See How They Run (16 page)

A
lone in the hotel room
, Harry decided to take a long shower. The pleasure was diminished somewhat by the prospect of having to dress in the clothes he’d been wearing all day, but at least it left him feeling moderately fresher than before.

Afterwards he sat on one of the beds and stared at the phones in his hands. His own was still switched off. The Samsung, loaned to him by Ruth, steadfastly refused to bring him an incoming message. He’d sent three texts to Alice’s phone and called her half a dozen times, and all he’d got was voicemail.

What really ate at him was the thought that his own phone might hold the message that would ease all his fears. But Ruth had warned him not to turn it on, in case the authorities tracked his location. That seemed like overkill to him. Ridiculous.

Aware that his willpower was slipping away, he placed the phone on the unit by the TV, then returned to the bed and played around with the remote control. He found BBC1, where the six o’clock news had just got underway.

He frowned. He wasn’t sure precisely how long Ruth had been gone, but it had to be getting on for an hour.

That meant she ought to be back any minute. He comforted himself with the knowledge that at least he hadn’t done anything stupid in her absence.

Yet.

A
fter a while he
muted the TV volume. He didn’t want to hear about other people’s problems; nor was he interested in what the TV companies classed as entertainment at this time of the evening.

But his tetchiness was a warning sign. If Ruth wasn’t here soon he might not be able to resist using his phone.

Then it hit him with brilliant clarity. Ruth wasn’t coming back. She must have found another way to locate Keri, and so Harry, having served his purpose, had simply been discarded.

He grabbed his trainers and the key card, then noticed Ruth’s suitcase on the floor by the bed. Why had she brought it in here, if she was intending to do a runner?

He hesitated, aware that the combination of stress and solitude might be causing him to overreact. It was all too easy to think the worst.

Fortunately there was a straightforward way to find out.

He passed several other guests on his way through the atrium, but no one paid him any attention. He took the steps down to the car park and felt only a queasy satisfaction at the sight of the empty bay where Ruth’s Corsa had been parked. Another couple of minutes and he had surveyed the rest of the car park and verified it beyond doubt.

Ruth was gone. He was on his own.

R
eturning to the room
, he tipped the contents of her case on to the bed. It was mostly clothing: underwear, t-shirts, a spare pair of jeans, plus a toiletry bag with just the basics for a few days away. A second wig, this one with reddish, wavy hair. There was nothing essential: no paperwork or identifying documents, no keys or money or personal items. Everything here could be quickly replaced – and evidently the cost of doing so had been a price worth paying to be rid of him without further complication.

Of course, he still had the phone she’d given him, which held her number from when she’d called with the all-clear from the hotel room.

He rang it, and a recorded voice informed him that the mobile was switched off. There was no option to leave a message.

He slumped on to the bed and considered his options. First he wondered if something could have happened to her. But that was almost too terrible to imagine.

The desire to check his own phone was now overpowering. As for being tracked, his understanding – admittedly garnered from TV cop shows – was that the signal could be triangulated using the nearest base stations. Given that his location was right in the centre of Crawley, pinpointing this hotel must be next to impossible.

‘Worth the risk,’ he murmured to himself. He powered up the phone, and a series of quiet chimes announced that he was a man in demand. He had a stack of missed calls and three voicemail messages: one from Sam at work and two from his mum. Wiser to ignore those, he decided.

He switched to texts. Five messages, the first a junk thing about concert tickets. One from Sam, wishing Alice a speedy recovery, which made no sense until he remembered his earlier lie about the migraine. One each from Alice’s mum and his own mother, while the remaining text was from an unfamiliar number. Maybe the detective who’d spoken to him on the phone?

Braced for disappointment, he opened that next and was rewarded with a surge of relief.

Harry, this is Alice on Renshaw phone. Me and Evie fine. Staying at R friend in Gloucs, hope to call u later to collect us. Let me know who u r xx

Alice was okay. They were both safe and well, and free to come home. Harry wasn’t sure why Alice hadn’t been able to text him from her own phone, but that seemed a minor detail in the circumstances.

