Page 34 of Dead to Me

‘Not for a phone, specifically,’ Seaton said.‘She said she was positive he had something hidden and that it was significant.She suspected a second phone or a pen drive or some such item.And… ah… she suggested a few places to check.’He cleared his throat.‘Someone… someone else came in, just after I’d picked it up.A young woman.I’m sure she was looking for the same thing.I had to hide in the shower.But anyway.It all went well in the end.’

Reid shook his head, in part at the idea of Seaton hiding in a student’s bathroom in a position that would have been impossible to explain, and in part at the shadiness of Anna’s methods.Though he had to admit it sounded like she’d known something significant.Why else send her dad there, and how else would she have guessed the phone was going to be hidden?

‘She didn’t explain why?’he asked.

‘Unfortunately not,’ Seaton admitted.‘I– we were sharing information, to a point.But you know Anna…’

Reid gave a wry smile.He did, indeed, know Anna.

‘All right.’What should he say?So much of him wanted to tell Seaton to keep hold of it and tell him nothing more.

But what if it’s the key to everything?What if it shows where she’s gone?

‘An unlawfully taken phone is difficult.But… if it arrives in my possession in a way that isn’t quite clear, then we might be able to take a look at it, if it comes to it.’Reid felt detached from his own body.Was he really saying this?‘If, for example,you were to tell me the phone was left somewhere for you with a note saying it might be of interest, then we’d have a reason to look.On the basis it could be Anna’s.’

‘Wonderful,’ Seaton said with a beaming smile.‘Coincidentally, it happened exactly like that.’

He reached down into his bag again and handed another phone over.This was also an iPhone, though it was a lot newer-looking than Anna’s and wasn’t in a protective case.

Reid felt a surge of real anxiety as he took it.He had a sense of having stepped into the water for a paddle and then been dragged miles out to sea by a rip tide.

There had always been things Anna was willing to do that he wouldn’t.That he couldn’t.He had to follow the rules.More than that, hewantedto follow the rules.

And now here he was, pocketing a stolen phone and offering to lie to his colleagues.All for an ex-girlfriend who’d betrayed him entirely.

It’s only wrong if you actually go ahead with the lie,he told himself.Just taking the phone isn’t a crime as such.

‘All right,’ he said, suddenly eager to move.To go.‘I’ll… see what I can do.Obviously, if you do think of anything she told you, or if she contacts you…’

‘I’ll let you know straight away, yes,’ Seaton agreed.

It was as Reid was rising to go that Seaton said, abruptly, ‘Thank you for doing this, Reid.I… I know it’s asking a lot.But I hope you realise that she’d do the same for you.Without question.Even now.’

Reid was already tired of feeling wrongfooted by all of this.He wanted so badly to go back to his normal, safe, everyday thoughts.

And yet, as he blinked at Seaton for a moment, he felt a rush of some long-forgotten warmth.

15.Anna

On the second of June, I arrived at my Monday check-in with Gael feeling like I was made of anxiety, even having written up the fragments of information I’d picked up at the cricket match.I’d listened back to all of it on the Bluetooth recorder and made as much of it as I could, conscious of needing to prove I was getting somewhere now that I was fully a part of the group, and equally conscious that my four-week deadline had already been reduced to three weeks and a half.Two and a half weeks of term, and a week of debauched revelry in the madness of what was known as May Week after it was officially over.

But Gael was clearly satisfied by the story of Ryan’s drinking, and even more so by my explanation of Tess’s story and James’s death stare.

‘When are you seeing them again?’

‘Tomorrow,’ I told him.‘Wine tasting.’

I said it with breezy confidence, but after Esther had messaged to invite me, I’d spent the train journey racked with anxiety about the event.Wine is obviously something I know zero about, which wouldn’t be so bad if upper-class people with money weren’tsohot on knowing all about it.And Aria Lauder’s parents were known as big buyers of wine.The idea of turning up and saying totally the wrong thing was making me sick with nerves.

The trouble was, I felt totally unable to admit to anyone that I hadn’t actually got this.I couldn’t destroy the image I’d built up at work of being the Cambridge professor’s daughter from an Ivy League university; and the idea of asking Dador Cordelia for more help was just humiliating.I’d leaned on them both a heap already and was beginning to worry they thought I was incompetent.

And to be honest, there was a limit to how much either of them could teach me in thirty-six hours.I wouldn’t have a chance to taste a bunch of wines with them, which was the only way I was going to get half decent at this stuff.So I’d done as much googling as I could aboutterroir, and region, and length, and then I’d looked up the wines we were going to taste.

Gael seemed totally pumped by the concept, anyway.

‘It’s perfect,’ he said.‘They’ll be inebriated and easy to direct.Ryan may get drunk again, which will let you see what he’s like or get him to confess what he’s done before.And the others might have something to say about Holly.James, too, maybe, if he’s pissed off with you for talking to this other girl at the cricket.’

‘Great,’ I said, trying to catch his enthusiasm for it all.Itwasan opportunity to find out more, and things could so easily kick off.I’d make progress.

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