There was little noise outside. This would have been worth celebrating, any other time: there was a nightclub nearby, and the quietest moments River enjoyed after dark were in those brief interludes that followed someone getting stabbed, or a bottle being smashed. Here, though, was the lull between the last Uber and the first delivery truck, a respite he generally observed by sleeping through it. Whoever this was better have a good excuse.
He wore jogging bottoms, and a grey T-shirt. Bare feet. Frigid floor.
The spy who walked round in the cold.
Through his intercom he could hear someone waiting by the building’s entrance. “It’s six o’clock in the morning,” he told them.
“It’s Emma Flyte.”
He hadn’t expected that. Mind you, he hadn’t expected anything: that was more or less the definition of surprise.
“Mind if I come in?”
“I didn’t think you lot asked.”
“You might not have heard. I’m no longer at the Park.”
“Oh, right, yeah.” He shook his head: still half-asleep. “I knew that.”
“So . . .”
He pushed the button that unlocked the building.
She appeared at the top of the stairs moments later, and walked through the door he was holding without looking impressed. River couldn’t blame her. He wasn’t impressed himself, and his standards were doubtless lower than hers. The flat, a one-bed, was shabbily decorated, and scored low on ambience and everything else, not to mention being further east than he imagined she usually ventured, though as soon as he caught that thought he corrected himself: Emma Flyte was ex-Met. She might look like a model, but she’d walked a beat. Had dragged villains from grubbier dwellings than this.
It was easy to fall into the trap of underestimating beautiful women. And best to avoid doing so while wearing jogging bottoms.
While he was thinking all this, she’d taken control of the room. “Louisa’s gone off the radar,” she said.
“Louisa’s gone on leave,” he told her. “I mean, don’t get me wrong, I love Service jargon. But she filled in a form and everything.”
“Thanks, I knew that. And probably wouldn’t be here if that’s what I’d meant. Nice as your place is.”
“My cleaner’s not been well.”
“Looks like your cleaner got old and died. Possibly of shock when decimal currency came in. But like I say, not what I’m here for. Louisa called me yesterday, asking for a favour. She promised to check in later. She didn’t.”
River nodded, mostly to get circulation going in his head. “Okay. I—do you want coffee?”
“Do you have any?”
“I’m not sure.”
“Then let’s pretend you didn’t bother asking. Did she tell you where she was going?”
“She didn’t tell me anything. She just waved goodbye on her way out. What favour did she ask?”
“She wanted me to run a trace.”
“Car? Phone?”
“Fitbit,” Emma said.
“. . . Yeah, okay. Not sure I’ve come across that before, but . . .”
“But you’re basically wearing a GPS.”
“So it can be done, I get that. But you’re no longer at the Park. You just said.”
“Top marks, paying attention. No, I’m not. I didn’t run this through the Hub. Point of fact, I got your colleague onto it.”
“. . . Ho?”
“Ho.”
“You asked Roddy Ho a favour?”
“You don’t think he’d do me one?”
“I think he’d roll over and waggle his legs in the air. I just wouldn’t have thought that was something you’d want to see.”
Emma said, “Louisa said she needed it done. Can we move on? The Fitbit belongs to one Lucas Harper. That name ring bells?”
“Harper?”
“Lucas.”
“Min Harper was a colleague,” River said slowly. “He and Louisa were . . . together.”
“Were?”
“He died.”
“Okay . . . And Lucas?”
“Min had children,” said River. “Lucas might be one of them. Where did he turn out to be?”
“Pegsea,” said Emma. “Pembrokeshire.”
“That’s in Wales.”
“I believe so.”
“And you told Louisa this, and then she went dark?”
“That’s right, you like a bit of jargon. No, it didn’t happen that quickly. After I spoke to her, she drove off to Wales. Then later she asked for an update, and I got Roddy—”
“Ho.”
“—to confirm the location. I passed that on to Louisa too, the map reference, so she could find Lucas. And the last thing she said was—”
“That she’d call back.”
“Once she’d found him. But she didn’t. And I’ve called her a dozen times. Goes straight to voicemail.”
River rubbed his eyes. Most of the night he’d lain awake, thinking about his father: what Frank was up to, why he’d reappeared. What move he might make next. Yesterday, while—it turned out—Louisa had been driving to Wales, he’d gone to Stevenage, to examine the Travelodge Frank had checked into. Nothing. No clues, no tracks. The best he’d managed was a list of number plates: all the cars that had registered there that week. He’d not given Louisa a thought, beyond the disgruntlement he’d felt at her taking off, just when it looked like they might see action.
“Cartwright?”
“I’m thinking.”
“I can tell that requires your total attention. But is there any chance you could speed it up?”
He made a decision. “What’s it doing outside?”
“Getting ready to snow. In fact, it’s only just marginally warmer out there than it is in here. How much detail do you want?”
