You must leave as few clues as possible. That’s the only rule.
You have to talk to people sometimes; it’s inevitable. There are orders to be given, shipments to be arranged, people to be killed, etc., etc.
You cannot exist in a vacuum, for goodness’ sake.
You need to ring François Loubet? In an absolute emergency? You’ll get a phone with a voice-changer built-in. And, by the way, if it’s not an absolute emergency, you’ll regret ringing very soon.
But most communication is by message or email. High-end criminals are much like millennials in that way.
Everything is encrypted, naturally, but what if the authorities break the code? It happens. A lot of very good criminals are in prison right now because a nerd with a laptop had too much time on their hands. So you must hide as well as you can.
You can hide your IP address — that is very easy. François Loubet’s emails go through a world tour of different locations before being sent. Even a nerd with a laptop would never be able to discover from where they were actually sent.
But everyone’s language leaves a unique signature. A particular use of words, a rhythm, a personality. Someone could read an email, and then read a postcard you sent in 2009 and know for a fact they were sent by the same person. Science, you see. So often the enemy of the honest criminal.
That’s why ChatGPT has been such a godsend. After writing an email, a text, anything really, you can simply run the whole thing through ChatGPT and it instantly deletes your personality. It flattens you out, irons your creases, washes you away, quirk by quirk, until you disappear.
“ChatGPT, rewrite this email as a friendly English gentleman, please.” That is always Loubet’s prompt.
Handy, because if these emails were written in François Loubet’s own language, it would all become much more obvious. Too obvious.
But, as it stands, you might find a thousand emails, but you would still have no way of knowing where François Loubet was and you would still have no way of knowing who François Loubet is.
You would, of course, know what François Loubet does, but there would be precious little you could do about it.
3
"Cat, ginger, unapproachable. Haughty even, the little bugger. Mason’s Lane. Contact attempted but rebuffed. 3:58 a.m.”
Steve puts his Dictaphone back in his pocket. He hears the sound of the ginger cat inexpertly scaling a back fence. It was not often he saw an unfamiliar cat on his walk. It was almost certainly nothing, but almost everything was almost certainly nothing, wasn’t it? And yet some things did eventually turn out to be something. He once caught an armed robber because of a Twix wrapper in a blast furnace. One rarely knows the significance of things at the time, and it doesn’t cost a penny piece to note things down.
Steve turns left on to the top of the High Street, and sees it stretch out like an unspooling gray ribbon before him, lit by the dim bulb of the moon. If you were to visit Axley — and you should, you’d like it — you might think you had found the perfect English village. A gently sloping High Street, looping around a touch at the bottom where it skirts the bank of the village pond. There are two pubs, The Brass Monkey and The Flagon, identical to the tourists but teeming with subtle and important differences to the locals. For example, one flies a Union Jack and the other the Ukrainian flag. There’s a butcher, a baker. No candlestick‑maker, but you will find a little gift shop selling scented candles and bookmarks.
Striped awnings, bicycles leaned against shopfronts, chalkboards promising cream teas or tarot readings or dog treats. There is a church at the top of the village, and a small bookmakers at the bottom of the village, take your pick. Steve used to visit both, and now visits neither.
And, all around, there is the New Forest. The forest is the whole point of the place. The village itself simply found itself a small clearing and settled in. There are walks and trails, the chirrup and buzz of wildlife, and the backpacks and rain macs of the tourists. Stray New Forest ponies some days wander on to the main road and are accorded due reverence. It was their forest long before it was yours, and it will be theirs long afterward too. Axley simply shelters among the trees, curled into a little nutshell.
When Steve first moved here — 12 years ago, was it? Something like that, Debbie would remember, probably 15 the way time goes — it hadn’t fooled him for a second. Steve hadn’t been hoodwinked by the hollyhocks and the cupcakes and the cheery “Good morning” greetings. Steve had seen secrets behind every pastel front door, seen corpses in every back alley and every time the church bells rang in the hour, Steve had heard the chimes of death.
A crisp packet has blown into a hedge. Steve retrieves it and places it in a bin. Monster Munch. They don’t sell Monster Munch in the local shop, so that will have been a tourist.
No, Steve had refused to be fooled by Axley. Twenty‑five years in the police force had taught him to always think the worst of everyone, and everything. Always expect the worst, and you’ll always be prepared. Never let anyone, or anything, take you by surprise.
