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‘Yeah, I’ll go grab it. Gotta start moving out of there anyway. Budget meeting at four.’
He left the room, and Alison immediately pushed aside her laptop and rested her chin on her interlinked fingers.
‘So, you going to tell me what that chat was about this morning?’
‘Nothing to tell, except that we’re good, kind of, maybe. Well, it’s better anyway,’ Stacey said, still feeling the relief of her earlier conversation with the boss.
She didn’t think for a minute things were going to snap right back to how they’d once been, but at least now the boss could look at her, and she was back to calling directly instead of going through Penn.
The relief of that development paled against the euphoria she’d felt when she and Devon had walked back to their home hand in hand. There was no doubt they had work to do, but Stacey knew the depth of their love would see them through.
‘And the text?’
‘Jesus, Alison, anything you don’t want to know?’
‘Not really. I should be climbing right now. I’m not, so I’ve got to get my excitement somewhere.’
‘Fair enough. It was the boss telling me that Devon was in the clear. Not that I needed telling, but Devon was relieved.’
‘So, what’s the boss know that we don’t?’ Alison asked.
‘You know her aversion to detail. She didn’t say, and I’m not going to ask.’
‘More importantly, how are you feeling about it all?’
‘Better,’ she said honestly. The tension between her and the boss had added hugely to the surrealness of the last few days.
‘Good. On that note, I’m going to book a B&B in Shropshire for the weekend and get out of here.’
‘But the case,’ Stacey protested.
‘I was never needed for this one, matey, and you know it. I’ve offered every insight I can, so I’m just going to tidy my stuff up and get gone.’
Stacey was prevented from offering any argument by Penn charging back into the office. Not that she would try and stop her best friend from enjoying the last few days of her holiday.
Alison was right. She hadn’t been needed for this one, but it had helped Stacey having her friend just ten feet away.
‘Okay, here’s everything on Leyton Parks. Not sure how much use it is. If he wants to hide, he’ll be miles away, probably in a city somewhere.’
‘Not necessarily,’ Alison said, putting her laptop into her bag.
‘Surely safety in numbers, the volume of people. Chaos. Anonymity. Even somewhere like Birmingham you can just fade against thousands of other people. I mean, I lost Lynne in the Bullring for an hour, and I know what she looks like.’
Stacey chuckled.
‘It doesn’t feel safe,’ Alison explained. ‘You feel vulnerable if you’re hiding from something. It could sneak up on you at any second. The noise and the traffic and the crowds mean you can’t look in all directions at the same time. It’s exhausting. You’d feel like you need to be moving all the time. Hundreds if not thousands of cameras are watching your every move. Far too exposed.’
‘Thanks for that parting shot, buddy,’ Stacey said, wondering where the hell to start her search.
‘Think of it another way: if we feel threatened or vulnerable, where do we head for? Where do we feel safest?’
‘Home,’ Penn offered.
‘Yep,’ Alison said, reaching for her coat. ‘It’s familiar. We know its strengths and weaknesses. We have exit strategies. We know who to ask for help. We know everything about where we are.’
‘Yeah, well, he’d be in the middle of someone’s living room if he’d gone back home,’ Stacey pointed out, tapping the new houses on a printout plan.
‘With that, I bid you both farewell. Stace, I’ll give you a call over the weekend.’
