Flashback (Reid Bennett 9)

CHAPTER 1

Five kids were standing around an old Ford Fairlane on Main Street. I weighed them up as I jogged out of the trees on to the dusty road surface of Main Street. After three years as police chief in Murphy's Harbour I know every one of the locals by sight, and most of the regular visitors. This bunch was out of tune with the town and I jogged over to the wall of the grocery store in my running shorts and T-shirt and pretended to stretch against the wall while I weighed them up.

They weren't sporting any gang regalia, colours or the same baseball caps worn backwards but the way they lounged on the fenders of the car, smoking, showed they had something to prove.

Only one was an individual threat, the biggest, he could have been twenty or even older, the same height as me, six one, about 175 useful pounds, boxer's muscles although his face was unmarked.

One of the others was carrying a baseball bat and he looked the most knotted up. He was around sixteen, fair hair and a neat little rat tail tickling his neck. One of the smokers said something to him and he said something hard and flat in return and they all laughed, yukking it up like actors. Then he made his move, along the front street in my direction towards a mongrel dog tied by its leash to a post at the other end of the store.

He picked up speed and cocked the bat and I sprang. He was five yards from the dog, I was ten but I covered the ground in four strides. The kid stopped when he saw me coming but drew the bat back and stood ready to swing. He figured I would halt, out of range, and use my silver tongue. Instead I took the two extra steps and straight-armed him in the upraised elbow.

He sprawled backwards, dropping the bat. I grabbed it before one of the others could. They were on the move, springing away from the car, closing on me, shouting. Then the big one held his hand up and they stopped.

'Pretty tough, shovin' people around?' He was doing his best to sound rough but he had an educated voice.

'I'm the chief of police here. What's your name?'

He ignored the question, cocking his head to his claque. 'Some pussy town you got here, chiefy, if that's how you dress.'

The rest of them had surrounded me, sniggering. I was glad I'd picked up the bat. I had to keep control or be swarmed.

I reversed it in my hands, holding it like a rifle and bayonet, butt towards him, and moved in on him, fast. He backed off, which gave me whatever psychological advantage there was but the others were still around me. 'In the car, son, and head out.' I told him, not raising my voice.

'Or what?' he sneered, but he licked his lips.

'I'm counting three.'

He looked around at his guys and nodded and they started inching in again.

'One,' I said clearly. They were four feet from me now, all around.

'Two.' He stood his ground.

'Three.' I reversed the bat and slammed the handle down on his toe. Not a recommended move. It did no more than embarrass him, making him swear and hop on one toe. But it worked, making it look like I didn't need to do more than humiliate him. I whirled, to face the next biggest. 'Get him in the car and out of town or you're next.'

He tried to stare me down for a moment, then took the other guy's elbow. 'Come on, Eric, the hell with this place.'

The guy shook him off and hobbled to the car and I watched as he got into the passenger seat and sat there, glaring at me.

The other three scrambled into the rear of the car, one of them saying, 'You ain't seen the last of us.' Then the driver spurted away, spinning the car in a U-turn that tore a rut in the unpaved roadway and left a plume of dust as they roared back down the road towards the highway.

I heard a woman's voice saying, 'They were going to kill Ragamuffin.' It was one of our regular summer people bending over the dog which had roused itself at last and was standing, shaking off the dust it had gathered.

'Maybe not,' I said. Why sow anxieties? 'They're just kids.'

She's a fussy little woman, a widow in her seventies. 'Well, you sure showed them, Chief. Thank you.' She hoisted her grocery bag tighter under her arm and unwound the dog's leash from the post. 'Come on, Ragamuffin, let's go home.'

I glanced around the street. The usual crowd of youngsters was standing on the patch of dusty grass against the end of the bridge. It's the gathering place for teenagers, where the girls can giggle and the boys arm-wrestle and swear at one another in their newly broken voices. Occasionally I have to ask them to keep the music down to a dull roar, other than that they're harmless.

I went over to them and asked. 'Hi, did you know any of those guys?'

They didn't. Even the boys were glad to tell me that. Usually they're too cool to talk, letting the girls do it for them, but they were against the gang, strangers on their turf.

I nodded and left them, cutting my run short to go down to the police station which is south of the bridge, instead of crossing over and making my usual five-mile circuit of the water, both sides, both bridges. I wanted to let the other police know what was happening. Most of the towns hereabouts don't have police of their own, they depend on the Ontario Provincial Police, the OPP.

