by Ali McNamara
‘How do you know?’
‘Call it gut instinct. Now we need to get reading before our friend Juliet comes sniffing back.’
Twenty-Eight
It only takes us about fifteen minutes to feed through all the microfiches that contain newspapers from June 1987.
‘Are you sure that’s everything?’ I ask Noah as we come to the final page. ‘We’ve been through them all and there are no Frankies or a Francis mentioned anywhere.’
‘Yeah, it would appear so… Damn, what was Lou talking about when she mentioned a local paper?’ He gets up and paces a bit around the tiny room.
‘Have we missed one, do you think? These newspapers came out on Wednesdays and Thursdays, so shall I check those days in June 1987 and double-check we’ve seen a newspaper corresponding with all the relevant dates?’
‘Worth a try,’ Noah says, still pacing.
I quickly use my phone to Google a calendar for 1987, then I cross reference the Wednesdays and Thursdays with the newspapers we’ve seen.
‘Yep, we’ve seen all the editions that would have come out then,’ I tell Noah sadly. ‘This can’t be right. In June 1987 Lou said she’d seen Frankie in a local Brighton newspaper – it said so on the postcard.’
‘Hmm… I’m missing something, I know I am,’ Noah says, his forehead wrinkling. He lifts his glasses and rubs the bridge of his nose. Then he stares at the box files. ‘Wait a minute…’ he says, dropping his glasses back down so he can see properly. ‘Lou said she’d read the paper in June. What if it wasn’t a current copy – what if it was an old edition someone had left lying around?’
I digest this while Noah traces his hand along the shelf and then pulls out another file.
‘You mean she might have read a copy from May 1987?’
‘Or even earlier, I guess,’ Noah says, lifting some more microfiche film from the file and placing it under the reader. ‘Let’s hope not for our sake, eh?’
We have to run a few papers under the microfiche reader before we find it.
‘There!’ I say, pointing at the screen magnifying the page in front of us. ‘Can you make that picture any bigger?’
Noah pushes a couple of buttons, and the black and white image becomes larger but also grainier.
It’s a photo of four men wearing running gear. They have their arms around each other and look like they’ve just finished a race.
The headline over the photo says LOCAL MEN FINISH LONDON MARATHON IN AN ELECTRIFYING TIME. Then the copy underneath reads: Four Brighton men, who all work together at local firm Johnson’s Electronics, successfully completed the London Marathon last Sunday. The colleagues, who train together regularly at Brighton Bombers running club, ran the entire 26.2 miles together, crossing the line in just under four hours. This is the tenth Marathon that the men have completed and they have so far raised nearly £10,000 for Cancer Research UK between them.
There are no names listed, but what I’d so nearly missed in the tiny photo was that just above their running numbers on the front of their white vests the men all have their names emblazoned in large letters. There’s a Joe, a Harry, a Duncan, and a Frankie.
‘This must be him!’ I say, looking even harder at the photo. ‘But why doesn’t it say his full name? They always put people’s names and usually their ages too in newspapers.’
‘Are you sure that’s him?’ Noah asks, leaning towards the screen to peer hard at the photo with me. ‘How can you be sure?’
‘I can’t… but I think it is. Call it gut instinct,’ I say, smiling. I turn my head and find my face centimetres from Noah’s.
Realising our closeness, he too turns, and for a moment neither of us speaks.
‘We should print this out,’ he says quietly, not moving.
‘We really should.’
‘So, how are you getting on?’ Juliet asks cheerfully, as she comes bowling through the door.
I jump up as Noah hits the print button.
‘Fine!’ I say in a shrill voice, blocking Noah behind me, who I can hear hurriedly tidying up the files and snapping them shut.
‘Find what you were looking for?’ Juliet asks, desperately trying to see behind me without appearing too obvious about it.
‘Yes, thank you, we did. It’s very kind of you to help us like this.’
‘I don’t believe we had much choice,’ Juliet says, her face still smiling brightly but her voice hardening. ‘Josh said someone from the local police station rang up and demanded you be given free rein over the files for an hour.’
I glance back at Noah, who I’m pleased to see has finished his rather hasty tidy.
‘And very helpful it’s been too,’ Noah says, gathering the copy of our page from the printer. ‘I hope we’ve not been too much trouble, Juliet?’
Juliet doesn’t say anything. She looks curiously at the page in Noah’s hand.
‘Well, thanks again,’ I add, reaching out my hand. Juliet shakes it dubiously. ‘It’s all been most informative.’
‘Yes,’ Noah repeats, doing the same. ‘Very useful indeed.’
We leave the newspaper offices like two naughty schoolchildren, virtually throwing our lanyards at the receptionist in our haste to escape. Then we walk as quickly as we can down the street together, not stopping to speak until we’re a safe distance away.
