‘How do you mean?’

  ‘It was pelting down. I took cover at a bus stop. This black SUV came rolling out of its spot with its lights and engine off. There was something about it. I ran into a late night grocers at the foot of the hill. Then it just drove off, so I figured it was nothing. But now that you’ve told me about this de Bruin character…’ She saw movement in the archway and fell silent. But it was only Oliver, hanging back to give her and Elias space.

  He stepped forward on being noticed. ‘You’re not talking about León de Bruin, are you?’ he asked. ‘He really tried to snatch you at the pound?’

  ‘There was a car, that’s all,’ said Anna. ‘I don’t see how he could have known I’d be there.’

  ‘Because Nettleham leaks like a fucking sieve,’ said Oliver, with a glare at Elias. ‘Everyone knows it.’

  ‘Is that right?’ asked Anna.

  Elias nodded reluctantly. ‘Yes.’

  ‘Christ,’ said Anna. ‘How worried should I be?’

  ‘I doubt he’ll try anything here,’ said Elias. ‘Too many people. But you should be careful all the same. Call me at the first sniff of trouble. I mean it: the first sniff. I don’t care what time it is. I’ll be straight over.’ He checked his watch. ‘That should hold us for tonight. I’ll work out something better in the morning, I promise. Speaking of which, the pound opens at nine. How about I pick you up here at a quarter to?’ He waited for her to nod, then he bid them both goodnight before getting back into his Leaf, pulling an adroit three-point turn and heading off.

  FIFTY

  A few blades of grass and some patches of moss were growing in the gaps between the cobbles in the coach-house courtyard. ‘León de fucking Bruin,’ muttered Oliver, scraping them out angrily with the heel of his shoe. ‘Of all the damn people.’

  ‘Is he really that bad?’ asked Anna.

  He looked around, almost as if fearful of being overheard. ‘Let’s go inside,’ he said. Anna followed him upstairs. He double locked his front door, which unsettled her further, as did the way he went straight to the kitchen for a bottle of red. ‘Okay,’ he said, pouring them each a glass, handing her one. ‘Did Elias tell you I had a run-in with him?’

  ‘He said you tried to make an exposé of him, but that it got stopped.’

  Oliver nodded grimly. ‘I’d actually met him a few times at events over the years. I liked him, would you believe? He can be charming when he puts his mind to it. And his wife’s just scrumptious. It’s impossible to imagine her being mixed up with anything really nasty. So when my producer suggested we do a programme on him, I thought he was joking. I mean he’s one of the county’s largest landlords, so of course his tenants are going to grumble. It’s the nature of the relationship. But then I talked to some of them, and wow. None of them would go on the record. They were all too scared. And with good reason. He seems to get off on wrecking lives.’

  ‘Did he… did he do that to you?’

  Oliver grimaced. ‘He got me fired, if that’s what you mean. But I was planning to leave anyway, to do my documentaries, so all he really achieved was to get me a decent payoff. But he wasn’t to know that.’

  ‘It was definitely him?’

  ‘His commiserations card arrived the morning before they told me.’

  ‘What a bastard.’

  ‘Yeah. But I got off lightly, compared to some. He’s left me alone since, presumably because I still have some clout around here. But if you want to give yourself nightmares, there’s a support group for tenants who tried to stand up to him. You wouldn’t believe their stories, how vindictive he can be. It’s like a point of honour with him, to make sure the other guy comes off worse. He sues people for fun, then keeps at it long after anyone rational would stop. He has people stalked, harassed and beaten, some so badly they’re hospitalised or even crippled. And of course he’s clever enough that nothing can ever be traced back to him. Several of the group’s members had breakdowns. One woman tried to kill herself. Another succeeded. I can show you if you like.’

  ‘God, no,’ said Anna.

  ‘Good call. Then how about we get something to eat? Though maybe we should order in, all things considered? I could even cook, if you’re feeling reckless, though wars have been fought over lesser insults than my bolognese.’

  ‘No,’ said Anna firmly. ‘We’re going out. I hate the idea of cowering.’

  ‘We’ll stick to Bailgate,’ said Oliver. ‘We’ll be safe enough there.’

