5

Within twenty minutes of receiving my fee of seven hundred pounds from Bio-Preparations in the post, my mobile started singing with an unknown number lighting up the screen.

“Hello?”

“Is the fee satisfactory, Mr Handful?”

“More than satisfactory, Miss Gere,” I replied.  It was in fact more than double my standard fee, but I wasn’t complaining.

“Call me, Kimberley,” she said and paused for a few seconds before continuing.  “I was wondering whether I could treat you to dinner as a thank you.”

“You don’t have to do that, Kimberley,” I said, politely.

“I insist,” she said.  “Don’t worry, Bio-preparations are paying.”

“Very well,” I agreed.  “Where and when?”

She chose the only Italian restaurant in Oxmarket, Figaro’s in the main street, not far from my flat and I chose later that evening.  I arrived first and took a table by the window where I could watch for her.  I ordered a bottle of wine.

Finally she turned up, dressed in a suede jacket, a scarf and a ribbed sweater.  The waiters fell upon her like Elizabethan courtiers.  She’s a beautiful woman, so good service is guaranteed.

“Sorry I’m late,” she says apologetically.  “The foot passenger ferry was delayed.”

“Well, you’re here now.”  I said smiling.  She’d had a new haircut since I saw her a few days ago. 

“You don’t give a girl much notice.  Normally I wouldn’t have had time to arrange a date on the same evening.  Nothing else planned for the evening?”

“It’s not really a date,” I said, and then backtracked.  “I mean I wanted to see you socially, but I didn’t think of this dinner as one – a date, I mean. . .”

Kimberley Ashlyn Gere laughed, her eyes dancing.

“Don’t worry, John Handful, I won’t be offended if we don’t call it a date.”

Kimberley seems to find reciting my full name amusing for some reason.  “So you found the tablets?”

The waiter poured the wine and she glanced at the menu, she quickly placed her order and I followed suit.  We clinked our glasses and sipped the wine; it’s a nicely chilled white.

 “Yes,” I replied, once the waiter was out of earshot.  “In a carrier bag, along with a hammer and some heavy duty insulated pliers.  Perpetrator dumped them behind some rocks on the beach beneath Cove Cottage, probably hoping to collect them later.”

“Yes,” she said, looking at me astutely.  “All very neat and tidy.”

“It’s nice when they work out that way,” I said matter-of-factly.

“Yes, I’m sure it is.”  She agreed.  “But the thief is still at large.  There were no fingerprints or anything?”

I shook my head. “Nothing.  He knew what he was doing.  But, if he is or going be a serial offender, he’ll be caught one day,” I said trying to placate her. “His luck will run out eventually.”

Our meals arrived.  In the lottery of ordering, Kimberley Ashlyn Gere has triumphed.  Her choice looks healthier and more appetising.

“DI Paul Silver, tells me you haven’t been a private detective for long?”  She asked between mouthfuls.

“About two months.”

“What made you decide to follow that career path?”

“It’s something I always wanted to do,” I said, “and my wife encouraged me to follow my dreams before she died.”

Miss Gere put down her fork.  “I’m sorry.  I didn’t mean to pry.”

“That’s okay,” I shrugged.  “You weren’t to know. It’s not something I have emblazoned on my chest.  It was leukaemia.  She was thirty-three.”

“I am sorry,” she repeated, her long fingers toying with the stem of her wine glass.  “Do you find the weekends are the hardest?”

“Hardest?”

“Being alone.”

“Everyday is hard.” 

There was an embarrassed silence. I liked talking to Miss Kimberley Ashlyn Gere and I didn’t want the conversation between us becoming strained. 

“How long have you worked for Bio-Preparations?”  I asked.

“About five years,” she replied.  “I love the job and I am well paid but the remuneration comes with a price.”

She smiles and a dimple appears on her left cheek, but not the right.

“I don’t understand?”

“I don’t have a lot of time for relationships.”

“I’m not looking for one.”

She arched her eyebrows.  “Really?”

“Yes, really.”

She reached across the table and took my hand.  “You’ll have to move on one day.”

“I don’t want to move on at the moment.”

She toys with her earring, rubbing it between her thumb and forefinger.   

“Have you any other cases lined up at the moment?”  There was a sudden edge to her voice.

“No, not at the moment,” I said, glancing at my food, no longer hungry.  “But I don’t expect anything different at the moment.  I’m not established enough.  I’ve put an advertisement in the East Anglian Daily Times, so hopefully that will generate some business with the local solicitors.”

