Page 32 of Ticket Out

“I know. I think I lost it. I got off the bus ten minutes before my stop and took the back lanes here.”

“How did the driver know where you live?”

“He stopped at the bus stop in Earl’s Court, offered me a lift. I said no, then I saw a white van behind the bus later. It might not have been the same one,” she said. “And I don’t know how he found me in Earl’s Court. If he did.”

“But you think it’s possible?”

She shrugged. “Better safe than sorry.” Then she gave a huge yawn. “I’m finished. I’ll see you round, Sol.”

He gave a wave as she started up the stairs, and then she heard the front door close quietly as he left.

She tapped a finger to her lips as she climbed, trying to remember everything she could about the van driver. His cap had hidden his eyes, but she’d noticed in the glimpse she’d caught that he’d been smooth-shaven, and she had the impression he wasn’t much older than she was. He’d been wearing a jacket, maybe denim or gray cotton, with wide lapels.

She didn’t believe it was a coincidence that a white van driver had offered her a lift. He couldn’t have seen Tony on his first pass and she wondered if he would have tried to get her in his van if he’d realized she wasn’t alone.

Probably not.

She didn’t want any more drama, but she decided she’d better let DS Archer know about the encounter in the morning.

When she reached her door, she couldn’t hear anyone in the flat opposite, so either Jerome was out, or he was having a quiet night in.

She hoped he was in. It was a comfort to know he was there.

For the first time since this started, she was afraid.

chapterfourteen

DC Hartridge was leaningagainst James’s car as he came out of the pathologist’s office.

Patty Little’s father had been waiting in the small, gray-walled corridor when he’d come out of the post mortem, and James had eventually had to leave him, crying silently over his daughter’s body, in the care of Dr. Jandicott himself.

“What did Jandicott have to say?” Hartridge asked as they both got into the Wolseley.

“Miss Farnsworth was right. The victim most likely died on Saturday night, or the early hours of Sunday morning. And she didn’t die in that alley. She was left there afterwards.”

“She did look posed,” Hartridge said. He flicked open his notepad and James caught a glimpse of neat handwriting. “The Fraud boys got back to us. They said the shell company that owns the car our first body was found in was set up by a law firm in Chelsea.”

“Where?”

Hartridge gave him the address and James drove straight there. He had planned to interview Devenish, the gallery owner, about how well he knew Patty, but that would have to wait.

If they didn’t get a lead on the identity of their first victim soon, he was going to have to go to the press.

The law offices were in a converted Georgian row house near the Natural History Museum, the street a smart line of white stucco walls and glossy black railings, with various personal touches in the form of pot plants on the front porch or brightly colored doors.

Messrs. Golightly and Todd, Solicitors, had chosen to keep things severe with a door as glossy black as the railings, and not a pot plant in sight.

James tried the door and it opened easily, but no one sat at the secretary’s desk set in the wide hallway. With a shrug, James walked into the waiting room, just down from the desk, and found that empty, too.

However, behind one of the two doors on the opposite side of the waiting room, James could hear someone talking.

He rapped on it, then stood back.

The talking ceased immediately, and after a moment, footsteps approached.

The door opened and a man in a striped three-piece suit scowled belligerently at him. “Who the hell are you?”

James had already taken his warrant card out, and he held it up. “Detective Sergeant Archer,” he said. “This is Detective Constable Hartridge. Are you Mr. Golightly, or Mr. Todd?”

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