Then something happened. Roscoe sat down next to me on the cane sofa. As she sat, she pushed my leg to one side. It was a casual thing but it was very intimate and familiar. A numbed nerve end suddenly clicked in and screamed at me: she likes you too. She likes you too. It was the way she touched my leg.
I went back and looked at things in that new light. Her manner as she took the fingerprints and the photographs. Bringing me the coffee. Her smile and her wink. Her laugh. Working Friday night and Saturday so she could get me out of Warburton.
Driving all the way over there to pick me up. Holding my hand after I’d seen my brother’s broken body. Giving me a ride over here. She liked me too.
All of a sudden I was glad I had jumped off that damn bus. Glad I made that crazy last-minute decision. I suddenly relaxed. Felt better. The tiny voice in my head quieted down. Right then there was nothing for me to do. I’d speak to Hubble when I saw him. Until then I would sit on a sofa with a good-looking friendly dark-haired woman in a soft cotton shirt. The trouble would start soon enough. It always does.
Charlie Hubble sat down opposite us and started pouring the iced tea from the pitcher. The smell of lemon and spices drifted over. She caught my eye and smiled the same strained smile she’d used before.
`Normally, at this point, I’d ask you how you were enjoying your visit with us here in Margrave,’ she said, looking at me, strained, smiling.
I couldn’t think of a reply to that. I just shrugged. It was clear Charlie didn’t know anything. She thought her husband had been arrested because of some kind of a mistake. Not because he was grabbed up in some kind of trouble which had just got two people murdered. One of which was the brother of the stranger she was busy smiling at. Roscoe rescued the conversation and the two of them started passing the time of day. I just sat there and drank the tea and waited for Hubble. He didn’t show up. Then the conversation died and we had to get out of there. Charlie was fidgeting like she had things to do. Roscoe put her hand on my arm. Her touch burned me like electricity.
`Let’s go,’ she said. `I’ll give you a ride back to town.’
I felt bad I wasn’t staying to wait for Hubble. It made me feel disloyal to Joe. But I just wanted to be on my own with Roscoe. I was burning up with it. Maybe some kind of repressed grief was intensifying it. I wanted to leave Joe’s problems until tomorrow. I told myself I had no choice anyway. Hubble hadn’t shown up. Nothing else I could do. So we got back in the Chevy together and nosed down the winding driveway. Cruised down Beckman. The buildings thickened up at the bottom of the mile. We jinked around the church. The little village green with the statue of_ old Caspar Teale was ahead.
`Reacher?’ Roscoe said. `You’ll be around for a while, right? Until we get this thing about your brother straightened out?’
`I guess I will,’ I said.
`Where are you going to stay?’ she asked. `I don’t know,’ I said.
She pulled over to the kerb near the lawn. Nudged the selector into Park. She had a tender look on her face.
`I want you to come home with me,’ she said.
I felt like I was out of my mind, but I was burning up with it so I pulled her to me and we kissed. That fabulous first kiss. The new and unfamiliar mouth and hair and taste and smell. She kissed hard and long and held on tight. We came up for air a couple of times before she took off again for her place.
She blasted a quarter-mile down the street which opened up opposite Beckman Drive. I saw a blur of greenery in the sun as she swooped into her driveway. The tyres chirped as she stopped. We more or