“Doesn’t that worry you, that hand to mouth existence?”

I shrugged my shoulders.  “Its early days.”

She smiles and then drains her wine glass.  “This has been very nice, John.  We’ll have to do it again some time.”  She said it quickly.  Nervously.

I took too long to answer.

“Don’t let me push you into anything,” she said.  “I’m not usually this forward.”

“No.  I mean, yes that would be great.”

“Are you sure?”

“I’m sure.”

Summoning a waiter, she asked for the bill and once she had paid for it on her company expenses credit card, she asked for her coat and leant towards me, accepting a kiss – a peck on the lips.

Almost in the same breath she hesitated, looking over my shoulder.

“Is something wrong?”

“I’m not sure.”

I followed her gaze.  A man is standing on the corner, looking towards us.  He is short, plump and crowding forty.  He had jet-black hair topping a pink cherubic face.

“He has been watching us for the last ten minutes,” she said, staring at him.  “Any idea who that is?”

I did but I wasn’t going to enlighten her.  I just said, “Probably my next case.”  

*

Within twenty minutes of receiving my fee of seven hundred pounds from Bio-Preparations in the post, my mobile started singing with an unknown number lighting up the screen.

“Hello?”

“Is the fee satisfactory, Mr Handful?”

“More than satisfactory, Miss Gere,” I replied.  It was in fact more than double my standard fee, but I wasn’t complaining.

“Call me, Kimberley,” she said and paused for a few seconds before continuing.  “I was wondering whether I could treat you to dinner as a thank you.”

“You don’t have to do that, Kimberley,” I said, politely.

“I insist,” she said.  “Don’t worry, Bio-preparations are paying.”

“Very well,” I agreed.  “Where and when?”

She chose the only Italian restaurant in Oxmarket, Figaro’s in the main street, not far from my flat and I chose later that evening.  I arrived first and took a table by the window where I could watch for her.  I ordered a bottle of wine.

Finally she turned up, dressed in a suede jacket, a scarf and a ribbed sweater.  The waiters fell upon her like Elizabethan courtiers.  She’s a beautiful woman, so good service is guaranteed.

“Sorry I’m late,” she says apologetically.  “The foot passenger ferry was delayed.”

“Well, you’re here now.”  I said smiling.  She’d had a new haircut since I saw her a few days ago. 

“You don’t give a girl much notice.  Normally I wouldn’t have had time to arrange a date on the same evening.  Nothing else planned for the evening?”

“It’s not really a date,” I said, and then backtracked.  “I mean I wanted to see you socially, but I didn’t think of this dinner as one – a date, I mean. . .”

Kimberley Ashlyn Gere laughed, her eyes dancing.

“Don’t worry, John Handful, I won’t be offended if we don’t call it a date.”

Kimberley seems to find reciting my full name amusing for some reason.  “So you found the tablets?”

The waiter poured the wine and she glanced at the menu, she quickly placed her order and I followed suit.  We clinked our glasses and sipped the wine; it’s a nicely chilled white.

 “Yes,” I replied, once the waiter was out of earshot.  “In a carrier bag, along with a hammer and some heavy duty insulated pliers.  Perpetrator dumped them behind some rocks on the beach beneath Cove Cottage, probably hoping to collect them later.”

“Yes,” she said, looking at me astutely.  “All very neat and tidy.”

“It’s nice when they work out that way,” I said matter-of-factly.

“Yes, I’m sure it is.”  She agreed.  “But the thief is still at large.  There were no fingerprints or anything?”

I shook my head. “Nothing.  He knew what he was doing.  But, if he is or going be a serial offender, he’ll be caught one day,” I said trying to placate her. “His luck will run out eventually.”

Our meals arrived.  In the lottery of ordering, Kimberley Ashlyn Gere has triumphed.  Her choice looks healthier and more appetising.

“DI Paul Silver, tells me you haven’t been a private detective for long?”  She asked between mouthfuls.

“About two months.”

“What made you decide to follow that career path?”

“It’s something I always wanted to do,” I said, “and my wife encouraged me to follow my dreams before she died.”

Miss Gere put down her fork.  “I’m sorry.  I didn’t mean to pry.”

“That’s okay,” I shrugged.  “You weren’t to know. It’s not something I have emblazoned on my chest.  It was leukaemia.  She was thirty-three.”

