by T. M. Logan
Private investigators Nottingham
Home DNA testing kits
DNA sample
Psychopath signs
Psychopath test
Psychopath behaviour
The list went on and on.
‘A little bit of googling here and there is no big deal,’ she said. ‘I’m sure most of us do it from time to time. I was even willing to give you the benefit of the doubt ten days ago, about you supposedly buggering off on private errands when you’re supposed to be at work.’
All four of them had their eyes on me. I could feel the heat rising up my neck, and my tie suddenly felt too tight, as if it was going to throttle me.
‘I realise I should be setting an—’
‘I’m not finished.’ The words were hard and flat, and for the first time I realised how pissed off she was, lines of fury written deep in her face. Julia had promoted me, put her trust in me, and I had betrayed that trust. ‘What is a big deal, is wilful misuse of company resources in a manner that breaches the law and exposes this company – my company – to legal jeopardy.’
‘Right,’ I said.
‘Such as making two bogus reference requests about a private individual, forging his consent and trying to spoof his email account to cover your tracks.’ She picked up another sheet of paper and read from it. ‘The Army Personnel Centre and Higher Education Degree Datacheck. Are you going to deny any of that?’
I exhaled heavily.
‘No.’
‘Unfortunately for you, both requests were red-flagged by their fraud-detection software and bounced back to me. So you see, you’ve put me in an impossible situation, Ed. Misuse of company resources amounts to gross misconduct, which is grounds for dismissal.’
‘Julia, I—’
‘I don’t believe in wasting time in drawn-out processes and tribunals and what have you. Waste of your time, waste of my time. Life’s too short. Better for everyone to just draw a line under things and move on, right? So, option A today is that we move into formal disciplinary proceedings and you’ll be suspended pending the outcome. It’ll be ugly and messy and you’ll still be out of the door because this is a slam dunk for gross misconduct. You know it, I know it.’
I rubbed my forehead, feeling another headache starting to build.
‘What’s my other option?’
‘Option B is that you just go. Your departure will be framed as a resignation, we’ll supply a neutral reference and pay you two months’ notice.’
Two months was less than I was entitled to, but I could see by the set of her jaw that it pained her even to offer that much.
I nodded slowly. ‘I’ll go for the latter.’
‘You want to take the money? Fine.’ She sat back in her chair. ‘Is there anything else you want to say?’
I could think of a dozen things – give me another chance, it was a moment of madness, I was stupid but I can make it right – but none of them would make any difference now.
I shook my head. ‘Sorry, Julia.’
She regarded me with a mixture of anger and disappointment. ‘Amanda’s got some papers for you to sign, and once you’ve done that James will escort you downstairs. Termination of your contract is effective immediately.’
32
THURSDAY
Eleven days until the wedding
I got up at the normal time, shaved and showered and dressed in my suit and tie, sitting with Claire as we had breakfast. Tea and toast. BBC News on in the background. She asked me what I had on today – just meetings and finishing a couple of projects, I’d said with a smile – and I asked how things were going at the theatre as they geared up for their next tour. Chatting over breakfast, just like any other morning. Everything normal, everything the same.
I hadn’t told her that I’d lost my job. I hadn’t told anyone.
At 7.45 a.m., I got in my car and drove into town, to my usual car park.
It was a surreal, out-of-body experience, to be walking alongside all of these people who were on their way to work in offices and shops, hurrying to make it on time. Pretending to be one of them, pretending that I had a job to go to, when really I was an imposter, a fraud. Cut adrift from gainful employment. Maybe I was still in shock at the speed of my departure.
I walked in the direction of my office, went straight past and just kept on going. I wasn’t even sure where the morning went, I walked for hours up into the park, past the castle, then down by the canal before looping back again. I stopped when I got hungry, found a café and then lost my appetite as soon as I had sat down.
