The Lost

He’d reached the fencing outside the old warehouse. There were signs of life inside. The whole of the building was now covered with scaffolding, encasing it in a giant cage. Intact polythene had replaced the tattered sheets, the plastic billowing in slow motion as it caught the faint breeze. The sight caused a momentary tightening in Jonah’s chest, as though something had taken his breath. But it was quickly gone.

A new sign had gone up, showing an architect’s optimistic imagining of ‘a landmark new project’ of retail outlets, bars and restaurants. The development was now being called Lugger’s Quay, but changing the name wouldn’t erase what had happened there. The murder enquiry remained open, despite the events on the boat. Or perhaps because of it. Unsurprisingly, Fletcher had been incredulous when he’d heard Jonah’s story.

‘So now you’re saying it was McKinney rather than Owen Stokes. Slaughter Quay, Corinne Daly, the abduction of your ex’s twins — McKinney engineered all of it.’

‘That’s right,’ Jonah had told him.

Lying there in the hospital bed, with his knee mangled and his head freshly shaved and stitched, he’d had an uncomfortable sense of déjà vu. The DI mopped at a running eye with a tissue.

‘And then, just as he was about to kill you as well, someone came onto the boat, calm as you like. Killed or disabled McKinney, and then magically disappeared along with him. Leaving you, the kids and a hundred grand in ransom money behind. But you don’t know why, and you didn’t see who it was.’

Jonah agreed once more.

‘Are you taking the piss?’

It was hard to say which offended Fletcher the most, the idea that Jonah could have made something like that up or the possibility that it might be true. As the DI had pointed out — loudly, and at length — this was the second time Gavin’s body had disappeared, with Jonah as the sole witness.

But even the DI couldn’t dispute the evidence. Although there had been no further sign of Gavin, the scene on the boat told a clear story. When Jonah had hauled himself outside onto the deck that night, he’d found they were moored at a concrete jetty outside a strip of unused industrial units. He’d described landmarks to the emergency operator as best he could, but by then they’d already located his mobile phone. Within a few minutes he’d heard the chop of a police helicopter overhead, the bright shaft of its searchlight stabbing down. Soon afterwards there was a marine unit boat moored alongside and police cars swarming the area. The twins had been taken away in an ambulance, still drowsy, but the paramedics had said their vital signs were good. Either Gavin had decided to wait till later before committing an act even he must have baulked at, or he’d had a change of heart.

Jonah hoped it was the latter.

This time there was more evidence of Gavin’s presence than the blood he’d left at the warehouse. The indentation in the panelling that Jonah had seen in the passageway was consistent with a skull being rammed into it. Skin and blood from that had yielded Gavin’s DNA, which was also found with his fingerprints all over the boat. There was clear evidence that he’d been living on board, navigating the river mainly at night and holed up in out-of-the way moorings.

His fingerprints and DNA were also found in the Transit van that had been used to abduct the twins. That was parked by the jetty, next to Jonah’s hired Volvo. Gavin had driven him to the boat in that while Jonah was unconscious, leaving Wilkes’s body to be found in his own car at Slaughter Quay.

Even so, without Gavin’s body, Fletcher might have argued that there still wasn’t enough to support Jonah’s story. But a police raid had recovered the laptop that Dylan had sold to his dealer. Its hard drive was intact, and on its search history was the dating website where Gavin had found the lookalike whose body Jonah had seen at the warehouse. The man was a thirty-eight-year-old estate agent called Neill Davison, who had gone missing after telling friends he was going on a date with someone he’d met online. The resemblance to Gavin was superficial — similar age, height and build, both with dark curly hair. But face down in the dark warehouse, covered in Gavin’s blood and wearing his clothes, watch and wedding ring, it was enough.