Wildcard by Ken McClure Page B

Mr Bell.’
    The man turned away and called, ‘Vincent! There’s a big handsome policeman here to see you. You’d better have a good story, love, I can tell you.’ He turned back to Steven and said, ‘And you’d best come in.’
    Steven stepped inside the cottage, suspecting that his beautiful theory was about to turn to dust. Vincent Bell entered the room and with one word, ‘Hello,’ managed to blow even the dust of it away. Bell was overtly homosexual; he was clearly not Ann Danby’s secret lover.
    ‘What can I do for you?’ asked Bell. He put admiring emphasis on the word ‘you’.
    ‘I understand you were a passenger on the ill-fated Ndanga flight recently, Mr Bell?’ said Steven, not at all sure what he was going to do now.
    ‘I was indeed and d’you know, I still wake up sweating when I think about it, don’t I, Simon? There but for the grace of God, I say.’
    ‘You haven’t been unwell at all yourself?’
    ‘No, love, right as rain. Can I tempt you to some lunch? We’re just about to have ours.’
    Steven was taken unawares by the offer, but with his theory shot to pieces and not having anything else to say he replied almost automatically, ‘That would be very nice, thank you.’
    He sat down at the table and was treated to carrot and coriander soup and a smoked mackerel salad, prepared by Simon and accompanied by chilled Australian white wine.
    ‘Now, what else would you like to know?’ asked Bell.
    The truth was, nothing, but Steven asked a few questions out of politeness. ‘Did you have any contact at all with the sick passenger, Humphrey Barclay?’
    ‘No, thank God. He was in a right state, by all accounts.’
    ‘How about a woman named Ann Danby?’
    Bell looked blank. ‘No, sorry. Was she on the flight, too?’
    ‘No, she lives in Manchester.’
    ‘Poor woman. Where does she come into it?’
    ‘I don’t think she does any more,’ said Steven resignedly. ‘Have you visited Manchester recently, Mr Bell?’
    ‘Not recently, not ever, if truth be told – and let’s keep it that way, that’s what I say,’ replied Bell, getting a nod of agreement from his partner. ‘They say it rains there all the time.’
    Steven smiled and said, ‘Don’t think me rude but can I ask you why you were in Ndanga?’
    ‘Business, love. African arts and crafts. Simon and I run a business marketing African carvings and artwork through zoos and wildlife parks. We needed some new lines so I went over to get them. Got some super carved rhinos. Would you like to see them?’
    Steven said that he should really be going, as he had a lot to do. It wasn’t strictly true but he did have a date with depression about his wasted journey and for that he needed to be on his own. He had been wrong. Whoever V was, he certainly wasn’t Vincent Bell.
    The sky had darkened during the course of lunch and it started to rain as he walked back to the car. It suited his mood. He sat for a while in the car park, pondering on the fickleness of fate and wondering what his next move was going to be. Bell was the only male passenger on the manifest with a first name beginning with V, but there had been a couple of females whom he’d dismissed at the time in the light of Ann Danby’s valediction about men. He wondered if he’d been wrong to do that. Her comment, he supposed, could have been unconnected with the end of her love affair … but he still thought not. That would be just too much of a coincidence. He decided against visiting the females on the list for the time being. Instead, he would have a try at making Ann Danby’s mother reveal what she knew about her daughter’s relationship. Something told him that she knew exactly who V was.
     
     
    Steven spent the night in his own flat in London before flying back up to Manchester in the morning. His spirits weren’t exactly high when he boarded the aircraft, but when he opened out the newspaper he’d been handed by the flight attendant, they hit rock