The Last Thing She Remembers
Page 21
“Now that Tony’s been cleared of all charges,” Strover continues, “she’s meant to delete it.”
“But she hasn’t?” Silas asks, raising his eyebrows.
“Not yet. Offered to take a closer look in her own time. The files were deliberately hidden.” She pauses. “She’s also put something on his laptop. If he makes any changes or additions to the hard drive, they’ll be mirrored on her copy next time he’s online.”
“Let me know what comes up,” Silas says, impressed. Strover is learning fast. A little rule-bending never hurt anyone. “Are we sure Tony’s a British citizen?”
“He took up dual citizenship a year ago, when he married Laura. Hasn’t lived in America for twenty years.”
“Where was he living before he met Laura?” Silas asks, looking at scans of the old newspaper articles that Laura had found in the attic. They predate their marriage by years.
“Europe, we think. Photographing DJs in France, Germany, Italy. I found a cache of his old website—no contact address.”
Strover’s phone starts to vibrate. They both hear the sound, but she doesn’t take the call.
“Answer it,” he says.
Silas watches as she puts the phone to her ear, embarrassed to be taking a call in her boss’s presence.
“Thanks,” she says, after listening for a few seconds. She hangs up and turns to Silas. “Something interesting’s just shown up on Tony’s computer.”
CHAPTER 75
“Where are you?” I ask. Tony has rung me on Laura’s old brick phone.
“Swindon,” Tony says. “The cops have released me without charge.”
“That’s fantastic,” I say, turning down the TV in my hotel room. Another news item about the shooting.
“I’m buying a ticket for the 11:00 a.m. flight. Can you transfer yours?”
“I’ll try.”
I can hear heavy traffic in the background.
“How are you feeling?” he asks. I know it’s a loaded question.
“I thought I’d start to remember more...” I hesitate, unable to resist toying with him, his expectations.
“But?”
“Still only my name.”
I can hear a sigh of relief down the phone—or maybe I’m imagining it.
“It’s important you don’t write any notes tonight,” he says. “Just leave yourself a message for the morning, explaining that you’re going to Berlin because you think you live there, you’re currently suffering from amnesia and that I’m going to help you sort everything out.”
“Nothing else?”
“Just that.”
I pause, judging how much to protest, looking at an image of Jemma Huish on the TV.
“It’s important that we establish the ongoing extent of your amnesia,” he continues. “See if you can recall more than your name.” An understandable test, but it’s going to make things much harder.
“My notes, they’re really important to me,” I begin. “I don’t think I’ll manage if—”
“I know. It won’t be easy. You’ve just got to trust me on this one.”
I flick off the TV. And he will have to trust me.
CHAPTER 76
Luke looks in on his parents, keen not to chat with them for too long. He might be fifty, but he feels like a teenager returning late from a party when he gets back from the pub and they’re still up.
“Milo’s awake,” his dad says, nodding at the ceiling. The sound of thumping music is dull but persistent.
“You should tell him to turn it down,” Luke says.
“It’s okay. We just turn up the TV,” his mother says. Luke glances at the screen. They are watching a documentary about the Flying Scotsman. He’s sure they’ve seen it before. Several times.
Upstairs Luke stands outside Milo’s bedroom, listening to the music. It’s been a while since he’s recognized anything his son plays, not that Milo would know. He pulls out his phone, opens up the Shazam app and holds his phone toward Milo’s door. After a few seconds, the track and artist are displayed. Luke knocks and enters. Milo is at his digital mixing decks, dancing with his back to him. Luke flicks the lights off and on to let him know he’s there.
“Hey, Dad,” he says, spinning around.
“Nice track,” Luke says, pausing for a necessary second or two. “‘Tru Dancing’ is definitely O’Flynn’s finest tune.”
Milo stares at him, eyes widening in admiration.
“My man, Dad,” he says, mock punching him on the shoulder. He turns down the music. “Heard more about the shooting—sounds really bad.”
“It was awful,” Luke says, welling up.
“You okay?”
“I’m fine.”
He nods at the decks. “Keep it down, hey? They’re just below.”
“They love it,” Milo says. “Saw them dancing to Jaydee the other night.”
Luke watches his son, the way he moves so effortlessly to the music, just like his wife did. “Your mum liked a dance,” he says. He tries to talk about her as much as he can, keep her memory alive, although he knows Milo can’t remember much.
“Must have got it from her mum and dad,” Milo says.
Luke leans against the doorway. “She would have loved to have had a bigger family, you know. Given you a sibling. Maybe a sister—how would that have been?”
“Good way to meet girls,” Milo says, turning off the decks. “Think I might get an early night.”
Why do those words always fill Luke with such suspicion? He considers going down to his garden office, but realizes he’s in need of an early one too. First, though, he must make a call. He’s not drunk, but still feels guilty as he walks into his bedroom and dials Detective Constable Strover’s office number. Police always have that effect on him. Strover had handed him her card after they’d chatted in the pub, and he needs to discuss the woman who might be his daughter.
