drawer’s curved metal handle and pulled. Planning to pick up where I’d left off, I grabbed the file at the back marked 2010 and tried to lift it out. But I’d forgotten how heavy it was and, as I fumbled to get a grip, the folder tipped back into the cabinet and onto the contents of the locked drawer below. Reaching in with my right arm, I picked it up and tried to move it back out through the hole. But it wouldn’t budge. Its corner had caught on something. Stretching my other arm in to help, I grabbed the folder with both hands and gave it a tug. Finally, it came free. Breathing a small sigh of relief, I put the file on the desk and pushed the cabinet closed. But the drawer was barely halfway shut before it stopped, unable to go any further. Opening it back out, I squinted into the gloom, trying to spot the source of the problem. There was an object blocking its way. I must have dislodged something in the locked drawer below. I stretched in again and tried to free the obstruction. But, whatever it was, was just out of reach.
I looked around for something to help. A collection of pens, a ruler and a pair of scissors filled the desk tidy. All useless. Scanning the rest of the room, my eyes soon fell on Jason’s old bag of welding tools. Made out of thick burgundy canvas, its sides had been covered in oil and grime when Jason had first dumped it in here. Now though, having collected a few years’ worth of dust, the bag had a grey, furred coating. Crouching down on my knees, I tried to pick it up, but it was too heavy and so I tipped it forward instead. A blowtorch, drill, metal clamp, oversized screwdriver and a few other tools I couldn’t identify tumbled out onto the carpet. I considered the C-shaped clamp. That might work.
Holding on to the clamp’s screw, I pushed the hook deep inside and swatted around in the dark. The cabinet’s metal frame had just begun to cut into my shoulder when I felt the end of the clamp brush against something. After a few more goes, I managed to get a purchase on it and pulled the obstruction up and forward to the point where I could grab hold of it with my other hand.
Rubbing at my shoulder, I inspected my haul. I had expected to see something you wouldn’t want a potential burglar to have easy access to. Instead, I was faced with a thin, black, A4-size folder, the front cover of which was plain except for a single white sticker. Written on the sticker, in red block capitals that I recognised as Jason’s handwriting, was one word. I stared at it, trying to understand what it was I was seeing. VICKY. The one word written on the folder said VICKY.
Chapter Twenty-Three
I backed away from the desk, as though what was inside the folder might do me harm. I scrambled for an explanation – Jason kept it under lock and key, but maybe it contained important paperwork relating to his and Vicky’s divorce and subsequent financial arrangements? I thought back to last night, in the curry house. The way he hadn’t been able to meet her eye. On the other hand, maybe the folder was more personal. Full of old love letters and ticket stubs he’d been unable to part with. Evidence of their relationship, of his old feelings for her, that he didn’t want me to see.
Placing my finger under the folder’s bottom corner, I shuffled the contents out onto the desk and took a seat.
Starting with the piece of paper on the top of the pile, I saw that it was a mobile phone bill addressed to a Mrs Vicky Thursby and was dated June 2010 – the month before Barney went missing. Studying it in more detail, I saw the bill listed every number she had phoned over a twenty-eight-day period as well as the duration and cost of each call, and that two numbers in particular had been highlighted wherever they appeared on the sheet in fluorescent yellow marker.
I put the phone bill to one side and did a quick inventory of the remaining documents. As well as a map showing the location of Jason and Vicky’s old house, I found Vicky’s bank statements for the period January–June 2010, a photocopy of a crumpled petrol receipt