  She put on her jacket, slung her bag over her shoulder. Bailgate was barely a minute’s walk away, and thronged with people taking advantage of the pleasant evening to do some early Christmas shopping. Several did double takes or nudged each other when Oliver walked by. ‘So this is what it’s like to be famous,’ murmured Anna.

  ‘You’ll find out for yourself, soon enough.’

  His favourite chippie was near the top of Steep Hill, the other side of Westgate. The cobblestone road was still so slick from the earlier rain that Anna’s feet simply went from beneath her at one point, and she’d have taken a fearful tumble had Oliver not grabbed her by her arm, which she rubbed a little ruefully after he let her go again. ‘Sorry,’ he said.

  ‘Don’t be. Better than the alternative.’ She clung to him and shuffled in comical little baby steps to the gritted pavement, where they joined the queue for the chippie. She bought them vast portions of haddock and chips that they ate with their fingers on a damp bench in the square between cathedral and castle, while a bearded busker outside the Magna Carta pub tempted fate with an upbeat rendition of Have You Ever Seen The Rain.

  Anna couldn’t finish her portion. She gave the rest to Oliver then sat back and looked around, filled not just with the contentment of a full stomach but with a potent sense of history too. This small patch of cobbled ground had witnessed one of England’s most consequential – if largely forgotten – battles. It had taken place some seven months after King John’s death, with William Marshal now regent. He’d done what he could to reunite the country, lowering taxes, offering reconciliation to those who wanted it, and reissuing Magna Carta in the name of the boy king Henry III. Yet the French and the remaining rebel barons had still controlled London and great swathes of southern and eastern England. Far from backing down, they reinforced over the winter to lay siege to the strategic castles at Dover and right here in Lincoln.

  King John had gone to great lengths to avoid open battle. Marshal, by contrast, had sought it. He raised the largest army he could muster then led them here himself, despite being almost seventy years old and in the certainty of being outnumbered. The direct approach would have meant an uphill assault, so they circled around instead, to come in from the north. The rebels and the French stayed inside the town, trusting to its high walls and sturdy gates. They left one gate unguarded, however, believing it too blocked by masonry to be capable of breach. But Marshal thought otherwise.

  A diversionary attack provided cover for its clearance, then he led the main assault himself, charging into the city on his warhorse, meeting the rebel forces right here on Westgate. The battle had been in the balance until one of Marshal’s men had thrust his sword through the French commander’s visor, killing him instantly. Dismay had spread among the rebels, who broke and fled, allowing Marshal and his men to chase them down Steep Hill, using the very slope Anna had just slipped on to turn advantage into victory, and victory into rout.

  ‘Bloody hell, that was good,’ said Oliver, scrunching up the various wrappers and lobbing them expertly into a nearby bin. ‘Time for an ice cream.’

  ‘Are you nuts? It’s freezing.’

  ‘Yeah. I guess it is a bit.’ He got up then offered her his hand to help her to her feet. The contact was brief and entirely natural, yet it still gave her a tingle. He bumped his shoulder playfully against hers. She bumped him back. They smiled at one another, and for the first time in years—

  A cry of anger and dismay. The roar of a motorbike. Anna turned to see a huge bearded man in ripped blue jeans and a zipped-up leather jacket speeding towards her on a fat red and black motorbike, its licence plate covered by masking tape. His visor was half raised, so that Anna could see a squashed portion of his face, his narrowed eyes, his flared nostrils and weathered cheeks, the flecks of grey in his chestnut beard. He had a pillion passenger too, but so much smaller than himself that Anna could only see his arms, as though the pair of them formed some grotesque, malignant spider. This second man was holding several bags of different styles and colours, including the pink one he’d clearly just snatched from the woman who’d cried out. They veered by Anna at the last moment, slowing just enough for the passenger to grab her bag from off her shoulder too. Then they were gone with it before she even properly realised it was under threat.

