‘Hey,’ she said, raising a hand and smiling at me. She looked at Cal. ‘Is there any coffee?’
Cal nodded. ‘This is John, my uncle … you met him before, remember?’
She smiled at me again. ‘Yeah.’
‘Listen, Barb, we’ve got some stuff to do …’
‘No problem,’ she said breezily. ‘Just let me get dressed and I’ll leave you to it.’
Cal watched her as she went into his bedroom, then he turned to me. ‘You want some coffee?’
‘Please.’
He peered at me for a moment. ‘You look like shit, John.’
‘Thanks.’
‘You want something to eat?’
I don’t really like eating. To me, it’s nothing more than a refuelling process, something you have to do to stay alive. And I particularly don’t like eating when it has any kind of social connection. So my natural response when I’m asked if I want anything to eat is to say no. And I almost said no to Cal. But the mention of food made me realise that I hadn’t eaten anything for a long time, and that I was, in fact, desperately hungry.
So I said, ‘Yeah, something to eat would be good, thanks.’
‘What do you want?’
‘Got any eggs?’
‘What kind of eggs?’
‘Chicken?’
He smiled. ‘How about eggs Benedict? I make a very mean eggs Benedict.’
I didn’t even know what eggs Benedict was. And twenty minutes later, after Barbarella had left us alone, and I’d shared a big plateful of food with Cal, I still didn’t know what it was. But it did the job. It filled a hole. And, with the help of three cups of coffee, it gave my energy levels a much-needed boost.
But it still wasn’t enough.
‘Listen, Cal,’ I said. ‘I really need your help with something — ’
‘You’ve got it.’
‘No, just listen to me, OK? I’ll explain everything in a minute, and I’ll tell you what I want you to do, but first of all … well, the thing is, I’m totally fucked at the moment. I’ve been working this case non-stop, and I haven’t slept for God knows how long, and I’ve got a feeling that today’s going to be another long slog.’ I looked at him. ‘So, I was wondering … you know … well, I was just wondering if you’ve got anything that’ll keep me going for a while.’
‘Well, yeah …’ Cal said hesitantly. ‘But I thought … I mean, I thought you’d given up all that?’
‘I just need something for today, that’s all.’
‘Well, OK … if you’re sure …’
I didn’t say anything, I just looked at him.
He gazed back at me for a while — and I could see the concern in his eyes — but then he just nodded his head, got up, and went into his bedroom. When he came back out, fully dressed now, he was carrying a brown plastic prescription bottle.
‘They’re black bombers,’ he said, passing me the bottle. ‘You don’t often come across them these days, but there’s this Portuguese guy I know … anyway, they’re slow-release amphetamines. You only need to take one at a time.’
I looked at the bottle. It contained about half a dozen plain black capsules.
‘Thanks, Cal,’ I said, taking one out and swallowing it with a mouthful of coffee.
‘Yeah, well …’ he said guardedly. ‘Just don’t go crazy with them, all right? I mean, shit, if Stacy was here …’
‘I know,’ I said. ‘She’d kill me.’
Cal smiled. ‘And me.’
We looked at each other in silence for a while, and I knew that we were both feeling the same unfillable emptiness — the despair of knowing that Stacy wasn’t here, and that she’d never be here again …
‘All right,’ I said to Cal, lighting a cigarette. ‘Let’s get on with it.’
After I’d told him everything I knew about the case, and everything that had happened to me in the last few days, Cal just sat there for a while, not saying anything, just quietly thinking things through. As for me, the amphetamine had kicked in now — with an uncharacteristically unedgy kind of rush — and my mind was beginning to buzz with all kinds of new ideas and fresh possibilities about everything: Anna Gerrish, Mick Bishop, the guy in the Nissan …
‘So,’ Cal said eventually, ‘you think that Bishop went through your stuff when you were locked up, but you don’t know for sure?’
‘Well, no … not for sure. But — ’
‘Give me your phone.’
‘What?’
‘Your mobile, let me see it.’
I took out my phone and passed it over. He glanced at the connection sockets, then got up from the settee — we were sitting in the small recreation area in the corner of his flat — and he went over to one of his work desks and started searching through a tangle of cables.
‘What time did you get to the police station?’ he asked me.
‘I’m not sure … about eleven, I think.’
He’d found the cable he was looking for, and I watched as he plugged one end into my phone and the other end into a hand-held device that looked a little bit like a credit-card reader. He connected the device to a laptop, hit some buttons on my phone, waited a while, then pressed some keys on the device and watched as a stream of data appeared on the laptop screen. He lit a cigarette and studied the screen for a while, scrolling up and down through the information, then he nodded to himself and turned back to me.
‘Your phone was accessed at 02.17 this morning,’ he said. ‘I take it that couldn’t have been you?’
‘No, I was definitely locked up by then.’
‘OK, well, whoever it was, they had a good look through your address book, your texts, your call logs … pretty much everything, really.’ He came back over to the settee and gave me back the phone. ‘It’s clean, by the way. No bugs or tracking devices.’
‘Thanks.’
He sat down. ‘So, basically, if it was Bishop who went through your stuff, he’s now got all the information on your phone — who you’ve been calling, who’s called you, who’s in your address book — ’
‘You’re in my address book,’ I said, suddenly realising. ‘All your numbers … and I called you recently — ’
‘Doesn’t matter,’ Cal said. ‘He won’t get anywhere if he tries to trace my numbers. But if there’s anything else … you know, anyone in your address book, or anyone you’ve been in touch with … anything that Bishop could use …?’
‘I don’t think so … I mean, I’ll have to check, but I don’t think there’s anything to worry about.’
‘All right,’ Cal said, lighting a cigarette. ‘So let’s assume that it was Bishop, and that he took the cigarette packet because it had the registration number of the Nissan that this girl told you about — ’
‘Tasha.’
‘Right, Tasha.’ He looked at me. ‘Do you think Bishop knows it was her? He obviously knows that you were down there talking to the girls, but would he know which one gave you the number?’
‘I don’t know … probably. I didn’t see anyone watching me when I was talking to her, but the cops who arrested me must have been hanging around somewhere nearby, so I wouldn’t be surprised if they saw us together, and they would have told Bishop.’ I looked at Cal. ‘Do you think I should warn her? If Bishop’s linked with this Nissan somehow, and he knows that Tasha’s a possible witness …’
‘You really think Bishop might do something to her?’
I thought about it, wondering if I was just being paranoid about Bishop, but then I remembered the story about him torturing the drug dealer in Chelmsford, and I recalled the look of venom in his eyes when he’d jabbed me in the chest a few hours earlier, and I knew that I wasn’t being paranoid. Bishop was a violent man. If he wanted something badly enough, he wouldn’t care what he had to do to get it.
‘I’ll go down there tonight and tell Tasha to be careful,’ I said to Cal.
‘Maybe I should do it,’ he said. ‘Bishop might have someone watching the girls, and if he finds out that you’ve been down there again …’
‘Yeah, I suppose you’re right.’
After I’d told him what Tasha looked like, and where he could find her, we got back to talking about the Nissan.