* * *
4.15pm Saturday
It’s happened again. Just now. He was out there. I was upstairs and when I looked out of the window there he was, down the road. Too far away to see his face. He always makes damn sure of that. Just sitting there, behind the wheel. No one does that, no one normal anyway. I went straight back downstairs but by the time I got to the door he was gone.
I told myself I’d imagined it. That I’m just being paranoid and overreacting. That there’s some perfectly logical explanation – some bloke innocently checking his phone or looking at a map. But I know what I saw.
Jesus – even I think I’m starting to sound crazy now. Writing this stuff down is the only thing stopping me losing it completely. I can’t even talk to A, never mind anyone else. People would look sympathetic and say it’s understandable, after what happened, but I’ll see that look in their eyes. And next time we met that look would still be there.
* * *
Adam Fawley
7 July 2018
16.35
I called Tony Asante on my way over to St Luke Street, and though it’s barely a ten-minute drive, he’s still there before me. His new flat is only about half a mile away; no one else in the team could afford to live this central, but I guess it helps if your mother has the sort of job that gets her on the cover of Forbes.
When I park up, Asante’s on the other side of the road, leaning against a wall, apparently scrolling through his phone. He’s chosen a position out of direct sight of the house, but even if someone was watching they wouldn’t pay him particular attention. In his white T-shirt and Ray-Bans he could be anything – tourist, postgrad. CIA.
He’s not as absorbed by the phone as he’s feigning though: he’s at the car before I open the door.
‘Afternoon, sir.’
I wonder if he got changed before he came out – it’s so bloody hot I can’t move without sweating, but Asante looks like he just stepped out of a cold shower. There are still laundry folds in his T-shirt.
He gestures back towards the house. ‘I haven’t seen anyone go in or out since I got here, but the windows are open, so I assume someone’s in.’
‘You’re up to speed?’
‘DC Everett emailed me the IIR. Though there wasn’t much by way of detail.’
‘She and Quinn are taking Morgan to the SARC now, so we’ll know more later.’
He nods. ‘So, shall we?’
We ring and wait, and ring again, and the door is opened, eventually, by a small boy. Marina Fisher’s son, evidently. If he’s eight going on nine he’s small for his age. Red shorts and a Winnie-the-Pooh top, and soft blond hair that, personally, I think needs a cut. He stares up at us.
‘Who are you?’
I notice, now, that there’s a woman in the corridor behind him. She’s slender and rather beautiful but she looks tentative, as if she doesn’t really belong. Then she moves slightly and I see she has a duster in one hand.
I smile at the boy and show him my warrant card. ‘We’re from the police. We wanted to have a quick chat with your mummy.’
He shakes his head, over-vigorously, the way small children do.
‘She’s not here.’
‘I see. Do you know where she went?’
He turns to the woman, who taps out something on a mobile phone and holds it out to me. It’s a Google translate page. Faculdade is evidently Portuguese for ‘college’.
I try my best this-is-just-routine smile. ‘I assume she won’t be very long in that case. Do you mind if we come in and wait – is that OK?’
The woman hesitates, then nods, and we follow the two of them up the stairs to the first floor. There are black-and-white framed pictures all the way. It’s like those documentaries about 10 Downing Street, with a full deck of prime ministers going up the stairs. Only here, the pictures are all of the same person. Marina Fisher doesn’t just blow her own trumpet, she toots a whole brass section. There are two portraits of her in doctoral robes (I’m assuming one of those must be honorary, but hey, what do I know), one shot of a Newsnight panel, one that looks like her doing a TED Talk and another on stage with the Vice-Chancellor and Theresa May. With each picture I pass the stakes inch up. And not just for her.
The sitting room spans the whole depth of the house. Tall front sashes with long muslin curtains shifting gently in the rising heat. Stripped floors, deep ochre velvet sofas and, on one wall, a huge canvas of swirling koi carp that’s halfway to abstract – flickering blues and oranges and eddying yellows. You can almost see the water churning. To the rear, the windows look over a small but immaculate courtyard garden, with flowering shrubs elegantly arranged in terracotta pots. The boy must have a playroom somewhere else because there isn’t a toy or a mess in sight. The house whispers calm and grace and order. And screams money. Lots and lots of money.
Asante, meanwhile, is still staring at the painting.
‘Alan Hydes,’ he says, gesturing at the signature. ‘I know him. Well, not know, exactly – my parents have one of his. They met him in Mallorca – he has a studio in the same village.’
He looks embarrassed suddenly and turns away, as if he’s said too much. Perhaps it was that ‘same’ that did it, with its implied second home. He goes over to the table under the window and starts sifting through the pile of magazines. I clocked those myself – given the surroundings, you might have expected Homes & Gardens
