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I was still trying to think what to say when my email notification pinged again, giving me a little jolt of adrenaline. Was it Jeff replying already?
But when I flicked back to my inbox, the top email wasn’t from Jeff. It was from a name I only just recognized—Julian Archer, an old friend of Gabe’s. And the subject line was My heartfelt sympathy.
Dearest Jack, read the preview pane,
I just heard the terrible news from Cole Garrick…
I closed my eyes. I couldn’t face it—the shock, the sympathy, the questions.
I shut down the browser.
But something stuck with me from Julian’s email—Cole’s name. And with it, Cole’s voice in my ear, from our call that morning on Hel’s unicorn phone. Anything you need, okay? Anything. I mean that.
Cole knew as much about computers as Gabe did, and probably more about mobile phone security, which was his professional area. He, of all people, would be able to tell me what I needed to know—how to communicate safely with Hel. The police would have all my friends and family on their list already, but Cole—I couldn’t remember the last time I had rung him before this morning, and even then I’d used Hel’s old phone, not mine. Before today, our communication had always been through Gabe. The police would work their way around to Cole eventually, I had no doubt about that, but they would have no reason to put him top of the list.
Most importantly, Cole was Gabe’s best friend. If something had been going on in Gabe’s head the last couple of weeks, something that he hadn’t felt able to tell me, for whatever reason, Cole was the only other person he might have confided in. I had to find out if Gabe had set up that life insurance policy or not, and there was a chance—not a very high one, but a definite chance—that Cole might know, one way or the other.
But how could I get in touch with him without putting us both on the police’s radar?
I was still trying to figure it out when a deep voice came from in front of me.
“Hey, what happened to your hair, Red?”
The words jolted me back to reality and I looked up, slightly alarmed at the idea that someone was keeping track of my appearance. Then I realized—it was Lucius, the guy from reception. Of course—he had seen me with red hair that afternoon.
I gave a shaky laugh.
“I don’t know… just fancied a change, I guess. You know what they say—blondes have more fun.”
“I hear ya. Though you were looking pretty serious there. Everything all right?”
The question was kindly phrased, but the absurdity of it made a near-hysterical laugh bubble up inside me, threatening to escape. Instead I stared at him, wondering what to say.
Well, I was just wondering how to get in touch with my dead husband’s best friend without being fingered by the police. Any ideas?
“I—I’ve got a tricky email to write,” I said at last. “To a friend. I was just trying to think of how to phrase it.”
“Ah,” Lucius said. He smiled, a kind one that made his eyes crinkle. He was older than he had looked at first, I realized. Probably my age or more. “You know what? My rule of thumb is, if you can’t write it, say it. I always find face-to-face is better for the big stuff.”
Face-to-face. I chewed my lip, wondering if this was the stupidest idea I’d ever heard, or if the man was a genius. Face-to-face. I knew where Cole lived. I knew where he worked. It was highly, highly unlikely he’d be under surveillance—not yet at least. Could I just… find him?
“You know…” I said slowly, “I think you might just be right.”
“I’m always right,” Lucius said with a wink. “G’night… Blondie.”
“Good night,” I echoed. As he disappeared up the stairs to the dorms, I shut down the laptop, threw my Pot Noodle cup in the bin, and stood, with a new sense of… not hope exactly, but at least a kind of purpose. I had a plan—albeit a pretty cursory one.
I was going to get some sleep. Then I would find Cole.
TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 7 MINUS FIVE DAYS
When I woke, it was with a sense of complete disorientation. I was lying in an unfamiliar bed, surrounded by purple curtains, and there was a low, throbbing pain below my right ribs. The room was extremely warm, my hair smelled of bleach and cheap shampoo, and I could hear other people’s breathing.
Then it came to me—I was in the hostel, lying on a thin mattress in a curtained bunk, and my roommates were asleep, which meant it was likely still early.
I pulled myself up against the pillows. My head was aching, my side hurt, and I had the sensation of not having slept at all, although I knew I had. But my dreams had been filled with horrible nightmares—images of Gabe, soaked with blood, lurching upright with a ghastly grin and begging, Please, help me, as his cut throat whistled with every word; sweaty chases through hot shopping centers with a policeman on my tail who looked a lot like Jeff Leadbetter but wore Hel’s coat and pushed the twins in a buggy in front of him—an image that should have been funny, but in the dream had been anything but.
For a long moment I sat, waiting for everything to stabilize, for the sickish feeling of dread to subside and the pieces of the day to sink into place. At last, realizing that this wasn’t going to get any better, I parted the curtains, swung my legs over the side of the bed, and climbed down the bunk ladder to the floor.
