Robert and Jennifer were seated inside the car. After a moment, Robert asked, ‘Where exactly are we headed?’
‘Young Hearts Primary School,’ replied Jennifer.
‘Why?’
‘That’s where Stacy and Rebecca used to . . .’
‘Jennifer . . .’
‘Please, Robert, I know. The thing is, all through these months, Alice told us that her kids are dead. She never told us that they were never officially declared dead. I think deep down, even I know the evitable truth, but at least we should know why. That still haunts her.’
‘I understand her pain very well, Jen. But right now, I can only spare five minutes. The captain has ordered me to be there as soon as possible.’
Jennifer nodded as Robert drove on.
Mandy, James, and David were seated inside the conference room. Neither of them spoke. They were busy analysing the files. Hayley Ford’s family tree had not been difficult to trace. They were looking up for contacts and fraudsters who might have made the fake papers. It looked like a pretty high-end job. They were trying to see why Hayley would need such an alias. After all, being a doctor, she had nothing to hide.
‘Morning, everybody,’ said Greg as he pushed open the doors. He was greeted back by nods of approval from all. He pushed the files in his hands a bit higher along his torso while he looked for the appropriate chair to sit on.
‘I bet you all are thinking how Hayley Ford could provide Anne Hudson’s fake identity. Well, how I can answer. Why, that’s up to you,’ said Greg as he seated himself beside David and opposite James.
‘Proceed,’ said David.
‘I’ve been working on this all morning. First of all, to trace Anne, I had to go way back, a long way back. She was Hayley’s great-aunt, and Anne’s daughter is Hayley’s aunt. Anne died in her forties. And her daughter, Emily Hall, is a master of vanishing. She herself had vanished from the system for five years or so, using Anne’s alias. Purpose? We don’t know. We don’t need to know ’cause she’s dead too. She made or got made the credit cards, driving license, and all. All renewed timely too. Bluffing the system. And this was close to twenty years ago. After Emily’s death, the family heirloom passed on to Hayley. That’s one shady family, to be honest. How that passed from Hayley to Adam’s housekeeper is beyond my pay cheque.’
Greg pushed the papers towards David and said, ‘That’s for your reference.’
‘Hayley lied for that woman. She has her papers too. She gave her that fake alias,’ commented David.
‘Either Hayley is protecting that woman for an unknown woman or she appointed her in the first case to get Adam killed,’ said Mandy.
‘Or Nicolas wanted him dead. This makes no sense. Why would they want Adam dead? With George, we can understand ’cause they were “friends”. Why Adam?’ asked James.
‘Maybe George told Nicolas something. That’ll be a good-enough reason,’ said Mandy.
‘I believe there is no point in discussing these questions when we can arrest the people in question and get our answers,’ said David.
‘She’s out of town, sir,’ said Mandy.
‘Oh, is she really? Send her a notice. I don’t care. I want them both here ASAP,’ said David.
James and Mandy nodded to each other while David and Greg picked up the files, and all left.
While walking through the school ground, Robert looked at his watch. Before he could speak, Jennifer said, ‘I promised, Robert. Five minutes—no more, no less.’
Robert simply nodded. His cell phone beeped a message. He read it and said, ‘Jen, I can only spare a few moments. The department is going for a major arrest. I have to be there. They want me back ASAP.’
‘Then we can—’ Jennifer was cut short by the appearance of an elderly-looking lady. Before either of them could speak, she said, ‘Hello. I am Kate. I know who you are. Alice called me up to inform me about your visit. Please follow me.’
Robert shrugged his shoulders as he followed her. She led them to a simple visiting room. It had three sets of sofas, a glass centre table, a magazine rack on the left corner, a glass cabinet in front full of school trophies, and a water cooler towards the right end of the wall. The elderly lady disappeared without another word. In order to distract himself from the urgency of the moment, Robert picked up an old stray yearbook lying on the table while Jennifer seated herself, waiting for whosoever was about to show up. Robert was casually shuffling through the pages when something caught his eye; he scanned the page and gasped. Instantly reaching for his cell phone, he quickly typed the message for his captain and started pacing back and forth. Kate entered a moment later with two cups of coffee. He walked up to her. Showing her the yearbook, he said, ‘I’ll be keeping this, ma’am, if you don’t mind.’
She gave a puzzled look while nodding. Before she could say anything, Robert said to his wife, ‘Let’s go. It’s freaking urgent, Jen. I need to be present at the department right now.’
Jennifer gave a sorry look to Kate and said, ‘We’ll come back sometime later. Thank you.’ She hurried away outside with Robert.
While Robert hurried his ride in the traffic, Jennifer asked, ‘You found something?’
‘Yeah! I found the missing piece of the puzzle, but it’s impossible. I don’t know. I need to make sense of it and that too as fast as I can.’
He spent the rest of the journey brainstorming. As soon as they reached the department, Robert hurriedly got out and bid farewell to his wife. She simply smiled and wished him a good day. On reaching the fourth floor, he found the squad waiting for him in the conference room. He skipped the greetings.
‘What could be so important as to delay everything? Any information from Amanda?’ asked David.
Robert, who was pretty out of breath, handed him the yearbook and said, ‘Page 7.’
David shuffled through the pages and gasped. ‘How’s this even possible?’ he asked himself aloud.
‘What is it?’ asked Mandy.
‘The woman using Anne Hudson’s alias is none other than Amelia Hustle, who had apparently died a year ago.’