or Gemma’s report? The report had priority. She turned back down the corridor to Gemma’s room and switched on the computer. She knew the password – she and Gemma often needed access to each other’s files. She scrolled through the list of documents: acoustic profiles; fundamental frequency analysis of…There it was: draftreport hull. Roz opened the file and went over the details, reminding herself of what exactly Gemma had been doing. The tape from Hull was a police interview with a woman who was possibly Eastern European. It had been sent to Gemma to try to ascertain the geographic origins of the woman more closely.
Roz flicked through the correspondence. The officer who had contacted Gemma was a Detective Inspector Lynne Jordan. The request that came with the tape was clear. DI Jordan wanted to know where the woman, who was clearly not a native speaker of English, came from. There was very little information about the tape itself.
Roz had listened to the tape with Gemma, and had found the words, which were halting and difficult to decipher, disturbing. She wondered what had happened to the woman whose voice was on the tape, why DI Jordan was not able to ask her directly where she came from. Was she pretending to come from somewhere else, an EU country, something that would allow her to stay in the UK? Had she run away? Had she already been deported? Had she died?
He [they?] hit…I say no, he [they?] make, he…
Not Roz’s business. She hit the print button and skimmed through Gemma’s draft report on the screen. When the report had printed, she read it in more detail. It was typical Gemma; very thorough, very clear, and, as far as Roz could see, complete. Maybe Gemma had sorted the problem out, whatever it was. She wondered what Gemma had wanted to discuss with her. She tapped the report against her chin, thinking. Wednesday afternoon, late, Gemma had come to Roz’s room to say that she had to go to Manchester in Joanna’s place the following day. ‘Joanna’s only just told me. She said you’d fill me in on the details.’ She’d looked annoyed. She’d dropped her bag, fumbling for her notes, then the pen she was trying to uncap had flown out of her hand across the room.
Roz had explained about the meeting. ‘I think Joanna will want you to pick this one up,’ she said. ‘It’s your area.’ The Manchester team were partners in the grant bid for the analysis of the English of asylum seekers.
‘I’d have preferred a bit more notice,’ Gemma said, with some justification, Roz had to admit. ‘I’ve got that report to do. I told Detective Inspector Jordan that I’d be putting it in the post tomorrow.’
‘Phone your findings through. You can put the report in the post so she’ll get it on Monday. She’ll get the information she wants on Friday, that’s the main thing. Is it finished, the analysis?’
‘Yes. I’ve done what she wanted. It’s just…There was something I wanted to…’ She checked her watch. ‘Oh, God, look at the time. I’ll have to go. I’ll run it past you on Friday. It’ll keep.’ Looking happier, Gemma had left.
Whatever it was that had been worrying her, Roz could find no trace of it. Gemma had identified the woman as a Russian speaker, with language features that suggested she came from East Siberia. She had pages of analysis to support her findings. Roz flicked through them. Everything looked fine. She printed out the transcript of the tape and looked at that. Three of the lines were marked with an asterisk: 25, 127, 204. That was the only sign of something not completed, and there was nothing to show what had made Gemma mark those lines.
With the feeling that her legitimate investigation was now turning into snooping, Roz flicked through Gemma’s diary to see if she had a to-do list that might clear things up. Nothing. Aware that she was now looking at things she had no business to look at, Roz dumped the report on her desk and went to find Luke.
The door to his room was pushed to. Roz opened it and went in. An audio tape was playing, a crackle of background noise, tape hiss and, buried under it all, voices. Luke was standing by one of the computers, looking at the screen display. An acoustic profile appeared on the screen. Luke highlighted a section. He didn’t look up, but said, ‘Coffee’s in the pot.’ He usually had coffee on the go to feed his caffeine habit, and Roz – and Gemma – came to Luke’s room, rather than the coffee bar or, worse still, the machine. He was locked in a war of attrition with Joanna, who liked clear lines of demarcation – coffee in coffee lounges, books in libraries, work done at desks.
Roz looked over his shoulder at the screen. ‘What’s that?’ she said. He seemed distracted.
‘It’s that surveillance thing from Manchester. They want this tape cleaning up. If they’d get some decent equipment it’d save them a fortune,’ he said. He was sampling the background noise to remove it from the tape; a simple job now there was software that could handle the whole process. He pressed a button on the keyboard, and the tape played. This time, the voices were free of the obscuring noise, but they were distorted, wavering and echoey. He hit another key, and the screen cleared. He turned round and looked at her.
‘Have you got the results from our last run with the software?’ she said. Luke was working with her on her analysis of the police interview tapes.
‘I got those on Wednesday. Don’t you ever listen?’ He hit a key and the screen in front of him went blank. He looked across at her now. ‘So. Roz. No coffee, then?’
‘I’ll have some while I’m here.’ She took a cup down from the shelf and filled it. The coffee was thick and black. ‘You?’ He shook his head, leaning back against the desk, waiting to see what she wanted. ‘Gemma,’ she said. ‘Joanna was really pissed off. Have you heard anything?’
‘Like what?’ He seemed slightly defensive, the way he always was with her, these days. For a moment, she thought he wasn’t going to say anything else, then he added, ‘She was going to come across to mine last night, after she got back, if she wasn’t too tired. She said she might phone, but she didn’t.’ He shrugged.
‘Oh.’ Roz didn’t know what to think. She told him about the e-mail.
‘That’s shit,’ he said.
Roz was irritated. Joanna seemed to be holding her responsible for Gemma’s absence, and now Luke was being obstructive and difficult. ‘Come off it, Luke,’ she said. ‘It’s there in the mail. All I’m asking is, has she been in touch with you? And you’re saying that she hasn’t. That’s all I wanted to know.’
He ignored her, and stared into space, his hands in the pockets of his jeans. ‘That’s shit,’ he said again. There was a slight frown on his face now. ‘What time was the mail?’
‘I don’t know. Last night, I think.’
‘Why would she stay over in Manchester? It doesn’t make sense.’
Roz was surprised. She hadn’t really thought about it. She’d been annoyed that Gemma hadn’t phoned in the first place, and then hadn’t had the courtesy to follow the message up with a phone call this morning, but had assumed that she was tied up with the rigmarole of garages, repairs and all the rest of the hassle that came with a broken-down car. ‘How do you mean?’ she said.
‘Why didn’t she get a train back? She knew the meeting was important.’
Roz thought about it. It still didn’t seem a matter to spend much time on. It was a bit odd, but Gemma would explain when she got back. ‘Maybe she couldn’t get to the station,’ she said.
‘That’s what I mean. If she couldn’t get to a station, she must have been on her way back when the car broke down. She wouldn’t have been able to find a hotel either. She’s got AA. They’d have got her home if the car was too bad to fix at once. If she was still in Manchester, why go to all the expense of a hotel? Get a train, come in for the meeting, go back later and pick the car up. Simple.’
When she thought about it like that, it was odd. ‘I think…’ she said, when the door flew open and Joanna was there. She looked at them, and Roz could see the picture it formed in Joanna’s mind, she and Luke leaning against the desks, drinking