by Holly Watt
Casey took it awkwardly, shoving away the thought of a mother in a beautiful vicarage on a hill, turning to an unexpected knock at the front door.
‘Take us through it again,’ said Dash.
‘I was messaging Ed as I walked up the hill.’ Casey brandished her phone. ‘Look, I’ll be there in a minute. Why would he say that if he was still in the flat?’
‘You only live in Tufnell Park,’ said Miranda. ‘It’s not exactly far.’
‘It might be a figure of speech,’ Dash murmured. ‘He could have been delayed for any number of reasons.’
‘But Ed was punctual,’ protested Casey. ‘It was me who was always late.’
‘Maybe he had to go back to the flat? Forgotten something.’
‘They were trapping me.’ Casey stared at her phone again. ‘Whoever it was. They used his phone to get me to wait at the top of Parliament Hill.’
‘“Hampstead Heath robberies”,’ Ross was reading aloud from the BBC website. ‘“Police launch covert operations after spate of muggings.” That’s from a month ago.’
‘So someone might have seen this man,’ said Casey defiantly. ‘That’s good. It wasn’t a mugger. No mugger would chase someone like that, surely?’
As she spoke, an image flashed into her mind: Ed laughing over his shoulder as a boat raced over the waves. Her throat closed up. More images. Scarlet tulips, pattering rain and a city bright in the darkness.
You don’t have to choose.
Cat’s Cradle or Kissing Gate? I love you. Feather Pillow or Wood Smoke?
You do have to choose.
The tears were hot on her cheeks now, and Casey rubbed them furiously away.
‘I’m fine.’
‘You’re not,’ Dash said decisively. ‘Go home, Casey. You’re not to come back to the office until after the funeral. At the very least.’
Casey looked up and saw the blunt compassion in his eyes.
‘Come on.’ Miranda stood up. ‘I’ll take you home, Casey.’
The little flat was empty, cold. No parents to go home to, waiting with soup, a hug, a bunch of flowers picked from the garden.
The police had gone.
They think it’s a heart attack, Casey thought despairingly. There would be no questions, no investigation.
The flat had barely been touched. Only a hall table shoved out of the way, a few scrapes on the wall. To get the body out … Casey’s mind turned away firmly, closing the thought like a book.
As Miranda flitted about, turning on lamps, boiling the kettle, Casey wandered around the flat, touching a bookshelf, a painting, a vase.
‘Someone killed him,’ Casey said again. ‘I know it, Miranda.’
Miranda moved her into an armchair as if she were a child, and put a cup of tea down in front of her. ‘What do you want for supper, Casey?’ she asked.
‘I can’t eat.’
Casey found that she was crying again, tears flooding down her face.
‘I know it seems unbearable now, Casey. But you will get through this. You will.’
‘But how?’ Casey blinked up at her. ‘How can I possibly?’
Miranda offered to stay the night, but Casey insisted on being alone.
‘Call me,’ Miranda urged. ‘Any time.’
‘I will,’ Casey lied.
After Miranda had left, Casey roamed around the flat. All around, she could hear the noises of everyday life. A neighbour’s television, the bang of a front door across the road, a peal of laughter from the street. The sounds echoed in her head. The night was warm, sticky, too close. Next door, people were sitting in their garden, smoking, quiet music playing. A last summer evening, and a comfortable sort of happiness.
Casey veered into the bedroom.
A shape on the floor.
She dodged back to the sitting room.
A copy of the Evening Standard lay on the table. Ed must have brought it home, and chucked it down.
She picked it up, anything to distract. The same headlines.
Tourists flown home after Anglo Air collapse.
Norovirus crisis: Hospital bosses warn ‘Stay away from A&E.’
Casey looked closer at the headline. Two words were underlined. In biro, almost invisible.
Stay away.
Stay away.
Stay away.
8
She waited outside, scraping her toe backwards and forwards over a crack in the pavement. The security guard was watching her, half-worried, half-bored, so she moved down the drab street, out of his line of sight. She felt dizzy from a lack of food, her throat raw, nails bitten.
When Brennan came through the security gate, she hurried forward.
