The first was the one I'd sent from Tori's phone last night. The other was from Sarah. She'd sent it about seven o'clock yesterday evening, when I'd been sitting in my parents' kitchen, my mobile already switched off.
hi u. be good to chat when ur free. A bit worried. things felt really good n am now a bit confused 2 b honest! Are we ok? talk soon babe. take care xSx
Absurdly, I felt tears prick at my eyes, and had to blink rapidly a few times to clear them. Pull yourself together.
The phone vibrated.
[Withheld number]
I glanced around. The other customers had all been in here when I arrived, and they were far enough away to not be able to hear. But I still turned away slightly as I accepted the call.
'Hello?'
'Dave Lewis?'
I recognised him. Fuck.
'Detective Sam Currie here. We spoke a few days ago.' He sounded inquisitive. Almost friendly. 'Whereabouts are you, Dave?'
There was no point in lying. He'd know soon anyway.
'I'm in a cafe.'
'Which one? We really need to talk to you. Tell us where you are, and we'll come by and pick you up.'
'No,' I said. 'I can't do that.'
'Dave. We have a warrant for your arrest. You're going to make it hard for yourself if you don't tell me where you are. We can come and get you and get all this sorted out. What do you say?'
I didn't say anything; there was nothing to say. He was right, but that didn't matter. And I couldn't explain why.
'Okay,' he said, changing tack. 'How about you tell me where she is, instead?'
'Who?'
'You know who.' A pause. 'Tori Edmonds. Why don't the two of you come in together? We can end all this now. You don't want to hurt her, do you?'
I said, 'No.'
'We know you were at her house yesterday.'
I didn't say anything.
'Why were you there, Dave? Help me out. I want to understand.'
'I can't explain anything right now.'
'Why not?'
I opened my mouth to say something - I didn't know what - but then immediately closed it again. His previous question suddenly bothered me.
Why had I been at Tori's house?
With everything that had taken place, I'd been too busy analysing events as they happened; I'd not spent enough time thinking about the situation as a whole. It had been nearly a month since I'd last seen Tori. Before that, forgetting Staunton, it had been going on half a year. The killer's note could have sat there for ever if I hadn't called round. So why had I?
'Dave,' Currie said. 'For the last time. Tell me where--'
I cancelled the call.
How could I not have thought of it before? I had to get moving. Instead of having nowhere to go, there was somewhere I should have been hours ago. The first fucking place I should have gone.
I gathered up the phones and put them in my coat pocket, then made my way out to the car.
The post box and cafe swung round in the rear-view, then disappeared behind, as I pulled out and drove away. Still cursing how dumb I'd been, I shifted up a gear and headed for the city.
Chapter Twenty-five
Saturday 3rd September
Sam Currie sipped the coffee and tried to keep his thoughts together.
Not easy. He and Swann had been working through the night, and he'd passed through the point of being exhausted some time during the early hours; now he felt like he was sleep-walking, and could hardly concentrate on anything. Too much was happening, and every time he attempted to grasp any single part of the investigation, the others seemed to slip through his fingers.
The one thought he'd been able to keep track of was:
We had him. And we let him go.
That was the only one that mattered, wasn't it?
He walked across the office of Anonymous Skeptic magazine and gazed out of the window, down at the street below. The people there seemed to be forming patterns as they moved past; if he stared long enough, his eyes blurred and they all disintegrated into shapes and colours.
Christ.
'Sir?'
He turned around. One of the officers was gesturing at a stack of hard drives by the wall.
'You want all of these?'
He nodded. 'Everything.'
At the other side of the room, Lewis's work colleague, Rob Harvey, was leaning back in his chair and looking unhappy about the activity going on around him. But then, four policemen were currently removing most of the hardware and documentation from the office, and - as Harvey had repeatedly mentioned - they had a tight deadline on the next issue. Currie explained that was tough fucking luck and he really didn't care all that much. Harvey had simply glared at him. Currie had briefly wondered whether the man might have Asperger's Syndrome.
