DECOY (Kindle Single) Read online

  Then she thought of Charlie, and she knew she couldn’t stop.

  Not yet.

  Five

  Kate’s phone didn’t ring again for two days. When it did, her first thought was that it was Susan Tribe calling to tell her she’d confronted Kev. Maybe he’d leapt to his death from the top of the high-rise Castle car park, Oxford’s number one suicide hotspot. Or threatened to throw his dear wife off it.

  ‘I’m calling about your advert.’ The unfamiliar woman’s voice was nervous and hesitant. A new client! This one sounded posher than the first two. Money no object.

  ‘Yes, this is Thames Valley Decoy Services,’ Kate said, trying to convey the impression of some enormous top-flight operation with scores of professional agents scouring the city around the clock for cheating spouses. ‘Kate speaking. How can I help you?’

  There was a long pause, and for a moment Kate thought the caller had hung up.

  ‘My name’s Julie Hawkins. I’m calling about … well, I’d rather not say too much on the phone. Is it possible for you to come here this afternoon? He won’t be around then.’

  By ‘he’, Kate assumed that Julie Hawkins meant her spouse. Kate looked at her watch. She still had three hours before she needed to go and pick Charlie up from school. Hayley had had to work today. ‘Let me check my schedule. Yes, this afternoon should be no problem at all.’ The super-efficient female decoy ever-ready to serve the needs of the client. She grabbed a pen and paper and Julie Hawkins gave her the address.

  The house was in Boars Hill, a scattered hamlet three miles southwest of the city, comprising a lot of expensive properties that nestled within high walls and mature gardens. On the way there, Kate was thinking over how she would conduct her business from now on – or for as long as it took to raise the money she needed. First, there would be no more meeting in car parks. Ditto back alleys, canal paths, country trails or any other place she could find herself in a potentially compromising situation. It still made her shudder to think about what might have happened if she hadn’t got away from Kev Tribe as quickly as she had. From now on, she would meet her targets on safe ground in crowded public places, as upmarket as she could make them: restaurants, hotel bars, reputable pubs. Driving through Boars Hill made her wonder if she should put her price up, too.

  The address Kate was looking for in Foxcombe Road turned out to be a large late-Victorian property squarely in the F-You Money bracket, all ivy and chimneys and sloping angles and bay windows, standing half-hidden a hundred yards off the road behind a screen of trim conifers. Sculpted, immaculately tasteful gardens were dreamily dappled in sunlight, as if an artist had been hired to position each leaf individually for exactly the right effect. Even the birds in the trees sounded as if they’d been to the right singing teacher. Only the most exclusive clientele lived here, naturally employing only the most high-class of female decoys.

  When Kate pulled into the tree-shaded gravel drive she could see that all three doors of the three-car garage were open. One bay was empty, one contained a black VW Transporter van and the third housed a bright yellow Lotus Evora. She guessed that the missing car belonged to ‘he’, and that the sporty number was the little woman’s runaround.

  Kate’s price had just gone up another two-fifty.

  She parked up, got out of the car. The distant buzz of a lawnmower sounded from a neighbouring property, screened off behind the trees. Sprinklers twitched on the grass and made rainbows in the sunlight. An ornamental path ran up the side of a lawn just about long enough to land a light aircraft, winding up to the ivied stone house. Kate drew a deep breath and climbed the front steps.

  Julie Hawkins opened the door even before Kate had found the bell, as if she’d been waiting in the hallway. She was in her late forties, with neat dark hair and pearls. She greeted Kate with an edgy smile. ‘Thank you so much for coming.’

  The inside of the house was as tasteful and expensive-looking as the outside. None of the furniture looked less than a century old. Burnished walnut and mahogany everywhere, resting solidly on Persian rugs that probably cost more than Kate’s car. Mrs Hawkins invited Kate into a living room that was twice the size of the whole flat in Jericho. ‘Would you like a drink? Grape juice? Lemonade? I’m afraid we have nothing alcoholic in the house.’

  ‘I’m fine, thanks.’ Kate settled into one of a pair of facing Chintz sofas to which her client showed her. Julie Hawkins sat opposite, perched on the edge of the cushion with her hands restless in her lap. ‘Oh, my,’ she said with a worried grimace, as if she was about to have all her teeth pulled out. ‘I’ve never done anything like this before.’

