by Rod Reynolds
She carried on to the bathroom and set the shower running, then stood under the water, thinking about the call at the office, the man who’d hung up on her. If it was another journo fishing he would’ve kept her talking longer. She tried to recall the specifics: the man had hung up right when she’d asked if he got a look at the attackers. As if he was spooked. And before that…
Before that he’d asked for her name.
She snapped her eyes open. The shower curtain was moving. She whipped it across, revealing the empty room she knew would be there but needed to see anyway. Shampoo stung her eyes as water cascaded onto the lino, puddling by the toilet. She turned the taps off and snatched her towel from the rail to wipe her face. The curtain was still flapping, steam causing it to billow gently as it rose to the ceiling.
She left wet footprints on the carpet going back to her bedroom, brought up Google as soon as she got there. She typed ‘Lydia’ and ‘Examiner’ into the search box. There she was, right at the top of the results.
She killed the music and stepped back from the computer, her name on the screen seeming to pulse.
CHAPTER 7
Saturday night and the streets around London Bridge were teeming; there were crowds all along the approach to the station, and the narrow road outside the pub was a stationary file of Range Rovers and Uber Execs, queuing for the drop-off point outside The Shard. Stringer could make out the main entrance a hundred metres distant, the outside coated with white lights as if to give the impression the whole thing was a manifestation of pure incandescence – rather than an investment vehicle owned by a Gulf state even the Saudis called extremists.
A phone call earlier that afternoon established Lydia Wright’s shift started at midnight – an overeager colleague only too happy to provide details. His watch showed 11.00 p.m. now. He’d been there forty minutes already, making sure. Patience was a fundamental requirement of the job, but the sense that avenues were closing every second was putting his under strain. He’d spent a good part of the afternoon beating himself up for not staying on Wright when he’d had the chance that morning. But still the question of how to go about matters tore at him.
His phone vibrated, the same caller it’d been all day: Suslov’s man ignoring his instruction to wait for him to call them. He put it in his pocket, feeling it stop and then immediately start again.
He was stationed in a pub over the road from Wright’s building. A window seat looked out across to the lobby, the brightly lit reception as vivid as a TV screen from his vantage point. There was only one man visible at the desk: a black guy who looked barely out of his teens. Money or force could get Stringer past him easy enough, but the cameras were another proposition, as was the prospect of what waited for him on the thirteenth floor. Stepping out of the lift into an office full of witnesses was amateur hour.
His phone buzzed once more, a message this time. He took it out.
You will be collected from home at 10.00 a.m. Mr Suslov expects a positive debrief.
He swore under his breath. He started to type a reply, stopping and starting again. Finally he gave up, accepting that anything he said now would only make things worse.
He glanced at his watch without needing to, already doing the sums. Eleven hours to work with, less the travel time. More avenues closing off. He looked up at the building again; dim lighting showed on every floor, but the thirteenth glowed like a beacon, daring him to fuck things up worse than they already were.
He’d moved back onto the street by the time Angie showed up at ten-past. She brought supplies – a bottle of water and a packet of Mini Rolls. He ate them two at a time. He’d slept for one hour out of the last forty-eight and now it was starting to tell. If the cavalry had been anyone else, he’d have asked her to bring a gram of coke too.
‘How come your shit’s always middle of the night?’ she said.
‘You bring coffee?’
‘No – do you know any twenty-four-hour Starbucks?’
There was mischievous humour in her face, but that wasn’t what he was checking for. Without the glitter, she looked older than in the picture they’d used to create Jennifer Tully’s Facebook profile for the Carlton job, but even so he figured she couldn’t be older than early twenties. He’d asked her once, and she’d lied and said she was twenty-eight, so he’d never seen a point in repeating the exercise.
What he couldn’t see were blisters on her mouth or fingers, and her eyes were clear. She seemed level. She clocked him looking her over, so he made his thoughts explicit. ‘Good.’
She rolled her eyes. ‘Been clean four months. I told you, I’m done.’
He nodded, taking his wallet from his pocket, the old conflict rearing up in him again. When he’d first met Angie Cross she was the favoured trick and sometime punching bag for a corporate-insurance big shot with more habits than his salary or health could sustain. It made the man an easy target, and Stringer had taken him apart penny by penny over a period of months. Angie was an unintended consequence; the man had been her main source of income, the severity of the beatings she put up with at his hands evidence of her dependence on him. ‘Occupational hazard’ she’d called it, in answer to a question Stringer had never asked.
He’d found he couldn’t just walk away. He siphoned off what he could of the score to keep her afloat, but by the time he’d paid his clients, it was only a cut of a cut, so he’d resorted to finding jobs for her to do. The conflict came from what she might spend the money on; among the various physical and psychological scars the cunt had left her with, a crack habit was the most immediately debilitating – one he’d apparently nurtured to keep her coming back to him.
