Read the book: «The Runaway»

Table of Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Four

Chapter Twenty-Five

Chapter Twenty-Six

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Chapter Thirty

Chapter Thirty-One

Chapter Thirty-Two

Chapter Thirty-Three

Chapter Thirty-Four

Chapter Thirty-Five

Keep Reading …

Acknowledgements

Also by Ali Harper

About the Author

About the Publisher

Chapter One

I was bent double when she pushed open the office door, my sides aching so much I thought I was going to wet myself. A moment before, Aunt Edie had been up the set of stepladders, brushing away the cobwebs in the cornices with a bright blue and purple plastic feather duster. Jo had made some joke about how it was fortunate we didn’t have any men in the office as the sight of Aunt Edie’s pop socks would drive them wild, and Aunt Edie had swiped at her with the feather duster. The steps had toppled, Aunt Edie grabbed hold of the filing cabinet and the pot plant on top of it got knocked over, landing on Jo’s Afro. Jo was spitting out polystyrene balls and dry compost when the bell chimed and this young woman, with dreads and a silver cannabis leaf nose stud, marched into our office.

Aunt Edie was the first to recover. ‘Welcome to No Stone Unturned,’ she said, clambering down from the filing cabinet. ‘The,’ – she rhymed the word with bee – ‘the most successful private investigation bureau in the north of England.’ She pushed past me, stuffing the feather duster behind Jo’s chair as she bustled across the room. ‘Edith Caudwell, Office Manager.’

Aunt Edie had been installed as receptionist only the week before, having swapped her terraced house in Accrington for a housing association flat down the road from our offices in Royal Park. ‘Are you missing someone, pet?’

‘My boyfriend,’ the woman said, her eyes settling on Aunt Edie. ‘I don’t know where he is and I need to find him. Like now.’

She held the left sleeve of her rainbow-coloured top in her right hand, twisting the material. I glanced across at Jo and noticed a polystyrene ball clinging to her eyebrow. I was about to point it out when our visitor’s face crumpled and her shoulders sagged, like someone had let the wind out of her.

‘Oh, now. Don’t you go getting yourself worked up,’ said Aunt Edie, putting her arm around the woman’s shoulders. They were almost the same height, which is no height at all. ‘Come on, take a seat and tell us all about it. Did you read about these two,’ – she turned and pushed Jo’s DMs off the desk – ‘in the papers? If anyone can find your missing fella, they can.’

I pulled a face at Aunt Edie. Our first case had gone well, but if this woman hired us to find her missing boyfriend, it would make her only our second client. My lungs buzzed at the thought, although it was early days and she didn’t look like she could afford shoes, let alone private investigators. However, if I’ve learned one thing from living in this part of Leeds, it’s not to judge a book by its cover. Trustafarians, Jo calls them. Kids that get off on looking poverty-stricken while their parents run Barclays.

‘We’ll go through to the back room,’ I said, having finally got control of my vocal cords. ‘Tea would be great, Aun— er, Edie. Would you mind?’

Aunt Edie pouted. I knew she itched to get the details, but she was the receptionist, something Jo and I had gone to great lengths to explain when we agreed to let her work here. Tea-making went with the territory.

‘I’m Lee and this is Jo,’ I said to the woman. ‘What’s your name?’

She held her hand over her eyes, like we might not notice her crying. ‘Nikki.’

She didn’t volunteer a surname and I didn’t push it. Jo grabbed a new client file and I led the way to our interview room. It’s tiny, the proportions not helped by the dark laminate panelling that lines the walls. We’ve got a card table with a green felt top, three wooden chairs and a punch bag strapped to the ceiling in the far corner. ‘Take a seat, Nikki,’ I said. ‘And take a minute. We’ve plenty of time.’

She sank into a chair and held her head in her hands.

‘Fag?’ asked Jo, tugging a pack of Marlboro Lights from the front pocket of her dungarees and taking her own seat at the table.

‘Please.’ A hand snaked out, with silver rings on every finger, even her thumbs. ‘Oh, shit, no. I can’t. I’ve given up.’ Her head bowed. ‘Why the fuck anyone …?’

Her voice trailed off, or maybe I just didn’t hear the end of her sentence. I swallowed and took the last seat, the one across from Nikki. I dragged it a little to one side, set it at an angle. Jo opened the file, glanced at me and cleared her throat.

‘So, probably best to start by taking some details. Nikki what?’

‘Cooper-Clarke,’ she said. She put her hands on the table and sat up a little. ‘With an e.’

‘With an e.’ Jo raised an eyebrow as she wrote on the form. ‘And your boyfriend’s missing?’

Nikki nodded, and I heard the sound of tinkling bells. It took me a moment to trace the source – Nikki wore silver rings in her dreads. I scooped my hair back off my face and tied it up with a spare band I had round my wrist.

‘Let’s start with the easy ones,’ said Jo. ‘What’s his name?’

Nikki wiped her eyes on the hem of her top. Questions are good. We’re trained from childhood to want to provide answers. ‘Matt,’ she said. ‘Matt Williams.’

‘That’s great,’ I said, in what I hoped was an encouraging voice. Jo frowned at me. I interlaced my fingers, let my hands rest on the table. It felt weird, like I was praying. I unlaced them and folded my arms across my chest.

Jo kept a stream of easy to answer questions coming – occupation, phone number, height, weight, next of kin, date of birth, star sign – until Nikki’s shoulders had fallen an inch or so and she’d lifted her gaze to meet Jo’s. ‘Pisces,’ she said and tried to smile. ‘Creative genius.’

‘Frustrated alcoholics,’ said Jo as she glanced at me and shifted in her chair.

‘I’m Virgo,’ I said.

‘When,’ said Jo, ignoring me and speaking to Nikki, ‘did you last see him?’

‘Saturday.’

Jo checked the calendar we had tacked to the wall. ‘The eighth?’

Nikki shrugged.

‘What happened?’ I asked. ‘When you last saw him?’

‘Nothing,’ said Nikki, turning to me. Her eyes were almost violet and I wondered whether she wore coloured contact lenses. ‘Nothing,’ she said again, as if that was the most frustrating thing. ‘It was just ordinary. Friday night, we went to The Hyde, played some pool. He stayed at mine. I got up Saturday, went to the Union. That’s the last time I saw him.’

‘You’re a student.’ Jo raised an eyebrow at me.

‘English Lit.,’ she said. ‘Saw the article about you in The Gryphon.’

‘And Matt’s a student too?’

