by James Hazel
The front door had opened downstairs. Someone was in the hallway.
She scanned the room, her heart pounding. This was a stupid idea. The only hiding place she could access quickly was under the bed. Would she even fit? And what sort of assailant wouldn’t think of looking under there?
Panic started to set in.
She held her breath and closed her eyes. There was no noise from downstairs. Can someone make it across the hall to the stairs without making a sound? Maybe they were already half way up the stairs. It was too late and Georgie couldn’t move even if she wanted to. She was rooted to the spot – her fate surely sealed.
A floorboard creaked. Georgie clasped her hands over her mouth, suppressing the urge to cry out.
A few seconds ticked away agonisingly slowly.
‘Hello, dear? Are you there?’
Georgie let her lungs force the air out.
‘Hi, I’m just coming down,’ she called back.
Mrs Mudridge smiled as Georgie met her in the hallway. She was fiddling with her hands underneath her apron. There was more lipstick on her teeth than on her lips.
‘Oh, there you are!’
‘Hi, Mrs Mudridge. Is everything OK?’
‘Well, I just remembered, Hayley’s not here, dear. She went on a long weekend. With her boyfriend, about a week ago.’
Georgie nodded encouragingly. Boyfriend. ‘Really? She said something about doing that. I must have got the wrong date.’
‘Oh, what a disappointment for you, dear. I’m so sorry.’
‘I’ve never met Hayley’s boyfriend, Mrs Mudridge. Hayley’s kept him a secret from me, would you believe!’
‘Really? Imagine that!’
‘Did you see him at all?’
‘Well . . .’ Mrs Mudridge pursed her lips in concentration. ‘To tell you the truth, dear, no.’
‘Oh.’ Georgie couldn’t help but hide her disappointment. ‘Are you sure it was her boyfriend, Mrs Mudridge?’
‘Well maybe I was jumping to conclusions about that.’ She laughed good-naturedly. ‘I did see his car, though.’
‘Really?’
‘Yes. Parked outside, it was. I remember because I thought to myself, oh, Hayley’s got a fancy-man coming to visit!’
‘Do you remember anything about the car? Was it big, small, a four-by-four?’
‘Oh, I don’t know anything about those sort of things, dear. I haven’t run a car since my husband died twenty years ago. You don’t need one in Cambridge, you know . . .’
Georgie bit her lip as Mrs Mudridge rambled on, trying to keep the frustration from her voice. ‘The car, Mrs Mudridge?’
‘Oh, yes. There was one thing, dear.’
‘Yes?’
‘It had a very funny sign in the front windshield. One of those parking permits but with a funny symbol.’
‘A funny symbol, Mrs Mudridge?’
‘Yes. I’d never seen one like that before. A little silver heart.’
A chill crackled down Georgie’s spine. She pulled out her phone again and googled the image she was looking for. Eventually, she found it and showed the picture of the silver heart to Mrs Mudridge, who made a fuss of putting on her glasses before staring carefully at the iPhone screen.
‘Yes, dear,’ she said finally. ‘That’s it. What is it?’
‘It’s the Ellinder Pharmaceuticals logo.’
*
Georgie stepped out on to the street, her mind racing with possibilities. She had shown Mrs Mudridge some pictures of different cars on her phone but the old lady hadn’t been able to give her anything to go on. Her only recollection – clear as day – was of the silver heart.
Georgie wondered if Jessica Ellinder’s car had the same symbol on its windshield. She tried phoning Charlie but his phone was either engaged or out of range. Georgie left a message asking him to call her, and to forgive her for ignoring his warning. She decided to give Charlie five minutes to phone her back before trying Okoro. He wouldn’t be impressed with her excursion, either.
Hayley Wren had disappeared off the face of the earth. As there was nothing more she could do in Cambridge, Georgie resolved to head back to the train station.
