Blood in Grandpont (DI Susan Holden 2)

He looked at her, squinting slightly, his head at an angle.

‘So, are you going to tell me why you’re drinking at this time of day?’ she asked firmly.

He whimpered plaintively. ‘All right.’ Then, slowly and not very steadily, he proceeded to tell her all about Graham Drabble’s visit and the background to it. ‘I’m ruined,’ he said at the end, and began to sob. ‘What am I going to do?’

Lucy, who had remained standing throughout, looked down at him in disgust. She wanted a father who would stand up and fight for himself, not a quitter. She loved him dearly, but right now that feeling was buried deep beneath others.

‘Have you told Maria?’ she asked, for she refused to refer to her stepmother in any other terms.

‘She’s in Venice,’ he mumbled, as if mobile phones had never been invented.

‘I know she’s in Venice,’ she snapped irritably. ‘For God’s sake,’ she continued after a pause, ‘we can’t just do nothing!’

‘But what can we do?’

‘I’ll have to see Marjorie, and speak to her myself.’

‘Yes,’ he responded vacantly, glad that someone else was taking the responsibility.

‘I’ll see if I can reason with her. Get her to see how wrong Graham’s course of action is.’

‘Perhaps I should do it,’ her father said unconvincingly.

‘They won’t let you anywhere near her,’ she said firmly. ‘I’ll do it, Daddy, but best not to tell Maria if she rings, not yet.’

He looked at her, gratitude and relief apparent in his moist eyes. ‘Lucy dear, you’re my angel, you really are.’

At 8.20 a.m. the following Saturday, a tall woman, wearing a black trouser suit and red silk blouse, boarded the Oxford Tube at Gloucester Green station in the centre of Oxford and walked to the back of the bus – for despite its name, a bus was what it was. She sat down at the back, on the driver’s side just in front of the toilet. She took the window seat for herself, but placed her handbag and mackintosh on the one next to her. She was, to all intents and purposes, a woman determined to ensure her own privacy.

At Queen Street, in St Clement’s, and at three different stops in Headington, the bus steadily collected more passengers, the majority paying their money and then making their way past her and up the stairs. The last pick-up in Oxford was on the very outskirts, at the Thornhill park and ride stop. Four people got on there, the first three being an elderly couple and a girl of maybe eight or nine. Behind this grandparental trio, there trailed a middle-aged woman. Her round face was framed by straight, fake-blonde hair that almost brushed her shoulders, and she wore a black three-quarter-length mackintosh and a blank expression that flickered only once as she made her way laboriously down the aisle. She needed, Geraldine Payne thought unkindly, to lose some weight.

‘Hello,’ Geraldine said suddenly, her voice a study of surprise. ‘Fancy seeing you here!’

‘Geraldine,’ came the equally amazed reply. ‘Are you going to London?’

It was, of course, a fatuous question. Where else would she being going on the Oxford Tube? But Geraldine played along. ‘I thought I’d have a day’s shopping.’

‘Me too!’

‘Why don’t you sit down here,’ Geraldine said, moving her bag. It was, she thought, ridiculously dramatic, this public display of surprise, especially when she was sure there was no one on the bus who knew her, but her fellow traveller had insisted, and she had agreed to play along.

‘Looking for something in particular?’ The woman had fought her way out of her mackintosh, and had slumped heavily down into the seat.

‘Not really.’

‘I took two bags to Oxfam yesterday, so I need to fill the gaps in the wardrobe. You can’t go wrong in John Lewis.’

‘No, I guess you can’t.’ Reluctantly, Geraldine forced herself to continue the game. ‘I’ve got a civil partnership coming up next month, so I need something for that.’

And so they chatted, two acquaintances, casually met, who were determined to make the most of their unexpected encounter. Only when the coach had passed Lewknor and forced its way up the steep cutting that took them out of Oxfordshire, did their voices grow silent, as each of them drifted off into sleep, oblivious of the red kites that wheeled above, searching for prey along the borders of the motorway.

Geraldine Payne’s sleep was the deeper, and it might easily have lasted until they reached their destination had she not been woken by a sharp jab in the ribs.

‘Are we there?’ she said, a moment before her eyes told her that they clearly weren’t.

‘I need to talk.’

‘God, you could have waited. I was having such a nice sleep.’