Page 6 of Ticket Out

And, most likely, she would never see him again.

She hitched her bag higher on her shoulder, and went to join the queue for the bus.

chapterthree

James madeit back up to his office in time to see Gabriella Farnsworth board the bus, disappearing inside in her brown and pink flowered skirt and pink top.

He had expected her to be in uniform, so he’d been thrown when the duty sergeant had pointed out the slim-limbed beauty, lost in thought, ringlets framing her face, her elegant bun emphasizing her high cheekbones and her large brown eyes.

She had the thickest, longest eyelashes of anyone he’d ever met.

A quick knock at his door forced him to step back from the window, and Detective Inspector Whetford strode in. “You speak to the traffic warden?”

“I did.” James picked up his notebook, glancing down at it as if he needed the memory prompt. Which he did not. “She interacted with him twice, just left the ticket on the windscreen the third time without seeing him.”

“Why didn’t she get his name?” Whetford’s tone was irritated.

“She says he refused to give it to her, and she couldn’t compel him. It sounds as if he was belligerent and obstructive. He ripped up the tickets in front of her both times she had direct dealings with him.”

“Is that so?” Whetford rocked back on his heels. “That’s interesting. Like he had something to hide?”

“Or he didn’t want a fine and thought not giving his name would make it harder for her to issue one.” James could see both as likely scenarios.

“True enough. So it’s a dead end.”

“Not completely. We know he was in the area, parking in that same spot, at least four times in the last three weeks. It makes it more likely we’ll find someone who knew something about him.”

“Right. Well keep me up to date, will you?” Whetford took a step toward the door. “I’m dealing with another matter, so you’ll have to fly this one more or less solo.”

James nodded, standing by his desk until Whetford left.

He didn’t like his boss. There was a slick, smarmy way about him that rubbed him up the wrong way and the occasional sly cracks about his Welsh heritage didn’t help.

James gathered his papers neatly into piles, locked them away, and then shrugged into his jacket. He’d go back to the scene, talk to whoever was hanging around.

Uniform had already done a door-to-door, but the victim seemed to have used the loading zone as a parking spot at night, if he was reading the fines Gabriella Farnsworth had issued correctly.

She’d caught him returning to his car in the early morning each time, as if he’d spent the night somewhere nearby.

The car’s number plates had been false, but the engine number was linked to a car purchased by a company that they were still trying to track down. There was only a post office address on record for it, and James had a strong feeling it was going to turn out to be a shell company or a front.

The pathologist hadn’t found anything in the car except the blood of the victim and a knife under the seat.

He’d been stabbed in the chest, but not before someone had made a nasty slash across his forehead.

It looked to James as if he’d been attacked outside the car, had tried to get away by getting in on the passenger side, and then was stabbed in the heart once he was inside.

Gabriella Farnsworth thought he’d been shot. He supposed it was a logical enough assumption given she hadn’t had a good look at the body, and all the blood on his face could be explained by a bullet to the brain.

He walked to his car and then regretted his decision to use it as he turned out of the Yard and hit the afternoon city traffic.

The drive to Kensington took twice as long as it had taken this morning, and he felt hot and out of sorts by the time he pulled up in the same loading zone where the victim had parked. He put his police sign on the dashboard, and as he began to look for likely witnesses he wondered with a smile if Gabriella Farnsworth would track him down for his sins.

The nearby Italian café was busier than it had been this morning. They were playing Italian opera on a turntable and people were sitting at red and white check tables on the pavement, sipping red wine.

It was the kind of place that James thought he might enjoy, but had never tried. He was more comfortable in a pub, or at teashop.

A man shifted in the gloom of the doorway. “You are the policeman from this morning.”

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