It was early evening by now and I pulled over by a large sign listing the various units housed on the estate. A quick count told me there were around fifty or so. The Saab had turned into a smaller side road a couple of hundred yards ahead.
Most of the units I could see around me had been constructed in the last ten years. They were warehouse- type spaces mainly, with corrugated steel walls and gently sloping apex roofs. Most had massive cargo doors. Several had windows at second-storey level, indicating office space or possibly showrooms. Some of the units were brick-built, shabby and obviously much older. Peeling paintwork and faded fascia signs told me a few were probably vacant.
I set off again, turned into the side road and slowed to a crawl. The Saab was parked at the far end. I watched the long-haired oarsman stride the few steps to the front door of the unit and let himself inside. I turned the car and drove back to the sign at the estate’s entrance. My quarry had gone into Unit 33, JST Vision.
There was a small cul de sac just a few yards away, one used for turning lorries, I guessed. I reversed my car into it and was almost hidden from the bigger road by some overhanging trees. Behind me was a sign leading to a riverside public footpath. I waited thirty minutes and decided, personal vendetta or not, I couldn’t really justify spending my evening in the car. So I pulled out my phone.
‘DC Stenning,’ said the voice that could always bring a smile to my face.
‘Pete, it’s Lacey.’
‘Good God, Flint, what are you doing? We were told you’d gone deep, deep, deep.’
‘I am,’ I said. ‘I need a favour. No questions asked. Can you help?’
‘Go on,’ he drawled and I knew he wasn’t sure. The case we’d worked on last autumn had got me the reputation of something of a wild card. Pete Stenning, on the other hand, was as straight as they came. I could practically hear him wondering what I was getting him into.
‘Romeo Echo Five Nine,’ I said. ‘Golf Tango Lima. Red Saab convertible. I need to find out who it’s registered to and where he lives.’
Silence for a second, just as I’d expected. The system records all such enquiries. If Stenning traced any vehicle without good reason, he could find himself in trouble.
‘Do it with my details,’ I said, giving him my log-in name and password.
‘It’ll cost you.’
‘Are we talking beer or sexual favours?’
‘Oh, like I’m going to mess with Joesbury,’ came back Stenning. ‘How is he, by the way?’
‘On sick leave as far as I know,’ I said. ‘Will you do it?’
‘Hold on, system’s a bit slow today. OK, here we go. Nice car, by the way. Registered to a Scott Thornton. 108 St Clement’s Road, Cambridge. You’re in Cambridge?’
‘If you tell anyone we had this conversation, it’ll be shit that I’m deep in, Pete.’
‘I won’t. Now, whatever you’re up to, be bloody careful.’
TWENTY-TWO MINUTES AFTER getting home from work, Evi could no longer resist the temptation that had been nagging away at her for days. She opened up Facebook, typed Harry Laycock into the search engine and waited. The system churned and … of course he was on Facebook, anyone as hip as Harry was bound to be.
Harry Laycock, Anglican minister, with 207 friends. His birthday was 7 April. She hadn’t known that. The photograph was one she hadn’t seen before: outdoor clothes, mountains in the background. The system invited her to send him a message. Evi closed the page down.
She opened up her mail account and the email message she’d received earlier from the policewoman. She wanted details of students who’d attempted suicide in the last five years. Easier said than done. Nick hadn’t exactly been encouraging that afternoon. And his was one of twenty GP surgeries in Cambridge, each of which was likely to have a number of the 22,000 student population on its patient base. Each surgery operated independently. Data was rarely shared and patient confidentiality was sacrosanct. Anything she did find, she couldn’t pass on to the policewoman without risking her entire career.
The phone on her desk was ringing. Evi reached out and put it to her ear. ‘Evi Oliver,’ she announced. To silence. ‘Hello,’ she tried. No response. She put the phone down.
The girl with the fake name, Laura Farrow, talked tough but looked brittle. The way she held her face when she wasn’t speaking had made Evi think of glass blown almost to breaking point. The way it hovers, fragile and beautiful, a split second before it shatters. The phone was ringing again.
‘Evi Oliver.’
No response.
‘Hello.’ Not even trying to sound patient this time.
Evi put the phone down, telling herself not to overreact. It could simply be a genuine caller with line problems. It was ringing again. She picked it up and put it to her ear without speaking. Silence on the line. Not even the sound of breathing. Very strong, the temptation to say something. She resisted, just put the phone softly down.
It rang again immediately.
OK, this wasn’t going to scare her. This was going to piss her off. She picked up the receiver and put it softly down on her desk. A few seconds later, her mobile began ringing. She reached into her bag and pulled it out. Number withheld. Evi answered the call.
‘Hello.’
Just empty air. Five seconds later it was ringing again. Evi switched the mobile off, replaced the receiver on the desk phone and unplugged it at the wall. Then she got up and walked round the ground floor. There were three more handsets to be unplugged.
She wasn’t going to overreact. It would be someone pissing about. They’d get bored and move on to someone else. When she got back to her desk she had a new email. She clicked it open.
I stood just inside the front door of my block, taking in the chaos. ‘So did the boys with the buckets come back?’ I asked a slim girl with dark curly hair who’d made me tea the previous night.
The girl with the mop gave me a quick smile. ‘Plumbing problems,’ she said. ‘Sounds a bit gynaecological, doesn’t it? Second time this year. Your room’s a bit of a mess, I’m afraid. I think it might have been your pipe that burst. Maintenance are still in there.’
The day was just getting better. I opened my door to find no sign of Talaith, plenty of water on the floor and a man in my bedroom. A tall man, with dark hair and kind eyes.
‘Hello, Tom,’ I called to him, before turning back to the corridor. ‘Yell when you’ve finished with the mop,’ I told the girl with black curls. Then I squelched my way across to my bedroom.
‘What happened?’ I asked, pausing in the doorway. There wasn’t really room for two people in these tiny rooms, unless you wanted to get very cosy.
Tom looked up from whatever he’d been doing under the sink. ‘Frost damage,’ he told me. ‘This is the fourth we’ve had this year. You know, we hardly ever have problems in the old buildings. There’s pipes in there hundreds of years old and they just keep going. Crap in the new blocks hardly lasts five minutes.’
‘Guess they don’t make poisonous lead piping like they used to,’ I said, looking round. There was no damage to speak of, just a damp and muddy floor and small piles of dust where Tom had been drilling. The cupboard beneath the basin had seen plumbing activity, as had the pipes that ran round the mirror. A fairly complicated metal junction looked new.
‘Chipped your mirror,’ I’m afraid,’ Tom said to me, nodding to where a tiny fraction of the glass was missing. ‘I’ll report it, should be able to get it replaced without much trouble.’
I thanked him and went to find the cleaning cupboard.
Evi’s hands were shaking but if anything she felt better. She hadn’t been phoning herself for the past half
