There was nothing to be done but wait – for Ross to return with news about his summons to London, for her father to use his black art to prove Ross was innocent, even for Marty to change his mind about helping them. She doubted somehow that any of those things would happen, so most of all, Amy waited for a stroke of luck.
Every avenue they’d explored in the search for Kat had led nowhere. Maybe the police would find her, and if so, Amy wished fervently it would be before Jeb and the knifeman. She sat in shade under a café canopy, sipping chilled wine and trying to enjoy the scene before her.
She had found a café bar behind the Malmaison, overlooking a canal. The water sparkled silver in the sunlight. Squinting, she saw an arched bridge in the distance, a jetty, and a cluster of houseboats painted in bright colours like a flower garden.
Amy fidgeted restlessly and ordered more wine. She could afford a treat, just. Ross had paid for everything since they left her flat two days before. Anyway, the wine was delicious, and well-priced compared with Fitzrovia. Her second glass softened her tension and unease.
As she relaxed at last, her phone began to play Michael Jackson’s Thriller. It was her father.
“Good news, Amy,” he said.
“Really?” She could scarcely contain her excitement. “You’ve proved he didn’t do it?”
“Hardly,” Charles said.
She looked longingly at the wine. Could she take a gulp without him hearing it? “You said it was good news,” she accused.
“It is,” Charles replied. “I haven’t run diagnostics on Veritable’s systems – in fact, I didn’t even need to ask for access – because their IT team had done it already. I phoned Davey Saxton, only to discover they were already on the case.”
“So they know it wasn’t Ross?”
“Yes,” Charles said. “That’s about the size of it.”
Amy didn’t press him for more. She was eager to tell Ross. When she dialled, however, she was immediately diverted to his voicemail message. ‘Hello, it’s Ross here. I’m very busy but will ring you back at the earliest possible opportunity.’
He could be so pompous, she thought. Smiling, she left a message, noting that another call was waiting.
The caller withheld his number. As soon as he spoke, she knew it wasn’t Ross. Nevertheless, the voice was familiar.
“It’s Erik. Remember?” It was the tall, thin man who’d removed Kat’s plants from their flat.
Amy recalled how careful he’d been not to introduce himself. She hadn’t been sure whether he was friend or foe. Marty had been emphatic, however: ‘He wouldn’t hurt a fly.’
“Erik, I have to see you again. Where are you?” she asked.
“In Birmingham, near the centre.”
“Give me the address,” she said eagerly. “I’ll get over there as soon as I can.” She couldn’t afford to wait for Ross. Instead, she phoned him, suffered his recorded message again, and left details of what she was doing and where she was going.
Amy could have walked, but such was her excitement, she hailed a cab outside the hotel. Within minutes, it was stuck in a traffic jam.
“The council’s working on the roads, like they do every summer,” the driver said gloomily. “It’d be quicker to walk.”
“I would, but I don’t know the way.”
He gave her directions and declined to take a fare from her. “I like to help a pretty girl out,” he said, a small act of kindness that boosted her confidence after Ross’ brutal rejection at breakfast.
The newer glass and concrete offices of the city centre soon gave way to old red brick buildings, elaborately ornamented and turreted in the gothic style. ‘If you get lost, follow signs for the Big Peg,’ the taxi driver had said, and she did, while having no idea what the Big Peg was. They led her past a white church in a leafy square, buzzing bars and jewellery workshops. She was looking for Leopold Passage, a pedestrian alleyway behind a badge factory. Amy almost missed it. It was nothing more than a narrow, cobbled path, winding steeply to the left, flanked on either side by the walls of buildings three storeys higher or more. Very occasionally, a narrow door or barred window punctuated the red brick. The effect was claustrophobic, like walking between cliffs.
Erik had told her to look for a door marked Clissolds. The path took another abrupt twist into a paved courtyard, and there it was, black-painted below a gothic arch. On either side of it were the two shrubs removed from Kat’s room, each in a terracotta pot and the picture of health, greener and glossier than before. It was proof, if Amy needed it, that she’d found Kat’s brother. But where was Kat?