Tom spots me and walks over quickly. There’s no sign of Becky.
‘What’s happened?’ I ask. ‘What are all the pictures for?’
He lifts a hand to guide me back towards the door, but I’m rooted to the spot and I know he won’t manhandle me out of the room. His body blocks my view of the second whiteboard.
‘I’m sorry, Jo. Nothing’s happened. You can’t really be in here, so let me take you back.’
‘Why has nothing happened? Why has no one called?’
‘We don’t know. Until we have some contact from them, it’s hard to say what their motives are.’
I don’t like this. A kidnap with a ransom would be devastating, but there is always the hope that it could be resolved. If it’s not that, what is it? What could be happening to them? Please God, don’t let them hurt Millie.
‘Can we go back to the other room, do you think?’ Tom asks again. ‘I’d like to sit down and go through Ash’s telephone records with you.’
I feel a shiver of unease. ‘Did you find something dodgy?’
‘No. As far as we can see, his texts and calls are either family- or work-related.’
Tom holds out his arm again, and this time I accede to his unspoken request to leave the room. We don’t speak as we walk, and as soon as we’re back in the same bland room with the blue sofa I flop down, the last of my energy seeping out of me.
‘I thought if we went through his list of contacts you could tell me what you know about any of them.’
I shrug. I’m sure most won’t mean anything to me. Ash doesn’t often talk about his work colleagues – he worries non-stop about his patients, but I only know a few of his colleagues by name.
‘There are a lot of calls to a Inéz Ortega. I believe she works at the hospital.’
That’s a name I do know. ‘She’s a senior nurse – a sister, I think – in the HDU – the high-dependency unit. A lot of Ash’s patients end up there after surgery, and he likes to check on them from home every so often.’
Tom refers to his list again. ‘It seems Ash likes to delete text messages, so it’s hard for us to say what he was chatting to people about. We know who he messaged, and who messaged him, but not the content. Did he always delete them, or is that something new?’
‘Ash is compulsively tidy. I didn’t know he deleted texts, but it doesn’t surprise me.’
‘Okay. There are quite a few to you, of course, and as well as Inéz Ortega he seems to have had a few calls and messages to a Ruth Vickery – quite regularly for a short period three months ago, but less recently. Apparently she’s a forensic psychologist. Does she mean anything to you?’
‘I don’t know what that is – unless it’s like Cracker on the TV.’
‘He was a bit of an extreme case,’ Tom says with a smile. ‘But although forensic psychologists do have some engagement with the perpetrators of crimes, they often work with the victims too.’
‘Ash did have a case a few months ago involving a child who was right at the centre of domestic abuse. I think he mentioned that she’d had to see a psychologist who specialised in dealing with cases like that. I know it upset him a lot because it was particularly evil. In fact, I remember him saying he’d told the girl’s mother that if he ever met her bastard partner who had so viciously brutalised his own daughter, he’d string him up by his balls. And for Ash that’s pretty severe. He’s a real pacifist.’
Tom is looking at me intently, and I suddenly realise what I have said. Does he think this girl’s father might have something to do with it? It would make sense – father and daughter. Perhaps it isn’t a kidnap at all. Perhaps it’s a revenge attack.
30
Tom had put in a call to Keith Sims and passed on the details of the incident with Ash’s patient. They needed to identify him. If he was evil enough to harm his own child, God knows what he might do to Ash or Millie.
He had decided to stay and talk to Jo for a while, recognising that she needed to share her fears, but the sky was lightening outside the window on another miserable February morning, and he should get back to the incident room.
As he stepped out into the corridor, his mobile rang. He didn’t recognise the number.
‘Tom Douglas,’ he answered.
‘Hello, little brother.’
Jack.
Tom was speechless for a moment. He heard a familiar chuckle down the line.
‘It’s wonderful to hear your voice, but aren’t you taking a risk calling me on my mobile?’ Tom asked.
Tom’s older brother, Jack, had been in hiding from an organised-crime group for years. They believed he was dead, and it was better that way for everyone. As a result, Tom wasn’t able to contact him for fear that his calls would be traced.
‘Not so much now, I’m delighted to say. I’m calling you with some good news.’ Jack paused, and Tom knew it was for effect. ‘Finn McGuinness is dead.’
Tom leaned against the wall and closed his eyes. For so many years they had all lived in fear that McGuinness – the OCG enforcer – would track Jack down. Even though McGuinness was in Manchester Prison, a place that Tom would always think of as Strangeways, McGuinness’s influence spread far and wide.
‘When did he die? How?’ Tom asked.
‘About an hour ago. Murdered, of course.’
‘Jesus, Jack. How do you know this so quickly?’
Jack just laughed, and on balance it was probably better if he spared Tom the details.
What did this mean, though? Was it now safe for Jack to come out into the open? Were there others who would take over McGuinness’s dirty work now he was dead?
Tom had just opened his mouth to ask more when he heard the click of heels coming along the corridor and to his surprise saw the neat figure of Detective Superintendent Philippa Stanley heading towards him, dressed in her ubiquitous navy-blue suit and white blouse.
‘I’ve got to go,’ he said hastily to Jack. ‘Can I call you back on this number?’
Jack laughed again. ‘What do you think?’
Tom tutted in frustration. He knew what that meant. Jack could make technology sing, and he had undoubtedly found a way of making a call from some bogus number that wouldn’t take incoming calls. Bloody irritating it was, too.
‘Call me back – please!’
With that he hung up and pushed the phone into the front pocket of his jeans.
‘Philippa. This is a surprise. To what do we owe the pleasure of your company at this hour on a Sunday morning?’
Philippa gave him a look. She might be Tom’s boss now, but she had once been a trainee detective reporting to him, and although he always – or almost always – respected her authority, neither of them could forget the time she had nearly jumped into his arms at the sight of a rat.
‘You look like you’ve been up all night, Tom. I don’t know why you don’t accept the inevitable and put yourself forward for promotion. You know you’d get it. Then you wouldn’t have to do so many all-nighters.’
Tom shuddered. ‘No thanks. Never going to happen, as you very well know. Seriously, though, why are you here? We have everything under control – as far as we can with still no ransom demand.’