Page 21

Seeing Seaton Laws in the flesh was another punch of giddy, painful nostalgia for Reid.

Eighteen months hadn’t changed Anna’s father a whisker.

His short-cropped beard was shaped exactly as it had been the last time Reid had seen him, which he guessed must have been at Anna’s birthday dinner the September before they broke up.

Seaton might, Reid thought, even be wearing the same suit.

It was hard to tell, though. He seemed to have a whole range of blue or navy suits that were difficult to distinguish from one another.

It was stifling in the bar. Seaton had commandeered a high-backed armchair alongside a fireplace that fortunately held only flowers.

When Reid arrived he was sitting in there with his legs crossed, his chin propped on his hand, with an untouched coffee on the table in front of him.

He was the picture of a distracted academic.

But the picture didn’t last long. He noticed Reid quickly and rose with clear agitation.

‘Reid, hello.’

Despite the probable urgency of the situation, Reid felt himself slipping into an awkward social mode as he took Seaton’s hand.

‘It’s good to see you,’ he said, half truthfully. ‘I… how are things with you these days? I didn’t ask before.’ There was a brief pause, while Seaton shrugged, and Reid tried, ‘How’s the garden?’

‘Fine, fine,’ Seaton said, immediately. ‘Blooming. Would you, er… like a drink?’

Though feeling that it was wasted time, Reid accepted the offer and asked for a pint of Diet Coke. He felt like he needed both the hydration and the caffeine.

Reid sat in the free chair, discovering that it was a great deal lower than Seaton’s.

The Reid of a few years ago might have felt humiliated, but years of interviews in all manner of situations had removed any such concerns.

It was possible to perch on a wobbly stool and still dominate a conversation if you wanted to.

And that went for situations when you were unofficially interviewing your ex-girlfriend’s dad about her disappearance.

Seaton returned a few moments later carrying the pint of Coke and, somewhat unexpectedly, a packet of salted kettle chips and a glass of water.

Reid wasn’t quite sure what he’d expected Seaton to buy, but for a man who was generally into champagne and fine dining, there was something disconcerting about it.

‘Should probably eat something,’ Seaton said as he sat. ‘I got through three glasses of Krug waiting for her, all on an empty stomach, and I’ve still not managed to rectify the situation.’ He tore open the crisps. ‘It’s not exactly Michelin-starred fare, but it’ll do.’

Something about the sight of Seaton willingly consuming crisps when he could have stayed in Cambridge eating gourmet food was unexpectedly touching.

He’d somehow expected Seaton to just want all of this sorting out.

He hadn’t anticipated her father’s own determination to help her, or the shake in the man’s hands.

‘I’ve been to Anna’s London flat,’ Reid said, assuming his professional voice.

‘I was able to access it, which was helpful. No sign of Anna. It’s hard to say whether she’s been there today.

I’d guess not, but that’s not necessarily much use if you were expecting her to be in Cambridge.

Also no sign of the laptop or this phone you say she’s been using. ’

Seaton picked the water up. His hand shook a little more as he drank. ‘So no leads at all is what you’re saying?’

‘Can you tell me more about what she was doing?’ Reid asked. ‘This murder she was investigating. Am I right in thinking it was the death of Holly Moore?’

Seaton gave him a look of mild surprise. ‘Yes, it was. How did you happen on that?’

Reid couldn’t help smiling. ‘Well, you did give me the names of Kit Frankland and Esther Thomas. I looked them up on the way over here. They both gave quotes to the press about Holly.’

He decided not to add that connecting people with crimes was basically his job.

‘Oh.’ Seaton gave this a moment of thought. ‘Yes, it was fairly high profile.’

‘Can you tell me how Anna ended up investigating it?’ Reid asked, thinking of Gael’s comment that Anna was working on a financial piece. ‘Did the paper send her, or was this her own thing?’

‘Oh, they agreed to it all,’ Seaton said, ‘but it was Anna’s investigation. A young woman approached her, positive her friend had been murdered but nothing had been done about it, and Anna realised she had a point.’

Reid gave a slow nod. Hearing that there had been enough evidence for a full Ensign investigation was, if anything, worrying.

