down the stairs or whatever.’
‘I guess,’ Lois said. ‘It’s Bruce, isn’t it?’
Bruce nodded.
‘I tell you what Bruce, you both look half frozen. Why don’t you go in the kitchen and make some tea? There’s all kinds of biscuits in there too.’
Bruce had been knocked off his stride when Lois answered the door, but he now realised that the search would be easier with only one person in the house and being left alone downstairs was perfect.
As Bruce cut into the Thompsons’ expensively fitted kitchen, James wound his football shirt around his leg to stop the blood dripping and began walking upstairs.
‘First on the left,’ Lois said.
She reached in behind James and pulled on a light cord, revealing a space that was as big as James’ room on campus. There was a large corner bath, a stack of lifestyle magazines beside the toilet, a separate shower cubicle and a wicker lounge chair in front of a circular window.
‘Sit down,’ Lois said, as she threw a bath towel over the bottom half of the lounger to keep the mud off. ‘I’ll sponge off the worst of it, then you can have a soak in the bath and I’ll bandage it up when you’re clean.’
‘Cool,’ James nodded, sitting down with his grubby legs stretched out in front of him.
‘Raise your leg up, so I can see the cut,’ Lois said, as she leaned over the bath and turned on the taps.
‘You’ve got a nice house,’ James grinned.
‘Parents are a pain though,’ Lois smiled, as she knelt on one knee and began peeling off his football sock. ‘You must get heaps more freedom living in the Zoo.’
*
It was a large house and Bruce had to be completely sure that Lois was the only person home. After scrubbing his hands under the mixer tap, he filled the kettle, then grabbed the backpack and headed out into the hallway.
He moved stealthily in his socked feet. His first step was to open the door that went into the basement. He peered down the slatted wooden steps and was pleased to see all the lights out and no sign of life.
Next, he raced down the ground-floor hallway, checking that the living-and dining-rooms were empty before opening the door to Sasha’s study. The room was a fair size, done out in matching Ikea office furniture. The longest wall was all shelves, crammed with books: mostly the histories of football clubs and biographies of players. Two partially melted trophies rescued from the Mad Dogs clubhouse stood atop the filing cabinet.
Bruce unzipped the PDA from the backpack and used it to phone Chloe.
‘I’m in the study now,’ Bruce whispered. ‘James is upstairs being cleaned up by Lois. Are you in place?’
‘I’m in the car directly across the street,’ Chloe said. ‘If anyone comes in or out you’ll be the first to know.’
‘First impressions aren’t good,’ Bruce said. ‘It all looks like football stuff.’
‘Sasha’s had the cops on his back for yonks,’ Chloe said. ‘He’s too smart to leave anything obvious in his own home. Remember what we discussed: be thorough and keep your eyes peeled for small clues.’
‘Will do,’ Bruce said, as he ended the call and flipped open the leather appointments diary in the middle of Sasha’s desk.
It was mundane stuff: hospital appointments for a bad knee, a meeting about the insurance on the clubhouse, taking the car in for a service. But as Bruce flipped it shut he noticed Sasha had used the inside front page to write down several phone numbers and he used the PDA to snap a couple of photographs.
Next he moved on to the desk drawers. Amidst the pens, clips and elastic bands were a couple of CD-ROMs, but there was no computer in the room and Bruce didn’t have the equipment on hand to copy them. The next drawer was stacked with old photos, whilst the large file drawer at the bottom appeared to be a makeshift liqueur cabinet, stacked with partially drunk bottles of vodka and brandy.
It was only as Bruce pulled the drawer open to its fullest that he spotted a pair of old Nokia phones squeezed between duty-free sized bottles of Jack Daniels and Cuervo Gold. The handsets looked cheap. Maybe they were just phones that Sasha no longer used, but the way they were propped deliberately between the bottles made him wonder.
Whilst home phones, internet connections and contract mobiles are easy for police to listen in on, pay-as-you-go mobiles, bought and topped up with cash, are completely anonymous. What’s more,