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“Okay,” he said. He stood, walked down the gap between the pews to the side aisle, and then came back. “Okay. So. Damage control—the police are after you. What do they know?”
“They have my phone—unlocked,” I added in answer to the question I knew was coming.
Cole winced. “Not ideal, but okay.”
“They have most of Gabe’s devices—phone, laptop, and so on. I gave them the passwords that I knew, but I don’t know all his log-ins. Oh, wait—” The memory came back to me from the police interrogation. “They don’t have his hard drive. Someone took it.”
“Someone took his hard drive?” Cole sounded as puzzled as I had been.
“Yes, at least, it was gone. They asked me about it.”
“The hard drive from his main computer?”
“Yes.”
“Anything else missing?”
“I have no idea. I didn’t look before I called the police—I didn’t see any of his equipment when I went back to the house, but I assume the police would have seized it all.”
“Okay…” Cole said slowly. “And what do you need?”
“Well, I have some cash. And I have clothes and a burner phone that Hel—my sister—bought me. But I need a way to talk to Hel. And longer term, I need somewhere to sleep.”
“You can stay at m—” Cole began, and then shook his head. “No, sorry. Stupid idea, I can see that. They’ll get to me eventually. Okay, no, first things first. Communication. Let me think…” He turned away, staring at the patterns cast by the tall stained-glass windows across the austere gray flags. Then he turned back. “I think Signal is your best bet. It’s end-to-end encrypted, and there’s a setting where you can make messages expire after reading.”
“But you have to give your phone number to sign up to Signal, don’t you? And that part’s not encrypted. So if the police are monitoring Hel’s phone, they’ll be able to find this number, and then I’ll be toast.”
But Cole was shaking his head.
“No. You have to give a phone number, but it doesn’t have to be your phone number.”
“What do you mean? You have to verify it—I’m sure you do.”
“You just need a number where you can receive a text message,” Cole said. “Look.” He sat back on the pew beside me, opened his laptop bag, and pulled out a MacBook. “There’s a bunch of sites that can do this—we use them for development tools. They generate a throwaway number, and some of them you can use temporarily to receive texts. So… okay, let’s pick this one.”
He chose one site from a bunch of bookmarks, seemingly at random, and clicked through. Instantly a list of UK mobile numbers popped up on-screen, and he selected one and tapped Open.
“Right. Install Signal on your phone and enter that number.”
I did as he said, typing in the unfamiliar number laboriously and going through the sign-up process until the only step left was to verify the number. I clicked, and a few seconds later a message popped up on Cole’s computer screen.
“Click to verify…” Cole said, and tapped. There was a pause. He picked up his own phone, typing something, and as he did, my phone vibrated and the screen lit up. I unlocked it. A Signal message notification hovered at the top of my screen: Do you read me Red Sparrow, it said.
I stared down at the phone in my hand. For the first time in what felt like days, I found I was smiling.
“Cole, you are a fucking genius. Thank you.”
“You can message Hel from that number now, and there’s no way for the police to trace it. Is she on Signal?”
“I don’t think so. She’s more of a WhatsApp kind of woman.”
“Well, don’t worry, I’ll get a message to her somehow, tell her to get in touch. You should probably assume the police can read the messages if they’re monitoring her phone, but they shouldn’t be able to trace your location from them.”
“Okay. And thank you. Thank God you know this stuff.”
“Part of the job,” Cole said, a little grimly. “Look, I’ve been thinking about tonight. I wish you could stay at my flat—”
I was shaking my head even before he’d finished the sentence.