“I am sorry,” she repeated, her long fingers toying with the stem of her wine glass.  “Do you find the weekends are the hardest?”

“Hardest?”

“Being alone.”

“Everyday is hard.” 

There was an embarrassed silence. I liked talking to Miss Kimberley Ashlyn Gere and I didn’t want the conversation between us becoming strained. 

“How long have you worked for Bio-Preparations?”  I asked.

“About five years,” she replied.  “I love the job and I am well paid but the remuneration comes with a price.”

She smiles and a dimple appears on her left cheek, but not the right.

“I don’t understand?”

“I don’t have a lot of time for relationships.”

“I’m not looking for one.”

She arched her eyebrows.  “Really?”

“Yes, really.”

She reached across the table and took my hand.  “You’ll have to move on one day.”

“I don’t want to move on at the moment.”

She toys with her earring, rubbing it between her thumb and forefinger.   

“Have you any other cases lined up at the moment?”  There was a sudden edge to her voice.

“No, not at the moment,” I said, glancing at my food, no longer hungry.  “But I don’t expect anything different at the moment.  I’m not established enough.  I’ve put an advertisement in the East Anglian Daily Times, so hopefully that will generate some business with the local solicitors.”

“Doesn’t that worry you, that hand to mouth existence?”

I shrugged my shoulders.  “Its early days.”

She smiles and then drains her wine glass.  “This has been very nice, John.  We’ll have to do it again some time.”  She said it quickly.  Nervously.

I took too long to answer.

“Don’t let me push you into anything,” she said.  “I’m not usually this forward.”

“No.  I mean, yes that would be great.”

“Are you sure?”

“I’m sure.”

Summoning a waiter, she asked for the bill and once she had paid for it on her company expenses credit card, she asked for her coat and leant towards me, accepting a kiss – a peck on the lips.

Almost in the same breath she hesitated, looking over my shoulder.

“Is something wrong?”

“I’m not sure.”

I followed her gaze.  A man is standing on the corner, looking towards us.  He is short, plump and crowding forty.  He had jet-black hair topping a pink cherubic face.

“He has been watching us for the last ten minutes,” she said, staring at him.  “Any idea who that is?”

I did but I wasn’t going to enlighten her.  I just said, “Probably my next case.”  

*

Within twenty minutes of receiving my fee of seven hundred pounds from Bio-Preparations in the post, my mobile started singing with an unknown number lighting up the screen.

“Hello?”

“Is the fee satisfactory, Mr Handful?”

“More than satisfactory, Miss Gere,” I replied.  It was in fact more than double my standard fee, but I wasn’t complaining.

“Call me, Kimberley,” she said and paused for a few seconds before continuing.  “I was wondering whether I could treat you to dinner as a thank you.”

“You don’t have to do that, Kimberley,” I said, politely.

“I insist,” she said.  “Don’t worry, Bio-preparations are paying.”

“Very well,” I agreed.  “Where and when?”

She chose the only Italian restaurant in Oxmarket, Figaro’s in the main street, not far from my flat and I chose later that evening.  I arrived first and took a table by the window where I could watch for her.  I ordered a bottle of wine.

Finally she turned up, dressed in a suede jacket, a scarf and a ribbed sweater.  The waiters fell upon her like Elizabethan courtiers.  She’s a beautiful woman, so good service is guaranteed.

“Sorry I’m late,” she says apologetically.  “The foot passenger ferry was delayed.”

“Well, you’re here now.”  I said smiling.  She’d had a new haircut since I saw her a few days ago. 

“You don’t give a girl much notice.  Normally I wouldn’t have had time to arrange a date on the same evening.  Nothing else planned for the evening?”

“It’s not really a date,” I said, and then backtracked.  “I mean I wanted to see you socially, but I didn’t think of this dinner as one – a date, I mean. . .”

Kimberley Ashlyn Gere laughed, her eyes dancing.

“Don’t worry, John Handful, I won’t be offended if we don’t call it a date.”

Kimberley seems to find reciting my full name amusing for some reason.  “So you found the tablets?”

The waiter poured the wine and she glanced at the menu, she quickly placed her order and I followed suit.  We clinked our glasses and sipped the wine; it’s a nicely chilled white.

 “Yes,” I replied, once the waiter was out of earshot.  “In a carrier bag, along with a hammer and some heavy duty insulated pliers.  Perpetrator dumped them behind some rocks on the beach beneath Cove Cottage, probably hoping to collect them later.”

“Yes,” she said, looking at me astutely.  “All very neat and tidy.”

“It’s nice when they work out that way,” I said matter-of-factly.

“Yes, I’m sure it is.”  She agreed.  “But the thief is still at large.  There were no fingerprints or anything?”

I shook my head. “Nothing.  He knew what he was doing.  But, if he is or going be a serial offender, he’ll be caught one day,” I said trying to placate her. “His luck will run out eventually.”

Our meals arrived.  In the lottery of ordering, Kimberley Ashlyn Gere has triumphed.  Her choice looks healthier and more appetising.

“DI Paul Silver, tells me you haven’t been a private detective for long?”  She asked between mouthfuls.

“About two months.”

“What made you decide to follow that career path?”

“It’s something I always wanted to do,” I said, “and my wife encouraged me to follow my dreams before she died.”

Miss Gere put down her fork.  “I’m sorry.  I didn’t mean to pry.”

“That’s okay,” I shrugged.  “You weren’t to know. It’s not something I have emblazoned on my chest.  It was leukaemia.  She was thirty-three.”

“I am sorry,” she repeated, her long fingers toying with the stem of her wine glass.  “Do you find the weekends are the hardest?”

“Hardest?”

“Being alone.”

“Everyday is hard.” 

There was an embarrassed silence. I liked talking to Miss Kimberley Ashlyn Gere and I didn’t want the conversation between us becoming strained. 

“How long have you worked for Bio-Preparations?”  I asked.

“About five years,” she replied.  “I love the job and I am well paid but the remuneration comes with a price.”

She smiles and a dimple appears on her left cheek, but not the right.

“I don’t understand?”

“I don’t have a lot of time for relationships.”

“I’m not looking for one.”

She arched her eyebrows.  “Really?”

“Yes, really.”

She reached across the table and took my hand.  “You’ll have to move on one day.”

“I don’t want to move on at the moment.”

She toys with her earring, rubbing it between her thumb and forefinger.   

“Have you any other cases lined up at the moment?”  There was a sudden edge to her voice.

“No, not at the moment,” I said, glancing at my food, no longer hungry.  “But I don’t expect anything different at the moment.  I’m not established enough.  I’ve put an advertisement in the East Anglian Daily Times, so hopefully that will generate some business with the local solicitors.”

“Doesn’t that worry you, that hand to mouth existence?”

I shrugged my shoulders.  “Its early days.”

She smiles and then drains her wine glass.  “This has been very nice, John.  We’ll have to do it again some time.”  She said it quickly.  Nervously.

I took too long to answer.

“Don’t let me push you into anything,” she said.  “I’m not usually this forward.”

“No.  I mean, yes that would be great.”

“Are you sure?”

“I’m sure.”

Summoning a waiter, she asked for the bill and once she had paid for it on her company expenses credit card, she asked for her coat and leant towards me, accepting a kiss – a peck on the lips.

Almost in the same breath she hesitated, looking over my shoulder.

“Is something wrong?”

“I’m not sure.”

I followed her gaze.  A man is standing on the corner, looking towards us.  He is short, plump and crowding forty.  He had jet-black hair topping a pink cherubic face.

“He has been watching us for the last ten minutes,” she said, staring at him.  “Any idea who that is?”

I did but I wasn’t going to enlighten her.  I just said, “Probably my next case.”  

*

I pulled my tie off and flung it haphazardly on to my jacket, which lay over the arm of the sofa. I stretched and sighed with the ease of the homecoming and listened to the now familiar silences of the flat; and unusually felt the welcoming peace unlock the gritty tension of spending an afternoon and evening being interviewed by the senior partners of the local Oxmarket solicitors, Hogbin, Marshall and Moruzzi, to see if I was suitable to be used by them in cases which would need the services of a private detective.

Since Zoë had died the flat had become more of a haven than a home.  I had cleared out a great deal of the old stuff in a vain attempt to move on and had refurnished on one unemotional afternoon in one store in Bury St Edmunds.  The collection had gelled more or less, but I now owned nothing whose loss I would ache over; and if that was a defence mechanism, at least I knew it.

Contentedly padding around in shirt sleeves and socks, I switched on the warm pools of tablelights, turned on the television, poured a glass of my favourite red wine and shaped up to the evening as to many another.  On the sofa, feet up knees bent, in contact with a wine glass and happy to live vicariously via the small screen and I was mildly irritated when halfway through the first half of Arsenal’s Champions League game the door bell rang.

