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Lock Me In

Page 21

by Kate Simants


  Four days before Jodie died.

  ‘Nice and sweet,’ Samira said as she pushed the door open with her hip.

  I didn’t waste a heartbeat. In the time it took her to enter the room, set the mugs on the desk and turn, I’d slipped the whole envelope inside my sweatshirt, shoved the drawer back, and straightened up.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I said, ‘I can’t wait after all. I have to be somewhere.’

  ‘Oh, okay,’ she said, looking crestfallen. ‘Another time?’

  ‘Sure.’ I made for the door.

  ‘Did you get in touch with that aunty of yours?’

  ‘Aunty? What do you mean?’

  ‘Your aunt, your mum’s sister. Came looking for you, left her number. Very keen for me to pass it on.’

  I blinked, baffled: Samira folded her arms, frowning. ‘No? She not get hold of you? I dug out your mum’s old email and sent the number. Thought at the time she might have changed her address but,’ she shrugged, ‘it was all I had. I did try to look you both up but you’d—’

  ‘When was this?’

  ‘Oh, good while ago. Couple of years? She’d been looking for you for a long time, she said. I think she eventually got hold of us through the hospital, after you were discharged to Dr Cox.’

  An aunt? ‘Must have slipped her mind. Did she leave a number?’

  ‘I’ll dig it out for you,’ she said, as the phone rang on her desk. ‘Leave your number and I’ll call when I find it – sorry, I should take this.’ She lifted the receiver and waved me goodbye.

  I went down the stairs and out onto the street with one thought in my head. Mum was an only child. Both her parents had died, years back, but there was never a sister.

  I didn’t have an aunt.

  46.

  Mae

  Once he’d identified Samira Anand on the hospital CCTV, things got moving pretty fast. While he waited outside Victoria Station for Kit to come and pick him up, he called McCulloch and filled her in.

  ‘Bring him in,’ McCulloch said. ‘But when you’re back here, Ben, we need a conflab, all right?’

  ‘Sure thing, yep,’ he said, cutting the call before she could say anything else. He knew what was coming: given his previous involvement, she was going to want to move him discreetly elsewhere. But the longer he could delay that, the better chance he had of getting to the bottom of it.

  It wasn’t hard to find Kit: she’d pulled in round the back of the station. Helpfully, she had a full-blast Bikini Kill playlist on that he could hear from a range of fifty metres, though she respectfully lowered the volume when he got in beside her.

  He set the GPS to Cox’s office: it estimated a forty-minute journey to the middle of Highbury. The visit didn’t constitute an emergency worthy of the blues and twos but even without them, he knew he could rely on Kit to shave at least a little off that.

  ‘What’s the plan when we get there,’ she asked, nosing the car out. ‘Interview Cox and the receptionist separately?’

  ‘If they’re both there. I just called him and he’s not answering. I’ve requested a unit to his flat just in case.’ Cox’s home address – which was exactly as salubrious as he’d described – was a shock even to Mae when he found it. He couldn’t imagine much longer a drop from the palatial home he’d had in Sussex only a few years before.

  He put on his seatbelt, sniffing the air. Something unseen smelled immodestly delicious. The lights changed as Kit swung the Focus into a box junction, blocking the oncoming stream of traffic. The driver of a shiny beamer honked her, with good reason, but she gave him the hairy eyeball as she slipped out of the minor gridlock she’d just caused.

  ‘You are one lucky bugger, recognizing her from that image at the hospital,’ she told him as she eased down on the gas.

  ‘I’m one investigative bugger,’ he corrected. He sniffed again. ‘What is that?’

  She reached into the back and produced a paper bag.

  ‘Churros. Want?’ She helped herself to a thin, piped stick of deep-fried doughnut batter, the kind that Bear begged him for at fairgrounds, before making a disparaging face at his hesitation and shaking the bag at him.

  ‘Go on, go mad,’ she said through a mouthful. ‘Hear the call of the wild side.’

  He declined, and she shrugged, sucking sugar off her fingers. ‘Your loss.’

  They headed over the river and north. Neighbourhoods changed fast as they passed the invisible social boundary line that bisected the borough of Islington. Packed-in social housing gave way to grand townhouses lining leafy, comfortable-looking streets as they came off the Holloway Road. The car slowed as they passed the old Arsenal ground, and Kit smiled out of the window. She’d navigated her way there with the deft precision of a cabbie, and now Mae saw why.