‘Professor Brennan, I am sorry to bother you, but it is really important.’ As Casey spoke, she felt the pain in her throat sharpen.
The professor flinched and half-turned as if to go back into the facility. But then he lifted his chin and hurried past her.
‘I don’t have anything to say, Miss Benedict.’
‘Who called you when I was in your office?’ There was a ringing in Casey’s ears, a blur in her eyes.
‘I don’t know what you mean, Miss Benedict.’
‘You do.’ Casey fought down the desperation. ‘I have to know, Professor Brennan.’
‘You don’t.’
‘Listen,’ Casey tried to shout, ‘After I left you yesterday, I was attacked. And later my boyfriend … ’ Her voice choked up. ‘Ed Fitzgerald, my boyfriend. He was killed, Professor Brennan.’
Brennan turned towards her, a strange fear in his eyes. But he shook his head, and continued to stride towards the station. ‘Leave me alone, Miss Benedict.’
Casey tried to follow him, and then doubled over, the pain searing down her throat, across her stomach. The world was fading into the distance. She staggered to a garden wall and sat down. Wiped a hand across her face, and tried to focus.
‘Wait!’ A last croak. ‘Please wait … ’
She had shown Miranda the copy of the Standard.
Miranda had touched the crumpled newspaper softly.
‘You do believe me, don’t you?’ Casey had pleaded, and Miranda met her eyes calmly.
‘I believe you were chased, Casey. And I know that it is extremely unlikely that someone as fit and healthy as Ed just died. But this … ’ Miranda’s fingers traced the faint biro lines as her eyes went to the pile of pens on Casey’s desk, untidy in the corner of the room.
‘You have to believe me, Miranda. You just have to. Why would I make it up?’
‘There isn’t anything linking the Colindale people to Noah Hart or the Royal Brompton,’ said Miranda. She looked tired after a long day at work.
‘There’s me.’ Casey’s voice was thick. ‘I could be the link. I think it may have been because I published an article quoting Noah Hart. Then I could have been followed to Colindale. And someone could have … ’
Spoken aloud, it sounded unlikely.
‘Please get some rest, Casey.’
Miranda called a private doctor to Casey’s flat, paid for by the Post. The doctor prescribed some pills, not too many, and Casey was left staring at the ceiling, her eyes occasionally drifting to the window. On the sill, there were a bunch of flowers, sent by the newsroom. They blossomed and faded, and Miranda swept away the shrivelled petals on one of her visits.
It was like being in a shipwreck, Casey thought. Plunged deep beneath the surface, and looking up at the roaring storm. Drifting below the flotsam and jetsam, and the rage. Because she knew that if she broke the surface, the storm would surround her. And she knew that she would be crushed, and torn, and ripped. That she could never survive.
It was far easier to stay down here.
My love. Beloved.
Far easier to stay down here, and drown.
One morning, Miranda picked her up and drove her to Wiltshire.
Casey sat in the church, the sunlight shining jewelled rainbows through a stained glass window. Ed’s mother was white, froze
n, snowed in by grief. His father shook hands, and nodded, his mouth a single line. Ed’s brother marched to the front for the eulogy, chin up stern, and spoke to the back of the church, unable to look at anyone.
His voice broke on the last line: my little brother.
Afterwards, Casey stood on the vicarage lawn, a half-healed cut on her forehead, surrounded by Ed’s friends and hushed voices.
That’s his girlfriend.
The poor thing.
In black, although she might have worn a white dress once, in this garden.
‘Dash says not to rush back to work,’ said Miranda, as they drove back towards London.
Miranda had drawn her away as the crowd’s conversation turned to chatter, as it always does. How are you? Haven’t seen you for ages.
‘I’ve got nothing else to do,’ said Casey. ‘Anyway, who’ll write up the new breast cancer statistics?’
‘Eric’s covering health for the time being,’ said Miranda. ‘You’re to take as long as you want.’
‘But I’m bored,’ said Casey. ‘And I’ve got no idea what is going on in the world.’
She was reaching into the back of the car, where Miranda had abandoned a pile of newspapers.
