Dying to Tell by Robert Goddard

Author:Robert Goddard [Goddard, Robert]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Published: 2010-12-08T12:57:11.852000+00:00

"Sounds great."

"Used to see quite a bit of Rupe. I don't know what's happened to the old bugger. I really don't. Have you A thought struck him. "Hold on. You were trying to track him down a few weeks back, weren't you? You called me at the office."

"So I did."

"Any luck?"

"No." (Well, that was certainly true.)

"Pity. Rupe's always good value." A grey slab of Hayes-cum-Southall glided past the window as Simon reflected on the point. "I haven't seen him in six months or more. Not to speak to anyway."

"Have you seen him .. . without speaking?" My curiosity was suddenly aroused.

"Mmm?"

"When I phoned, you said you hadn't seen him for quite a while."

"That's right. Like I say. Not to speak to."

"But you have technically seen him?"

"Well, more recently than six months, yeh. But '

"When?"

"When?" Simon puffed out his cheeks. "Not sure. Back in the summer, it must have been. Late summer. Yeh, around then."

"Where was this?"

"The City somewhere. Does it matter?"

"Just .. . interested," I said, trying to sound casual. "It could be a pointer to where he's living these days."

"Shouldn't think so. It was, er .. . near the Monument. Rush-hour time. I was heading for Liverpool Street. He was on the other side of the road. There was too much traffic to think of getting his attention."

"Which way was he going?"

"South. Towards London Bridge. I remember.. ." Simon frowned at the recollection. "He was grinning. You know, a real ear-to-ear job. Not at anyone. He was on his own. It was a bit odd, really. The evening commute doesn't normally fill people with glee."

"But he seemed .. . happy?"

"Looked over the bloody moon. Faintly cracked, to be honest. Maybe he'd just found out he'd won the Lottery. That would explain why he's gone A.W.O.L.. Wouldn't want old chums down on their luck trying to touch him for a hand-out. He's probably on Copacabana Beach even as we speak, sipping something long and strong out of half a pineapple and practising his Portuguese chat-up lines." Simon gave his Latin fantasy ten seconds or so of rumination, then beetled his brow at me. "Here, is that why you're so keen to contact him?"

I got rid of Simon at Paddington, where I claimed to be catching a train back to the West Country. He vanished into the Underground. That left me free to make a phone call. It was my second attempt of the day to contact Echo and I got the same result as at Heathrow: no answer. Oddly, there was no longer an answer phone cut-in. Not that I'd have left a message if there had been. I didn't want any record of Lance Bradley's return home.

I sat in the station cafe, drinking my way through a couple of double espressos to ward off jet lag and trying to apply some cool logic (not normally my speciality) to the problem of where Rupe had hidden the letter. Simon's sighting of him in the City shortened the odds on a safe-deposit box in some Lombard Street strong-room.

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