  ‘Please be assured everything you tell me is confidential,’ Kate said.

  ‘If anyone sees you here—’

  ‘Then I’m a design consultant you’ve hired to help redecorate your lovely home,’ Kate said with her best reassuring smile. Sometimes she even impressed herself. ‘Now, how can I be of service?’

  As had been fairly evident from the start, the subject of the meeting was Mrs Hawkins’ husband, to whom she’d been married for sixteen years. His name was Geoffrey, he was fifty-two and he was a successful antiques dealer. That explained the furniture, Kate thought. He had shops in Swindon and Reading as well as the one in Summertown in north Oxford, which Kate had often passed but never thought of entering. Somehow, the idea of blowing a whole month’s pay on a coffee table had just never been top of her list of priorities.

  ‘Geoffrey has his ways,’ Mrs Hawkins explained, still as nervous as a bird in a roomful of hungry cats. Kate wished she’d stop glancing out of the window all the time. ‘I mean, all men do, don’t they?’ Mrs Hawkins went on. ‘He keeps some things to himself. Doesn’t like to talk about his work, for example. Gets very touchy if you ask him the wrong question. But I always believed he never had those kinds of secrets. I mean, I always thought he was, you know, faithful to me.’

  ‘I’m assuming you now suspect otherwise, or else you wouldn’t have called me.’

  Julie Hawkins pursed her lips and then picked up a handbag on the sofa next to her. ‘There’s something I want to show you,’ she said. The handbag was expensive-looking, like everything else in the house. Out of it she took an envelope, and reached across to pass it to Kate.

  Kate opened it. Inside was a glossy photo print of Geoffrey Hawkins. He was fat and bald and didn’t look much of a Romeo, but then he was presumably wealthy enough not to need to. Also inside the envelope was another item, which rolled out and fell into Kate’s lap. It was a lipstick tube printed with a leopard-skin design, bearing the logo BAD KITTY. The lipstick was an even more flamboyant red than the one Kate had bought to lure Kev the Key, as if he’d needed any encouragement.

  ‘I see,’ Kate said. It certainly didn’t belong to Julie Hawkins.

  Julie Hawkins looked at the lipstick and sighed. ‘It was Wednesday before last. Geoffrey came down with one of those twenty-four-hour viruses the day before, and was in bed. My car was having new tyres put on and I needed to pop out to the shops. I don’t like to drive his Mercedes. It’s too big and long and I’m afraid to park it, so I borrowed his van. It’s quite easy to drive.’

  ‘The black van in the garage?’

  ‘Geoffrey’s work van. He goes all over the country, picking up pieces.’

  Kate looked at her, then understood she meant pieces of furniture.

  ‘Anyway, that’s where I found that.’ Julie motioned disgustedly at the lipstick.

  ‘I take it you haven’t mentioned it to Mr Hawkins?’

  ‘No. I have not.’

  ‘Is it possible it might belong to someone he gave a lift to? A neighbour? A friend?’

  ‘I’m afraid Geoffrey doesn’t do friends. He isn’t on speaking terms with any of the neighbours. Not since the thing with the cockerel.’

  Kate wasn’t going to ask about the thing with the cockerel. ‘Then a hitch-hiker, maybe?’ The professional decoy doing a thorough job of not looking like she’s just in it f
or the money.

  ‘No,’ Julie Hawkins said emphatically. ‘He wouldn’t do that. And anyway, then wouldn’t the lipstick have been in the front, in the foot well or in the gap next to the passenger seat? This was rolling about in the back, not in the cab. I found it when I was putting the shopping bags in there.’

  Kate was thinking that the lipstick might have fallen out of some piece of furniture, like a bedroom cabinet or chest of drawers that Geoffrey was transporting. The evidence for adultery didn’t seem overwhelming. But hey, she wanted this job, didn’t she? Enough of the devil’s advocate stuff. Think of Charlie.

  ‘So you suspect—?’

  ‘There’s only one way to put it, isn’t there?’ Julie Hawkins said, tight-lipped. ‘They must have been doing it in the back. He probably rolled out a camping mattress or something. The dirty bastard.’ It sounded incongruous, coming from her lips. ‘And you can tell what kind of filthy slut that must belong to.’ She’d obviously thought about this a lot. ‘And there’s more,’ she added.