‘You won the sweepstake, by the way,’ said Miranda, indicating as she joined the motorway. ‘On Sophie and our esteemed acting health editor.’
‘How?’ Casey was startled.
‘Well,’ Miranda grinned, ‘There was an exchange of emails. And I happened to bump into them at the Cirencester on a Tuesday evening, so they couldn’t cross-ref too early on.’
‘Miranda,’ Casey smiled properly for the first time in days, ‘I’m genuinely touched.’
‘Thought you needed cheering up. The newsroom is awed by your foresight.’
Casey grinned again. ‘What else is going on in the madhouse?’
‘There was a total fuck-up on a story about that cyclist, Jed Naji.’ Miranda rolled her eyes. ‘Someone handed over a bunch of emails to Ellis – you know, that tall guy on the Sports desk – proving that Naji had been doping, and Sports cheerfully published a big article off the back of them. Of course, we all know Naji’s been doping to the eyeballs for years. But it turned out those particular emails were faked.’
‘Ouch,’ Casey winced.
‘Yeah. The guy who brought the emails to the Post used to train with Naji and knows – knows – that he’s been doping. And the muppet thought he was being helpful by knocking up the emails and now the Post is going to have to hand over a fortune to Naji, even though we all know he’s a fraud. And even worse, we’re having to run a big cuddly interview with him, all about his brilliant training techniques.’
‘Oh, dear.’ Casey upended a packet of crisps.
‘And now Ellis has been done over by Papercut too.’
‘Poor Ellis.’
Papercut was an anonymous blog that published bitchy articles about various Fleet Street hacks. Ross had spent a sizeable chunk of time trying to unmask the individual behind the blog, to no avail. Papercut had responded with a couple of vicious paragraphs pointing out that Ross’s wife had left him recently, and he hadn’t even realised for three days. ‘The thing is,’ the home affairs editor had grumbled, lighting one cigarette from another outside the Plumbers, ‘knowing that the person behind Papercut is someone who thinks Ross is a bellend doesn’t exactly narrow the field.’
‘The Papercut piece is a bugger for Ellis,’ Miranda agreed. ‘It’s just all a bit embarrassing.’
Casey turned back to her newspaper then sat up straight.
‘Oh, my God!’
Horns blared as Miranda swerved across a lane.
‘Jesus Christ, Casey.’ Miranda fought to get the car under control. ‘What the hell … ’
Casey was reading a small column in the Argus. ‘Oh, god,’ Casey was whispering, under her breath. ‘Bloody, bloody hell.’
‘What?’ Miranda pulled into a petrol station and stamped on the brakes. ‘Casey, you can’t do that while I’m driving.’
‘Look.’ Casey brandished the Argus.
‘“A senior scientist was killed in a cycling crash in north London”,’ Miranda read aloud. ‘“Professor Ernest Brennan, 64, died in a collision with a vehicle on Grahame Park Way, Colindale, early on Thursday morning. The vehicle failed to stop. Police are appealing for witnesses.”’
‘He’s dead,’ Casey was whispering. ‘Professor Brennan … ’
Miranda’s face was serious. ‘He’s the man you went to see the morning Ed died?’
‘Yes,’ whispered Casey. ‘And I went to front him up again the other day too.’
‘Again? Dash told you to stop working,’ said Miranda. ‘And he told me not to let you do anything, Casey. It was a real order.’
‘Brennan wouldn’t tell me anything anyway.’ Casey sounded despairing. ‘It’s too much of a coincidence, Miranda. You must believe me. You do, don’t you?’
Miranda watched cars creep round the petrol station car park. The signs were garish, greedy, neon. The motorway dragon roared behind them.
‘I’ll ask Arthur to call the police about the Brennan incident,’ Miranda allowed. ‘See if they can shed any light on what happened.’
Arthur was the Post’s crime correspondent, and enjoyed popping out for drinks with chummy sergeants. He could ask a casual question without the ripples going far.
‘Fine,’ said Casey. ‘But we also have to go back to Noah Hart. We have to find out what he knows.’
9
Tillie was charged with finding a way to talk to Noah.