  FIFTY-ONE

  One of the few benefits of Elias’s Nissan Leaf was that he had to recharge it at least twice a week. And seeing as his nearest charger was in the local McDonald’s car park, it gave him the perfect excuse to dine guilt-free on a burger, fries and a milkshake. He sat at the window to keep an eye on it, just in case, because there’d been a spate of thefts around here recently, and though he could do with some new wheels, he didn’t need the hassle. It badly needed a wash too, spattered with mud from all those rural lanes, but he couldn’t face it tonight. Maybe in the morning, before collecting Anna.

  He chomped down the last of his burger a little too hurriedly and paid for it with that unpleasant stretched feeling in his throat and chest all the way home. Parking near his bedsit was a nightmare. He normally didn’t even bother trying, but rather used a cul-de-sac some fifteen minutes walk away, which was well lit and always had a few free places. But he’d promised to get to Anna quickly should she need him, so he circled round and round his block until finally a spot opened up.

  He collected his post on his way in. The usual mix of bills and junk mail. The lift was still out of order so he trudged upstairs to his top-floor bedsit. Its shabbiness depressed him even on good days, but he hated it more than ever right now, after his earlier visit to Merchant’s plush coach-house conversion, the sour memories it had inevitably provoked.

  You learned to think a certain way when you became a detective. Everything had meaning. This wasn’t always helpful. Another man, to take one example, would have been glad to see his wife emerging from the desperate misery of Marcus’s death, taking trouble over her appearance again, buying new outfits, trying out different hairstyles, visiting the gym. Another man would have thought himself forgiven when she’d started being kind to him again, and tolerant of his flaws.

  Elias wasn’t that man, however. Suspicion was his default state. He’d taken to ringing home at odd hours, or going there unannounced, catching her that way in a series of flat-out lies. And, rather than subtly letting her know, or giving her more time and space to work through her anger and her grief, he’d bought himself a surveillance device instead. It was barely the size of a book of matches, yet it came equipped with GPS and a 4G SIM, all powered by a coin battery, enabling him to track her in her car and listen in to any phone calls she made from it. That was how he’d found out about her affair – and with Merchant, of all people. It had made him so furious that he’d followed her to his place one afternoon to confront the pair of them, managing to lose his dignity, his wife and his family in the space of five incandescent minutes.

  Yes. Sometimes it was better not to know. Yet turning a blind eye wasn’t in his nature.

  Anna Warne had washed and brushed her hair, then had put on perfume, eyeliner and lip-gloss. She’d been wearing a pair of gold hoop earrings and a silver bracelet, neither of which he’d seen before, and she’d tightened her belt a notch too. All for Merchant’s benefit as well, seeing as she’d be spending the night with him, for all her talk of spare bedrooms.

  Observation was only one aspect of detective work. Another was deduction. It was hardly a mystery that an attractive young woman like Anna would seek to make the most of herself. The puzzle was why she hadn’t done so until now; why, indeed, she’d almost gone out of her way to make herself appear shapeless and plain. Elias had come across the phenomenon before, and there was usually a good reason for it, so that he couldn’t help but wonder whether that applied here too.

  He felt bad about googling her. It felt like stalking. Yet he did it anyway, only to be defeated by the commonness of her name. He added Dunstan and then Lincolnshire to his search, but without success. Then he remembered how frosty she’d turned when he’d asked about her switch to York for her PhD, so he added Nottingham to his search, and there it was. He even remembered the incident now. Her abduction had been major news for a while. What he hadn’t realised was that Harry Kidd had stalked her for months beforehand, or that she’d gone to the police about him on three separate occasions – only to be called up by one of the officers she’d spoken to, and asked out on a date.

  That glance he’d given her ring finger that first day. No wonder she’d looked so sickened. He felt nauseous about it himself now, not least because he’d been toying with the idea of asking her for a coffee himself once this was all over. He had no great romantic aspirations. She was out of his weight class, and that was fine, though it would pain him grievously if she ended up with Merchant. But the simple truth was that he was lonely and that he longed for the companionship of a smart, attractive woman. The simple truth was that there was something about Anna that called out to him. He’d have liked her for a friend.

