21

BACK IN THE 911, I headed across the Severn Bridge into Wales. A service station had fitted me out with a thin green fleece and a blue acrylic jumper.

The bag of goodies was on the seat next to me. The car was in Tiptronic mode so I could focus on sorting out the mobiles. I turned them both on, to identify which one I’d used to call Jan and Crazy Dave. I kept the one with the Somali number in my pocket.

I was soon through Chepstow and on the Pontralis road. The car swung from side to side. I needed to make distance but only had one hand on the wheel.

I rang Crazy Dave.

Still nothing.

I tuned in to Radio Wyvern. Hereford was now about nine miles away. I caught the nine a.m. news. No doleful announcements of the violent murder of a Hereford woman or a disabled man in the early hours of this morning.

I tried Crazy Dave once more. This time I got a dial tone. Non-UK.

‘What?’

Simon and Garfunkel wailed in the background. Something about Cecilia breaking their hearts.

‘Dave, it’s Nick.’

‘What?’

‘Where are you?’

‘I fucking told you, didn’t I? What do you want?’

‘Nothing, mate.’

‘Well, fuck off, then.’

Jan’s phone went straight to voicemail again. Perhaps she was doing what Cecilia had done.

I crossed the bridge towards Ross-on-Wye and parked up at Asda by the river. It was a five-minute walk to the flats. I’d done it a million times before the old camp at Stirling Lines had made way for an executive housing estate.

I redialled Jan a couple more times on Nadif’s mobile, with the same result. If she wasn’t at home, I was going to have to start searching.

St Martin’s Church stood at about the halfway mark. Many of my friends were buried there. I always thought about them when I passed, but not today. I needed another word with Crazy Dave.

‘What?’

‘Dave, it’s me again.’

Bob Dylan had taken over from Simon and Garfunkel.

‘Yeah?’

‘Jan? You know, Tracy’s sister? You know where she works, or where she might be today?’

Dave didn’t miss a beat. ‘Who the fuck do you think I am? The fucking Yellow Pages?’

‘What about her mates – do you know any of them?’

‘I’m trying to have a new life here. Remember what I said?’

‘What?’

‘Fuck off.’

The flats, a collection of three-storey rectangular blocks, were on an uphill stretch to my right. The grass around them was neatly trimmed. The cream rendering looked in much better condition than I remembered.

Jan lived on the ground floor, far right, at the back. There was no C-class Merc in sight. I wasn’t surprised. It would have stuck out like a sore thumb.

A couple of kids kicked a ball between them as their mum tried to open the main security door. She was laden with shopping and a pushchair, and had to use a knee. She called over her shoulder, ‘You staying out?’

They didn’t answer, just kept on kicking the ball. She got the message.

I quickened my pace but stayed out of her line of sight. A stranger entering the block would register.

I grabbed the steel handle as the door closed behind her and held it open a second or two to give Mum time to move out of the hallway.

I turned right down the corridor. I wanted the last door on the left.

The place had definitely had a facelift. Bright strip-lights showed off the newly painted walls. The 1960s doors with frosted panels had been replaced by solid wooden ones with on-trend steel furniture.

I gave Jan’s a gentle knock. There was no bell. The intercom at the front entrance did that job. There was no letter-box either.

I knocked again, this time a little harder and with my ear to the wood. The loudest thing I heard was a muffled shout from the two kids outside.

One more knock. Still nothing.

I walked outside. The footballers were sitting on the grass with the ball between them. I glanced around. There was nowhere out here she could have hidden a set of keys.

I followed the block round to the back. Her curtains were closed. There was no sign of life. Maybe she really had played away last night.