Page 91 of Carbon

“Brixton’s near the hospital.”

“It is. Looks like he’s sticking in that area.”

“Anything on our escaped prisoner?”

Emmy had updated everyone from the car as we drove back to London, although how she managed to hold a conversation considering the speed she was going at, I had no idea. She’d driven so sedately in the Volkswagen, and even yesterday in the Porsche, but it seemed that had all been part of the act. When we got in the car after the funeral, she’d mashed the accelerator to the floor and didn’t lift her foot until we reached the outskirts of London. My fingers hurt from gripping the edges of the seat so hard, and I suspected the leather had ten fingernail-shaped dents in it.

Nye waved his hand at a wedge of paper next to him. The results of his search for our missing convict?

“According to my contacts, the only high-profile escapee this year was that armed robber whose buddies held up the van taking him to court, and they caught him two weeks later. The other absconsions have all been minor—shoplifters leaving open prisons, that sort of thing, and we can’t find Ben Durham mixed up in any of it.”

“Try France,” Emmy suggested. “Ben calls Augustamon cœur, and there’s the French connection from his other phone.”

“What French connection?” I asked.

This whole lack-of-information thing was starting to wear really, really thin.

“Ben messaged you just before midnight on the day of Angelica’s death, right?”

“Yes.”

“And between the hours of eight and eleven on the dates of your mother’s four previous parties?”

“You went through my phone records?” I asked, even though I already knew the answer.

Of course they went through my phone records. They’d probably checked my diary and my internet shopping habits as well if Luke had anything to do with it. Oh, hell, did he know I’d bought theFifty Shades of Greyextended version? Could he tell I’d streamed it at least ten times? Thank goodness I’d ventured into town to buy the lingerie I wore for Ben on our second meeting. Except, shit, he’d probably seen my credit card bill as well. Mental note: pay cash, and only buy DVDs in the future.

“Just part of our job. Anyway, Ben sent those texts from a second, unregistered phone rather than his regular one. The only other activity on that second phone was a series of incoming phone calls originating from a mobile in the south of France, also unregistered. Does the village of Mougins mean anything to you?”

A thread of a conversation came back to me. “No, but Ben said he spent some time in France. I think he worked there for a while.”

Emmy’s mouth flattened into a thin line, and she blew out a steady breath. “Are there any other little snippets you’ve forgotten to tell us?”

The events of that awful night still jumbled together in my head like that one drawer where you tucked everything special but never quite got around to tidying. “Everything’s so confused.”

She pointed to a seat. “I suggest you sit down and un-confuse things, otherwise you’d better get that outfit to the dry-cleaner sharpish because you’ll be needing to wear it again soon.”

This new Emmy understood how to hurt people. Her words sliced between my ribs at just the right angle to jab me in the heart. And the worst of it? I knew she was right.

Think, Gus, think.

“He gave me a pen as a gift. A proper old-fashioned fountain pen with red enamel. He said he bought it from an antique shop in northern France.”

“Do you still have it?”

I’d carried it with me since the day Ben left, going so far as to choose outfits with pockets to accommodate it. Today it rested against my hip, ruining the line of my dress, something that Mother would have chastised me for on any other occasion. Now I palmed the cool barrel, turning it over in my hands before I handed it to Emmy.

“I want it back.”

Her face softened. “We’ll look after it. Is there anything else? What we really need is a good photo of him.”

“I don’t have a recent photo; I’m sure of that much.”

And how I wished I’d taken one. Just one. Something to look at before I went to sleep at night and my increasingly blurry dreams took over.

“Any scars? Other distinguishing marks?”

Yes! “Tattoos. He had tattoos.”

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