He'd felt bad afterwards. Following his initial annoyance, Currie had explained how important it was that they found Dave Lewis - for his own sake, as much as anyone else's - and Harvey had relented a little. He'd agreed to spend some time here on the off-chance Lewis attempted to make contact. If he did, Harvey would answer the phone, pretend everything was normal, and try to keep Lewis on the line long enough for the call to be traced.
And at least they'd get a starting location from the conversation he'd just had with Lewis himself.
I can't explain anything right now.
What the hell was that supposed to mean? He knew he should sit down, listen to the recording of that call, and try to analyse Lewis's manner - see if they could work out what was going on in his head and how they might persuade him to come in. But it had been a trying night. The investigation had reached boiling point, and developments were bubbling up faster than he could handle. In fact, it felt like he was being slowly cooked.
A search team had started processing Dave Lewis's flat just after he had been identified on the CCTV footage. They'd taken his laptop away for analysis and were now involved in a painstaking search of the property. So far, nothing.
Other officers were revisiting the older cases, searching for a connection. So far, again, nothing.
But the night had also brought new developments. To start with, there was the text Lewis had sent from Tori Edmonds's phone. Under normal circumstances, he would have been overjoyed at such a development, because as well as catching Lewis on film sending the text, the camera had recorded him going into that house. But there was nothing to be overjoyed about in what they'd found inside.
They'd confirmed Emma Harris's identity, and knew that she'd also been involved with Dave Lewis. Her friends had received the familiar texts. Lewis seemed to be moving faster and faster, hardly caring anymore about the mistakes he made as he went. It implied meltdown. Currie didn't know where the man was heading, but he was sure it wouldn't be good for Tori Edmonds when he got there.
You had him. You fucking had him.
Currie's phone buzzed, jarring him. He put his coffee down on the desk, then stepped out into the corridor to answer it.
'Sam? It's James. How's it going there?'
Swann was at the office, co-ordinating the various scenes.
'In progress.' Currie rubbed his eyes, pinching the bridge of his nose. 'What about with you?'
'A few prints at Emma Harris's house. Obviously, we won't know if they belong to Lewis until we can print the bastard.'
'We know he was there.'
'Yes. And obviously, we're in the same situation with the prints at Cardall's flat.'
Currie nodded. They still weren't sure how Alison Wilcox's phone had made its way beneath the floorboards there. The only working scenario they had was that Lewis had trailed them back there after they called round at his, killed Cardall and planted it there. But they had no idea why.
It sat alongside one of the other questions that had occurred to him over the course of the night. If Lewis had abducted Tori Edmonds, why had he told Charlie Drake he was worried about her? He supposed one answer was obvious - that Lewis liked to taunt people. That was what he'd done during the previous murders, wasn't it?
But still. Something about it didn't feel right.
'Any sign of Charlie Drake?'
'Vanished without a trace,' Swann said. 'He's not even in The Wheatfield, drowning his sorrows.'
'Shit.'
'We've had a report from the team at Lewis's parents' house, though.'
'Anything?'
'Nobody there, although it looks like he's been packing stuff up. Some of the lights were on too. It seems a good bet he spent at least part of last night there.'
They'd only found out earlier that morning, while attempting to trace his family, that Lewis owned the property. Another opportunity they'd missed.
'The team's still on site. They're going through everything, but not found anything obvious so far.'
'That's becoming depressingly familiar.'
'Hang on.' Swann paused, then said: 'Looks like we've got a break on his mobile, though.'
Currie perked up a little at that. 'What?'
'Yeah, he's left it switched on. They're tracking it live now. He's in a car.' He broke off again. Currie couldn't hear what his partner was saying but he was talking to someone in the office. A few seconds later, he came back on the line. 'We've got a team en route. They should pick him up shortly.'
'That's good news.'
But what will they find when they get there?
'There's something else,' Swann said. 'This is strange, though. We know he sent a text from Tori Edmonds's account last night, when we got him on CCTV.'
'Go on.'
'We traced the number. You know where he sent that text? His own phone.'
Currie thought about it. Frowned. Why would he have done that?
'That is strange.'
