Caz cleans her house furiously. It’s all she can do to keep her mind off the time ticking away. The trap they laid for Kate hasn’t worked. She hasn’t looked at her phone, or else she’s too clever to fall for the phishing text. Or perhaps Rory is right, and she’s dead.
As she works through the kitchen cupboards, emptying each one, cleaning and replacing, even scrubbing the grime from the tops, she can’t help picturing ways in which Kate could have died so that no one has found her. Perhaps she jumped from a ferry and has been lost in the waters somewhere, never to be found. There are those presumed dead who’ve left cars by the sea and vanished.
Then where’s the car?
But the car is hired, presumably in whatever name she used for her credit card.
Oh Kate, when you decided to hide, you certainly did it well.
Then something floats into Caz’s mind. She remembers going through the post yesterday, and in it was a piece of junk mail with a name on it she didn’t recognise. She slung it into the pile for recycling and thought nothing more of it. But now something occurs to her.
What if Kate’s pseudonym has been passed on to a marketing list somewhere? What if the circular was for her, and came here because she used this address for the credit card? Maybe it somehow slipped through the redirection order.
She drops the damp cloth and runs to the table in the hall. There’s the pile of free newspapers and supermarket leaflets and unsolicited catalogues and all the rest of the stuff destined for the bin. She rifles through it quickly but can’t find the envelope, so goes back through again more slowly, and then she sees it: the slim bit of cardboard advertising a new kind of credit card. It’s addressed to Ms Rachel Capshaw.
Caz’s hands start to shake and her stomach twists in anxious excitement. She picks up the phone and dials Rory’s number, which she now knows by heart. His mobile is switched off and goes straight to voicemail, so he must be in the hospital with Ady. ‘It’s me,’ she says. ‘I think I might have a lead on Kate. Call me when you can.’ Then she hurries to the computer and starts an internet search on the name ‘Rachel Capshaw’.
Rory calls half an hour later.
‘What is it, Caz? What’s the lead?’
‘Are you at the hospital?’
‘In the cafe there now. Just getting a coffee while Ady’s signs are checked and they give him his meds.’
‘How is he?’
‘Doing well. They’re sure the head injury won’t cause lasting damage. The internal swelling is down.’
‘That’s good.’
‘So?’ He sounds anxious, eager. ‘Don’t keep me in suspense.’
‘It might be nothing. Kate used my address for her credit card application and a piece of junk mail came through addressed to Rachel Capshaw. It suddenly occurred to me that that might be the name she’s using.’
‘That’s a great idea!’ Rory says.
‘Yeah, that’s what I thought. But there are Rachel Capshaws on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and all the rest of it, scattered all over the world. I can’t pin any of them down as being Kate. She wouldn’t advertise herself on those places. And of course, the names and addresses in this country would have to be on the electoral roll. She won’t be on that either. So I think it’s a dead end.’ Caz sighs with frustration. ‘I’m sorry.’
‘I think we should go back to the police,’ Rory says. ‘They have to listen to us now we’ve got a name. Maybe they could put out a press release, reinvigorate interest in the case, do something . . . If people just hear the name, it might trigger something.’
Caz takes a deep breath. ‘Yes, I think you’re right. Let’s go to the police and make them listen to us. I’ll tell them everything I know.’ She’s aware that there might be consequences for holding back information earlier, but she’s going to have to face that now, if it means they can find Kate faster.
At that moment, her telephone pings with an incoming text. She sees it illuminate on the table next to her, but she can’t read it from the angle she’s at.
‘But if we don’t find her, or it’s not even her fake name, then you might be in trouble needlessly,’ Rory says.
‘I know. But I’m back to work on Monday. The girls are coming home. We haven’t got much more time.’ She reaches out and turns the phone towards her, frowning as she reads it. It’s just five numbers. What can that be? A mis-sent text? She goes to swipe it away, then pauses, her finger hovering over the screen, the delete button glowing red.
Wait. Oh my God. It’s worked. It must be Kate’s verification code. Lucas has forwarded it without a message.
Her heart starts to race. Rory is talking but she’s not listening, instead she stutters out, ‘It’s here, Rory, it’s here . . . the code . . .’
‘What?’
Caz can hear his puzzlement down the line. ‘The verification code! It’s here! We can get into Kate’s email. Get here as soon as you can.’
She runs to the computer in the study, goes into Kate’s email provider home page and types in the user name and tells it she can’t remember the password. A message pops up saying a verification code has been sent and that Caz should type it in below, or request another. She enters the code with a trembling finger, breathing the numbers as she goes, hoping it’s still valid. She presses return, the screen goes white for a moment and then boom, the inbox appears before her. There are her last four messages, all unopened. And below, the ones she sent that Kate did read. And along with those, and others from the car rental company, the bank and the marketing junk is a name she doesn’t recognise. Alison@ARKHoldingsltd. There are many from her, going back to before Kate’s disappearance.
Surely this is what we’re looking for.
Caz goes down to the first message, and starts to read.
When Rory rings on the doorbell thirty minutes later, breathless and inquisitive, Caz opens the door with a triumphant flourish.
‘I think I’ve found her. I think I know where she is. We can leave right now. Do you want to drive, or shall I?’