So five minutes later, Jonny’s rigged up what he assures us is a ‘double-plus-good’ phone connection that can’t possibly be hacked, and the four of us are WhatsApping Kate.
She picks up. She’s at home; TV noises, and a baby gurgling in the background. ‘Hello?’
‘Hi, Kate! It’s Josephine from earlier,’ says Em. ‘Good moment? I can call back if not.’
There is a gasp, some footsteps interrupted by Kate saying, ‘Keep feeding him,’ and a door slamming. ‘How did you get this number?’
‘It’s your work number, isn’t it?’
‘Yes, but—’
‘OK, great. First of all, don’t bother tracing the call. If you do, the computer will swear blind we’re ringing from central French Guiana, which we’re obviously not. Secondly, can you tell us who knew about your appointment with Mr Harcourt, please?’
‘I’m not telling you anything. I should—’
‘Kate, Kate, I know, love, but we’re all trying to get to the bottom of this one, and we think whoever you told at the police might be involved somehow, or might have given the game away, which is why Mr Harcourt wound up dead. You know?’
‘I’m sorry, I found out this afternoon that you two are wanted for questioning in relation to Mr Harcourt’s death as a matter of priority. I shouldn’t be on the phone to you at all. You have to come in. Where are you?’
‘Absolutely, Kate, but we just have a couple more questions, because whoeveryoutold that you were off to meet Mr Harcourt is much more involved than we are, right? And we know that person is the one you need to be questioning.’ Em has a good telephone manner, brisk but friendly too, and I can see why Kate makes her mistake here.
‘Listen,’ she snaps. ‘Nobody knew. Harcourt came directly to me, and I didn’t even record his name in our system. OK? Which is why you two are persons of interest. Are you and your friends the people who were spotted near his house the next day?’
Em carries on. ‘And did he want anything from you? Protection, that sort of thing?’
‘Of course he did. Protection for three was what he said. Everyone wants protection when they make this sort of appointment. Look, youneedto come in, we can sort all this out …’ She’s sounding increasingly Scottish.
‘Yeah, completely, totallytotally, thanks for your help on this one, Kate, but I’m afraid we won’t be able to do that, thank you so much, that’s really helpful, and if you didn’t tell anyone Mr Harcourt’s name then you’re looking for someone else he told, unless it was you who killed him – no, only joking – all right, thank you, bye, love, bye, take care now’ – and as Kate threatens to explode at the other end of the line, Em hangs up.
‘Strange,’ she says, as Jonny takes the laptop and continues the work of making it look like we’re in French Guiana. ‘If she’s telling the truth, then Davy must have told someone else he was meeting the police. And that’s the person who killed him, or got him killed.’
‘Ifshe’s telling the truth. Coppers are allowed to lie.’
‘Encouraged,’ says Jonny. ‘Ministry of Truth.’
‘So, what next?’ says Elle.
‘Well, his other appointment is the day after tomorrow,’ Em says.
‘BB AGM,’ murmurs Jonny. ‘If we take as long to solve it as we did Feathers, we won’t get there until next year’s AGM.’
It keeps nagging my brain.BB. Where did I see it? In Davy’s house, in an obituary? Ugh. I’m too tired to rifle through my mind.
‘What else is there?’
‘We need to keep on at Davy’s work contacts,’ says Em. ‘Find out anything more about Rob Wallace, see what’s going on with him. What did they argue about? Is he violent? All that stuff.’
To be honest, the idea of setting foot back in the Harcourt and Wallace office fills me with dread. But I think I might have another way of finding out more – the photography agency I work for. I wonder if a colleague there might be able to help.
I keep a second phone for my photography work. It’s off most of the time, but I turn it on twice a day to pick up messages when I’m not on a job. Even turning it on that infrequently still probably leaves a yeti-sized digital footprint that could be used to trace me to any number of homes I’ve interloped, but I need a work number. I also turn it off because it’s nice being a bit less contactable, you know? You’ve got to be mindful about your screen time these days.
Anyway, it’s been several days since I switched it on, so there are bound to be lots of emails from the firm, offers of jobs, that kind of thing. On the principle that a hungry dog stays loyal, the agency contacts a whole mailing list of photographers about each gig and then they scramble to secure the booking. So I go to my room and grab the phone, then come back and sit with the other three and turn it on. Along with all the GDPR updates and mandatory courses and other HR crud, there’s something unusual – three voicemails from Jasmine, our office manager.
The first came in yesterday afternoon, when we were all in Brighton:
‘Hello, Al! You got a minute? We’ve got a job that’s come in and I think you’d be perfect for it. Basically, bit of a weird one, the client wants to interview a few selected photographers for it, ask you about your shooting style, that sort of thing. I know it all sounds a bit mad, but guess we’ve just got a fusspot on our hands! Give me a ring when you get this and I’ll see if we can hook you up. Should be a nice earner, though.’
The next one arrived this morning:
