No Safe Place(Detective Lottie Parker #4)(26)

‘Breaking the law again?’ she said.

‘I am the law,’ Boyd said.

He pinged the key fob and sat into the car. Grace unwrapped her heavy knitted scarf, folded it neatly on her lap and placed her bag in the footwell, then seemed to think better of it and put it on her knee on top of her scarf.

‘Shut the door,’ he said. ‘It’s bloody freezing.’

‘You always state the obvious.’

She’s worse than Lottie, Boyd thought. He wondered if he had been an insanely bad person in a previous life to be condemned to inhabit the same planet as contrary women.

He swung the car around in a U-turn and nudged into the line of traffic.

‘Tell me about your friend.’

‘I met her on the train this morning. She told me she always gets the 17.10 home. So I decided to travel with her.’

‘In your usual carriage?’

‘It got a bit complicated, because she arrived later than me. I had to wait for her and then we had to stand in the wrong carriage. I had a little panic attack, but I’m fine now.’

‘Are you sure you’re okay?’

‘Stop treating me like I’m an imbecile. I might be sixteen years younger than you, but I’m not stupid.’

The traffic lights on the bridge changed to green and Boyd gunned the car to make it through before they flipped again. They were red by the time he was on the crest of the hill, but he kept going.

‘You hit it off with her, then?’

‘Don’t sound so surprised. I can hold conversations with people.’

‘That’s what worries me.’

‘Are you trying to be funny?’

Boyd kicked himself. Grace didn’t get jokes. She saw things as either black or white. Straight down the middle. Whatever you wanted to call it, Grace was it. ‘On the spectrum’ was a phrase he had often heard in the same sentence as her name. He loved his sister, but she tried his patience something terrible. He reminded himself that he’d have to be more careful with his choice of words in her presence. And he’d have to remember she was twenty-nine years old.

‘Why are you driving down Main Street?’ she asked.

‘I’m getting a takeaway for dinner.’

‘But I don’t eat food made by someone else. You know that.’

‘Just this once, Grace. For me? Please?’

‘Mark! You have a date.’

‘How do you know that?’

‘I can read you so well.’

Just like Lottie, he thought, and double-parked outside the Chinese takeaway.

‘Don’t suppose you’ll go in to get it,’ he said.

‘You suppose absolutely correct.’

Boyd shook his head. He was glad he was going out tonight. Then again, he wondered if it might be frying pan and fire. He hoped Lottie would be in better form than Grace. With all that had happened today, he doubted it.





Twenty-One





The temperature had dropped to freezing. Windscreens shimmered with a fine coating of hoar frost. A constellation of stars glittered in the clear sky as the commuters exited the station, preceded by their white breath fogging the raw evening air.

Mollie felt a tap on her shoulder as the crowd rushed towards the exit.

‘Hi there,’ the man said.

The same man whom she had accepted a lift from yesterday evening. He’d been a perfect gentleman, dropping her off outside her apartment. He seemed really nice and sensible. She knew him to see around town but didn’t know who he was. They hadn’t exchanged names let alone phone numbers. And she was happy enough with that.

‘I can give you a lift again,’ he said. ‘Thought you might want to escape your chatterbox friend.’

She sidestepped around Grace without her noticing. She was chatting with a tall, thin man. Mollie supposed it was the brother she’d heard about on the endless train journey. Feck it, she thought, she had to escape the constant nattering.

‘That’d be cool. Thanks,’ she said. She felt his hand on her elbow and she was propelled down the steps.

They glided on the frozen ground to the darkness at the left of the car park.

‘Your friend is some talker. Never stopped to catch a breath. I’m sure your head must be mithered with her.’

‘She’s not too bad,’ Mollie said. Why was she defending a girl she didn’t even know? Why was she taking lifts from a man she didn’t know, come to that? The car park was almost empty now. There was only one car parked up against the back wall to the rear of the station. She stopped. He turned to look at her.

‘What’s up?’ he asked. He sounded normal. Not a weirdo, then.

‘Thanks for rescuing me. And thanks for the lift yesterday evening, but I think I’d rather walk now. I need some fresh air.’

She stepped back. He walked into the space she had vacated.

‘It’s no trouble. My car’s over there.’ He pointed to his dark saloon, out of the range of cameras and lights. This was getting scary. That wasn’t where he’d parked yesterday.

‘Honestly, I’m grateful for the rescue. I might see you tomorrow?’ As she turned, the hand on her elbow tightened, biting through her clothes, hurting her. ‘Hey! What are you playing at?’