Page 72 of Carbon

“Hi,” she said, holding out a hand.

He shook it and smoothed down a few wayward clumps of hair with his fingers.

“You got a problem with your car?”

“The car could do with its oil checking, but we actually came to ask you a couple of questions.”

His open demeanour turned a little frosty. “You with the police?”

“No, a private investigations firm. We’ve got a client looking for Beau Davies, and we understand you might have spoken to him.”

“And I’ll tell you the same thing I told the police—I never saw him or his motorcycle.”

“What did you talk about on the phone? We see from his phone records that he called you.”

“He wanted to borrow a spanner.”

“And?”

“And what?”

“Did you lend it to him?”

“Uh...no.”

“But he called you again? Several times?”

Ned took a step back and folded his arms. “Okay, so I did lend him a spanner. But that was it. I don't know nothing about anything else.”

So Nedhadseen Ben.

Emmy glanced through the open door of the workshop. A single car sat on a hoist, missing its two front wheels, but that wasn’t what caught her eye.

“I see you use Snap-On tools. They’re the best, right?”

“That they are. My old dad taught me that you buy once, and you buy quality.”

“A good lesson. These cheap imports don’t last, do they? What does a Snap-On spanner cost? Twenty pounds? Thirty?”

“Something like that.”

“And you lent yours out to a stranger, no questions asked?”

Ned realised he’d been trapped and took another step backwards, but Emmy simply smiled and matched him.

“I’m a nice guy, okay? Helping the neighbours and all that.”

“I wish I believed you, Ned, but I just don’t. One of those calls lasted almost ten minutes.”

“Look, I got nothing more to say to you people. Beau Davies was a good man, and all those rumours coming out of the gossip mill that is the Women’s Institute are a load of shite. Those ladies have got nothing better to do than crow over other people’s misfortune.”

At least it wasn’t only me who hated that. “It was my sister who got killed, and I don’t believe he did it either,” I added quietly.

Ned turned his glower on me, then his expression softened. “I’m sorry about your sister, but why are you helping them?”

“Because they’ve already found one anomaly in the evidence, and I’m hoping they find more. If they can’t track down Beau, the other option is him running forever, and I’d hate for him to have to do that.”

“What are your intentions if you do find him?” Ned asked Emmy.

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