Blood is thicker than water.
Blood. He keeps his phone by his side all the time. You must have at least 1,000 hours minimum flying time in a jet. Turns his music up to try to block out his breathing. The sounds of her. Headphones don’t work. You must have 20/20 vision. His books are unopened. His laptop closed.
The sun sets again. Light pours through the curtains. You must have 20/20 vision. He watches it shrink down the wall. You must have 20/20 vision. He walks to the window. His mum is on night shift and the flat is quiet. His brothers are sleeping. Fam. Blood. You must have 20/20 vision. He didn’t close his eyes all night. He didn’t go to sleep. It’s dark outside, and in his reflected face he sees hers. Blood. They will be looking for her. You must have 20/20 vision. He has decided. There is only one way out. Only one thing he can do. He watches himself mouth the words:
‘I’m going to kill you.’
Her eyelids fluttered. Her neck felt stiff. Her wine glass was still in her hand. She must have fallen asleep on her chair. She’d taken a sleeping pill and she probably shouldn’t have had alcohol. She was groggy. Thirsty. She shifted in her seat and then stopped. There was someone else here. Someone in the room with her. Had the man from the film found her? Kate opened her eyes a fraction. It was still dark outside. Night time. It felt cooler. It was the early hours of the morning. Should she pretend to still be asleep? Cry out? Years of teaching had taught her that a strong stance was best: no weakness. She sat up quickly. Her eyes open. ‘Can I help you?’
A tall black woman was standing in the corner of the room. She didn’t flinch or move when Kate spoke. Instead she smiled, her white teeth beautiful in the dark. Something caught at Kate. She didn’t feel scared. She felt calmer than she had for a while. It was the tablets, she told herself. The woman stepped forward into the strip of yellow streetlight that shone through the window. A silver charm bracelet jingled around her wrist. Kate had seen one like that before. Many years ago. She must be hallucinating: the pills.
‘Tegbee?’
When the young woman spoke, her voice was as familiar as her own. The voice she’d carried in her head every day for nineteen years. ‘Hello, mama.’
Kate held her breath, not wanting the mirage to fade.
‘I’ve missed you.’ Tegbee smiled and stepped towards her. Her baby girl. All grown up. Perfect. So perfect. She smiled at her, tears forming in the corners of her eyes.
Answer your
phone. We need
to talk.
I can explain.
Just pick up.
You can’t
hide from me.
Pick. Up.
Don’t do anything
stupid. Anything
you’d regret.
…
…
…
This isn’t over.
Nasreen felt the familiar pull of tension in her stomach as she neared the office. But it looked like only Chips was in. She’d spent the evening poring over all the files she could find. This was not looking good. At some point she must have fallen asleep; she’d missed a call from Freddie, but it was gone 1am by the time she woke up. Too late to call back.
Chips looked up from the teetering barricade of folders on his desk. ‘You get me one of those, lass?’ A soft puffy finger pointed at the Espress-oh’s bag she was carrying.
‘Skinny mocha it is.’
He beamed. After forty-odd years of drinking black coffee with a dash of milk, Chips had been converted to the sickly drink by Freddie. He was a man of routine, his physical bulk a metaphor of his immovability, and yet within two weeks of working with him Freddie had changed the habit of a lifetime. She had that effect.
‘Is DI Saunders in?’ She tried to sound casual.
‘He’s in a meeting with the boss.’ Chips sipped from his drink. ‘This really is cracking.’
Freddie’s voice carried from the corridor. ‘Hey, Milena, it’s me. Just to say cheers for letting me crash last night. I left the key under the bin outside. Hope the night shift wasn’t balls. Catch ya soon.’ The door to the office opened and Freddie appeared, her hair piled haphazardly on top of her head. The same cutoffs on as yesterday, but with a shapeless T-shirt. She pointed straight at Nasreen. ‘You and me need to talk. I called you.’
Nasreen replaced the lid on her own reusable coffee cup. ‘I was working on the case.’ She pulled the files she’d had at home from her bag. ‘The guy calling himself Corey Banks on Amber’s page is better known as Alexander Riley, or Lex Riley as he’s known on the street.’ She passed Freddie the printout of Lex she’d made from the Police National Computer.
Freddie read it and blew air out through her lips. ‘He’s a known gang member?’ She dropped her own rucksack behind her.
‘Yes. The Dogberry Boys.’ Just thinking about it made her feel a bit sick. Amber was fifteen when they were talking online. When she described him as her boyfriend.
‘Didn’t Paul Robertson go down for killing one of their members?’ Freddie asked.
‘Yes. They’re rivals.’ She watched the colour drain from Freddie’s face. ‘They’ve been in an escalating turf war for the last few years.’ It didn’t bear thinking about. But they had to.
‘Why’d he change his name?’
‘Presumably because Amber or her father would have recognised it,’ Nasreen said.
‘But he was dating the daughter of one of the Rodriguezes’ head guys… Shit.’ Freddie shook her head in disbelief. ‘So, what, he was trying to get into her life undercover?’
Nasreen nodded. ‘What if we weren’t the first ones to think that Amber was a good way to get to Paul Robertson?’
Freddie sat down heavily. She was staring at the printout in her hand, her face echoing Nasreen’s yesterday when she’d recognised him. A look of shock. Lex Riley’s sneering mugshot leered from the top corner. ‘He made first contact,’ Freddie said. ‘I’ve seen the message on her Facebook page. He approached her.’ It all fitted. ‘He set her up? Catfished her?’
Nasreen’s stomach tightened. A fifteen-year-old child. ‘It looks like it.’
‘We could have this all wrong: she might not be on the run with her dad. You think Lex Riley could’ve got to her?’ Freddie looked at her imploringly.
She wished she could dismiss her fears, but sleeping on it hadn’t helped. Lex Riley wouldn’t waste his time stringing Amber Robertson along for a laugh. He was the cousin of Jay Trap, the head of the family that had dominated the Dogberry Boys for the last two decades. He wasn’t some bit-part player.