these?’
‘Yes.’
‘And you didn’t find anything?’
She shook her head. ‘But that doesn’t mean there isn’t something worth finding. I worry that I’m too close – to him, to the life he led, to his career as a cop.’
‘Can I take all this stuff with me?’
‘That’s what it’s all here for.’
Briefly, something passed across her face. She’d probably spent the past twenty-four hours wondering if involving me was a good thing, not because she didn’t trust my abilities or my instincts, but because she had to accept her part in this was over. I was talking to her mother and to her. I was taking home the cardboard boxes and being given the keys to the Frankses’ house on Dartmoor. All of a sudden, this was my case, not hers.
Now all she could do was wait.
13
The steakhouse was at the northern end of Long Acre, halfway between Covent Garden and Kingsway. After I left Craw’s place in Wimbledon, I called Annabel and gave her directions to the restaurant, and then found a space in a car park close to Waterloo. The walk across the river was cold, wind rolling down the Thames like a wave, and by the time I got to the Strand, sleet was drifting out of the sky and I was chilled to the bone.
The place was called Gustavo’s, after the owner. It was at the far end of a long, narrow cul-de-sac and was wedged between a property firm and an advertising agency. Instead of the bland, silver-grey panels of the businesses that surrounded it, its front was mostly all glass, potted bay trees sitting either side of its door, a striped canvas awning pulled all the way down, protecting lunchtime smokers from the sleet.
Inside it was done out in dark wood panelling, booths lined up around its edges, tables in the middle. It was small, but it was warm and the food smelled good. I asked for a booth at the window, looking back up the alley, so I could see when Annabel arrived.
I’d grabbed a backpack from the car and thrown in some stuff from the boxes that Craw had given me, including more photos, Franks’s iPad and the two white notebooks. A lot of the contents of the boxes, even at a quick glance, I knew wouldn’t come to much – old golf trophies, dog-eared airport thrillers, comedy snowglobes – but the iPad and notebooks were different. I unzipped the bag and took everything out.
The photos were a good spread, but nothing I hadn’t seen before. This collection leaned much more towards his work life than his home life: time-bleached shots of him sitting on the edge of a desk in a Santa hat at an office Christmas party; flanked by three other cops, what looked like a CID office in the background, all striking comedy poses; a serious picture of him at his desk; in plain clothes again, arms crossed, on a stage, listening to someone off camera; and an official police photograph, in full uniform.
Midway down the pile, sandwiched between interchangeable pictures of his career, was the only photo that didn’t include him. Not him, not his work, not the police, not his family. Instead, it was a discoloured shot of Dartmoor, taken in the depths of winter, the ground covered in a blanket of frost. There were swathes of bracken rising up out of the chalk-white grass and – in the spaces between – huge moss-covered boulders, scattered as if they’d dropped from the sky. Whoever had taken the picture was elevated, maybe even on a tor, looking down a valley between two sweeping hillsides. Nestled in the cleft at the bottom was a tiny stone bridge and, behind that, the silhouette of a spire. The drop from the point at which the picture had been taken, to the bridge, must have been eight hundred feet, and a stream – silvery in the soft morning light – ran almost the entire way.
I turned the picture slightly, holding it up to the light.
On the left, built in a natural plateau on the hillside, was what remained of a tinner’s hut, a square of grey rubble embedded in the grass where the foundations of a house
‘Yes.’
‘And you didn’t find anything?’
She shook her head. ‘But that doesn’t mean there isn’t something worth finding. I worry that I’m too close – to him, to the life he led, to his career as a cop.’
‘Can I take all this stuff with me?’
‘That’s what it’s all here for.’
Briefly, something passed across her face. She’d probably spent the past twenty-four hours wondering if involving me was a good thing, not because she didn’t trust my abilities or my instincts, but because she had to accept her part in this was over. I was talking to her mother and to her. I was taking home the cardboard boxes and being given the keys to the Frankses’ house on Dartmoor. All of a sudden, this was my case, not hers.
Now all she could do was wait.
13
The steakhouse was at the northern end of Long Acre, halfway between Covent Garden and Kingsway. After I left Craw’s place in Wimbledon, I called Annabel and gave her directions to the restaurant, and then found a space in a car park close to Waterloo. The walk across the river was cold, wind rolling down the Thames like a wave, and by the time I got to the Strand, sleet was drifting out of the sky and I was chilled to the bone.
The place was called Gustavo’s, after the owner. It was at the far end of a long, narrow cul-de-sac and was wedged between a property firm and an advertising agency. Instead of the bland, silver-grey panels of the businesses that surrounded it, its front was mostly all glass, potted bay trees sitting either side of its door, a striped canvas awning pulled all the way down, protecting lunchtime smokers from the sleet.
Inside it was done out in dark wood panelling, booths lined up around its edges, tables in the middle. It was small, but it was warm and the food smelled good. I asked for a booth at the window, looking back up the alley, so I could see when Annabel arrived.
I’d grabbed a backpack from the car and thrown in some stuff from the boxes that Craw had given me, including more photos, Franks’s iPad and the two white notebooks. A lot of the contents of the boxes, even at a quick glance, I knew wouldn’t come to much – old golf trophies, dog-eared airport thrillers, comedy snowglobes – but the iPad and notebooks were different. I unzipped the bag and took everything out.
The photos were a good spread, but nothing I hadn’t seen before. This collection leaned much more towards his work life than his home life: time-bleached shots of him sitting on the edge of a desk in a Santa hat at an office Christmas party; flanked by three other cops, what looked like a CID office in the background, all striking comedy poses; a serious picture of him at his desk; in plain clothes again, arms crossed, on a stage, listening to someone off camera; and an official police photograph, in full uniform.
Midway down the pile, sandwiched between interchangeable pictures of his career, was the only photo that didn’t include him. Not him, not his work, not the police, not his family. Instead, it was a discoloured shot of Dartmoor, taken in the depths of winter, the ground covered in a blanket of frost. There were swathes of bracken rising up out of the chalk-white grass and – in the spaces between – huge moss-covered boulders, scattered as if they’d dropped from the sky. Whoever had taken the picture was elevated, maybe even on a tor, looking down a valley between two sweeping hillsides. Nestled in the cleft at the bottom was a tiny stone bridge and, behind that, the silhouette of a spire. The drop from the point at which the picture had been taken, to the bridge, must have been eight hundred feet, and a stream – silvery in the soft morning light – ran almost the entire way.
I turned the picture slightly, holding it up to the light.
On the left, built in a natural plateau on the hillside, was what remained of a tinner’s hut, a square of grey rubble embedded in the grass where the foundations of a house
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