Stringer counted off five twenties and passed them to her. ‘I’ll go the same again when the job’s done.’
She took the notes and folded them. ‘You’re three quid short. Costcutter take the piss this time of night.’ She pointed to the empty tray of Mini Rolls in his hand. He flipped his wallet open again, but she was already putting the money into her jeans, giggling. ‘Don’t be a twat, I’m winding you up.’
He shook his head, trying not to smile, and opened the bottle of water to take a sip.
‘So … what’s the plan?’ she said.
‘Wait until she shows.’
‘Which is when?’
‘About now.’
She leaned forward to look up at the office tower. ‘How long you been here?’
He took a drink of water and watched the approach.
When he still didn’t answer, she said, ‘Isn’t there an easier way to do this? Can’t you get an address off the Internet or whatever?’
‘The fuck do I know about … I’m not a hacker.’
‘No, I know, but people sell this stuff, don’t they? Personal details and that. The dark web – I thought you’d have a contact.’
In fact he had two – but the moves he was making now were better kept out of those circles. ‘Someone with public profile’s a different story, but she’s a nobody. This is the quickest way.’ That part was true.
And then, there she was. She had her hair down, a different skirt but the same grey blazer on, and it had him wondering if it was her favourite, or just the only one Lydia Wright owned. Journalists earned next to nothing, and he wondered if that was a sign she’d be susceptible to a payoff if things went that way. He nudged Angie, but she was already following his gaze.
‘Pretty,’ she said.
True to form, Wright was walking towards her offices studying her phone, the light from the screen a white glow on her face. He couldn’t tell if it was the one he needed, but she had a handbag on her shoulder as well. He nodded his head in her direction. ‘We’re on.’
Angie took off in a fast walk without saying another word. He watched as she raised her phone to her ear and started jawing as if she was having a row with someone as she went. One strap of her bag was already off her shoulder.
Wright didn’t raise her eyes once. Angie was a good actress; she looked bac
k just before impact, yelling into her phone as if she was oblivious to anything but her own conversation. Then she steamed right into her.
Angie sent herself sprawling, the contents of her bag scattering all over the pavement, her phone skidding off the kerb into the gutter. She got to her knees quickly, hands flailing and mouthing apologies.
Lydia Wright had stayed on her feet but quickly crouched down to check on the other woman. Angie was on all fours now, making a mess of scrabbling for her belongings. Wright took her own bag off her shoulder and set it on the pavement so she could try to help.
Angie got to her phone and cranked up the histrionics, playing up a crack in the screen. A passing couple stopped to see what was going on, one of them gathering up lipsticks and coins for Angie, only adding to the confusion. He saw Lydia Wright say something to Angie, and then she moved around her to help pick up the rest of her stuff. She only turned her back on her own bag a second, and that’s when Angie dipped it.
After that, Angie found her composure with lightning speed. She grabbed up her stuff, apologised again, and moved off down the street. Stringer lost sight of her even before Wright had started walking again. He waited a second, watching the journalist as she looked around, dazed, before she carried on towards her office.
The car was two streets away, a shortcut around the back of Guy’s Hospital taking him there, dark pavements washed in blue when an ambulance passed behind him, making him quicken his pace. He hit the unlock button on the fob and as the car lights flashed, Angie stepped out from behind the bin shed of a low-rise council block over the road. She darted over and whipped the door open. ‘What took you so long?’ She slammed it shut before he could reply.
He climbed behind the wheel. ‘Got them?’
She put a purse and a mobile phone in the console, then handed him a second phone, the screen lit. ‘This one was unlocked, I kept it open.’
He picked up the iPhone Wright had been using coming down the street and recognised it as the white one she’d shown to the Tube staff at High Barnet station. ‘Good work.’
He went straight into the photo library. The most recent item was a video, dated to the day before. He pressed play.
Angie started to say something but he didn’t catch it. Jamie Tan was on the screen, the image of him fighting for his life shutting everything else out.
CHAPTER 8
Lydia waited for the lift in the empty reception area. All the marble and chrome had an oppressive quality at night; coupled with the uncharacteristic silence, it made the place sombre and ominous. Colliding with the drunk woman outside played into it; the initial shock had passed, but her nerves were still jangling.
The lift doors opened and she stepped inside and pressed the button for the thirteenth floor. As they closed she reached into her bag for her phone.
It was gone. She set the bag down and spread it wide, digging right to the bottom. She remembered having her phone when she left the station, had it in her hand when…
Her work phone was gone too, and her purse. ‘Shit. Shit, shit, shit…’ She jammed the button to go back to the ground floor, just as the doors opened on the thirteenth.
She stepped out and then back in again, caught in two minds until the door obstruction alarm sounded. She stabbed the button for the ground again, holding it until the doors closed. She couldn’t think what the woman looked like. Dark hair, dark jeans, dark eyes…
The lift opened and she ran out across reception, drawing a look from the night man on the desk. ‘You alright, miss?’