‘MSc.’ The bells tinkled again. ‘Actually, can I have that fag?’ she asked Jo.

‘How was he when you left?’ I asked.

‘Asleep.’

‘And no one’s seen him since?’ asked Jo, as she pushed the pack of Marlboros across the table.

Nikki rested her hand on it but didn’t pick it up. ‘His mates have,’ she said.

‘Go on,’ said Jo, and I didn’t know whether she meant to tell Nikki to take a fag or to carry on speaking.

‘We were supposed to be going to a party on Saturday night – but I didn’t go coz I felt like shit. Ha.’ She forced out what I think was supposed to be a laugh but sounded more like a shriek. I watched her fingers tremble over the cigarettes. ‘I spoke to him on the phone that afternoon, asked if he fancied coming to mine instead, but he wanted to go. So he went. No one’s seen him since.’

‘He disappeared at the party?’

‘Tuff said he left him there.’

‘Tuff?’

‘His best mate.’

‘Where was this party?’

‘Lincolnshire.’

‘Lincolnshire?’ Geography’s never been my strong point but that struck me as a long way to go for a night out.

Nikki’s hand left the cigarette packet and picked at the tassels on the edge of her sleeves. ‘Sunday afternoon, I went round to Matt’s. Tuff was there. I asked where Matty was and Tuff was like really cagey.’

‘Matty went to the party with Tuff?’ Jo asked as she continued to scribble the information down.

‘Whose party was it?’ I asked.

‘A free party,’ she said.

‘You mean, like a rave?’ Jo asked.

‘Wasn’t that the nineties?’ I said.

Jo pulled a face at me. ‘Whereabouts in Lincolnshire?’

‘Don’t know.’ She picked up the cigarettes and extracted one from the packet. ‘A field somewhere.’

I glanced at Jo and she stuck out her bottom lip. I’ve known her long enough to know what that look means. Jo’s one of the most open-minded people I’ve ever met, except when it comes to men. Truth is, since she caught Andy, her ex, in bed with another woman, she’s got about as much faith in men as she has in the Tory government. Not that I can talk. But I know my failure with the opposite sex is down to me, not them.

Jo put her pen down and pulled her fingers through her hair. A drop more compost fell out. ‘How long you been seeing him?’ she asked.

‘A year. Nearly.’

‘Have you thought,’ – Jo paused and passed Nikki a lighter – ‘have you thought maybe he’s dumped you?’

Nikki lit her cigarette, her eyes half-closed against the smoke. She didn’t speak.

Jo tried again. ‘How would you describe your relationship?’

The questions were getting too complex for Nikki. I saw a fresh batch of tears threaten. ‘He hasn’t dumped me,’ she said.

‘Wonder where Edie is with that tea?’ I made a half-hearted attempt to get up from the table, but Jo glared at me.

‘Why hasn’t he rung anyone?’ Nikki screwed up her nose and exhaled the smoke from her lungs. ‘His phone goes straight to voicemail.’

‘Does he have a job?’ asked Jo.

‘No, but he’s missed his final tutorial. He’s so close to finishing, why disappear the week his dissertation is due to be handed in?’

‘Maybe that’s why he’s disappeared.’ Jo glanced at me again and this time the look was serious. ‘Maybe the pressure was getting to him. Does he suffer from depression, low mood, anxiety?’

Nikki’s violet eyes flashed. ‘He hasn’t killed himself, if that’s what you’re thinking.’

Jo pressed her fingertips down on the edge of the table, making her knuckles crack. ‘Exclusive?’ asked Jo. ‘Or open?’

‘Exclusive,’ said Nikki, without a moment’s hesitation. She pushed the lighter back across the table to Jo. ‘He’s lovely. Ask anyone. He’s—’

‘You can’t think of a single reason why he might have needed to get away?’

‘No. I mean, at least, no, I don’t think so.’

I felt sorry for her, as I watched her trawl her memory banks, because I’ve been there. I know what it’s like to try and find a clue, something you may have missed, a sentence that with hindsight had a different meaning, an action that foreshadowed subsequent events.

‘I don’t think so,’ she said again. ‘I wanted him to stay in with me. He needed a night out.’

‘Have you been to the police?’

‘No.’ She turned to me and I sensed she was glad of the distraction. ‘I didn’t want to get anyone into trouble. That’s why I came to you.’

‘Trouble?’

‘Drugs,’ Jo said, folding her arms across her chest.

Of course. It was only Wednesday. If this guy had gone to a rave on Saturday night it was possible he hadn’t come down yet. We’d probably find him in a field, telling a tree how much he loved everyone.

Nikki rubbed her face with her left hand before speaking. ‘He’s not really a drugs person.’

I leaned closer to her, inhaled some of her second-hand smoke. Its warmth crept down my throat. ‘What does that mean?’

‘Well, he does. Sometimes. But, I don’t know …’ She leant back in the chair. ‘I’m worried about him.’

‘Maybe the party isn’t over,’ said Jo.

‘It’s been four days,’ said Nikki, her voice rising.

‘You tried his family?’

‘I don’t know where they live.’

‘You’ve been together a year and you don’t know where his family live?’

‘I know it’s Somerset.’

‘He never took you to meet them?’ I was surprised at that. Not that I’d ever been to visit a boyfriend’s parents, but I’d never had a year-long relationship either. As I’ve probably already said, I’m not the relationship type. And one of the reasons I’ve never had a year-long relationship is because I don’t ever want to meet someone’s parents. Or, more to the point, have someone want to meet mine.

‘They don’t get on,’ Nikki said but I got the feeling she wasn’t happy with the situation.

Jo stretched out her fingers. ‘Best thing you can do is relax,’ she said. ‘Men are like dogs—’

Nikki wrinkled her nose. ‘I need to find him now.’

‘Dogs,’ said Jo, crossing her arms behind her head. ‘Simple needs. The trick is not to—’

‘You don’t understand,’ said Nikki, grinding out her half-smoked cigarette into the ashtray. ‘I’ve not got time to—’

‘What’s the rush?’

As the question came out of my mouth I realized I already knew the answer. ‘You’re pregnant,’ I said.

She nodded and another wave of tears welled, smudging her eyeliner before spilling down her cheeks.

‘And Matt knows,’ said Jo. I knew from the tone of her voice what she was thinking.