She walked briskly across the street and through a narrow passageway leading to the back of the Victorian housing. She studied her phone, flipping through the maps to try and work out the quickest route to the station. She was cold, and the wind was sharp. A few students cycled past, ringing their bells unnecessarily. The sound of their laughter didn’t lift her; rather, it reminded her of how alone she was.
She stopped at the end of the street. Above her, the Gothic college buildings loomed up on either side and a host of warped heads carved into the stonework glared suspiciously down. She consulted her phone again, but the next section of the map was slow to load. There was some shelter from the icy wind, but the street was eerily deserted. As she tried to manipulate the digital image of Cambridge, an incoming call flashed across the screen
‘Hello?’
‘Georgie?’
‘Li?’
‘Where are you?’
‘Cambridge.’
Li chuckled. ‘An Oxonian in Cambridge? Why are you slumming it?’
‘Is everything OK?’ Georgie asked.
‘Fine. I just . . . wanted to make sure you were all right.’
‘Why wouldn’t I be?’ There was something about the way Li was speaking that made Georgie feel uncomfortable. She detected a trace of uncertainty in her friend’s usually confident voice.
‘I just . . . you know,’ said Li.
A sense of dread crept over Georgie. On the opposite side of the road, a white van had pulled over and was sitting idle. The windows were blacked out and the van was unmarked. Georgie thought about the two men on the train, and Hayley’s wrecked room. As her heart rate started to quicken for the third time that morning, Georgie stepped closer to the building next to her, trying to sink into the shadow.
‘Li,’ she said. ‘Why did you phone me?’
‘Just to say I put your hairdryer back in your drawer. Thanks for letting me borrow it.’
Something was very wrong. Over the road, Georgie heard a door slam. Someone had got out of the van on the passenger’s side. She checked the street left, right and behind her. Not a soul.
‘Li?’ she said urgently.
‘And to say that there was some post for you. It sort of fell . . . and opened.’
Georgie heard the side door of the van slide across its runners and shut. Li’s words swirled around in her head but she was struggling to understand their meaning. Something told her to run and keep running but her legs wouldn’t move and she was rooted to the spot.
‘Georgie,’ Li said and her voice was urgent. ‘Georgie, there was an insect inside the envelope . . .’
Behind her there was a sudden burst of movement. Georgie opened her mouth but the scream welling up inside her never escaped. She felt hands on her shoulders and something around her face, wet and heavy. Her eyes lost focus. She tried to fight back but it was too late; her world had already turned to darkness.
42
Li stood with the phone to her ear, the connection dead. She redialled Georgie’s number but got nothing other than her answerphone.
She felt paralysed.
She had meant well. She had paced the corridor for ages trying to work out what to do before deciding she had to make sure Georgie was all right. But the final couple of seconds of that call . . . the unmistakable noise of distress . . . Something very horrible had happened to Georgie. And it had to be connected with that insect in the envelope, she was sure of it.
She ran across the landing towards the stairs, almost knocking Martin into the wall as he emerged from his room.
‘Hey!’ he shouted. ‘What’s the hurry, Li?’
‘I think something might have happened to Georgie.’
‘Oh. Whatever.’ He went back into his room.
She stood uncert
ainly on the stairway. Shit! Should she call the police? Mrs White would be particularly unimpressed if she involved them. And in any case, what did Li have to go on? Some muffled sounds on a phone from somewhere in Cambridge? They’d think she was wasting their time.
Should she go to Cambridge herself? Li had no idea where she would even start looking. Pulling her purse out of her pocket, she looked through the compartments. There: Georgie’s card. Georgie Someday BA (Hons) (Oxon), LLM (King’s College, London) Associate Solicitor. Corporate Fraud. Priest & Co.
Li punched the Priest & Co number into her phone. Eventually a croaky female voice answered.
‘Priest and Co.’
‘Charlie Priest, please,’ said Li hopefully.
‘I’m afraid Mr Priest is on annual leave.’
