Page 33 of Dead to Me

And the fact that Anna had vanished a year to the day after Holly had died at the very same event made his spine crawl.It was the kind of crawl that happened when a dive team reported they’d found something in a lake, or when he wasplayed a terrified 999 call that cut off halfway through.He’d never thought he might experience that kind of reaction to news of Anna.

‘I’d like the name of this friend of Holly’s who approached her,’ he said, as neutrally as possible.‘And any messages you have from Anna.’

‘Of course,’ Seaton said.‘Holly’s friend is called Cordelia Wynn.She’s a second-year medical student at UCL.I don’t have her phone number saved, but I can spell her name for you.’

Reid watched him write it down in looping script that was at odds with his constrained behaviour.He’d added, Reid saw,2nd-year UCL medical student, presumably in case Reid forgot what he’d said.Which was surprisingly helpful, if a little patronising.

‘Oh,’ Seaton added after that, reaching into his pocket.‘I brought you Anna’s phone.Her real phone.But I can’t get into it.Maybe your cyber people could, you know…?If you pretended it was someone else’s?’

Reid looked at the very familiar, battered phone in its robust star-patterned case and felt dizzy for a moment.Had she really not upgraded it in the last eighteen months?Somehow not lost it?Or smashed it?

He remembered, vividly, picking up that same phone to create a playlist for their road trip up to Scotland.Anna had been driving, and when he’d picked it up she’d said urgently, ‘Mind the cable!Ah, shit,’ as the satnav had disappeared off the screen.

‘Sorry,’ Reid had said, not sure what he was apologising for.

‘Not you,’ she’d said, laughing.‘The cable is a piece of crap.You have to get it at a precise angle, and, like, sacrifice to several gods to keep the connection alive.Do you think you could try putting it flat and then… Bingo!’

The connection had returned, and Google Maps hadreappeared in a few button presses Anna had made while allegedly concentrating on the road.Reid had spent the next twenty minutes trying to make a playlist while leaving the phone completely flat.He’d ended up looking down for so long that he’d felt sick and had to open a window.

Anna had immediately, without asking, signalled left and pulled off at the next services.

‘Let’s take a short break while you recover from me making you almost puke,’ she’d told him, and he’d felt the strangest gratitude that he hadn’t had to admit that he felt ill.He was, in many ways, made of the same stuff Tanya had been.Always determined to mask any troubles.To pretend nothing was wrong.

He found himself staring, now, at Anna’s phone, with Seaton waiting patiently to hand it over.With a twist in his stomach, Reid took it.

It felt strangely warm in his palm, as though it had some of Anna’s energy in it.Though, in fact, it had probably just been next to an overheating fifty-seven-year-old man all the way from Cambridge.

‘I’ll… see what I can do,’ Reid said.He didn’t feel equal to disappointing Seaton right now by admitting that there was no way he could hand it to the cyber team.

This wasn’t his investigation, or anything to do with the Met.And if he got caught lying about the provenance of a device in order to track his ex-girlfriend, his career would be over.There were very good reasons– including reasons of stalking and abuse– that officers were never allowed to do that.

If he could somehow find a way of turning this into a Met investigation, then he’d be able to hand it over.But at that point, he’d be handing the whole case over with it.He couldn’t be SIO of an investigation into his own ex-girlfriend’s disappearance.

The one thing hemightdo was try to unlock the phone himself.It was dodgy, and the idea made him feel nauseous, even though he had zero intention of using it to snoop on his ex.

But there might be messages on there that made it obvious where she was.If not, then it might still contain an excuse for the Met to take over.There might even be messages that were so obviously threatening, Seaton could go back to Cambridgeshire and force them to step up.But it was still dubious, and worse, felt like a huge invasion of privacy.

He put the phone into his pocket and realised that Seaton was still sitting forwards, his expression hesitant.There was clearly something else he wanted to say.

‘I… may actually have another device,’ he said.He cleared his throat and then went on, ‘Hypothetically, if someone were to have discovered a device hidden in a murder suspect’s room… and inadvertently picked it up in a hurry…’

Reid shook his head with a sigh.‘Would the person picking it up be Anna?’

‘Ahhh, not quite,’ Seaton said.‘Say that person were, in fact, me?’

Reid couldn’t help giving a startled laugh.‘You… what?’As Seaton gave a sheepish look, Reid narrowed his eyes and asked, ‘Seriously.She managed to drag you into this?’

‘I offered some assistance,’ Seaton said with dignity.‘I made the decision myself.She didn’t have many other people to rely on, when it came down to it.’

Reid felt that comment like the barb it was, and then experienced a rush of anger.Did Seaton really expect him to be there for Anna a year and a half after they’d broken up?After what she’d done?What she’d revealed herself to be?

He took a breath, determined not to let on to Seaton that any of this was bothering him.

‘So this device… is a phone, I take it?’he asked, and as Seaton nodded, said, ‘Taken from a student room?’

‘Accidentally brought outfrom Ryan Jaffett’s room.One of the four she was looking into.’

‘Did Anna ask you to look for it?’Reid asked, his thoughts grinding through this.

---