house, while Jojo had been out drinking with a group of climbers, it seemed. Which meant it might have been a first attempt to kill Aleksy.
There was a lot to ask Jojo. He let himself out into CID, and said to Hanson as normally as he could, “Juliette, can you take over from the PCSO?”
Hanson nodded, not making eye contact, and went to field Jojo from the door. Jonah could hear her reminding Jojo that she’d met her before. He couldn’t catch any reply.
He continued to watch as they walked toward the interview suite. Jojo had seen him, but she gave him only a short nod before looking ahead again. She seemed, if anything, a little nervous. He wondered whether she was afraid of being asked more about Aleksy, or about the fire, or whether she’d been talking to one of the others.
“Chief,” O’Malley said, waving a hand at him. “The messages from Aleksy Nowak’s phone are through.”
Jonah stopped watching Jojo and drew up a vacant chair with keen interest.
“I want to look before I talk to his girlfriend,” he said. “Can you bring up any texts from the day of his death? The thirteenth?”
O’Malley opened up the database file, and searched for a date range including only that day. There were a number of messages both to and from Aleksy’s number.
“Start with the last one,” he told the sergeant.
O’Malley opened up the last text Aleksy had sent. It was brief, but immediately made Jonah’s stomach tighten.
Sorry, I’m afraid I’m at the heath. Maybe another time.
“Looks like he told someone where he was going,” Jonah said. “Can you bring up the whole conversation between these numbers?”
O’Malley copied and pasted the number into the search bar. It brought up only two messages, the first sent at ten thirteen on the morning of Aleksy’s death. Aleksy had received a message from the unknown number that read:
I should have messaged before. I’m sorry about shouting at you. I really am. I was being a total dick and taking a lot of stress out on you. I know you weren’t meaning anything bad, and that you actually care a lot. I’d really like the chance to explain, and salvage what I can of the two of us. Can you forgive and forget enough to at least go for a drink later?
Aleksy had sent his last message at just after twelve, clearly after a long gap.
O’Malley gave a huff of air at around the same time that Jonah had finished reading.
“That’s pretty interesting,” he said. “Particularly given those two messages had been deleted from the phone.”
O’Malley pointed to the tag “RECOVERED” next to each message.
“Can you check that number? Is it any of the group’s?” Jonah asked.
O’Malley dutifully opened up the main database on his second screen, and typed the number in. It didn’t suggest any matches as he was typing, and came up with no saved results once he’d submitted the search.
“So it’s not the main number of Jojo, Brett, Topaz, or Daniel Benham,” Jonah said.
“Or Coralie or Connor either,” O’Malley added. “They’re saved on the system, too, even if we don’t have their records. So we’re looking at a second phone, or someone else entirely.”
Jonah looked again at some of the phrases in those messages.
I’d really like the chance to explain, and salvage what I can of the two of us…
There was an implication to the message. It sounded like things someone would say to a partner. And the message had a jokiness that could easily have been Jojo’s.
Aleksy’s reply, too, sounded like the deliberate shutdown of a partner. It was slightly sulky in tone.
Had there been a row between Jojo and Aleksy? Was the reference to interference because Jojo had waded in on a conversation? Or was this someone else? Perhaps a lover of Aleksy’s?
Though Jonah was inclined to think that the tone of the messages was wrong for an affair. There were no declarations of missing each other, no sexual undertones…none of the usual features of messages between illicit lovers.
Could they be between friends? In a close-knit group, references to the importance of the relationship between two of them were possible.
“What do we think?” O’Malley asked. “Did the girlfriend do him in?”
“Hard to be sure,” Jonah replied, rising, “but it’s unquestionably time to give Jojo a bit of a grilling.”
35
Hanson took a few sideways looks at Jojo Magos as she showed her silently into Room One. She was wearing a tank top again, this one with