Of all the scenarios about Anna’s disappearance, the idea of her having waded into a covered-up murder was the most concerning.

Generally speaking, people will do a lot to keep murders from coming to light.

And the fact that Anna had vanished a year to the day after Holly had died at the very same event made his spine crawl.

It was the kind of crawl that happened when a dive team reported they’d found something in a lake, or when he was played a terrified 999 call that cut off halfway through.

He’d never thought he might experience that kind of reaction to news of Anna.

‘I’d like the name of this friend of Holly’s who approached her,’ he said, as neutrally as possible. ‘And any messages you have from Anna.’

‘Of course,’ Seaton said. ‘Holly’s friend is called Cordelia Wynn. She’s a second-year medical student at UCL. I don’t have her phone number saved, but I can spell her name for you.’

Reid watched him write it down in looping script that was at odds with his constrained behaviour. He’d added, Reid saw, 2nd-year UCL medical student , presumably in case Reid forgot what he’d said. Which was surprisingly helpful, if a little patronising.

‘Oh,’ Seaton added after that, reaching into his pocket. ‘I brought you Anna’s phone. Her real phone. But I can’t get into it. Maybe your cyber people could, you know…? If you pretended it was someone else’s?’

Reid looked at the very familiar, battered phone in its robust star-patterned case and felt dizzy for a moment. Had she really not upgraded it in the last eighteen months? Somehow not lost it? Or smashed it?

He remembered, vividly, picking up that same phone to create a playlist for their road trip up to Scotland. Anna had been driving, and when he’d picked it up she’d said urgently, ‘Mind the cable! Ah, shit,’ as the satnav had disappeared off the screen.

‘Sorry,’ Reid had said, not sure what he was apologising for.

‘Not you,’ she’d said, laughing. ‘The cable is a piece of crap. You have to get it at a precise angle, and, like, sacrifice to several gods to keep the connection alive. Do you think you could try putting it flat and then… Bingo!’

The connection had returned, and Google Maps had reappeared in a few button presses Anna had made while allegedly concentrating on the road.

Reid had spent the next twenty minutes trying to make a playlist while leaving the phone completely flat.

He’d ended up looking down for so long that he’d felt sick and had to open a window.

Anna had immediately, without asking, signalled left and pulled off at the next services.

‘Let’s take a short break while you recover from me making you almost puke,’ she’d told him, and he’d felt the strangest gratitude that he hadn’t had to admit that he felt ill.

He was, in many ways, made of the same stuff Tanya had been.

Always determined to mask any troubles. To pretend nothing was wrong.

He found himself staring, now, at Anna’s phone, with Seaton waiting patiently to hand it over. With a twist in his stomach, Reid took it.

It felt strangely warm in his palm, as though it had some of Anna’s energy in it. Though, in fact, it had probably just been next to an overheating fifty-seven-year-old man all the way from Cambridge.

‘I’ll… see what I can do,’ Reid said. He didn’t feel equal to disappointing Seaton right now by admitting that there was no way he could hand it to the cyber team.

This wasn’t his investigation, or anything to do with the Met.

And if he got caught lying about the provenance of a device in order to track his ex-girlfriend, his career would be over.

There were very good reasons– including reasons of stalking and abuse– that officers were never allowed to do that.

If he could somehow find a way of turning this into a Met investigation, then he’d be able to hand it over. But at that point, he’d be handing the whole case over with it. He couldn’t be SIO of an investigation into his own ex-girlfriend’s disappearance.

The one thing he might do was try to unlock the phone himself. It was dodgy, and the idea made him feel nauseous, even though he had zero intention of using it to snoop on his ex.

But there might be messages on there that made it obvious where she was.

If not, then it might still contain an excuse for the Met to take over.

There might even be messages that were so obviously threatening, Seaton could go back to Cambridgeshire and force them to step up.

But it was still dubious, and worse, felt like a huge invasion of privacy.

He put the phone into his pocket and realised that Seaton was still sitting forwards, his expression hesitant. There was clearly something else he wanted to say.

