The Score by Howard Marks Page A

intimation in those moments that her life was only going to get more isolated, harder in every way, and there was nothing she could do to stop it. And so she’d gone for the nearest exit. If people knew what lay ahead for them she wondered how many would do the same.
    Thomas was staring at her. She caught him studying her face and he shifted his gaze away. In the darkness of the tunnel he looked different, not the cocky hardcase of the day but the vulnerable animal everyone is at night. Cat pulled out her phone, moved to the mouth of the tunnel where there was a weak signal. Punched in Martin’s number. As usual there was no reply, it was switched off. This time she left a short message, confirming that there did not appear to be any connection between Nia’s death and Esyllt’s disappearance.
    Suddenly Martin’s voice broke in, ragged with anxiety. ‘It was an accident then, the other girl?’
    ‘We think so but we’re still not sure.’
    On the other end of the line there was a stifled sob. Martin breathed out noisily and deliberately. Cat waited for him to finish.
    ‘Martin?’ she prompted, but all she got was that sound again. Half-sob, half-choke. Then silence. She prompted a second time: ‘Martin?’ But the line was dead.
    Cat shouted back into the tunnel, telling Thomas that she was going. She neither saw nor heard any reaction.
    The bike was parked just the other side of the trees. She edged it onto a flat piece of ground carved out of the verge to allow vehicles to pass each other. The route to Martin’s house was almost deserted as she sped through quickening rain. Darkness was slowly falling, the light limited, but it wasn’t yet dark enough for headlights. Cat checked her speed, aware that this was the time most accidents happened.
    The driveway to the house was lit by a single lamp. The porch was dark, all the curtains closed. Cat ran her hand down the porch door, noticed for the first time how many locks had been fitted. Two Yales had been added to a mortice. Martin would have to be well organised to avoid shutting himself out of the house.
    She rang the bell, waited for a minute, rang again. Then she knocked on the porch door with her fists and called out. Still no answer. She made so much noise she expected someone from the council houses to come down. But no one did. She tried Martin’s phone again, but this time he did not break in when she spoke.
    She punched in Thomas’s number.
    ‘Bloody hell, Price, you come and you go, and then you call. You need to settle down, girl.’
    She ignored the sally. ‘Any troublemakers moved to the area recently?’
    ‘Why do you ask?’ Thomas sounded distracted.
    ‘Martin Tilkian said something about a guy with a white streak in his hair. Might’ve been following his daughter. Seen here and in Cardiff. I don’t think Tilkian is giving me the full story.’
    Thomas made one of his noises, a dismissive puffing.
    ‘Highly strung that Martin, by the sounds of it. Everyone’s bloody paranoid these days.’
    Cat could hear harsh, raised voices in the background, Thomas talking to someone, his voice far away from the mouthpiece of his phone. Then more rustling as he moved it back to his face. His tone was different when next he spoke; strained, tired.
    ‘You’d better get back here. They’ve found something else.’
    Cat ended the call and looked up at the big, old house. Grand but overgrown, like the garden. Neglected. The games industry must have made cash for Tilkian, but there was no sign of an income stream still coming in. There was something weird about the place, but maybe that’s just what you got in cases like this: seeing old friends when you’ve both moved on. Or maybe it was just the tranks.
    She jumped onto the Laverda, heart thudding – and that
was
the tranks. This time she did not check her speed. She gunned over to the pithead. Cat parked the bike well off the road again, among the trees. The lights were circling a different area