Free Fault Line - Retail by Robert Goddard

deal between us. Generous of me, don’t you think?’
    It was – suspiciously so. ‘Why don’t you tell me what this is all about, Oliver?’
    ‘Maybe I will. Later. If you’ll do one more thing for me. I know you can drive, but have you got a car?’
    ‘No. I can’t afford one.’
    ‘Could you borrow your father’s?’
    ‘Probably.’ In fact, it was generally quite easy to persuade Dad to let me use the car, as long as I didn’t ask too often. He had little enough use for it himself. ‘Why?’
    ‘I want you to drive me somewhere this evening.’
    ‘Where?’
    ‘Pick me up at Nanpean. Park in front of the pub. Be there by seven o’clock. I’ll be getting off the bus from Newquay. When you see the bus pull in, start the engine. We’ll need to make a quick getaway.’
    ‘Quick getaway? What exactly—’
    ‘Just be there, OK? Or at least warn me if you’re going to let me down.’
    ‘Who said anything about letting you down?’
    His blue eyes bored into me. I noticed his pupils were unnaturally dilated. I wondered, not for the first time, whether he was entirely sane. ‘Can I count on you, Jonathan?’
    I felt the force of his will, urging me to assure him he could. ‘Of course,’ I said. ‘I’ll be there. But why—’
    ‘No more questions. I’m heading that way.’ He pointed towards the gate in the lower corner of the cemetery. ‘Wait here and watch what Strake does, will you? That should tell you whether I’m being paranoid or not.’
    He spun on his heel then and strode away. I watched him go, stepping back into the lee of the chapel so that I could watch Strake as well without making myself conspicuous.
    By the time Oliver was halfway to the gate, Strake had broken off from his perusal of inscriptions and started moving in the same direction. There wasn’t much doubt he was following Oliver. He accelerated steadily, cutting between the gravestones to maintain his diagonal route across the cemetery, his short brown mac billowing out behind him.
    He had a trilby worn askew on his head and I couldn’t see his face for the brim, but I caught a movement of his arm and a drift of smoke that told me he was smoking a cigarette.
    Oliver reached the gate and went through. Strake stepped up his pace a little more and was soon hurrying through the gate himself. Then I was alone.
    In a sense, Oliver had given me exactly what I wanted: a cover story that would persuade Vivien – and her stepfather – that I wasn’t to blame for the consequences of Oliver’s actions, whatever they might turn out to be. But in another sense, of course, he was still manipulating me, still using me to serve some devious purpose of his own. And I hadn’t the first idea what that purpose was. As I walked the rest of the way to Wren & Co., I pondered the logistics of conveying Oliver’s message to Greville Lashley. My colleagues in Accounts would grow suspicious if I became a frequent visitor to the managing director’s office with a crunch board meeting pending. I decided to seize my chance, therefore, when I encountered Lashley in the yard, striding purposefully towards his car. It wasn’t yet nine o’clock, but already he was leaving rather than arriving. Evidently he’d made an early start – a sure sign of the tumultuous times in Wren’s affairs.
    ‘Could I have a quick word, Mr Lashley?’ I asked, intercepting him.
    ‘It’ll have to be damned quick,’ he said without break of stride.
    ‘It’s about Oliver.’
    He winced, as if a rotten tooth had suddenly pained him. ‘Get in the car. You can tell me on the way.’
    I was in the plush-leathered passenger seat of the Jag and Lashley was making a roaring exit from the yard before I thought to ask where we were going.
    ‘I have a meeting at Cornish China Clays. You’ll have to walk back from there, I’m afraid. I’m operating on a tight schedule today.’
    He was also operating without regard to speed limits. We were going to be at CCC in a matter of