With more reluctance than curiosity I stood up, parked the glass and went into the small hall and opened the door to the man who had been watching and following me for the last week.          

Sir Gerard Seymour Hornby was short, plump and crowding forty.  He had jet-black hair topping a pink cherubic face, and with the deep permanent creases of laughter lines radiating from his eyes and curving round his mouth he was a dead ringer for the cheerful, happy-go-lucky extrovert who is the life and soul of the party where the guests park their brains along with their hats and coats.   That, anyway, was how he struck me at first glance but on the reasonable assumption that I might very likely find some other qualities in the man who was the richest man in East Anglia. I took a second and closer look at him and this time I saw what I should have seen the first time if I hadn’t been so annoyed at being drawn away from watching the football when he had rang the door bell.  His eyes.  They were the coolest, clearest grey eyes I’d ever seen, eyes that he used as a dentist might his probe, a surgeon his lancet or a scientist his microscope.  Measuring eyes.  They measured first me and then what he could of the interior of my humble abode but he gave no clue at all as to the conclusions arrived at on the basis of the measurements made.    

He was the last male survivor of a local family dynasty that went back a couple of centuries.  He was chairman of the local football team that would probably in a few years time achieve Football League Status due to his excellent financial acumen, and he was also on the committee of the very popular and small Oxmarket National Hunt racecourse that opened on Bank Holidays to huge crowds.

 I had seen his photographs many times in the East Anglian Daily Times and I had been curious why he had been following me for the last few days.

“John Handful isn’t it?”  His voice had undertones of Manchester, overtones all the way up the social ladder.  The confidence of power.

“Yes, it is Sir Gerard.”

“Please, call me Gerard,” he said holding a large submissive hand.  “And this is my niece, Gemma.”  Next to him was a figure in a pale cream dress that looked to me like an angel.  “I am sorry to disturb you at this ungodly hour, but I need to speak to you about a matter of the utmost importance.”

“Please, come in,” I stood to one side to let them pass, casting a sidelong glance at Sir Gerard’s niece, afraid of meeting her eyes, that stared vacantly into the distance.  The skin on her face and arms was pale and translucent.  Her features were sharp, sketched with firm strokes and framed by a head of hair that was as black as a raven’s wing.  I guessed she must be, at most, twenty, but there was something about her manner that made me think she could be ageless.  She seemed trapped in the state of perpetual youth reserved for mannequins in shop windows.  I was trying to catch any sign of a pulse under her swan’s neck when I realised that Sir Gerard Seymour Hornby was staring at me.

“May we go through,” he asked gesturing at the door to the living room. 

 “Of course,” I said.  His companion turned her head slowly in my direction.  Her lips formed a timid and trembling smile. Her eyes groped the void, pupils white as marble.  I gulped.  She was blind.

I followed them, unable to take my eyes off the woman with the china doll’s complexion and white eyes, the saddest eyes I had ever seen.

“Please take a seat,” I said, trying to disguise the nervousness in my voice. Arsenal had just scored, but that seemed quite insignificant now, so I picked up the remote control and pressed the red button.  

“Can I offer you a drink?” I asked.

“Nothing for me,” Sir Gerard replied.  “Gemma?”

She shook her head. I noticed when she smiled, Gemma leaned her head slightly to one side and her fingers played with a ring that looked like a wreath of sapphires.

“How can I help?”  I asked sitting down opposite them.

“You come highly recommended,” Sir Gerard said.

“Really? By whom?”

He told me and my heart did a long slow summersault and landed on its back with a thud.  I kept my voice steady and said, “That was a long time ago.”

Sir Gerard raised a hand.  “I’m not here to dig up your past, Mr Handful.  I’m here because we need your help.”

“Is that why you were watching me outside Figaro’s, last week?”

“I must apologise about that,” he said sincerely.  “I wanted to make sure that you were everything your former employer’s said you were.”

“And you can tell that from street corner’s can you?” I responded sharply.

“I know you used to get all the dirty jobs from your old employers,” he said, looking straight at me, “but I had to make sure. I do have rather a lot to lose.”

“What do you mean?”  I asked impatiently.  I had spent a long time trying to put my past behind me and the last thing I wanted was some knight of the realm digging it up and using it to get me to do his dirty work for him.

