Page 188 of Murder in the Family

In my experience, regular people don’t use burner phones, Alan. Only people who don’t want to leave a trail.

LAILA FURNESS

But if someone did want to track Luke Ryder down to exact revenge, wouldn’t they do everything they could to remain anonymous? That sounds like a very good reason to use a burner phone.

BILL SERAFINI

Agreed.

MITCHELL CLARKE

OK, but on that basis what can you do? It’s just another dead end.

BILL SERAFINI

Notquitedead, Mitch. Because my professional instincts tell me that someone who’s prepared to go all the way to Assos to find Luke would almost certainly try other methods too.

LAILA FURNESS

As in—?

BILL SERAFINI

As in personal ads, for example.

MITCHELL CLARKE

(dryly)

That long ago? Good luck with that—

BILL SERAFINI

Actually it’s not as impossible as it seems. We have those phone numbers, remember, which means we can do a digital search for a match. And that’s exactly what Tarek and the team have been doing.

(taps his laptop again)

And this is what they found.

LAILA FURNESS

OK, so this provessomeonewas definitely trying to track Luke down, and well done, that’s a pretty big step forward.

But all the same, there’s nothing here—

(gesturing at the screen)

—that will help us identifywho was looking for him, is there? Apart from a PO box number that’s over twenty years old?

BILL SERAFINI

Not so fast, Laila. If you’ve been in this trade as long as I have, you get to recognize a certain way of doing things. Or, in this case, a certain way ofsayingthings. The use of certain terms, for example, or particular forms of words.

There’s a brief silence as they all read the ad again.

HUGO FRASER

(taking a deep breath)

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