‘No.’ Nikki shook her head and a tear flew from her cheek and landed on Jo’s new client interview form. I watched it absorb into the paper. ‘He doesn’t know. I didn’t even know. I only did the test the day before yesterday. It sounds stupid, but I never thought. I didn’t feel right Friday, thought I’d eaten something bad. Felt sick all weekend. Then Monday, I was watching Jeremy Kyle, and this girl with the most awful mother … well, anyway, it just hit me. I went to the chemist, got a test and two minutes later there’s these two blue fucking lines.’

‘How pregnant?’ Jo asked.

‘Who can remember the first day of their last period? I mean, Jesus.’ She paused and I felt the rage radiating from her.

I was lost, but fascinated. Like when you pass a car wreck on the motorway. I didn’t want to look but I couldn’t help myself.

‘How pregnant?’ said Jo again.

‘His birthday.’ She let the words hang in the air.

‘So,’ said Jo, re-reading the form, as I tried to remember whether Pisces was February or March. ‘What’s that, two months?’

I glanced at Jo. I know very little about pregnancy but I know there’s a cut-off point, when it all becomes a definite rather than a possibility. From the look of Nikki’s wide eyes, that point wasn’t too far away.

As if to reiterate my thoughts she said in a quiet voice, ‘I’ve not got long.’

The unspoken words hung between us all. I didn’t envy her. I dodge decisions whenever possible. This one was inescapable. Not deciding was a decision all in itself.

She seemed to sense my sympathy because she grabbed my arm and her eyes bored into mine. ‘I can’t do this, not without him. My mum’s going to flip her wig. And my dad …’ She didn’t finish the sentence, crumpled like a wet cardboard box. I wanted to say something comforting but I couldn’t think of the words.

Aunt Edie chose that moment to crash through the door.

I stood up, bashing my knee against the table leg. I took the tray from Aunt Edie and set it on the table in front of us. Aunt Edie passed a box of tissues to Nikki as I hovered by the door, my back to the wall. The room felt smaller than normal.

I try not to think about the past. Nothing good comes from raking over coals or making plans for an unpredictable future. There is only the here and the now. But I couldn’t stop the images flooding my brain. Another young woman I once knew, who didn’t mean to get pregnant.

Fiona.

My half-sister.

A sister I didn’t know I had until four or so years ago, when I first set out to find my dad, a man who’d disappeared the day I was born, a man I’d never met. A man I now wish I’d never met, pray I’ll never meet again. The man that haunts my nightmares. It’s his face I see when I jolt awake in the pitch-dark, panicked and drenched in cold, wet sweat.

I wasn’t there for my seventeen-year-old sister when she discovered she was pregnant. I wasn’t there when she had to break the news to our father. I wasn’t there to protect her. I’ll pay the price for that as long as I live.

I watched Aunt Edie cluck around, handing out mugs of builder-strength tea, and knew that it didn’t matter whether Nikki Cooper-Clarke could pay for our services. It didn’t matter that Jo was convinced Matt had done a runner because somehow he’d sensed his girlfriend was up the duff. I knew there and then that I’d go and find him and I’d force him to face up to the consequences of his actions. Decision implies rational consideration of the facts. Choice is a leap of faith. In that moment, I chose.

We’d got our second case.

Chapter Two

I mumbled something about having to make a phone call and left the room. When the three of them came out, a few minutes later, I was behind the desk, pretending to type up case files. As Nikki left, her cheeks mascara-streaked, I asked her to bring in a photograph of Matt – the most recent she could find. She nodded and I promised her we’d give it everything we had. For an awful moment, I thought she was going to hug me, but the desk blocked the space between us. ‘We bill by the hour,’ I said.

‘I’ve paid the deposit.’ She gestured towards Jo, who, I noticed for the first time, held a wad of £20 notes in her left hand.

*

‘Poor lamb,’ Aunt Edie declared from the kitchenette, once Nikki had gone. ‘Still, least it’s not like it was in my day. She’d be shipped off faster than you could say, “Up the duff without a paddle.” Never knew who was going to disappear next. It was like those murder-mystery parties where they pick you off, one at a time.’

‘Let’s start with his mate,’ I said to Jo. ‘Clearly Nikki thinks he knows something.’

I googled the address Nikki had given us for Matt, The Turnways – up near the cricket ground. ‘No time like the present.’ I grabbed my jacket from the peg by the door. ‘Come on.’

Jo drove the company van as I gave directions. We found a nice little residential street in the heart of Headingley. At least, it was probably a nice little residential street once upon a time, before students had overrun the area and landlords disregarded their obligation to keep properties in a good state of repair. The houses were identical, substantial semi-detacheds, arranged in a gently curving semi-circle. Jo parked up and we knocked on the door, waited a few minutes, knocked some more. No answer. I patted my jacket pockets for a pen.

‘A note?’

Jo wrinkled her nose. ‘Let’s keep the element of surprise. Least till we know what we’re dealing with.’

‘What then?’ I glanced up, spotted an open window on the first floor. An open sash window. No window easier to get through, even without my ironing-board physique.

Jo caught me scoping it out and shook her head. ‘Give him a chance. We’ll come back.’ She left the garden and strode towards the van. ‘Let’s try the uni.’

*

We detoured via the office to drop off the van – getting into the University of Leeds’ car park is harder than getting into Glastonbury. ‘Nikki gave us the name of his tutor, didn’t she? I’ll get the form.’

‘I’ve had a Martin Blink on the blower,’ said Aunt Edie as soon as I stepped through the door. I keep telling her she watches too many cop shows.

Martin Blink. I grinned. If it wasn’t for Martin Blink, Jo might be on remand in Armley nick, waiting for some pen-pusher to decide whether self-defence is now an offence. ‘What’s he want?’

‘Says he’s got a case for you,’ Aunt Edie said in a tone that suggested she had trouble believing him. ‘A suicide.’

‘We’re a missing persons’ bureau.’ I hung my jacket back on its peg. The day was warmer than I’d realized. ‘What we going to do with a suicide?’

‘Wouldn’t give any details,’ Aunt Edie continued. ‘Like I might not have the wherewithal to take a proper message.’ She tutted and balled up the piece of paper in the palm of her hand. ‘Insisted on coming to see you.’ She took aim at the wastepaper bin next to my desk. ‘I told him we can’t have people dropping in willy-nilly. I told him, you’re both busy women.’

The ball of paper flew through the air and landed dead centre in the bin.

‘Not that busy, Aunt Edie.’

‘He said you’d make time for him.’ She raised eyebrows at his temerity. ‘I said, “Oh, will they now? And who might you be?” Bloody cheek.’