“I’m being blackmailed and it concerns my niece.” He had a way of speaking to me that acknowledged mutual origins that we’d both come a long way from where we’d started.  It was not a matter of accent, but of manner.  There was no need for social pretence.  The message was raw, and between equals, and would be understood.

 I glanced towards Gemma, observing the hands spread like wings on her lap, the suggestion of a fragile waist, the shape of her shoulders, the extreme paleness of her neck and the line of her lips.  Never before had I had the chance to look at a woman so closely without the danger of meeting her eyes.

“You’re staring at me, Mr Handful,” she said, not without a pinch of malice.

“I’m observing,” I improvised.  My mouth felt dry. 

“You’re not a bad liar, Mr Handful.  Be careful you don’t end up like my uncle.”

Fearful of making another faux pas, I returned my gaze to Sir Gerard who was smiling proudly at his niece.

“Sir Gerard?”

He shook himself out of his reverie and removed an envelope from his inside coat pocket. By the feel of it I could tell it contained either a DVD or a CD.

“This arrived in the post two weeks ago,” he said sadly.  “It is a DVD.  Please watch it after we have gone.  It is awful.  There is also a letter with it, spelling out the blackmailers intentions.”

“Have you gone to the police about this?” I asked.

“No, police!”  He said firmly.  “I came to you because I thought you would be discreet.”

“Very well,” I said, slightly exasperated by his constant referring to my past. “It’s all a bit cloak and dagger, I must say. I will look at the DVD and I will read the letter.  Then I will know if I can help you.  What’s on the DVD by the way?”

“Please, just watch it,” he said, his eyes welling up with emotion.

“Very well, I’ll watch it when you’ve gone.”

“Thank you,” he said relieved.  He handed me his business card.  “You can contact me on this number at any time.”

“Thank you.”

He stood up and helped his niece to her feet.

“There is one more thing, Mr Handful.”  He said, slightly embarrassed.

“What’s that?”

“My niece would like to see what you look like,” he said as if it was an everyday occurrence.  “She will be able to tell whether she can trust you or not.”

At first I was puzzled, but when I saw Gemma raising her right hand, trying to find me, I understood.

“Of course,” I said, politely.

Without quite knowing what to do, I too stretched out my hand towards her.  She took it in her left hand and, without saying anything, offered me her right hand.  Instinctively I understood what she was asking me to do, and guided her to my face.  Her touch was firm and delicate.  Her fingers ran over my cheeks and cheekbones.  I stood there motionless, hardly daring to breathe, while Gemma read my features with her hands.  While she did, she smiled to herself, and I noticed a slight movement of her lips, like a voiceless murmuring.  I felt the brush of her hands on my forehead, on my hair and eyelids.  She paused on my face, following their shape with her forefinger and ring finger.  Her fingers smelled of cinnamon.  I swallowed; feeling my pulse race, not really knowing whether to the touch of a blind woman, my face was one that you could trust.

*

The DVD was not compatible with my DVD player.  I went into the spare room where I kept my laptop and tried it on there. 

It wasn’t of the best sound, it lost colour, sound and sometimes even the picture but it was pretty clear what was going on.

Gemma’s naked body lay stretched out on white sheets that shone like washed silk.  The man, who had long ginger hair, and a touch of psoriasis on his elbows, moved his hands gently over her lips, her neck and her breasts. Her white eyes looked up at the ceiling, her eyelids flickering as the man charged at her, entering her between pale and trembling thighs.  The same hands that had read my face twenty minutes earlier now clutched the man’s buttocks that were glistening with sweat, digging her nails into them and guiding him towards her with desperate, animal desire.  I could not breathe.  I watched the scene in its entirety, until I saw the man look at the camera and smile.  I pressed the eject button on my laptop and the screen went blank.

I sat there for a few moments and only one word filled my head.

Bastard!  

Gemma had obviously been set up and now her uncle was being blackmailed.

I removed the letter from the envelope and was not surprised to find it had been typed in capitals, using the Times New Roman font.  Standard Microsoft.  Impossible to trace. 

HALF A MIILION - GAMEKEEPER’S HUT

OXMARKET WOODS – SEVEN O’CLOCK – FRIDAY NIGHT

OR THIS GOES ON SALE ON THE INTERNET

THERE’S PLENTY OF COPIES

Friday.  Two days away.  Time to initiate a plan.  What though, I had no idea.

*

I rang Sir Gerard the next morning.

“Do you know who the guy in the film is?”  I asked.

