“I don’t think a pharmacy’s going to cut it,” Cole said. His expression was unhappy. “You need stitches, and probably antibiotics.”
“Well, they’re not going to just hand out a prescription for antibiotics without taking a name, are they? And I can’t give them one. So unless you’ve got a better idea, maybe shut up and do something useful—like getting a cloth.”
There was a silence. Then Cole nodded shortly, turned on his heel, and disappeared into the little outhouse bathroom.
I sighed.
I knew I was snapping at the wrong person—that Cole was one of the few people trying to help me here. But I also knew that although he was probably right, his suggestion was pointless. I needed stitches, and antibiotics, and a good night’s sleep in a proper bed, and a way into the insurance company database—and a thousand other things I was never going to get. Antibiotics were the least of it—I needed Gabe and he was gone. So hearing from Cole about all the things I ought to be doing—it just wasn’t helpful.
“I’m sorry,” I said when he came back with a bar of soap and a clean washcloth and set them down on the table. “I know you were trying to help, and you’re not wrong, but—right now, I have to concentrate on finding out who did this to Gabe.”
“And how are you going to do that?” Cole said. He had moved over to the stove and had his back to me, heating up a pan of water, so I couldn’t read his expression, but his voice was level, as if he was trying not to show his real feelings.
“I don’t know. I need—I need to find out who took out that policy. Fuck, I wish Gabe was here.”
There was a long silence. Cole, standing over the stove, seemed to droop, and I knew we were both thinking of the same thing—how much we missed Gabe, and what an awful, fucked-up situation this was. I wished, more than anything else, that this were just an exercise—with a clear objective, and Gabe muttering instructions into the Bluetooth headset in my ear.
So? a voice said inside my head, a voice that made my heart hurt with how much it sounded like Gabe. Pretend this is an exercise. What’s your objective?
My objective was… well, it was what I’d just told Cole: to find out who’d done this to Gabe and expose them. That had always been my objective. It was why I’d run from the police station in the first place—because a target on my own back didn’t matter, if it meant I was free to hunt Gabe’s killer to ground.
No shit, Cross. What’s your immediate objective?
That sounded like Gabe all right. Always asking the tricky questions. Because that one was undeniably tougher. My immediate objective was to figure out who had taken out that insurance policy. But I had no idea how to do it. I could call the company up—but I wasn’t sure how much more information that would get me. Almost certainly, all they would be able to give out over the phone would be details that I already had from the policy documents, and if someone had told them about Gabe’s death, possibly not even that. If only I had access to the original files—there must be additional information on there, card details, for example, or call recordings. Someone must have paid for that policy—who? If Gabe were here, I was certain that together we could have hacked our way into the company files—but hacking was his area. I really didn’t have the first clue how to go about getting remote access to a secure database. My speciality was buildings—physically getting into places. But—
And then it came to me. If I could get into the offices of Sunsmile Insurance Ltd., then I wouldn’t need to do any hacking. I could just log into their database like a regular employee. And getting into places I wasn’t supposed to be—that was my job.
For the first time it felt like I had a plan, and I felt a little flicker of something that might have been… was it hope?
“Cole,” I said—and then I stopped. I wasn’t sure why. Cole had turned around from the stove, and now he looked at me.
“Yes?”
“Never mind,” I said. I didn’t know why I didn’t want to tell him my thoughts. I only knew that what I was about to do was dangerous, and I didn’t want anyone pouring cold water over the idea before it was even half formed. If I was going to do this, I had to hold on to that sliver of hope. It was the only one I had.
Cole picked up the hot pan and carried it carefully over to the kitchen table.
“Hold your top up,” he said. “This might hurt.”
I nodded, and he dipped the washcloth into the pan, then dabbed gently at the cut on my side.
It did hurt. It hurt a lot. A hell of a lot more, in fact, than it had done just two days ago when I washed it out in the hostel bathroom. When the skin was clean, Cole dabbed on some antiseptic cream he’d found in the bathroom cabinet and then taped another dressing in place, and I let out a shuddering breath.
“How does that feel?” Cole asked, looking at me with an expression halfway between worry and exasperation.
“Better,” I said, though I wasn’t honestly sure if it was true. I felt sick and wrung out, and the wound was stinging like a bastard. And the pan of water in Cole’s hands was worryingly red. How much blood was I losing? But there was something comforting about having a clean dressing, and even the stinging sensation of the cream was sort of reassuring—in a no pain, no gain kind of way.
All of a sudden I felt immensely tired, and the sofa bed, with its soft mattress and knitted throw, was irresistibly tempting.
“We should get some sleep,” I said, and Cole nodded.
“Good night, Jack.” He blew out the candle on the table, and I tucked the spare dressings and cream into my rucksack and zipped my fleece back up.
“Good night, Cole.”
Then I climbed onto the sofa bed, turned down the oil lamp, and lay down.
The fire had died down to glowing embers, and I listened more than watched as Cole pulled himself inside the sleeping bag, the synthetic fabric rustling.
There was the momentary glow of his phone screen as he checked the time, and then he turned in the darkness, his back towards me, and I heard him sigh.
THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 9 MINUS THREE DAYS
I opened my eyes. A thin gray moonlight was trickling through the curtains, and Cole was snoring on the hearth rug in front of the now-dead fire. The wound under my ribs hurt, and I was very cold, but I was also certain that neither of those things was what had woken me. Something else had prodded me from sleep.
Gabe had always said that what made me a great pen tester wasn’t my physical skills. It wasn’t that I was faster, stronger, quicker at picking locks, or more daring at scaling walls. There were plenty of guys more capable of forcing doors, or women with fancier kit. No. What had saved me, time and time again, what had made me a wickedly good shoplifter back in the day, was that I noticed stuff—stuff that other people didn’t—and that I trusted my gut.
The blind spot in the cameras. The pause in a security guard’s footsteps. The tag that could be deactivated with a ballpoint pen.
I had noticed something—before I was even fully awake. I just wasn’t sure what.
For a few minutes I lay there, listening, trying to work out what it was that had made me startle awake, my heart already racing before I had opened my eyes.
It wasn’t Cole getting up to use the toilet. It wasn’t thunder—the weather outside was still, and through the crack between the curtains I could see nothing but calm whiteness—presumably the sea mist had rolled in again overnight.
And then I heard it—the sound that had propelled me into consciousness even before I’d fully recognized what it was.
A burst of static from a police radio, and a muttered call sign.
Heart pounding, I jolted upright and tiptoed across the bare boards to crouch below the window. Gently parting the curtains, I could see someone—I thought it could be Malik, though I wasn’t sure—standing outside the house, speaking very low into a radio. Up the track, an unmarked black car was parked sideways across the road, deliberately blocking in Cole’s Mazda, and further away I could see the glow of headlamps through the mist, twisting and turning with the narrow lane as another car closed in.
Whoever was outside must be waiting for reinforcements. I had to get out, before they surrounded the house.
A huge, sick wash of adrenaline coursed through me, but I pushed it down and instead concentrated on scooping my belongings into my rucksack with shaking hands. It was extremely cold—my breath was coming in white clouds—but I was too keyed up to feel it, shivering more with nerves than from the chill.
“Cole,” I whispered. He was still asleep, snoring peacefully. “Cole, get up, I need the sleeping bag.”
“Wha?” he mumbled, turning over, and I felt a rush of furious impatience.
“Get up. I need the—never mind.” I yanked, trying to pull the sleeping bag off him. For a moment his body came with it—slithering across the rug—but then it jerked free, and I bundled it up as Cole sat upright, blinking and more than a little confused.