‘He’s the journalist I told you—’

‘Retired journalist. Talks like he’s part of the team. Well, I told him, I don’t care who you are, you have to have an appointment.’

I narrowed my eyes. ‘And did you make him one?’

Jo pushed open the door. ‘Come on,’ she said, tapping at an imaginary watch on her wrist.

‘Martin Blink wants to see us,’ I said.

‘Ace. Let’s go.’

‘He needs reminding that this is a female detective agency, isn’t it?’ Aunt Edie looked to Jo for support.

I’ve given up trying to explain the difference between a detective agency and a missing persons’ bureau to Aunt Edie. At times I think she’s deliberately trying to misunderstand.

‘That’s right, Edie,’ said Jo. ‘No persons with dangly bits will ever work in this office.’ She made a diagonal cross over her left breast as she spoke. ‘You know what it’s like. Let one in and they’ll all want to start waving them around.’

I frowned at Jo. I put my hands on my hips and tried to adopt a managerial tone. ‘Did you make him an appointment?’

‘In the diary.’ Aunt Edie sniffed.

‘When?’

‘Half past four.’

‘Today?’ I glanced at the clock.

‘I squeezed him in.’ She switched on her computer screen and took a seat at the desk. ‘Not that he was grateful.’

*

It’s only a ten-minute walk from our offices to the uni, through Hyde Park, the decompression chamber between city centre and student-ghetto. Jo found the Earth and Environment building on a map of the campus while I checked the form. Nikki had given us the name of Matt’s tutor – Professor Kenrick, or Kennick.

We found the name – Kendrick – on a tutorial list; office was on the eleventh floor. It was already two o’clock in the afternoon and it appeared that the university had done its main business of the day and was winding down to home time. We passed several empty seminar rooms as we marched along the corridors, reading the names on the doors. We climbed another flight of stairs and encountered an identical set of corridors before we found the room we were looking for. I glanced through the window. A woman with short hair, hunched over a desk.

Jo knocked and pushed open the door. ‘Professor Kendrick?’

The professor glanced up from her desk, and the familiar feeling of being a schoolgirl in the firing line washed through me. I braced myself for her displeasure at being disturbed. She looked us both up and down.

‘You’ve found me.’ She placed her pen down on the pile of paper in front of her and pushed her glasses up into her short, spiky hair. ‘And provided a welcome distraction. What can I do you for?’

‘We’re looking for Matt Williams.’

The professor inclined her head. She was younger than I first thought. Perhaps not even forty. ‘Popular chap.’

‘We’re private investigators,’ said Jo. ‘We need to talk to him.’

The academic stood up and I realized how tall she was. Impossible to miss, she must have been over six foot. In the small room she took on almost comedy proportions.

‘I do beg your pardon. I thought you were students.’ She brushed down her rumpled suit trousers with one hand as she held the other out to shake Jo’s. ‘Private investigators. Fascinating.’

‘Thanks,’ said Jo.

‘How long have you been in this line of business?’

‘Long enough,’ said Jo.

‘Do come in, and close the door. If I move this pile of papers,’ she grabbed a stack from a chair in the corner of her shoebox-sized room, ‘you’ll even be able to have a seat.’

Jo didn’t move and as I was stood behind her, I didn’t either. The professor didn’t appear to notice as she continued to rearrange the boxes and piles of paper. ‘So, Matthew. Matty, I believe the girls call him. Obviously, I’m too old to be swayed by his charms, but not so old I can’t appreciate why he causes such a stir.’ She turned to smile at us both.

‘Do you know where we might find him?’ asked Jo.

‘Afraid not. Haven’t seen him, not recently.’

‘It’s rather urgent,’ said Jo.

She finally cleared both chairs and crossed to the doorframe. Jo moved aside to let her pass, which put Jo deeply inside the room. I followed, inching past the professor, straining to avoid body contact. After glancing out into the corridor, Professor Kendrick closed the door and returned to perch on the edge of her desk. She folded her hands across her knees. ‘Take a seat.’

Jo sank into one so I took the other. This gave Professor Kendrick an even bigger advantage and she loomed over us. Her white shirt tucked in at the waist, emphasizing her slender frame. ‘Now, what’s this about?’

‘Matt’s missing,’ I said. ‘No one’s seen him since a party on Saturday night.’

‘Then I suggest you talk to admin and see whether they’d be willing to contact his parents. You can leave—’

‘We’ve spoken to his mother,’ Jo lied.

Professor Kendrick raised her voice and continued speaking as if Jo hadn’t interrupted, ‘Your number with me, and if I see him, I would certainly be happy to pass it on. Although I suspect he may be in hiding.’

‘In hiding? Who from?’

She pulled her glasses down to the brim of her nose. ‘From whom?’ She peered at me over the top of the frames. ‘Well, from me I suppose. It’s the deadline for his dissertation. We were supposed to be having a final run over it on Monday afternoon and he didn’t show. Not like him, I must say. I intend to email him.’

I didn’t like the feeling of claustrophobia that had settled over me as soon as Professor Kendrick had closed the door. I like always to know my escape route, and as we were on the eleventh floor, she’d just sealed the only real option.

‘Any concerns about his work up until this point?’ asked Jo.

‘No, he’s a committed student. One of my best. More or less on target, as on target as any of us ever are. But he’s not the first student to go AWOL in the month running up to submission. What did his mother say?’

‘She hasn’t heard from him,’ Jo said, and even I wouldn’t have known she was making this up. ‘That’s why we’re here.’

The professor stuck out her bottom lip. ‘She’s hired a firm of private investigators to find him? As far as I’m aware she hasn’t contacted the university. I’m his supervisor, I’d expect that message to come to me.’

I pretended my interest had been caught by the poster about climate change pinned to the wall.

‘You said he was popular,’ said Jo. ‘What did you mean by that?’

Professor Kendrick’s grey hair fell forward to partially obscure her glasses. She flicked it away with the back of her hand. ‘You’re not the only ones looking for him.’

‘Other people are looking for him?’ I asked.

‘Other women.’

‘How many other women?’

She smiled. ‘I am perhaps exaggerating for dramatic effect. Forgive me, a knee-jerk reaction to reading the musings of my undergrads.’ She nodded at the pile of papers that towered on her desk.

Jo raised a single eyebrow. ‘How many?’

‘Undergrads?’

‘Women looking for Matt.’

‘Two, that I’m aware of.’