I called the Parry Sound detachment and alerted them, giving the licence of the Ford and a rough description of the kids. Then I checked the car's ownership. It belonged to a Walter Patton at an East Toronto address. I knew that Toronto has teen-gang problems so that didn't surprise me, but I wondered what they were doing this far north. Setting up a branch plant?

I hung up and sat for a moment glancing around my domain. Pretty good by the standards of cottage country. The office has a counter between me and the front door with a bench for the few people who linger long enough to sit down. There's the usual clutter of police posters and a rack of public information brochures on things like road safety and child abuse that nobody ever comes in to pick up. My side of the fence contains a desk with the original muscle-powered typewriter that was new when the office was built in the 'sixties. Behind the desk there's a stool that was once used by our civilian employee, the 'mister' in police slang. But he was let go a couple of years back when he got into trouble and the town's been too cheap to replace him since, so its seat is getting dull. Then there are a couple of grey filing cabinets, a teletype machine and, new this month, a Fax.

There were a couple of messages on the teletype. A wide load would be heading up the highway the following night. If possible, I should be at the highway entrance when it passed, routine. But the second one stopped me. George Kershaw, white male, forty-two years old, five-ten, had eluded the guard who had been sent with him on a day pass from Joyceville, a medium security jail. He'd skipped from Toronto, at the Skydome where he had been attending a baseball game. He was wearing a blue shirt and slacks, was unarmed but should be considered dangerous.

I tore the message off and clipped it on the board I keep for special news. I knew he was dangerous. I'd been the guy who locked him away, five years ago, in Toronto, where he had held up a bank, shooting the manager and taking a female hostage. My partner and I cornered him half an hour later. He'd used the woman as a shield, threatening to blow her away, his words, until I told him I'd shoot him through the mouth and he'd be dead before he could react. Then he shoved her away and dived, shooting at me but I hit him first, taking the fight out of him, He'd sworn at his trial that he would get me. A lot of them do that but I had a hunch he meant it. And I've put a few guys in jail since I've been here, so I was sure he knew where to come looking.

That did it. I stuck the baseball bat under the counter, on a ledge that contained a pile of accident forms and a six-pack of empty pop bottles. Then I locked the station, shoved the key back in the pouch on my shoe and headed home.

Freda was watering the garden when I got back. Wearing a big hat and the striped dress she had made for her pregnancy and usually referred to as 'the tent'. She was full term now and had been flagging for the last couple of weeks as the July heat picked up, but today she was full of energy, spraying the tomato plants.

'You're back early. Have a good run?'

'OK, as far as it went, but there was a hassle in town. Nothing serious, but I figured I should hold off on the exercise until later.' I put my arm around her shoulder and she gave me a quick kiss, buckling the brim of her hat against my forehead. Sam, my big German shepherd, got up from the porch and came down to greet me, looking a little aggrieved. He figures he's my shadow and was until Freda and I got together. With my wife vulnerable, I felt more protective than usual. That's why I'd left Sam with Fred when I went out. Fred? It's her own joking diminutive of Freda. Not many women could carry off a name like that without having cynics raise their eyebrows, but she's a charmer and the name fits her like the men's hats some girls wear.

She patted me on the shoulder. 'Right now a shower is a pretty high priority, old sport. Go for it. I'll make us a salad with some of this abundance here.'

'I'm in danger of ending up healthy,' I said, 'if this marriage lasts,' and ducked as she turned the hose on me.

We were eating lunch when the phone rang. I wondered if it would be one of our storekeepers to report the boys were back in town but it was a citizen with another problem. There was a car in the lake on the far shore. He'd noticed it while he was fishing off a rock.

Fred said she was going to read for a while, so I left Sam on watch in case Kershaw intended keeping his promise. I figured his presence would be enough to keep her safe and she didn't have to know I was worried for her. She had enough on her mind anyway. Then I drove off over the bridge at the north lock and down the west shore of the waterway, our section of the Derwent River system although this stretch is really a narrow lake.

I saw a crowd on the rock the fisherman had told me about. They were staring down and when I joined them I saw the car's rear end, a couple of feet underwater.

I asked, 'Is Tom Fielding here?'

A lean young guy with an expensive graphite fishing-rod said, 'I'm Fielding.'

'Thank you for calling in. When did you see the car?'

'About half an hour before I called you. I ran back home and telephoned. Is it stolen.'

