Read Online Blood, Salt, Water by Denise Mina - Free Book Online Page B

DNA, but she hadn’t the heart to say that to him. If necessary she could ask for something else later.
    She bagged the pointless item and slipped it into her briefcase, asking as she did so for Roxanna’s bank account details and her mobile number, his mobile number and the kids’ numbers too, if they had mobiles.
    He baulked. ‘What do you need her bank account number for?’
    ‘To see if she’s taken any money out. That’ll tell us where she is and if she’s safe. We need her mobile number too.’
    He chewed his lip, thinking, and then flashed a cagey smile. ‘Honestly, Rox hasn’tcalled me.’
    McGrain explained that it wouldn’t just help them check her calls. If the phone was turned on they could track her movements from it. It would really help.
    Walker agreed to give them all of the information but seemed to change his mind when Morrow handed him the form. There was a deal of fumbling with the pen, an overly elaborate writing-out of names. He was reluctant, but in the end he gave them everyone’s numbers: his, Roxanna’s, the kids’. It made Morrow think he was concerned enough about her to give them information he thought potentially damning.
    She asked if Roxanna had ever gone missing before and Walker looked shifty. ‘Not that I’m aware of. We’ve only been together for a year and a bit. She may have. You’d have to ask the kids.’
    ‘The kids aren’t your kids?’
    ‘No, their father lives in Ecuador.’
    ‘Do you know his name?’
    ‘Miguel Vicente.’ He spelled it for her and watched her write it down. She asked for Vicente’s address and was told that he had two: one in Quito and a beachfront house in Guayaquil. Both in Ecuador.
    ‘Would Roxanna have contacted him?’
    Walker snorted at that. ‘Not bloody likely.’
    ‘Why “not bloody likely”?’
    The story came out in a messy jumble. Her ex, he, well, he was a total bastard, sort of, you see, left without telling her where he was going and married someone else a week later (Morrow knew it was a month) and he wanted the kids now, but only because his wife was infertile (she had two kids) but he’d never bothered about the kids before (he had). Morrow could hear Roxanna’s voice in the bitter rant. She’d heard divorce talk before. Vicente didn’t pay a penny in maintenance, either (true). Rox’d seen a lawyer but it made no difference . . .
    ‘Of course,’ said Morrow, trying to impress the voice recorder audience with the breadth of her knowledge, ‘Ecuador doesn’t have a reciprocal maintenance agreement. We see this a lot in missing persons. It’s not uncommon for children to be taken abroad by an ex.’
    She imagined the DCC Hughes reading that, surprised and impressed by her erudition.
    Walker looked puzzled, ‘No. The kids aren’t gone. She’s gone.’
    He was right. RMAs were irrelevant. Hughes would read that too. Morrow’s smugness curdled to mild embarrassment. She was addressing the wrong audience. ‘Are the kids in touch with their dad?’
    They weren’t, as far as he knew. Rox got upset at the mention of her ex, he said, and gave a little cringe. Morrow felt that maybe it was Robin who got upset at the mention of her ex. It was the downside of utterly condemning an ex to a new partner: it left no room for mitigation when the bitterness receded.
    She asked him about the business.
    ‘Injury Claims 4 U,’ he said. The tacky posters were everywhere, on the underground, on bus stops, jarring red on yellow. The I of ‘Injury’ was represented by a silhouette of a ladder with a tiny red man falling off it. ‘Those posters aren’t hers. The owner was retiring, he was building up the goodwill. I don’t really know anything about her business.’
    Morrow said casually that they would have a look at the books, to check for debts undisclosed at the time of sale, railroading him by segueing straight into: ‘If you could go and find contact details for the children’s father while we speak to