The Invisible Ones Read Free

out the process to charge him more; and there are some unscrupulous investigators out there who would have. These sorts of cases, which make up the majority of our work, can depress you if you let them.
    Today is gray and undistinguished. It’s nearly five o’clock in our offices above the stationer’s on Kingston Road. I tell Andrea, our administrator, to go home. We’ve been killing time for hours, anyway. Hen is out somewhere. Through the double-glazed window with its double layer of dirt, I watch a plane emerge from the clouds, uncannily slow in its descent. I have drunk too much coffee, I realize, from the sour taste in my mouth, and am thinking of calling it a day when, just after Andrea leaves, a man walks into the office. Sixtyish, with gray hair slicked back behind his ears, and bunched shoulders and pouchy dark eyes. As soon as I see him I know what he is: there’s an air, a look about him that’s hard to put into words, but when you know it, you know. Large fists are pushed into his trouser pockets, but when he removes his right hand to hold it out to me I see a roll of crisp new notes—deliberately on show. I guess he’s just come off the races after a good day—Sandown Park’s less than thirty minutes from here. He doesn’t have that nervous, slightly shifty look that people usually have on walking into a detective agency. He looks confident and at ease. He walks into my office as though he owns it.
    “Saw your name,” he says, after shaking my hand with a crushing grip, unsmiling. “That’s why I’m here.”
    That’s not what people usually say, either. They don’t usually care who you are or what you’re called—Ray Lovell, in my case—they just care that they’vefound you in the Yellow Pages under “Private Investigators”—confidential, efficient, discreet—and they hope that you can fix things.
    We have a form, in duplicate—yellow and white—that Andrea gets people to complete when they come in for the first time. All the usual details, plus the reason why they’re here, where they heard about us, how much money they’re prepared to spend . . . all that sort of thing. Some people say you shouldn’t do this stuffformally, but I’ve tried it this way and that way, and believe me, it’s better to get it down in writing. Some people have no idea how much an investigation costs, and when they find out they run a mile. But with this man, I don’t even reach for the drawer. There’ll be no point. I’m not saying that because he might be illiterate but for other reasons.
    “Lovell,” he goes on. “Thought, He’s one of us.”
    He looks at me: a challenge.
    “How can I help you, Mr. . . . ?”
    “Leon Wood, Mr. Lovell.”
    Leon Wood is short, slightly overweight in a top-heavy way, with a ruddy, tanned face. People don’t say weather-beaten anymore, do they?— but that’s what he is. His clothes look expensive, especially the sheepskin coat that must add a good six inches to his shoulders.
    “My family come from the West Country; you probably know that.”
    I incline my head.
    “Know some Lovells—Harry Lovell from Basingstoke . . . Jed Lovell, round Newbury . . .”
    He watches for my reaction. I have learned not to react—I don’t want to give anything away—but the Jed Lovell he’s referring to is a cousin of mine—my father’s cousin, to be precise, who always disapproved of him, and therefore of us. It occurs to me that he hasn’t just seen my name— he’s made inquiries; knows exactly who I am and who I’m related to. To whom. Whatever.
    “There are a lot of us around. But what brings you here, Mr. Wood?”
    “Well, Mr. Lovell, it’s a tricky business.”
    “That’s what we do here.”
    He clears his throat. I have a feeling this could take some time. Gypsies rarely get straight to the point.
    “Family business. That’s why I’ve come to you. ’Cos you’ll understand. It’s my daughter. She’s . . . missing.”
    “If I can stop you there,