‘Of whom you are aware?’ I couldn’t resist.

‘Who?’ asked Jo, shooting me a look that left me in no doubt I should shut up. I went back to the poster.

‘I’m not sure it’s any of my business.’

I’d had enough of the professor, and I worried the oxygen supply was depleting. I’d never survive working in this rabbit hutch. Books lined the walls, giving it an underground bunker-like feel, despite its high-rise situation. ‘People are worried,’ I said.

‘What did they look like? The two women looking for him?’ asked Jo.

‘One had hair like rattlesnakes.’

‘Dreads?’ said Jo. She turned to me. ‘Nikki.’

‘Nikki?’ asked the professor.

‘His girlfriend.’

Professor Kendrick nodded. ‘I’ve seen her hanging about before.’

‘What about the other one?’

‘Well, I’m not one to gossip, and there might not be anything in this.’

‘We’re professional private investigators,’ said Jo. She showed our police-issued identity card. ‘It’s not gossip, it’s helping with our enquiries. Anything you tell us will be treated in the strictest confidence.’

The professor’s brow creased as she took in the badge. ‘The police are involved?’

‘They’ve been informed,’ Jo lied again.

‘And?’

‘They share your view – nothing too ominous in a student disappearing the week before his dissertation is due.’

Professor Kendrick put Jo’s ID down on her desk. ‘There was an incident. A strange incident. Not strange, that’s too strong. Was it yesterday? What’s today?’

‘Wednesday.’

‘Yes, must have been. I wasn’t in Monday, not in the morning. Yesterday morning, Sally from the office came to see me to say she’d caught a young woman taking mail from the pigeonholes. The student pigeonholes. She’d asked said young woman what she was doing, and, she said, the woman had seemed,’ Kendrick paused, searching for the right word, ‘flustered.’

‘Did she stop her taking the mail?’

‘Of course. Not that any of it would be of any interest. Hell, it’s not of interest to me and I wrote most of it. The system is mainly used for hard-copy submissions and leaflets about forthcoming symposiums, information we can’t email. To be honest, hardly anyone uses them anymore. I can’t think why on earth—’

‘It was Matt’s pigeonhole?’

‘She may have thought she’d find a timetable, perhaps.’

‘Where’s Sally now?’

‘Probably her office.’

Jo got up, filling the air space between me and the professor. I wondered again whether there was enough oxygen in the room to support three people. If anyone was going to keel over, like the sacrificial canary in the coal mines, it was going to be me.

‘Can we talk to her?’ Jo asked.

‘Follow me.’

*

Sally was housed in a much bigger office, but she shared it with at least three others.

‘Could we have a word, please,’ said Professor Kendrick, indicating to the middle-aged woman to step outside the room.

‘These two young women are private investigators,’ the professor said to Sally once we were all standing together in the corridor. ‘They want to know more about the woman you saw interfering with the pigeonholes yesterday.’

Sally’s cheeks reddened but I didn’t read anything in to it. The smallest hint of official enquiry can cause some people to colour up.

‘I didn’t recognize her so I asked her what she was doing.’

‘Professor Kendrick says you thought she was flustered.’

‘She struck me that way.’

‘What did she take?’

‘Nothing. I didn’t let her. I asked her what she was doing and she said she was on the wrong floor. She left very quickly.’

‘Can we see the pigeonholes?’

Sally glanced at the professor.

The professor shrugged. ‘Well, they are open mailboxes. We’ve never considered locking them – which goes to show how uncontentious the contents are.’

‘They’re this way,’ Sally said, and we trooped round the corner to where the lifts were.

Outside a room that bore a plaque stating ‘Earth and Earth Sciences Department’, was a grid of shelves – four wide and about a dozen high – each one about the size of a shoebox. Each box had a name tag. Matt Williams was easy to find – the last one on the right-hand side.

‘Are you sure it was Matt’s pigeonhole she was interested in?’

‘Yes,’ said Sally. ‘It was the bottom one.’

‘Can I?’ I crouched so I was level with Matt’s mail.

‘It goes without saying I’m not condoning such behaviour,’ Professor Kendrick said.

I scooped up a handful of paper. The professor was right. Flyers about upcoming conferences, speakers from foreign countries coming to lecture, discount offers on everything from books to nightclubs. I frowned at Jo and handed the pile to her.

‘Are you sure she was taking mail?’ I turned back to Sally. ‘Perhaps she was leaving him a note?’

Sally pulled a face as she considered what I’d just said. ‘I didn’t think of that. But if she was, why didn’t she just say? Instead of running off?’

Jo sifted through the papers. And sure enough, there amongst the bumf I caught a glimpse of A4 lined paper, torn from a book and folded in half. I snatched it and opened it up.

Professor Kendrick peered over my shoulder as I read:

Matt. I’ll be in Old Bar, Thursday two o’clock. Be there. I mean it.

The note wasn’t signed but there was a letter at the end of it. The letter ‘S’. No kiss, not underlined, just an S and a full stop, all in purple biro.

‘When did you see this woman?’ Jo asked Sally.

‘Yesterday, just before lunch.’

I turned to the professor. ‘What’s he like, Matt?’

‘Bright. Well-bred. Popular.’ She pushed her glasses back up her nose. ‘I ought to inform administration.’

I wasn’t keen to get any kind of authority involved, not until we knew what we were dealing with. ‘He might just have had a row with his girlfriend.’

‘And you said his parents are aware?’

‘If there’s another woman on the scene,’ said Jo, waving the piece of paper in the air, ‘he might be in hiding from his girlfriend. Case she breaks his legs.’

‘The eternal curse of good-looking men.’ Professor Kendrick shrugged her shoulders. ‘I imagine.’

‘Of course, the girl you saw might not have left this note. It’s not dated.’ I turned back to Sally. ‘What did she look like?’

Professor Kendrick took off her glasses, polished them with a cloth handkerchief.

‘I don’t know,’ said Sally. ‘She was young. I assumed she was a student.’

‘Glasses? Braces? Blonde, redhead?’ asked Jo. ‘Clothes?’

Professor Kendrick returned her glasses to her face and checked her watch. ‘I expect she wore clothes, didn’t she, Sally?’

Sally’s cheeks grew pink and she threw a grateful glance at the professor. ‘I didn’t take much notice, I was late for my meeting. She had dark hair, I think. About this long.’ She pointed to her shoulders.

‘Young, female and dark, long hair? Anything else?’

‘I’m sorry. I’m not very good at this kind of thing.’