‘If,’ Miranda said, ‘and it’s still a big if, Casey, someone is monitoring Noah, it’s not fair to approach him at the hospital. The same thing goes for his home address. It’s got to be discreet.’
A few days later, Tillie reported back.
‘Noah goes to the gym most mornings, so you could bump into him there.’
‘Tricky,’ said Miranda. ‘They’re always crowded at that time in the morning.’
‘Or he sometimes manages to grab a sandwich from the canteen and then goes to sit in St Luke’s Gardens. But not always. And I suppose it probably depends on the weather, too.’
‘Again,’ said Casey, ‘too busy, especially at that time of day.’
‘What else?’ asked Miranda.
Tillie brought it out like a prize. ‘I happened to be behind him in the queue for the hospital cafeteria yesterday. We got chatting. He’s going hiking this weekend, apparently. On Dartmoor, I think. Staying with his parents in a little village not far from Exeter. He hasn’t been down there for months, he said. Looking forward to it.’
‘He told you all that?’ Casey looked surprised. ‘He’s usually quite cautious.’
‘Noah mentioned he was going hiking and staying with his parents and that he hadn’t had any time off for ages,’ Tillie conceded. ‘Then I tracked down the parents. They live right on the edge of Dartmoor, so it just makes sense that’s where he is going hiking.’
‘I suppose it might. How did you find them?’
‘Fairly easily,’ said Tillie. ‘I got Noah’s full name off the GMC register, then found his birth certificate, which meant I had his parents’ full names too. John and Sally Hart. Not the easiest names to track down, right? The parents weren’t immediately evident on the publicly available electoral roll or Companies House, but I managed to find a really old photograph of Noah on Facebook – one of his friends’ pages, he’s quite careful with the privacy settings – and you could just about make out the school crest on their blazers. They attended a school in Moretonhampstead, which isn’t far from Exeter, so I guessed that the parents must have been based around there. Then I found out that there used to be a GP called John Hart in Moretonhampstead, and he looks very like Noah Hart, which was encouraging. After that, I found a birdwatching website – twitching, they call it, very popular, you know? – where people post snaps of birds they’ve spotted. One JHartDevon156 has posted lots of photographs from their ga
rden, and some of the photographs have Dartmoor in the background. From analysing the hill shapes, you can work out that the photos were taken in a very small hamlet just west of Moretonhampstead. There are only four houses in the hamlet, two are holiday cottages. One of the houses is lived in by a woman who runs a business selling homeopathy kits, of all things. So I rang the GP surgery, to check whether I had the right address for old Dr Hart because I wanted to send him his university newsletter. Isn’t it funny how people won’t give out addresses, but they will confirm—’
‘All right,’ Miranda cut her off. ‘Thank you, Tillie.’
‘I’m sure there would have been a more straightforward way,’ Tillie carried on, unabashed. ‘If I’d had time to go down there and just ask, but you said you needed the information quickly. I could have checked the physical electoral roll down in Devon. Or if I’d been talking to people, I’d have got it straight away. You know how it is when you’re actually face to—’
‘Yes, thank you, Tillie.’
They all peered at a Google street-view image of the Hart family home. In the screengrab, it was a neat cottage, white-painted, with hollyhocks like pastel fireworks in the front garden. The hamlet was at the end of a long lane.
‘You’d definitely be able to tell if Noah was being followed,’ said Casey. ‘It would be easy.’
‘Once you’re up on Dartmoor,’ Hessa shuddered at the memory of a lengthy Duke of Edinburgh’s Award trek, ‘you can see for miles.’
‘He might be going hiking with a friend.’
‘No.’ Casey thought about Noah. The sense of sadness, and the greying face. ‘I think he’ll go alone.’
Casey travelled down to Devon the day before Noah, and spent the afternoon wandering thoughtfully around the local village. She pottered into the little shops, meandered through the churchyard and ambled past the GP surgery.
On the Friday afternoon, Hessa loitered among the waiting crowds at Paddington, and then squeezed on to the train. She sat awkwardly in the aisle – ‘I get all the best jobs’ – and watched Noah as he stood a few rows away.
‘What’s Hessa up to?’ Ross asked Miranda casually, as they queued for a stale croissant in the canteen.