  ‘Gooner?’

  She grinned at him. ‘You?’

  ‘Nah. I’ll watch the Bees when they’re winning.’

  A smirk. ‘Not often, then.’

  ‘Yeah well. Watching football isn’t exactly my thing. Especially when I know what we spend on the clear-up.’

  ‘Oh! So it’s a litter problem.’

  ‘I mean the social clear-up, obviously. Pissed-up fans. You never worked a match day? Seen the domestic spikes we get afterwards?’

  She ran her tongue around her teeth, shaking her head. ‘Yeah, but there’s nobheads in every sport. You can’t tar the whole game with that brush. What about Bear, though: she like going?’

  Mae opened his mouth to reply, then closed it again, unsure how to phrase it.

  She gawked at him for a second. ‘You haven’t taken her? Sarge. Seriously?’

  He held up a finger. ‘One word—’ he started.

  ‘Is it Hillsborough?’ She rolled her eyes. ‘Come on. I’ll take her.’

  ‘No, you bloody won’t.’

  Kit laughed, giving it up. ‘OK, fine. Maybe she’s a baby derby girl though? How about I take her to a bout? Think she’d like to come and see Daddy’s new workmate get the shit kicked out of her?’

  He changed his mind and reached into the back for a churro. ‘There isn’t a person alive who wouldn’t like to see that.’

  Highbury Park was an upmarket street, lined with 4x4s and shiny hybrids. Trees, already bigger and thicker than the pavement wanted them to grow, heaved through the tarmac, lifting sections of the high kerbs in places. But they were the only source of disorder. Hammerited iron railings gave way at regular intervals along the street to wide stone steps, old enough to bow in the middle from decades of erosion by expensive shoes. Cheap shoes, too, if you accounted for staff.

  Kit tucked the car into a tight space and killed the engine. As she got out she whistled quietly, looking up. Mae knew what she was thinking: you didn’t get opulence like this in Hounslow. Proper girl of her patch, he thought, watching her click her neck from side to side the way she did whenever she got out of a car. As if she was stiff from a cage: as if she was somehow a bit wild. A bit like him.

  She turned. Caught him looking but didn’t look away until he did. Mae ran his thumbs around the crease of his collar to straighten it and shut the door of the Focus, then went after Kit, who had cleared the steps nimble as a mountain goat.

  He pressed the buzzer, then blew out his cheeks.

  ‘You all right?’ Kit asked him. ‘Look antsy.’

  There were footsteps inside, but no answer on the intercom. ‘She’s not going to be pleased to see me.’

  ‘Oh yeah? Is anyone?’ Kit asked as the deadlocks clunked inside. The door opened to reveal Samira Anand, a face on her like she knew exactly what was coming next.

  ‘Come in,’ she muttered, glancing behind them into the road and visibly sinking at the sight of the squad car.

  The first-floor clinic was immaculate: neutral fabrics on the big, soft sofas; thick pile on the floor. Samira locked the door of the reception room behind them once they were all inside. She took the phone off the hook, perched nervously on the end of the polished mahogany desk, and gestured fo
r them to sit.

  Kit leaned against a wall, while Mae clasped his hands behind his back, uniform-style.

  ‘So. The package you delivered to the hospital yesterday.’

  Samira looked up to him, then to Kit, as if appealing for leniency. ‘How did—?’ she started, then cut herself off.

  ‘How did we know it was you? When you signed it in from,’ he made a show of checking the jpeg Kit had forwarded, ‘Mrs Harsworth?’

  ‘Oh … did I?’

  Kit dropped her shoulders and sighed. ‘You did, yeah.’ She picked a spot in the middle of the expansive cream-coloured sofa and spread her arms across the back of the cushions. ‘Look, we just want to find out what you know about the package, and why you tried to hide that it was you who dropped it off.’

  Mrs Anand, looking like she was about to cry, whispered, ‘I just … I was passing. It seemed a waste to courier it, like he said, so I just took it in.’

  Mae took an unoccupied seat and got out his notebook. ‘From the top, if you wouldn’t mind.’

