Page 23

TWENTY-TWO

If Emily Mead was at all curious as to why Tanner had brought her down to an empty apartment on the ground floor she didn’t say so, but the reason became obvious when the man Tanner had asked to help her send a message to LoveMyBro finally arrived.

‘Emily, this is Greg,’ Tanner said.

Hobbs reached up to shake Emily’s hand, then wheeled himself past her and across to the large desk that had been set up in the corner of the sitting room. This aside, the apartment was identical to the one Emily was staying in; clean and tidy if somewhat spartan and with no view beyond its walls.

‘Nice place,’ Hobbs said, looking around. ‘Someone likes beige, don’t they?’

‘Maybe it’s supposed to be calming or something,’ Emily said.

Tanner was watching her. The woman looked a little less jittery than she had been, but it was hard to tell. ‘Is it working?’

‘Have a guess.’

The two of them sat down on the oatmeal sofa and watched as one of Hobbs’s DFU colleagues carried in his equipment in a series of metal flight cases, then, while Hobbs issued instructions, immediately began to assemble it.

Hobbs himself was brandishing a black leather bag, which he unzipped to reveal a collection of cables and portable hard drives, with separate compartments for power banks, memory cards and a row of colour-coded thumb-drives.

‘That your “special” bag then, Greg?’ Tanner asked.

‘Oh yes.’ Hobbs stroked the leather, lasciviously. ‘Everything I need in here, plus there’s room for my sandwiches.’

Emily looked at Tanner. ‘Where d’you get him from?’

Once everything had been set up to Hobbs’s specifications, the DFU worker left and Hobbs beckoned Emily over. She carried a chair across and sat next to him. She nodded; she was ready.

Hobbs smiled and told her there was nothing she needed to be ready for, at least nothing she had to be nervous about. ‘DI Tanner tells me you’re already familiar with the mysteries of the Dark Web,’ he said.

‘I don’t know about that.’ Emily looked over at Tanner, who was watching from the sofa. ‘Someone I used to have a few dealings with showed me the basics. So I was able to get on there and buy a few things I shouldn’t have done.’

‘Don’t worry,’ Hobbs said. ‘I might have bought a few things I shouldn’t have done myself. Like maybe some painkillers a bit stronger than the ones you can get from Boots.’ Now he looked at Tanner. ‘Not going to nick me, are you, DI Tanner?’

‘I couldn’t give a stuff,’ Tanner said.

Emily laughed. It was a little nervous certainly, but she seemed to be relaxing a little. ‘And I can find the place where me and this bloke used to message,’ she said. ‘The room or whatever you call it.’

‘OK, show me,’ Hobbs said.

Hobbs’s fingers flew across the keyboard as he followed Emily’s instructions, his eyes flicking between the three different screens on the desk.

It wasn’t long before Emily pointed and said, ‘Yeah, there,’ and they were both looking at a series of unanswered messages to ButterflyGrrrl from two days earlier; a matter of hours after the man sending them had murdered Adam Callaghan.

It went exactly the way you wanted, didn’t it? The way I thought you wanted, anyway. Talk to me . . .

Hellooooo . . . ??

‘Well, he certainly knows what he’s doing,’ Hobbs said. ‘Getting this private chatroom set up for the two of you shows he’s got some proper chops. There is a more straightforward way of getting here, mind you, a few shortcuts. I’ll show you once we’re done.’

Emily just nodded, staring at the messages.

‘The key question is, how would you reply to him?’

‘I don’t know . . . I didn’t think I’d ever have to.’

‘Well, just sit and think about what you’re going to say and, when you’re ready, I’ll do the typing.’ He smiled at her again. ‘Don’t worry, he’s not going to know it isn’t you.’

‘You sure?’

‘He’s good,’ Hobbs said. ‘But he isn’t as good as me.’

Emily thought for half a minute or so, then began to dictate her reply.

Sorry for being a bit shit and not getting back. Yeah, I was a bit freaked out by what happened. Feeling ok now though and glad that copper got what he deserved. So thanks.

‘Let’s pause there for a minute,’ Hobbs said. ‘So it doesn’t look like something you’ve rehearsed, you know? You don’t want to seem too confident.’

‘Right.’ Tanner, from the sofa. ‘We’re not going to suggest meeting up yet, anyway. We just need to re-establish a dialogue with him, make sure he’s feeling confident.’

‘Oh, he’s seriously confident,’ Emily said. ‘I can tell you that for nothing. Confident what he’s doing is right and that nobody’s going to catch him.’

‘Yeah, I’m sure,’ Tanner said. ‘But thanks to you he might be about to find out that confidence is misplaced.’

Emily nodded and turned back to Hobbs. ‘OK, let’s go again . . . ’

So, what’s next?

‘Oh, I like that,’ Hobbs said. ‘It tells him you’re onside, but it’s putting the ball in his court.’

‘Yeah.’

‘So now we wait and cross our fingers.’

Tanner stood up and came across to look at the screen. ‘That’s very good.’ She laid a hand lightly on Emily’s shoulder. ‘That’s perfect.’

‘You sure?’

‘Thank you.’

Hobbs wheeled around and raised his arms, wearing a mock ‘what-about-me’ expression. ‘You’re welcome.’

‘Yes, obviously you, too.’ Tanner smiled. ‘Tell me about those dodgy painkillers again . . . ’

It was after nine o’clock by the time Hobbs had left with all his kit and Tanner had escorted Emily back upstairs to her own apartment. They were both hungry, so one of the plain-clothes officers on surveillance outside brought in some hot food from a nearby chicken shop.

‘Better than a hotel,’ Emily said. ‘Cheaper, anyway.’

Taking her appetite to be a good sign, Tanner watched Emily devour her food while she explained what would happen next. They were obviously hoping to get a response to the messages Emily had sent, but any further exchanges would be handled remotely by Hobbs from the DFU.

‘They’ll be your words, but we won’t have to go through all that rigmarole again.’

‘It was good to get out and about, as it goes,’ Emily said. ‘Even if it was only two floors down.’

When they’d finished eating, Tanner said, ‘Listen, I want you to know I’m here if you ever feel like talking about what happened with Adam Callaghan.’

‘Oh . . . ’

‘What happened before, I mean.’

Emily slowly lowered her head and shook it, staring down at the mess of chicken bones on her plate.

‘Of course. That’s absolutely fine.’ Tanner stood up and reached for her coat. ‘Whenever you’re ready, and only if you want to.’

‘You could stay a bit, though.’ Emily looked up. ‘You know, unless you need to be somewhere else.’

Tanner dropped her coat back on the chair. ‘I’d like that.’