that job in Glasgow.’
‘I need you, Phil,’ she said, her voice cracking.
‘I’ll be there’ he told her. ‘Just take it easy. Thirty minutes.’
‘I love you’ she said quietly.
He paused, unsure whether or not he’d heard the words correctly.
‘I love you too, Cath’ he said, softly. ‘See you soon.’
And he put down the phone.
So, Reed was dead, Cross thought as he pulled on his leather jacket.
He was out of her life. Out of their lives.
They’d always been close - too close. Cross had always felt feelings akin to jealousy for Cath’s brother. He wondered if she’d have spoken those words had Frank still been alive.
'I love you.’
He smiled.
Now there was only him to love.
No competition.
Cross flipped open his wallet and pulled something from it.
A small piece of paper.
Shiny paper.
The torn half of a photo.
It showed Cath.
The other half had shown her brother.
That had been the half Cross had buried in the Misfortune Box.
Just as he’d learned.
Just as he had known that the photos of Neil Parriam, Craig Jeffrey and Peter Hyde had been buried close to their homes.
Cross had not buried those, but he had known who had.
They had worked.
Carrying the ripped photo of Cath, he wandered into the small room next to his bedroom. He’d been using it as a home dark-room for the last couple of years.
Inside the smell of chemicals was strong.
There were photos in the developing trays. Some pinned to the thin wire which was stretched across the makeshift dark-room.
The ones which hung from the wire showed children.
Some as young as eighteen months.
Every child in every picture was naked.
Some were older, some bore bruises or scars.
There was a photograph of Shanine Connor pinned to the small cork notice board on one wall.
It had been sent to him three days earlier.
He knew what she looked like.
The network prided itself on its communications.
Her time was close.
He took down the photos from the wire, gathered them up and pushed them into one of the heavy metal drawers of a filing cabinet inside the dark-room. The ones in the tray of developer he rinsed, then clipped into position on the wire.
He would remove those when he returned from Cath’s the next day.
They would be hidden with the others until they were needed.
Cath.
He locked the dark-room behind him, glancing at the tattered half of her picture.
Her image smiled back at him.
Cross carefully folded it and replaced it in his wallet, then he picked up his car keys and headed for the front door.
He had to hurry. She’d sounded upset.
She would have a lot to tell him.
Cross smiled.
She needed him.