'Strange and unusual. Hopefully we can ask him why shortly.'
'I'll look forward to it.'
Swann hesitated. 'You okay, Sam? You sound tired.'
'I'm not. Look - let me know when they catch up with Lewis. And they might need armed response. Or a negotiator.'
'I'm on it. What about you?'
'I'm going to finish up here then head back over to you.'
'Okay. See you soon.'
'Take care.'
Currie hung up. I'm not tired, he'd just said, when nothing could be further from the truth. But even if he'd had the opportunity to lie down and try to sleep right now, it wouldn't have worked. His mind was too full of Tori Edmonds, and what might be happening to her, or might already have. And he knew what this feeling reminded him of, as well - the window of opportunity when he hadn't gone round to visit his son. In his head, Tori Edmonds had become like Neil. Every obstacle in the way of finding her, alive or dead, reminded him of his own procrastination. Each confusing development was winding him tighter inside.
Back in the office, his coffee was still steaming, so he picked it up and took a mouthful. Caffeine was supposed to wake you up, but he was sure that was just a myth. It never had that effect on him. All it seemed to do was build up a bad taste in his mouth that he could concentrate on.
He carried it across to Rob Harvey. 'Sorry for all this.'
Harvey shrugged, then smiled a little awkwardly.
'It's okay. Obviously, I'm just worried. He's my friend, you know?'
'Yeah. I get that. But you're doing the right thing.'
Of course, after Swann's news about the mobile, they probably didn't need Harvey now.
'Get out of here if you need to,' Currie said.
'I'm okay for now.'
'Right--'
His phone went again. Fuck.
'I've got to take this, sorry.'
He went back out into the corridor to answer it, hoping it was going to be news about the pursuit. Good news. But he didn't recognise the voice on the other end of the line.
'Sam Currie?'
'Speaking.'
'Sorry to interrupt you. It's Dan Bright here. You left a message for me to phone you?'
'Oh, yeah,' Currie said. The cop who'd handled Frank Carroll's case twelve years ago. His phone call to Richmond seemed like a long time ago, and he didn't need this right now. 'Thanks for calling back.'
'Actually, I did one better. I'm standing in your incident room right now. Detective . . . Swann? He gave me your number.'
'Right.'
There was a brief pause, as though Bright was looking at something - checking his facts for the third or fourth time before he committed himself.
'I'm looking at your white board right now,' he said. 'And I think we really need to talk.'
Chapter Twenty-six
Saturday 3rd September
An hour later I was standing on Park Row in the city centre, facing an innocuous, unmarked door. Most of the looming buildings here were taken up by banks and major offices, but a few blocks had been converted to flats, cashing in on the recent boom in the inner-city property market. This thin, ten-storey building was a prestigious recent development in the heart of the city. Offers on the cheapest flat inside had started around half a million.
Thom Stanley could afford it. Over the past few years he'd amassed a small fortune from his public appearances, the two books he'd written, and a rather nauseating television special. For some reason, however, he didn't like that fact publicised, as though the money he earned was a slightly dirty and unfortunate byproduct of a job he was really doing out of the goodness of his heart.
I leaned on the unlabelled buzzer for flat twelve, then waited. Behind me, businesspeople were hurrying past. The day had turned out nice. I looked towards the far end of the street and saw the strip of blue sky visible between high-rises; car windows glinted, as though a camera flash was recording each one as it passed. Where I was standing, the sun couldn't quite make it down to ground level. The two heaving lanes of buses and cars were in shadow, and everything from the road to the suits to the pavement was a monotone grey.
When there'd been no answer after a minute, I repeatedly pressed the buzzer again, in what I hoped would be an annoying pattern.
It was likely Stanley was home. The first proper night of his nationwide tour was tomorrow in Albany, and a subtle enquiry to his publicist had revealed he wasn't travelling until later on this afternoon. She'd stressed that he would be strictly out of contact with the media today while preparing for his trip, and I'd said, Yes, of course, as though we hadn't already obtained his address and phone number quite some time ago, from the friend in the phone company that Rob didn't have.