The Lost

‘Thank you for agreeing to talk,’ the woman said, turning to him.

Her perfume was a spiced musk, heady rather than overpowering. In the muted cabin light, her face was smooth and flawless, the olive skin only lightly touched with make-up. But the hair was straight rather than curled, while the features themselves were subtly altered. And although the young victim who’d called herself Nadine couldn’t have been long out of her teens, the person in front of him was older, though perhaps not by much.

As she settled back in her seat her face was momentarily thrown into shadow. It deepened her eye sockets and cheekbones, so that the skull seemed to press through the skin. Then she settled back into her seat and the illusion was gone.

Now she was the one who seemed nervous.

‘Do you know who I am?’

He hesitated, but the resemblance was too strong to be accidental. And she was too young to be Nadine’s mother.

‘You look a lot like your sister,’ he said.

She inclined her head in acknowledgement. ‘Thank you, but that isn’t what I meant. Do you know who I am?’

She was looking at him as though she expected him to, with an intentness that was discomfiting. He felt something start to shift in his subconscious, the first inkling of a bigger picture he hadn’t even realised existed.

‘My name’s Eliana Salim.’ She gave a small gesture with her hand. ‘Or rather it was.’

It wasn’t so much shock that silenced Jonah as a recalibration. Wilkes had told him Salim had a younger sister, but he’d also said Gavin’s informer had been murdered, her tongue cut out and her body dismembered. The ex-detective hadn’t been lying, Jonah was certain of that. Yet he felt no doubt that the woman sitting next to him was telling the truth. This was Gavin’s lover and one-time informer.

And Nadine’s older sister.

‘I was told you were dead.’

‘Eliana Salim died. I didn’t.’

‘So what do you call yourself now?’

‘That’s unimportant. You were with Nadine when she died. I’d like you to tell me about it.’

Jonah was beginning to recover. ‘If you wanted to talk, why didn’t you say something when I saw you a few nights ago?’

‘I was startled.’ Salim looked down at where her hands lay entwined on her lap, elegant and perfectly manicured. She wore only one ring, an opal set in a plain gold band that looked like trapped moonlight. ‘I come here sometimes, to be where my sister died. But I didn’t expect to see you.’

The surprise was mutual, Jonah thought. ‘Your sister hasn’t been identified. How did you know she was one of the victims?’

Salim smoothed her coat over her lap, outwardly calm and composed. ‘The news reports said the female victim was called Nadine, and that she matched my sister’s description and was believed to be Middle Eastern. That wouldn’t have been enough in itself, but I knew it had to be her when I saw that McKinney was involved.’

Jonah gave her a sharp look at that. ‘Why?’

‘It would have been too much of a coincidence for anything else.’ The dark eyes were solemn and flecked with gold, like a cat’s. ‘Nadine was fifteen when I left Syria. She was living with our aunt and uncle in Aleppo but I hoped to earn enough money to bring her here. Legally, not like me. Unfortunately, because of my... circumstances, by the time I could try to contact her again our aunt and uncle had been killed in a bombing. I learned that Nadine had survived, but she was one refugee out of millions and I had no way of tracing her. I’d been trying to find her ever since. I’d no idea she was even in the country until I saw her name with McKinney’s in the news reports. I couldn’t believe he might know another Nadine, of the same age and description, so I knew then it was her. She must have come here to try and find me and somehow made contact with him, hoping he could help. What I don’t understand is how she found him, or why she came to die in that place.’

That was the second time she’d referred to Gavin by his surname. There was a coldness to the way she said it, and Jonah hadn’t missed how indifferent she seemed to her former lover’s death. That didn’t seem like the love affair Wilkes had made out. But then the fact that Salim was there in the car, alive and well, was proof the detective didn’t know everything.

‘I’m sorry,’ Jonah said. ‘I don’t know that I can tell you much more than you’ll already know.’

‘You were with her.’ The dark eyes were searching as she looked at him. ‘Nadine was the only family I had. I know her death was slow and cruel, but I need to hear what happened. Please.’

She put her hand on his wrist, and suddenly Jonah was acutely conscious of her physical presence. He knew he was being manipulated, but Salim could hardly present herself to the police as next of kin when she was supposedly dead herself. And he could understand why she’d want to know how her sister had died.

So he told her. He limited his account to the basic facts, not dwelling on the more gruesome details but not shying away from them either. When he’d finished, she studied the opal ring, turning it slowly on her finger.