There was a plain white door at the back, which Simon opened with the key. We at least had both remembered to wear gloves, though I was tempted to ask why Simon was bothering, as his prints would already be all over the place.
We slipped into Riz’s surprisingly spacious kitchen. The various lights around the neighbourhood cast a slight glow into the room, so you could pick out details among the shadows if you tried.
“You turned off your phone, right?” Simon said, conscious of the location data.
I nodded. “Back in Lilbury.”
He pulled out a small torch from his pocket and held it in the air. He waved it across the room, with the beam pointing towards the floor. In one corner were a pile of boxes and assorted household items all piled high.
“His parents have started cleaning the place out then,” said Simon.
“Where does he keep his paperwork?”
“There is an office upstairs.”
Great. Offices. I had history with those. We made our way to the front of the house and up the stairs. Riz’s home had white walls and laminate floorings. His choice in décor was too plain for my taste. Maybe he’d been too busy to decorate. At the top of the stairs, the door to the master bedroom was open. Simon paused for a second and looked in. The king-sized bed had been stripped and the bedding piled in boxes next to it.
Whatever Simon was thinking about, I didn’t want to interrupt. The passionate nights with Riz in that bed? Waking up in each other’s arms? My judgemental side instantly thought of all the other men Riz had probably had in there as well.
I opened the door to the right of us and could just about make out that I had found the office. I felt for a desk of some sort in the tiny bit of light from the windows. “Simon,” I hissed after a minute. “A little help, please?”
The beam from his torch was over my shoulder a few seconds later. He cleared his throat. It seemed to be a tic he did to calm himself down when he was upset.
“This is stupid, we don’t even know what we’re looking for.”
“Yeah, yeah, you’ve made that quite known, thank you,” I said, trying to ignore him. I opened the bottom drawer. You’d think people would put their most important things in the top drawer. But that’s where nosey buggers would look first. That drawer revealed several piles of papers and various keys, old SIM cards, a few photos, and the ephemera one would expect in a home office.
I handed Simon the papers. “Shuffle through.”
“What am I looking for?”
I gave him a look. “You can stop playing dumb now. You’re a spy, you figure it out.”
The glare he gave me was something I felt more than saw. What? We both knew I was right.
He did as he was asked. “There’s some paperwork from the hospital. Various forms about taking a leave of absence for the election campaign,” he said. “His old hospital in Edinburgh. The Royal Lothian.” He scanned the paper for details.
I opened another drawer. And that’s when everything fell apart. Every bit of distance I’d tried to keep from this predicament that I’d found myself in. The story I’d told myself was that I was doing this to help Simon. To help Nigella. Because Simon wasn’t really my friend, but he was friends with other people in the village, and that’s why I needed to do this. Because the people in Lilbury had stood by me when my life fell apart after Tarquin. They’d accepted my pleas that I knew nothing about what he’d done without so much as a second thought.
So, my reticence about Simon, about any feelings that might linger, about how we constantly rubbed each other up the wrong way, was put on the backburner.
But now, I was involved. There was almost irrefutable evidence that someone, somewhere, had me in their plans. Just as much as Riz, Guy, and whoever else was involved – and it was staring at me from a piece of paper.
I grabbed it and stuffed it into the pocket of my jacket.
“You found something?” Simon asked.
“Let’s go,” I said tersely.
“But we’ve only just started—”
“I said, let’s go,” I snapped and left the room. Downstairs, I waited for Simon in the kitchen. As soon as I saw him coming, still confused, I left the house and walked back across the garden towards my car. Simon took a few seconds to lock the back door and then joined me as I walked through the streets.
My head was buzzing. How? How did I know these people? How did this involve anyone from my old life?There was no connection. I knew no one from Simon’s life, or Guy’s, but there had to be a connection. A …connection.
I spun around as we reached my car.
“What is this connection? The one Jed mentioned.”
