Page 49 of Return Ticket

“And you were there?” James’s hold tightened.

She nodded. “The tradesman called me to help him. I called Constable Evans and then waited with the vicar for a while.”

“Did you see the body?” James asked. “Could you see how she’d died?”

“It looked like she had a bad head wound, but the worker had thrown bricks down moments before he saw her, so I don’t know which injuries were from that, and which ones were from whoever put her in there.” Gabriella could see this news was shocking to James. “You didn’t know about it?”

He shook his head. “But I’ve been out all day, interviewing people, or trying to.” He leaned back himself. “It’s possible the information is on my desk.” He released his hold on her hands and rubbed his hair. Since summer had faded the blond strands were a darker gold.

She thought he looked a little rough—stubble obvious on his cheeks and chin, his tie askew and his gray eyes hooded.

He was agitated about the woman found in Kensington. She could see it in the way he gripped his pint. She guessed if he could have, he would have paced up and down and asked her more questions.

The publican set their food down in front of them, steak and chips for James and chicken parmigiana for her. She had been delighted to see it on the menu, thinking it was a solely Australian adaption of the Italian aubergine dish.

As soon as the food arrived, James relaxed a little, and studied her dish with interest.

“Is it what you thought it would be?” he asked.

“So far,” she said. “It looks right. I’ll let you know if it tastes right.”

As she cut into it, the publican came back and leaned closer to James. “Clark just came in. He’s at the bar, with the navy jacket.”

James gave a nod of thanks. He had made sure he was sitting where he could see the bar, and as the publican moved away, he studied someone behind Gabriella’s shoulder. She wanted to turn her head and look, but decided it was probably better she didn’t.

“Go, if you need to,” she said.

James shook his head, but he was eating faster than he had been. “I’ll let him relax a bit, get a pint in him first.”

Gabriella held out a fork of chicken parmi and offered it to James. “This is the real deal. I’ll bet you they have an Australian back in the kitchen.”

James looked at the fork in surprise, as if no one had ever offered him a bite of their dinner before, and then leaned forward to sample it.

“It’s good,” he admitted, his eyes going from the now-empty fork to her mouth. Then his gaze flicked back to the bar, and his face changed. Became harder.

He slid out of the booth. “He’s leaving.”

“That was a quick pint,” Gabriella said, but James just shook his head and hurried toward the door.

Unable to resist, Gabriella turned to see what was happening, and caught sight of James’s tall figure, head and shoulders above most of the other patrons, as he headed out.

He wouldn’t want her there for whatever words he was about to have with Mr. Clark, and she had only eaten about a third of her dinner, so she turned back to her food, taking her time, enjoying the soft murmurs of conversation around her and the odd shout of laughter from the bar.

She needed this, she realized. Needed to be around other people, but still able to keep to herself. Just to eat something she didn’t have to make or clean up, and forget about the woman in the skip for a bit.

It would be better if James was still sitting opposite her, but he’d be back.

And she would see whether he was going to take another step closer to getting her into bed.

She sincerely hoped so.

* * *

James followed Larry Clark out of the pub. He had noticed the moment one of the regulars had leaned in to say something in his ear, and Clark’s quick, panicked spin on his chair as he turned to look around.

Someone had told him a copper was in the pub, wanting to talk to him.

It was interesting that his first instinct was to run.

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