got to be something there, something I overlooked the last time. Will you meet me there? It's important because I saw them together. On Gordon's property. Rob, he drove right up and got out and went into the paddock and they stood there talking - "
"Whiting?"
"Yes, yes. Who else? That's what I've been trying to tell you."
He said, "Scotland Yard's back, Merry. It's a woman called Havers. You need to ring her about this. I've got her number."
"Scotland Yard? Rob, how c'n we trust them if we can't trust Whiting? They're all cops.
And what do we tell them? That Whiting's talking to Gina Dickens who isn't really Gina Dickens anyway except we don't know who she is? No, no. We've got to - "
"Merry! For God's sake, listen. I told this woman - this Havers - everything. What you told me about Whiting. How you gave him the information. How he said it was all in hand.
She'll want to hear whatever else you know. I expect she'll want to see that bed-sit as well.
Listen to me."
That was when he told her he was heading into the agisters' meeting. He couldn't skip it because among other things, he had to ...Oh, never mind, he said, he just had to be there. And she had to ring the detective from Scotland Yard.
"Oh no," she cried. "Oh no, oh no. If I do that, there's no way she'll agree to break into Gina's room. You know that."
"Break in?" he said. "Break in? Merry, what've you got planned?" He went on to ask could she wait for him. He would meet her at the Mad Hatter immediately after his meeting. He would be there as soon as he could. "Don't do anything mad," he told her. "Promise me, Merry.
If something happens to you ..." He stopped.
At first she said nothing. Then she promised and quickly rang off. She intended to keep her promise and to wait for Rob Hastings, but when she got to Lyndhurst, she knew that waiting was out of the question. She couldn't wait. Whatever was up there in Gina's room was something she intended to put her hands on now.
She parked by the New Forest Museum and hoofed up Lyndhurst High Street to the Mad Hatter Tea Rooms. At that time of morning, the tea rooms were open and doing a brisk business, so no one took notice of Meredith as she went through the doorway set at an angle to the tea rooms themselves.
She dashed quickly up the stairs. At the top, she was stealthy about her movements. She listened at the doorway of the room opposite Gina's. No sound from within. She tapped upon it just to make sure. No one answered. Good. Once again there would be no witness to what she was about to do.
She fished in her bag for her bank card. Her hands felt slick, but she reckoned it was nerves. There was more menace about breaking into Gina's room than there had been the last time she'd done so. Then her suspicions had driven her. Now she had certain knowledge.
She fumbled with the card and dropped it twice before she finally managed to get the door open. A final time, she looked round the corridor. She stepped inside the room.
There was sudden movement to her left. A rush of air and a blur of darkness. The door shut behind her and she heard an inner bolt driven home. She swung round and found herself face-to-face with an utter stranger. A man. For a moment, and it was just a single moment, her mind said ridiculously and in rapid succession that she'd got the wrong room, that the room had been let out to someone else, that Gina's room had never been here above the Mad Hatter in the first place. And then her mind said she was in real danger, for the man grabbed her arm, swung her round, clamped his hand brutally over her mouth. She felt something press into her neck. It was wickedly sharp.
"Now what have we here?" he whispered in her ear. "And what are we going to do about it?"
ONCE HE RECEIVED the phone call from the Scotland Yard sergeant, Gordon Jossie knew he'd reached the absolute endgame with Gina. There had been a moment in the kitchen that morning when Gina's denials about Jemima had nearly convinced him she was speaking the truth, but after DS Havers phoned him wondering why Gina had not shown up at