the surname, and then he said, "No, not in trouble," putting a hesitation before the final word as if Gordon Jossie had been in something else.
"But you know the bloke?" Nkata said again.
"It's just the name." The chief superintendent apparently found what he was searching for in his stack of paperwork, and this turned out to be a phone message. "We've had a phone call about him. Crank call, if you ask me, but evidently she was insistent, so the message got passed along."
"Is that normal procedure?" Barbara asked. Why would a chief superintendent want to be informed about phone calls, crank or otherwise?
He said that it wasn't normal procedure at all, but in this case the young lady wasn't taking no for an answer. She wanted something done about a bloke called Gordon Jossie. She'd been asked did she want to make a formal complaint against the man, but she was having none of that. "Said she finds him a suspicious character," Whiting said.
"Bit odd that you'd be informed, sir," Barbara noted.
"I wouldn't have been in the normal course of things. But then a second young lady phoned, saying much the same thing, and that's when I learned about it. Seems odd to you, no doubt, but this isn't London. It's a small, close place and I find it wise to know what's going on in it."
"Anticipating this bloke Jossie might be up to something?" Nkata asked.
"Nothing suggests that. But this" - Whiting indicated the phone message - "puts him onto the radar."
He went on to tell the Scotland Yard officers they were welcome to go about their business on his patch, and when they gave him Jossie's address, he told them how to find the man's property, near the village of Sway. If they needed his help or the help of one of his officers ...There was something about the way he made the offer. Barbara had the feeling he was doing more than just making nice with them.
Sway was located off the regularly traveled routes in the New Forest, the apex of a triangle created by itself, Lymington, and New Milton. They drove there on lanes that became progressively narrower, and they ended up in a stretch of road called Paul's Lane, where houses had names but no numbers and tall hedges blocked most of them from view.
There were a number of cottages strung along the lane, but only two substantial properties. Jossie's turned out to be one of them.
They parked on the verge next to a tall hawthorn hedge. They walked up the lumpy driveway, and they found him within a paddock to the west of a neat cob cottage. He was inspecting the rear hooves of two restless ponies. Under the baking sun, he wore dark glasses as well as a baseball cap, and he was protected further by long sleeves, gloves, trousers, and boots.
This was not the case for the young woman watching him from outside the paddock. She was calling out, "D'you think they're ready for release yet?" and she was wearing a striped sundress that left her arms and legs bare. Despite the heat, she looked fresh and cool, and her head was covered by a straw hat banded by material that matched the dress. Hadiyyah, Barbara thought, would have approved.
"Dead silly to be afraid of ponies," Gordon Jossie replied.
"I'm trying to make friends with them. Honestly." She turned her head and caught sight of Barbara and Winston, her gaze taking them both in but then going back to linger on Winston.
She was very attractive, Barbara thought. Even with her own limited experience, she could tell that the young woman wore her makeup like a pro. Again, Hadiyyah would have approved.
"Hullo," the woman said to them. "Are you lost?"
At this, Gordon Jossie looked up. He watched their progress up the driveway and over to the fence. This was barbed wire strung between wooden posts, and his companion had been standing with her hands clasped on top of one of the latter.
Jossie had the wiry sort of body that reminded Barbara of a footballer. When he took off his cap and wiped his brow with his arm, she saw his hair was thinning, but its ginger colour suited him well.
Barbara and Winston fished out their IDs. Winston did the honours this time. When he'd finished the introductions, he said to the man in the paddock, "You're Gordon Jossie?"
Jossie nodded. He walked towards the fence. Nothing much showed upon his face. His eyes, of