67
Saturday, 5 May 2012
Fog floated across from the river; it wrapped itself around the boats and made phantoms of trees along the bank; wisps caught like tendrils around the wing mirrors. The wind had dropped and the chinking sound of the boats by the shore had ceased. Stella had left the engine running, the sound lost in the muffled quiet.
‘I hope I didn’t scare you.’ Stanley sat on his lap; head back, chest puffed, he darted swift looks about him. Plain curiosity, she decided. Nothing suggested he sensed the supernatural. Stella’s fear finally evaporated.
David’s hair hung in dripping strands. His collar up, he warmed his hands at the van’s heating vents. That he had turned up in this God-forsaken place was too good to be true. Now she had guessed he was in his sixties, she reflected that he looked much younger. In the dim light his profile, lean and spare, took her breath away.
She gave a sudden laugh. ‘I was already scared.’
‘I did wonder at your friend suggesting here.’ David made a porthole in his steamed-up side window. ‘I had to see that you were all right.’
‘Thanks.’ Stella wanted to say she was pleased but couldn’t think how to phrase it.
‘The tree where they found her is over there.’
‘I’d forgotten about that.’ Stella didn’t say she had gone out of her way to find the willow tree and had whispered to Elizabeth Figg. He might think her odd. Instead: ‘You said you were off out.’
‘I wish I could postpone, since your friend’s let you down.’ He stroked the dog. ‘But I can’t.’ His thigh was centimetres from Stella’s knee. ‘Call it deep cleaning or tying up loose ends. ’ He rested his hand on the dog’s shoulder.
Stella braced herself for some personal stuff. It was a bit soon, she told herself. She could tell him about the blue folder. He had remembered Elizabeth Figg; she was sure he would understand.
David must be a little afraid, for, as Jack always did when they were in the streets where the men had been murdered, he pressed the mechanism on the handle and locked the van’s doors.
‘Next week.’ Stella reached out and touched his hand.