'Can't say without seeing the licence plate, but it shouldn't be in there, that's certain. There's a car missing from Parry Sound.' I looked around at the crowd. Most of them would have been in bed before the car was even stolen, I figured, we get only a couple of TV channels locally. There's not much to do after dark but slap mosquitoes.

'Does any of you live close by?'

A woman nodded, she was about my age, late thirties. A looker but not working at it, lean, self-possessed, a cool, managerial type, I knew her by sight. 'That's my place over there.' She pointed to a white-painted cottage on the far side of the road.

'You're Ms Tracy, right?'

'Right.'

'Did you hear anything last night, Ms Tracy?'

She shook her head. 'No, but I was out until around twelve-thirty.'

As we spoke I was weighing up the terrain. The rock we were on sloped towards the water. One man could have pushed it into the lake unassisted. The splash would have been loud, but splashes aren't uncommon. My radio squawked and I held up one finger, 'Excuse me a minute, please.' I went back to the car and picked up the mike. 'Police chief.'

It was Gilles Perrault, the guy who runs the bait store on Main Street, reaching me through the phone line which kicks into my radio link. 'Reid. Gilles Perrault. Come quick. Kids been in, pushed the tank over, stole all kinds of stuff.'

'Be right there.' I took a moment to tell the crowd I'd be back with a tow truck. Then I told Ms Tracy, 'I have an emergency to attend to, could I come and talk to you later, please?'

'Of course. I'll be around until six.' She wanted to say more and I gave her a half-second before she blurted, 'I heard the radio. A swarming? Does that mean there are teen gangs in town?'

'I'm about to find out.' I inclined my head to her and left. On the way I called Fred and had her patch me through to Kinski's Garage. When they answered I told Paul about the submerged car and asked him to bring his tow truck up and start hauling it out. He swore when he heard it was under water, then grunted, so I guessed he'd find some way to get a chain on it. Then I put my foot down and picked up speed to Main Street.

The gang had really done a job on Perrault's store. His floor was awash with water and minnows wriggling every which way and muddy with a mixture of worms and moss. Gilles and an elderly customer were struggling to set the fish tank back on its base. It was a galvanized cattle trough but lined with bricks on the bottom and heavy.

He was swearing rapidly in French as he worked and he didn't stop until we had the tank back in place and he had run a hose into it. Then he thanked us and set about scooping up his stock. I hooked a pail off the wall and helped him. Sightseers crowded around the doorway, but none came in to help, they stood there drinking up the sight. It's the same at every kind of calamity. Some help, most watch.

It took us about five minutes to get most of the shiners back in the tank which was filling slowly. While Gilles hunted down the last of his minnows off the floor 1 asked him what had happened.

'Was kids. Couple big, maybe seventeen, eighteen. The rest younger. They came in, one came up to the counter an' then the rest ran wild, grabbin' stuff, tippin' the tank. I try to stop dem an' one big one push me over. Two, t'ree others was throwin' worms out of the fridge.'

'Did you see the bunch I had the heyrube with earlier?'

'No. I was busy an' it was over quick. Some customer tol' me. Said they was gonna kill a dog. But I never seen these kids before.' He found a dustpan and started sweeping up the worms, swearing again in his guttural Quebecois French.

It sounded like the return of the dog-bashers, looking to pay me back for chasing them off earlier, but I dug for details. 'Were they wearing any kind of uniform? The same baseball caps maybe or a handkerchief hanging out of their pockets, anything?'

'I never seen nothin',' Gilles said miserably. 'They took lures, couple rods, anythin' they could grab.'

I asked the customer, 'Were you in here, sir, when this happened?'

'No. I got here as they were running out of the place. About knocked me over.'

I washed my fishy hands, took the customer's name and address and told Gilles to make a list of what had been stolen while I tried to trace the kids, then I went outside, leaving the customer beating Gilles down on his bait purchase, claiming that the minnows were shocked and would go belly up in no time.

A couple of people claimed to have seen the kids leaving but no two of their descriptions jibed so I had nothing to go on. I gave up, going into each of the stores and telling each of the clerks to phone the moment they recognized any of the kids or if a bunch of youths came in at once, not to wait until they swarmed the place. Then I saw Kinski's tow truck heading north up the other side of the lake and I got back in the car and followed it up.