‘Where can I get hold of him? It’s urgent.’
‘Who is this?’
Li hung up. Waste of fucking time.
She ran back up to Georgie’s room and started rummaging through the drawers. There must be something – anything!
At the back of the drawer she found what she was looking for. Only someone like Georgie kept an address book anymore. She had been born a hundred years too late.
She flipped through the pages until she found Charlie Priest’s number.
She rang. Another answerphone message.
‘Mr Priest. I’m a friend of Georgie’s. She’s in trouble. Phone me back. Please.’ Li hung up. She prayed it would be enough.
43
By the time Priest pulled up outside Sandra Barnsdale’s legal offices in Kensington, Jessica was asleep. As the car came to a stop, she stirred, opened her eyes and put her hand to her head.
‘You OK?’ Priest asked gently.
Jessica nodded, sat up and looked around. As she crossed the line between the world of sleep and consciousness, Priest thought he saw a flash of the woman she really was. It vanished almost instantly.
‘Where are we?’ she demanded.
‘Barnsdale’s solicitors. Kensington.’ Priest felt his phone vibrating in his pocket but decided to leave it.
‘Why?’
‘The metadata from the flash drive,’ Priest explained.
‘I don’t follow.’
‘The schedule on the flash drive is just a text document. From the metadata you can see when the file was created, when it was last modified and so on – and, of course, who wrote it.’
‘And the person who wrote it is someone here?’
‘Sandra Barnsdale – the principal solicitor in this practice.’
‘You know her?’
‘I’ve met her a few times.’
‘Is there anyone involved in this that you don’t know?’
Priest reached around behind him and collected his coat. He faltered. Jessica had turned away from him, her hands covering her face. He waited. She breathed in heavily. After a moment she moved her hands away and he saw her wipe a tear from her eye.
Suddenly every ounce of human understanding he possessed eluded him. He felt completely useless.
‘I’m sorry,’ she croaked.
‘Don’t be.’
‘No! I don’t . . .’
‘Show emotion?’
‘I must be very confusing to you,’ she conceded miserably.
Priest raised an eyebrow. ‘I have noticed a few inconsistencies.’
He opened his mouth to elaborate when his phone rang again. This time he reached into his coat pocket, pulled it out and glanced at the caller ID. He groaned.
‘My ex-wife.’
‘You’d better take it.’
He couldn’t work out whether Jessica was angry or relieved.
‘Hi, Dee,’ said Priest, putting the phone to his ear.
‘Charlie? What the fuck do you think you’re playing at?’
‘I take it your new friends at the Met don’t know you’re calling me? I hope they know what a difficult position you’re in.’
‘Is that a threat? Sure as hell better not be.’
‘Of course not, darling.’
‘Fuck you. Listen, the warrant you got set aside. Did you really think that was being clever? Innocent people let the Blue search their properties. Guilty people frustrate the process. All you did was pour petrol on a fire that’s already beyond my control, you thick bastard!’
‘Hey, I didn’t ask for your help, Dee.’
‘Yes, you did. You asked me to call off McEwen.’
Priest winced. ‘Whatever. I’m not asking for it now.’
‘And you’re not getting it.’
‘Then why phone me?’
‘To give you one last chance to tell me what the hell is going on.’
‘I told you – I don’t know.’
‘For Christ’s sake, Charlie! The son of a very rich and influential man was recently killed. I’ve pulled every goddamn detective off from leave to cover for McEwen’s team. It’s a fucking miracle the press haven’t cottoned on but when they do, Charlie – and they will – time will start to run out very fast for you. You ought to think about that.’
‘Maybe you ought to think about that, too, Dee,’ Priest said grimly.
He was very aware that Dee was screaming down the phone and that Jessica, who was sitting with her head cocked, could probably hear every word.
‘What do you mean?’ said the Assistant Commissioner, the warning in her tone obvious.