  She sighed, then fixed her gaze hard on a spot in the middle of the room. ‘Dr Cox wanted me to send this … parcel off to the hospital. He said it should go by courier but I shouldn’t say it was from him.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Oh yeah?’ Kit screwed her face up and shot Mae a look. Clearly didn’t believe a word of it. ‘And you’re saying you didn’t ask?’

  ‘No.’ She met Kit’s eye, then got started on a staring match with the carpet. ‘I’ve known Dr Cox a very long time. Know him better than I know my own husband, really. Thick and thin, richer and poorer,’ she added with a thin laugh. ‘He can be a little … eccentric. So if he asks something out of the ordinary, I just go ahead and do it. He’ll have his reasons.’

  ‘Did you wrap the package yourself?’ Kit asked, careful not to disclose or lead, her training still box-fresh.

  Another shrug. ‘I didn’t even know he had another laptop.’

  Mae glanced over to see Kit narrow her eyes. ‘So you did know it was a laptop?’

  The arrangement of biros and pencils in a glass desk-tidy suddenly became very interesting to her.

  ‘Mrs Anand,’ Kit said, leaning forward, ‘I think you already know that we’re investigating a young man’s disappearance. We have reason to believe he may be in danger, and anything you can tell us to help find him is absolutely crucial.’

  ‘And time-critical,’ Mae added. Last thing he wanted was for her to get a pang of conscience this time next week.

  Samira Anand cleared her throat. ‘Dr Cox said he wanted it taken in, urgently. Right after you left,’ she added, glancing briefly at Mae, ‘yesterday evening. I don’t know why, but it was very important to him that it didn’t have his name on it. He said to book a courier, but I thought, well, I know the hospital. I passed it whenever I went to visit my sister, and I’d already planned to pop round after work. Dr Cox doesn’t exactly have money to burn these days. I thought I’d just drop it in on my way.’

  Kit leaned forwards, elbows on knees, head cocked. ‘That true?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘So why’d you give a fake name?’

  The older woman sighed. ‘I-I don’t know. I just suddenly thought, maybe I wasn’t supposed to do this, maybe there was a reason he wanted the courier.’

  ‘Not because you knew what you were doing was potentially assisting in the commission of an offence?’

  She drew a sudden breath, her eyes darting between the two of them again. ‘No! What offence?’

  Kit spread her hands. ‘I suppose we’ll work that out when we find Mr Corsham, right? In whatever … condition he happens to be in when we finally do that.’

  Just then Mae’s phone went off. Two buzzes: a text. Ellie. He drew it out, read it.

  Screwed his eyes shut. Opened them. Read it again.

  Saw Cox a couple of hours ago, the message said. He’s hiding something, ran off while I was talking to him.

  He got to his feet, faster than sneezing. He excused himself, motioned to his phone, then left the room and had Ellie on the line before he got to the front door.

  ‘What do you mean, ran off?’ he hissed.

  ‘I mean he ran away,’ Ellie said, sounding defensive. ‘He said he was going to make us tea. He left, got in his car and drove off.’

  ‘What? Why?’

  ‘No idea.’

  ‘Well, think, Ellie. What had you been talking about? There must have been something that spooked him.’

  There was a pause. ‘There was a folder on Matt’s computer. In the recycling bin, like he’d meant to delete it. It was called Jodie Ellie … no, hold on. Powers Arden Cox, or something. I told him I’d seen it. I wanted to know what he knew.’

  ‘And what did he say to that?’

  ‘Nothing. He wouldn’t give anything away at all. I mean, I told him what Leon said, that the police can put deleted files back together, and that seemed to bug him. Then we talked about something else and then, well, he just vanished.’

  ‘And have you called him? Cox, since he ran off?’

  ‘Goes to voicemail. He’s turned it off.’

  ‘Listen.’ He forced calm into his voice now. ‘We need to talk. Where are you?’

  There was a pause. ‘Nearly home,’ she said. She sounded exhausted, lost. ‘I might have a walk somewhere. Have a coffee.’

  ‘OK, look. We need to talk. If you’re not going home, pick a café or something, then text me.’

  ‘All right.’

  Mae wasn’t convinced. ‘You’ll do that, yes?’

