Free Pain of Death by Adam Creed Page B

husband?’
    ‘Forget it, Staffe. He loves her to bits, apparently.’
    ‘Sounds familiar.’
    ‘She nearly died having their first baby. It didn’t survive.’
    ‘He loves her as much as Sean loved Kerry Degg?’
    ‘You make sure your team stays all over Lesley Crawford while you’re up there.’
    ‘There’s a couple of things I have to do first,’ says Staffe, thinking of Phillip Ramone.
    ‘There’s a train from Euston in an hour. They’ll be waiting for you at the other end.’
    ‘There’s a couple of things …’
    Pennington leans forward and in his softest voice says, ‘Please, Will. Just this once, be a good lad.’
     

PART TWO

     
     
    Ten

    In no time, and with a rackful of reservations, Staffe is transported to Liverpool. The railway tracks have magicked him with their tittle and tattle, and along the way he spoke to Pulford about staying on Lesley Crawford’s case. Then he had called Josie, to tell her to follow up on Kerry’s list of friends.
    Now, the daylight is almost gone and the train jolts, slows. People press their faces to the windows. As the carriages draw towards Lime Street station, the tracks breathe in and the train is sucked along a narrow chasm in the sandstone bedrock. Anybody who has travelled into this Celtic city will know that its gates open like rock thighs, as if it were delivering you into a new world.
    And then it is dark.
    In the vaulted, glass-roofed station, he steps down, valise in hand, and looks for a uniformed welcome. There is none.
    A tall, beautiful woman approaches him. She has layered red hair, cut to her shoulders. She is, in fact, very tall. ‘Inspector Wagstaffe?’ she says.
    ‘How would you know?’
    ‘You have to be able to spot your friends as well as your foes.’
    ‘You’re police?’
    She offers her hand. ‘How else would I know you were coming?’
    He takes her hand, finds a firm grip. She looks him in the eyes. Hers are the palest green.
    ‘I’m Flint,’ she says.
    ‘Christ.’
    ‘Charming.’
    He expects her to smile, but gets the reverse and she spins on her heel, shows him her back and walks off at a fine clip.
    *
    Anthony Bright’s house was a model for modern living when Lord Salisbury gave the land up for artisans and clerks in the preamble to the First World War.
    Now, on a tree-lined street of immaculately coiffeured gardens and ringing birdsong, Staffe walks up a gingerbread path and has the front door opened for him by a bright-eyed constable who looks about twelve.
    In his back room, sitting in a modern Swedish chair, Anthony stares into his garden. Staffe has read all the case notes and the interview transcripts. He wants to like Anthony but all he gets is a scowl. Nonetheless, he introduces himself, pulls up a dining chair.
    ‘She’ll be back. There’ll be some explanation, but if you lot are here, she’ll never call. She’d hate the fuss. I should never of called.’
    ‘It’s a serious matter, Anthony. I’m from London and we have had an abduction similar to this down there. We need to know everything about Zoe; everyone she saw, ever since she was pregnant this second time.’
    Anthony stares at the trees at the bottom of his garden. Through the windows, you can’t see any other property.
    ‘Did she bring anybody new to the house in these last few weeks?’
    He shakes his head.
    ‘Anyone new in her phone or her address book?’ he says as much to Alicia Flint as to Anthony.
    ‘I would never pry,’ says Anthony.
    ‘We’re having her phone analysed,’ says Flint.
    ‘She didn’t take her phone?’ Staffe takes the address book from Alicia Flint and scans quickly, looking for new names – in bold ink or interposed between old names. Zoe Bright is clearly very orderly and all the names are alphabetical. In four cases, names have been squeezed in, between lines.
    ‘Is this a new book?’
    ‘She spent all night copying everything across.’
    ‘Where’s the old one?’
    Anthony walks, round-shouldered, to