‘I… may actually have another device,’ he said. He cleared his throat and then went on, ‘Hypothetically, if someone were to have discovered a device hidden in a murder suspect’s room… and inadvertently picked it up in a hurry…’

Reid shook his head with a sigh. ‘Would the person picking it up be Anna?’

‘Ahhh, not quite,’ Seaton said. ‘Say that person were, in fact, me?’

Reid couldn’t help giving a startled laugh. ‘You… what?’ As Seaton gave a sheepish look, Reid narrowed his eyes and asked, ‘Seriously. She managed to drag you into this?’

‘I offered some assistance,’ Seaton said with dignity. ‘I made the decision myself. She didn’t have many other people to rely on, when it came down to it.’

Reid felt that comment like the barb it was, and then experienced a rush of anger. Did Seaton really expect him to be there for Anna a year and a half after they’d broken up? After what she’d done? What she’d revealed herself to be?

He took a breath, determined not to let on to Seaton that any of this was bothering him.

‘So this device… is a phone, I take it?’ he asked, and as Seaton nodded, said, ‘Taken from a student room?’

‘ Accidentally brought out from Ryan Jaffett’s room. One of the four she was looking into.’

‘Did Anna ask you to look for it?’ Reid asked, his thoughts grinding through this.

‘Not for a phone, specifically,’ Seaton said.

‘She said she was positive he had something hidden and that it was significant. She suspected a second phone or a pen drive or some such item. And… ah… she suggested a few places to check.’ He cleared his throat.

‘Someone… someone else came in, just after I’d picked it up.

A young woman. I’m sure she was looking for the same thing.

I had to hide in the shower. But anyway. It all went well in the end.’

Reid shook his head, in part at the idea of Seaton hiding in a student’s bathroom in a position that would have been impossible to explain, and in part at the shadiness of Anna’s methods.

Though he had to admit it sounded like she’d known something significant.

Why else send her dad there, and how else would she have guessed the phone was going to be hidden?

‘She didn’t explain why?’ he asked.

‘Unfortunately not,’ Seaton admitted. ‘I– we were sharing information, to a point. But you know Anna…’

Reid gave a wry smile. He did, indeed, know Anna.

‘All right.’ What should he say? So much of him wanted to tell Seaton to keep hold of it and tell him nothing more.

But what if it’s the key to everything? What if it shows where she’s gone?

‘An unlawfully taken phone is difficult. But… if it arrives in my possession in a way that isn’t quite clear, then we might be able to take a look at it, if it comes to it.

’ Reid felt detached from his own body. Was he really saying this?

‘If, for example, you were to tell me the phone was left somewhere for you with a note saying it might be of interest, then we’d have a reason to look. On the basis it could be Anna’s.’

‘Wonderful,’ Seaton said with a beaming smile. ‘Coincidentally, it happened exactly like that.’

He reached down into his bag again and handed another phone over. This was also an iPhone, though it was a lot newer-looking than Anna’s and wasn’t in a protective case.

Reid felt a surge of real anxiety as he took it. He had a sense of having stepped into the water for a paddle and then been dragged miles out to sea by a rip tide.

There had always been things Anna was willing to do that he wouldn’t. That he couldn’t. He had to follow the rules. More than that, he wanted to follow the rules.

And now here he was, pocketing a stolen phone and offering to lie to his colleagues. All for an ex-girlfriend who’d betrayed him entirely.

It’s only wrong if you actually go ahead with the lie , he told himself. Just taking the phone isn’t a crime as such.

‘All right,’ he said, suddenly eager to move. To go. ‘I’ll… see what I can do. Obviously, if you do think of anything she told you, or if she contacts you…’

‘I’ll let you know straight away, yes,’ Seaton agreed.

It was as Reid was rising to go that Seaton said, abruptly, ‘Thank you for doing this, Reid. I… I know it’s asking a lot. But I hope you realise that she’d do the same for you. Without question. Even now.’

Reid was already tired of feeling wrongfooted by all of this. He wanted so badly to go back to his normal, safe, everyday thoughts.

And yet, as he blinked at Seaton for a moment, he felt a rush of some long-forgotten warmth.