“It’s Luke the journalist, from the village,” he says. Is he slurring his words? He’s only had two pints with Sean.
“Late to be calling,” Strover says, her voice more frosty than he remembers.
“Late to be working,” he replies.
“We never stop, haven’t you heard?”
“I just needed to talk to you about the other Jemma.”
“She’s not called Jemma,” she says, pausing. “Her name’s Maddie.”
“Maddie?” he repeats. “How do you know?”
“I work for Wiltshire Police, Luke. Swindon CID, remember? It’s my job to know. That’s what we do. How can I help?”
Luke tries to take in the new information, thrown by the name change. Does it alter anything? “I’ve been speaking to my old girlfriend in India, the one I told you about in the pub.”
“You still think Maddie might be your daughter?”
Strover likes to cut to the chase. He ignores her question, knowing it will make him too emotional. “Apparently our daughter went missing a while ago,” he says, “when she discovered she was adopted.”
“I can’t help you, Luke. All we know about this woman is that she’s called Maddie.”
“Do you have a surname?”
It’s worth a try. There’s a pause before she replies.
“Maddie Thurloe.”
“How are you spelling that?” It’s a good name to search for online. Can’t be too many Maddie Thurloes around.
Strover spells it out for him. He always keeps a pad beside his bed next to a framed photo of his late wife. He turns the frame away to face the wall as he writes.
“Officially we’re off the case now,” Strover says. “Far more important things to be investigating in Wiltshire—like hare coursing. And barn fires.”
Luke hasn’t got the measure of her yet, when she’s being serious.
“I took a look at your sto
ries on the Swindon Strangler,” she continues. “You should’ve joined the force.”
“I’ll take that as a compliment. Is Maddie okay?”
“She’s fine. Heading back to Berlin.”
“So she wasn’t being kept by anyone in the village?” He’s careful not to mention Tony by name.
“My boss just needs to know a bit more about her. Seems to have lived an unnaturally quiet life for the past ten years, we think in India. Indian mother, Irish father—the late travel writer James Thurloe.”
Luke’s read one of his books. At least Maddie’s parents are mixed race. Whether they lived in Germany thirty years ago and adopted a baby girl from India is another matter.
CHAPTER 77
Tony checks the moonlit street either way and lets himself into the house. The place is empty. No sign of Laura. No sign of forensics either. He knows they were here earlier. Detective Inspector Hart told him. Everything appears to be in its place—except his laptop on the kitchen sideboard, near the knife block. His heart sinks. He’s sure he left it in the garden office.
He walks over and flicks it open, trying not to acknowledge a rising panic. His sole concern is the hidden files. He looks at the metadata for one of them, checks when it was last modified. Not recently, but they could have copied the entire hard drive. It’s just a question of how quickly they can open the files. They contain no proof of any wrongdoing—he wouldn’t be that stupid. But there is evidence on there of a past life that he’d rather keep hidden.
Frickin’ cops. It depends what they were looking for. How much they know. He smacks his hand down on the sideboard, cursing himself for not updating his encryption software. It’s well past its sell-by date, been nagging him for months with annoying pop-up reminders in the corner of his screen.
He makes his way upstairs with the laptop, looking in on the spare room where Maddie slept that first night. They will be together again tomorrow. In Berlin. He lies down on her bed and closes his eyes, troubled by what Maddie said on the phone today. Someone to show me around Berlin. He’s reading too much into her words. Most people have been to Berlin, haven’t they? Know their way around? In her case, she just can’t remember, needs someone to help her.
And yet...suppose she does know more about him than she’s letting on? Even more reason to go with her to Berlin, establish the extent of her knowledge. It’s why he asked her not to write any notes tonight. At present she can recall her name, nothing more. What worries him is that it’s unlikely to be an isolated neural network that’s been reactivated. Time will tell.
He gets up from the bed and walks over to the window. The sodium lights of the train station are burning brightly, casting an orange glow over the deserted platforms. He smiles at the memory of Maddie trying to escape out of the window yesterday morning. She was right to be afraid of the cops, given what happened to Jemma Huish today. Too frickin’ right. And he had been right to protect her, even though it had almost cost him his freedom.
A click downstairs. He turns away from the window and listens. Someone has come into the house through the back door. It must be Laura. Or the cops, back to sniff around again. Maybe they meant to take the laptop with them and forgot? The cops have caused him enough trouble for one day.
He walks over to the doorway and listens, glancing at his laptop on the bedside table. Somebody is coming up the stairs. He steps back into the shadows and waits.
“Thought you’d be staying round at Susie’s tonight,” he says, as Laura reaches the top of the step.
“Jesus, Tony,” she says, spinning round. He stays where he is, half-hidden in the darkness of the spare room, keeping his distance.
“They’ve released you then,” she says, unable to hide her disappointment.
“It would seem so,” he says, holding out his arms as if to confirm he exists. “No charges either.”
“I’m not staying,” she says, walking into their bedroom. “I’ve just come to get my things.”
