Page 27 of Dead to Me

When she finally let go I was drawn into a sudden, slightly suffocating hug by Ryan.

‘Good luck with the outing,’ he said into my hair.‘See you next time.’

‘Good luck with these guys,’ I said with a laugh as I drew back.

It was weird how I knew, even before I checked, that I was being watched closely as I left them.Kit Frankland had turned to lean against the bar, leaving Sarah to stand awkwardly alongside him, and was watching me steadily with an expression that was at total odds with the cheerful, sociable smile he presented to the world.

It was the expression of someone who wanted me to know he wasn’t fooled.And it made part of me squeeze in worry.

12.Reid

The feeling in Reid’s stomach as he looked up at Packington Gardens was more than simple unease.He hadn’t laid eyes on Anna’s flat in more than a year and a half, and to be here, now, made him feel lost between the past and the present.

He could almost, almost believe that if he crossed the road and rang the buzzer he would hear Anna’s voice telling him to come on up.And that she would be warm, and welcoming, andhere.

It took him a while to go over and press the button for number fifty-two.He’d half hoped that he might see a light on up there; enough to free him from worry.But the fact that there wasn’t a light didn’t mean that Annawasn’tthere.It was still sunny out on the street, and she could easily be sitting in the reflected light from the houses opposite, laptop out and phone off as she worked away at something.Perhaps at figuring out this murder.

Reid realised that he didn’t even know whose murder it was yet.If Annawasn’there, then he was going to want a lot more from Seaton.Though ‘want’ was maybe the wrong word.He didn’twantanything to do with this.

It wasn’t just that he was anxious to avoid Anna.It was also the fact that this was all based around Cambridge.She’d managed to make everything worse by getting involved in the city his younger sister had studied in and then died in.And everything he did seemed to involve painful memories.

He’d decided to call Trinity College to ask them for CCTV around the time Anna had left the May Ball, and it hadinevitably reminded him of the tickets Tanya had bought for the same event in her third year; tickets she’d never got to use.He’d had to contact the college a few weeks after her death, asking them to gift them to a student who couldn’t afford them, and it had been profoundly painful.Though after the college had got back in touch, sympathetically and with huge gratitude, to tell him the students they’d chosen– two of their access students from a state-school background, there on hefty financial support– it had done something to ease the bleak despair he’d felt.

He’d also called Addenbrooke’s Hospital to check whether Anna might be there, and that had taken him right back to the time Tanya had been admitted with a concussion after a hockey match.Reid had called the hospital switchboard on that day too, beside himself with worry after a message from his dad.He’d been pacing one of the Finsbury Park meeting rooms as he’d waited to be put through to the ward, and had felt only slightly relieved that she was conscious and talking.

Reid had still got himself onto the King’s Cross train and taken a taxi to the hospital to see her.He’d ended up feeling like a spare wheel because Tanya had been surrounded by three hockey teammates who’d all been talking animatedly about the remainder of the match while Tanya laughed, an ice pack on her forehead and a slightly drowsy expression on her face.

This had been after she’d broken up with Matt for good.Not so very long before she’d left them all.So there had been no boyfriend there to look after her.

But Tanya had seemed in good spirits nonetheless.

‘Reid!’she’d gasped as she saw him, somewhere between delighted and appalled.‘You did not leave work just to come see me!’

‘Too right I did,’ Reid said.‘Literally the only good excuse I’ve had to skive this year.’

The hockey mates had made room for him, and he’d ended up joining in their conversation, before the on-call doctor had arrived and politely suggested they might limit their numbers.The three girls– who had all, Reid thought, seemed like nice, thoughtful people in spite of their unbelievably posh accents– had scurried away, promising to see Tanya later.Reid had stayed on to talk to the doctor and had insisted that his sister needed more painkillers while they waited for her CT scan.

‘I’m fine!’Tanya had protested.

‘You can’t pull that on me,’ he’d said quietly to her.‘Not after the broken arm you pretended not to have.’

‘Not the same!’Tanya had argued, half sitting up, but then had flinched afterwards, and Reid had grinned in victory.The exchange had done what he’d hoped and got Tanya some proper painkillers.She’d grumbled, and then grumbled again that having a scan was ridiculous, but submitted anyway.They’d established that there was no fracture but that she had some swelling and was going to have to take some days off.It hadn’t gone down well.

In the nineteen months since her death, Reid had often thought back to moments like this.He’d been a good older brother to her just then, hadn’t he?He’dseenher pain, and he’d done something.

But he’d somehow missed the more profound pain in his baby sister: the kind of pain rooted in fear which had driven her, only four or five weeks later, to take a cocktail of medications and suffer heart failure.He knew the signs must have been there, and he’d rehashed and examined memories trying to find them until he was no longer sure what had been the truth.

It was all this that Anna had managed to stir up today, totally aside from his feelings about their break-up.And thenumber of pain points he was hitting made him begin to think she’d done all this on purpose to torture him.

At least checking the north London hospitals for Anna’s two identities had been less confronting.He’d been able to get through it without thinking about Anna or Tanya in any great detail and had established that none of them had an Aria Lauder or an Anna Sousa, and neither did they have any unknowns matching her age or description.So if her flat was empty, he would need to start looking among these Cambridge students and the work she’d been doing.Assuming he really, truly was going to try to find her.

With that in mind, and the buzzer of Anna’s flat still unanswered, Reid sent a one-line message to the mobile number Anna’s father had used, asking where Seaton was in case he needed him.

Seaton’s reply was swift and– strangely– almost welcome.

Already on my way to London to see you.There in half an hour.Finsbury Park?

Reid’s mouth twisted in a wry grin.It was somehow very Seaton to get on a trainbeforechecking whether Reid actually wanted him to.

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