Pop Goes the Weasel | страница 93



DC Fortune had scarcely fared better. He had snapped everyone in and out of the church and had been assiduous in photographing every member of the public who passed by. Junior officers dressed as gardeners covered the back of the church, but had seen nothing apart from a man and his dog.

‘Keep an eye out as people leave the church and make sure you get a picture of the chauffeurs too. Go with the cortège back to the family home, but tell one of your boys to remain behind. I want that grave watched night and day. Chances are if our killer comes she’ll come in the dead of night.’

‘Yes, Ma’am.’

‘Good. File what you’ve snapped so far and keep on it, Lloyd. You never know when she might turn up.’

Did Helen really believe that? As she walked back to her bike, she felt the killer once more slipping away from them. Surveillance was a good move, but had yielded nothing so far. Would she have suspected this move? Did she know what they were thinking?

Helen felt once more on the back foot, ineptly dancing to a tune played by their killer, and now Emilia Garanita too. Had Jake really spilled the beans? It seemed unlikely, no, actually it seemed impossible, but how else had Emilia found out about them?

She was due to see him this evening, but pulling her phone from her pocket, Helen texted to cancel. She wasn’t ready to speak to him yet. A small part of her wondered if she would ever speak to him again.


57

There is a fantasy that sustains you when you’re on active service. It’s the dream that sustains every soldier when he's stuck in some godforsaken dustbowl being shot at and shouted at. It’s the fantasy that there’s something better waiting for you at home. In this fantasy, your girl is keeping the home fires burning, hankering for your return. She will welcome you back with open arms, fill you with good food, take you to bed and be the doting, angelic wife. This is the very least you deserve for the months of fear, loneliness and anger. But it seldom works out that way.

Simon Booker was an ordinary citizen now. His best mate had been blown up two days before they were due to ship out. On the plane home, Simon had told his superior officer he was quitting. He used to love the army, but he wanted out now. It had brought him nothing but disillusionment and despair.

He was convinced that Ellie had been seeing other men whilst he was away. He didn’t have any evidence, it was just a feeling. Still, it gnawed away at him and he wondered which of his so-called mates were laughing behind their hands now, exchanging stories of what his Mrs was like in the sack. He avoided them, just like he now avoided Ellie. He couldn’t talk to her about what life had been like over there, about what it felt like to see Andy split in fifty pieces, and he certainly didn’t want to talk about what she got up to whilst he was away. So he went to the Doncaster and the White Hart. And when he came home, struggling to fit the key into the lock as his hand shook and his brain swam in cheap lager, he would trudge up to the box room where the computer was, walking past the open bedroom door.