  ‘There’s more?’

  ‘A few days after I found the lipstick – it was last Monday – Geoffrey told me he had to drive up to London early the next day for an antiques symposium. He said it wouldn’t be finishing until late, and he might be going out to dinner with another dealer afterwards to talk about a Rococo Chippendale sideboard this chap had for sale. That’s why he said he was going in the van, in case he bought it and was bringing it back. Anyway, he said he’d be staying overnight in a hotel, and coming back next morning.’

  ‘Does he often spend the night away on business?’

  ‘Oh yes, several times a month. That’s always been the way. But this time I was suspicious.’

  ‘Because of the lipstick.’

  ‘Exactly. So before he left on the Tuesday morning, while he was in the shower, I sneaked out to the garage and checked the mileage on the van. Then I checked it again when he came home on Wednesday morning.’ Julie Hawkins paused and looked expectantly at Kate.

  Kate felt as if she was being required to say something. ‘So … let me guess. The mileage was wrong?’

  ‘We’re only a little over fifty miles from London. Double that for the return journey, add a few miles for trekking about wherever he needed to go in the city. It couldn’t be more than, say, a hundred and thirty miles? But Geoffrey had driven over three hundred miles in the twenty-four hours between Tuesday and Wednesday morning. He could have gone all the way to Manchester and back. And of course, he didn’t bring anything home with him. The van was still empty when he got back.’

  ‘Okay,’ Kate said, listening.

  ‘Then when I asked him how the antiques symposium went, he said it had gone well, but the London traffic was awful and it turned out that the Chippendale piece wasn’t what he was looking for. Do you see? I think the whole thing was a lie and he didn’t go to London at all. I think he was somewhere else. In a hotel with some woman, most likely.’ Julie Hawkins sniffed. Her eyes had gone pink, and she dabbed them with a tissue. ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘Don’t be.’

  ‘That’s why, the moment I saw your advertisement, I knew I had to call you. I don’t quite understand what it is you do, but—’

  ‘Our agents are highly specialised at gauging the behaviour of a spouse suspected of infidelity,’ Kate said. ‘We provide a full report to you, the client, giving you our detailed assessment of whether we believe the subject would commit to an adulterous act.’ That line had taken her about half an hour to compose. It sounded good, even to Kate.

  ‘So you won’t actually have to sleep with my husband?’

  Kate was taken aback by the directness of the question, but she managed to hide it. ‘That wouldn’t be ethical, and it’s not necessary. It’s not what we do.’

  ‘I see. What do you actually do?’

  ‘It’s all about choice, Mrs Hawkins. Our service simply creates an opportunity, or at least the illusion of one. When the subject shows a willingness to take the opportunity, that’s a positive result. If they don’t, well, it gives us a strong indication that they aren’t generally that way inclined. Either way, it’s up to the client what to do with the information we provide.’

  ‘Thames Valley Decoy Services,’ Julie said thoughtfully. ‘Do you employ many of these, ah, agents?’

  For a moment Kate thought her carefully-concocted front was rumbled. Or maybe Julie Hawkins was going to ask her for a job.

  ‘Yes, several. All thoroughly screened, of course. I run the company.’

  ‘You seem like a very sensible young woman.’

  ‘Thank you,’ Kate said. So maybe she wasn’t rumbled after all.

  ‘Do you have any children?’

  ‘I have a son. He’s seven. He’s—’ Kate was going to say more, but she stopped herself. ‘What about you? Kids, I mean.’

  Julie Hawkins shook her head. ‘I was never blessed with a child.’ She paused, then said, ‘If you don’t mind my asking, how does your husband feel about what you do for a living?’

  ‘Oh, I’m not married,’ Kate said. ‘Single parent.’

  Julie Hawkins smiled, then reached for the handbag again. ‘We didn’t discuss your fee.’

  ‘It’s seven hundred and fifty pounds,’ Kate said without blinking. ‘Payable in advance. That includes my report, which you’ll receive within two days of my assessment of your husband.’

  ‘Fine, fine,’ Julie Hawkins said nonchalantly, as if Kate had asked for a tenner. ‘Is cash all right? I don’t want a receipt or anything. Geoffrey might find it.’

