Believing the Lie - Elizabeth George [95]
He’d borne just about all that he could. If he’d done exactly what he preferred to do at that precise moment, he would have gone into the library and ripped up a shelf of books. But that, he knew, would not get him an inch closer to where he wanted to be. So he bit down hard, harder, and then hardest of all on his knuckles till he tasted the blood and that helped a bit and made him able to set off towards the business centre.
Even at this time of year, there were tourists in Windermere. It was nothing like the summer, when one couldn’t move in the town without bashing straight into some fell-walking enthusiast with a bulging rucksack on his back and a hiking pole in his hand. Then no one local with any sense came into town since endless tailbacks transformed every street into nothing more than a car park. Now, though, moving about was easier, and the tourists on the pavements were of the who-gives-a-shit sort, kitted out in green plastic bedsheets with their rucksacks underneath making them all look like hunchbacks. Tim passed them by and followed the route into the business centre, where there was not a single tourist at all, tourists having no reason to go there.
Tim, however, had a very good reason and it was called Shots! This was a photographic developing service, he’d learned upon his only visit to the place, and its general purpose was to create super-enlargements for professional photographers who came to the Lakes to memorialise its grand vistas at all times of year.
In the window, samples of what Shots! was capable of producing stood on large easels against a black background curtain. Inside the shop itself, photo portraits were hanging on the walls, digital cameras were on offer, and a display of antique cameras was arranged in a glass-fronted bookcase as well. There was a counter and, as Tim knew, a back room. From this room a man emerged. He was wearing a white lab coat with Shots! embroidered on the left breast and a plastic name tag above it. When his eyes met Tim’s, his hand went quickly to that name tag. He removed it and shoved it into his pocket.
Tim thought once again how normal Toy4You looked. He was not at all what one would expect, with neat brown hair, roses in his cheeks, and wire-rimmed specs. He had a pleasant smile and he used it now. But what he said to Tim was, “This isn’t a good time.”
“I texted you,” Tim said. “You didn’t answer.”
“I had no message from you,” Toy4You replied. “Are you sure you sent it to the right number?” He looked directly at Tim, which was how Tim knew he was lying because that was what he himself had used to do until he’d understood how dead a giveaway it was to meet someone’s eyes like that.
Tim said, “Why didn’t you answer? We had a deal. We have a deal. I did my part. You didn’t do yours.”
The man’s gaze shifted. It went from Tim to the doorway. This meant he was hoping that someone would enter the shop so that the conversation could go no further because he knew as well as Tim knew that neither of them wanted to be overheard. But there was no one out there, so he was going to have to talk or Tim was going to do something inside the shop… like make a move for those old cameras in that case or one of the digitals. He doubted Toy4You wanted any of them destroyed.
Tim said, “I said—”
“For what you’re proposing, the risk is too great. I’ve thought about it, but that’s how it is.”
Tim grew so hot that he felt a fire being lit at his feet. It rose quickly and engulfed him and he breathed fast and hard because that seemed the best way to control it. He said, “We fucking agreed. You think I’m forgetting about that?” He clenched his fists, unclenched them, and looked around. “D’you even want to know what I can do to you if you don’t keep your promise to me?”
Toy4You went to a drawer at the end of the counter. Tim tensed, reckoning he meant to pull out a gun or something, which was what would have happened in a film. But instead, he pulled out a packet of cigarettes. He lit one. He examined Tim for a very long moment before he spoke. He finally