‘Anything at all.’

‘Eyeliner,’ said Sally with a note of triumph in her voice. ‘I remember thinking she wore too much eyeliner.’

Great. That should narrow it down to well over eighty per cent of the student population, even if you included the boys.

‘Well,’ said Jo. ‘Here’s our card. If you remember anything, give us a ring, let us know. There’s a … an office manager if we’re not available. You can leave a message with her.’

Chapter Three

We trudged back up the hill towards the office. We hadn’t found out a right lot, and it was hard not to feel a bit deflated. We decided we’d wait till teatime to go round to Matt’s house on The Turnways again, see if anyone turned up. Before that we were meeting Martin Blink.

Martin arrived at the offices on the stroke of half past four. He limped through the front door, and Jo jumped up from her desk and hugged the life out of him. They’d spent a lot of time together, after our last case, when Jo was in hospital recovering from her surgery on her shoulder, and I was trying to handle the chaos of the aftermath of what had happened. I think now he sees her as his protégée.

I hung back, tried to position myself so that Aunt Edie wouldn’t see Jo’s eyes tight shut in the embrace. ‘Good to see you,’ I said. ‘How you doing?’

He didn’t answer me, staring instead at Jo, running his eyes up and down her frame like he was looking for weak spots.

I tried to see Jo through Martin’s eyes. I know I take her for granted. She’s the stronger one, I mean, mentally – the least neurotic person I ever met. To Jo everything is black or white. There’s the wrong way and the right way. Good versus evil. If there’s ever anything on her mind, she’ll go out, get hammered and forget about it. She doesn’t have brain worms – the things that wriggle around in your headspace, won’t let you go.

I had noticed that since the last investigation she was smoking and drinking a bit more than she used to, and I was keeping an eye on it. But who wouldn’t be, in her position, after what had happened? She’d been shot and the physical scars were still healing. The mental scars might take even longer. She’d get there though. I’d make damned sure of that.

Jo seemed to pass Martin’s inspection, because he took a step back, nodded and said, ‘Doing all right, kid.’

And I felt my shoulders give a little.

‘I’m hanging in there,’ said Jo.

She pushed a chair towards Martin and as soon as he sat down he didn’t look old. His face tells a lot of stories – frown lines buried deep in his forehead, but laughter lines like spiders’ webs criss-crossing from the corner of his eyes and disappearing into his hairline. When he’s not trying to walk you’d think he was in his fifties.

‘Doing just fine,’ said Aunt Edie.

‘Any ghosts?’ said Martin, setting a battered leather briefcase on the desk.

Jo glanced at me and a wash of something that felt like acid burned my veins. I know she hates talking about the fact she killed a man. Even a man as bad as the one she killed. I tell her she did the world a favour, but I know she doesn’t believe me. Not yet.

‘I’m coping,’ said Jo.

‘It’s ace to see you, Martin.’ As I said the words I felt my breathing deepen, so that air made it past my chest and into the rest of my body. ‘What brings you here?’

‘Private matters.’ He tapped one finger against the side of his nose and then glanced across at Aunt Edie. ‘If your receptionist here could make us a cup of tea, I’ve a thirst like the Sahara. You got a room we could talk in?’

I think I actually ducked. When I did dare risk a glance in Aunt Edie’s direction, she was holding on to the back of her office chair, her knuckles white under the fluorescent lights.

‘I’m the office manager, not the receptionist,’ she said in the tightest of voices.

‘Sorry, love.’ Martin held up his hands. ‘Didn’t mean to cause offence.’

Aunt Edie bridled but managed to bite her tongue. She pushed her chair under the desk. ‘I’ll happily put the kettle on,’ she said. ‘And I was going to leave a bit early tonight, so no need to go through to the back. You can have the place to yourselves. Talk about your privates to your heart’s content.’ She stared unblinking at Martin as she spoke.

I felt my cheeks burn.

Once Aunt Edie had switched the kettle on and her computer off, she buttoned up her coat and let herself out.

Martin loosened his tie.

‘Got off on the wrong foot there.’

‘Don’t worry. Her bark’s worse than her bite,’ I lied. ‘So, come on, spill.’

‘I want to hire you girls.’

‘Hire us?’

‘Women,’ said Jo.

‘I want to hire you women?’ asked Martin. ‘Really?’

Jo nodded and put her feet up on the desk.

‘OK,’ said Martin, shrugging his shoulders. ‘I want to hire you women.’

If I’ve got a weak spot, it’s lonely old men. You see them, shuffling round Morrisons, mismatched clothes, in need of a haircut. I can’t bear to think of them fumbling with the tin opener and being unable to reach out to people. Jo gives me hell for my sexism and it’s true – I don’t worry about women in the same way. I guess I think women have an advantage.

I knew Martin was divorced, that he lived on his own, but I didn’t like to think of him living with the ghosts of the disappeared.

‘You’re missing someone?’ I wondered who it might be. He’d never mentioned much about his private life.

‘Been thinking, since you solved that last case. You found the answer to something that happened seventeen years ago. You went back and found something we all missed.’

‘Couldn’t have done it without you,’ I said. ‘And the—’

‘Enough, already. Don’t need to be damned with your faint praise, thanks all the same. Never doubted my investigative skills.’ He fiddled with the clasp on his briefcase and pulled out a newspaper. ‘But sometimes you got to wait till the window opens.’

‘Go on,’ said Jo, taking the paper from him.

‘Page thirteen.’ He pulled at his tie and loosened the knot. ‘Another one I never got to the bottom of. And this one nags me, buzzes round my head like an angry wasp. You know, when the 3 a.m. gets you?’ He looked to Jo and I found myself feeling resentful. I’m more than familiar with the early hours, thank you very much.

Jo read while Martin continued, ‘One that won’t let me lie. And I thought well, if you could have a go at it, maybe the time is right.’

‘The body?’ said Jo.

‘Let me see.’ I peered over Jo’s shoulder, saw a small article, only a few lines with the headline: ‘Police discover woman’s body in garden of luxury flats.’

‘It’s worth a crack, that’s what I’m saying.’

We heard the kettle whistle in the kitchenette out back. Martin Blink looked up at the clock. ‘Sun’s almost over the yard arm. You gi— women got a local?’

Martin doesn’t know about my issues with alcohol. Not that I’ve had a drink since the last case. And I try not to beat myself up too much about that one. Surely anyone in that situation, faced with the immediate prospect of their own death, would succumb to one last shot? Especially when it was one of the finest whiskies money could buy. So fine that when I close my eyes, I can still taste it.

