‘The tumblr thing. How did they know your phone number?’
‘Apart from the fact that just about everyone in the world seems to know it? I left my card in Fahad’s door when I visited the displaced-persons village.’
She watched Henry think about this. He said, ‘I hope you didn’t reply. Your phone is compromised.’
‘I was hoping I could use yours,’ Chloe said.
Henry thought about that, saying at last, ‘But it might spook them if your reply came from a different number. Give me your phone.’
She handed it over. He thumbed through the phone’s inbox, aimed its screen towards Chloe. ‘This is the message?’
‘That’s it.’
‘It could be a con. A game run by the Hazard Police.’
‘How would they know about Gail Ann?’
‘Because they’ve probably made it their business to find out about everyone you’ve called with this damn thing.’
‘I used it yesterday,’ Chloe confessed, ‘because you threw the other one away. And I used the room phone to call Gail Ann this morning.’
‘By which time her phone might have been compromised.’
‘I called her other phone. A new one I gave her when all this started.’
Henry smiled. ‘That’s almost smart.’
‘That’s almost a compliment.’
Henry weighed the phone in his hand, then tapped out something with his thumbs and set it on the table. ‘Done. Have you eaten yet?’
‘What did you say?’
‘That you wanted to talk. Get some breakfast inside you. We have an appointment.’
‘What kind of appointment?’
‘A hospital appointment. Your friend Eddie Ackroyd got himself beaten up.’
Chloe was working her way through a latte and a bowl of fruit and yoghurt when her phone started to buzz. She and Henry looked at it; Henry picked it up.
‘Four o’clock, the Reef’s free market,’ he said, reading off the screen. ‘Does that mean anything to you?’
‘I know where the Reef is. I used to hang out there a lot when I was freelancing. Is that it?’
‘Short and sweet,’ Henry said, and switched off the phone and pocketed it. ‘Eat up. We’ll visit your friend Eddie first, then work out how to play this.’
They drove to London, to the Whittington hospital. Another polite young man in a blue windbreaker was waiting for them in the car park, told Henry that so far no one had been to visit Mr Ackroyd. ‘The police interviewed him when he was admitted to casualty, but they haven’t been back.’
Henry said, ‘The local police?’
The young man nodded. ‘Mr Ackroyd suffered a ruptured spleen. He was operated on yesterday. Now he’s in a recovery ward, awaiting discharge. Apparently there is some dispute about the bill. So far there is no indication that the Hazard Police know his whereabouts.’
‘Good to know,’ Henry said. He handed Chloe’s phone to the young man and said that he wanted the message from Fahad’s friend traced, then told Chloe, ‘Let’s get this done. I’ll do the talking. You look sympathetic.’
‘It won’t be easy,’ Chloe said.
But she did feel a small and unexpected pang when she saw Eddie Ackroyd in his raised bed, looking smaller and older in a hospital gown, grey hair neatly combed back from his bruised and bandaged face. His eyes were swollen and his nose was taped; one arm was in a cast from elbow to wrist. He was sitting up and reading a paperback book, looking up from it at Chloe with a kind of dull resignation. Perhaps it was fear, or perhaps he’d been fed some kind of elephant tranquilliser, but he lacked his usual sarcastic edge.
While Henry fetched two chairs, Eddie said to Chloe, ‘Who’s your friend?’
His mouth was bruised too; at least two of his teeth were missing.
‘He works for Ada Morange.’
Eddie took a moment, lifting a paper cup, spitting into it. There was blood in his saliva. ‘He looks like police.’
‘We’re here to help, Eddie. Listen to what he has to say.’
Henry got straight to the point, telling Eddie that he knew about his interest in Fahad Chauhan and the client who left mysterious clues in a folder in the editors’ board of the LFM wiki, but wanted to hear his side of the story.
‘Why should I tell you anything?’ Eddie said.
Henry took out his phone, dialled a number and told the person at the other end to go ahead with the payment, and said to Eddie, ‘For a start, we’ve taken care of your hospital bill. Check it out.’
Eddie took the phone as if suspecting a trick. ‘Who is this? I see. I see. No, I suppose that’s all right…’
Henry took the phone back. ‘You’ve got yourself in a bit of a pickle, Mr Ackroyd. But we’re willing to help you if you help us. We’ll make sure you aren’t disturbed here. No unexpected visitors. We’ll pay all your medical expenses, including reconstructive dentistry. And we’ll pay a finder’s fee, too.’
They dickered about the price, but Eddie’s heart wasn’t in it. After a couple of minutes he agreed on about half what Chloe had expected him to demand. It wasn’t much of a story, he said. He was only trying to make a living, like everyone else.
‘Why don’t you tell us about the people who beat you up,’ Henry said. ‘Was it in the street, or did they pull you into a car and take you somewhere?’
Eddie said that they had been waiting for him in his house. ‘Two of them. One about your age, the other younger. They tied me to a chair, and they started to snap records in half. I collect early opera records. 78 rpm.’
‘Really? I still have some of my dad’s old LPs,’ Henry said.
He was, Chloe could tell, having fun.
He and Eddie discussed the merits and demerits of digital v. analogue for a couple of minutes, Henry expressing interest when Eddie explained how he used steel needles to play his records, then steering the conversation back to the main topic.
Eddie said, ‘Luckily, they didn’t know which ones were valuable. I have several early Carusos, recorded before his voice changed, including Trimarchi’s “Un Bacio Ancora”. I have a near-mint copy of Alessandro Moreschi on G and T singing “Ave Maria”. One of the last castratis, the only one ever recorded.’ He paused to spit into his cup. ‘They missed those, but they broke twenty-two others, right in front of me. I told them I would answer their questions, but they broke them anyway. Because they could. And then, after we talked, they beat me up.’
He said that he’d told them everything he knew.
‘I mentioned my client to you,’ he said to Chloe. ‘That’s who they were mostly interested in. I explained that I’d never met him. That he feeds me tips and I follow them up, interview the people involved, get their stories. That’s what he’s interested in. Their stories.’
Eddie said that he’d done it seven times now. Always the same, he said. First a clue to send him to the general area. When he found the people who were getting ready to break out, he’d document them as fully as possible. After he uploaded everything, he’d be paid in shellcoin, the African digital currency. Completely untraceable.
‘The one in Dagenham, I noticed the flyer, followed it up. The boy, Fahad, wouldn’t give me the time of day, but I knew he was the focus of the breakout,’ Eddie said, and delicately spat into his cup again. ‘And I knew he was holding out on me, that he had a potent artefact, or had been exposed to one. You noticed it too, that’s why you’re here. But I saw him first.’
Chloe said, ‘I guess I’m losing my edge.’
She felt a little sorry for Eddie, punished because he’d been caught up in something he didn’t understand.