Mel wouldn’t mind betting Tippi had left school two years ago, at sixteen, the earliest possible opportunity. She wasn’t the brightest. But he’d got an opening here. He could take a strong line and get out of this unscathed. ‘Are you talking about me, Mrs. Carlyle?’
‘Cyn,’ she said.
‘I don’t follow you,’ he said, already undermined.
‘My first name is Cynthia, but I prefer Cyn if we’re getting on closer terms, and you don’t need to state the obvious. If I’ve heard it once, I’ve heard it a hundred times.’
‘Well … Cyn … I didn’t like the drift of what you were saying. I’m not a middle aged predator.’
‘Lord love us, Mel, it wasn’t you I was talking about. It was the man who parks his car across the street and sits there waiting for her.’
Another surprise. She was full of them. ‘Who’s that?’
‘Don’t ask me. I don’t know anything about him except he’s no spring chicken. Anyone can see that.’
‘What’s he like?’
‘Quite good-looking, dark-haired going grey at the sides. I’ve been watching him through the binoculars I use when I’m watching the birds on my feeders. He’s forty if he’s a day.’
‘When did he first appear?’
‘A couple of days ago.’
‘Is he there now?’ Mel started to get up.
Mrs. Carlyle grabbed his arm and pulled him down again. ‘He’ll see you. It’s better to look through the lace curtains downstairs.’
‘Shall we go down, then?’
‘He won’t be there now. Tippi went out for a manicure and he’ll know that. He’s probably parked outside the shop.’
‘Are you sure it’s Tippi he’s interested in?’
She giggled a little. ‘What are you suggesting, Mel – that I’m the star attraction?’
This wasn’t what Mel was thinking. It was far more likely some crook had got a sniff of the Amati. ‘As the man of the house, I’d better go downstairs and check. Where do you keep your binoculars?’
‘They’ll be where I left them, on the sill in the front room. I’ll come with you.’
‘No need.’
‘I insist.’
Any excuse to be out of here, he thought – and the man in the street interested him as well. He took the stairs fast, with Cyn Carlyle not far behind. He grabbed the binoculars. ‘Which direction?’
‘A little to your right if he’s still there. Oh, I say. That’s him, our stalker.’
Mel adjusted the focus and felt his blood run cold. He was looking at a black car, a Megane, and he was pretty sure it was the same car that had raced out of the forecourt of the Michael Tippett Centre.
There was definitely someone in the driver’s seat, but in shadow.
‘I think it’s me he’s tailing,’ he said, handing the binoculars to Mrs. Carlyle. ‘I’ve seen him before. I’m going out to have a word with him. Shut the door after me.’
‘Is that wise?’ she said.
Mel was already though the door and crossing the street. He headed straight for the car at a fast step, but the driver was faster. Two massive roars from the engine and the vehicle was in motion.
Mel was about to cross in front of it, to the driver’s side. When the car powered away from the kerb, he jerked to a stop and took a step back. Even so, it caught his right leg below the knee, tipped him off balance and threw him onto the road. It was a good thing he wasn’t any closer or he would have ended up dead. As it was, his left hand and arm took most of his weight. His shoulder crunched against the tarmac and his head followed.
The driver must have known he’d caused an accident, but he didn’t stop. Mel watched the car race to the far end of the street and over the crossroads without a flicker of the brake-lights.
Crazy. It had to be the same fool who’d been at the Tippett Centre. The pity of it was that Mel still hadn’t got a sighting of him.
Shaken and angry, he heaved himself into a sitting position. His hand was smarting. There was grazing from the smallest finger to the heel of his palm. Blood was starting to ooze from the flesh. And this was the hand he used for fingering. He didn’t think anything was broken, but it could so easily have been. He got to his feet, checked that nothing else was coming up the street, and returned to the house.
The door was opened by Mrs. Carlyle. ‘Are you all right?’
‘Just about.’
‘You’re not. You’re bleeding.’
He looked at the hand again. ‘It’s not serious. I’d better run some water over it.’