‘Arley, please,’ said Tina. ‘I never do anything until the third date at least.’
‘I meant anything illegal, like try to get in touch with Ray Mason.’
‘Don’t worry, I’ve had my fill of illegal. I just want to get on with my life now. And I promise you, Arley, hand on heart, that I have no idea where he is.’
‘Good. My laptop’s on the table. And show me a photo of this man you met. I want to see if he passes muster.’
Tina sat back down with the laptop and quickly logged on to her account. She hadn’t logged on in close to a week and she had eighty-nine new messages. That was the thing about online dating. It was a numbers game, and you had to kiss a hell of a lot of frogs before you had a chance of finding a prince. Tina skimmed through the messages, more out of curiosity than anything else, but there was no one whose words or photos even came close to attracting her. She then brought up Matt’s profile. He was forty-two, six feet tall, an engineer with a daughter aged ten from a previous relationship, and he was a really nice guy. But it was this that was putting Tina off. She just couldn’t bring herself to involve someone like him, and by extension his daughter (whom he seemed to dote on), in the violence and chaos of her life. It would just make her feel scared for him.
Still, she showed Arley his photos, including one he’d posted of him in a pair of swim shorts.
‘Yes, I like him,’ said Arley. ‘Definitely. I hope you’re going to see him again?’
‘I think so,’ Tina lied.
‘Well, make sure you do, but maybe not for a few days yet. It might be hard to explain what you’ve been up to this weekend. Keep him on ice.’
‘Will do,’ said Tina.
She returned to her seat with the laptop and, as Arley started checking her phone, Tina checked the emails on her two official addresses, cancelled a couple of deliveries to her house, and then logged on to an email address that only she and Ray had access to. She was certain that the police wouldn’t be monitoring Arley’s laptop – they’d need a warrant for that – and she didn’t think either Sheridan or the Kalamans would have been able to break into it already. In fact, it was unlikely they knew where she even was.
Even so, she felt more than a little guilty as she typed in the password and saw that there was a single message saved in the drafts section, which could only be from one person. She opened it up and started reading.
Hey you. All good. Now safely out of UK. Planning next move. I’m sorry we had to leave under the circumstances we did. I’m sorry I said I love you too. It was a heat of the moment thing. But I want you to know that I will miss you deeply like I’ve always missed you since the day I was arrested. But I also want you to get on with your life. I saw on the news that they’d arrested you but that now you’ve been released. Take care for God’s sake. And stick to your story. I got rid of the phone and I don’t think there’s anything tying me to you. You won’t see me again now and I won’t give you my location because I don’t want you to be compromised. But just know that I’m truly thankful not just for your help but for everything else as well. Take care Tina.
Tina read the message through a second time, deleted it and, remembering her promise to Arley, didn’t write anything back. When Ray logged back on and saw that his draft was deleted, he’d change the password to one they’d agreed yesterday. That way it would be impossible for anyone to monitor any communications between them. Not that she thought they’d be speaking again.
She briefly considered dropping a message to Matt and giving him a second chance, but decided to leave it for a few days. Instead, she put down the laptop and settled back with Arley, who’d now been joined by Oliver and India, to watch an episode of Midsomer Murders.
Ray was safe. It was time to move on.
38
Mike Bolt sat at his desk in the far corner of the loft’s open-plan living area. He hated working Sunday evenings, especially when he’d been working all weekend.
Behind him, Leanne was lounging on the sofa watching a re-run of The Vicar of Dibley on TV. Ordinarily, Bolt would have joined her. He was exhausted. There was still no sign of Mason, and the witness from Tina’s village who’d apparently seen her leaving with a man in her car the previous night after the Mary West murder was now unsure if he’d seen a man after all. And so far they hadn’t found any useful traces of Mason’s DNA in Tina’s cottage. So, although they had plenty of circumstantial evidence linking the two of them, they didn’t have a shred of proof.
The pressure from above to find Mason was relentless, made worse by the number of killings connected to his escape, and the complete absence of any leads. Sheryl Trinder had torn a strip off him and Mo in her office that day for their perceived failures, and had effectively told them they’d be fired for misconduct if it turned out that Mason had been hiding at Tina’s place when they’d searched it.
However, this wasn’t why Bolt was still working. He was working because he couldn’t seem to let go of what Tina had told him last night.
Like most people, he’d been surprised by the lack of arrests in the Bone Field case. The remains of seven women had been found at