Everything was going wrong. The only thing my day held – the only thing I had to look forward to – was my appointment later this afternoon. Until then, I had time to kill. Maybe I should go back to Ryan’s house? The first visit had been a bust, but I hadn’t stayed very long, hadn’t taken enough time there. I’d been hoping I’d find something obvious when I let myself in, something blatant, maybe a picture of Ryan with another woman, maybe clothes she’d left behind? Maybe drugs, excessive amounts of alcohol, evidence of a chaotic lifestyle, of criminality. Evidence of something.
But it was never going to be obvious, was it? Not with someone as smart as Ryan. Especially now that Abbie had moved in with him.
I had missed something. I must have.
I pulled up the pictures I had taken when I’d visited a couple of weeks ago. The family portraits on the mantelpiece, shots of his lounge, his kitchen, the shoes lined up by the front door. Shots of the two silver frames over the dining table. A medal for bravery in Afghanistan. Was it real? I took my laptop out and spent an hour researching the Afghanistan campaign, the army and the Royal Anglian Regiment, where they had been deployed and when, and whether he could have been there in May 2012. The war had been ongoing then, lots of news stories, suicide attacks and car bombs, airstrikes and IEDs. There was mention of the 2nd battalion of the Royal Anglians being there in March and April of that year, so I had to admit it was possible they’d still been there the following month too. I couldn’t find anything online about Ryan being awarded a medal, but then maybe they didn’t publicise it unless it was one of the top honours, like a Victoria Cross?
I bought another coffee. The next picture I’d taken was of Ryan’s framed degree certificate, the angle of the shot giving a reflection of flash off the glass.
Ryan Wilson is hereby awarded the degree of
Bachelor of Science, Psychology
1st class
It was awarded in 2008; if he was thirty-three now he would have been twenty-one then, which made sense. The certificate bore the familiar purple and yellow crest of the university and its motto, Cognitio, humanitas, sapienta. Knowledge, humanity, and the other one I could never remember. Bloody Latin. Sapienta meant understanding, I thought, or was it awareness? I googled it.
The first page of results loaded. 841,000 in total. I scrolled down, looking for a Wikipedia page with a translation, but couldn’t see one. Top results included a consultancy firm, an ancestry page about the spread of the Sapienta family name, a scientific project linked to Aberystwyth University. No translation from the Latin. At the top of the page was a single line:
Did you mean sapientia?
I clicked on the suggestion: 8,820,000 results. The first one was a Wiktionary page.
Noun: meaning wisdom, discernment, memory.
I clicked back to the previous page. Sapienta was missing an ‘i’. Sapienta wasn’t a Latin word, it was a surname, a company name, a project name. I sat back in my chair, fatigue fogging my brain.
Why would it be spelt differently on Ryan’s degree certificate? It didn’t make sense. I stared at the image a moment longer until a thrum of adrenaline made me sit upright.
Unless his certificate was a fake.
*
I always switched my phone to silent when I was with Rebecca, had done from virtually the first time we met. And now it had become a habit, so I didn’t even have to think about it when I was on my way to se
e her. We had little enough time together as it was, without being interrupted by the bleeps and chirps of everyday life. She had a way of making me feel fully aware – fully alive to everything around me – so that I sometimes went for an hour or more before I switched the alerts back on and slid back into everyday life. This time, it wasn’t until I was halfway back to my car that I thought to check the phone again. Ryan and Abbie were coming to ours tonight and there might be dinner ingredients needed from the shop on my way home.
There were five missed calls from Claire.
The fear descended instantly, a plunging terror that I had not felt since that day, the worst day of my life all those years ago. A plummeting, hollow dread that started in my stomach and rose up into my throat.
Abbie.
I picked up my pace, stabbing Claire’s number with my thumb, cursing the seconds as I waited for the phone to connect.
‘Ed?’ Her voice was high with panic and close to breaking point. ‘Where have you been? I’ve been trying to reach—’
‘What is it? Tell me what’s going on.’
‘You need to come home. Now.’
