Subject: Re: Distress signal

I can’t get over the change in your “voice.” You sound just like an ordinary, real person. Is it the same you?

I’ve just found out that Damon Blundy was found dead yesterday in his home. It was on the radio a minute ago. He lived on Elmhirst Road in Spilling, ten minutes from where I live.

My second encounter with the policeman, the one that made me decide to contact you again, was yesterday on Elmhirst Road. I was driving to my kids’ school and the traffic was really slow. I saw police up ahead, including this particular one who I’d met before. They were stopping drivers, talking to them. I’m now thinking the reason they were there had to be Damon Blundy’s death. Apparently it’s being treated as suspicious.

I’m very upset. Please don’t ask me why.

N x

From: Mr. Jugs <[email protected]>

Date: Tue, July 2, 2013 09:45:05

To: <[email protected]>

Subject: Re: Distress signal

Why are you very upset that a contrarian newspaper columnist who happened to live near you has died?

Yes, this is the same me. If I were to order you to lie facedown on the carpet and remove your underwear **very** slowly, would that help to reassure you? Somebody could have hacked into my account, I suppose, but . . . they haven’t. It’s me.

So someone murdered Damon Blundy? Really?? What took them so long? (An uncharacteristic emoticon—it’s **still** me.)

Seriously, if you want to worry about the suffering of strangers, I’d pick someone more deserving than Damon Blundy.

G.

From: Nicki <[email protected]>

Date: Tue, July 2, 2013 09:49:34

To: <[email protected]>

Subject: Re: Distress signal

Er, seriously (to quote you)? I’d be sorry to hear that anyone had been murdered unless they were out-and-out evil. Damon Blundy wasn’t evil.

Sorry, have to go—someone at door!

N x

From: Mr. Jugs <[email protected]>

Date: Tue, July 2, 2013 10:15:22

To: <[email protected]>

Subject: Re: Distress signal

And you know that Damon Blundy wasn’t evil how? He might have been. Some people are.

G.

From: Nicki <[email protected]>

Date: Tue, July 2, 2013 10:34:02

To: <[email protected]>

Subject: Re: Distress signal

Gavin, a detective is here. He wants me to go with him to the police station. It’s about Damon Blundy.

Fuck. Scared.

N x

Sent from my BlackBerry 10 smartphone

CHAPTER 3

Tuesday, July 2, 2013

“IT MEANS NOTHING,” I blurt out, breaking the silence that’s closing in on me. “What is it, some kind of riddle?”

No answer, only a half-smile from the detective sitting across the table from me, Sam something or other. His surname is multisyllabic and weird; I forgot it as soon as he’d said it. I try to look only at him and not at his thick-set, heavy-jawed, hulking colleague who is hovering in the corner by the barred window and hasn’t smiled once.