I tell Mark almost everything. He takes it all in, calmly, nodding me on. I tell him about Patrick, about the calls. He checks his own phone, to check it wasn’t him pocket-dialing. I tell him about the open door, about the missing photo. I hold back on my suspicions about Eddie—I know he’ll stop me going to the interview tomorrow if I tell him about how Eddie knew where we were from the other side of the world. How he may be monitoring my every move. I don’t want Mark to stop that interview.
I don’t tell him about the pregnancy either. Once I tell him that news, I’ll have to stop it all—the documentary, the diamonds, everything. He’ll want me to stop it all.
When I finish talking he leans back against the sofa, arms folded across his chest. He takes a long beat before speaking.
“All right, here’s how I see it. First of all, that photo is in the study. I scanned it the other day for Mum. So that explains that.”
“Oh my God, Mark! No one took the photo?!”
He gives me an amused grin and I feel my cheeks flush with color. Oh God, how embarrassing. I slump my head down into my hands. What a paranoid idiot. And suddenly I’m not sure how much of this situation is real at all, and how much is just adrenaline-based fabrication.
Mark snorts a chuckle before continuing, “Yeah, the picture is safe! Second, I’m not sure we should read too much into forgetting to lock the back door. You know, the mind does funny stuff when we’re stressed out. But, having said that, I think the guy you met today does sound like he could be a serious issue. I think you’re right to be concerned about that. I mean, my initial thought, obviously, is that Patrick’s connected with DCI Foster and the SO15 investigation into Holli. Don’t you think? I mean, that’s the only logical explanation really. He’s been following you and he’s seen you at Pentonville Prison a day before you should be there for your big interview, so he decides to intervene and ask you some questions. That makes sense. He wouldn’t know Pentonville called you in a day early for that meeting; you only found out last night. I’d say that’s it.”
It makes sense, what he’s saying. But I can’t quite shake the feeling that this is something else entirely.
“But why wouldn’t he introduce himself as police, Mark? And what about the answerphone messages? Do the police leave weird answerphone messages?”
“Listen, I know you think it’s the plane people, but think about it logically, Erin: If it was the plane people, if they knew where you were, do you think we’d still be here? Do you think the stuff in the attic would still be here?” He lets the questions hang in the still air.
I shake my head. “No, I don’t think we would be.” I answer slowly, realizing the truth of it as I say it out loud.
He continues briskly. “I don’t know why he didn’t say. I guess he hoped you’d believe he worked for the prison, like he said, I mean he was undercover, right? And the messages: they could just be a prank. I don’t know, pocket dials. And, I mean, come on, you know that’s not really our newsagent, right? Most of the corner shops in London have that noise. I really don’t think someone is threatening us via door noise. Maybe it’s something to do with one of your interviewees? I mean, that’s definitely a possibility, right?”
I think of Eddie again and the champagne. Yes, it’s definitely a possibility. Maybe Eddie needs to speak to me? But how could he be calling from an unknown number from prison? They wouldn’t agree to let him have his own phone in prison. And then it hits me. Eddie is a criminal. Of course he has a way to call me. I remember reading about the methods gang members use to get burner phones smuggled into prison. It’s certainly not a comfortable process for the smuggler, but they are handsomely rewarded for their troubles, or at the very least not murdered in their beds. It could definitely be Eddie leaving me those messages.
“Erin, you need to focus on the real situation here. The man you spoke to today, Patrick. Let’s say SO15 is doing some checking up on you. Forget the missing photo and our back door. The photo’s fine and as far as the door goes, well, sometimes we just forget to lock things—”
“Mark, I don’t. I don’t forget to lock things,” I interrupt, but I can feel my conviction flagging.
“Er, yeah, you do, Erin.” He studies me for a second, frowning, surprised. “Sorry, honey, but you have definitely done that before. You know that door blows open if it’s not locked properly. Trust me—you’ve forgotten to lock it before.”
Have I? That door does blow open if it’s not locked, he’s right. How would I know that unless I’d seen it do that? I guess I must have left it unlocked at some point. Then I think of our photo. It probably hasn’t been in our room for days; I didn’t notice that it was missing at all, not until now. I hadn’t even checked the answerphone until today. Shit. I am probably not half as observant as I think I am and I have been pretty preoccupied lately. Oh my God, I hope I haven’t been wandering around London making too many mistakes.
“Don’t worry about it, Erin, it’s fine. Just concentrate on the actual person you met today. The facts. This Patrick guy is probably SO15. I don’t know, maybe they think there’s a vague possibility that you’re running information between prisons or something like that. I mean, your dad does live in Saudi, right?”
I give him a hard look. We don’t talk about my family. It’s weird that he’s brought them up now.
“Erin, the police have to follow up on possibilities like that even if they don’t suspect you. They have to at least check. It would be ludicrous for the police not to check up on you. So, in light of that, honey, I think you seriously need to drop the Holli storyline. Just drop it. There’s too much attention on her right now. All it will take is the smallest amount of digging by DCI Foster to bring up some fairly awkward questions about us. To put it mildly.” He holds my gaze expectantly, brows furrowed.
He’s right, of course. They’ll want to know why we traveled to Switzerland last week. And who is suddenly paying me a monthly retainer.
“Okay.” I nod, reluctantly.
“Good. Drop the Holli storyline, drop it from the doc, stop the research entirely, distance yourself, distance us.” There’s finality to it. He’s so clear about this being the solution. The last I’d heard was that Andy, and SO15, now had CCTV footage of Holli and Ash leaving the Istanbul airport and boarding a bus to Gaziantep, a small Turkish village near the Syrian border. It’s all gotten very serious.
“Consider it dropped.” I plop down on the sofa opposite him. My brain is whirring. I’ll come back to Holli once our situation has settled down. But something doesn’t quite fit in my mind. I don’t agree about Patrick being linked to DCI Foster. I don’t think the man I met today had anything to do with the police. I can’t shake the feeling that what happened today is because of the bag. That someone did come to our home. Even if they didn’t take that picture, I think they were here. No matter what Mark says. Yeah, I’m aware of how paranoid that sounds. Maybe the plane people know we’re not dead. And now maybe they know we still have the diamonds and the phone in our home. It’s true that we’re still alive, but maybe they’re just taking their time. Working out the best way to do it. I think about the Sharpes; they took their time with the Sharpes. Worked out a safe way to get rid of them. Because they needed to make their deaths look like an accident. But then again, maybe what happened to the Sharpes was just an accident. Mark seems convinced it was.