The Lost

‘Look, Marie—’

‘Three quarters of a million pounds! Three fucking quarters of a million, and I won’t see a penny of it, thanks to you.’

He’d tried calling her that morning, feeling he ought to explain about the bedsit. In hindsight, he should have known when she didn’t pick up or respond to his message. From what Fletcher had said, the police had already interviewed Dylan, so Marie would know what had happened. But he’d felt obligated to explain to her in person. When she didn’t call him back, he’d driven over to her house, hoping she hadn’t already left for her sister’s.

Bad idea.

‘It’s obvious Gav wanted us to have it, but oh, no! You had to stick your nose in, didn’t you?’ she yelled. ‘And now the police are asking all sorts of questions. They’re even acting like Dylan did something wrong! He was only going to that place to be close to his dad. He didn’t want to upset me, that’s why he’d not said anything. He swears he didn’t even know the money was there, and my son’s no liar!’

Jonah wondered if Dylan had mentioned the dope he’d been smoking, or if that had slipped his mind as well. He tried to get a word in again.

‘Marie, if you’d just let me—’

‘Everything OK, Mum?’

Dylan had appeared in the hallway behind her. He dropped a packed bag onto the floor next to the two suitcases that already stood there, looking out at Jonah with an expression of smug spite.

‘It’s fine, sweetheart, you go and finish packing,’ Marie told him. She turned back to Jonah with renewed venom.

‘Christ, I wish I’d never asked you to help. No wonder Gav stopped talking to you, he knew what a fucking disaster you were! Jonah by name, Jonah by fucking nature. Just stay away from us in future. I don’t want to set eyes on you again. Ever!’

The door slammed in his face.

‘Always a pleasure, Marie,’ he said to the closed door.

Turning away, he went back to his car. He couldn’t blame Marie for being angry. From her perspective all he’d done was bring even more trouble down on them. The fact that he hadn’t had any choice, that his actions had been dictated by events, wouldn’t cut any ice with her any more than it had with Fletcher.

Or with himself either, come to that.

Jonah had lain awake half the night, second-guessing everything he’d done. But most of his self-flagellation rested on the possibility that it really had been Stokes outside the bedsit, that he’d made the wrong call and let him get away. If that were true, then he deserved Fletcher’s contempt. Yet Jonah still couldn’t bring himself to believe that. There had only been Jonah standing between whoever was outside and three quarters of a million in used notes.

If that had been Stokes, surely he’d have tried to take it?

Discovering the money had changed everything. It seemed to settle once and for all the question of whether or not Gavin had been corrupt. And as Jonah had watched dawn break outside his flat window, another disquieting thought had occurred to him. Regardless of who’d been at the bedsit, Stokes had been looking for something when he’d broken into Marie’s house. The obvious conclusion was that it was the money, yet how could Stokes have known about that?

Unless Gavin had told him.

Jonah still didn’t want to believe that Gavin and Stokes could have been working together, but there was a queasy logic to Fletcher’s suggestion. For one thing, there were still the three warehouse victims to factor in. Nadine, Daniel Kimani and the second, as yet unidentified, man. At first glance, Kimani’s presence seemed to undermine the theory that the murders were trafficking-related. That had always seemed strained, especially since Fletcher had said Stokes had no known gang affiliations.

But Gavin did. And three quarters of a million pounds was a motive all by itself. People had been killed for a lot less, which raised all sorts of new and unsettling possibilities about the victims. And if... if... Gavin had been working with Owen Stokes, was it too big a stretch to think that might have led to him stumbling across something to make him re-evaluate what happened ten years ago?

Something about Theo?

Which brought Jonah full circle. All the way back to why Gavin had phoned him that night. Gavin’s motives might be more complex than anyone knew. Maybe the money and the idea of trying to make amends for past mistakes weren’t mutually exclusive, at least in his mind. Maybe one led to the other, and Owen Stokes, the warehouse victims and all the rest of it were inextricably linked together.

Or maybe Jonah was just clutching at straws.

Starting the car, he drove away from Marie’s. He hadn’t felt this adrift or helpless since Theo had disappeared, and he was still no closer to making sense of any of it. But there was one place he might find answers.

Although he’d have to stop off first.