‘How is she?’
Bex pauses before she answers. ‘OK… considering that someone just tried to run her over in the street.’
‘What?’
‘She’s fine,’ Bex adds quickly. ‘A bit pissed but fine.’
She explains about Kate’s close shave with the car and then drops a bigger bombshell, telling him that the driver tried to spike her coffee yesterday and that she nearly drowned in the harbour.
‘Why didn’t you tell me this earlier?’ Jake asks, struggling to take it all in. And why didn’t Kate mention it last night when he called her? Typically, she’d been more concerned about him and the boat fire than her own brush with death.
‘Because you’re out of her life, Jake.’
Harsh. ‘So why are you telling me now?’ he asks quietly. He knows she’s right. He’s history.
‘It gets worse. The same man who spiked her drink yesterday…’ Bex is finding this difficult. She’s usually as hard as nails. ‘He also spiked her drink the night of her car crash. Kate recognised him from that footage you were sent.’
‘Really? How do you know all this?’
But before Bex has a chance to reply, Jake’s phone flags up another caller.
‘I’ve got to go,’ he says. ‘DI Hart’s calling me.’
He cuts Bex off and sits up in the chair in front of the computer, trying to process what he’s just heard and wondering why Hart is ringing him. He hopes Hart has news about the arsonist who torched his boat. Maybe something about the pub footage too. That’s obviously why he went down to Cornwall, to talk to Kate, who then talked to Bex about it.
‘Any news?’ Jake says.
‘You tell me.’
Jake doesn’t like Hart’s tone. The bloke can be so affable one minute, intimidating the next. ‘How do you mean?’ he asks, shifting awkwardly in his seat.
‘Taken out any insurance recently?’
Jake breathes a sigh of relief. ‘Yeah, finally upgraded to some decent cover,’ he says. ‘Thank God.’
Until now, he’s just had the basic third-party cover – damage to locks and other boats – that’s required to get a licence from the Canal and River Trust.
‘Four days ago,’ Hart says. ‘Three days before your boat was destroyed.’
He’s so naive. It never occurred to him how it might appear in the light of the fire. For months he’d been meaning to get the insurance upgraded to cover contents. Just like he’s been planning to set up an ISA, buy some premium bonds and do his tax return early for once. All part of his sober, self-improvement plan.
‘And that’s a problem?’ Jake asks.
‘You can see how it might look,’ Hart says. ‘I’ll call you tomorrow.’
The line drops. A moment later, the cat jumps up onto his lap, steps with its front paws onto the keyboard and wakes up the computer screen. A picture of Rob in Brest stares back at him.
38
Silas
‘We’re off back up to Wiltshire,’ Silas says, finding himself standing in the doorway of Kate’s house in Cornwall for the second time that day. On this occasion they rang the doorbell and smiled at the security camera. No need for carnations. He’d been hoping for a quick cream tea before they went, but they need to beat the Sunday-night traffic.
‘Have a safe drive,’ Kate says. ‘And watch out for…’ She hesitates, swaying slightly on her feet in front of Silas.
Is she drunk? It’s four o’clock in the afternoon.
‘Are you sure you’re OK?’ Silas asks, glancing at Strover. She’d reassured him earlier that Kate was fine after the run-in with the car, but she doesn’t look herself.
‘All good,’ Kate says, unconvincingly.
Her friend Bex appears at her shoulder, grinning at him and Strover. Dear God, they’re both drunk.
‘I was just going to say watch out for the speed camera on the border with Cornwall and Devon,’ Kate says, pointing in the air with her finger. ‘There’s a sneaky police van at the bottom of the hill – Rob is always being caught there. But then I remembered you are the police and…’
Bex puts a hand to her mouth to suppress a giggle.
‘We’ll be careful,’ Silas says. ‘The car was stolen, by the way. The one that tried to run you over. We’ll let you know if we find it – or the driver. The local police have all the details.’
‘OK,’ Kate says. Silas catches a whiff of alcohol on her breath.
‘And we’ve asked a colleague to run a match for your partner,’ Strover adds.
Kate seems to sober up immediately. ‘And?’ she asks.
‘I’ll call you if we hear something.’
‘Me too, if you find a match,’ Bex adds. ‘Then we can have a toyboy each.’
Kate elbows her friend in the ribs. Silas is beginning to regret stopping by. But he knows there’s another reason why he needed to see Kate.
‘There’s something else I wanted to ask,’ he says.
‘I’m not coming back,’ Kate fires back.
‘I know you’re not.’ Silas pauses. She’s made that quite clear already. ‘It’s actually about my son, Conor. He’s been missing six weeks now. I’ve no idea where he is.’
This is proving harder than he thought. Kate and Strover both know that Conor had a drugs problem and was homeless, but it’s still not easy.
‘We used to come to this part of Cornwall for our holidays, when he was a boy,’ he continues. ‘I don’t know, it’s a long shot, but he might have headed down here – somewhere familiar. Where he was happy.’
He stops before he makes a fool of himself. Then he pulls out an A4 sheet and hands it to Kate. It’s a missing persons poster, with a photo of Conor taken a couple of years back, when he was still living at home and relatively stable.
‘Do you want me to put it up in the village?’ Kate asks. All the giggling of earlier has gone.
‘No need,’ Silas says. ‘Just keep an eye out for him. Remember his face. In case he should ever pass through here. You’re good at spotting someone in a crowd. Very good.’
‘I’ll do that,’ she says, looking at the photo.
The last time Silas saw Conor, he was living rough in a multi-storey car park in the middle of Swindon.
The four of them stand in awkward silence for a few moments before Silas turns to walk away.
‘Can you check something else for me?’ Kate calls out. ‘About Rob?’
Silas stops, surprised. He thought they were quits now, her looking out for Conor in return for them searching for Rob’s double on the database.
‘I think Rob might have another Tesla, just like that one,’ she says, gesturing at the car on the drive.
Silas glances at it and then looks back at Kate. ‘Lucky Rob,’ he says, forcing a smile. He’s tried over the years not to feel jealous of others’ wealth. In his experience, money rarely brings happiness. But the sight of a £90,000 electric whip still niggles him.
‘If he has bought another Tesla, it’ll be in London,’ Kate continues. ‘With Rob. But then someone thought they saw him in the village this morning.’