I broke into a run.
‘Is it Abbie, what is it, what’s happened? Is she OK?’
‘Oh God, Ed.’
‘Is she hurt?’
‘It’s not Abbie,’ she said, her voice breaking on a sob. ‘It’s Tilly.’
33
Claire
There was blood smeared across Ryan’s crisp white shirt. A broad dark swipe where he had carried Tilly in his arms, cradling the injured cat across his chest as Abbie rushed them to the Lawrence Veterinary Surgery in her car. Now he sat with an arm around his fiancée, her face streaked with tears, Claire on the other side holding her hand. The three of them side-by-side on a padded bench at the surgery, their eyes fixed on the green swinging door of the operating theatre.
Claire was stunned and disorientated, trying to hold back her own tears in case she set Abbie off again. She indicated the bloodstains on Ryan’s shirt.
‘Sorry about the marks, Ryan.’
He shook his head. ‘It doesn’t matter, it’s just a stupid shirt.’
The receptionist, a mousey-haired woman with glasses on a chain around her neck, approached them.
‘I’m terribly sorry, Mrs Collier.’ She clasped her hands together in front of her. ‘But the insurance policy for your pet is not coming up on the system. Are you sure it was renewed?’
‘Yes, my husband would have taken care of it.’
‘I’m so sorry but I’ve put your details in three times and it’s not coming back with anything.’
‘You’re saying we’re not insured for the cost of this surgery?’
The receptionist’s face creased in apology. ‘I’m afraid not.’
Ryan didn’t hesitate. ‘I’ll sort it out,’ he said, reaching into his pocket. ‘I’ll cover it.’
‘Don’t be silly, Ryan, you can’t do that. It could be thousands.’
Ryan looked up at Abbie. ‘It’s worth it.’
Ed burst through the front door into the reception area, breathing hard. His face was red, his jacket crumpled, his tie hanging halfway down his shirt.
‘Where’s Tilly?’ he said breathlessly. ‘What’s the vet said?’
Abbie stood up and he enfolded her in his arms.
‘It was horrible, Dad. She was meowing so loud, she was terrified, there was blood all over her.’ She gave a sob and buried her face in Ed’s chest. ‘They took her into surgery. They’re doing an emergency operation now. They said she might have internal injuries, that she might not . . . she might not survive.’
‘She’s right where she needs to be,’ Ed spoke into her hair. ‘I’m sure she’ll be OK.’
‘But she’s old, what if she doesn’t wake up from the anaesthetic?’
‘She’ll be fine,’ he said, more to himself than to her. ‘She’s a tough old thing.’
‘Ryan found her on the pavement outside our house,’ Claire said.
Ed turned to Ryan. ‘You found her?’
‘She was by the side of the road when I pulled up,’ Ryan said, ‘moving funny, kind of rolling onto her side. When I got out of the car I saw the blood and I just picked her up, carried her into the house.’
Ed regarded him for a moment. ‘Thank you, Ryan.’
‘I just hope she’s OK.’
‘What happened to the pet insurance, Ed?’ Claire said. ‘You were supposed to renew it but the cover’s expired.’
Ed opened his mouth. Closed it again. ‘I . . . thought I had,’ he said slowly. ‘Maybe I missed it.’
‘And where were you, anyway?’ A note of anger crept into Claire’s voice. ‘I thought you had to leave your phone on all the time, for clients?’
‘Work, you know.’ Ed looked away, toward the door of the operating theatre. ‘It’s been busy.’
‘You’ve been checking your phone every two minutes this last week – and yet the one time we need you, you don’t answer any of my calls. I’m starting to wonder what the hell’s going on with you.’
‘I had my phone switched to silent.’
‘When do you ever do that?’
‘When I can’t be disturbed.’
‘At your gym, were you?’ Claire’s voice was sharp. ‘Even though you don’t belong to one?’
‘What are you talking about?’
