Maggie snatched it without a word of thanks. She was furious: with Sam for playing silly buggers, with Sinead for her hour-glass figure, cool manner and gorgeous perfume, and with herself for being so ridiculously jealous of the woman. She ripped open the envelope, glanced at the sheet of paper inside it and stuffed it into her back pocket. She had known what it would be — another of Sam’s rows of numbers, another coded rendezvous. ‘Did he say anything?’ she snapped.
Sinead ran her hands through her mane of hair. ‘Gotta go.’ She zipped up her jacket until it tightened over her breasts. Her face tightened too, suddenly serious. ‘Out the back way. You never know who might be watching.’
* * *
‘So remind me, what exactly is it we’re looking for?’
There were three of them inside the lift’s tiny cubicle — Reid, Ashcroft and Evans. The doors had shut, but as yet there was no sign of upward movement. Already Reid was feeling the first tell-tale signs: dry mouth, sweat on his forehead and a heart that beat crazily fast. But the last thing he was ever going to do was admit to claustrophobia in front of the ambitious Ashcroft and the incompetent Evans.
‘You’ll know when you’ve found it,’ Reid replied as the lift juddered into life.
Several seconds later — and not a moment too soon for Reid — they were emerging into a corridor with pale green wal
ls and mottled, darker carpets. And very shortly after that they were inside Maggie Rogers’s apartment. ‘I’ll take the living room,’ Reid said. It was, fractionally, larger than the bedroom, which was dominated by a double bed and a large, freestanding wardrobe.
What were they looking for? The truth was Reid had no idea. Searching the flat was one of the things that had to be done, but if Maggie Rogers was as smart an operator as she appeared to be, it was unlikely she would have left anything incriminating or helpful lying around.
Twenty minutes later, the three of them were standing together in the living room.
‘Well, what now?’ Ashcroft said in a disgruntled tone of voice.
Reid shot his sergeant a filthy look. They had drawn a blank and Ashcroft’s insubordinate manner had resurfaced like a persistent U-boat.
‘Back to the office,’ he said, and he pushed his way out of the flat, leaving Ashcroft and then Evans to trail behind. Which was why neither Reid nor Ashcroft saw what Evans did next.
What he did was pat himself just above the heart, checking that the contents of his inside jacket pocket had not somehow dematerialised since he had slipped them in less than three minutes previously. Then he followed his two senior colleagues out and shut the outer flat door firmly behind him.
* * *
Beth sat in the back of the car while Maggie drove. She always sat in the left-hand back seat. ‘It’s safer in the back,’ her mum had told her, and she liked to sit on the left because that way she could see the driver.
She had buckled herself in and was inspecting the contents of her rucksack. She only had three sets of clothes in it, and one of those was the football kit which Sam had given her. She hoped she wouldn’t have to wear it again. She had three DVDs (Frozen, Bambi and Sleeping Beauty), a hairbrush and comb, toothbrush and toothpaste, a nightie, slippers and her little jewellery box with a tiny ballerina painted on the lid. She opened it. Inside was a necklace which her mum had given her, two friendship bands that she had made at a festival they had gone to, and now also a bracelet which the woman in the hotel had given her. Maggie didn’t seem to like the woman. She didn’t know why, because the woman had been very nice to her. She had told Beth how she and Sam had known each other for years. Anyway, the bracelet had little red jewels studded around it. ‘Costume jewellery,’ the woman had called it. ‘My mother gave it to me, but it is too small now and I don’t have a little girl to give it to, so why don’t you have it.’
Beth had been thrilled. It was so pretty. She had put it on her wrist and then held it up to the light.
‘Sam might not approve. Probably best not to tell him. Or Maggie.’
Beth shut the box. Tonight, maybe, she would put it on in her bedroom. She would wear it while she was asleep.
She looked up guiltily, in case Maggie had noticed, but she was still studying her road atlas. ‘Is everything all right?’ Beth asked, but Maggie just grunted.
‘Haven’t you got a GPS?’ she asked. Mum had had a GPS. The woman on it had spoken in a rather strange voice. ‘I could change it,’ Mum had said more than once, ‘but the last thing I want is to be told how to drive by a man.’ She had laughed every time she said it. Beth wished it was Mum in the front seat now, not Mother Maggie. Mother Maggie was nice, but Beth missed Mum’s jokes.
‘No, dear, I haven’t.’ Mother Maggie was peering out through the windscreen as she answered. The rain had appeared from nowhere, drumming hard on the car roof and the windows were steaming up fast. Beth hoped she would be able to see where she was going. She put her hands together and shut her eyes. She would pray for a safe journey. Mum had insisted that she say her prayers every night. And every night she had prayed that God would keep Mum and her safe, and Sam too, though sometimes she didn’t bother to include Sam because half the time Sam wasn’t there.
The prayers hadn’t worked in Mum’s case though. One night she had gone off and never come back. Even so, praying for safety seemed better than not praying for safety. So she did.
She must have fallen asleep, because the next thing she knew the car was bumping to a stop. Maggie pushed open the front door. ‘Here we are,’ she said.
Beth got out too. It had stopped raining. The sun was trying to break through the low cloud. And there, standing under a tree was a familiar figure: Sam. She gave a squeal of delight and ran to hug him.
‘Hi, Beth. You been looking after Maggs?’
‘What on earth have you been doing?’ Maggie snapped. ‘And don’t call me Maggs. I hate it.’
Beth released Sam. She didn’t want them to argue. Her mum and Sam used to argue. She wanted Maggie to be nice all the time.
He held up the plastic bag he was holding. ‘Getting some insurance.’ He grinned. ‘A set of registration plates in case we need to throw them off the scent.’