14
she saw Geoff enter the café, busy with the morning rush. She waved at him, then glanced left and right as if to check no one had seen her. Geoff strolled over, seeming to move slowly on purpose, as if trying to make a point to Tammy.
“Sit down. Quickly,” she hissed.
“Is this really necessary?”
“They’re onto us, I’m telling you,” she whispered.
Geoff rolled his eyes and signalled at a passing barista. “Short black, please.”
“You’ll need to order and pay at the counter,” the harassed-looking young woman replied with a tight smile.
“Really?” Geoff complained. He looked around, as if there might be another, more accommodating barista nearby. Or perhaps another solution that would result in him being delivered coffee. Finally, he pulled himself off his seat again and joined the queue at the counter.
Tammy kept vigil at the table, her eyes furtively darting from the counter to the door, then across the interior of the café. She couldn’t believe how relaxed Geoff was acting. Not after what they’d done. Not after that woman from S & S Investigations kept calling her to demand an interview.
But how did they find out, Tammy wanted to know. She’d looked up the agency online and saw that they boasted, in addition to psychological expertise, an associate who specialised in IT and cyber-crime. So maybe he’d hacked their computers and seen the damning document.
“Calm down, Tam. You’re being ridiculous,” Geoff said once he returned, plopping down into the chair opposite.
“I’m not. You’re not taking this seriously.”
Tammy’s phone, sitting on the table, suddenly started vibrating angrily. She looked down at the display, then turned panicked eyes to Geoff. “See? That’s them now. They know. They figured it out and we’re going to jail.”
Paige shook her head as she entered the S & S Investigations conference room.
“No answer from Tammy. I’ll have to try again later. Leo, you’re up. What did you want to talk to us about?”
Leo stood, scratched his head, and bit his lower lip. He looked from Paige to Sophie, back to Paige again.
“Just say it, Leo,” Paige said finally, throwing her hands down. “You can’t keep standing there opening and closing your mouth like a fish.”
“First you have to promise you won’t tell Roman. Or anyone from the police.”
“What have you done?” Sophie asked as a curl of unease washed through her stomach. He’d been so secretive and weird recently and then this morning he’d shown up out of the blue with something important to tell them.
“Not me, it’s uh, my new friend. She, uh, Jane, has a problem.”
“Leo. Spit it out,” Paige said.
And so, Leo finally told them about Jane. About finding her on Mt Albert Road, about her memory problems, and finally, her disturbing dreams and worrying suspicions.
“Why isn’t she here with you now?” Paige asked.
“She’s too scared to leave the motel. She’s scared about what she might have done and who might be looking for her. The whole thing has freaked her out.”
“Understandably,” Sophie said.
Leo suddenly reached in his pocket and pulled out his phone which was vibrating with a call. “Jane, Hi. Are you okay?” he answered. He listened for a moment. “Sure. I’ll be there in ten.” He disconnected. “Sorry, that was her. She’s got an appointment with the neurologist and she wants me to go with her.” He looked from Paige to Sophie with wide, earnest eyes. “You’ll help? You’ll see what you can find out? Paige, can you help her get her memory back?”
“Amnesia isn’t my area—”
“We’ll do our best, Leo,” Sophie said. “Check in with us tomorrow.”
“And don’t forget we still need you to help with the locked room mystery case,” Paige called out as he disappeared through the door. Leo grunted in reply.
“I’m surprised you’re not more excited about this amnesia mystery,” Sophie said, helping herself to more coffee.
Paige lifted her shoulders. “I guess. I never really clicked with amnesia as a topic.” She scurried over to the whiteboard
“But the whole woman shows up with no memory, isn’t that like a standard detective trop? I thought…” Sophie trailed off as she took in Paige’s expression.
“Detective trope?”
“Uh…”
“It’s kind of intriguing, I guess, but she was probably just in a car accident and has short term memory loss. And until Leo brings her here there’s nothing much we can do, right?”
“I guess not.” Sophie moved across to turn on the fan that stood in the corner. The whiteboard was Paige’s favourite thing in the office, but the two oscillating fans were Sophie’s.
“We could ask Roman to match her photograph to a database?” Paige offered.
“Hmm.” Sophie wasn’t thrilled at the idea of once again being thrust into Roman’s presence. It was hard enough not to think about him when he was miles away, let alone working on a case with them. “Leo was pretty adamant about not contacting the police.”
“It’s kind of a wild story, eh?”
“As in, too wild?” Sophie said, returning to her seat. “She could be faking?”
“We should definitely consider it.”
“But what’s her angle? What would be the point? To get what out of Leo? I’m pretty sure the only thing Leo has to offer is his heart, and I’m also pretty sure he might have already given it to her.”
Paige rolled her eyes and nodded in agreement, then looked thoughtful. “Maybe not to get something from Leo, but to get out of something. Leo said she’s got injuries and she’s been having disturbing dreams, right?”
“And?”
“So, what if this is setting the groundwork for an insanity defence plea.”
Sophie widened her eyes. “You really think?”
Paige shrugged. “It’s what I would do if I had to murder someone.”
Sophie let the comment land in silence, eyeing Paige as she waited for her to explain herself.
“What?” Paige said eventually. “You never thought about the circumstances in which you might have to murder someone and how you’d dispose of the body without getting caught, etc?”
“Does that mean you have?”
“Stop looking at me like I’m a psycho. It’s a normal thing to do.”
“Is it, though?”
“Just from a theoretical point of view. It’s a classic. How would you kill someone and get away with it?”
Sophie nodded slowly. “And you’d set up an amnesiac event and plead that you couldn’t remember?”
“Actually, no. The more I think about it, no. It’s not really my style, is it? I’d just do it in a really careful, clever way.” Paige’s eyes were bright as they darted from side to side, clearly already formulating a plan.
“This is a really weird conversation, Paige.”
“Fine.” She flipped the whiteboard over to the side with the question of How written along the top. It was still blank. “I don’t want to wipe this off, but we’ve got Hannah’s stalker case, and we might have another one… the woman with no memory.” Paige turned excited eyes to Sophie. “Do we need—?”
“We are not getting a second whiteboard.”
Paige’s shoulders dropped. “Fine. Shall we talk about Cecilia’s case, or the next stakeout for Hannah?”
“Hnnh,” Sophie muttered.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“Hannah said she can probably find some money to pay us for another stakeout. She wants evidence. It’s a good thing. We can take Josh down.” Paige turned back to the board. “But you know what? We should be focussing on our proper client. The one who has agreed to pay us our full rate.”
“Agreed,” Sophie said.
Paige swung the whiteboard over. “Back to the stolen manuscript. We need to talk to Gillian and Martin as well as Tammy and Geoff. I’ll try calling again soon. One of them has to be available to talk to us today.”