On Sarah@84GT’s profile there is nothing else except for a phone number and a grainy picture of a baby propped on someone’s shoulder. The adult’s face is hidden from view and there is nothing else recognizable in the image. I select the group description, which has the phone numbers of the admins and a list of a dozen streets where members live. Second from bottom on the list, I find the corresponding initials that I’m looking for.
Grandfield Terrace is only a few streets down from us, running east–west rather than north–south, and it’s easy enough to find in the car. I keep my speed down as I turn into a long, tree-lined street that is much like many of the others on the estate although there are also some low-rise flats slotted in here andthere, a few post-war two-story blocks that look incongruous alongside the grand Victorian villas that characterize so much of this part of the city. I’ve started at the wrong end, I realize, where the low-numbered houses are. There’s hardly any traffic; everyone has either gone to work or school already, or they’re working from home. I keep the car in third gear, counting house numbers, looking for number eighty-four. Formulating a rough plan in my head of what I’m going to say to the WhatsApp messager who goes under the tag of [email protected] do you know Helena? Does she live locally?
It’s only when I get to the end of the Grandfield Terrace that I realize I’ve missed it. The street across the junction is called Stanswick Grove. I pull the car in a wide circle across the road and go back the way I came. The end house is number ninety-eight. I keep my speed at a crawl until I get to a house with number eighty-six on a stone pillar at the head of the drive, then pull over and park.
Next door is a set of squat, red-brick flats occupying the full width of two plots, presumably where the original old houses had been knocked down and replaced with more affordable accommodation. The communal front door is heavy, dark wood, with a panel listing six flats, A to F, and a buzzer next to each. Above the door in faded chrome lettering is the shared address:Eighty-Two Grandfield Terrace.I walk back to the house next door: definitely number eighty-six. Returning to the flats, I start pressing buzzers at random and asking the same question of the three residents who answer, asking them how I can find number eighty-four.
All of them give the same response.
Eighty-four Grandfield Terrace doesn’t exist.
65
Back in my car, I send a private message to Sarah@84GT on WhatsApp.
Hi, thanks so much for recommending Helena—she’s great. My wife brought some chocolates to thank you and asked me to drop them around to you—can you let me know where? Adam
If the address was a fiction, then perhaps “Sarah” was a fiction too.
And if my instincts were right, I didn’t imagine that this person—whoever was actually behind the Sarah@84GT account—would be in a hurry to reply to me. I tap on the menu to bring up more options, selecting “Group Info.” There were 217 members in total, all listed by name and phone number, spread over a range of streets in our little corner of The Park. The size of the group helped to explain two things: why it was so busy, and how a bogus account could hide in plain sight. All you had to do was get someone to add you, and no one paid too much attention to whose friend or acquaintance or neighbor you were. I’d bet that most of these people had never even met in real life.
There are six members listed as admins, nominally in charge of the group. I pick three at random and send them privatemessages asking if they’ve used Helena and who recommended her; and asking for any more information on who might have added Sarah to the group.
Next, I send a message to Jess, apologizing for last night and asking if she’s had any other contact from this person who had connected us with Helena and Tobias. We’ve not spoken since the row and I know it was my fault; I know I overstepped the mark. I want to speak to her rather than texting but I know—from the few rare times we’ve had spats in the past—that she’ll hold me at arm’s length for at least a few more hours, not picking up my calls or returning messages until later. She’s due to pick Callum up from tag rugby at four, but I don’t imagine I’ll hear from her until then.
Almost straightaway, my message has the two blue ticks to show it’s been delivered and read.
I stare at the screen, willing my wife to message me back. Even if it’s angry, a response is better than silence.
She doesn’t reply.
Webber rings me, his voice taut with excitement.
“OK, it’s on. Five o’clock today.”
He explains his plan to me. I will message the anonymous number and say I’ll deliver the last three items personally, to a location of their choosing. I will relay that location to Webber and he’ll descend on the rendezvous with enough police officers to subdue and arrest whoever comes to meet me.
“So I’m the bait, am I?”
“One of us needs to go. If he sees me, it’ll spook him—he’ll know it’s a set-up.”
“All right,” I say. “I’ll do it, on one condition: you give me back the last three items, so they know it’s for real. Including the watch.”
He hesitates, but only for a moment. “Deal.”
“Just keep everything away from my house.”
I send a message to the unknown number.
I’ve got the Rolex, the real one. And the rest of it. I’ll bring it to you, wherever you want to meet, 5 p.m. today. No police. Just us. And then you’ll never hear from me again.
I press “send” and wait for a response, imagining the satisfaction of seeing them in a few hours, handcuffed and surrounded by police.
Because I already have a pretty good idea of who it is.
There’s a letter on the welcome mat when I push the door open. No stamp, no address, just my name in block capitals on a plain white envelope. I take it into the kitchen and tear it open, pulling out two A4 sheets, each folded twice.
It’s a color printout from a local paper, dated October 29, 2009. The first page has a big blocky headline under a tabloid masthead, and for a second I think it’s a copy of the same story I’d found at the library on Monday. But everything else is unfamiliar and it doesn’t have the distinctive tone and shade of a printout from a microfiche transparency; this looks more like a photocopy of a well-preserved original.