It turned off the roadway and backed down the rock through the crowd which had swelled since I left. When it stopped, just as I arrived. I saw it was Kinski himself, one of the hard-working Poles who got out of their country a year or two ago when Solidarity was making waves, and he had his son with him, a lean blond boy in jeans and a T-shirt which he shucked as soon as he got out of the car, revealing a swimsuit.

Paul waited for me to walk over, then said, 'Peter swims good. He come with me to put on the chain.'

'Good thinking. Don't try anything tricky, Peter, like getting yourself underneath the car, duck down and reach under, that's all.'

'No worries.' He grinned cheerfully while his father unhitched the hook and loosened the tow cable.

As we waited I asked him, 'Tell me, Pete, have you heard anything about any gangs around here?'

'Gangs?' I could tell he hadn't.

'Yeah, any bunch of losers hanging around together, maybe wearing something the same, same belt, same cap, same coloured shoe-laces, anything like that?'

He shrugged. 'I been workin' with Dad all summer, running the pumps an' that.'

'OK, thanks. If you hear anything, see a bunch of kids in a car together, make a note of the number, would you, and call me.'

'No worries,' he said again, then took the hook from his father and snapped on a scuba mask. He clambered down the rock and dropped neatly into the water, holding his mask on. His father let the hook loose and let it run down to water level where Peter took it. Then he took a couple of deep breaths and sank under the water. He came up once for more air, then the second time he gave us a thumbs-up.

'Out the way,' Paul called, and put the crane in gear. The truck lurched once, then locked, and the car came backwards out of the water with Peter treading water, clear of it. I saw that the driver's window was open. That was good. It probably meant the driver hadn't drowned. But I went to the left side of the car and checked anyway as the car cleared the water's edge. I'd already noted that it was the Honda that had been stolen from Parry Sound, a town half an hour north of here up the highway.

The crowd swarmed around it as it came out of the water and I had to tell them to back off, missing Sam; one hiss from me and he would have kept them back with no trouble.

When Paul had it up on the rock I took a better look inside. It was empty and the radio was missing and the seats had been slashed with a knife. Another act of gang mischief. Three in one day. If there was any truth to the old superstition, that was our quota for a while.

I opened the door to let the water out. The key was in the ignition, I noticed, a single key, not ring. Odd. Just about everybody keeps their keys together on a ring. Having it separated out like that looked deliberate.

Paul got down from the cab of his truck and came to tie off the wheel. He saw the slashed unholstery and spat angrily. 'Punks. Big tough guys with a knife, yeah?'

'Gutless,' I said automatically. 'Can you take it to your yard? I'd like to look it over before the owner has it picked up.'

He agreed and waited for Peter, who was towelling himself off and slipping his T-shirt back on, then drove off with the Honda trailing.

I took ten minutes to check with the neighbours, making sure nobody had heard anything. Nobody had. The only help I got was that there had been a ballgame on TV until close to eleven, after that all the residents had been asleep, except for Ms Tracy who had not got home until after twelve and had read for an hour or so before turning off the lights.

'You're sure you heard nothing?' I was a bit surprised that the noise hadn't woken her up. The splash would have been loud enough to have startled people. And if kids had done this, there could have been some yelling going on.

'I have an air-conditioner in the bedroom window,' she explained. 'It's pretty noisy.' Then, surprisingly, she added, 'Come and see for yourself.'

'OK.' I walked with her, weighing up the facts. Allowing that the noise might have reached her before she went to sleep, there were two windows of time in which someone could have driven the car into the lake, just around midnight or after two in the morning. The only snag was that if everyone within a couple of hundred yards had air-conditioning they would all have been deaf to the noise. Ah well, no big deal, the car was intact, more or less, my job was over when I'd reported it found.

I had an odd feeling about Ms Tracy. She was cool to the point of rudeness and I wondered why. She had never crossed my path before and had no cause for resentment. Maybe she had some old militant attitude towards the police. A lot of people got that way in the 'sixties. All I knew was that she owned the cottage and came up here on and off all summer. There didn't seem to be any men, or women for that matter, in her life. She seemed to be one of those people who pass through life without touching the sides.

Today she was wearing blue jeans and a cotton top knotted around her waist offering the occasional flash of firm brown belly. Not exactly erotic but attractive. And she wanted to help me. A minor mystery.

I followed her to the back of her cottage, the kind of winterized place that a lot of our long-time visitors build with plans for retiring here. Most don't. They stay in Toronto where the stores and their grandchildren make the winters more congenial.

