In the Evil Day

76

…LONDON…

Caroline found the note on her desk:

See me soonest. Halligan.

End of the road. Goodbye Fleet Street, hello Leeds.

Family, McClatchie once said, you always start with the family. But Jess Thomas didn’t have any family.

The architect in Singapore had said something.

She goes back a long way with Natalie, with the family, I think.

Natalie Zampatti had a family.

She rang Sandra Fox at Craig, Zampatti.

‘Nat’s got a sister somewhere, a doctor,’ said Fox. ‘Hang on I’ll ask the secretary from whom no secrets are hidden.’

Caroline waited. The longest possible shot. The most fucking impossible shot.

‘There? Try St Martin’s Hospital. Apparently sister and husband are both doctors. Her sister’s name’s Virginia.’

It took a long time and she couldn’t get hold of Virginia but she got the name of her mother. Finally she was speaking to Mrs Amanda Zampatti in Cardiff, a thin voice, uncertain.

Caroline gave her the Detective Sergeant Moody of Battersea Police line.

‘Oh my God, she’s all right is she? Poor girl, she’s got no one, you know.’

‘We’d like to be sure. There’s no actual cause for alarm at the moment. But we thought she might have gone somewhere to get away from everything.’

‘Well, Virginia and David have a place, a farm sort of place. She’s been there, I know that, Ginnie told me on the phone.’

‘And where’s that?’

‘To tell you truth, I don’t know. They wanted to take me but really I can’t be…’

‘No idea where it is?’

‘Well, Wales, but that’s not much use is it? Up north, I think. She said it was away from anything, no phone or telly or anything. I can’t think why you’d want to have a place…’

‘Thank you, Mrs Zampatti. I’ll get back to you if we find out anything.’

Caroline slumped again. There was no quick way to do this.