Buried (DC Jack Warr #1) - Lynda La Plante Page 0,39
whispered.
John’s home wasn’t small, but it was unfinished. From the outside, it was a four-storey, terraced town house in the good end of Aylesbury; inside, it was a building site. The room they stood in was currently being used as a lounge and, they speculated, a bedroom. The potential for this property was endless, but John was well past being able to do the work. Laura indicated to Ridley that she’d be OK to stay, just as John returned with a beer and a fresh packet of cigarettes. He was dressed in grey joggers, worn thin at the knees and at the crotch, a black T-shirt with tiny holes all over it, and black socks. He smelt of deodorant, but it couldn’t hide the stench of the unwashed body underneath.
‘Did Dolly Rawlins pay you in the end, Mr Maynard?’ Ridley enquired.
John smirked and glanced at Laura when he spoke. ‘Connie paid me. If you get my meaning.’
Ridley responded, so that Laura didn’t have to. ‘I think DS Wade got your meaning, yes.’
‘It’s an absolute fact, DI . . .?’
‘DCI Ridley.’
‘It’s an absolute fact, DCI Ridley, that women fancy men who have physical jobs, like builders. Connie came out of The Grange on the very first day I was there, immaculate except for a tiny cobweb in her hair, holding a tap or a pipe or something, I can’t recall. “This just come off in me ’and. It’s from the sauna.” Girly little Liverpool accent she had.’
John laughed and rearranged his balls before he sat back down. Ridley got to the point before Laura passed out.
‘What happened after the train robbery, Mr Maynard?’
‘The coppers searched my building yard and my house. They even poked about in my pond, if you can believe that. But that robbery wasn’t done by anyone from round here. It was a bunch of outside fellas. They’d have had a barge or something, ’cos over land would have been impossible. Remote controlled maybe, so they could be miles away just in case it got seen. Or maybe they sank the money in waterproof bags, using weights, and came back for it later. That’s what I would have done. I’m a bit of an engineer at heart, see ‒ building and engineering go hand in hand and I can do both. So, yeah, I’d have put the cash into waterproof bags and sunk it. Could have stayed there for years, no bother. You should talk to Warren at the Dog and Gun. He’s been here for centuries ‒ knows everyone and everything. He’ll have some ideas for you, an’ all.’
Ridley asked for John’s opinion on a few more subjects, such as Norma and the other women from The Grange, but he had nothing useful to add.
Outside John’s house, Laura gasped at the clean air, as though there wasn’t going to be enough for her and Ridley to share.
‘I’m really sorry, sir. I can’t believe that Connie Stephens, that carbon copy of Marilyn Monroe, would let that touch her. Did you see his fingernails?’
‘Call Anik,’ Ridley said as he unlocked the car. ‘Tell him to meet us for lunch in the Dog and Gun.’
He dropped into the driver’s seat and lowered his own and Laura’s windows before she got in, to create a through-draught of fresh air for her.
‘And I’ll tell you what, sir,’ Laura continued as she fastened her seatbelt. ‘Women do like men who have physical jobs, but we also quite like personal hygiene . . . Oh, thanks for opening the windows.’
*
Across in Taunton, Jack headed along Hazel Lane towards The Grange B & B. As he got close, the front door opened and a stunning, slender, 40-something, bleached blonde woman exited to water the plants on the front doorstep. Connie still looked like a glamour model. She wore far more make-up than in the 20-year-old photo of her on the evidence board, and comfy shoes instead of heels but, my God, she was still a head-turner. And she still had her figure. Jack tried not to look but she was side-on to him, so there was no chance of that.
The Grange B & B was one of five in a row, all connected, all displaying a three-star plaque. Jack speculated that each B & B probably had three or four bedrooms. The Grange had a handwritten sign outside boasting ‘Bed & Brekfast’, which made him smile. He knew that Connie had no education to speak of, so he found this misspelling strangely endearing.