‘But they won’t want to arrest me?’
‘They’ve cut you loose, to focus on the bigger players.’
‘And Stephen? You’d swear to me you haven’t already got him?’
‘I wish we had, I won’t lie to you.’
There was a pause as Isobel seemed on the verge of saying something, but held back, thinking before she spoke. Grey heard a tapping on glass, and turned to see the new Ward Sister through the door window, having gained his attention, now pointing to her nurses’ watch with it’s upside-down face — the need for urgency had obviously been passed on.
‘I’ll level with you, Inspector,’ Isobel at last breaking the silence. ‘Stephen has been my boyfriend for four years; and there isn’t very much he has gotten up to that I didn’t know about. They are bad men he knows, Inspector. And I don’t want to be here when it goes down. I’ll tell you anything you want, the lot, but you’ve got to level with me too. You need to tell me all about this undercover business.’
‘I promise. How quickly can you..?’
‘As soon as I’m dressed.’ she went to move and gave a small animal yelp, Grey guessed at the discovery of some bruise or injury.
‘We don’t have to go just yet, it’s still quite early.’
‘No, best to get going I think.’
‘Here, let me help you.’ Cori jumped up to the bedside. ‘I packed some clothes, but I didn’t have long, I hope I got everything.’
Grey left the room relieved: it hadn’t gone too badly, and she seemed on their side. There was little he could do right now about getting everything he was learning to make sense, and only hoped Isobel might eventually offer some clue that could help with finding Thomas, for he must be the top priority as soon as they returned.
As he stood alone in the corridor other thoughts crushed into his head, of the complications awaiting them in town: Where will she go? Who must be told? What are the procedures? He would get her to the station and speak to Rose, he was the first to need to know; and focusing on this one simple course of action relaxed Grey, and let thoughts of all else that needed to happen go and stand in line and wait their turn.
Chapter 22 — The Journey Home
Thirty minutes later they were on the motorway, another thirty and they would be pulling into the yard of the police station. Ever the practical one, the clothes Cori had hurriedly grabbed for Isobel had turned out to be a sturdy pair of jeans and a rustic chunky-knit sweater, which, combined with her unstyled hair and scrubbed, make-up free face, gave her the wholesome air of a hill walker or young farmer’s wife, albeit one with a nasty cut on the head.
Cori, relaxed behind the wheel amid the rush hour traffic — that though it filled the lanes never quite clogged them — hardly looked like a woman running on a few hours’ sleep in a strange bed. As presentable as ever, Grey could not remember ever having seen her dishevelled.
For his own part, looking at his pallid, stubbled visage in the mirror of the pulled down sun-visor, he wondered which looked worse: the suit he had been wearing for twenty-four hours or the man inside it? He decided neither answer was any better than the other, and so retired from asking the question.
‘I don’t know how you feel about coming back to town,’ he asked their passenger sat in the middle of the backseat. ‘We can put you up in a hotel or something if you’d prefer. I’m sure we could clear the expense.’
‘I can hardly keep hidden now can I,’ she answered. ‘I have to come home sometime.’
‘Well, it would be better to interview you back at the station. And it’s not like the whole town will know you’re back right away.’
‘And how long to you think it will be until they do?’ she offered, more with humour than resignation.
Isobel seemed clear eyed and bright minded already, had done so while still in bed. Any fears of Carman addling her mind with the stuff he was selling seemed unfounded, and Grey began to wonder if the state she was in last night had been nothing more than dog tiredness? Perhaps though, given the circumstances of the last few days, he began to wonder if he might have felt more at ease has she seemed a little more shaken by things, a little less able to manage?
‘So,’ she continued, ‘you haven’t told me why it’s you doing this, and not Nottingham? I guess the local police called you, and asked you to take me back?’
‘Well, it’s a funny business,’ he almost laughed, but not quite. ‘I’m not at all sure how to explain it to you. The thing is, we are looking for an entirely different person, a man who’s gone missing this week; and by a fluke we turned you up. It’s what you might call a happy accident.’
‘So who is he,’ she asked, ‘the man who’s gone missing?’
‘His name is Thomas Long. He works at the Aubrey plant, like your father.’
‘Wow,’ she said with wide-eyed innocence. ‘And is he okay?’
‘We’ve no idea yet.’
‘That’s a shame.’
‘Yes, it is.’
‘So,’ she continued, ‘what was the fluke?’
Grey wasn’t sure that he had wanted to begin probing before they had got back to town; however he now saw no way out of it. He would tread as gently as he knew how,
‘Well, it is a funny thing, as I say. But the place where Thomas Long was last seen was outside a hotel. It’s quite near to town, you might remember it. Anyway, it is the most tenuous of links I grant you, but subsequent investigations reveal a phone call had been made earlier in the day, from one of the hotel rooms to your mobile.’
‘So you had our number?’ asked Isobel, suddenly on full alert.
‘Yes we did,’ answered Cori, choosing to offer no further information.
‘We will have to ask you about it later,’ continued Grey, ‘once we have a proper interview arranged.’
‘No, I’m quite happy to talk now.’
Grey, less so, advised, ‘Bear in mind, anything you say now you may have to repeat later for the tape.’
‘When was this call?’
‘It would have been around ten am,’ he offered reluctantly, he favouring the controlled environment of an interview room for such an exchange.
‘Well, if you know Stephen’s business, then you must know he was getting odd calls all day and all night.’
‘Well, that’s the thing,’ Grey couldn’t help but retort, years of interviews having trained him in spotting the psychological moment in a conversation, ‘according to our colleagues, Stephen did most of his business on pay-as- you-go’s, a new one each week.’
‘Who was it calling?’ asked Isobel, in a manner Cori, eyes on the road, genuinely couldn’t pinpoint.
‘We don’t know,’ answered Grey.
‘Then what an odd question to ask me, Inspector!’ declared the woman.
Knowing an outright query at this point could have brought an outright lie in response, Grey refrained from asking who had called and if had been she who answered. Further ruminations though were cut short, as the backseat passenger said,
‘I’m sorry Inspector, I really have no idea who called or how they had our number. Is that a sign for a services coming up? Could we? I’m bursting.’
A minute later the car was pulling up on the bustling carpark of the last services before those at the Southney turnoff, Cori picking a spot very near the shop and facilities, which, unlike those of the services nearer home, were about all that this smaller complex consisted of. The detectives let their charge bound up and out, before talking very quickly.
‘As good a spot as any,’ supposed Grey, scanning the surrounds. ‘No town or turnoffs, there's nowhere for her to run to from here. But still…’
‘A pretty girl like her wouldn’t find it hard to hitch a lift,’ added Cori pessimistically.