But before that one slip, in extreme circumstances, it had been nearly a full twelve months since I’d given up drinking.

I know now that that’s the difference between the addict and the social drinker. To the addict, it doesn’t matter how long it’s been since the last one, because they’re focused on the next. The social drinker can enjoy a drink, the one they have in their hands – as a self-contained event, an occasion all in itself. Which is a nice idea, but a single drink doesn’t exist for the addict. The addict is thinking about the future, about what will happen when the one in their hands runs out. To the addict one drink is only ever the start.

Addicts are people who have never experienced enough. Enough of what, I don’t know. Therapists would tell you they haven’t had enough love. I don’t know about that. I just know there’s never enough alcohol to get me out of my mind.

‘Well?’ asked Martin.

I nearly said no, but I caught the look on Jo’s face. And, I reminded myself, it’s good for me to be challenged. An opportunity to reassert my faith, my resolve. Least, that’s what the textbooks tell me.

I switched the phones over to the night-service and unhooked my jacket from its peg. ‘There’s The Brudenell,’ I said as Jo’s eyes lit up. ‘Just round the corner.’

Chapter Four

The Brudenell is a social club but it’s not like your average working men’s club. For a start, nearly everyone in it is a student and probably not one of them has ever done a full day’s work in their lives – at least, not the kind of work that working men’s club implies. Recently, The Brudenell has been building a solid reputation as a kind of secret gig venue, with unadvertised performances by some big-name bands.

We were seated in the bar less than ten minutes after leaving the office, Martin and Jo both with pints – Landlord for Martin, lager and lime for Jo. I nursed a blackcurrant and soda. I can’t drink cola because the caffeine makes my heart race, and I’m never sure what else to order. ‘Let’s hear it then.’

He glanced around but it was still early, even by student standards. The closest drinkers were seated three tables away. ‘Trouble was no one was pushing for it to be solved. A body – young girl – young woman, a prostitute—’

‘Sex worker,’ said Jo.

Martin nodded and took a swig of his pint. The head of his beer left a foam moustache along his top lip. It suited him, matched the white of his hair. ‘Sex worker. Like it. Anyway, that was as far as they got. A body. A sex worker, they decided. No one ever came forward to claim her.’

‘Murdered?’

Martin popped a Fisherman’s Friend in his mouth and crunched. ‘She was dead. That’s about the only fact. Police decided it was suicide although they never found a note. Pathologist said somewhere between twenty-two and twenty-five. Autopsy showed she’d carried a child. Slip of a thing. Bruises that looked like she’d had some kind of fight, but they were old – not related to her death.’

‘Suicide?’ I know I’ve got an issue with suicide. To me, it’s selfish and passive-aggressive – a way of handing on your problems to someone else. It’s the easy way out. Jo gives me hell for my views but I can’t seem to change them. It’s like they’re ingrained in me. I took a sip of my blackcurrant and tried not to gag. ‘How she do it?’

He slapped me on the knuckles. ‘Not proved.’

‘Well, how’d she die?’

‘Poisoned.’

‘Poisoned? What, like an overdose?’

‘Strychnine – know how that works?’

I shook my head.

‘Starts with twitching. Facial muscles go first.’ Martin clenched and unclenched his fingers, balling his hand into a fist, then flinging his fingers back. He still wore his wedding ring and it squeezed the flesh of his third finger. ‘Spasms spread throughout the body, progressing to convulsions as the nervous system runs out of control.’

‘Weird way to kill yourself,’ said Jo.

‘Eventually the muscles that control breathing become paralyzed and the victim suffocates,’ Martin continued. ‘Stays conscious and aware the whole time up to death – in fact the nerves of the brain are stimulated, gives heightened perception.’

‘Christ,’ said Jo.

He took another mouthful of beer. ‘Hard to think of a worse way to go.’

‘Where’d she get strychnine from?’ I asked. ‘Is it legal?’

‘It was. Used by mole-catchers – but you had to be a licensed pest controller to get hold of it. Police never found where she got it from, least not that they told me.’

‘You don’t think it was suicide?’

‘She was found in the communal garden of a block of flats, overlooking Roundhay Park.’

I’d never been to Roundhay Park, but I’d heard of it. It was out to the north of the city, only about four miles away; but we’ve got Hyde Park right on our doorstep, so why travel?

‘She killed herself outside?’ asked Jo and I knew by the tone of her voice that she didn’t believe it. I could see where she was coming from – when you think of suicide, especially women, you think of pills in the bath, head in the oven. But then there were the jumpers, I thought. Beachy Head and that bridge near Hull. They were outdoors.

‘Perhaps she didn’t want a relative to find her,’ I said. ‘I mean, if it was suicide, and she’d killed herself in her own flat, chances are it would have been someone she knew who discovered her. Perhaps that’s why she went to the garden – she wanted a stranger to find her.’ Which, I thought, although I didn’t say aloud, made her more thoughtful than your average suicide. I don’t know how the tube drivers ever recover from what they must see when someone decides they can’t go on.

‘She didn’t live in the flats,’ said Martin.

‘Oh.’ I considered this for a moment. It didn’t make sense. ‘Why would you kill yourself in someone else’s garden?’

‘Where did she live?’ asked Jo.

Martin shrugged. ‘That’s the trouble. We don’t know. No one knows who she is. No ID on her; all they found was a train ticket from Nottingham. Like she’d travelled all the way from Nottingham to kill herself in the garden of this particular block of flats.’

‘She must have known someone in the flats,’ I said.

‘She’d tied herself to a statue. Right in the middle of the grass.’

‘If they didn’t know who she was, how did they know she was a sex worker?’ asked Jo.

Martin shrugged again. ‘Don’t know. And I’ve got to tell you here, after …’ He paused, looked at Jo again. ‘After last time. I want to put my cards right out there on the table, so you know what you’re getting into. I didn’t like the way the investigation was handled, if you catch my drift.’

‘Come on, Martin,’ I said. I banged my drink down on the table harder than I expected and caused the table to wobble and Jo’s pint to slop. I lowered my voice. ‘You can’t put your cards on the table and then ask us to catch your drift. What do you mean?’

Jo mopped at the spillage with a beer mat.

‘The policeman in charge. I had my doubts. That’s all. Nothing concrete, just a feeling that perhaps he wasn’t as committed as he could have been.’

‘Wasn’t committed or was bent? Massive difference.’