He read it again. This time the last line made him frown.
Let me know
who
you are.
He hoped it was an error, rather than a dig at him for holding back information.

Still puzzling over it, he happened to glance at the TV and saw a familiar location on screen.

Lavinia Street.

T
he sight
of his home on the local news came as an almost physical blow. Harry reeled back in shock, hoping desperately it was a coincidence: something else had happened in Lavinia Street to attract the media’s attention …

He restored the volume in time to hear an improbably handsome man, identified as Detective Inspector Thomsett, issuing an urgent appeal for Brighton filmmaker Harry French to make contact with Sussex Police. They cut to a head shot of Harry, taken from the LiveFire website, while DI Thomsett explained that, following calls to the police made from the property earlier in the day, they now had serious concerns for the welfare of Harry, his wife Alice and their infant daughter.

Another picture: this one of mother and newborn, taken by Harry’s mum. He felt a shudder of revulsion at the thought that she must have supplied the photo. Did that mean she was willing to think the worst of her own son?

Back to the studio, where the presenter solemnly reiterated the plea for him to get in touch. She sounded faintly disgusted, as if his guilt were already beyond doubt.

But it wasn’t, was it? He had a message from Alice to prove she was unharmed.

He was pondering how best to approach DI Thomsett when he spotted the flaw in his plan. The text had been sent from an anonymous mobile. As evidence that Alice and Evie were safe and well, it was useless.

He punched the mattress in frustration. He was back to his original plan: get Alice to ring DI Thomsett.

His own phone was toxic, but before switching it off he took a note of the number Alice had used, keying it into the Samsung. Then he rang the number, but there was no answer.
Of course there wasn’t.

He texted:
Alice, it’s Harry. I’m having to use a borrowed phone, too. Will explain all soon. If this really is you, tell me where we went for that weekend before Evie came along. And tell me you really are safe! I love you. Harry xx

For good measure he tried Ruth’s number again, but no one answered. That sealed it: he was alone. Wanted by the authorities, stranded in a traveller’s hotel in Crawley, a wad of cash in his pocket but no idea how it could help him.

A wanted man
. He tried out the phrase, reciting it several times in the hope that it would sound absurd, but all it did was make him more afraid. How could he possibly help Alice and Evie if he was on the run from the police?

A
lice fed Evie
for a good twenty minutes, then let her lie on the bed in just her nappy, taking great pleasure at the sight of her daughter kicking and punching the air with her chubby limbs. For an old house it was remarkably warm: the heating seemed to be on full blast. The air in the room was a little fusty, but nicely scented by the ageing timber furniture. Lying next to her daughter on the double bed, Alice soon began to feel drowsy.

She stirred at the sound of a car starting up. Wrapping Evie in her pramsuit, she hurried along the landing and watched from the window as Renshaw inexpertly guided his car into the garage. It seemed like an unnecessary precaution – unless it meant that, even here, he didn’t feel safe from his pursuers?

Jittery again, she tiptoed back to the nursery. She knew she must face her reluctance to join Nerys and Renshaw, but all she wanted to do was speak to Harry and make sure he was all right, then go to bed and put this dreadful day behind her. She no longer held out any hope of being reunited with him tonight, but if she could at least arrange something for tomorrow she’d sleep a lot more easily.

Except that Renshaw had taken his phone back, and her own phone was useless without a charger.

A landline, then? Out here in the wilds the mobile reception was probably patchy at best. Nerys would no doubt rely on a landline, and in a house as large as this, surely she’d have more than one extension?

A
lice deliberated for a few minutes
. It would be an abuse of the hospitality Nerys had offered to go snooping around the woman’s home, and yet Alice knew she would prefer to do that than ask to use the phone. Having spent all afternoon pressuring Renshaw for the right to contact Harry, she didn’t have the energy for another battle with Nerys. In any case, there was too much at stake to worry about social niceties.

