The Lost

‘You want me to bring it out for you?’ Stan asked. He sounded irritable, but Jonah had known him long enough not to take any notice.

‘How much do I owe you?’

‘I’ll put it on your next bill.’ Stan levelled a finger and fixed him with a baleful glare. ‘Check the tyre pressures, OK?’

Getting back behind the wheel of a car was trickier than he’d expected with his bad knee, but at last he managed it. He sat there for a moment, enjoying the feeling. It wasn’t much of an achievement, but it meant a return to something like normality. Jonah hadn’t realised how much he’d missed that.

He just wasn’t looking forward to where he was going.

He’d avoided giving Fletcher a straight answer when he’d asked for Chrissie’s address. They hadn’t been in contact with each other for years, but he knew where she’d last been living. She’d married Neil fucking Waverly six months after their divorce came through, and it hadn’t taken long on social media to check that they were still at the same address. He knew he was risking antagonising the DI even more, but Jonah rationalised that he hadn’t exactly lied. He just wanted a chance to talk to Chrissie before they did.

It was better if she heard about Owen Stokes from him rather than them.

The house was part of an elegant Georgian terrace, tucked away behind a beech hedge and mature lime trees near Primrose Hill. A stainless-steel intercom was set into a stone gatepost next to the ornate wrought-iron gate. Pausing to rub his knee, which was stiff and sore from the drive, Jonah pressed the buzzer and waited.

‘Hello?’

The woman’s voice was distorted by the intercom, making it hard to identify. Jonah leaned closer to the grill.

‘Chrissie?’

There was a pause before the voice came back. ‘No, I’m sorry. Mrs Waverly isn’t at home.’

He could hear what sounded like a Spanish accent. Since when did Chrissie have staff? Thanking her, he started back towards his car on his crutches. He intended to wait, but he hadn’t gone very far when a white Range Rover went past. He caught a glimpse of a blonde woman before it pulled into one of the residents-only parking spaces outside the house he’d just left. The rear doors opened, disgorging two young children in school uniforms. A boy and girl of six or seven, alike enough to be twins, noisily continuing whatever argument they’d been having inside the car.

When the woman climbed out after them, Jonah’s first thought was that it must be a neighbour. The blonde hair had subtle highlights, and she had sunglasses pushed onto the top of her head. She was slimmer than Chrissie had been, and her clothes were the sort of expensively overstated style a woman who lived on this street and drove a new Range Rover would wear. The little boy was tussling with the little girl as they waited by the gate.

‘Mum, tell her!’

‘It’s not me, I haven’t done anything!’

‘Oh, for God’s sake, Abigail, be quiet! You too, Harry! I won’t tell the pair of you again.’

As she went to the electric gate, Chrissie gave a cursory glance in his direction, automatically threat-assessing the stranger with the stubbled head and crutches. She turned away, then slowed as she looked again.

‘Hi, Chrissie,’ he said.

He saw her face harden, the middle-class mother replaced by the ex-wife he remembered.

‘Mummy needs to fetch something from the car,’ she told the boy and girl, unlocking the gate with a fob. ‘Tell Rosa you can go on PlayStation.’

They forgot their argument and ran excitedly down the path. He’d known she had kids — he’d seen that much on her social media — but the reality of it hadn’t sunk in until he saw her with them. Chrissie had a new family. One that had nothing to do with Theo.

‘I didn’t recognise you,’ she said. Her voice was neutral. Wary.

‘Same here. You look good.’

He meant it. Now he was closer he could see there were a few more lines around her eyes and mouth, but she looked tanned and fit in a tailored white jacket and skin-tight jeans that showed off her figure. The heavy gold chain around her neck probably cost more than his car. Even her perfume was different, smelling of sandalwood and money.

‘What do you want, Jonah?’

Yep. It’s Chrissie, all right. ‘We need to talk.’

She stood by the open gate, one hand still on it as though ready to either escape inside or bar Jonah entry. ‘Why?’

‘I don’t want to go into it in the street. Can we go inside?’