‘Just … don’t walk,’ Harriet is saying, covering a yawn with her fist. ‘You don’t know – we don’t know – who’s out there.’
‘Anything on unknown-515, that mystery number on Edith’s call register, Davy?’ says Manon, as he walks towards them.
‘Nothing,’ he says.
‘Fancy a lift?’ Manon says.
He seems to falter, then says, ‘OK, yes, thanks very much.’
Manon’s wipers push doggedly at the rain but do little to dissipate the fog on her windscreen, so she winds down a window, letting in sprays of wet. Rough winds buffet the car as she pulls on to the A14 to avoid the cordon which has closed George Street and created gridlock in central Huntingdon. She’ll follow the ring road around to suburban Sapley, where Davy lives. The roads roar with wetness and the damp mingles with the musty interior of her car. On the banks of the motorway, just visible in the dark, are the last sketches of snow being pummelled by the rain.
‘Have you got any hobbies, Davy?’ she asks, peering into the dark.
‘I do, yes,’ says Davy. ‘I do my mentoring at the youth centre, kids in care. I like a spot of gardening, though I haven’t got a garden at the moment. I do help look after my mum’s.’
‘See? You’ve got plenty of hobbies. I haven’t got one.’
‘Why d’you ask?’
‘I had to fill in a hobbies section – for the dating site – and I drew a complete blank. I literally don’t have any. So I’ve decided to get hobbied up.’
‘And how is that going?’ asks Davy, with a hopefulness that would imply he’d never met Manon.
‘Awful. I hate it. I mean, what’s the point of doing something just for the sake of it, when it isn’t your job?’
‘Well, to relax.’
‘I even went to a pottery class so I’d have something to type in. But I just couldn’t get past the pointlessness of it. I mean, it’s not like I’m ever going to have a pottery wheel in my lounge, to relax with.’
‘You don’t know that. Demi Moore had one in Ghost,’ says Davy.
She looks at him, but he maintains his cheerful gaze straight ahead.
‘So I’m going to try Zumba instead,’ says Manon. ‘Thought I’d go tonight, actually. Help me wind down. It’s been quite full-on. Do you find that – difficulty falling asleep?’
‘Nope, not me. My head touches the pillow and bosh, I’m off. Did Harriet suggest that – the Zumba, I mean?’
Manon shoots him a sharp look. ‘No, she did not. Why? What’s she said to you?’
‘Nothing, no, nothing. It’s just good if we all keep fit, that’s all,’ says Davy. ‘For catching villains. Ah, here we are,’ he says, patting his knees. Manon slows the car and Davy gets out, then leans in through the open door. ‘Right, well, cheerio,’ he says.
He waits, but she doesn’t respond, so he closes the car door.
Wednesday
Davy
He’s in bright and early, and as he stands beside his desk taking off his coat, he surveys the MIT department. The support and admin staff who dominate the building have subsided into a loose, festive spirit – this being the last working week for many – and this is mulling its way into the investigations team. Kim is standing on a chair, hanging some Christmas cards on a loop of string, a row of flapping birds. One of the administrators has made an attempt to stretch some accordion gold chains between the strip lights, one of which pings off its Blu Tack, fluttering down against the wall.
Four days to Christmas, seventy-seven hours missing, the golden hour having ebbed away. He looks up at the television screen which is bracketed to the wall and sees the aerial shots of the search teams, muted on the twenty-four-hour-news channel – tiny people in navy vests with ‘Police’ on the back, or in florescent yellow windcheaters, combing squares of gardens, beating bushes with sticks; white vans on street corners; and huddles of officers bent over maps or talking to residents. All of it silent while the red ticker along the bottom of the screen says: Missing student Edith Hind, latest: frogmen search the Ouse. The image flicks to a navy dinghy skirting the brown soupy surface of the river. Must be the worst job, he thinks; you could only ever come up with something nasty or nothing at all. Then there’s a shot of the members of the public who have joined the search, forming a long line to inch their way across Portholme Meadow. Most appear to be chatting to one another, without so much as a glance around them.