“His name is John Knightley,” Sir Gerard replied.  “Gemma fell madly in love with him.  I tried to stop her from going out with him, but she was I am afraid blinded by love.  If you forgive the unintended pun.” 

“Didn’t her parents try and intervene?”  I suggested.

“They’re both dead I’m afraid,” he said sadly.  “Killed in a car crash ten years ago.  She was my brother’s daughter.   I have no children of my own and my wife and I divorced a long time ago. Went off with the gardener when we lived in Kent.  Did a Lady Chatterley on me, I’m afraid.  I was made Gemma’s legal guardian until she is twenty-one.” 

“When is that?”

“First of October.”

“A little while away, then.”

“Yes.”

“Have you an address for this John Knightley?”

“Do you think he’s the blackmailer?”

“Could be.” He obviously hadn’t watched the whole of the DVD because then he would have seen John Knightley’s arrogant smirk at the camera.

He gave me the address.

“Thank you,” I said.  “I’ll be in touch.”

*

Later that morning I parked my Peugeot 107 outside a house made of weathered stone with a slate roof.  The small square front garden is divided by strips of grass between flowerbeds where gerberas were pushing through searching for sunlight.

Grabbing my overcoat from the passenger seat, I walked up the front path and gave the doorbell a short ring, putting on my friendliest professional demeanour.  Nobody answered.  I rang the bell again and pressed my ear to the wooden door.  Nothing.

I knocked loudly and listened for footfalls or muffled voices or the sound of someone breathing on the other side of the door.

Nothing.

I was about to leave when I heard a voice from the rear garden.  A middle-aged man appeared from the side of the house.  He was dressed in a cheap tracksuit bottom and an Ipswich Town football shirt. A fringe of ginger hair fell across his forehead, which he quickly brushed aside.

“Hello.”

“Hi.  Were you waiting long?  I was out the back.”

“No, not long.”

He looked at me closely.  “Have we met?”

“Doctor Zoë Handful was my wife.”  I said.  “I’m John Handful, I’m a private detective.”

“Of course.” We shook hands.  “I’m Peter, Peter Knightley.”

He was carrying a hoe, which he was resting on his shoulder.

“I was wondering whether John was about, at all.”

“What’s that bugger done now?”

“Nothing, I hope,” I said matter-of-factly.  “I just want to ask him a few questions about Gemma Hornby.”

“Always knew that snobby little bitch would cause my boy trouble.  Do you mind if we talk out the back.  I want to finish my chores while Denise is out shopping.”

I followed him along the side path where a rusting bicycle was propped against the fence, alongside recycling bins.  The long narrow garden has a vegetable patch and a small greenhouse.  At the far end stood an old stable block, now a garage, which backed on to a rear lane.

Through an open side door I noticed a Renault, in poor condition.  Peter Knightley follows my gaze.

“Get’s me from A to B,” he said, laughing.  “Johnny said he would buy me a new one.  I think he’s a bit embarrassed about it.  Doesn’t do anything for his street cred.”

“Is he about?”

“Nope.”

“Any idea when he’ll be back?”

“Nope.”

“You don’t seem very concerned,” I informed him.

“I’m not.”  He laughed and began turning the soil in the vegetable garden, swinging the hoe over his shoulder and driving the blade into the compacted earth.  “Johnny’s always got one scheme or another going.  He disappears for days.  Normally shacks up with some girl for a little while and then when he’s had enough of her he comes home.”

“When did you see him last?”

“Friday morning,” he replied.  “He was really excited.  Said something about one of his schemes finally coming together.  Oxmarket’s answer to Del-Boy, my Johnny.”

I repressed my anger and found myself retracing my steps across the lawn to the side path.

Out of the corner of my eye I noticed the garage again and the battered old Renault.

“What did Johnny say he’d buy you?”

Peter Knightley gave a wry smile.  “Aston Martin.  Real dreamer my boy.”

And a blackmailer, I thought. 

“One other thing,” I paused just before I reached my car.  “Has Johnny got a computer?”

“Of course,” Peter Knightley replied proudly.  “State of the art it is as well.  He can make films and music CD’s and all sorts of things.”

“Did you buy it for him?”

“Do I look like the kind of person who can afford that sort of thing,” he replied smiling.  “No, Johnny bought that with the profit from one of his little schemes.”    

I handed over a business card.  “Get your son to contact me when he turns up.”

“Of course,” he said, even though I knew he had absolutely no intention in passing the message on.

*