Ironic, given what soon happened.
Steve stops by the window of the estate agent and peers through the glass. If he was moving to the village today, he wouldn’t be able to afford it. The only way anyone can afford to buy a house these days is to have bought it 15 years ago.
Steve had been wrong about Axley — he’d be the first to admit it. There were no murderers lurking behind the doors, no mutilated corpses in blood-soaked alleys. And, thus, Steve had begun to relax.
Steve had never relaxed as a child; his dad had made sure of that. School? Too bright to fit in but not bright enough to get out. Then joining the Metropolitan Police at the age of 18, seeing the worst that London had to offer, day after day. Sometimes this included his own colleagues. Every day a fight.
Steve takes out his Dictaphone once more. “Pale blue Volkswagen Passat, registration number PN17 DFQ, in car park of The Brass Monkey.” Steve walks around the car. “Tax disc up to date.” There is the wrapper from a Greggs in the footwell. Where is the nearest Greggs? Southampton? The services on the M27?
He resumes his walk. He will go as far as the pond, sit there for a while, then head back up. Of course he will — that’s what Steve does every night.
Axley had transformed Steve. Not all at once, but, smile by smile, favor by favor and scone by scone, the people and the place had taken down the wall that he had built up over so many years. Debbie had told him it would, and he hadn’t believed her. She had been born here, and, when Steve finally left the Met, she had persuaded him to make the move. She knew.
Steve had worried there would be no excitement, no adrenaline, but Debbie had reassured him. “If you get bored, we’re only 20 miles from Southampton, and there are plenty of murders there.”
But Steve didn’t miss the excitement, and he didn’t miss the adrenaline.
Steve liked to stay in; he liked to cook for Debbie; he liked to hear birdsong; he found himself a solid pub‑quiz team. Good but improvable.
A stray cat, a proper bruiser, came to visit them and refused to leave. After a week or two of snarling and bullying, from both Steve and the cat, they each let down their guard. And now you’ll find Steve, reading his paper in an old armchair, Trouble curled up on his lap, purring in his sleep. Two old rascals, safe and sound.
Debbie persuaded him to set up his agency. He was happy not working — she was bringing in enough money from painting — but she was right. He probably needed something to do, and probably needed to contribute something to the community. The name of his agency, “Steve Investigates,” was his idea. He remembers a Sunday lunch when his boy, Adam, had come round with his wife, Amy. Amy is a bodyguard, works with billionaires and oligarchs, always on the other side of the world. Adam does something or other with money. Steve speaks to Amy more than he speaks to Adam. She’s the one who rings; she’s the one who makes sure they visit if she’s in England on a job.
Amy had told him to call the company “Maverick Steel International Investigations.” Branding is very important in the world of private investigations, she had said, but Steve had countered that his name was Steve, and he investigates things, and if that wasn’t a brand, what was?
Amy is working with Rosie D’Antonio, the author, somewhere or other in America. Steve will play it cool when he next talks to Amy, but he will want all the gossip. There’s always gossip when she’s protecting celebrities. Once Amy was working with a singer in a boy band, and he took heroin on an elephant.
“Google America time difference,” says Steve into his Dictaphone.
Steve Investigates keeps him pleasantly busy and adequately afloat. He has a few contacts with insurance companies. If you’ve ever claimed a year’s salary because of a bad back anywhere in the New Forest, Steve has probably sat outside your house at some point, perhaps followed you to the gym. It makes Steve happy to find that people are almost always telling the truth about these things. He’ll look into affairs if you really, really want him to. His only rule is that he won’t travel any distance. Steve doesn’t want to stray too far from Axley. He’ll drive up to Brockenhurst if you need him to, couple of nice pubs up there. At a push he’ll head over toward Ringwood or down toward Lymington, but ask him to go to Southampton, or Portsmouth, and Steve will politely decline.
Get yourself involved in a murder case, say, and before you know it your time is not your own. Steve never misses the Wednesday‑night quiz at The Brass Monkey now. A murder would almost certainly get in the way of that at some point. No thank you.
Steve reaches the pond and takes his customary seat. Debbie’s favorite. The ducks love this bench, but they are all safely asleep now, tucked up, like the rest of the village, Steve keeping watch over them all. Least he can do after everything Axley has done for him.
