The Lost

Except everyone had been wrong.

Climbing wearily from the Volvo, Jonah locked it and set off down the dark street. A fine rain was falling, but he was oblivious. The weight of Salim’s phone in his pocket felt like an accusation. He knew accepting it could have been a mistake, tying him to a woman who’d allowed another to die in her place, and whose ‘friends’ had access to confidential information from a murder enquiry. Jonah didn’t need the bruises forming on his arm from her bodyguard’s fingers to tell him that Salim was dangerous.

Yet she wanted Owen Stokes as badly as he did, and he’d instinctively felt he could trust her that far, at least. The discovery that Nadine was her sister threw a whole new light on what had happened at the warehouse. Including Gavin’s reasons for being there. Whether Nadine had somehow traced him or fallen foul of Stokes on her own, he must have found out and tried to do for her what he’d failed to do for her sister. Save her.

This time it had cost both their lives.

Which left Jonah with an impossible choice. Fletcher needed to know who Nadine was, yet Salim’s fear that Jonah might tell anyone about her had been real. If he betrayed her trust that would make him no better than Gavin.

So what did he do?

A wave of fatigue settled on him as the well-lit entrance to the flats came into view. Suddenly it was all he could do to put one foot — or crutch — in front of the other. In the past twenty-four hours he’d discovered Corinne Daly’s body, been arrested and released on bail, and come face-to-face with a woman he’d thought was dead. It was a busy day, by any standards. Right now, he needed food and he needed sleep. Whatever decisions he had to make could wait till tomorrow, he decided.

That’s when he saw the hooded figures across the street.

There were three of them, half hidden in the shadows of a shuttered shop doorway. Jonah didn’t need to see their faces to know it was the same young thugs he’d had trouble with before. Oh, come on. Not tonight. He could feel them silently watching him but kept going, as though indifferent to their presence. The illuminated foyer of the flats wasn’t much further. He listened for any footsteps behind him as he approached it. Almost there.

Then one of his crutches snagged the edge of a paving stone.

The stumble was only slight. He caught himself straight away, but it broke the steady rhythm he’d been keeping. As though they’d been waiting for it, he heard hurried footsteps on the street behind him.

‘Hang on, mate.’

Jonah ignored them and kept going. He wouldn’t make it to the foyer, but the forecourt in front of it was lit with security lights. At least there any attack could be seen, for all the good that would do.

‘I’m talking to you, bastard!’

Jonah knew then he wasn’t even going to make it as far as the forecourt. There was a wall at one side, though. Veering over to it, he stopped and turned round so it was at his back. The three youths halted in front of him. He recognised baseball cap and acne from the lift. The third he didn’t know, but he had a wired look that said he was on something as well.

The acned one grinned. ‘Got the time?’

Jonah said nothing. He shifted his weight on his crutches, bracing himself on his good leg.

‘I like your crutches,’ the third one said. ‘Can I have a go?’

There were sniggers. Jonah glanced around, hoping to see someone passing who might phone for help if this kicked off. But the four of them were alone.

‘I’m a police officer. You don’t want to do this.’

‘So where’s your fucking uniform?’

‘He’s part of the cripple unit,’ baseball cap said. ‘His crutches have got sirens.’

There were guffaws.

‘Come on, show us,’ the third one said, grinning. ‘Turn them on.’

The one wearing the baseball cap started making a siren noise.

‘I said fucking turn them on!’ the third one said, no longer grinning. ‘Come on, bastard, do it!’

He kicked out, intending to take one of Jonah’s crutches out from under him, but Jonah had been waiting for that. He snatched the crutch out of the way, hooking it under the youth’s foot as it swung past. He was hoping to sweep it up so he’d fall, but the crutch didn’t have the heft. The youth was caught off-balance, but before Jonah could follow up something slammed into him from the other side.

The air was driven from him as he smacked down onto the rain-wet tarmac. Pain lanced from his knee as he abandoned the crutches, curling himself into a tight ball. He knew what was coming next.

And then the kicking started.

‘Bastard! Fucking Bastard!’

Jonah was buffeted as kicks and stamps rained down. He tried to keep his back wedged against the wall to protect his kidneys, ignoring the pain in his knee as he focused on covering his head and groin. A kick got through his forearms to glance off his jaw with a thock. Jonah snatched blindly at the foot and pulled. There was a shout and a heavy body crashed down on top of him, winding him again. But it gave a respite from the kicking, and before whoever had fallen had the chance to recover, Jonah grabbed hold of him. Twisting round so the fallen body was in front of him, he wrapped arms and legs around the thrashing limbs and clamped down.