time’s the flight?’
‘And that was it,’ she said, as she finished her coffee. ‘I met Professor Scott, who offered me a position, and I never came back.’
She felt a tug at her arm. Jack said, ‘Mummy, I need a pee.’
‘Okay. Come on. And don’t say pee, say wee.’
When they got back to the table, Paul asked, ‘If only Bainbridge was still alive. I bet he’d be able to help. Are you sure there’s no-one else? Did you have any friends at the Unit? What about your room-mate?’
Kate almost gasped. ‘Yes. Sarah. She was my room-mate on my second visit.’ An image flashed in her head of her and Sarah fleeing the fire. ‘I would have spent most of my time with her. If there was something going on, there’s a good chance I would have talked to her about it.’
Excitement blossomed on Paul’s face.
‘Except I never had any contact with her after I left the CRU.’
‘Oh.’
‘I don’t even remember her surname.’
‘Do you think that if we went there, to see the CRU, it might jog your memory?’
‘It might do.’
‘Right.’ He pulled the laptop back towards him.
‘What are you doing?’ Kate asked.
‘Finding out the quickest way to get to Salisbury.’
Back in their hotel room, Kate packed her and Jack’s suitcases. Her heart was beating fast and her body tingled. It was almost a sexual feeling, a sense of excitement mingled with trepidation about what was to come. Jack was excited too, bouncing on the bed.
‘Don’t do that,’ she said.
He kept bouncing.
‘Jack, get down.’
Tutting and huffing he lay down on his back on the bed and said, ‘Mummy, where are we going?’
‘We’re going for a drive down the motorway.’
‘What’s a motorway?’
‘A highway.’
‘Cool. Are we going in Paul’s car?’
‘Yes.’
‘I don’t expect it’s as nice as Daddy’s car. Daddy’s car’s really big and fast, isn’t it?’
That’s to make up for his small penis, she thought. ‘Yes, it is.’
‘Mummy, is Paul your boyfriend?’
She couldn’t see herself in any mirrors, but she was certain her cheeks had turned pink. ‘No, of course he isn’t. He’s just my friend.’
‘Your new friend. Like Billy’s my new friend.’
‘Yes, sweetheart. Just like that.’
Her ‘new friend’ was waiting in the lobby. He picked up both of Kate’s suitcases and strolled off with them towards his car, which was in the hotel car park. Kate noted, with another accompanying tingle, that Paul had surprisingly muscular arms. Jack trotted along behind. ‘Mummy, can we stop on the highway for a KFC?’
‘No.’
‘Taco Bell?’
‘They don’t have Taco Bell in England.’
‘How about a Subway?’ Paul asked.
Jack screwed up his face and stuck his tongue out. ‘Eww. I hate Subway.’
Paul said, ‘Right, you’ve asked for it. We’ll stop at Little Chef.’
‘Alright.’
Paul and Kate exchanged a smile, and Jack looked up at them. ‘Paul, my mum said you’re not her boyfriend, just her friend. But she’s married to my dad, so you couldn’t be her boyfriend anyway, could you? Daddy wouldn’t like that.’
Kate groaned. ‘Ja-ack.’
She couldn’t see Paul’s face to ascertain whether he was amused or horrified by the idea. She knew it was stupid, but she would have been crushed if she’d seen a look of horror. And besides, Jack was dead right. Daddy wouldn’t like that at all.
A minute after they left the car park, John Sampson drove in.
‘How can I help you, sir?’
Sampson didn’t think of his police ID as fake. It wasn’t fake – it had been removed from the still-warm body of a detective inspector and modified later so it showed Sampson’s picture. It always came in handy in situations like this. Real criminals, or people who often had dealings with the law, were usually unimpressed and uncooperative. But flash a police ID at an ordinary member of the public, and act in the right, superior way, and they would fall over themselves to help you. It was easy.
He held up the ID and said, ‘Who’s in charge here?’
There were two receptionists behind the desk, a brunette woman and a man who Sampson was pretty sure was homosexual. He could sense it in the same way someone with a phobia of cats could sense a feline presence. He bristled as the man leaned over and said, in a poofy voice that made Sampson grit his teeth, ‘The manager’s not here at the moment, sir. Perhaps we can help?’
Sampson concentrated on the woman, putting a picture down on the desk in front of her. ‘I believe this woman is staying with you.’
The receptionists gave each other a knowing look. Sampson said, ‘Well?’
The woman said, ‘She looks a lot younger in this picture, but she was staying here. She checked out this morning.’
‘Was she due to check out today?’
‘I’m not sure. Let me check.’
The woman knew Kate’s name, even though they must have hundreds of guests come and go every day. Interesting, thought Sampson.
She brought up Kate’s name on the computer screen beside her and said, ‘She was supposed to be here for another week, though there’s a note here to say her stay was open-ended.’
It was amazing how much confidential information people would give you if they thought you were a police official. It was the human need to gossip taken to a new level. Only fear of losing their jobs made people cautious. But if they felt they had to give the information away – or had an excuse to do so – they would squeal like piglets in a slaughterhouse.