Steve still remembers that feeling of relaxation, of finally letting life settle around him. Of trusting that people wished him well, and that each day would bring happiness. Of feeling safe. It didn’t work out that way, of course. When does it?
In one sense, Debbie’s death hadn’t taken him by surprise. He’d mentally prepared for it every day since they’d fallen in love. That something would surely take her away. Cancer, heart disease, a car hitting her bike on a country road, a stroke, burglars. Something would steal his immense good luck at loving her, and being loved by her.
In the end it had been a train carriage that derailed as it approached a country station. There had been three people on the platform: Debbie and two other poor souls, who left their lives behind that rainy January day.
And, despite his assiduous preparation, it had taken him by surprise. You can think something often enough, but you will never be prepared for your heart disintegrating.
After Debbie’s death the village gathered around him, carried him through. Walking through this village, where he knows everyone and everyone knows him, Steve is grateful that at least he feels loved. Because if you don’t feel loved, it’s difficult to feel anything at all.
A lone pony wanders by the side of the pond, head bobbing as he walks. Steve eyes him suspiciously. Well, Steve eyes him. His looks are always suspicious. He gets in trouble for it in the pub all the time.
“You should be asleep,” he tells the pony.
The pony turns his head toward Steve, as if to say, “So should you.” Steve accepts that the pony has a point. The pony continues his slow walk, moving across the High Street and down the passage alongside the greetings card shop, stopping to nuzzle something in a dustbin along the way. Axley belongs to Steve once again.
Steve rubs his fingers across the brass plaque on the bench. Debbie’s name, the date of her birth, the date of her death. He presses “record” on his Dictaphone, because otherwise he would just be a man on a bench talking to himself.
“Hey, Debs. We came second in the quiz yesterday. Norman from the shop had his brother‑in‑law staying and he’s been on The Weakest Link, so we had no chance. The gang was going to lodge a complaint — all seemed a bit suspicious, you know — but I took a look at it all when I got back home, and he really is Norman’s brother‑in‑law, so there’s not a lot we can do. Trouble killed a vole, first one in a while; nice to know he’s still got it in him. And he took it into Margaret’s house, not ours, so that was a result. Just saw a new cat on Mason’s Lane, ginger, tough guy, you know the sort. Umm . . . Amy’s working with Rosie D’Antonio, you know, the writer. Very beautiful, people say, but not my type. I’ll send her your love. Amy, not Rosie D’Antonio. I’ll get the gossip for you. There’s a new pie at the shop, chicken and something. I think you can just heat it up in the microwave; I’ll let you know if I feel adventurous. Nothing else this evening. Love you, Debs.”
Steve switches off his Dictaphone and puts it back in his pocket. He pats the bench.
“Love you, doll. I’m going to see if that cat is still around.”
Steve begins his walk back up the High Street. Tomorrow he is resuming the search for a dog that got lost on a local campsite; the owners, down from London, were understandably beside themselves. Steve knows how dogs think — he’ll find him in no time. £500 they’ve paid him, upfront too, cash. Steve would have done it for £50. Londoners and their money are soon parted. And there’s a local shop that has had money go missing from the till. Steve set up a remote camera last week, and he’s going to head over to pick up the footage. It’s the daughter of the owner — Steve worked that out almost immediately. Steve knows how people think too; they’re surprisingly similar to dogs, in actual fact. But the owner isn’t going to believe it was her daughter until she sees the evidence.
Axley is peaceful and quiet, and Steve is grateful for it. Other old coppers he knew, they’re all in their late 50s now, are still chasing around on dodgy knees for dodgy bosses, drinking or smoking or stressing themselves to death. But Steve understands how life ends, and he has no intention of raging against it.
You can’t have the thrills of life without the pain of life, so Steve has decided to go without the thrills. He chooses to watch the TV, to do his pub quizzes, to help people when he can, but always to return to his armchair with a cat called Trouble.
When you arrest someone, you generally get two different types of reaction. Some people kick and scream all the way to the cells, while others go quietly, knowing the game is up.
Who knows when your own game will be up? When you’re standing on that platform and the train derails?
Whenever it might be, Steve intends to go quietly.
Copyright © 2024 by Richard Osman. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
