Free Never Coming Back by Tim Weaver Page B

vest, smoking. Cold air escaped into the house, but the wind and rain were gone and, in the skies above the sea, narrow slivers of blue broke between clouds.
    As soon as I entered the kitchen, he nodded in the direction of the kettle. “Water’s just boiled,” he said. “We’ve run out of coffee. I’ll go and get some later.”
    After making myself a mug of tea, I sat down opposite him.
    â€œEmily’s family went missing.”
    He looked at me, nodded, but didn’t say anything.
    â€œHer sister, brother-in-law, their two daughters.”
    â€œWhere did they go missing from?”
    â€œFrom their home. She reckoned their place was like a time capsule: the TV was still on, he’d left his computer running, the younger girl’s toys were all over the floor, food still in the oven, dog still wandering around the house. Like they’d just stepped out.”
    He finished his cigarette and pulled the window shut.
    â€œYou working for her?”
    â€œI said I’d do some asking around.”
    A hint of a smile on his face, one whose meaning we both got:
You say that now but wait until this starts to go deeper. Before long, it’ll be just like all the other cases. And you won’t be able to let go
.
    â€œDo you want to come along today?” I asked him.
    â€œWhere are you going?”
    â€œBuckfastleigh. To see the house.”
    He looked at me, left hand—wedding band still on—flat to the table; right hand clamped around a mug of tea. “Yeah, all right,” he said, finally. “Let me get changed.”
    â€¢Â Â Â â€¢Â Â Â â€¢
    We took Healy’s car so I could make a couple of calls on the way. The first was to Spike, an old contact from my days as a journalist. Originally from Russia, Spike had come here on a student visa, but when that ran out he’d stayed on illegally. That wasn’t the only law he’d broken. Spike was like a skeleton key: as a hacker, he accessed names, addresses, e-mails and phone numbers for me, never leaving a footprint. I’d used his talent,such as it was, more than ever since my change of career, especially in the early stages of a case when I was trying to build a picture of the missing, and the life they’d left behind.
    â€œPawn shop,” he said when he answered.
    â€œIs that with an
a-w
or an
o-r
?”
    A moment of confusion. “
David?
”
    â€œHow you doing, Spike?”
    â€œ
Man
, how are you?”
    Spike’s accent always made me smile. It was barely recognizable as Russian now, completely Americanized except for a soft European lilt.
    â€œI’m good,” I said. “It’s been a while.”
    â€œI read about you online. You okay now?”
    â€œI’m fine.”
    â€œThat’s good, man, that’s good.”
    â€œListen, I need your help on something.”
    â€œAnything.”
    We were a couple of miles from the Lings’ house, negotiating our way through the western fringes of Buckfastleigh. I had the phone on speaker so Healy was looped in. Working with someone wasn’t exactly a new experience for him, yet it had been a long time since anyone at the Met had trusted him enough to partner up. But if he was rusty, I was rustier. I’d spent my life, as a journalist and then an investigator, working alone. On the two occasions I’d tethered myself to someone, it had been Healy, and both times it had gone bad. I’d asked him to get involved here because, when he was good, he was seriously good; he offered a feel for a case you couldn’t teach. But there was a flipside, an inherent risk: that, sooner or later, he’d lose control and everything would go south. If he was involved in something else, trying to dig deeper into the body on the beach, this was a good way to keep him close and to lessen any damage.
    â€œSpike, I need a full background on someone. Two people, actually. A