Page 22 of Dead to Me

It had only been once she’d downed her cocktail and got up to leave that he’d realised she might have some feelings tied up in it, too.

‘It’s a no to keeping things professional,’ she’d said.‘It wouldn’t work for me, trying to pretend there wasn’t anything else.Better to have proper boundaries and just… not.’

She’d turned and left, and he’d felt the most horrible tearing sensation.One that had stayed with him for the next month.

For fuck’s sake,he thought now, as he realised that he was giving free rein to all the memories he’d spent so much time packing away.You don’t need this.Any of this.

He got to his feet, making a mental effort to shut everything emotional out and put his professional hat back on.

This wasn’thismissing persons investigation.It belonged to Cambridgeshire Constabulary and, technically, he should leave it up to them.

But he couldn’t help agreeing with Seaton that Cambridgeshire weren’t concerned.The constable Seaton had spoken to sounded convinced that she’d wandered off somewhere, and although Reid thought it a possibility, she also might be in danger.

The protocol would be the same for Cambridgeshire as it was for the Met: as a missing person, her case would only get passed to someone senior if it looked high risk.So in all probability, the constabulary wouldn’t action this until tomorrow.

He sighed.However much he didn’t want to see or talk to Anna ever again, there was no way he could just ignore it if she’d got herself in trouble.

So what to do?

There were procedures you could go through if you suspected someone was missing.Steps to take.You could do them before anything became officialised.He didn’t have to go in guns blazing or put anything on the books until he’d taken a few of those steps.

The first thing was to try the people and places nobody had thought to check yet.Seaton had already been in touch with at least one member of her group of Cambridge students and asked him to speak to the others.

Reid would probably go over that ground again to make sure they weren’t keeping things specifically from Seaton, but before that there were other avenues that hadn’t been explored at all.Seaton hadn’t checked her London flat.Hadn’t checked theEnsignoffices where Anna worked.Hadn’t called round the hospitals and checked for her, under either her name or her pseudonym, or for any unknowns who’d been admitted.

Reid tried to suppress a crawl up his spine as he thought ofAnna lying seriously ill or injured somewhere since last night, with nobody apparently aware.

TheEnsign, he thought.Let’s start there.She might be in some meeting for all anybody knows.

He googled the number, thenasked the switchboard operator to put him through to Anna.He could feel his stomach squeezing as he waited, not sure whether he wanted her to answer so he could dismiss this whole thing, or for hernotto so he wouldn’t have to talk to her.

After six interminable rings her voicemail cut in, and he hung up.

She could still be in a meeting, or making coffee.

Dialling the same number again, he asked to be put through to Gael.

As investigative editor, Gael was the one person who would know where Anna was at any given moment.He also knew Reid from the meetings they’d had about the sex-trafficking story, so Reid wouldn’t need to establish his identity.

Two rings in, Gael picked up.Reid felt a flood of strange nostalgia the moment he heard his markedly Costa Rican accent.

‘Gael, hi,’ he said.‘It’s Reid Murray.I know it’s been a while.’

‘Reid,’ Gael said, sounding genuinely pleased to hear from him.He guessed that was probably in anticipation of a story coming his way and braced himself for a less enthusiastic response in a moment.‘How are things?’

‘I wondered if you knew where Anna was,’ he said.Realising how it sounded, he then added hastily, ‘I’m not stalking her.Her dad wanted me to track her down.’

Gael gave a relaxed laugh.‘Her dad?Has she stood him up for lunch again?’

Reid couldn’t help laughing too at how close to the mark this was, and yet how much it failed to summarise what was going on.

‘That’s exactly it,’ he said.

There were sounds of movement from Gael, and Reid guessed he was looking something up.‘Ahhhh, she’s not here at the moment.She’s doing some financial stuff.Her worst nightmare.She’s had to go and talk to a bank or something today.’

‘Was she around yesterday?’he asked, as lightly as possible.

Gael paused a second, before saying, ‘I… Yes, she was in first thing yesterday before she went to this meeting with one of the finance people.’

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