‘Hi, Marcel,’ Hannah was saying. ‘You mind coming up to get me when you’re done there? There’s been a bit of an incident . . . I was assaulted. Feeling a bit worse for wear . . . No, I’ll be fine. Stop worrying . . . I’ll tell you all about it when I see you, okay? Get up here when you can. I’m being well looked after in flat . . .’ Forgetting the number Daniel had given her earlier, she looked to Scott, who told her. ‘. . . Flat 1204. Okay, see you in a few minutes.’
She ended the call and returned the phone to Scott. ‘Thank you. I’ll be out of your hair soon.’
Scott was desperate for her to leave, but at the same time he had a million unanswered questions.
‘That man,’ he ventured, ‘the one in the photograph. You said he didn’t live here. But was he killed here, in the building? I don’t feel very safe here at the best of times, but if I thought—’
‘We don’t know yet. We know he visited someone, but it’s quite possible he left the building before he was murdered. Please don’t get too worked up about it. I know that a death on one’s doorstep can be alarming, but don’t be afraid to carry on with your normal lives. I’m convinced we’ll catch whoever did this.’
‘That’s . . . that’s good to hear. Thank you for the reassurance.’
Hannah looked out towards the hall. ‘You can let your son out now. He’s probably desperate to rejoin the party.’
Scott waved the suggestion away. It was the last thing he wanted. ‘He’ll be fine. He’s got a short attention span. He’ll have his head buried in a comic or something.’
‘Adam-9?’
Scott remembered that Daniel had been watching it when he came through the door. ‘You noticed.’
‘Big fan of it, apparently.’
Scott was glad to get off the topic of Joseph Cobb. ‘Massive. He carries a briefcase everywhere, acting like he’s Adam-9. It’s his birthday next week. He doesn’t know it, but we’ve got him a proper Adam-9 briefcase, buttons on it and everything, plus an ID wallet and a rubber mask. The mask is a bit freaky, but in the show Adam wears masks that make him look like other people. We never actually see what the real Adam-9 looks like.’
Hannah smiled. ‘I know. I’ve seen it umpteen times myself.’
‘You have?’
‘Yeah. Courtesy of my daughter. It was . . . it’s one of her favourite programmes.’
Scott noticed the sudden change of tense, but didn’t query it.
Come on, Marcel. Get us out of this. I’ve run out of things to say.
He was saved by the bell. Gemma answered it, admitting a younger copper who looked like he’d just run upstairs. Scott stood aside as Hannah relayed the barest of information to her junior.
‘Next stop the hospital,’ Marcel said as he escorted her to the door.
‘I don’t need the hospital,’ Hannah answered. ‘I’m fine.’
‘You blacked out. That’s a mandatory hospital trip. Look at you. You can hardly walk.’
‘Stop going on at me like we’re a married couple, Marcel.’ She turned to Scott and Gemma. ‘No offence intended. By the way . . .’ She dug a card out from her jacket pocket and proffered it to Scott. ‘If you think of anything, or hear something from your neighbours you think we should know, give me a call.’
‘We will.’
He watched them leave, still bickering as their voices faded down the corridor. Then he closed the front door and pressed his forehead against it.
‘Oh my God!’ Gemma said behind him. ‘They know!’
‘They don’t know,’ Scott muttered.
‘They do. They’re on to us. What are we going to do?’
Scott whirled on her. ‘They’re not on to us. They don’t suspect anything.’
‘Then why did they come here? You said you’d dealt with it. You told me we were safe.’
‘We are safe.’ He went up to her, lowering his voice to stop this developing into a slanging match that would frighten Daniel. ‘You heard what they said. They know Cobb has been murdered, but that’s all they know. They’re not even sure whether he was killed in this building. They came here first because Cobb visited someone here, and that detective only ended up in our flat because she was attacked. None of that has anything to do with us.’
‘But how do they know he was murdered? It’s only Monday, Scott. How did they get to us so quickly?’
‘I . . . I don’t know. They must have found the body.’ He avoided saying ‘body parts’.
‘How?’
‘I don’t know, all right? I didn’t think they would, but they must have.’
‘Then it’s only a matter of time, isn’t it? They’ll do tests. Forensics. They’ll trace it back to us, Scott.’
He took hold of her upper arms. ‘They won’t. There’s nothing to trace. And even if there was, we’re not on their system. They’ve asked their questions and moved on. We’ll never see them again.’
‘But what if they do come back? What’s our story going to be?’
‘We don’t need a story. We have no motive. We have no past connection with Cobb. There’s no reason to suspect us. If they ever come back – which they won’t – then we just act dumb. We tell them we know nothing. Okay?’
He could see the fury in her eyes, her utter disappointment after having trusted him to brush this mess out of their lives.
She tore her gaze away and nodded towards the hallway.
