Page 92 of Dead to Me

So… if this email finds its way to you, you have to promise to figure this crap out, OK?I think I can ask that much of you, at least.

36.Reid

Reid had to sit still for a few minutes after finishing the email.There was something so strangely hopeful in being judged worthy, but it fought with a bitter weight of guilt at having let Anna down.

Because he hadn’t been there for her.He’d made it impossible for her to contact him, which was basically as bad as turning his back.

Dom tapped on the door as he was trying to gather himself together again.

‘Kit Frankland is here,’ he said.He waved a file at him.‘You’ll need a scan of these.I’m coming in with you, but I want you to take the lead.’

Reid gave him a crooked smile.Letting him lead the interview was a serious mark of trust when he must have looked like hell.

‘Thanks, mate,’ he replied.‘I’ll gesture for help if I stop being able to form words.’

He scanned through the notes and felt a heavy sense of worry at the similarities he was seeing.Another young woman in Kit’s friendship group who’d wandered off during a party.Another apparent display of grief from Kit.

He got to his feet and made his stiff way over to the interview suite.He tried to prepare himself for the person Anna had described.For the measured, intelligent man who saw and controlled everyone around him.

It was more than a little surprising to find himself shaking hands with an extraordinarily posh, slightly over-cheerful young man with a babyishly handsome face.

‘I understand you have a few question about… Aria,’ Kit said, his gaze roving over the interview room as if committing it to memory.Reid could imagine how he’d relate this already, telling all of it as a fascinating anecdote to his equally posh friends.

‘We do,’ Reid said, settling down alongside Dom.He had to move his chair a few inches away to make room for Dom’s beefed-up arms.How the man found shirts that fitted him Reid had never understood.

Reid unfolded his notes, trying to mentally rehearse his plan while a large part of him was stuck on how this–this–was the young man Anna had been so mixed up over.This pompous, overbredboy.

He’d been bracing himself not just for an intellectual battle but for a feeling of complete inadequacy in the face of a superior male.And now here he was, sitting opposite a wall of designer aftershave and smugness, wondering what the hell Anna had seen in the guy.

‘OK,’ he said, getting himself together.‘I think you know we’re now quite concerned for the whereabouts of Ms Lauder.’

Kit nodded, earnestly.And then, with a sudden drop in the cheerful act, said, ‘I… should we call her Anna?’

‘Why would you call her Anna?’Reid asked.

Kit’s expression didn’t shift as he said, ‘I’m assuming you know who she really is, if you’ve been asked to find her.Was it her dad who raised the alarm?’Reid felt momentarily unsettled, and then reflected that he might need to reserve some of his judgement on Kit Frankland after all.

‘I should have raised the alarm myself,’ Kit said, quietly.‘But when I found out… I just thought she’d played me for a fool and then left.’

Reid sighed, with a trace of fellow feeling for Kit Frankland.Perhaps that was what Kit wanted.For Reid to sympathise.But it was impossible not to recognise what he was seeing.It was so very much like Reid’s own confusion over Anna.The questions over whether he’d really known her at all.

‘Before we go on, can you tell me how you found out who she really was?’Reid asked.

‘My father,’ Kit said, simply.‘Who says he was tipped off by a friend.’He gave the ghost of a sigh.‘But it seems to be fairly widely known.By the time I spoke to Esther, her mother had already told her.’

Reid scrutinised him.‘And how did that make you feel?’

Kit’s mouth twisted into a smile.‘Like an idiot.But in some ways… in some ways it was better than what I’d been thinking before.’

‘Which was…’

‘That she’d gone home with another man,’ Kit said.‘James was pretty sure he saw her leaving with someone, and that was a bit… shit, actually.’

‘It’s a little strange, that,’ Reid said.‘Because we haven’t yet identified this guy she left with and we haven’t found her leaving on any of the CCTV.Which implies that she may have fled in some covert way, or that someone smuggled her out against her will.’

Kit looked totally confused at this.‘What… do you mean by “covert”?You mean over the wall or something?’

‘Do you have any reason to think that?’Reid asked.

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