The only concession to country living was a big screened verandah with comfortable chairs and a radio tuned to a classical music station. She opened the door and ushered me in. I stepped up on the porch and waited while she opened the main door of the house and said, 'Come on in, see for yourself.'

That was when my cop's instincts began to tickle. This was above and beyond the call of good citizenship. But I followed, keeping my hat on to show this wasn't a social call.

Her bedroom was comfortable, a queen-sized bed and a good shelf of books. There was a pile of bound typescripts on the side table. I'd seen my wife studying books like them. She's an actress.

The air-conditioner was running and it was as loud as she had suggested. She raised her voice slightly. 'See what I mean? I couldn't have heard a head-on crash.'

'True enough. Thank you.' I turned immediately and went back through to the porch. She followed. 'I love this heat, don't you?'

'It helps to make up for the winters.' I paused and she leaned on the doorjamb, on one foot, the other raised on tiptoe behind her, a dated pin-up shot. 'Would you like some iced tea?'

'No, thank you. I have to look in at home. My wife's expecting a baby just about any minute.' I smiled to show I wasn't being standoffish. 'Thanks anyway. The reason I came with you is that I thought you might have something you wanted to tell me without the neighbours hearing.'

'Oh?' she cocked her head. 'Like what, for instance?' She looked the way she might have done in her office in town, exercising good control of some subordinate.

I raised my hands. 'No idea. But people have funny ideas about the police. It's unfashionable to be any more helpful than is absolutely necessary.'

'And you have me pegged for a feminist, lesbian maybe, because I'm Ms Tracy, not Mrs.'

'I've been a policeman too long to generalize about anybody.'

'This place is my hideaway.' she said softly. 'In Toronto I work like a dog. I'm a feature film producer and I deal with every variety of bastard. Rich creeps who want to put money into movies so they can get next to the actresses, actors with egos the size of Czechoslovakia, unions, bitchy gay beauticians, every kind of headache you can imagine. But here I can be alone, be myself.'

It was more impassioned than I needed and I wondered why she was telling me. 'Well, thanks for the help. Enjoy your stay. When are you going back to town?'

'Next week sometime. When's the baby due?' Tit for tat. If I'd been exploring the possibility of a little dalliance she was carrying the ball.

'Any moment.'

'Mazel tov,' she said and smiled as if she meant it. 'Let me know when it happens. I don't always drink tea. We'll wet the baby's head.'

I didn't answer, just smiled and left, with the ripe summer warmth on my bare arms, feeling aroused. Chill out, I told myself. She was playing games.

I called in on Fred who was sitting on a chaise-longue by the back door, knitting. She got up when I arrived. 'Hi, honey. Like some iced tea?'

'You should be resting.' I wagged a finger at her. 'All this energy is getting me nervous. Sit still. I'll make it.'

'I phoned my mother this morning. She tells me the energy means today's the day,' she said cheerfully. 'Can't be soon enough for me, I'm tired of looking like the side of a house.'

'It's still the nicest-looking house in the neighbourhood, even with the bay window,' I said. She threw a cushion at me.

She likes an instant tea mix, so I chopped up a lemon and threw in the ice cubes and had the whole thing ready in a couple of minutes. She put her knitting down when I carried the tray out to the back yard and poured. She laid the cold glass against her cheek. 'Mmmm,' she said happily.

'Just had a lady make a veiled pass at me,' I said.

'Not surprising. You're almost attractive in a roughcast sort of way.' She sipped her tea. 'Who was it?'

'Woman called Tracy. Don't know her first name. She lives, summers anyway, across the lake, about half a mile south of the bridge. Says she's in the film business in Toronto.'

Fred frowned. 'Not an actress?'

'Production, she said. Was telling me this place is her hideaway, away from terrible people like actresses and people wishing to have their wicked way with them.'

Fred wrinkled her nose at me. 'Look where it gets us.' She patted her stomach. 'Would it be Marcia Tracy, I wonder? She's head honcho at Northland Productions in Toronto.'

Thirty-fiveish, trim, not much make-up, blonde.'

'Did she have a mole on her left buttock?'

'Right,' I said and Fred laughed.

'She's a ballbreaker. Two ex-husbands and a string of hopeful young studs behind her.'

'Fear not. I retreated with my honour intact.'

'Good for you, dear,' she said. 'Not much longer and we can make the bedsprings sing their old sweet song.'

