Page 32 of We Chase Shadows

‘In me?’

Felicity nods again, then leans over and kisses him.

‘He’ll be wondering why he hasn’t heard from you anyway.’

Tony nods. ‘You have to tell me everything he says though.’

Felicity scrolls through to find Steve’s number but no luck.

‘I can’t find his name, my love?’

‘He’s under “King Steve the First”.’

Of course he is. ‘What are you in his phone?’

‘No idea,’ says Tony. ‘Probably Tony Taylor.’

Felicity dials ‘King Steve the First’ and prepares to tell him that his best friend is in hospital, that a man called Jakob Eriksson is attempting to stop them investigating, and, because she knows Steve will ask, that the hospital parking is £4.50 an hour and for any part-hour thereafter.

17

Lockdown is 9 p.m. The perimeters are secured, all doors and windows to the villa locked, steel grates sliding down behind sage-green wooden shutters. Amy is sharing a guest house with Lee. There is only one bedroom, but there is also a sofa as big as a bed in front of the television. It is where Esteban, as the junior bodyguard, slept, and where Amy spent last night, but Lee has offered to take it this evening. Amy waves this away.

‘I’m going to watch Rampage 8,’ says Lee. ‘Illegal stream. You in?’

‘I’m going to take a wander,’ says Amy.

‘Like, to investigate?’ says Lee. ‘We’ve already checked everything.’

‘Just want to know what you can see out there at night, what you can hear. Think about how I’d get through the perimeter without anyone hearing. There’re access codes, right?’

‘On all the gates,’ says Lee.

Amy points to the TV. ‘I don’t suppose you were watching anything the night Esteban died?’

‘Rampage 8,’ says Lee. ‘I’ve watched it a lot already. It’s a really good film.’

‘Explosions?’ says Amy. ‘Gunfire?’

‘Mainly explosions and gunfire, yeah,’ says Lee. ‘As I say, it’s a really good film.’

‘So you wouldn’t necessarily have heard anything that night?’

‘We take our foot off the gas a little after lockdown,’ says Lee. ‘Once an hour till about 1 a.m. one of us will go out on patrol, but other than that …’

‘And Esteban was killed when he was out on patrol?’

‘Well, he was alive when he left here,’ says Lee. ‘And then dead when we next saw him, so …?’

Amy will take the opportunity to look around, might as well while she’s out there. But she will then head to Korbin’s cottage. He has his own place on the other side of the villa, next to the stable/chemistry lab.

He doesn’t know who did it. But he knows who didn’t. That’s what Korbin had said.

He doesn’t believe it was Jakob Eriksson perhaps? But why? Had Korbin seen someone else that night? When Esteban was patrolling and Lee was eating popcorn on a sofa the size of an island? Something he didn’t want to tell Vern Blackwood about? Something he couldn’t tell Vern Blackwood about?

Amy knows that if she were the sort of person whose heart was capable of beating quickly, it would be beating quickly now. But Amy has a resting heart rate of thirty-two beats per minute and, even after strenuous exercise, it rarely goes above forty. She clearly has very good genes, even though she has no interest in finding out where those genes are from. If your parents didn’t want to know you, why would you want to know your parents? You had to hand it to one of them for that heart rate though.

A doctor once listened to her heartbeat and told her she would live forever. Ironically she was almost run over by an armoured vehicle that very evening, which tells you what doctors know.