to Grint. ‘The house they nearly bought in Cambridge in 2003. In Connie Bowskill’s statement, she gave the address as 17 Pardoner Lane. In Kit’s, it’s 18 Pardoner Lane.’
Grint frowned. Stared as Simon pointed out the relevant paragraphs. ‘Can’t believe I missed it,’ he said eventually. ‘Still, at a distance of seven years, it’s an easy mistake for one of them to have made. I doubt it means anything.’
Simon disagreed. ‘They both mention that the house was next to a school called the Beth Dutton Centre. Both go into detail about why this particular house appealed to them: original Victorian fireplaces, original iron railings outside . . .’ Simon shrugged. ‘Whichever one got it wrong, I can’t see why they’d remember all that and not the number of the house.’
‘I forget trivial stuff all the time,’ said Grint. ‘Don’t you?’
Simon never forgot anything. He dodged the question. ‘Connie Bowskill’s phone’s going straight to voicemail – I must have tried her fifty times since I got back from Spain. I never spoke to the husband, so I didn’t have his number. Your files did, though, so I made use of it.’ He waited for Grint to remonstrate with him. When it didn’t happen, he volunteered more information. ‘He’s agreed to meet me this evening at eight.’
‘Where?’ Grint asked.
Not your business. Simon told himself to stop being a tosser. Grint had a right to know.
‘In a pub – the Maypole. I was going to ask you for directions.’
Grint made a dismissive noise. ‘The Maypole,’ he muttered, as if even the name offended him. ‘I won’t be coming with you, in that case.’
I didn’t ask you to. Simon was better at talking to one person alone than he was in a group, even a small one.
‘You can ring me later, tell me if you get anything worthwhile out of him,’ said Grint. ‘If not, I’m going to have to stop pretending I’m a superhero. I’ll make the guv happy by following orders and pretending nothing ever happened – not much else I can do, is there?’
He was disappointed, Simon realised. Sam had talked up Simon’s talents, and Grint had expected him to come up with a plan of action, to see something in the files he’d given him that wasn’t there to be seen. Simon was the one who had turned out not to be a superhero.
‘According to Kit Bowskill, Connie’s phone’s broken,’ he said. ‘She threw it into a main road.’
‘Yeah, I can see her doing that.’ Grint looked at his watch. ‘You’ve got just over an hour to kill. Fancy grabbing a curry? You can tell me your unlikely theories and I’ll tell you mine. I’ve always found it’s the shit ideas that lead to the good ones.’
Simon felt uncomfortable eating with people he didn’t know well. He and Grint weren’t friends. Why did they need to have a meal together? What was the point? ‘I wasn’t thinking about food,’ he said. He was thinking about Pardoner Lane, that it couldn’t be too far from where he was now. He had time to find it, see whether the Beth Dutton Centre was next to number 17 or number 18. A small discrepancy, true, but there was no reason to think it wasn’t important all the same.
No reason to mention his plans or his thoughts to Ian Grint, either.
‘Do you remember that night in the Brown Cow a couple of years ago, when you nearly got into a fight?’ Olivia asked Gibbs. They were in bed together at the Malmaison hotel in London. They’d tried a few hotels this week, but this one was Olivia’s favourite. The walls and floors were dark – reds, browns, purples, black in places; it was like walking into the inside of a human heart. Liv had told Gibbs her theory several times: the hotel must have been decorated with secret passion in mind.
‘I’ve nearly got into lots of fights.’
‘This one was with a man who said you’d nicked his mate’s chair after he’d said it was taken. You said he’d told you it wasn’t taken.’
Gibbs shook his head. ‘Don’t remember.’
‘But you remember seeing me at the Brown Cow?’
He gave her an odd look. ‘All the time.’
‘What did you think?’
‘Think?’
‘When you saw me.’
‘I don’t know. “There’s Charlie’s sister with the posh voice and the massive tits.” What did you think when you saw me?’
‘I didn’t think this would happen, not in a million years. Did you?’
‘No.’
‘Don’t you think that’s odd?’
‘What?’
‘That neither of us had a clue we’d