Reeves Finds Out

Vic’s message said four words, and they emptied the street out from under me the way a floor gives when you’ve stopped expecting it to hold anything at all. Reeves knows. Call me.

I called him standing right there by the water, and he picked up on the first ring, which told me he’d been waiting for me to read it. “Helen’s researcher rang round the betting shops last Thursday, before any of this fell through, trying to verify enough of the story to make it worth her flight,” he said, no preamble. The arithmetic was gone entirely out of his voice for once, replaced by something that sounded, unmistakably, like guilt. “I didn’t know she’d done it until an hour ago. She used a real production credit, Marlowe. Northlight, her actual name. It wasn’t careful the way you were careful. I’m sorry. I don’t think this is nothing, and…