She carried on through the exit to the street, warm air enveloping her as soon as she stepped out of the aircon. She stood there, looking towards London Bridge station, then the other way towards The Shard. There were people drinking outside the pub opposite, chatter and laughter carrying over the queue of traffic, every other girl with dark hair and dark jeans. She took a few paces towards the Tube and stopped, turning around the other way as if she was unravelling. People swarming around her in either direction, oblivious.
‘Fuck.’
She called the police from her desk. She changed her email, Facebook and Twitter passwords while she was holding for someone to answer.
She flushed when the first thing they asked was if she’d set up the Find iPhone app; another piece of life admin that she’d never got round to. They gave her a crime reference number and advised her to check her home contents insurance to see if she was covered. They said they’d look into it, but that they had to be realistic about their chances of finding the thief. ‘Your purse might turn up in a hedge or a skip in a couple of days – they normally only keep phones and cash. So it’s worth keeping your eyes open. Cancel your cards anyway, of course.’
She’d done that even before calling them.
She sent an email to IT, reporting her work phone stolen, and went to the kitchen to make coffee. Chris Barton wandered over from the sports desk. ‘I’ll have a brew if you’re making one.’
She took another mug out of the cupboard and threw a teabag into it.
‘Everything alright?’
‘Just had my bloody phones nicked.’
‘What? Where?’
‘Right outside. And my purse.’
‘Jesus.’ He folded his arms and leaned against the counter. ‘Druggie or kids was it?’
She picked up the kettle and poured. ‘Don’t know. I think just drunk.’
‘You hurt or anything?’
She shook her head. ‘I feel like an idiot. The girl bumped into me and dropped her shit all over the place. I was trying to help her.’
He tutted, reaching for his tea and looking at something on his phone. ‘Nightmare. You must be shaken up.’
‘I’m fine. Just pissed off.’
He took a sip and turned to go, fully concentrating on his mobile now. ‘Well let me know if there’s anything I can do.’
She rinsed the teaspoon under the tap, staring at his back. ‘You’re welcome.’
She took her coffee back to her desk and spilled it setting it down. She flopped onto her chair and folded her arms, letting her head fall back and staring at the ceiling.
The video, the phone call, now this. Did linking the three make her paranoid, or was it paranoia making her think like that in the first place? She unlocked her PC and it came to life on her inbox, at least twenty emails unopened. One stood out but only because the subject line was all caps: KARDASHIAN SCOOP OF THE YEAR – WATCH NOW.
She ignored it and brought up Facebook, looking at Paulina Dobriska’s profile again. No reply to her friend request or her DM. She went over to the Finchley Network’s page; it was a closed group, but the information listed it as having over three thousand members. She hovered over the Join button, but the thought of jumping through more hoops just to be able to look took her irritation over the top. Why the hell did the group need to be private anyway? Instead she sent a DM to Tammy: Can you send me your phone number asap pls?
Tammy answered after a few seconds: ? You lost your phone?
Lydia typed a one-word response. Mugged.
The reply was instant. WTF? 07958 824154.
Lydia snatched up her landline and punched the numbers in.
‘Lydia? Are you—’
‘I’m fine, I’m fine. Some bitch pickpocketed me while I was trying to help her.’
‘Christ, I’m sorry. Did they get much?’
‘Purse and phones. It was right outside the fucking office.’
‘You’re not hurt?’
‘No.’
‘Oh thank god. Do you think it could be connected?’
‘No.’ Lydia rubbed her face. ‘I don’t know. Did you speak to anyone else about this?’
‘Apart from the police, only you.’
Lydia cradled the phone with her shoulder and pressed her knuckles into her thigh. ‘Listen, I want to have a look inside the Finchley Network. Can I borrow your Facebook login? I don’t want to waste time trying to get them to let me join the group.’
She entered the login details. When Tammy’s newsfeed came up, it felt like she was sneaking around someone else’s house. ‘It’s like you said, Paulina Dobriska’s the only witness to this that we know of. There’s got to be a way to find her.’ She clicked on the Messenger icon and saw two DMs Tammy had sent trying to make contact. The second made mention of the video. Dobriska hadn’t replied to either, and somehow the silence felt ominous. ‘You forgot about someone.’
‘What do you mean?’ Tammy said.
‘When you said this was just between us and the police.’
‘Who?’
‘Paulina Dobriska knows you’re on her case as well.’
When Tammy hung up, Lydia clicked on the groups tab and went into the Finchley Network. A search for instances of Paulina Dobriska’s name threw up two results, neither promising – a comment about a traffic scheme and a recommendation for a local dentist. She clicked on the second and perked up when she saw the context. The original commenter was asking for recommendations, and someone had then tagged Dobriska into the thread – just her name as a comment, no explanation, as if it would be something she’d naturally be interested in. Dobriska had replied with the name of a clinic shortly after.