Free Long Time Lost by Chris Ewan Page B

powerless and disconnected, as if all of this was happening to someone else. Even the room around her had an unreal quality to it – the decor so dated it might have been a museum exhibit.
    ‘I have something to show you. Look.’
    Becca circled her fingers over the laptop’s trackpad and clicked several times until a video began to play.
    Kate took a moment before gazing down, then did a double-take. The video featured colour footage of the apartment next door, shot from an angle that suggested a camera had been fitted to the corner of the ceiling. It showed Kate sitting down to eat breakfast, talking with Hanson and Becca.
    ‘You’ve been filming me? You didn’t ask.’
    ‘Honey, until we know that you’re safe, you have absolutely no privacy. You’d better get used to it.’ She tapped a nail against the screen. ‘See what you’re doing here? The way you tilt your head? How you bite your lip? You do it all the time when you’re listening. Especially when you’re about to disagree with something.’
    The Kate in the footage seemed oddly fake, as if she was watching an impostor. Her movements had an abrupt, doll-like quality.
    ‘When you argue, you lead with your chin. You scratch your temple when you’re flustered. And you constantly tuck your hair behind your ear. It’s a habit from when your hair was longer. If you can’t break the cycle, we’ll use clips or a hairband.’
    Kate drew a fast breath and looked away but Becca cupped her chin and turned her face back to the screen. Another thirty seconds of footage elapsed and Kate saw herself push her hair back twice.
    ‘It’s the small tics that define you. You have to find new habits. And we really have to work on your walk. You spring forwards from your toes. It’s an athlete thing, but it’s distinctive. I have insoles for you to try.’
    ‘You’re kidding.’
    ‘You’re kidding.’ Becca frowned, mimicking her. ‘We’ll soften your accent. Shift the emphasis you place on certain words. We’ll change all your markers.’ She tapped the screen with her nail again. ‘Some juicy stuff coming up.’
    Kate studied her onscreen responses as Miller appeared and stepped around behind the breakfast counter, his hair tousled, the top two buttons of his shirt undone.
    ‘Girl, you have it all going on. There’s the hair-touching, the raised eyebrows, the fidgety lips. And the way you lean in. Do you even know how many times you almost touched him?’
    ‘That’s not true.’
    ‘Oh, relax, honey. Most of this stuff is instinctive. There’s not a lot we can change or really need to. Mostly we’re watching this for my own titillation. Besides, so much of what we’re seeing depends on the other person’s responses.’
    Kate hated herself for it, but she couldn’t help glancing at Becca for more.
    ‘Mirroring.’ She nudged her. ‘He likes you, too. I haven’t seen him look at anyone that way in a very long time.’
    *
    Lloyd and Foster rode the elevator down to the NCA basement in an awkward silence. Lloyd was embarrassed and frustrated. She’d still been working on Foster up on the roof when Young had telephoned her mobile to say that a street kid called Patrick Leigh had decided to go high diving without a swimming pool in Manchester on the same night Kate Sutherland had been targeted. In itself, it might have meant nothing, except that Patrick had also been due to give evidence in the trial of Russell Lane. Aside from Kate, he was the last person to have seen Helen Knight alive – he’d been due to testify that he’d watched her climb into Russell’s BMW on the day she disappeared in the alley behind the Fresh Start Shelter. Coincidence was one thing, but this had to be something more.
    Worse, there’d been a breakdown in communication with Greater Manchester Police and the news had hit local media before it reached the NCA. So far, the national press hadn’t made the link to the Lane family, though Lloyd guessed it was only a matter of