The door to the operating theatre opened and they all turned to face the surgeon, in blue scrubs with her hair tied back beneath a surgical cap.
Claire put a hand to her mouth, bracing herself.
The vet approached them, pulling off one of her blue latex gloves with a snap.
‘Good news,’ she said.
34
TUESDAY
Six days until the wedding
Farmer was screening my calls.
I had called the investigator several times a day for the last five days, with no reply. He’d told me it would be ten to fourteen days to get the report back – he’d already had ten days and Abbie’s time was running out. I was starting to get the feeling I might have been scammed. The smart offices, the welcome patter, the rows of people at computers . . . maybe it was all just an elaborate con job. The nature of their business made it difficult for aggrieved customers to complain to the police. But I kept on calling him.
The only bit of good news was that Tilly was on the mend. She had one leg in a splint, another in bandages and a dozen stitches down her side; she was tired, bruised and extremely grumpy that she had to wear a collar to stop her biting the stitches, but she was alive. She was going to recover. And she would be staying with us for the time being, we had all agreed, rather than moving to Abbie and Ryan’s house.
We still didn’t really know what had happened to her. Claire and Abbie assumed she’d been hit by a car – and the injuries were consistent with blunt force impact, the vet said – but she also said there was no scuffing to her claws, which would normally be expected in a road accident because of friction with the road. Blunt force impact could mean a blow from a hard object.
It could also mean Tilly had been kicked repeatedly, or stamped on.
The treatment bill was more than £2,000. Ryan had paid on the spot but we had insisted that we reimburse him, and in the end we’d settled on a 50/50 split. I was still struggling to get past the fact that he had been the one to find her. He had taken a swipe at her the first time we met him, I knew he had. He clearly didn’t like cats and probably didn’t want her living in his house. And since her injuries, she would be staying put at ours for the foreseeable future. So he’d got what he wanted.
Claire hadn’t mentioned her weird comment about the gym again, and I hadn’t pressed her. It was better not to get into that.
*
On the twelfth day since I had paid Farmer a four-figure retainer, he finally called me back. It was an hour after I had marched over to his office in the Lace Market and demanded an update.
We exchanged
pleasantries and the investigator apologised for the delay: it was a busy time, he said, and getting busier every month. At the suggestion of a meeting to discuss progress, I felt my pace quicken. This sounded promising, like I was finally getting somewhere.
‘What have you found?’ I said eagerly. ‘What do you have?’
‘I’d rather not discuss it over the phone,’ Farmer said, his voice silky smooth on the other end of the line. ‘It would be much better to go over it in person.’
‘I don’t mind either way,’ I said. ‘When can we meet? This afternoon? I could come to your office right now.’
‘I’m back-to-back with meetings the rest of today, but I can see you at close of play if that’s any good?’
‘At your office?’
‘Nearby. Do you know a pub around the corner from here called the Albatross?’
We agreed on six o’clock and he hung up.
35
The Albatross was a cauldron of noise. A jazz band was playing on a stage by the bar, belting out a lively set for an enthusiastic crowd of early evening drinkers. Farmer raised a hand as I walked in, beckoning me over to a table by the stage.
‘Mr Collier,’ he said over the music, shaking my hand. ‘Welcome, thanks for coming. Have a seat, please.’
Our table was beside one of the speakers, and it was almost impossible to hear anything unless we spoke directly into each other’s ears from an inch away.
‘Unusual place for a meeting,’ I said above the noise.
‘I do some of my best thinking in here. No distractions.’ He smiled. ‘And it’s good to get off the digital leash every now and then, I find.’
‘So,’ I said, as the band launched into another swooping, full-volume number. ‘What have you got for me?’
‘I’m pleased to report that we’re making some good progress. Some information I think you’ll find very interesting.’
‘Such as?’
He leaned closer, speaking directly into my ear.
‘Has Mr Wilson indicated to you that he may not have been born in the UK?’
‘He’s not mentioned that to me.’