Korpanski was thoughtful as they drove back to the station. ‘That girl,’ he said. ‘I’d keep an eye on her. I think she knows something about the old man.’
‘Now do you see why I’m finding the case so bloody difficult?’
‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘I do. You go round and round in circles. One step forward, two to the side and one step back.’ He was quiet for a moment before speaking again. ‘It’s one of those cases that you think you’ll wind up really quickly and then you just don’t.’ He glanced across at her. ‘They’re the worst.’
‘Tell me about it.’
It was as they were winding up for the night that she finally exploded. ‘I hate this bloody case,’ she said. ‘I’m finding it really frustrating and I hate having this thing in my belly.’
Korpanski couldn’t hold it back any longer. He too exploded, but with laughter. He moved towards her. ‘I’ll remind you of this one day, when your arms are full and you’re boasting about how big and strong your little baby’s growing.’
‘You think?’
‘I know, Jo.’
They stood for a while, chatting in the car park. ‘Somehow,’ she said, ‘I can’t quite get the picture. Unsteady on his feet, having to cling to the handrail when he descended the stairs, and he gets past three members of staff who don’t notice a thing. There’s a mystery inside that place and it’s eluding me. Tomorrow I suppose I’ll have to have a word with Joan Arkwright again and confront her with the fact that Susie Trent found the door unlocked at two a.m.’
‘Still going round and round,’ he said.
She looked up at the sky. Starry. Cold and clear. ‘You know what?’ she said, ‘I think I’ll walk home. Leave the car here. It’s a nice evening for a bit of exercise and, as I can’t be on my bike, at least I can stretch my legs.’
‘My night at the gym.’ Mike headed towards his car. She watched him go and with absolutely no reason or logic at all felt swamped with a sense of foreboding. She clapped her palm to her head. What was this? Was this what being pregnant was like – seeing bogeys behind every hedgerow? Why on earth was she transported to a lecture they’d attended together back in 2015? A lecture on security. Keeping safe. And one of the things that had been stressed had been habit. Korpanski went to the gym on the same days every week, at the same time, and he left at almost the same time to the minute. Took the same route home. Opened his front door at the same time. Predictable.
For goodness’ sake, she lectured herself, knowing that if she ran after Mike, banged on the window and warned about avoiding regular habits, he’d simply laugh at her. So get a grip, Joanna. Stop seeing ghosts behind every tree. Stop tilting at windmills and get on with the job which you are currently making such a pig’s ear of.
She turned for home.
Thursday 25 October, 8.30 a.m.
Fourth night missing.
Joanna was studying the whiteboard wondering where he was. Whether he was dead or alive. The general public had, for once, been singularly uninformative. There had been not one single sighting of an elderly man dressed in slippers, striped pyjamas and an overcoat. She knew the details so well now: overcoat: navy blue Marks & Spencer’s. Pyjamas: brown and cream striped brushed cotton. Slippers: brown. Even in a police report there wasn’t a lot you could say about a pair of slippers.
She had a little picture of him shuffling along, sliding one foot in front of the other, dragging his leg, his face puzzled and frightened as he wandered and searched, shivering at the cold. But he was hardly going to blend in with the crowd, was he? Not in that outfit.
‘Mike?’
He was sitting staring into the computer screen. But the trouble with computers is that though you might be intending to do your job, find similarities in the latest batch of burglaries and link them up to one MO and one perpetrator, it is all too easy to divert, search university listings, which was what DS Korpanski was actually up to. His son, Ricky, had done well in his GCSEs in the summer and Mike had a secret ambition. He dreamed that Ricky might end up in Oxbridge. Now that would be a turn-up for the books. Ricky had a secret weapon which both father and son intended to deploy. Built like his father, tall and very fit, he was an expert rugby player. Quick, fast, accurate. And Mike firmly believed that rugby players had a special welcome at both universities. So he believed he might just live his dream. His son at Oxbridge.
‘Mike,’ she said again, separating him from the dream in one short syllable.
He swivelled round, a fug of guilt wrapping itself around him. ‘Jo?’
‘I keep looking at this, Mike,’ she said, ‘and wondering why it feels so unlikely, almost staged.’
His mind was still on the grades Ricky would need at A-level, toying with the added plus of his rugby prowess. ‘I know it looks unlikely but that’s what happened, Jo. You can’t argue with facts.’
‘You can’t argue with facts,’ she repeated, ‘except our perception might be distorting things so what we perceive as “facts” might not be quite as we see them.’
His mind still stuck somewhere between Oxford and Cambridge, DS Korpanski simply shrugged.