  Kate watched as the fat wad of cash emerged from the bag. She swallowed. ‘Yes, that’s absolutely all right. I’ll also need to keep this picture of your husband, for recognition purposes.’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘And I’ll require some further information on his routine and habits,’ Kate said as she put the money away in her bag. She tried not to look as if she was stuffing it in there before the client changed her mind. ‘That way, I can find a way to meet him that looks natural and accidental.’

  ‘I understand. Well, every Thursday evening unless he’s away on business, Geoffrey works late at the warehouse, going through the inventory, checking on the progress of any restoration projects in the workshop, things like that. He usually leaves work around seven, then he stops off at a nearby pub for his evening meal. Thursday is my evening class,’ she added, ‘so it’s always worked out well for us both. I do embroidery.’

  ‘That’s nice,’ Kate felt obliged to say. She was more interested in Thursday, which was tomorrow. ‘And where is the warehouse?’

  ‘Just a few miles from here, outside Kennington. The pub Geoffrey goes to is the Signet, down near the river. At least, that’s what he tells me he does.’

  Kate stood. ‘Thank you for your time, Mrs Hawkins. I think I have everything I need. I’ll be in touch.’

  Six

  It was seven-eighteen the following evening when Kate rolled her little Nissan to a halt on the gravel in the car park at the rear of the Signet Inn and slotted in between a silver Porsche 911 and a Range Rover Vogue. The Nissan’s exhaust was rattling worse than ever and sounded as if it might drop off at any second. When the embarrassing noise died away, she could hear the burble of the river, and the buzz of conversation from the beer garden. It had been a hot day and the parasols were still shading the tables at which mostly young couples were enjoying the warmth of the evening. Across the car park was a shiny black Mercedes Benz the size of a canal barge. Kate recalled what Julie Hawkins had said about not liking to drive her husband’s Mercedes because it was too big and long.

  The pub was old whitewashed stone with all the usual creeping plants and leaded windows and rustic accoutrements, like the cartwheel against one wall. Kate walked round to the entrance, getting into her mindset. She’d put some thought into how to dress for this. Not too overtly sexy, but alluring enough to catch the eye of a middle-aged guy who was bored with his wife. She’d raided a coupl
e of charity shops that morning and found a navy skirt that stopped a little above the knee, and a red sleeveless top that she left unbuttoned far down enough to be interesting. She was wearing Hayley’s necklace and the same red heels that had blistered her feet for the Wheatley job. Her last purchase of the morning had been a swanky new digital sound recorder that was in the lightweight cloth bag over her shoulder. Ready for action.

  Inside, the pub was decked out in the same kind of olde-worlde decor. Heavy oak beams, cracked with age. Lots of brass. Wood panelling around the walls, framed prints of pike, salmon and trout. About a million different kinds of real ale on offer at the bar, and above it a stuffed badger with glassy eyes that followed her as she walked in.

  Geoffrey Hawkins was sitting alone at a corner table in the restaurant area. He was wearing a suit and tie, and had a leather briefcase at his feet. The table was set for dinner for one: neatly arranged cutlery, folded red napkin, pepper mill and salt cellar, matching flowery coasters for his plate and his glass. The glass contained sparkling water, recently poured, the bubbles still rising, a lemon slice floating delicately on the surface. He’d made space on the table for the large hardback book he was leafing through. Its cover was angled upwards enough to make out the title: Miller’s Antiques Handbook and Price Guide 2014-2015. It didn’t seem particularly exciting to him. As he laconically flipped the pages he took a sip of water. Like Kev before him, he looked a little chubbier than in the photo his wife had given Kate. Too many dinners out at the Signet Inn, maybe.

  The dining area was only thinly occupied that evening, and the table next to his was empty. Kate checked for a reserved sign, didn’t see one, took a seat with an easy eyes-front view of her target and casually picked up the little menu from its plastic holder. Soon afterwards, a very pretty dark-haired waitress of about eighteen, wearing tight jeans and a low-cut top, arrived with a pleasant smile to take Kate’s order. Kate asked for a prawn salad, and would have opted for a glass of white wine if she hadn’t been on duty and driving. She followed Geoffrey Hawkins’ example and ordered sparkling water, and the waitress wrote it down and asked if she wanted ice and lemon with that, and then disappeared towards the kitchen with another smile.