The Lost
- Автор: Бекетт Саймон
- Серия: Jonah Colley #1
- Год: 2021
- Язык: английский
- Год: Orion/Trapeze
- ISBN: 978-1-398-70690-3
- Жанр: Триллеры
Электронная книга - «The Lost». Краткое содержание книги:
Ten years ago, the disappearance of firearms police officer Jonah Colley’s young son almost destroyed him.
A GRUESOME DISCOVERY
A plea for help from an old friend leads Jonah to Slaughter Quay, and the discovery of four bodies. Brutally attacked and left for dead, he is the only survivor.
A SEARCH FOR THE TRUTH
Under suspicion himself, he uncovers a network of secrets and lies about the people he thought he knew — forcing him to question what really happened all those years ago...
Pain exploded in his arm as Gavin swung the cosh again. And again. ‘I fucking warned you!’
‘I saw her yesterday!’ Jonah yelled, trying to evade the blows. ‘She’s alive!’
The beating stopped. Cautiously, Jonah uncurled himself. Gavin still held the cosh raised, but now he lowered his arm as though he’d forgotten about it.
‘You’re lying,’ he said, but it was a reflex.
‘Then how did I know she looked like Nadine?’
Gavin took a step backwards. He half fell back onto the seat.
‘She can’t be. It’s not possible, I saw...’
He trailed off. Jonah pushed himself upright, shaking from pain. He felt only a small compunction at telling Gavin about Salim. She’d told him not to tell anyone, but even she couldn’t have foreseen this.
‘It wasn’t her body at the flat,’ he went on, relentless now. ‘You all assumed it must be her and Wilkes screwed up the identification. But she’s alive. I know how to get in touch with her.’
The look Gavin gave him held a wild hope, but also fear. ‘No. No, that’s... How?’
Jonah kept his eyes away from the phone Eliana Salim had given him. ‘Cut me loose and I’ll tell you.’
Gavin gave a broken laugh. ‘Do I look fucking stupid? Why shouldn’t I just beat it out of you?’
‘You can try, but then you won’t know if I’m lying or not. And if you kill me, you’ll never find out.’
Jonah could feel the rapid beat of his heart. He tried to stay outwardly calm as Gavin thought it through.
‘I’m not going to let you go,’ Gavin said at last. ‘We both know that’s not going to happen, but I’ll make you a deal. I kept you alive because I was in two minds about something. So let’s swap. You tell me what you know, and I’ll tell you something in return.’
Jonah had always known it was a long shot. But this wasn’t what he’d expected. Gavin’s confidence had returned. There was something knowing, almost cruel about the way he was looking at Jonah.
He felt the first presentiment that this was about to get even worse.
‘What?’ he asked, afraid to hear.
Gavin’s smile was a travesty.
‘I know what happened to Theo.’
Chapter 34
The young woman crouched down by the pushchair, smiling as she tucked the blanket around its small occupant.
‘Who’s a beautiful little girl, then? Yes, you are! You’re Mummy’s little angel.’
Her English was good but slightly accented. She was attractive but underweight, with dark shadows under her eyes that told of sleepless nights. Although her clothes were clean they were cheap and worn, and while the pushchair looked passable from a distance, up close the wear and tear was obvious on that as well. It was serviceable but rusted, with one stiff wheel that tended to squeak and stick.
Still, it served its purpose.
There weren’t many people in the park. A wino was drinking on a bench some distance away, lost in his bottle. Other than that, the only other users were the man and small boy in the playground. She watched them over the top of the pushchair, making yet another adjustment to the blankets and waggling the fluffy toy rabbit back and forth. They’d been there about half an hour, the father first pushing his son on the swings, then being led by him to the other playground equipment in succession. The little boy’s laughter carried clearly in the cold air, and the warmth in his father’s smile was infectious.
They were on the roundabout now. Or rather, the boy was. The father was on a nearby bench while the roundabout turned with a rhythmic creaking. The young woman’s baby-talk trailed off as she saw the man’s head droop and rise, droop and rise. Then it sank without rising, his chin tucked onto his chest. Her eyes narrowed.
Was he asleep?
Looking around, she saw that the other park bench was now empty. The wino who’d been there had gone. There was no one else nearby. Only the sleeping father, and the little boy on the slowing roundabout.
And her.
She stood up, scratching at the needle marks under her coat sleeve. She’d been told to just follow and observe, to report back. Nothing else. But this... surely this was an opportunity? It would be worth more than a report, maybe even earn her a night off from working the street.
The little boy had climbed off the now stationary roundabout and gone to the crawl-pipe. Further away from the sleeping father, on the edge of bushes. Twitchy from adrenaline and withdrawal, she looked down into the pushchair. The lifelike doll’s dead eyes stared back at her.
She made up her mind.
‘It was just bad luck.’ Gavin was watching Jonah as you would an unpredictable animal. ‘The people who sent her weren’t interested in you. You won’t remember, but back then I was part of a big joint op with NCA and Interpol, investigating illegal migrants found dead in a railway siding. We knew a gang of local traffickers was involved, but we thought they were just the facilitators for a much bigger organisation working out of the Balkans. We were right, but it turned out we weren’t the only ones doing the investigating. These bastards had been keeping my whole fucking team under observation, looking for weak points. And not just us, friends and family as well. Like you.’
There was a rushing in Jonah’s head. The lamplit cabin with its wood-panelled walls, the shaven-headed man sitting in front of him, had all taken on the hyperreal quality of a nightmare. It wasn’t happening. It couldn’t be.
‘No,’ he said. But he remembered the young mother. Remembered her smiling at him as she’d tucked the blanket into the pushchair. ‘No, she couldn’t have just taken him like that. Somebody would have seen...’
‘Somebody did. CCTV picked her up leaving the park, but the cameras couldn’t make out what was under the blankets. She’d already been picked up going in with the same pushchair, so what was there to suspect? It was just another young mother taking her baby to the park. And Owen Stokes made a much better suspect. Obviously, they tried to trace her, but only as a witness. When they couldn’t find her, no one saw any need to follow it up.’
‘I don’t believe you!’ Jonah felt the onset of panic. ‘Theo would’ve have struggled or... or yelled! Or something! I’d have heard!’
‘But you didn’t, did you?’ Gavin raised the bottle of vodka and took another sip. Slower this time, more measured now he was in control again. ‘She grabbed him before he’d had a chance to make a noise. She was a junkie, you think a four-year-old was going to cause her any problems? As soon as she’d got him far enough away, she gave him a good crack to keep him quiet and pushed him straight out. There was a car parked not far away, and even if he had started to make a fuss, who was going to look twice at another harassed mother with a screaming kid?’
‘No!’ Jonah felt like he’d been kicked in the heart. ‘His shoe was in the culvert...’
‘It was planted, for fuck’s sake. They loosened the cover afterwards so it’d look like he could have crawled in.’
No, no, no... ‘You’re lying! How can you know any of this?’
‘Because the bastards were already blackmailing me. A few days before I’d got an anonymous email, with a video of me fucking a girl I’d picked up in a bar. Turned out it was a set-up. She was working for them, here illegally and underage as well. They gave me a choice. I could either have a retainer of five hundred a week, or they’d send the link to Marie, my chief and the press. Told me I had till the end of the week to decide.’
Gavin broke off to take another drink. Lowering the bottle, he shook his head.