Page 103 of The Dead Come to Stay
“But we first saw her in Abington,” Jo protested.
“Honestly, all I saw was a yellow blur. How can we be sure it’s even the same person?”
“It’s her. I saw her face. Also, the coat doesn’t have lapels; you don’t see a priest’s collar on a rain slicker very often,” Jo said. But there was something more, too, something that assured her even if she couldn’t quite explain it. Itfeltthe same. Both times she’d seen her Jo had the same strange presentiment, the long-shadowed feeling of dread. It wasn’t a superpower, but pheromones... And according to recent scientific study, it wasn’t even rare. Humans evolved to pick up emotion chemicals; they simultaneously evolved to forget that’s what they were doing. Chemical signatures shared through sweat glands:I have a bad feeling about this. The woman was afraid... and on some subconscious level, Jo could smell trouble.
“We need to find her before something bad happens,” Jo said finally. And to his credit, Gwilym started hunting the map for possibilities.
“Welp, if she keeps on south, she’ll have to cross a bridge.” He looked at his watch, then back to the phone. “We might be able to catch up.”
They headed south, not quite jogging down Grey Street with Gwilym in the lead.
“Okay, decision time,” Gwilym said as they circled a roundabout in a nest of stately sandstone buildings. “High Level Bridge or Swing? Those are more likely for pedestrians.”
“Let’s do both. I’ll take Swing and meet you on the other side.”
The High Level Bridge arched above them, meaning Gwilym had to backtrack. Jo stole another look at her own map before heading toward the river.
Swing Bridge took the middle between High and the statelyauto bridge; it was, however, the far more humble construction. The pedestrian way woundoutsideof the supports; no rails or bumper between pavement and a short drop to the water. Safe enough, she guessed, as fat drops began falling. Jo pulled her hood in place as pedestrians ducked under awnings on her side of the river. The far side appeared empty; no shops, no one traveling the bridge, not even a passing car. Certainly not a woman in a rain slicker. Jo headed across anyway.
The drops became a steady—if light—rain by the time she reached the end. The south side of the river had a wholly different feel. On the hill she could see a hotel; street level offered mainly spray-paint-tagged garage doors of closed shops. The wind had begun to blow, sending a chill down her damp spine. Gwilym would be coming from the west, so she chose to go east and south.
Bottle BankStreet ran next to a stone wall and the separation of the river. There had been crowds all day, everywhere she went; the business corridor felt strangely blank and lonely by contrast. She stood at the next intersection, a prickle raising hairs on the back of her neck.Text MacAdams, she thought. She’d meant Gwilym. Until she didn’t.
Jo pulled out her phone and scrolled toM.We’ve found and lost the vanishing hiker, she typed. Send. Send.Send, send, send...
The screen blinked and turned off: dead battery. Jo huffed and tucked it back in her pocket, eyes straying down the cross street and its identical apartment lofts for rent—and a single flash of distant yellow.
“Wait!” Jo shouted, but she was far ahead of her. The street headed away at an angle, past the hotel.Service drive, Jo thought. Garbage bins and maintenance vehicles, and probably no trespassing, but the girl had just vanished around the corner. Jo followed, ignoring her screaming blister—but the road dead-ended at a parking garage. Jo stared at two square doors andwarnings about low ceilings. There wasn’t anywhere else to go; shemusthave run inside.
“I should not be doing this.” It had never worked before, but she felt obliged to say it anyway. Then she held her breath and crossed into the shadow of the building. Jo half expected to be accosted, or at least to set off some sort of alarm; she saw no one, heard nothing but a distant drip of water somewhere farther within. A row of parked cars ran down the one side, one of them surprisinglyAmerican—an SUV as big as an Escalade. Jo stared at her own reflection in its tinted windows, and then, the engine turned over. Jo started and spun around, ready to dash for the entrance, but someone stood just behind her. A man. A man who shouldn’t be there.
“Can I help you, miss?” he asked, coming closer.
Jo’s voice came out in a gasping whisper:“Ronan Foley?”
19:00
Newcastle’s CID grew considerably quieter in the after-hours. Green and MacAdams had borrowed desk space and were currently going through the charity ball footage frame by agonizing frame. MacAdams had taken a break to refresh their coffees; when he returned Green was hanging up the landline.
“They’re keeping the kid overnight in a cell,” Green was saying. “Worried he’s a flight risk.”
“He’d have every reason. He doesn’t want to go back to the Ukraine.”
“We still have Sophie, too,” he said, though they couldn’t keep her. He’d repeated the interview and taken her statement, but lying about someone else’s offense wasn’t the same as committing one.
“Speaking of.” Green paused the footage and reversed it. “There’s Sophie on the night of.”
Dressed in sequins, she’d be hard to miss. She worked her waythrough the ballroom. A banner had been hung above, and tiny white lights twinkled against exposed stone walls. Smart-clad staff filled champagne flutes, and Sophie gave her wide, breezy smile to black-tie guests. Time-stamp: 21:12, just after 9:00 p.m.
“That’s the city CEO she’s taking to—Ava’s father,” Green explained. “And that’s the Lord Mayor in the back with the whiskey glass.” The guest list had included plenty more from city governance, but also three MPs and a representative from Home Office, along with not a few local celebrities and the city’s top-earning businesspersons. “They skimmed the whole top layer for this gig. Andthere’sBurnhope.”
MacAdams squinted at the freeze-frame. He’d given a speech at the outset, about eight, and hadn’t been around much since. Now, four people stood in front of him posing for a photograph and mostly obstructing the view. Stanley said something to Sophie, then he was out of frame again.
“You know, while you were suspecting Ava, I half thought the two ofthemwere carrying on,” Green said. “Sophie and Burnhope, I mean.”
“They did fly to Syria without Ava,” MacAdams agreed, settling back in his chair.
“Right? But it’s like with Trisha and Foley, maybe. One-sided.”
