Page 45 of The Secret
“If they’re not expecting any mail, or know it will just be irrelevant mailers.”
“Is that usual?”
“More common than you’d think. They just want an address to look legit or make it look like they’re based here. I don’t care, to be honest, as long as they pay.”
“Okay, thanks,” Boni says. “I’ll call you if I have any more questions.” And he hangs up.
“What does that mean?”
“It means the company is a dead end,” he says, starting the car engine.
What? No! “But how can it be a dead end?” I say as we pull out of the lot.
“Well, physically it’s a dead end. It’s probably a holding company of some kind. There might be a money flow, but …” He looks over at me. “We’d need a court order to find out about that. Happy to do it if you want to, but it would be expensive. You can hide money flows through any number of different companies and accounts and jurisdictions around the world if you’re really committed.”
I want to groan. “Yes, I want you to look into it. Goddammit,” I say, slamming my hand down on the dashboard.
He eyes me sideways. “Horizon only had one director, and that was Dan Andrews.”
What?“So he had a company that paid his rent but he was the sole director? That just has to be suspicious.”
“It’s not uncommon for people to legitimately have a business that they put things through. It’s just an alternative to a personal bank account.”
“So it was just like his bank account, but he used a company name?”
“I suspect so. He probably just needed an address for it that wasn’t the university.”
“Damn.”
The PI jerks his chin up. “Let’s go and meet these guys from his department and see if we can learn anything more.”
But a half hour into the journey to the university, Boni is frowning and glancing in the rearview mirror.
“Is something wrong?” I say.
“There’s a car that’s been following us since we left the industrial park.” He frowns. “Let’s stop off and grab a coffee, see if it stops with us.”
He pulls into a parking space in front of a store and he climbs out, indicating to me to do the same. He watches as the cars go by on the road, then his eyes follow a tan-colored vehicle as it disappears around the bend up ahead. “That was it.”
“Were they following us?”
He shrugs. “Maybe, maybe not. If they’re good at their job, they will have seen us stop and know they’ve been made. They’ll pass the tail on to somebody else. I got the registration. I’ll check it out when we’re back in the office.”
Is he paranoid or do I need to be more careful? The security guard’s comments about drugs and gangs wash through my head. Shit! Was Dan involved in something? I’m so glad I’ve got Boni on my side. I like his realistic no-nonsense caution more and more.
When we reach the university café, a short white guy with close-cropped hair and a good-looking Black guy greet us warmly, introducing themselves as Jeff and Tanaka. And as we make our own introductions of who we are and what we’re doing, their faces fall.
“Has something happened to Dan?” Jeff says.
“We don’t know as yet,” Boni says, pulling out his notebook. “Liss hasn’t had any communication from him since June 11th. I’m treating this as a missing person’s case.”
Jeff’s eyebrows shoot up. “Well, it explains why I didn’t hear from Dan this week to arrange our weekly squash game. I hope we can help. But I have to say that I didn’t know him well outside of that. He kept himself to himself.”
“Did Dan tell you anything about himself? Age, family, maybe where he was born?” Boni asks.
Their smiles falter a little. Jeff looks at Tanaka with a frown, and Tanaka sucks his lower lip into his mouth and looks back at him.
“I’m doing a PhD like he did, same department, slightly different subject area,” Tanaka says. “We talked about research, how we were getting on but not much else. He was a good guy, friendly, always concerned about me.”
