Freddie’s heart was thumping in the lift. Bastard. Bastard! She’d let him get to her. She could just hear her mum now: Freddie, you’ve got to watch that temper of yours. It lands you in hot water. And couldn’t you have run a brush through your hair? It’d be all over the news now: her threatening a kidnapper! Would he retaliate? Had she endangered Lottie? Her stomach lurched at the thought. Her fingers tapped frantically at her phone. She had no signal in the lift. The screen was frozen on the last Alex Black search result she’d been looking at in the car. It wasn’t an MRA site or another display of awful photos. It was text heavy: a blog titled ‘Cynthia Warner.’ She scanned the menu tabs:
The lift doors opened. She clicked on the Alex Black page, looking up just in time to avoid walking into a pinch-faced woman in a grey skirt suit. ‘Sorry. Do you know if there’s somewhere I can go for one of these?’ She rattled her fag packet at her.
The woman didn’t smile. ‘There’s a balcony on the next floor. Next to the fire exit.’
‘Cheers.’ Freddie looked back down at her phone. The page had opened onto what looked like a blog. She pushed open the door to the back staircase and ran up. On the next floor was another fire door. Freddie tested it gingerly. Evacuating the building by setting off the fire alarm wouldn’t be a good move right now. But all that greeted her was the rush of cool air from outside and rhythmic hum of London drifting up from below. It was comforting to know life was still normal for other people out there. That they weren’t trapped in a Kafkaesque nightmare of reoccurring internet criminals. Her phone beeped.
‘You’re not supposed to be out here.’ She jumped. At her feet was the man she recognised from the park: DCI Burgone. He looked different with his face composed: quite hot. He had a touch of Tom Hiddleston about him. He was leaning against the stone wall of the building, elbows resting on his knees. Ornate brickwork shielded them from the outside, so she couldn’t see the road below, only the twinkling towers of the London skyline. ‘Freddie Venton, I presume?’ He held a hand out for her to shake. The moonlight picked out his cheekbones like they were made of cut glass. And he was bloody posh. As if she’d stumbled on a character from Brideshead Revisited.
‘Fag?’ She put one between her lips and offered him the carton.
‘You’re not supposed to smoke up here,’ Burgone said.
‘Some woman just told me I could,’ Freddie said, sliding down the wall to sit beside him. She didn’t really want company, but the guy’s sister was missing. And she’d potentially put her in more danger by messaging Alex Black.
‘Which woman?’ He was a typical policeman, asking a load of questions.
Freddie sparked up as she replied. ‘Thin, dark hair piled on her head, grey skirt suit, face like a smacked arse.’
‘Ah,’ Burgone said. ‘That’ll be the superintendent.’
‘Bollocks,’ Freddie exhaled. ‘And I was just getting settled in.’
‘Can I have one of those?’ he said. ‘I’ve changed my mind.’
Freddie handed him the packet and the lighter.
He coughed as he inhaled. ‘I haven’t smoked since Eton.’ Freddie raised her eyebrows. ‘Did that make me sound like a twat?’
‘Yup.’ She blew smoke up into the air, noticing the faint rings of red around his eyes.
‘I’m a bit out of sorts.’ He looked at his phone. The screensaver was of him and Lottie. She with her arm round his shoulder.
‘I should take up vaping really.’ She leant back and looked at the sky. ‘Makes you look like such a tosser though.’
She caught a slight smile in the corner of her eye. ‘I can see the risk,’ he said.
She paused for a moment. It hung in the air between them. The weight of the situation. The fate of his sister. ‘She seems like she’s really nice,’ she said, nodding at the photo.
‘She is,’ he smiled. ‘This was on Sunday. We met for brunch. I get busy at work, so we don’t always get to spend time together.’ Freddie snatched the phone from him. ‘Hey!’
‘What’s that?’ She pointed at the watch on Lottie’s wrist. She’d seen one before.
‘A smartwatch,’ he said. ‘It was a gift, I think.’
‘It’s a FitSpo,’ she said. ‘Some cockblanket I went to uni with has one.’ He looked offended. ‘Sorry. Look, the point is it tracks your movements. He’s always posting his stats. His running routes and stuff on it.’ Burgone was already on his feet. ‘It works in tandem with but separate to your phone. These babies beam out a whole stack of info. I read a piece about it: advertisers suck it up and half the time people don’t realise they’re sharing all this data about themselves.’
