A Lesser Evil - Lesley Pearse [130]
She was halfway to the tube when a blue car slowed right down and cruised alongside her. There were two men in it, both in their late twenties or early thirties.
‘Hey, Fifi!’ the passenger called out of the window. ‘You are Fifi, aren’t you? Dan said you were tall, blonde and beautiful!’
Fifi’s heart leaped at Dan’s name. Both men looked like workmen as they were wearing donkey jackets.
‘Yes, I’m Fifi,’ she said, stopping and bending down slightly so she could see the men better. The driver had dark red curly hair, and she thought he must be the carpenter Dan always called ‘Red’. He looked a bit hard and surly. The other man had light brown hair and no real distinguishing features; he was unshaven, but he had a nice smile. ‘How is Dan?’ she asked.
‘It is you! Thank Christ for that,’ the man in the passenger seat exclaimed. ‘We called at your house but you must have just left. We’ve seen at least six blondes so far, and two of them gave us a mouthful when we called out. I think they thought we were kerb crawlers. You see, Dan asked us to come and get you. He’s been taken ill.’
Fifi was instantly thrown into a panic. ‘What’s wrong with him? Where is he?’ she asked.
The passenger got out of the car and pulled his seat forward to let her get in the back. ‘Hop in and we’ll explain as we drive you there,’ he said.
The rush-hour traffic was heavy, but the driver turned right off Kennington Road past the Imperial War Museum towards Camberwell.
The brown-haired passenger introduced himself as Martin, and the red-headed driver as Del.
‘Some of us went out to do some work on Sunday for the boss,’ Martin said, turning in his seat to speak to Fifi. ‘It’s out Eltham way. Your Dan weren’t himself at all, but then he’d had a lot to drink on Saturday night. But come the evening he were worse and the boss said he’d better stay the night. Anyways, he weren’t any better yesterday and couldn’t go into work. The boss said he kept asking for you during the night, so he told us to come and get you and take you out there.’
Fifi was very alarmed. Dan was never ill, and he was also far too independent to dump himself on anyone, especially someone like his boss. He had to be seriously ill.
‘Oh, my God,’ she exclaimed. ‘What is it?’
Martin shrugged. ‘The boss said he had a kind of fever, high temperature and that. He’s too weak to get up.’
‘Did the boss call a doctor?’ she asked.
‘I dunno, but I expect so,’ Martin said. ‘He only called us and told us to get you.’
Fifi had no idea where Eltham was, what it was like or how far it was. But as she asked more questions about Dan and received only very brief, occasionally rather curt answers, she got the impression the men were a bit cross at being expected to act as a taxi.
On top of her anxiety about Dan, she was worried about not turning up at work too. It would look bad after only one day back. But Dan was her main concern, and she wondered if he could’ve slept rough on Saturday night and caught a chill. It had been wet and cold after all, and if he’d got very drunk he wouldn’t have noticed. Suppose he’d got pneumonia?
‘I thought Arnie lived in Essex,’ she said, suddenly remembering something Dan had told her.
‘Who?’ Martin asked without looking round.
‘The boss,’ she said.
‘Oh, he’s not the top man,’ Martin said airily. ‘He’s just the site manager. Ken’s the real boss, but he don’t come down the site that much, he’s more on the planning side.’
‘Oh, I see,’ Fifi said, and lapsed into silence again.
They passed through New Cross and Lewisham, places she’d heard of but never been to.
‘Are we nearly there now?’ she asked as she saw they had left behind the Victorian terraces of Lewisham and were in a wider, more pleasant road with many trees and some newly built houses.
‘Yeah, nearly,’ Del the driver said.
All at once they were driving along a dual carriageway in semi-countryside. There were houses, semi-detached