Perfect Strangers

‘So you don’t know what the job was either?’

He shook his head.

‘Do you think it might have something to do with his death?’

‘Who knows. But money is always a strong motive for murder. Money and women,’ he added, looking straight at her.

She ignored the jibe.

‘Well, he did tell me he was going back to Houston, which suggests maybe the job was finished,’ she said hopefully.

‘He said he was going back to Houston,’ said Josh, raising his eyebrows. ‘He was a con man, remember.’

She cupped her hands in front of her face in frustration. ‘This is useless, Josh. We don’t know anything, we can’t tell anyone where we are and we can’t trust anyone! What the hell are we going to do?’

She looked up and saw the beginnings of a smile on his face.

‘I’ll tell you what we’re going to do,’ said Josh in a low, conspiratorial voice. ‘We’re going to go to Paris.’

16

Ruth had been curled up in the footwell behind the driver’s seat of her Fiesta for nearly half an hour. She had cramp in both legs, and as she’d had a coat over her head the entire time, she was finding it hard to breathe. This wasn’t how she had planned to spend her evening. She’d pictured herself unpacking her suitcase at David’s, maybe ordering Chinese in and celebrating having taken their relationship to the next level. But no, she was cowering like a wild animal in a parked car somewhere in a Chelsea wasteland.

She tensed as she heard a sharp rap on the car’s window. Don’t move, don’t move, she thought, imagining an armed assassin looming over the car.

Tap-tap-tap! The knocking was more insistent now, and she could hear a muffled voice through the window.

‘Ruth Boden, are you in there? It’s Detective Inspector Fox.’

Fox? Inspector Fox?

‘Hallelujah,’ she muttered, and uncurled her body, throwing off the coat. Everything ached, one leg had pins and needles, yet somehow she managed to reach out to unlock the door.

‘What on earth are you doing?’ said a gruff voice.

‘Hiding, what does it look like?’ she said grumpily as she clambered out of the car. ‘What took you? I’ve been in there hours.’

She looked up to see amused eyes – and her heart sank. She recognised the face, the sharp suit instantly. It was one of the detectives who had been at the Riverton. Standing on the pavement, she kicked out her legs, one at a time, trying to get the feeling back.

‘Thanks for coming,’ she said finally.

‘Dan Davis called me as soon as you rang him. I was on my way to Battersea and came straight here.’

He paused.

‘So do you want to tell me how you’ve come to be hiding in the footwell of your car?’

She looked up at him.

‘How about I tell you over a beer?’ she said. ‘I’ve been under that coat for almost an hour, and if I don’t get some liquid down my throat, I think I might just melt here on the sidewalk.’

‘Okay. Give me one minute,’ he said, before walking to a squad car that had pulled up behind Ruth’s Fiesta. He had a word with a uniformed officer before beckoning Ruth into the passenger seat of his own vehicle.

Ruth suggested the Cross Keys, a popular pub just behind Cheyne Walk, and on the way filled him in on her evening: her visit to Sophie Ellis’s Battersea apartment and how she had followed her to this lonely stretch of the Thames.

‘I was just doing my job,’ she said, glancing across at Fox’s face, unsmiling in the driver’s seat.

‘How do you know this Sophie Ellis is connected to the Riverton murder?’ he said, indicating left off the main road.