‘Lee,’ Jo said. She put a hand on my arm. ‘We’ve got to come to each case blank, you know that. Empty.’

I reminded myself to breathe. Martin looked at me and then at Jo, like he was watching a tennis match.

‘I don’t know why he decided she was a sex worker. That’s all. Maybe she was known to the police, or him; maybe he was working from the fact that no one ever claimed her, the bus driver’s impression … I don’t know. It might not be important. Anyway, to me it felt like she was trying to tell someone something. She was naked. Did I say that?’

‘She committed suicide naked?’

‘Bollocks,’ said Jo.

‘The report said she was naked as the day she was born except for a necklace,’ said Martin.

‘If she was naked, where was her train ticket?’

‘All her clothes were folded neatly next to the body. The train ticket was found in bushes less than three metres away.’

‘Might not be hers then?’ Jo said.

‘It had her fingerprints on it. And they found a bus driver who thought he remembered her getting the bus from the station.’

‘Did they check the CCTV?’

Martin nodded. ‘Nothing.’

‘Not a lot to go on,’ I said.

‘I looked into the residents. Posh flats, owned by the well-to-do. Rob Hamilton was one of the residents.’

Even I’ve heard of Rob Hamilton and I don’t watch TV.

‘If in doubt, deal,’ said Jo.

I frowned at her.

‘That’s his catchphrase,’ she said.

‘And Jimmy McFly lived there too – the celebrity chef. Before he got done for drunk driving.’

‘Didn’t he go out with Gabby Fairweather?’ asked Jo. She pointed a finger at me. ‘She left him when he went to prison. Before she met that singer from that boy band.’

I was totally lost.

‘The Wranglers. God, what was his name? Chris somebody.’

For a radical feminist socialist, Jo is surprisingly well-informed on celebrity culture.

I turned to Martin. ‘Anyone with any links to the body?’ I said, my voice a little pointed.

‘I’ve got the full list here.’ Martin bent to pick his briefcase from the floor, opened it and took out a reporter’s spiral bound notebook.

I read the neatly written label on the front. Jane Doe; 29 August and the year. I did the maths. Almost seven years ago.

‘There were a couple of people of interest. One resident who’d been prosecuted for tax evasion.’ He flicked through the pages of the notebook. ‘There.’ He pointed to a name that had been highlighted. ‘And Blake Jeffries – the whisper was he’d made his money on the club scene … and not just through door entry charges, if you know what I mean.’

Jo grabbed for the notebook before I could get there and settled herself to read its contents.

‘You mean drugs?’ I said.

‘According to a source. I looked into it but nothing provable.’

‘We’re a missing persons’ bureau,’ I said. I folded my arms. ‘She’s like the opposite of missing. She’s found. I mean, all right, she’s dead, but she’s not—’

Martin opened his mouth to say something but Jo got there before him. ‘Somewhere she’s missing,’ she said. ‘That’s the thing. These women, they’ve been isolated—’

‘What women?’ I asked.

‘Cut off from society, precisely so no one cares when they’re abused, raped, killed … whatever.’

‘What women?’ I said again.

‘Sex workers,’ said Jo.

I knew her patience was stretching and truth was I was trying to stretch it on purpose. Don’t ask me why. I get like this sometimes. You’d think I’d learn, but no.

‘Somewhere,’ Jo said, ‘they’re missing.’

‘Somewhere there has to be a family or a past lover,’ Martin explained, and I noticed the similarity in the two pairs of steely blue eyes staring at me. ‘Or a friend. Someone who’s missing her. She had a child. That child must be somewhere, wondering where their mother is. She died anonymous. Seven years later, no one even knows her name.’

Jo continued to flick through the pages of Martin’s notebook. There didn’t seem to be many, perhaps half a dozen, the rest of the pages virgin white. I knew from the way she closed the front cover I wasn’t going to get much say in this one. Resistance was futile. ‘And that’s all you got?’ I asked. ‘A list of people who lived in the flats and a train ticket?’

‘They’re a subclass of people,’ said Jo. ‘Cynics might think these women are bred for abuse and murder. Most sex workers grew up in care.’

‘We don’t actually know she was a sex worker.’

‘Abusers, murderers know they stand a good chance of getting away with the shit they get away with—’

‘She wasn’t murdered. And we don’t know she was abused.’ Jo obviously wasn’t going to let any of the facts stand in her way.

‘Because no one cares,’ she said, her eyes boring into mine. Her voice was so loud the people at the other table had stopped speaking.

‘I do care,’ I said. ‘I just think we need to be clear—’

‘They’re the world’s missing, the world’s lost.’

‘OK.’ I held my hands up.

‘They’re so missing, so off radar, no one even knows they’re missing. They’re more than missing, they’re fucking invisible.’

‘That’s the thing,’ said Martin, nodding with approval at Jo. ‘There was no one stamping feet, demanding answers. The case got pushed aside. She had no one. That’s why it won’t let me go.’

‘If the kind of men who prey on these women knew there were people like us out there, people who care and want to find out what happened, maybe, just maybe, it might make them think twice before they do the fucked-up shit that they do.’

‘OK,’ I said. The expression on Jo’s face made me feel like crying. ‘I guess it wouldn’t hurt, having a look at it.’

I turned to Martin because I couldn’t bear to look at Jo anymore. ‘You don’t have to pay us though, we owe you one.’

‘We owe you more than that,’ said Jo.

He drained his pint and waved at the barman, indicating another round, the same again. I wanted to point out it wasn’t waitress service, but the barman smiled and reached up for a pint glass from the rack above his head. Martin turned back to us.

‘I do have to pay you. And I’ll tell you why. If I don’t, I have to be nice to you because you’re doing me a favour. There’s no pressure on you to succeed.’ He grinned at me and the twinkle returned to his eye.

‘You want to be able to boss us around, is that what you’re saying?’ said Jo.

‘Precisely.’ Martin patted Jo on the hand. ‘And besides, that battleaxe you’ve hired as your receptionist, sorry, office manager … she’d kick all our backsides if you said you’d taken on a freebie. I need to be able to stand my ground with her.’

Jo shook her head. ‘You’ll learn. Complete surrender is the only way with Aunt Edie.’

‘Yes, well, I’m too old. And you know what they say about old dogs and new tricks. I don’t surrender to anyone. Never have, never will.’

Jo laughed and it struck me that I hadn’t seen her laugh for ages. Not like that, head back, square white teeth on show.