‘Why do I feel like we did something in there we weren’t supposed to?’ I ask, as we turn a corner and Brighton sea-front comes into view at the bottom of the street. ‘We only looked at a file that wasn’t offered to us. We hardly committed a crime.’
‘I know. I think it was Juliet – she was acting very oddly for someone who was just there to show us a few files, even for a journalist!’
‘Do you think so too? I thought it was just me!’
‘Nope, your instinct serves you well. We’ll make a copper of you yet!’ Noah’s face, so full of life and excitement one moment, falls in an instant. ‘Sorry, I got a bit carried away there. Forgot where I was.’
‘That’s okay. Is that similar to the rush you used to get when you were in the police?’
‘A bit, yeah, but being a real police officer isn’t like being one on TV, you know – all guns and car chases. There’s a lot of thinking and paperwork that goes into solving crimes before you get any sort of rush.’
‘I can imagine.’ Noah had said ‘solving crimes’. I wonder if he was a detective in the Met? ‘Well, whatever we just experienced, what happens next? I definitely think that the photo could be of Lou’s Frankie. That runner seems the right sort of age – he looks in his mid-fifties, doesn’t he?’
Noah pulls the photocopied page from his pocket. ‘Yes, I’d say so,’ he says, looking at it.
‘That matches with the timescales Lou talks about in the postcards. So if that is our Frankie in the picture, how are we going to trace him? We don’t have his full name.’
‘Ah, we might not have his name…’ Noah says, as we arrive at the bottom of the road and a strong gust of wind hits us now we’re directly on the sea-front, forcing him to turn away from it to protect the paper. ‘But what we do have’ – he folds the paper and slips it safely in his trouser pocket – ‘is the name of a running club, and possibly more importantly, the name of a business, both of which Frankie was involved with in 1987. It’s a long shot, but I’ve solved crimes in the past on even longer ones.’
I smile up at him. ‘Do you really think we can find him?’
Noah nods. ‘Absolutely, and I won’t be able to rest until we do.’
In celebration of our successes this morning we decide to buy ice creams, and while we enjoy the soft sweet Mr Whippy cones we sit on a bench on Brighton’s famous promenade watching the world pass by. Well, I do. Noah is concentrating hard on his phone screen right now, while his ice cream remains untouched in his other hand.
‘Your ice cream will melt,’ I tell him, as I watch the white whip on top of his cone gradually softening.
‘Hmm? Oh yeah. Do you want it?
’ he asks, as if it’s just a bother to him being there in his hand. ‘I haven’t touched it.’
‘I know you haven’t, that’s why it’s melting. Just as well it’s not very sunny at the moment or it would be in a pool around your feet by now.’ I smile at my joke, but Noah still looks at his phone, attempting to scroll down the page with one hand.
‘Look, give it here and I’ll hold it for you,’ I tell him, taking the cone from his hand. ‘What are you so engrossed in on there?’
‘I’m trying to find out if that electronics business still exists. I think it does, but under a new name.’
‘Frankie’s business?’
‘Of course, Frankie’s business! Sorry,’ Noah apologises. ‘I didn’t mean to snap – I’m just determined to trace him, that’s all.’
I’m beginning to see just what Noah would have been like when he was in the police force – he was very focused on the job in hand. Perhaps he’d become too obsessed with a case and something had gone wrong?
‘That’s okay. I’m just happy someone is helping me do this – I’d have been useless at it on my own.’
‘Do you think so? I reckon you’d have been great. You’re very switched on.’
‘Am I?’
‘Yeah, I think so. Okay, let me test you – what do you think our next move should be?’
‘Eating this ice cream?’ I pass Noah’s cone back to him.
‘And after that?’ he asks, before expertly removing all signs of melted ice cream with his tongue in one long satisfying lick.
‘Er…’ I say, losing my train of thought slightly as I watch him do this. Damn, what did Noah just ask me? Oh yes, our next move. ‘I think we should find the running club first,’ I say confidently, hoping to hide my hesitation. Noah’s treatment of the ice cream cone had thrown me right off course.
‘Why?’
‘Well, in that photo the runners all seemed very close. In my experience people bond much more over a shared interest or pursuit than they do at work.’
‘Nice thinking.’
‘Thanks. So is the running club still going?’
‘It is. I’ve already checked and I have a contact for it.’
‘Great. So what about this business – have you tried Companies House?’
‘Just on it when you passed me back my ice cream. You see – you do know what to do.’
‘But it’s more fun doing it with you,’ I say, without thinking.
Damn. Had the ice cream numbed my brain? Why did I say that aloud?
Noah’s cheeks pink slightly. ‘Thanks,’ he says, sounding genuinely touched. ‘I’m having fun doing this with you too.’
In a repeat of our ‘moment’ in front of the microfiche, we hold each other’s gaze for a touch longer than is necessary.
And in another repetition, yet again an intruder breaks this moment.
