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“—but it’s not going to take the police long to come sniffing around. Noemie has a cottage, though. She bought it to work in, years ago. It’s down near Rye, and we spend the weekend there sometimes. It’s nothing fancy, I don’t think it’s even got central heating in fact, but it’s quiet and isolated, and it’s in Noemie’s name so it’s one step further down the chain from you. You could stay there while you figure out your next move.”
His words gave me an uncomfortable knot in my stomach—perhaps because they echoed the questions that had been whispering at the edge of my subconscious all night: What the hell had I been thinking? And what was I going to do? I couldn’t keep running forever.
“That’s part of the problem,” I said. “I—I honestly have no idea what my next move is. I didn’t plan any of this, and now—now I’m stuck. My only way out is through.”
“Through? What do you mean, through?”
“I mean, I have to find out who killed Gabe.” There was an edge in my voice that sounded, even to my own ears, on the verge of desperation. “I have to. Nothing else matters.”
“But, Jack…” Cole’s face was alarmed. “If you’re right—if this was a hit rather than just some punk after Gabe’s computer equipment, or a burglary gone wrong—these people are dangerous. You could end up being killed yourself. I really don’t think you should go poking tigers.”
“I… don’t care.” It was the first time I had said the words aloud, though they had hovered at the edge of my conversation with Helena, unspoken, unadmitted even, but only just. “If it’s that or rot in prison for the murder of the man I love—”
Suddenly I could barely speak. The unshed tears were back, thick and clotting at the back of my throat, making it hard to get the words out. The bitterness of it crashed over me again like a wave. Gabe dead. Our life in ruins. The police hunting me for a crime I hadn’t committed and Gabe’s killer—Gabe’s killer… If I didn’t think about it, if I just kept putting one foot in front of the other, concentrating on one step at a time, then I could keep going, just. But Cole’s words had made me look up, had made me think about my situation and what I was doing, for the first time since I had left the police station. And the unfairness of it all made me gasp.
“Jack, no.” Cole’s voice was quiet, but there was something horrified there too. “Please, please don’t say that. I can’t send you out there wondering if you’re going to do something stupid to yourself—”
“I’ve already done something stupid,” I said flatly. “When I walked out of that police station. I marked myself as suspect number one. The only important thing is tracking down who did this, because if I don’t find out who killed Gabe, my life is over anyway. I have nothing to live for, don’t you get that?”
“Jack, no,” Cole said again, and this time his voice cracked. “Please don’t say that, Gabe wouldn’t want—”
He stopped. I squeezed my eyes shut, feeling the threat of the ever-hovering tears that never seemed to actually come. Because that was the worst thing—he was right. Gabe wouldn’t have wanted any of this. He wouldn’t want me to be doing this, to be throwing myself into some twisted fantasy of revenge. But guess what—Gabe wasn’t fucking here. He had gone and got himself killed, and left me here alone. So there was nobody but me to sort this out—nobody but me to decide what to do.
For the moment, I had the briefest, strangest hallucination—of the rubbery warmth of a Bluetooth headpiece in my ear, of Gabe’s voice, low, intimate, keeping me company as he always did on a job.
You got this, babe.
I squeezed my fists tight, until my nails dug into the soft skin of my palms, hating him for the liar he was.
And then Cole’s arms were around me again, and I was grinding my face into his shoulder, wishing, wishing more than ever that I could cry, that the tears would come, that I could lose myself in the release of sobbing.
“How could he leave me?” I was saying, my voice breaking on the last syllable. “How could he, Cole? Why didn’t he fight them? Why did he let this happen?”
Cole didn’t answer, he just stroked my back, but I knew the truth. Gabe left me because he didn’t have a choice. Just like I hadn’t had a choice when I’d run from that police station. I had seen no other option.
And I had no other options now—but to keep going, and to try to find out who had done this to Gabe. And after that? But I couldn’t think that far ahead.
Solve the next problem. And then the next one after that.
Keep putting one foot in front of the other.
Until you can’t walk any further.
Braving Charing Cross train station felt… well, it felt insane, if I was being honest. Walking across the concourse, in front of the very eyes of the British Transport Police officer standing lazily with his back to a pillar, it felt like I was walking into a giant public-transport-shaped trap.
But I looked, I knew it, very different from the woman who had bolted from the police station yesterday morning. My red hair was gone, and with Cole’s help and a pair of scissors from his desk, I had cut the rest short, into a pretty good approximation of a white-blonde crop. I had also borrowed a pair of Cole’s sunglasses and a coat that Noemie had left in his office—a beautiful, long, camel-colored trench that must have cost an unthinkable amount of money, I could tell from the softness of the wool as I pulled it on. But Cole was adamant: I had to take it. I could leave it at the cottage if I really wanted to, he said, but Noemie wouldn’t care either way—she hadn’t even noticed that it had been hanging behind his office door for six months. Beneath my jumper, I had rolled up the fleece and taped it around my belly in the semblance of a baby bump—a pretty good one, as long as you didn’t touch it. The only thing slightly out of place was the bag on my back—it hinted at gap-year traveler more than yummy mummy, but I hoped I could style it out.
As I passed a darkened shop window at the entrance to the station, I glanced at my reflection. The police were looking for a red-headed fugitive in a cheap rain jacket. The woman gazing back at me was a well-dressed pregnant blonde in D&G shades and a coat that probably cost north of two grand. The effect was… well, it was pretty impressive, I had to hand it to Cole. I looked nothing like the frightened girl who had ambushed him outside his office just a few hours ago. Even so, walking directly past the police officer in the entrance was a bad moment.
At the ticket machine I paid cash, my fingers shaking as I tried to navigate the fiddly touch screen and feed the crumpled notes into the slot. As the tickets printed with agonizing slowness, I glanced up at the board to make sure I had the time and platform right. I didn’t want to board too early and risk being trapped on the train if something happened. But I couldn’t leave it too late either. I had five minutes to spare, which was about perfect.
The final receipt spat out into the tray, and I scooped everything up and swiped my way through the ticket barrier. The temptation to lower my head as I walked below the CCTV camera facing the barrier was almost irresistible, but I knew it was only one of many. Besides, hiding my face would attract all the wrong kind of attention. Instead, I reached into the pocket of the trench coat and drew out my phone, pretending to study the screen. A woman shading her face as she passes below a camera—massive red flag. A woman engrossed in Twitter as she crosses the platform—two a penny.
Still, I was sweating beneath the wool coat by the time I picked a carriage and tried to figure out the best seat to take. One by the door, for easy getaway if the police boarded the train? Or one further down the carriage, where they would take longer to find me? On the whole I preferred the entrance—the chances of them getting on at my exact carriage seemed low—but the seats there were all full.
I was still dithering when a young man in one of the priority seats stood up.
“Here you go, love.”
