Episode 8 · A Name to Find

The driver lowered his foot from the step.

— I didn’t see any shooting.

— I know, Soles said. Tell me about the man you drove.

He kept enough distance that the driver could get into the cab if he wanted to. Maxim stayed beside him, arms folded, watching the office window.

The passenger had needed a lift from a job near the port. The driver knew him by sight from collections at the depot. He had paid cash and asked to be dropped near the garden road.

— Which day?

— Earlier that week. Wednesday, I think.

— Can you check?

The driver took out his phone. A delivery message placed him near the port on Wednesday afternoon. He showed Soles the date but kept the rest of the screen angled toward himself.

— What did he ask you?

— Whether the road went all the way around the old garden. Where you could turn a vehicle. That sort of thing.

— Houses?

The driver rubbed a thumb over the edge of the phone.

— He asked about houses with gates set back from the street. I told him I carry loads, I don’t sell property.

Soles wanted to ask whether he had mentioned the greenhouse. He could almost hear the answer he needed.

Instead, he let the man continue.

The office door banged behind them. Bren came out carrying a delivery sheet, his face already set for an argument.

— I told you to move the truck.

— We’re talking, Maxim said.

— You’re in a working yard.

Soles stepped toward the office wall to clear the bay. Bren put out a hand to hurry him along. The palm caught his shoulder, and Soles stiffened before he could help it.

Maxim caught Bren’s wrist.

— Keep your hands off him.

Bren tried to pull away. Maxim’s grip tightened, holding the arm between them. The driver backed toward the cab.

— Let go, Soles said.

Maxim kept watching Bren.

— He heard you. He’s moving.

— Maxim. Let go.

He released the wrist with a small push. Bren stumbled one step, then came forward again, furious.

Soles moved between them, keeping his body turned so that neither would bump his chest.

— I’m sorry. We should’ve asked you first. We’ll move the truck now. Can I finish talking to your driver by the office?

Bren looked at him properly for the first time. His eyes dropped to the careful way Soles held his left arm against his side.

— You’re the kid from the garden road.

— Yes.

Some of the anger left Bren’s face. He turned it on Maxim instead.

— You could’ve said.

— You could’ve asked.

Soles put a hand against Maxim’s arm before the answer could carry them back into it.

— The truck, he said.

Maxim took the keys and walked away. Bren watched until the engine started, then waved the driver toward the office wall.

— Ten minutes. Then I need that bay clear.

The driver had lost his place in the account. Soles gave him time to find it. Behind them, Maxim parked outside the gate and returned on foot. He stayed back this time.

Soles’s phone rang. The investigator had received both messages and wanted the driver’s number. Soles asked permission before passing it on.

— He’ll speak to you directly, Soles told the driver. You don’t have to remember it perfectly for me.

The man’s shoulders loosened a little.

— I didn’t mean to make this difficult.

— You don’t know me.

— No.

He looked across the yard, searching the collection doors as though the passenger might appear there.

— Big fellow. Close-cut hair. Had a dark shirt on. I remember his hand because he held the cash rolled into it, like he didn’t want anyone seeing how much he carried.

The description fitted. It also fitted plenty of men Soles passed at the port every week.

— Does he have a name?

The driver hesitated.

— Kerr. That’s what they call him here.

Soles repeated it once. The sound was ordinary, short enough to belong on a work sheet or a name above a door.

— Will he know I told you? the driver asked.

Soles had been waiting so hard for a name that he almost missed the question.

— I don’t know. Tell the investigator you’re worried about that.

— That’s reassuring.

— I could promise you something. It wouldn’t make it true.

The driver put his phone in his pocket and looked toward Bren. The owner had heard enough to understand. He set down the delivery sheet and came closer, leaving the argument with Maxim behind him. Soles was glad somebody the driver actually knew was standing there when he answered the next question.

— Do you know where he lives?

— No. He sometimes collects from the old workshops by the river. There’s a place with a shutter and an office window above it.

Bren had been listening from the doorway.

— He signs collections for different jobs, he said. Doesn’t mean the place is his. I’ll find the sheets for the officer.

Soles thanked him. He wanted the sheets now, the address, every name Kerr had ever signed for. Bren had offered a path through the police, and demanding more could still shut it.

He put the phone away.

At the gate, Maxim stopped beside him.

— I nearly spoiled that.

— You nearly broke his wrist.

— He shoved you.

— And the driver nearly left.

Maxim rubbed his own palm, looking back toward the cab. He seemed ready to say something else, then worked his jaw and swallowed it.

— Next time, tell me before I do it.

— I did.

That earned a reluctant breath through his nose.

— Earlier, then.

He put the unloading step beneath the passenger door. Soles climbed in, sat back and waited until the pull in his chest settled.

Maxim closed the door carefully. Then he went around to the driver’s side and spread a folded street map across the wheel.

— We can find the workshop from outside. Just look.

Soles took out his phone and sent the new name to the investigator before he answered.

For the first time, the man at the kitchen door had a name.

Kerr.