‘Flood!’ a voice says behind me, and I look back to see a youngish fair-haired man in jeans and a T-shirt with his arms folded staring at us. ‘Sorry, it’s Inspector Flood now, isn’t it?’ he grins. ‘Or was. Well, Inspector, I never expected to find you on Brighton sea-front littering. Do I have to pull you in for questioning?’
Twenty-Nine
Noah and I both stare in shock from the man to the floor, and we see a blob of white ice cream that had once belonged to Noah’s cone melting slowly on the tarmac by his feet.
Noah grins first at the ice cream and then up at the man. Leaping up from the bench, he holds out his hand.
‘Jonesy, man, good to see you.’
The handshake rapidly turns into a manly hug.
‘Foxy said you were coming down,’ the man says, grinning at Noah. ‘I thought you might have popped in to see us?’
‘Flying visit.’
Jonesy looks down at me still sitting on the bench.
‘Sorry. This is Ana Bennett, a friend of mine,’ Noah says, introducing me. ‘Ana, this is Adam Jones. We worked together when I was in the force. I was stationed here in Brighton, before I went to London.’
‘He says worked together,’ Adam says, with raised eyebrows. ‘But technically he was my superior officer when I was just a lowly detective constable.’
‘Hello,’ I say, standing up. ‘Nice to meet you.’
We shake hands. ‘Likewise,’ Adam says. He looks between us. ‘So what are you doing here – day out?’
‘Something like that,’ Noah says.
‘You can’t be here on official business. Foxy said they’d pensioned you off from the Met after… well, you know.’
‘Yes,’ Noah says hurriedly, ‘a while back. I live in Cornwall now.’
‘Cornwall – well, that’s a change from the smoke. What do you do down there?’
‘I run an antiques shop,’ Noah says, with a hint of embarrassment.
‘Antiques…’ Adam looks surprised. ‘Well, I guess that’s a nice slow pace of life?’
‘Yes, better for the old ticker than running around with you lot.’
‘Talking of running around, I’m afraid I’ve got to go,’ Adam says, looking at his watch. ‘I’m on duty.’ He grimaces. ‘Are you two around tonight? It would be great to catch up, Flood, if you’re free for a drink?’
‘Er…’ Noah hesitates.
‘Yes, I’m sure we could manage that,’ I answer for him. ‘We don’t have any plans tonight, do we?’
Noah shrugs.
‘Where’s good around here these days?’ I ask Adam. ‘I was at university here but that was a good few years ago now.’
‘Surely not that long ago?’ Adam says, winking at me. ‘Far too young. How about we go to the old haunt, Flood? Remember?’
‘Yeah, I remember.’
‘’Bout eight?’
Noah nods.
‘Great, looking forward to it. See you guys later.’
I sit down again while Noah watches Adam walk away for a few moments before sitting down next to me.
‘Bit of a blast from the past?’ I ask, when he doesn’t immediately say anything. ‘It can really throw you when you see someone you haven’t seen for a long time.’
‘Yeah, Jonesy, Foxy and I were quite close when we worked here together. I was their sergeant when they were both constables.’
‘But you became an inspector when you went to London?’ I ask. This was the most Noah had ever told me about his past.
‘Detective inspector. Jonesy and Foxy were promoted to detective sergeants not long after I left. Probably did them good me not being around.’
‘Or you gave them a good training?’
‘Perhaps.’
‘Was it Foxy who you had to pull in a favour from before we came here?’ I ask.
‘Yes. But I told him not to mention it to anyone else. Trust Foxy to tell Jonesy – they were always a bit too close.’
Noah is lost again in his own memories.
I feel some spots of rain begin to hit my arm, and I look up to see the pale seal-grey clouds from before have darkened making the sky above us look heavy and bruised.
‘I think we’d better go and find our hotel,’ I say to Noah, before I stand up. ‘Otherwise we’re going to get soaked.’
Noah doesn’t budge; he still stares at nothing in particular in front of him.
‘Oi, Flood!’ I cry, making him jump. ‘Time to move.’ I point up at the sky.
‘Sorry, miles away.’ Noah stands up. Then he grins when he realises what I’ve called him. ‘Yep, that was my nickname. Original, eh?’
‘I’ve heard better.’
‘Did you say something about heading to the hotel?’
‘I certainly did. Let’s go, and you can tell me more about your time here in Brighton on the way and whether there’s another reason apart from the obvious one why they call you Flood…’
We grab our overnight bags from the car and walk to the hotel.
‘Hi,’ I say to a glum-looking receptionist. ‘We have a couple of rooms booked? In the name of Bennett.’
‘One mom
ent, please.’ The receptionist looks at her computer screen. ‘Yes, I have you down here but only for the one room?’ She stares at me reprovingly as though I’ve made a mistake.
‘No, I definitely booked two rooms. I rang yesterday when there was nothing available on your website, and you said you could just squeeze me in as you’d had a cancellation.’