‘Yes, that is worth a try. Look into that, will you? Speak to Traffic.’
‘Yes sir,’ she answered triumphantly.
‘There’s another of you, isn’t there?’ he asked.
‘Yes sir, they’re asking at the petrol stations either side.’
‘Good, good. Then thank you for your help,’ as with that he left them, strolling over to the spot by the hotel at which he had stood that morning; quite a distance actually, when you considered it.
‘There is nothing there to help us,’ he mused mournfully to no one in particular, as he trod the glum functional tarmac, rolled out it seemed like an endless grey carpet, white lines dividing it up into a thousand car-shaped spaces, ‘nor anything of any interest to man, woman or child; emotionally, intellectually, artistically, even criminally. Stood here we have nothing.’
Cori, jogging behind him, knew there was little point even trying to leaven his mood. It wouldn’t last though she was sure, not once they got moving again.
A glint of light on glass catching his eye, Grey looked up to see a camera moving atop a tall pole, ‘That could have caught something, even at night,’ he muttered.
‘Sarah’s onto it,’ Cori enthused. ‘She was scanning the footage as I left.’
‘Then maybe she’ll have something for us by tomorrow,’ he said hopefully, as they turned and walked back to where they had left the car.
A golden sunset at only five thirty though, Cori thought, pulling down her driver’s visor. It didn’t seem right, this Indian summer giving such a convincing impression during the daytime of it being July or August. They were soon moving through, past the vague hotel, and leaving behind them the retail estates of the Corridor.
Soon they were on the motorway slip-road, and joining the throbbing flow of traffic heading up from London, through the centres of the Midlands, and onward to the citadels of the North. Grey saw the cars they travelled among as blood cells pumped around the body geographic of Britain, each independent of the others but carried by common currents. As the afternoon turned to dusk they sped past vivid green cuttings, and isolated houses sat like sentry huts, guarding territory that though scenic he couldn’t imagine anyone wanting to invade.
Cori was performing her familiar trick of driving while appearing utterly relaxed; not a skill Grey himself had ever mastered, the sheer constancy of the attention required leaving him mentally exhausted by the time he reached his destination. Driving had for him therefore become a when-required activity, left to others when possible, especially when those others took it so in their stride. Perhaps he had just seen too many accidents in his earlier career, or had had one too many near misses in his days spent chasing about in squad cars? Such incidents bothered him in a way they never had his colleagues.
He remembered one scene vividly, his panda car needing a whole new offside-front wheel and suspension after an evasive manoeuvre had left him hitting a kerb at speed. It hadn’t been the incident itself, for the car was in a week repaired and back on the road. What had lodged in his mind though were children laughing as they stood by his lame horse of an Escort, its orange stripe jinking over the buckled wing. Children, on the pavement his car had just slid halfway across. He couldn’t even remember if they had been there at the time of the collision, or merely came to look afterward. But to him that hardly mattered; and led him to put any further thoughts on the incident out of his mind this afternoon.
‘Sergeant, Inspector.’ Chief Inspector Nash turned out to be a tall and broad shouldered man, effortlessly imposing as he entered the Spartan police station reception. From his dress he looked, Grey thought, to be one of those officers whose work involved mingling with those on the street, unlike he and his Sergeant who had some duty to appear as offering a public face of the force. Everything he wore was broken in or faded, his clothes a patchwork of muted colours in quality fabrics, and bearing subtle designer labels. On his chin he wore a fuzz of stubble, just enough to give the impression he wasn’t having to shave for whatever role he filled in day-to-day life. Grey also knew that they worked hard on voices in that area of work, encouraging colloquial accents and casual speech; yet as they listening to Nash introducing himself as they walked up to his floor, Grey wondered if there hadn’t originally been something rather more dignified and upstanding in his voice, hidden now behind those broad Northern English tones. Either way, it struck Grey you didn’t hear such traditional accents in Britain so often any more, young people whatever their background tending towards rap-speak and exaggerated phrasing.
Nash bid them into his office, where behind the desk he launched himself into an expensive-looking steel and leather armchair — at least expensive originally, it being as lived-in as everything else he possessed. The room was as basic as the rest of the slightly underwhelming annex to which they had been bidden; redirected as they were from the main reception, along a ground floor corridor seemingly leading them away from the main body of the city police headquarters. But at least in Nash’s office there was an effort made at cosiness, with artefacts and keepsakes dotted around, between the Ordinance Survey maps and filing cabinets required of any such working room. These personal objects gave off the kind of effortless authenticity Grey was beginning to notice the man strived for in all things, he suspecting from them that he had travelled, even lived for a time, by the Mediterranean, perhaps in North Africa? It was as though, Grey thought, looking at the hangings and sculptures, that the Chief Inspector was only happy with things carved from twisting tree limbs or hewn from the raw earth. The overall impression threw that of Grey’s own stark cell into sharp relief.
‘Welcome to my hidey hole,’ smiled Nash, ‘Please, sit down,’ which they did, on simpler but no less stylish furnishings.
‘Thank you for seeing us so late,’ Cori rushed in politely as they adjusted themselves.
‘Not at all. We don’t keep office hours here; and I know you have your other case to concentrate on. ‘Have there been any developments?’
‘Only very local ones, I fear,’ Grey replied.
‘We’ve brought in a man who worked with Thomas Long at Aubrey Electricals,’ answered Cori for them. ‘He’s making a statement at the moment. But we think he’s more likely to be a witness of his movements, rather than a suspect. He was working at the time of the hotel sighting. Not that we know where Thomas went afterward…’
She noticed as she finished that Grey seemed away with his thoughts for a moment.
‘Well,’ said Nash, ‘I think it goes without saying that I wish you all the luck in the world with finding your missing boy. As much luck in fact — albeit dumb luck — as we seem to have had in finding your missing girl.’
He said this with a glow of pride that Cori for one thought thoroughly justified. Yet he seemed to end on an air of uncertainty, as though there might be more he held back from saying.
The Chief Inspector paused, then placed his hand on a large card folder on his cluttered desk,
‘Well, as promised here are the edited highlights of our file on Stephen Carman, and by proxy Isobel Semple; we not being interested in her for herself, you understand, so any data we have on her is merely the result of the couple’s association. It is rather thrown together I’m afraid, sifted from their joint surveillance. But, if anyone can make a meal of it… You might find something of interest. But,’ he paused for effect, ‘you remember we require that you gain our consent before taking any action against the pair of them. I had that agreement from you when we spoke with your Superintendent. But once we have Carman, well, then you can do what you will regarding her.
‘I have to go and speak to my people in the field, so I’ll leave it with you. You can work here as long as you need to; I could be out all night I shouldn’t wonder. Well, enjoy.’
And with that Nash was gone, leaving them to their bounty, Grey noting the urgency in Nash’s desire to reconnect with his team.
‘I hardly know where to start,’ said Cori as she moved her hands slowly to the folder, unremarkable to look at but, she hoped, brimming with secrets.
Grey was also left with an impression: that not only was the Chief Inspector his ranking superior, but that for all his bohemian adornments and blunted sartorial corners he was sharper all around. Also, that whatever may be in that bulging file, they were only been shown the tip of an iceberg.
Chapter 17 — The Nottingham File
‘I think I’ve made a mistake,’ said Inspector Rase glumly, deep in thought and after an hour of ploughing through the documents piled before them. ‘It was a mistake to come here in the middle of the Long enquiry. I’ve let the two cases get confused in my mind — I can’t remember what parts relate to the one or the other: I found myself thinking just, that what we should have done was gone hell for leather to find that receptionist, Josie,
