Alex Barclay 4-Book Thriller Collection: Blood Runs Cold, Time of Death, Blood Loss, Harm’s Reach

‘Hey,’ said Ren, walking toward the next-door garden. An older woman was backing down the path, bent forward, dragging a rug, giving it an emergency shake-out. She was wearing red oversized pajamas and giant silver snow boots. A cigarette was gripped tightly in her mouth at a ninety-degree angle.

She turned to Ren and rolled her eyes. Ren looked down at the rug.

‘Ooh, sick dog,’ said Ren.

The woman nodded, stood up and pulled out the cigarette. ‘Why do you think I’ve got this under my nose. Whooo.’ She batted her hand in front of her face. ‘Stay back,’ she said. ‘This shit is some age-old curse coming back to wreak vengeance on the world.’

Ren laughed. And stayed back, watching the woman from Jean’s drive. People unde restimated how much neighbors noticed. They had quiet, familiar eyes. Depending on what they thought of you, they could store a massive amount of accurate details about you, or they could process it all through a filter of distorting emotions – dislike, bitterness, jealousy, lust, love, hatred, mistrust. One person’s hot neighbor was another person’s freak. Or to a third person – both. Ren talked to neighbors from the neck up, distracting them from the hand she was shoving through their belly to wrench out their gut for inspection. There was no face value with neighbors.

‘Seriously,’ said the woman, pulling a black garbage bag from the waistband of her pants, ‘let me wrap this up tight and I’m all yours. I presume you’re with the FBI.’

‘Yes, ma’am. My name is Ren Bryce.’

‘Well, I’m Margaret Shaw and I clean up more shit than you ever will.’ She laughed and pushed the cigarette back between her lips. ‘OK,’ she said. ‘I’m done.’ She had washed her hands under an icy outside tap.

‘Margaret, I’m investigating Jean Transom’s death,’ said Ren. ‘And I’d just like to talk to you a little about her.’

‘Go ahead.’

‘What was Jean like?’

Margaret shrugged. ‘That’s a good question.’ She nodded her appreciation.

‘Right … is it a question you’d like to answer?’

‘Ha. Sure. “I don’t know,” is the answer.’

‘OK,’ said Ren. ‘Why is that?’

‘She’s the stereotypical quiet neighbor you hear talked about on the news. I’m wondering should we all be noisy so we won’t get killed?’

‘You could be on to something,’ said Ren.

‘I didn’t even know Jean was an FBI agent ’til I saw it on the news. I thought she was a forest ranger with her clear skin and those tan pants of hers.’ She looked Ren up and down. ‘You don’t look like one either. You could be …’

Don’t say anything that will scar me.

‘… well, you have those eyes, so …’

Don’t say squaw.

‘… one of those Disney on Ice people.’

Original.

‘My son used to be the letter D in Disneyland Paris,’ said Margaret. ‘The ones that dance in the parade. He was dating Y …’ Margaret’s face said she wasn’t impressed with Y.

‘Hmm,’ said Ren. ‘Interesting that Y picked one of the only letters there were two of. And don’t tell me – one day she made the mistake of going with the wrong D.’

‘Or did she? Did she make a mistake – that’s what I said to him.’

‘But the … suit,’ said Ren. ‘Didn’t that … like, didn’t she notice, after the suit came off?’

‘He said they didn’t always take them off … sometimes they worked around them.’

Ren was stilled with mental images.

‘Anyway,’ said Margaret. ‘He’s Pinocchio now.’ She paused. ‘My guess is he’ll need to do a lot of lying to keep that Y bitch happy.’

‘And I thought it was the truth that hurts.’

Margaret slapped Ren’s forearm and let out a dirty, smoky laugh. ‘Good for you,’ she said. ‘I like your style. I’ve decided not to bullshit you about Jean now.’ She laughed more.

‘Well, I appreciate it,’ said Ren. ‘So, back to business …’

‘OK. Lowdown is as follows: Jean was private. Hello, goodbye, good weather, bad. I had no keys to her house. None of the neighbors did. She was quiet and a subdued kind of friendly. She ran in the morning … like she was being chased by the devil. She went to work early, she came home six, seven, seven thirty … I could hear the TV at night. She looked after her cat.’ Margaret paused. ‘I guess she was one of the millions of women in the world who do exactly the same.’

Ren was nodding her head without raising it from her notebook.

‘Now, that’s how come I’m telling you all this,’ said Margaret, ‘so the scene is set.’

Ren looked up, frowning. ‘OK …’

‘Well – and this could be absolutely nothing – in the last few months, she had a visitor, a very attractive woman, must have been in her mid-to-late twenties.’

‘Was she … a friend, a relative?’

‘I have no idea.’

‘Did Jean mention her name to you, or did you see them greeting each other, saying goodbye at the door, the car, anything like that?’

‘I saw her arrive, this young woman, with maybe a bag of something from the store. And I would only see her getting back into her car alone. She had flowers once, quite a small bunch; I thought they were kind of measly.’

‘What did she look like?

‘Like I said, attractive, tall, brown hair, healthy looking, dressed normal, nothing too fancy, nothing too sporty.’

‘Did you notice, or did Jean tell you, anything about dating? Was she dating anyone?’

Margaret paused. ‘Oh, I see where you’re going with this …’

Ren paused. ‘I’m not going anywhere … I’m just wondering about other visitors.’

Margaret shook her head. ‘I saw her brother – I’ve met him; nice man – but that was it. I wish I could tell you something to help you find who did this to her. And I’m guessing already that I can’t.’

‘We don’t know that. Can you tell me what car the woman who came to see her was driving?’

‘A red one.’