‘And were they?’ asked Jake, even more intrigued.
‘Oh, please, Jake!’ scoffed Paul. ‘UFOs, indeed!’
Jake forced a chuckle.
‘Just joking,’ he said, to cover it up. But, with all the things he’d discovered through the Malichea business, he’d learnt that anything was possible.
‘It was a prototype solar-powered weather balloon they were testing,’ said Paul. ‘But try telling that to these lunatics. As far as they’re concerned it’s just another cover-up.’ Then he said, ‘By the way, sorry, but all the talk of Area 51 put it out of my head. There was a call for you while you were out. Switchboard put it through to me.’
‘Oh?’ asked Jake, ‘Who was it?’
‘He said his name was Guy,’ said Paul.
‘Guy?’ echoed Jake. Why had Guy phoned him at the office? Why hadn’t he called him on his mobile? It didn’t make sense. Why should Guy go to all the bother of finding out his number at the Department of Science press office?
‘Did he leave a number where I could get hold of him?’
‘No. He said he’d try again.’
‘How did he sound?’
‘What do you mean?’ asked Paul, puzzled.
‘Well, did he sound nervous? Agitated?’
‘No,’ said Paul. Then he frowned thoughtfully. ‘Actually, he sounded foreign.’
‘Foreign?’
Paul nodded.
‘He had an accent. It sounded sort of Spanish.’
Spanish? That’s not Guy, thought Jake. But why would someone Spanish phone Jake pretending to be Guy?
Changing the subject, Jake asked, ‘Have you heard anything about Gareth?’
Paul frowned.
‘What in particular?’ he asked.
‘Well, where he is?’ said Jake. ‘I’ve just been up to see him and Janet says he’s away.’
‘Well, if that’s what she says, then I guess that’s where he is.’ Paul shrugged.
‘Yes, but we didn’t get a memo saying he was going to be away,’ pointed out Jake. ‘And usually, if he’s away, we get told who to report to in his absence. You know, if anything big comes up and we need to refer it upwards.’
‘Why, has something big come up that you know about?’ asked Paul.
‘Well, no,’ said Jake. ‘But it might.’
Paul shook his head.
‘I’m sure, if anything does happen that needs someone more important than us to handle, you can just pass it up to Janet. She’ll know what to do with it. They don’t call her the Rottweiler for nothing!’ He grinned. ‘I don’t know about you, but I find her terrifying.’
At the moment, I just feel terrified, thought Jake.
The whole way on the Tube home to Finsbury Park, Jake thought about everything that had happened in the last seventy-two hours. Alex Munro being shot dead. Jake being arrested for his murder, and meeting Guy — now Earl Guy — de Courcey. Guy vanishing. And now Gareth disappearing. And in both disappearances there was an absolute silence: a refusal by anyone to admit that they’d vanished.
And then there had been the phone call from Guy. Or someone pretending to be Guy. Someone who was possibly Spanish.
Maybe the mystery caller had been someone from Guy’s recent past in Mexico. But why call Jake?
When he arrived at their flat, Lauren was sitting at her laptop. She got up and gave him a welcoming smile, and he realised that what with all this business with Guy and Gareth it had been ages since they’d spent real time together.
Jake made coffee for them and they shared their day’s experiences.
‘Did you see Gareth?’ asked Lauren.
‘He wasn’t in the office,’ said Jake. ‘And I’m pretty sure there’s something going on. Something weird. But if he is in any kind of trouble, I’m pretty sure that MI5 will already be swinging into action.’ He gestured towards Lauren’s laptop. ‘How did you get on with checking out our missing friend, Guy.’
‘You still think it was Guy who texted you?’
‘Yes, I do. Call it a hunch, but he’s the only person I can think of who’d do it.’
‘Even though, according to the police, Pierce Randall say he’s safe?’
‘Because Pierce Randall say he’s safe,’ said Jake sarcastically. ‘So, what did you find out?’
‘That the de Courceys are definitely heavily involved in the Malichea books,’ said Lauren.
She went to her laptop and began to flick her fingers over the keys. A genealogical family tree appeared on the screen.
‘The de Courcey family tree,’ she said. She scrolled down until the screen showed a date of 1539. She pointed to two names. ‘Edgar de Courcey. He was the librarian of the Order of Malichea from 1536 until 1539.’