Page 45 of Zero Days

There was a long pause. I could almost hear Hel’s brain ticking. Then her reply came through.

“How do you mean?”

“Someone took that policy out. And I really don’t think it was Gabe. It’s just not his style.”

Wasn’t, I reminded myself bitterly. It wasn’t his style. Would I ever get used to thinking of him in the past tense? It seemed impossible that he was gone, even though I’d cradled his dead body in my arms.

Hel’s reply had already pinged through onto the mobile.

“Okay. But how do you prove that?”

“I’m not sure,” I typed. “I could ask Cole. Maybe he could do something fancy with their system—figure out the IP address of whoever applied?”

There was another long pause. Then the message popped up. Just one word.

“Maybe.” I could almost hear the doubt coming off the screen. For some reason I felt nettled.

“Okay then—what were you wondering?”

“Well… I don’t know if you’re going to like this…”

She paused again and I almost rolled my eyes. There was literally nothing to like about the situation I was in. Hel could hardly make that any worse.

The phone pinged again.

“But I was thinking… have you heard anything from Jeff Leadbetter lately?”

“Jeff?” For a second I was puzzled, wondering how on earth she knew about Jeff’s email. She didn’t—couldn’t—surely? “What do you mean? Has he emailed you too?”

“He’s emailed you?”

“Yes, isn’t that why you asked?”

“No, what do you mean he’s emailed you?”

I sighed, the sound surprisingly loud in the little cottage, audible even over the cracks and hissing of the fire.

“Oh God, he sent me this stupid goading thing about Gabe’s death. I assume his bosses told him to do it. Probably hoping I’d email back and give up my location.”

Hel’s response came back quickly this time.

“Did you? Reply?”

“Yes, but I made sure to switch on the VPN. I don’t think they could get anything off it.”

There was another long pause. Presumably Hel was trying to figure out whether I had just done something incredibly stupid.

“That’s a virtual private network,” I added, in case Hel didn’t know what I was talking about. “It hides your location.”

There was still no response.

“Why did you want to know about Jeff anyway?” I tapped out, more to get her to tell me what she was thinking. The long pauses were making me nervous. I had an image of the police battering down Hel’s door, seizing the phone, although it was far more likely she was just typing one-handed while trying to get the twins to bed.

“Hel?” I was just typing when her message came through.

“Look. I might be completely wrong, but let’s say someone did kill Gabe. And let’s say you’re right, and they’re framing you. We’ve both been assuming that was something to do with Gabe, but what if it wasn’t? What if it was something to do with you?”

“What?” I was confused now, my tiredness getting the better of me to the extent that I couldn’t quite understand what she was trying to say. “Hel, sorry, you’re going to have to spell this out. What do you mean?”

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