  No chance of that now. He’d rather burn. And look at this place anyway. It was a pit. It was humiliating enough having to bring the twins here. And not just because it was awful in itself, although it was. It was because he no longer even tried to make the best of it. He’d let himself go, that was the fact of it. He’d let himself go because he was the kind of man who needed someone in his life to make an effort for. And he had no one like that left.

  But that stopped now.

  He filled a black bag with old takeaway cartons, beer cans and the rest, then cleared his sink of dirty plates and mugs. He fetched his hoover from the closet and ran it over his threadbare old carpet, for all the good it did. Then he pulled on rubber gloves and filled a bucket with soapy hot water and set about scrubbing every surface he could find, until they were as clean as he could get them.

  FIFTY-TWO

  The two bikers were away before Anna could react. Fortunately, Oliver was faster. He sprinted after the bike then simply leapt for her shoulder bag, grabbing it and almost jerking the pillion passenger from his seat, but instead tumbling to the ground himself and being dragged a short distance along the cobbles like a hapless waterskier until one of the bag’s buckles broke, turning its strap into a snake that slithered through the man’s grasp. He yelled out and the biker screeched to a halt and skewed around, as if intending to come back; but too many people were now converging to risk it, so he turned ahead once more and roared away.

  Anna helped Oliver to his feet. He grimaced as he checked his left hand. Blood welled up from a pair of scratches to pool in his palm and then drip from there onto the wet cobbles, splashing in little scarlet coronets. A middle-aged couple came to ask if they needed help or witnesses. Oliver thanked them but assured them he was fine. ‘That was amazing,’ said Anna, fishing a pack of tissues from her bag and handing him a couple. ‘I’d be lost without my stuff.’

  Oliver pressed tissues against his palm. Spots of blood blotted through the thin paper almost at once. ‘Can we get out of here?’ he asked. ‘I don’t want a circus.’

  ‘Sure,’ she said. ‘Is there a clinic or something nearby?’

  That made him laugh. ‘Don’t be absurd. I only need a plaster. I’ve got some in my first aid kit.’

  ‘If you’re sure,’ she said doubtfully.

  ‘I’m sure,’ he said. ‘Though you should call your detective mate. He needs to know about this.’

  ‘They were just bag thieves.’

  ‘I don’t care.’

  ‘He was up all last night. I’ll tell him in the morning.’

  He shook his head at her, but let it go. They set off for his place, only for his knee to start hurting him badly enough that he began to limp. She put her arm around him and they hobbled awkwardly on. She helped him upstairs and through to his kitchen where she rinsed his hand with cold water, then made him sit at the table so that he could stretch out his sore leg. His first aid kit was beneath the sink. She swabbed his hand with cotton wool, plucked out specks of grit with tweezers, disinfected his cuts and covered them with antiseptic cream, gauze and a little cotton wool, all held in place by long strips of tape. ‘Okay,’ she said, when she was done. ‘Now let’s have a look at your knee.’

  ‘It’s fine,’ he said. ‘I just won’t try to land any triple axles for a week or two.’

  ‘Probably wise. Then you’re good to go.’

  ‘What about my lollipop?’

  ‘Lollipops are for brave boys. I saw you wincing.’

  ‘Hey!’ he protested. ‘And after I saved your bag too!’

  ‘It was brilliant, what you did,’ she told him seriously. ‘Thank you.’

  ‘My pleasure.’ He pushed himself to his feet then hobbled across the kitchen for the bottle of red he’d opened earlier, only to find himself hampered by his bandaged hand. She did the honours, therefore, finding a pair of fresh glasses for them to take through to the sitting room. He patted the sofa beside him. She took an armchair instead. Conversation turned personal. Oliver made her laugh with wild stories about being the child of touring actors, then listened sympathetically as she told him about watching her mother die and moving in with Uncle Dun.

  They finished the first bottle. She fetched a second. This time, when he patted the cushion, she settled in beside him. They talked some more, about all manner of things. He touched the back of her hand with a fingertip, traced a feathery figure of eight. She told herself to move her hand away, yet somehow it stayed. He covered it fully with his own. She turned hers around to let their fingers interlace. They stared down at them together for a few moments, then up into each others’ eyes.