She waited a while on the landing, listening for movement from below. There were four other rooms on this floor, as well as a narrow staircase that led up to the roof space. She opened each door in turn and found two more guest bedrooms, far more modest in scale than the nursery. There was a large bathroom with a big steel tub and a built-in shower, and then a master bedroom, notable for being considerably untidier than elsewhere. The floor was strewn with discarded clothes, and a small landslide of shoes was piled against the side of a free-standing wardrobe.

There was only the one bedside table. It was home to a tin of boiled sweets, a Sylvia Day novel and a neat black cordless phone.

A floorboard creaked as she walked around the bed, making her wince. From what she could make of the layout, Renshaw and Nerys were most likely in the living room directly below her. She braced herself for an angry reaction, but no one came running. An old house like this, it probably creaks all the time, Alice told herself.

She shifted Evie to her left arm, which provoked a cry of displeasure. Not loud enough to be heard downstairs, she hoped.

Alice lifted the phone from its cradle and put it to her ear. Nothing.

She examined the keypad. Maybe she had to press the call button to open the connection? She tried that, but still there was no dial tone. And yet the charger had a tiny light glowing to indicate that it was plugged in.

The line was dead. Pure bad luck, or something more sinister?

S
he was pushing
her luck to stay in here any longer. And she could hardly go crawling under the bed to check the socket. Returning Evie to her favoured position high on her shoulder, Alice tiptoed downstairs, with an excuse prepared that she always took the stairs slowly when carrying her daughter.

She reached the hall and saw the door to the lounge was ajar. There was music playing quietly – something blandly classical – along with the murmur of conversation. Even before she could make out the words, Alice knew from the tone that this wasn’t just idle chatter.

She stopped a few feet from the door and went into a rocking motion, as if pausing to get Evie to sleep. She caught Nerys saying: ‘… could offer to return the money, and see if they’ll—?’

‘No. I am owed this. Anyhow, it is also our history. What I know of their business.’

‘Well,
I
knew all about it, and they let me retire, didn’t they?’

Renshaw grunted. The silence that followed was sheer agony for Alice: the tiniest squeak from Evie and they would know she was eavesdropping.

Then Nerys said: ‘Or do you know something I don’t?’

In a dismissive tone, Renshaw sidestepped the question. ‘Men such as Laird, one does not reason with them. I take it you do not broadcast your whereabouts?’

‘I don’t, but not because they threatened me. Just plain common sense, that’s all. You never know when one of them might …’

She tailed off, presumably because Renshaw had got the message. Evie wriggled and arched her back, and Alice took a step towards the door, and then Nerys said: ‘Getting yourself saddled with
passengers
, Edward. What in God’s name are you intending to do with them?’

Alice flinched. Her heart was beating so loudly it was a struggle to hear the conversation.

‘Put them on a train tomorrow.’

‘Oh, and that’s the end of it, eh? All nice and simple.’ The Welsh accent lent a whimsical note to her scorn. The response from Renshaw was far more subdued.

‘There is the possibility of reprisals, when she returns to Brighton. Alas, this is not my concern.’

‘Maybe not. But if it was me in this sort of mess, I’d be considering all my options …’

She must have lowered her voice, or moved across the room, because Alice couldn’t make out what she said next. But she heard Renshaw’s flustered response: ‘I didn’t—’ before Nerys broke in with something else, and then Renshaw, more decisively, said, ‘No. No. It is too complicated.’

Complicated
, Alice thought. Was that all he could say about the chaos he’d brought down upon them all? Not illegal, or morally wrong.
Complicated
.

Her indignation nearly gave her away. Shifting her weight from one foot to the other, she almost bumped against the door. There was an immediate rustling sound from within the lounge.

Nerys, her voice much closer, as if she was walking out of the room, said, ‘I thought by now she’d have—’ just as Alice pushed the door open, trying frantically to make it appear that she’d crossed the hall in a single fluid movement.