Part 33 (1/2)

She was hardly surprised at all when the woman sat on the bench next to her.

Because of the curious lethargy which had overtaken her as if her body were remembering all those tranks it was no effort for Sarah not to look around. Not at first. But her silence didn't seem to faze her new companion: for a number of long minutes, the two women sat without talking; both watching the sea, though probably thinking different things. The wash of the waves had a tidying effect, Sarah decided at last. It tended to smooth your thoughts out: no wonder it turned up so often on those meditation trance tracks . . .

'I suppose I was expecting you,' she said at last.

'Hey. Missing persons, a speciality.'

'I tried to call you.'

'I know.'

A cigarette was waved in front of her face. 'You want one of these?'

'I don't smoke.'

'I know you didn't last week,' said Zoe Boehm. 'Just thought you might have upgraded your lifestyle since.'

Sarah turned to face her. Zoe hadn't changed much, but then, it had only been a few days. 'Nice jumper.'

Zoe blew a ring, to show how much she cared. Then eyed Sarah critically. 'You're not in the state you were. Doped to the gills, I mean. But you're a different sort of mess, still.'

'Thanks.'

'But given how many people you've p.i.s.sed off in the last few days, I'd say you're on course for a full recovery.'

'Lately I've thought it a wasted day if n.o.body tries to kill me,' Sarah agreed. 'So tell me, what brings you to this neck of the woods?'

Zoe stared at her a moment or two, then tossed her curly hair and gave a laugh. 'You sure land on your feet, don't you? If Joe hadn't '

'I've seen a man die lately. I nearly joined him. I might yet. Don't tell me how lucky I am, I don't want to know.'

'Okay.'

'How did you get here?'

'You called me, remember?'

'But you didn't Oh.'

'1471. One of my favourite numbers, that.' Zoe tossed her cigarette, and the wind grabbed it, sent it sparking to the beach. 'One of the few times I've been glad I forgot to turn the d.a.m.n answering machine on. I'm always doing that. s.h.i.+t, the number of jobs that must have cost us.'

'I bet Joe never forgot,' Sarah said.

'That's right. He never did.' She fumbled for another cigarette. 'Anyway, when I got into the office and checked the phone, the most recent call was from Scotland. And I don't know anyone in Scotland.'

'So you immediately thought of me.'

'Nope. Took hours for the penny to drop.' She flicked her Bic lighter, and got her latest nicotine hit up and running. 'Once it did, I rang the number and gave the guy who answered your description. Your new hair threw him at first. Apart from that,' she shrugged modestly, 'it was easy.'

'He told you? Just like that?'

'I had to promise him a b.l.o.w. .j.o.b. I might also have given him the impression I was teenage and blonde, but if he demands payment anyway, you can expect it to have a h.e.l.l of an impact on my expenses.'

'I don't remember hiring you.'

'It was a joke, kiddo. It was a joke.' From her leather shoulder bag, Zoe produced a small bottle of vodka. 'I read once you should take salt on a long journey. To liven up what you catch and eat.' She unscrewed the cap, pa.s.sed the bottle to Sarah. 'I always thought that was an interesting point of view.'

Sarah took a good long swallow. It was mildly like being struck over the head: probably more pleasant. As she handed it back, she glanced inside the bag Zoe had put down between them; one of those amazing arrangements whose insides hold more than their outsides promise, and into which you could fit most of the average wardrobe. Clothes it held, too, but something else besides: small and silver it winked at Sarah, and she couldn't pretend not to have seen it.

Noticing her look, Zoe pulled it out.

'Six shots,' she said. 'A real handbag gun.'

'What do you need that for?'

'Same as the vodka. I didn't know whether I'd need it or not, but I felt better bringing it along.'

'You know, don't you? Do you?'

'Know what?'

'Everything that's happened. Someone tried to kill me.' It still felt strange, dropping that into a conversation. Saying it was a way of getting used to it. 'But Michael shot him.' Stupid: Zoe didn't even know who Michael was.

Gun in one hand, cigarette between the fingers of her other, bottle between her knees, Zoe nodded. 'I heard a story. Someone on the local force who was there. But there were a lot of official denials that anything happened at all. So I presume he was a spook, the guy who copped it.'

'A what?'

'A spy.' She took a drag on her cigarette. 'Any way you look at it, I thought it best to bring the gun.'

'It's pretty small.'

'Joe gave it to me.' Maybe, somewhere in Zoe's subconscious, this was a relevant response to make.

Sarah had all but forgotten, in this recent stretch of her life, that the worst losses had been suffered by other people. And that Zoe, for one, needed to know the facts. 'It was Rufus,' she said.

'Rufus?'

'Who killed Joe. Who tried to kill me. Who was a . . . spook.'

'The one you told me about? Married to that friend?'

She nodded.

Zoe said, 'f.u.c.k.' After a while she said it again, but after the second time she was quiet a lot longer, looking out to sea as if there were answers to questions she hadn't even thought of yet floating out there somewhere, out of vision, out of reach. For a few moments, Sarah wondered if Zoe were disappointed; if she'd hoped to kill Joe's murderer herself. And then dismissed the thought. Revenge, bloodshed, killing that was a job for life's soldiers, which was why so many of them were dead.

Without speaking, Zoe handed the bottle to Sarah. Who took it, drank from it, and then began to speak: bringing Zoe up to speed on why she was there, who Michael was, where Dinah was . . . What happened. Everything.

And Zoe said, 'Jesus . . .'

A flock of gulls had descended on the strip of gravelly beach before them; were swooping and screaming now, disinterring the remnants of an uncomfortable picnic. Maybe thirty or so. Impossible to count. Sarah remembered, as if it were a scene from a film long ago, seeing a similar flock drop on a scattered packet of crisps on a busy main road in Oxford. Ignoring traffic they'd come screeching down, s.n.a.t.c.hing crisps from under the wheels, while the unlucky hungry ones were left hovering over the junction at head-height; their wing spans making them as much of a threat to cars as the cars were to them. She'd been standing at the lights, waiting to cross. It was like walking into a Hitchc.o.c.k film, but then again, so was this.