When the food had been placed before them, Vicki and Leighton ate in comfortable silence. To any onlooker, they might have appeared to be a father and daughter, who had not seen each other for a while, and were breaking the ice with some fast food.

When they finished their meal, Leighton excused himself to use the bathroom, but stopped on the way to speak to a senior waitress, who was setting up a table for a kid’s party. As he moved away from the table, Vicki reached into her bag, and removed a neat tablet computer, which she switched on, and began typing furiously.

When Leighton returned, he found Vicki frowning intently at the small screen.

‘You brought a computer?’

‘No.’ Vicki carried on, typing intensely.

‘You found a computer?’

‘No, it’s not mine; it belongs to Laurie.'

‘Where did it come from?’ Leighton frowned.

‘Her bedside table.’

‘You broke into her house?’ Leighton shook his head in disbelief but remained standing.

‘Not exactly, she always keeps a key under her door mat. I didn’t break anything.’

‘But, you entered the property, and removed that item?’

‘Yep,’ Vicki said, as she typed.

‘You realise you’ve committed a crime, and if your friend is in any kind of trouble, you’ve contaminated a crime scene?’

‘You told me there was no crime, therefore it couldn’t be a crime scene.’

Leighton ran a hand through his hair and sighed. ‘This was what you wanted all along?’ he asked.

‘Yep.’ Vicki continued typing.

‘So, why involve me at all? Why drag me ninety miles away from home, when you could have shown up, broken in, and stole the laptop yourself?’

‘I needed you as a witness to prove I’m not a thief. Plus, you said that you’d help.’

Sitting down, Leighton pinched the bridge of nose and sighed. ‘Look Vicki, regardless of your intentions, I don’t think you can claim innocence on this one. I can’t vouch for you.’

‘Well, I had no other way of finding this.’

She turned the computer around, so Leighton could see the screen. The display featured a booking confirmation for a bus company called Route Kings. Details for a passenger called Miss L. Taylor had been entered, and a flashing line of text at the bottom of the screen stated, “transaction complete.”

Leighton tugged a pair of horn-rimmed glasses from his jacket pocket, and peered at the computer.

‘Leighton, these are the last pages Laurie accessed before she disappeared, so that proves she made a booking.’

‘That’s true, but, as I said,’ Leighton sat back removing his glasses, ‘Laurie may have never boarded the bus.’

‘That’s also true.’ Vicki allowed this concession. ‘But, the other thing that keeps me awake is the fact this bus company may not actually exist.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘They don’t exist - not in yellow pages, not online, and not according to any of the bus depots I checked.’

‘You checked?’

‘I’ve searched; they don’t exist anywhere on any record.’

‘Look, this is madness,’ Leighton sighed, as he raised a hand to request a cheque from a waitress. ‘I think I’ll head back to Oceanside. We’re done here.’

‘Madness?’ Vicki’s eyes widened in frustration. ‘How can you not see this?’

‘Listen, so far, what we have is a girl whose friend didn’t show up to meet her. How many times do you think that happens every day?’ Leighton checked himself for raising his voice and dropped his volume. ‘Then, that same friend feels embarrassed, and decides rather than deal with the fallout, they’ll just slip off the radar for a few weeks.’

As Vicki stared at the floor in defeated silence, a waitress lifted the plates and a couple of twenties from the table.

‘Come on,’ Leighton said, as he stood up. ‘I’ll drop you home.’

He walked to the door. Vicki, however, remained deliberately seated, as if bolted there.

‘No, you go ahead, I’ll take a bus.’ She flashed a bitter smile. ‘Should be safe enough on public transport out here, right?’

‘Look, don’t be childish,’ he called back to her from the doorway, ‘You just-’

‘Childish!’ Vick’s eyes narrowed. ‘You want to see childish, Detective, how about this?’

Vicki stood up, picked up the computer, and walked past Leighton. She stepped out of the diner into the hot sun, where, lifting the laptop above her head, she threw it forward, smashing it into plastic fragments on the pavement.

‘What the hell are you doing?’ He tried to take Vicki by the arm, but she shook him off.

‘She’s been murdered, Leighton,’ she said, her eyes already glazed with suppressed tears. ‘Why the hell can’t you see that?’

‘I’m done here,’ Leighton said calmly, stepped off the sidewalk, and crossed the street to his car. ‘I did what you asked, Miss Reiner.’

‘Hey,’ Vicki shouted to his back. ‘You were done with this case before you even started,’ she added angrily. ‘God, if this is your attitude, Leighton, the force is better off with you being retired.’

Dismissing her with a wave of his hand, he opened his car and climbed in.

He spun the car noisily around, and pulled up next to her. Rolling down the window, he leaned towards her. ‘Are you getting in?’

‘Go to hell!’ Vicki said, as she crouched on the ground and began sifting through the pieces of plastic and smashed circuits from the pavement.

Leighton looked at her for a moment - just long enough to ensure she had her purse over her shoulder - then, without another word, he drove off.

14

At 10:15 a.m. Monday morning, Bradley McGhee was one pissed-off man. That swaggering pain in the ass Tony Morrelli should have shown up for work over three hours ago, only he hadn’t appeared. The tourists had bought their tickets in advance from the hotel reception, two dozen of them had arrived at the marina - cameras at the ready, and eager to get out on the water. Only there was no Tony waiting there to greet them. The crowd, who were already pissed off at getting their designer slacks damp from the river water, grew restless.

Between Sandy - the boat pilot - and Bradley, the two of them had somehow got all the clients strapped in and seated, but the entire process had taken a good forty minutes longer than it should have.

Damn it, Tony Morrelli could never have won any prizes for sincerity, but he knew how to fill up a boat with out-of-towners in under ten minutes - and that was a skill Bradley valued. Therefore, he would not follow his instinct and tell Tony to stick a flare gun up his ass and pull the trigger; instead, he would simply remind him the working week had started and his presence at the marina was respectfully requested.

Once the clucking tourists were out on the river, Bradley walked back along the marina to the long white trailer that served as an office. Sitting down in his massage chair, he picked up the grubby telephone, and called Scotty’s Bar to see if his only boatman was enjoying an unplanned Monday of playing skittles with beer bottles. While it rang, Bradley scratched at his crotch with his free hand.

A female voice answered, ‘Hello, Scotty’s,’ she said brightly.

‘Who is this?’

‘Marianne, why?’

‘Honey, this is Bradley McGhee of BBM River Tours…’

‘Drop off some fliers, I’ll put them out front.’

‘Whoa, hang on. Kind as that offer is, I’m actually looking for one of your regulars.’

‘Oh, who?’

‘Tony Morrelli. Is he up there today?’

‘He owe you some money?’

‘No, nothing like that. He works for me down here on the water, but he didn’t show up this morning.’

‘Tony was in Friday night, had a skin-full, as I recall, and stayed till closing time, but that was the last time I saw him.’

‘Okay.’ Bradley sighed. ‘You sure?’