Burgone pulled her arm up. She dropped her cigarette. He ground both of them underfoot. ‘If we can access her account …’
‘Then we can pick up her GPS.’ They were running. Down the stairs. They burst into the office – she panting, Burgone fine. Everyone stared at them. Something was wrong. Where was Nas?
‘Jack …’ Chips came towards them, solemn. Freddie felt sick. Her outburst: what had he done to Lottie?
‘What is it – have you found her?’ Burgone’s voice grew anguished. It twisted inside Freddie.
‘No, nothing like that,’ Chips said quickly.
‘Then tell me later. We need to get onto FitSpo – it’s a smartwatch company. Lottie has one. It has a tracker in it.’
‘On it!’ Saunders shouted from the far desk. He was standing with his phone tucked between his ear and shoulder, and typing with a look of extreme concentration on his face.
‘Her route might be on her Facebook page. Some people share them automatically,’ Freddie said. Her heart was thudding. Chips was at the desktop.
‘This is DI Peter Saunders. I need to speak to your IT department now. It’s urgent. Thank you. I’ll hold.’
‘Nothing on her Facebook page that looks like it.’ Chips pressed his lips together.
‘My mother always moans about her doing it – she thinks running is unladylike,’ Burgone was gabbling. Pacing.
‘They’ve given me her login details!’ Saunders shouted. They crowded round his screen as he typed. The dashboard opened.
‘There – routes!’ Freddie pointed at the menu tab. This could be it. If the FitSpo had picked up Lottie’s GPS then it would know where she was. They could find her. They could save her. She looked at the time: just over ten hours to go. Her pulse increased.
Saunders clicked and scrolled. Each route was the same: a green line, wobbly, as if it had been hand drawn, snaking round Greenwich in a loop. ‘Looks like she ran the same route every day. These have been shared to Instagram,’ he said.
‘Stupid girl.’ Burgone’s voice was tight. ‘Anyone would know where to find her.’
‘Here, look.’ The last route started out like the others, before it veered off track. ‘That must be when he put her in the vehicle.’ The line veered right.
‘That’s the Blackwall Tunnel!’ Chips said.
‘He took the North Circular, then the M11,’ Saunders said, following the line as it snaked out of the city. And then it stopped.
‘Where’s that? Is that where she is?’ Freddie said. This was it. This was it!
‘It looks like it’s on the M11 – but just stops,’ Saunders said.
‘There’s nothing there.’ Chips was shaking his head. ‘After Loughton it’s just fields, pull it up on Google Earth. He must have realised. He tossed it.’
‘No,’ Freddie said. ‘No! She’s got to be there!’ Burgone sat heavily onto the chair.
‘We’ll call traffic. Get the helicopter and heat-seeking over there,’ Saunders said, squeezing Burgone’s shoulder.
‘Chips is right,’ Burgone said.
‘We’ll do it anyway,’ Saunders said. ‘If we find the watch it might have something forensics can use.’
‘He was headed for the M25,’ Chips said. ‘Let’s cross-reference this with what Green’s got on her list of names.’
Freddie stepped backwards from them. They were just going to give up. To stop. ‘What if she’s in one of those fields?’
‘She’s in a building,’ Chips said kindly. ‘We know that from the photo he sent. There’s nothing in that area it could be. But we’ll get the helicopter out – double check.’ It wasn’t fair. They’d been so close. ‘Look,’ Chips said gently. ‘I know Nasreen wanted you to look at the blown-up photo.’ Why did he call her Nasreen? He always called her Cudmore. ‘Why don’t you go help her with that? She’s in the meeting room.’
‘Are you trying to get rid of me?’
‘Have you seen what he sent?’ Chips asked. The text message. She scrabbled at her pocket, her fingernails catching on the hem.
‘What is it?’ Burgone said.
Chips’s face flushed. ‘It’s a personal email, Jack. Between you and the lass.’ The final dregs of colour in Burgone’s face drained away. Freddie was already out of the door, her phone shaking in her hand. Alex Black had lashed out at Nas and she was to blame.