Believing the Lie - Elizabeth George [178]
“Obviously. Where are you?”
“Why d’you want to know?”
“Because I know you. I saw that expression on your face in the car park yesterday, and I know exactly what it means. You’re doing something we’ve asked you not to do, I take it?”
“Simon’s not my father, Tommy. Is he with you?”
“He’s asked to meet for a coffee in Newby Bridge. Deb, what’re you doing? Where are you? Whose call are you waiting for?”
Deborah considered not only whether to lie to him but also whether she could carry off a lie. She sighed and said, “Lancaster University.”
“Lancaster University? What’s going on?”
“I’m following Alatea Fairclough. She’s come here in the company of a woman from a disabled soldiers’ home. I want to see where they’re going.” She didn’t give him time to consider what this might mean, instead continuing with, “This entire situation has got to do with Alatea Fairclough. Something’s not right, Tommy. I know you can sense it.”
“I’m not sure I sense anything other than the distinct possibility that you’re walking into trouble, Alatea Fairclough or not.”
“There can hardly be trouble in my following them. They don’t know I’m behind them. And even if they work that out…” She hesitated. To tell him more would risk his telling Simon.
He was shrewd as a fox. He said, “You didn’t answer my other question, Deb. Whose call are you waiting for?”
“The journalist.”
“That bloke from The Source? Deb, this is a mad sort of business to be engaging in. Anything can happen.”
“I see nothing worse happening than my photo appearing on the front page of The Source with a caption misidentifying me as Detective Sergeant Cotter. And I see that as hilarious, Tommy. It’s hardly dangerous.”
He was silent for a moment. Ahead, Deborah saw that the women had come to their destination, which was a modern upended box of a building constructed of brick and concrete in the unattractive fashion of the 1960s. Deborah gave them a minute to enter and to get themselves out of the lobby and into a lift. In the meantime, Tommy said, “Deb, have you any idea what it would do to Simon if something happened to you? Because believe me, I have.”
She paused at the building’s front door. She said gently, “Dearest Tommy.” He made no reply. She knew what the question had cost him. She said, “You’re not to worry. I’m quite safe.”
She heard him sigh. “Take care,” he said.
“Of course,” she replied. “And please. Not a word to Simon.”
“If he asks me— ”
“He won’t.” And she rang off.
Immediately her mobile chimed again. Zed Benjamin demanded, “Who the hell were you talking to? I was trying to ring you. Where the hell are you?”
Deborah told him the truth. She was talking to a DI from the Met. She was standing in front of… Well, the building was called George Childress Centre and she was about to go inside and see what was housed here. He could join her, but she wouldn’t recommend it since, as before, he was rather more difficult to camouflage than she was.
He seemed to see the sense in this. He said, “Ring me when you know anything, then. And this better not be a double cross of some kind or you’re in the paper tomorrow morning and the gaff is blown.”
“Absolutely understood.”
She flipped the phone closed and went inside the building. There were four lifts in the lobby as well as a security guard. She knew she couldn’t bluff her way past the guard for love or money, so she looked round and saw that to one side of the lobby and between two languishing bamboo plants, a glassed-in notice board was hung on the wall. She went to this and studied its information.
It identified offices, surgeries, and what appeared to be laboratories, and above all of these was something that made Deborah whisper, “Yes!” For the building itself fell under the aegis of the Faculty of Science and Technology. When she saw this, Deborah searched the list feverishly and found what she knew at heart would be there. One of the laboratories was dedicated to the study of reproductive science. Her intuition had been