She sighed. ‘I want my family back.’
Sandro knew who she meant. He didn’t think she had intended the words to hurt, and after all these years he wasn’t sure they did. But she was still his sister.
‘Why don’t you … phone the hospital? See how Phil is?’
She looked up once more. ‘You think I don’t want to? You think I don’t want to do that every second of the day? I tried it once before and look what happened.’
‘Try it again. On that phone they call you on. What’s the worst thing that can happen? Now?’
‘You know what. I never see Josie again.’
‘After the way the woman was in that last call? That won’t happen. She wants this over as much as you now. Or you could do it from here.’
‘Even more risky,’ she said. ‘They could trace it right back here.’ She thought once more. ‘I’ll find a phone box. Call from there.’
‘A workin’ one? Round here? Good luck with that.’
‘There must be one somewhere … ’
‘Can’t think.’
She stood up. ‘I’m going to go and look. See if I can find one.’
Sandro looked like he wanted to object but couldn’t think of a reason. ‘OK,’ he said. ‘You want me to come with you?’
‘I’ll be fine. The walk should take my mind off things, hopefully.’
She left the house before he could say anything more. It was cold outside, the sun seeming distant. She walked the broken, pitted roads looking for a phone box, or somewhere that would have a public phone. She came across the Broad way, a collection of shops, cafés and a pub that looked like it had given up fighting for life and accepted a slow, crumbling death.
And there she found a phone box.
She ran to it, willing it to be undamaged and working. To her amazement, it was. The cubicle stank of stale bodily fluids and the handset was greasy and filthy to the touch, but it had a dialling tone. Even the vandals have given up on this place, she thought.
She took out a piece of paper from her pocket with the hospital’s number on it. Dialled it. Once connected, she took a deep breath, told them who she was and who she was calling for. And waited. A nurse eventually came back on the line, but not before she had heard a click. She knew someone was listening.
‘Your husband’s come round,’ the nurse said. ‘He’s stable.’
Relief flooded her body, nearly took her legs away. ‘Oh … oh. Can I … can I talk to him?’
‘He’s sleeping at the moment.’
‘Is he OK? He’s not … ’
‘He’s shaky, but he’s doing fine.’ There was a pause. She heard someone talking in the background. ‘If you can give me your number?’
‘Just … just tell him … ’ She sighed. ‘Oh, he knows.’
She hung up, leaned against the filthy wall of the box, unable to move for a few minutes.
He’s alive, she thought. Phil’s alive. Get Josie back and we’re a family again. The euphoria she was experiencing soon subsided as she thought about her daughter.
She looked at the phone once more. The thought that Phil was well and alive gave her strength. She drew from it. And came to a decision. She picked up the receiver again, ignoring the rank smell coming off it, and placed it to her ear.
While she had been walking, she had come up with a plan. Call Anni, give her the address of the bare-knuckle fight. Tell her to get Mickey and the rest of the team there to pick up Josephina’s kidnapper. Keep a low profile at the event, only move when given the nod. Sandro wouldn’t mind, she was sure of that. Well, she hoped he wouldn’t mind.
Right, she thought. Good. That sounds like a plan. Her finger was poised over the buttons when she realised she didn’t have Anni’s number. It was programmed into her phone and she usually called it from her contacts list. She had never bothered to learn it.
She put the receiver down once more, slamming it harder than she had meant to, angry that her plan couldn’t go ahead. She stared at it, as if that would make it connect to Anni’s phone, then turned her back, stared out along the desolate stretch of Jaywick seafront, her heart sinking.
Then she had an idea. She turned back to the phone, picked up the receiver, smiling to herself as she did so. DCI Franks. She knew his number.
‘Easy to remember,’ he had said to her when she had first met him and was programming it into her phone, ‘Six, six, six, three, three, three. A devil and a half of a number.’ And he had laughed.
The quip had been rehearsed, but he was right, she had remembered.
She closed her eyes to recall the first five digits, then called the number. Her heart was hammering as she waited for him to answer.
‘DCI Franks.’
She took a deep breath, another. ‘It’s Marina.’ She didn’t know what he would say next or how he would react, so she jumped in quickly. ‘Listen. I haven’t got long … ’
74
Anni had always hated coming in to work on a Sunday. Easter Sunday even more so. The police station on Southway in Colchester was virtually empty. Just a minimum of officers and shift-working support staff keeping the building going over the weekend. The excesses of Saturday night had been mopped up, and with no football scheduled, those on call were making the most of not having to be there unless absolutely needed. Or working the murder in Jaywick, looking for Josephina.
She sat at her desk, booted up her computer. Mickey was beside her. After Milhouse’s call, they had decided to go back to the station to check through records.
Walking into the building alongside Mickey, Anni had felt that those few people there were all staring at them. They know, she was thinking, they know what we’ve done. That we’re now lovers. And they’re judging us for it. Through the main door, down the corridor, into the MIS office. Feeling eyes, seen and unseen, staring at her. She had glanced at Mickey a few times, just to see if he was feeling the same thing. He was staring straight ahead, not looking at her.
Yep, she thought. He’s feeling the same thing.
In the MIS office, at her desk, she had reverted to police officer mode. And now she was engrossed in what was appearing on her screen.
‘Graham Watts,’ she said.
Mickey scooted his chair across, sat next to her, looked at the screen. She was aware of his arm brushing against hers, his thigh. She could feel the heat from his body. More intoxicating than cannabis.
Mickey kept staring at the screen, not looking at her.
‘Here,’ she said. ‘Worked for the Sloanes.’ She peered closer. ‘High up too. Very high. Trusted lieutenant, the works. Started as a gangmaster on the farm, worked his way up. When they diversified into industrial farming, he got promoted. And then … Oh. They let him go. Cut him off, apparently, just like that. That’s when the law became involved.’
‘How?’ asked Mickey, turning to look at her.
‘Cautioned for threatening behaviour. Says here they owed him money. Lots of it. Cut him off without a pension. He tried to talk to them about it, then said he was going to expose them. That was the word he used, expose. The Sloanes said he had nothing on them, that he threatened them, made up a lot of lies. Tried to attack them, got a bit handy.’
Mickey read the next few lines on her screen. ‘They never pressed charges. Just let it go. And he never exposed anything.’ He looked sideways at her. ‘You know what that means.’
Anni nodded. ‘He may not have got his pension, but they gave him enough to keep him quiet.’
‘Exactly. Maybe they didn’t pay him enough to keep him quiet for long.’
‘You think that’s what this is?’ she asked, turning to him. ‘Extortion? Blackmail gone wrong?’