Mean Spirit Read Free Page B

got to be, my sweet?’
    ‘Huh?’
    ‘Where you heading?’
    ‘Oh. Uh … it’s a place … couple miles out of Stroud. Mysleton?’
    He considered this. ‘Ain’t much at Mysleton. ‘Cept for Mysleton House.’
    ‘Yeah,’ she said. ‘That’s the place.’
    ‘Sir Stephen Callard?’
    ‘You know him?’
    ‘I know his place.’ He wiped his hands on his overalled thighs. ‘I could take you there, if you like.’
    ‘Is it far from your workshop?’
    ‘Few miles. I could take you over there, then pick you up afterwards when we find an exhaust system.’
    At some kind of price, she supposed. Or maybe he truly was a helpful person.
    Whatever, was she going to get a better offer?
    ‘That would be most kind,’ Grayle said, collecting her purse from the passenger seat, tucking hair behind an ear, figuring to come over a little more English and refined.
    They went first of all to the garage, which was not at all what she was expecting.
    It was on the edge of this very cute Cotswold village: dreamy church, old cottages built from stone like mellow cheese-crust. Then you came to a newish housing estate created out of fake Cotswold stone, designed to maintain the golden glow all the way to the boundary.
    But the garage made no compromise. It was hidden behind a bunch of fast-growing conifers close to the housing estate. It was not golden, never had been.
    She saw a grey concrete forecourt, decorated with a couple of wrecked cars and two old gas pumps which had clocks with hands to measure the fuel throughput. The black rubber hoses were so withered it must have been years since any fuel passed their way.
    The place was deserted and looked long dead. Either the other mechanics were out to lunch or this was a one-man outfit.
    The guy – his name was Justin – unhooked the tow rope and left the Mini standing on the spider-cracked forecourt. Grayle surreptitiously gave the car a reassuring pat, making it clear she planned toreturn – if she was a car brought here she would figure it to be some kind of sad ante-room to the breaker’s yard.
    Maybe it was the dereliction of the garage behind the beautiful façade of the village, but as they drove away in the pick-up she felt suddenly desolate.
    It should be possible – like with the cottages – for age to confer beauty, for people to become golden with kindness and wisdom. How come they always ended up cold and grey and drab and flaking, like this garage?
    Grayle had been in Britain over a year in total. Twenty-nine when she first arrived, now she was thirty-one, a mature woman who’d seen some death.
    ‘You a friend of Sir Stephen’s then?’ Justin asked. Curious, as well he might be – how many friends of Sir Stephen Callard, retired diplomat, would be driving around in a 25-year-old Austin Mini, the exhaust held in place by fence wire?
    ‘Uh … his daughter,’ she said.
    Regretting it immediately. This was not for broadcast, Marcus had warned; the woman didn’t want it known she was down here.
    ‘You what?’
    Justin had turned his head and was staring at her. Without the baseball cap, he didn’t look as old as she’d first figured. Maybe forty-five. His hair was still mostly black and curly, quite long. He had a gold earring, bigger than it needed to be.
    ‘No, uh …
I’m
not his daughter, I’m just here to see his daughter, but I would be grateful if … Jesus, look where you’re—!’
    Justin glanced at the road as a big hedge came up fast in the windshield, dead ahead. The road was about as wide as a garden path. Driving with two fingers crooked around the wheel, Justin spun around the bend, then turned back on Grayle.
    ‘Seffi Callard, eh?’
    Grayle sat up hard, pulling her flimsy black raincoat together across her thighs, dragging her purse on to her lap.
    ‘Relax, my sweet. I’ve travelled this ole road about a million times.’ Justin swivelled his gaze lazily back to the windshield. ‘I know every little bend, every pothole.’ He smiled,