He watches her gather up her toiletries and a nightie, and walk back out onto the landing. Head down, avoiding eye contact.
“Wait,” he says, grabbing her arm.
“Get off me,” she says, shaking her arm free.
“I owe you an explanation,” he says.
“It’s too late for that.” She moves to walk downstairs, but he steps in front of her. When she tries to push past, he grabs her by the arm again, harder this time.
“At least hear me out,” he says quietly, staring into her eyes. He’s never seen her frightened of him before.
“You’re hurting me.” They are face-to-face now, and he can smell alcohol on her lips. He lets her arm go. “There’s nothing to say,” she continues. “I saw Huish’s name on the list of owners, Tony.” She nods at the attic hatch above them. “Found all your articles on her.”
“You shouldn’t have gone up there,” he says.
“Jemma did.”
“Her name’s Maddie.”
“You called her Jemma when she arrived—Jemma Huish. I can’t believe you’d been waiting for her all this time, hoping she’d come home—is that why we bought this fucking place?”
“One reason.” He’s struggling to think of another.
She shakes her head in disbelief. “You’re sick, Tony.”
“Intrigued, not sick. Not yet. Give me time. You know how it is with the cerebral cortex. She had an unusual form of amnesia. Dissociative. I was curious.”
“And you put your curiosity before your wife’s safety. I can never forgive you for that.”
He watches her go down the stairs, wondering if he’ll ever see her again, if he cares. The front door slams, followed by the sound of fading steps in the street. Running steps.
Forgiveness is not something he’s ever sought in his life.
CHAPTER 78
“What have you got for me?” Silas asks, looking up at the digital forensics investigator who has just walked into the squad room. She’s wearing noticeably casual clothing and has a laptop tucked under one arm.
“I was just taking a look at the hard drive we copied off Tony Masters’s laptop,” she says, glancing nervously at Strover from under a blunt, jet-black fringe.
“It’s okay,” Silas says, keen to put her at ease. “I know the score.”
Silas pulls up a chair and the three of them look at her laptop, now open on Silas’s desk. The squad room is empty except for a few uniforms at the far end.
“The files were hidden,” the investigator says.
“Well-hidden?” Silas asks.
“Third party freeware, nothing too clever,” she says, coming alive, “but deliberately concealed—using the standard functionality of the operating system to make certain files and folders invisible.”
Strover glances at Silas, who nods. He understands all about invisible files. More confusing is talking to two computer-savvy women. All the digital forensics investigators he’s ever worked with have been men. Shy, socially dysfunctional men, not confident women who look you in the eye when they’re talking about operating systems and freeware.
“Easy enough to find, but he’s also encrypted them using a symmetric-key block cipher, Triple DES,” the investigator continues.
“Triple Data Encryption Algorithm,” Strover says.
“Thank you,” Silas snaps.
“A bit outdated these days,” the investigator says. “Key length of 168 bits, but with an effective security of only 80, making it susceptible to chosen-plaintext attacks.”
“She means it’s easy to break,” Strover says.
“Relatively easy,” the investigator adds, glancing at Strover.
“And what did you find in the files?” Silas asks, keen to move things on. He reminds himself that his dad used to talk about the importance of surrounding yourself with good people.
The investigator pulls
up an image and adjusts the laptop so Silas has a better view.
“It’s a verified petition, filed in a district court in New Mexico twenty years ago, applying to change a name,” the investigator says.
Silas looks closer at the two names on the document: “Tony Masters,” formerly known as “Tony de Staal.” He’s back on safer ground now, what he does best: dealing with real people, establishing motives.
“There’s also a copy of the notice published in a local weekly newspaper, giving details of the name change.”
“By state law, he has to publish it twice,” Strover adds. “And there’s an order of the court, signed by a judge, allowing the petitioner to take a new name and accepting his reasons for the change.”
“Which were?”
The investigator turns to Strover. “It’s an unusual surname—de Staal,” Strover says. “There was a lot of publicity surrounding his father’s death—he was one of the youngest people in the States ever to die of Alzheimer’s. Tony Masters argued that he might be prejudiced against by the association.”
“Meaning insurers might not give him coverage, assume it was hereditary?”
Strover nods at her boss.
“Are we buying that?” he asks.
“The judge did,” Strover says. “Tony could have had another motive, though. I ran a quick search.” More music to Silas’s ears. “There was a Tony de Staal who was suspended indefinitely from the University of New Mexico School of Medicine a year earlier.”
Strover pulls up a local story from the website of the Santa Fe New Mexican, a daily state newspaper. “They’ve put every edition up online as far back as 1868,” Strover says. “All searchable—for a fee.”
“Just keep the receipts.”
Silas reads the story, recognizing a young Tony Masters, captioned as “Tony de Staal” in a photo. He’d been suspended as a first year medical student for showing disrespect to a cadaver in a dissection class, including taking Polaroid photos of himself holding a brain and later trying to remove a part of it—the hippocampus—from the lab.