'You're having a private room at the hospital?'

'You're a terrible man, Bennett,' she said.

I finished my tea and kissed her before heading down to Kinski's to look at the car. We've got a good thing going and I guess I'm one of nature's monogamists. It's my second marriage. My first was a girl I met in college. I dropped out but she got a degree in math, which has led her into computer sales. I was probably grating on her from the time I joined the Toronto Police Department and it fell apart completely when I cancelled a couple of bikers who were raping a variety store clerk. I was arrested for manslaughter and even though the case was dropped, Amy was long gone. There had been other women before Fred but not since she came into my life a year ago. I guess I'm terminally married.

Paul Kinski had the Honda in his pound. He does the tow work for the Ontario Provincial Police in this area and his yard is half filled with wrecks he's scraped off the rocks and roadways for fifty miles each way, rusting gently while the insurance companies and the courts dispense their decisions. The Honda looked almost new among them.

I called the Parry Sound detachment and reported the car recovered. The dispatcher read me off the name and address of the owner, then stopped. 'Hey, here's a thing. He's from your neck of the woods, Reid. Says he's staying at Pickerel Point Lodge, Murphy's Harbour. Be there for a week.'

'Pickerel Point? I wonder why he reported it stolen to you guys? Did he come into the office or call in?'

'No idea. No sweat anyways, cross it off your worry list.'

I hung up and called Pickerel Point Lodge. The manager put me on hold while she went out to the tennis court and dragged the owner in. His name was John Waites and he sounded like a yuppie.

'Mrs James said this was important.'

'Police chief here. We've recovered your car. It's at Kinski's Garage, Petro-Canada station on Highway 69, half a mile south of the Harbour.'

'What kind of condition is it in?' An unusual reaction.

'Well, it wasn't cracked up but it's been in the lake and somebody has ripped off the radio and slashed the seats.'

'Slashed the seats?' There was a flutter of sound as if he had changed hands on the receiver. 'Well, goddamn it,' he said. 'When did that happen? After it was pulled out?'

I didn't like him, I decided. 'It was done when the car was recovered from the lake.'

'Very well. I'll come down and look. Stay there.' He hung up before I could tell him it wasn't driveable. Serve him right, I thought, he sounded like a creep.

There was nothing else going on, so I accepted Paul's offer of a cup of coffee and went into his little diner to enjoy it. He makes good coffee and I was OD'd on iced tea. I sat and savoured it until a Mercedes pulled into the lot, avoiding the pumps, and a young guy got out of the passenger side. He was wearing tennis gear that revealed he had a good build and a tan. He was around five-nine and had neat, yuppie hair, dark and a little long but immaculately sculpted over his round head.

He came to the door and I checked behind him, trying to recognize the driver of the car, a woman who left without looking back.

He spoke to Peter at the pumps and followed the boy's finger to the coffee shop. I sat and waited for the grand entrance. He came up to me. 'John Waites. You called me about my wife's car.'

'The blue Honda, licence MW?'

'Right. Where is it?'

I got up and led him out to the car. I saw Paul shaking his head. He has European manners and hates impoliteness. Waites wrenched the door open and swore. 'Look at that. Vandalism.'

I said nothing until he got in and turned the key. Nothing happened. 'You would have been smarter to hold your ride for a while,' I said.

He swore again and banged the wheel with his hand. It all seemed a little too keyed up. Most people who get their cars back are sullen but they don't explode. 'Was that your wife in the Mercedes?' I asked.

He glared at me. 'No, it wasn't. If it's any of your damn business my dear Moira walked out yesterday, taking this car with her.'

'And then she called you from Parry Sound and told you it was stolen?'

'No. I did that.' He got out of the car and slammed the door. 'I was mad at her and I knew she was going up there. She has a friend there, some other dippy painter. The car is in my name and I was so angry when she left I reported it stolen, just to embarrass her.'

'That constitutes public mischief,' I said. 'You could be summonsed.' I was stretching it but only slightly, he had certainly bent the law although nothing would be done about it.

'I wonder what else they took,' he said. 'I had my golf clubs in the back.'

'You didn't take them out when she packed the car and left?'

'She did it while I was out. Left me a note.' He took the key out of the ignition and undid the trunk. I looked over his shoulder as he did it and then shoved him aside before he could reach in. A woman's body was coiled in the trunk, her fair hair pasted over her face with the water that had drowned her.