Night Angels. Danuta Reah

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       5

       Sheffield, Sunday

      The phone woke Roz at seven. She swore and pulled her head under the blankets. Let the answering machine take it. She was due a lie-in. She hadn’t got back from Joanna’s until after two, and she’d been woken up again in the small hours by a gang of youths, fighting and shouting in the road outside. Now she just wanted to sleep. Who’d phone her at this time, anyway? Her mother? Not even Paula would phone at this time on a Sunday. Then the voice on the machine penetrated, and she sat up, grabbing for the phone. ‘…your lazy arse out of bed, Bishop…’

      It was the old Luke, the friend who had never had any compunction about rousting her out of bed in pursuit of some enterprise that had caught his fancy. ‘It’s the middle of the night, Luke! For Christ’s sake!’ Then she remembered Friday. ‘What’s wrong?’

      ‘I’m round at Gemma’s,’ he said. ‘There’s…’ Suddenly his voice sounded uncertain, the new Luke, slightly wary, slightly withdrawn. ‘I’m not quite sure. Maybe I shouldn’t have called you.’

      ‘Oh, come on, Luke. I’m really going to go back to sleep now, aren’t I? What’s wrong? Is Gemma ill? Is that why she didn’t come in yesterday?’

      ‘Gemma’s not back,’ he said, after a pause.

      ‘Luke…’ She felt an uneasy sensation in her stomach. ‘Has she been in touch? Anything?’

      ‘Nothing. But…’ Again the un-Luke-like uncertainty.

      ‘Don’t you think we should call someone – the hospital? Maybe she had an accident.’ Or was she being melodramatic?

      ‘I did that bit yesterday. I told you that car shit didn’t make sense. There wasn’t anything. But then there wouldn’t be.’

      ‘Why? What did they say?’ There must be something, or he wouldn’t have phoned. ‘I’ll come round, shall I? To Gemma’s?’

      ‘I don’t know…’ That uncertainty again. She tried to remember any time, in the year she had known him, when Luke had asked her for help.

      ‘I’m coming round,’ she said.

      There was a moment’s silence. ‘OK. See what you think.’ He hung up.

      Roz looked out of the window, trying to assess the weather. She didn’t bother with curtains. Her bedroom looked out on to the derelict house, the oriel window visible from where she was lying. She rolled out of bed on to the floor. It was the getting-up technique she’d adopted in her teens, when the act of getting out of bed had seemed impossible to achieve. Her fatigue had retreated, but she knew she would feel it later. Getting old…The shower pulled her further awake. She put on jeans and a warm jumper, stuck a croissant under the grill and switched the kettle on. Fifteen minutes later, the half-eaten croissant in her hand, she was reversing the car out of her gate.

      Gemma rented a flat in Hillsborough. Roz had picked her up there once or twice, but had never been inside, she realized, as she pulled up outside the small terrace, behind Luke’s bike, a Vincent Black Shadow that he devoted more time and care to than he devoted to himself. ‘Brings out the geek in me,’ he’d admitted once to Roz. He must have been looking out for her, because he opened the door as she came through the gate.

      She followed him into the house. The entrance hall and stairway were common territory, and had the dark, uncared-for look that areas of transit often have. Gemma’s flat was on the ground floor, her door to the left of the entry. Roz looked round as she went in. It was – presumably – pretty much like any of the furnished flats on offer in an area that had a large transient population. Gemma had draped the chairs with pale throws, and painted the walls a light, neutral colour, as though she had tried to make the room non-intrusive, a background to her presence. Here and there were patches of colour – the green of a plant, a peacock blue table lamp, a brilliant tapestry on one wall, cushions embroidered in scarlet. Roz was drawn to the tapestry. It seemed to glow with life in the stark room. She looked more closely, admiring the brilliant colours and the intricate weaving of the threads.

      Luke came up behind her. ‘Gemma got that when she was in Dudinka,’ he said. Gemma had spent three years in Russia, mostly at the Siberian university of Novosibirsk when she was studying for her PhD. ‘They gave it to her when she left. She’s going to go back there, when her research money runs out here.’ Roz was surprised. She’d thought that Gemma planned an academic career in Britain – or America.

      Luke turned away from the tapestry. ‘Through here,’ he said. He led her through a small kitchen – more of a lobby than a kitchen – to the bedroom, which was at the back of the house. It was smaller than the front room, and was sparsely furnished with a bed, a small chest of drawers, and an empty hanging rail by the chimney breast. Under the window was Gemma’s desk, with her computer. The screensaver wove intricate patterns in ever-changing colours. Luke went over to it. ‘Look,’ he said. He clicked the mouse to open the documents window, and then jerked his head to bring Roz over. She looked at the screen. The documents window was open, but there was nothing there, no files or folders, just empty space: 0 objects. 0 bytes.

      Roz looked at it, and looked at Luke. He shrugged a shoulder. ‘Last time I saw this, Tuesday night, that would have been, she had loads of stuff on here,’ he said.

      ‘Maybe she wiped it – for space,’ Roz said. ‘Maybe it’s all saved on disks.’

      Luke pulled open the desk drawer. ‘She keeps her back-up stuff here,’ he said. The drawer was empty. ‘Anyway, Gem keeps all her stuff on her hard disk. She says it’s easier to keep track of. And she has back-up disks for everything.’ He folded his arms and looked at her, leaning against the desk, waiting.

      Roz wondered what he wanted her to do. She wondered what she should do. Gemma had gone to Manchester on Thursday and attended a meeting. She had definitely been there – Joanna had checked on Friday. She was due back on Thursday evening. Luke had said that he expected her to phone – or half expected her to phone. She was certainly expected in the department on Friday morning. The meeting had been the main focus of Joanna’s attention for the past month. Gemma had sent an e-mail with a lame excuse. She hadn’t come back, and she had apparently wiped her document files from her hard disk before she went. Luke was still watching her from by the desk, waiting to see where her thoughts took her. ‘The police?’ she said.

      ‘I did that as well,’ he said. ‘Yesterday.’

      ‘And?’ It was like pulling teeth.

      ‘They weren’t that interested. They took details, but they didn’t see any reason to worry. Gemma does go off sometimes, weekends. Said to leave it until Monday. They thought I СКАЧАТЬ