‘Is that it?’
‘Pretty much.’
‘My friend Jasmine had cancer. She had to have a bone marrow transplant. She looked cool without any hair. I don’t think I could have done it. I’d rather die.’
The last sentence has the bluntness and hyperbole of youth. Only teenagers can turn pimples into catastrophes or leukaemia into a fashion dilemma.
‘This afternoon I’ll go and see the headmistress of your school…’
Darcy’s mouth opens in protest. I cut her off. ‘I’m going to tell her that you’re spending a few days away from school- until the funeral or we decide what you want to do. She’s going to ask questions and want to know who I am.’
Darcy doesn’t answer. Instead she turns back to the sink and continues washing a plate.
My arm trembles. I need to shower and change. I’m on the stairs when I hear her final remark.
‘Don’t forget to take your pills.’
Ruiz arrives just after eleven. His early model, forest green Mercedes is splattered with mud on the fenders and lower doors. It’s the sort of car they’re going to outlaw when emission regulations come into force because entire Pacific atolls disappear every time he refills the tank.
He has put on weight since he retired, and let his hair grow longer, just over his ears. I can’t tell if he’s contented. Happiness is not a concept that I associate with Ruiz. He confronts the world like a sumo wrestler, slapping his thighs and throwing his weight around.
Rumpled and careworn as ever, he gives me a crushing handshake. His hands are unfailingly steady. I envy him.
‘Thanks for coming,’ I say.
‘What are friends for?’
He says it without any irony.
Darcy is standing at the gate, looking like an elf maiden in that dress. Before I can introduce her, Ruiz mistakes her for Charlie and grabs her around the waist, spinning her round.
She fights at his arms. ‘Let me go, you pervert!’
Ruiz puts her down suddenly. He looks at me.
‘You said Charlie had grown.’
‘Not that much.’
I don’t know if he’s embarrassed. How do you tell? Darcy tugs down the dress and brushes hair from her eyes.
Ruiz smiles and bows slightly. ‘No offence meant, miss. I mistook you for a princess. I know a couple who live round here. They turn frogs into princes in their spare time.’
Darcy looks at me, confused, but she can recognise a compliment. The flush in her face has nothing to do with the cold. Meanwhile, Emma comes flying down the path and hurls herself into his arms. Holding her high in the air, Ruiz seems to be estimating how far he could throw her. Emma calls him Dooda. I have no idea why. It’s a name she’s used ever since she could talk whenever Ruiz came to visit. Her shyness around adults has never applied to him.
‘We have to go,’ he says. ‘I might have found someone who can help us.’
Darcy looks at me. ‘Can I come?’
‘I need you to look after Emma. It’s just for a few hours.’
Ruiz is already at the car. I pause at the passenger door and glance back at Darcy. I hardly know this girl and I’m leaving her alone with my youngest daughter. Julianne would have something to say. Maybe I won’t tell her this part.
Heading west towards Bristol, we take the coast road to Portishead, along the Severn Estuary. Gulls swing and wheel above the rooftops, working against a blustery wind.
‘She’s a pretty thing,’ says Ruiz, dangling his fingers over the steering wheel. ‘Is she staying with you?’
‘For a few days.’
‘What does Julianne say?’
‘I haven’t told her yet.’
Nothing changes on his face. ‘Do you think Darcy is telling you everything- about the mother?’
‘I don’t think she’s lying.’ We both know it’s not the same thing.
I tell him the details of Friday, describing Christine Wheeler’s last moments on the bridge; and how her clothes were found lying on the floor of her house, beside the phone; and how she wrote some sort of sign in lipstick while leaning on the coffee table.
‘Was she seeing anyone?’
‘No.’
‘Any money problems?’
‘Yes, but she didn’t seem to be too worried.’
‘So you think someone threatened her?’
‘Yes.’
‘How?’
‘I don’t know. Blackmail, intimidation… She was terrified.’
‘Why didn’t she call the police?’
‘Maybe she couldn’t.’
We turn off into a new business park full of metal and glass office buildings. The bitumen roads are starkly grey against the newly planted garden beds.
Ruiz turns into a car park. The only sign on the building is a plaque beside a buzzer: Fastnet Telecommunications. The receptionist is barely twenty with a pencil skirt, a white blouse and even whiter teeth. Not even the sight of Ruiz interrupts her winning smile.
‘We’re here to see Oliver Rabb,’ he says.
‘Please take a seat.’
Ruiz prefers to stand. There are posters on the walls of beautiful young people, chatting on designer phones that obviously bring them great happiness, wealth and hot dates.
‘Imagine if mobiles had been invented earlier,’ says Ruiz. ‘Custer could have called up the cavalry.’
‘And Paul Revere would have saved himself a long ride.’
‘Nelson could have sent a text from Trafalgar.’
‘Saying what?’
‘I won’t be home for dinner.’
The receptionist is back. We are taken to a room lined with screens and shelves full of software manuals. It has that new computer smell of moulded plastic, solvents and adhesives.
‘What does this Oliver Rabb do?’ I ask.
‘He’s a telecommunications engineer- the best, according to my mate at BT. Some guys fix phones. He fixes satellites.’
‘Can he trace Christine Wheeler’s last call?’
‘That’s what we’re going to ask him.’
Oliver Rabb almost sneaks up on us, appearing suddenly through a second door. Tall and bald, with big hands and a stoop, he seems to present the top of his head as he bows and shakes our hands. A study of tics and eccentricities, he is the sort of man who regards a bow tie and braces as practical rather than a fashion statement.
‘Ask away, ask away,’ he says.
‘We’re looking for calls made to a mobile number,’ replies Ruiz.
‘Is this investigation official?’
‘We’re assisting the police.’
I wonder if Ruiz is so good at lying because he’s met so many liars.
Oliver has logged onto the computer and is running through a series of password protocols. He types Christine Wheeler’s mobile number. ‘It’s amazing how much you can tell about a person by looking at their phone records,’ he says, scanning the screen. ‘A few years ago a guy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology did a PhD project where he gave out a hundred free mobile phones to students and employees. Over nine months he monitored these phones and logged over 350,000 hours of data. He wasn’t listening to the actual calls. He only wanted the numbers, the duration, the time of day and location.
‘By the time he finished he knew much more than that. He knew how long each person slept, what time they woke, when they went to work, where they shopped, their best friends, favourite restaurants, nightclubs, hangouts and holiday destinations. He could tell which of them were co-workers or lovers. And he could predict what people would do next with eighty-five per cent accuracy.’
Ruiz looks over his shoulder at me. ‘That sounds like your territory, Professor. How often do you get it right?’
‘I deal with the deviations, not the averages.’
‘Touche.’
The screen refreshes with details of Christine Wheeler’s account and phone usage.
‘These are her call logs for the past month.’
‘What about Friday afternoon?’
‘Where was she?’
‘The Clifton Suspension Bridge- about five.’
Oliver starts a new search. A sea of numbers appears on the screen. The flashing cursor seems to be reading them. The search comes up with nothing.
‘That doesn’t make sense,’ I say. ‘She was talking on a mobile when she jumped.’