Chapter 117: Her Number II

Six weeks.

Six weeks of Mara Doyle going up a narrow staircase to the one person in London who has seen my source of funds file.

"Can’t you just make her do it all in one?"

"Make her?"

"Get her to put everything in one letter." He had it out before he had looked at it properly. "So you’re not back and forth."

Mara turned her head.

"That’s a very specific thing to have an opinion about."

Careful.

"I’ve had 6 weeks of a solicitor on the shop," Danny said. "Every time I went back it was another 300 quid and another 10 days, and if I’d known at the start I’d have made her do the lot in one go."

"Right." She let that sit for a second. "Well, mine’s fixed fee, so she can write 4 letters and it’s still 450, which is the whole reason I’ve gone with her."

"Then you’re all right."

"I’m all right." She was still looking at him. "You’ve gone somewhere."

"I’ve got a bloke taking a ceiling down that I said yes to 40 minutes ago," he said, "and I’m stood in a swimming pool."

"Mm." She pushed off. "Do 20 lengths and then go and worry about it, because you’re no use to a ceiling in here."

So they swam.

He did 20 and she did another 14 on top of what she had already done, and at the end of it she was hanging on the wall at the deep end with her chest going and he was 6 feet off.

"There’s one more bit," she said.

"To what?"

"To the story. And it’s nothing, and I’ve been not telling anybody for 4 days because it’s not mine to tell."

Danny stood in the deep end.

"Go on."

"I’m sat in her office on Thursday and she’s on the phone when I come up the stairs, and she points at a chair." Mara got her hair back with both hands. "And it’s one room, Danny. It’s the size of my bathroom. I’m 4 foot from the desk and there is nowhere on earth to look."

"Right."

"And she’s on to somebody, and she’s telling them she can’t discuss a client, and she says, I would be struck off for it, so don’t ask me anything else about him."

"About him."

"That’s what she said." Mara was watching the water. "And then she says she’s not confirming an address for anybody over a telephone. And then she says, what’s the building."

And Danny Flynn stood in 9 feet of water in a swimming pool on the third floor of the Sterling Riverwalk.

"And?"

"And she wrote it down out loud," Mara said. "The Sterling Riverwalk. Right."

The filter went on doing the filter. Somebody came through the changing room door and did not come out to the pool.

"This building."

"This building." Mara turned round and put her back against the wall next to him, about 2 feet off, and she was not looking at him, she was looking at the far end. "And I’ll tell you exactly what I did, because I’m not proud of it. I sat there and I did not move one muscle in my face, because if she thought I’d heard that she’d never say another word to me as long as she lived."

"Have you told anybody?"

"I’ve told you. That’s it." She pushed off the wall and floated a bit. "Because everyone I’d tell would make it into something, and I’ve spent 12 days making things into something and I’m trying to stop."

"What do you reckon it is?"

And she thought about it properly, treading water, which Danny watched her do and which took about 4 seconds.

"I reckon it’s the building," she said. "Not her, the building. Somebody in this place is chasing something about a resident and they’ve rung a solicitor about it, and the solicitor’s told them where to go."

"Right."

"And Naomi Adeyemi turned up at my door on a Monday morning with a form she did not need and asked me if I’d noticed anybody asking questions." Mara said it flatly. "So it’s her. It’s Naomi. She’s looking for somebody and she’s not finding them, and I clocked that a week ago and I’ve done nothing with it because it’s got nothing to do with my flat."

Danny stood with his back on the tile.

She has got every single piece of it.

She’s got the company, she’s got Priya, she’s got Naomi, she’s got the phone call, and she has put them down in a line in the right order.

And the one thing she has not got is that it’s me. And the reason she hasn’t got it is that she decided on a Monday morning it was 2 things and not a man, and she’s been keeping herself honest ever since.

"Mara."

"Mm."

"Why are you telling me?"

She did a slow half turn in the water and looked at him.

"Because you’re the only person in this building I talk to," she said, "and because I’ve been carrying it round since Thursday, and because you’re not going to do anything with it."

Mr Pemberton got out at 25 past on the steps with a hand on each rail.

He stood at the top with his towel and looked at the pair of them for a moment, 2 people in a lane with 2 feet of water between them not swimming, and then he folded his cap in half and in half again and went off to the changing rooms with his flip-flops going.

"He knows," Mara said.

"He knows what?"

"I’ve no idea. But he knows it." She got her goggles off her wrist. "Right. I’m out. I’m at my mother’s for lunch and if my hair’s wet she’ll say something about it for an hour."

She went up the steps and got her towel off the rail and stopped.

"Oh. Hang on."

"What?"

"You asked me for a solicitor." She had the towel round her. "In the lobby. Ages ago, the Friday, when I was going out."

Danny stood in the shallow end with his hands on the tile.

No.

She did not ask you. You asked her. She asked you and you swallowed the name and made up a woman your mum used through the council.

"I asked you," he said. "You said you’d ask about for me."

"Did I?" She frowned at the middle distance. "Yeah. Yeah, I did, and I never did, because I got my own sorted and I forgot about it entirely, which is horrible of me."

"It’s not horrible."

"It is a bit." She was getting her phone out of the bundle on the bench. "Here. I’ll do it now before I don’t."

"Mara..."

"It’s 4 seconds."

She stood at the side of a swimming pool in a green costume with a towel round her shoulders and sent Danny Flynn a contact card.

His phone went on the bench where his own towel was, 6 feet away, buzz, once.

"There. Priya Anand, Clapham Road." She had the towel round her shoulders and was going for the changing room door. "Tell her I sent you, because I want her to know I send people."

"Mara."

She stopped.

"Thanks."

"It’s a phone number, Danny."

"Yeah." He was stood in the shallow end with his hands on the tile. "Still."

"Right, well." She had her hand on the door. "She’s the only person I’ve dealt with all year who didn’t want something off me. So don’t muck her about."

And she went in, and the door swung twice and stopped.

Danny got out and stood on the wet tile and picked his phone up off the bench with a wet hand.

PRIYA ANAND (solicitor, Clapham Rd)

Sent 9:31.

And directly under it in the list, saved in February on a scooter outside a dry cleaner’s with his helmet on his knee, the morning he had gone up those stairs to lie to her about crypto:

priya

Same number, twice, 8 months apart.

He stood there with the water going off him onto the tile and did the sum.

Six weeks. Minimum.

And every time that woman goes up those stairs she is sat in a chair 4 feet from a filing cabinet with my name in it.

And Priya Anand is not going to tell her one single thing, because she is the straightest person either of us has ever met, and she has already told a building manager she would rather be struck off.

Which means I am safe.

Which means the only thing keeping me upright is a woman I sat in front of in February and lied to.

Danny got his towel and went and got changed, and by the time he had his boots on he had decided, and he had not enjoyed deciding it.

Go and see her.

Not about this. About the shop, because the shop’s real, and there’s a ceiling and a designer and 46 grand going out and she’d want to know about all of it.

And while you’re sat in that chair you find out how much she’s put together.

He came out into the lobby at 5 past 10 with his hair wet and rang the shop, and Deniz answered on the second ring with something going on behind him.

"How long are you there till?"

"Six."

"Right." Danny was already going for the door. "I’ll be back this afternoon. I’ve got to go to Clapham."