‘Think about it. A high-profile victim is executed horribly in his multi-millionaire father’s warehouse. It ought to be national news and yet you’ve managed to contain it for almost a week now. What’s going on?’
It was a fact of life: tabloids paid police officers good money for stories. You can have as many policies and disciplinary investigations as you like, but you can’t plug leaks. This story was worth at least twenty grand, thirty if it included photos.
Dee wasn’t speaking. In Priest’s book, that was a win.
‘Your turn to listen,’ he told her. ‘I’m sending you a photograph of the crime scene from Philip Wren’s office. I took it when I first arrived, before SOCO got there. Compare that to the photos you have on the file. Look in particular at the desktop, nearside corner. See if you can spot the difference then phone me back when you’re prepared to see what’s actually going on here.’
He ended the call. Jessica studied him cynically.
‘You coming?’ Priest said, getting out of the car.
*
Sandra Barnsdale’s office was on the top floor of a complex with a private underground car park and a gym for staff use only. It was an impressive building – a steel-framed, angular skyscraper encased in a glass facade, each pane fractionally concaved to reflect the sunlight and give the impression that the structure was made from giant ice blocks piled on top of each other.
Priest hated it.
Barnsdale & Clyde had been writing wills and administering estates for the rich and famous since the forties. They had come a long way from humble beginnings and now employed over a hundred staff and turned over close to twenty-five million annually. Sandra had been the principal since her father had died in 2003 and, to Priest’s knowledge, had managed to retain one hundred per cent of the equity for herself following Bob Clyde’s retirement a few years before her father’s death.
The woman with bleached blonde hair barely looked up from behind the front desk when Priest coughed politely for attention. Jessica stood next to him with her arms folded. On the wall behind her was a poster: Have you made a will yet?
‘Do you have an appointment?’ Bleached Blonde asked as if she couldn’t care less.
‘No,’ Priest admitted. ‘Would you be kind enough to tell Sandra Barnsdale that Charlie Priest would like to see her?’
Bleached Blonde looked up and raised an eyebrow. ‘Without an appointment?’
‘That’s right.’
For a moment, Bleached Blonde looked as if she might want to help, but then turned her attention back to her glossy magazine. ‘Miss Barnsdale never s
ees people without an appointment.’
‘I wonder –’
Priest was cut off by a commotion from somewhere behind them. A stylishly dressed woman bustled in carrying a box of files, which she dumped on the desk in front of Bleached Blonde.
‘Jeanette, could you archive these for me, please?’
Priest leant on the front desk and turned to the woman. ‘Good afternoon, Sandra.’
Sandra Barnsdale spun around, tipping the box of files over and sending them crashing over Bleached Blonde’s lap. She shrieked in alarm. Sandra looked Priest up and down and her face broke out into a grin.
‘Charlie fucking Priest!’ she exclaimed. ‘Well, aren’t you a sight for sore eyes!’
44
Georgie’s eyes gradually opened. The pain in her head was excruciating. For a few moments, her eyes refused to focus – everything was black.
She could sense movement and noise. The humming of an engine and the vibration of wheels rolling over tarmac.
She was lying on the cold, metal floor of a moving vehicle.
A few minutes passed and the feeling that she was going to hurl began to fade. Tentatively, she sat up and her surroundings edged into view. The space was large enough for her to be able to comfortably stand; she guessed she was in something like a Transit van. She realised with dread that it was most likely the white van she had seen across the road before someone had jumped her from behind.
The feeling of sickness returned.
She fumbled around in her pockets with shaking hands. No phone.
‘Oh, Jesus.’
Georgie was not religious. Most days, God seemed a very unlikely proposition, but all of a sudden she wanted very much to believe in Him. To believe that someone – anyone – was watching over her.
But she could conjure up no such comforting vision. Her heart lurched. In her mind’s eye, she saw Vlad the Impaler – garbed in a blood-stained tunic – driving the Transit, a callous grin etched on his wraithlike face.