Better for seeing you,” Charlie said, and Tom kissed him.

They were interrupted by a phone ringing.

“No peace,” Tom muttered. “Never any peace. Let’s get you some clean clothes. He sighed.

“Could you do me a favour?” Charlie asked him, “Can you find out which agent is managing the college’s properties?”

“I already did,” Tom said, “Jones and Company, in town. I don’t deal with them, but you can be sure that our new finance team is very careful to check the bona fides of anyone we deal with.”

The sky wasdark as Charlie and Eddy headed for the first petrol station, on the outskirts of Llanfair. They had worked out a route, taking in as many places as they could. From above it would look as if they were tracing the pattern of a spider’s web, but with Eddy’s driving it would take no more than a couple of hours … or so.

It began to rain in earnest as they left the town, and the sky was black with more to come.

“It’ll be floods next,” Eddy said. “Have you noticed that it’s always floods? Either the ground is so dry and hard that the water runs off it, or it’s too saturated to absorb any more. Either way, floods.”

He was right. The river burst its banks regularly throughout the year, turning the low-lying fields beside it into an enormous lake — not that developers were deterred from applying to build homes on those lovely flat fields withriver views.Luckily the planners could turn them down as quickly as they applied. Discussion about the inevitability of floods kept them occupied as they visited the first two garages, neither of which had anything helpful to offer.

They hit pay dirt at the third garage.

41

Wednesday lunchtime

The garage was about ten miles from Llanfair, sharing a site with the local farmers’ co-op. It also doubled as the village shop, offering the same range of goods as a much bigger supermarket, though not at supermarket prices. Charlie looked appreciatively at the display of iced doughnuts as he hopped his way to the counter to introduce them and their errand.

“Yeah, we did have someone with a petrol can a few days ago,” the balding middle-aged man behind the counter told them. His name badge read BRIAN. “Said her mate had run out about a mile up the road. I told her to go ahead and get a can from the display and fill it up. She had one of those plastic ones.” He waved his arm, and Charlie saw a small display of car necessities: wiper blades, air fresheners, stick-on cup-holders, and fuel cans in both green and black plastic, alongside a much bigger metal jerrycan. “They don’t hold much, but there would be enough to get her mate this far. But they never came. Probably headed for the nearest supermarket petrol station. Silly really, we’re the cheapest round here.”

Eddy asked whether the man could describe the woman with the petrol can. Brian shrugged.

“Lots of make-up is all I can remember. Like one of those Kardashians off the telly. Sorta puffy, painted-on lips and big eyebrows. It was red hot and she said she’d walked a mile, but you wouldn’t know it to look at her. She had a hat on, too. I remember that.”

Faced with this unhelpful description, Charlie asked if there was any CCTV.

“Sure,” Brian said. “Do you want to see it? She’s most probably on there.”

“That would be very helpful, seeing as we’ve come all this way in the pouring rain,” Charlie said, hoping the passive aggressive tone wasn’t coming across. But the man only nodded.

“You’ll have to come round the counter,” he said.

The CCTV screen was smaller than most laptops and divided into six segments. As Charlie watched, the cameras showed a car pulling up by one of the pumps, a figure getting out and opening the petrol cap. It was impossible to tell — on the screen — whether the figure was male or female. Charlie sighed.

“When did the woman come in to buy the petrol?” he asked. “I mean roughly what day and time?”

“I’ll have to have a look through, and I ought to discuss it with the boss,” Brian said. “Excuse me while I serve this gentleman.” The blurred figure on the tiny screen was now standing in front of the counter, credit card in hand. Charlie pulled Eddy aside and spoke quietly.

“This is useless,” he said.

Eddy nodded. “Even if he finds it, it’s probably not going to help. But I suppose we should get it anyway. Just in case.”

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