  She gave him her word, and as they said a sober goodbye, a second call came up on his screen.

  It was Rod Stevens. Mae glanced back up the stairs: the door into the clinic was still closed.

  ‘Twice in a day,’ Mae said as he answered. ‘What a treat.’

  ‘Yes well. Not that I’m trying to guilt trip you into actually coming out for a pint with me or anything, but listen. I found myself with a few spare microseconds and had a little dig on your gentleman.’

  ‘Cox?’ He had Mae’s full attention now. ‘And?’

  ‘Few hits of interest. He’s got this silver VW Transporter.’ Stevens reeled off the licence before getting to the meat. ‘He gets about quite a bit, spends a good deal of time in East Molesey, but parks it mostly in a garage block in Haringey.’ He gave the address, which Mae estimated to be maybe half a mile from the flat Cox rented above the bookies. ‘Also seems to frequent an address in N5, the more bucolic subdivisions thereof,’ Rod added.

  ‘Somewhere around Highbury Park?’

  A pause, then a disappointed grunt. ‘And here I was thinking my honorary DI chevrons would be in the post.’

  Mae laughed. ‘I’m here now,’ he explained. ‘It’s his clinic. Look, thanks mate, but I’ve got to—’

  ‘Oh no you don’t. That’s not even the headline.’

  ‘Go on, then.’

  ‘Last few weeks he’s been parked quite a lot on a few roads within a very small footprint in West 13, just off Windmill Road. Which is where the car ended up when we did our little retrotrace at kill-me-o’clock this morning.’ He was silent for a moment, before he said, ‘Ben? Are you there?’

  ‘Yeah. Yep, I’m here, mate,’ Mae said, trying to sound neutral while the adrenaline spiked holes through him. ‘Which roads are we talking about, exactly?’

  Rod cleared his throat and named a couple of streets. As he listed them, the place that formed their convergence point formed in Mae’s mental map.

  ‘And,’ Rod said, ‘right in the middle of those—’

  ‘Is Abson Street,’ Mae finished. ‘Holy shit.’

  ‘And not just that,’ Rod went on. ‘But look: the angle’s a bit awkward and I could be wrong, but I’m looking at a live feed and I’m pretty sure he’s there right now.’

  47.

  Ellie

  The waitress in the café brought my tea without a word and left
me in peace. It was warm in there, with the burble of a radio behind the counter playing innocuous pop. Mae’s text told me to wait, but after forty-five minutes he still hadn’t arrived. I was gathering my stuff to leave when I saw a police car pull up outside. Mae was driving, but instead of getting out the car I watched him take his shades off and squint through the café window. He scanned the place until he saw me, then turned in his seat, away from me, and said something to his passenger who then got out. It was a tall, muscular woman, full of that easy confidence that had always been so elusive to me. She jogged round the back of the car and slapped it twice on the roof. Mae flicked a switch near the rear-view mirror and the blue lights started to turn as he pulled away.

  Why wasn’t he coming in? What had happened?

  By the time the woman swung open the heavy glass door, I was on my feet. She came striding over and slid into the booth opposite me waving me back into my seat.

  ‘Have you found him? Matt? Has something happened?’ I asked her urgently.

  ‘Ellie,’ she said, extending a hand when we’d both sat. ‘Nice to meet you, I’m DC Catherine Ziegler, I work with DS Mae.’

  ‘Why is he not here himself?’ I wanted to know. ‘What’s going on, where was he going?’

  ‘There was some … urgent business to see to,’ she said. Then, as I drew back from her, panicked, she added, ‘it’s not Matt. We haven’t got whereabouts yet, I’m afraid. DS Mae sends his apologies, he’s, ugh, he’s got a lot of cases to deal with.’

  I didn’t believe her for a moment. She waved the approaching waitress away then leaned towards me, her hands clasped in the middle of the table between us.

  ‘He wanted me to have a chat with you anyway though, Ellie. I’m afraid there are a few things that are causing us alarm at this stage, and I need to have a really honest talk with you about that.’

  Siggy stayed quiet, but she was there, crouching. Not gloating, not judging me. I slid one hand over the other, and up the sleeve. Touching my fingertips against my bare skin. Needing the contact. The pain from my injured hand glowed secretly under the dressing, under the glove.

 

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