The Honeytrap: Part 4 by Roberta Kray Page B

can check out the electoral register, see if we can get some names. What’s the place called again?’
    ‘Queen Elizabeth Court.’ Jess came over and stood by his shoulder. ‘Keynes went into one of the upper flats, three or four, I couldn’t tell which.’
    ‘He could have been going to see friends or a relative. Or maybe something to do with work.’
    ‘Or not.’
    ‘Or not,’ Harry echoed softly as he tapped on the keys. After a few minutes he came up with the results. ‘Michael and Joyce Barber in flat three. They’re both in their fifties.’
    ‘What about four?’
    ‘Nothing. There’s no one registered to that address.’
    Jess peered at the screen. ‘What do you reckon?’
    ‘Some people don’t vote.’ He gave a shrug. ‘And if I was going to abduct someone I wouldn’t want to have to drag them up a flight of stairs. Keynes must have access to lots of empty properties; why would he choose a block of flats where other people could easily see him coming and going?’
    ‘I don’t know. Because sometimes people don’t notice what’s under their noses?’ Jess sighed and moved away. She walked over to the coffee machine and stared at it. She looked at the clock and then glanced at her watch as if to verify that a mere two seconds had passed. ‘I wish Mac would hurry up. What’s taking him so long?’
    Harry was listening out for sounds from upstairs. What if Ellen just up and left and he could never find her again? She was ill, not thinking straight. Anything could happen to her. He should go over and open the office door – that way he’d hear if she was leaving – but then he’d need to explain to Jess why he was doing it, and he didn’t want to have that conversation right now.
    ‘Harry?’
    ‘Huh?’
    ‘I was asking when Mac was going to get here.’
    ‘Any minute,’ he said.
    ‘Have you told him everything? About the car and Brett and Sylvie leaving with Keynes?’
    Harry gave a nod. ‘Yeah, he’s got the whole story.’ He could see that for Jess it was all clear; she’d put the pieces of the jigsaw together and created a picture that made perfect sense. He envied her that clarity of thought, her single-minded determination, but wasn’t entirely convinced that she had got it right. For him there were still too many loose ends, too many questions without any answers.
    Jess paced impatiently from one side of reception to the other. ‘If I hadn’t been reading
    that bloody brochure, I might have noticed Keynes following Sylvie to the loos.’
    ‘You weren’t to know.’
    ‘I wasn’t paying attention. I should have kept an eye on him.’
    ‘Retrospect is a wonderful thing. Stop beating yourself up about it. There’s nothing you could have done.’
    It was another fifteen minutes before Mac finally arrived, by which time Jess had almost worn out the carpet. The three of them gathered around Lorna’s desk and quickly went through the details again. They decided that there wasn’t any point in all of them going to the police and that Mac would head off to Cowan Road station while Harry and Jess went to Swiss Cottage to watch the flat until the police showed up.
    ‘Shall we take your car or mine?’ Jess asked after Mac had left.
    ‘You go on ahead. There’s something I’ve got to do first. It won’t take long. I’ll catch up with you.’
    Jess frowned. ‘Are you kidding me? What’s more important than this?’
    ‘Twenty minutes,’ he said. And then before she could start debating the matter, he stood up, strode out of the office and took the stairs two at a time to the second-floor landing. Even as he opened the door to the flat, he sensed the void inside. His heart sank as he walked into the living room and saw the empty sofa. The discarded blanket lay in a heap on the floor.
    ‘Ellen?’
    Nothing.
    He made a fast tour of the bedrooms, bathroom and kitchen even though he knew she wasn’t there. It was only when he returned to the living room that he noticed the