Page 86

“No,” she said.

“Heardfrom him?”

“Why do you want to know?”

“Ah, we should probably talk about that in person. Whereabouts are you right now?”

She didn’t reply. He took her silence for an answer.

“Because the thing is, I’m also calling you about something else. Maybe it’s connected, maybe it’s not. But I’m sitting outside someone else’s house. And you don’t need me to tell you who, right? Because my understanding is you were here earlier.”

Dread pooled in her stomach as she remembered the car she’d seen as she was leaving Hyde’s.

“Yes,” she said. “I was there.”

“It’s great to get that confirmed. Why were you here?”

That easygoing tone of voice again—as though the two of them were just a couple of old friends chatting. As though her going to Hyde’s house had just been an everyday visit during which nothing important had happened at all. Katie glanced around her now. She still had that crawling sensation of being watched, and her gut was telling her she needed to end this call and get away from here.

That there was no time for small talk pretending everything was fine.

“How is he?” she said quickly. “Michael Hyde.”

Laurence hesitated.

“He’s on his way to the hospital.” He sounded more straightforward now. Maybe he was as happy as she was to dispense with the pleasantries. “He’s pretty badly hurt, but I think he’ll live. Which is another way of saying that things could be a lot,lotworse for you than they are. Do you want to give me your side of what happened?”

“Hyde’s been stalking my family.”

“Really?” She could almost hear his frown. “How so?”

“You saw his bedroom wall, right?” Katie shifted slightly, swapping her cell phone to her opposite hand. “All the photographs he’d taken of us?My daughter, especially. All the notes and maps he’d made. They were all taped up there.”

A pause on the line.

“No sign of any of that, I’m afraid,” he said.

“You went upstairs?”

“I did.”

She tried to think. Assuming he was telling her the truth, it meant Hyde’s father had moved quickly to get rid of anything that might implicate his son—hisgood boy—in what he’d been doing.

“Itwasthere,” she said. “He’s been following us. Watching us. I even called the police last night about it. He was in our back garden, looking in through the window.”

Another slight pause. It was hard to read silence, but she thought she detected a hint of annoyance in it.

“I did hear that you called,” Laurence said. “Okay. So let’s say I believe you about all of this. It makes it all the more important that we meet up. I really think what you need to do is come in so we can talk about all this properly in person. And—”

“Why wereyouthere?” she interrupted.

“I’m sorry?”

“It can’t have been because Hyde’s father called you. You arrived too quickly.”

Silence.

“Was it something to do with Chris?” she said.