Hello Al. You are still going by ‘Al’, I’m guessing? Sweet. But I know who you really are.
The second:
I don’t know exactly where you are, Al, but it doesn’t matter. Because wherever you are, you’re in deep, deep shit.
14
I don’t recognise the number. I google it (you’d be amazed how often you can find out who owns a phone number that way), but get nothing.
So this is either someone from Davy’s life, or it’s Mr Bowling Ball, or … or it’s something completely unconnected and I’m just in a whole new variety of trouble. None of the options is especially cheering.
I tap:Sorry wrong number mate this is Finn who is this?
Three little dots appear, then vanish.
I stand there for another five minutes, waiting for the typing to resume. But whoever it is has decided not to reply.
I’m first up the next morning, even though it’s heading for 10 a.m.
Downstairs, I make a cup of tea and look at the pathetic investigation we’ve pulled together so far. We have a list of properties, all owned by different firms nobody’s heard of. We have two appointments that Davy seems to have kept secret and that we haven’t managed to crack – the first one tomorrow. And we have a stick-man outline of his life: arguments with his co-founder, a long-dead affair with a secretary, a secret flat in Battersea, an ex-wife. Maybe his whole existence was pretty bare. In which case, why shoot him?
I also can’t help noticing they opened two … no,threemore bottles of Merlot after I went to bed, and am briefly haunted by the idea that I’m the kind of person who has to leave before everyone else can start enjoying their night. No, that can’t be. They just go back ages, they’re old friends.They only go back six months, Al. Thinking about it now, I know almost nothing about any of these people either.
For want of anything better to do, I pull up Charli Harcourt’s Instagram feed again. There’s a new post.
She’s in a walk-in wardrobe, which features in a lot of her stories – in fact, all the stories based in the UK. She’sSo excited to be heading to my beautiful friend Guggy’s newtique/rebirthing centre for its grand unveilage! Going to treat myself to some #ultraprime #selfcare. For a week from tomorrow EVERYTHING is at a 15% discount if you use code #GugCharl at checkout.You can tell she’s older than the average Instagrammer, despite all the tweakments, because she’s not quite been able to let go of writing in full sentences.
I look up the venue on Google Maps. Then, in lieu ofwaking them all up individually, I go to the hall and shout: ‘Guys! Something relevant!’
Forty minutes later, we’re in a black cab heading to Chelsea. Jonny’s on his laptop, wearing a T-shirt that says 33REVOLUTIONS PER MINUTEabove a Black Power fist. Elle is helping Em with her hair. I’m on one of the backward seats, trying not to slide into Em’s lap.
‘So everyone knows what they’re doing?’ Em asks.
Two ‘yeah’s, from Elle and Jonny. Em’s not going to get a third out of me. ‘I still don’t think I should be doing this,’ I say.
‘Nonsense,’ says Em. ‘I won’t get in unless I turn up with a gopher.’
‘I think Elle would make a better gopher.’
‘I’m not a performer,’ says Elle.
‘Have you ever tried?’
‘I was in our school play once. I had a panic attack on the opening night.’
‘Who were you playing?’
‘I was in the front row doing the prompts.’
‘Jonny, then.’
‘No way. I pretended to be a cleaner yesterday and that’s my acting for the year. I was bricking it then and all I had to do was mop.’
The three of them do kind ofworktogether, I have to admit. Not that I want to join their little gang. Quite the reverse. I mean, Jonny’s very skilful, and I’m sure it took him years to teach himself all this stuff. And Em and Ellecomplement each other nicely. They seem like a proper unit, though. All of which leaves me on the outside. Again.
I sigh. ‘Any sign of our new friend?’
There’s nobody on the street as we pull over, although our killer – sorry, burden of proof, he may not have killed Davy, he’s merely the guy who wants to kill us – wouldn’t be stupid enough to wait out in the open. There’s a novelty café across the road, but there’s nobody sitting inside. It’s easy to tell whether anyone is lurking in there; the entire place is deserted, barring one teenage staffer who’s clearly wondering whether people will turn up for the place’s gimmick, which appears from the sign to be ‘Disrupted Yorkshire Puds’.
