The Lost

Chapter 26

He’d been arrested.

Arrested.

It didn’t seem possible, even now. But the hard bunk underneath him was real enough. The small, windowless holding cell he was in stank of an astringent disinfectant that failed to hide an underlying odour of urine. A screened ceiling light shone on a lidless stainless-steel toilet and a small hand basin. Jonah had been allowed to keep his crutches but he’d had to surrender everything else. Watch, phone, wallet. His finger ends were smudged from having his fingerprints taken, and the back of his throat still felt scraped from the DNA swab. Even during the worst moments after the warehouse, he’d never considered this was a serious possibility. He’d remained anchored by the certainty that his innocence was a given, that his exoneration was never in doubt.

Now here he was.

Leaning forward on the edge of the bunk, Jonah put his head in his hands and pressed the heels of his palms into his eyes. Trying to blot out the image of Corinne Daly’s body inside the locker. His fault. He might not have killed her himself, but it was because of him that she’d died. He’d underestimated Owen Stokes. Badly. He’d been so fixated on his own agenda, on trying to discover what bearing the carnage at the warehouse might have on what happened to Theo, that he’d overlooked what Stokes might do next.

And how desperate the man might be.

Thanks to Jonah, he was on the run and had lost the money from Gavin’s bedsit. Because Jonah no longer had any doubt at all who he’d heard outside. It had seemed fanciful at the time, but he of all people should have realised what Stokes was capable of. He’d seen first-hand what he’d done to Nadine, to Daniel Kimani and that other poor bastard in the warehouse. Christ, he’d even watched him bundling up and dragging away Gavin’s body.

Yet even after Stokes had brazenly broken into Marie’s house, Jonah hadn’t seen the danger. He’d naïvely assumed the man would compliantly accept the role of fugitive, too busy trying to avoid being caught to be an active threat. The idea that he might hold Jonah responsible for what had happened, that it might be personal for Stokes too, had never occurred to him.

And Corinne Daly had died because of it.

It seemed clear now that Stokes must have broken into the garage twice, the first time more subtle, to plant Corinne’s body there, and the second to make the forced entry more visible when no one reported it. And the recording she’d made in the flat must have seemed like a gift, tying up Jonah’s guilt in a neat bow.

He banged his hands against his head. Oh, you fucking idiot! Stupid, stupid, stupid!

But the outburst soon burned itself out. Self-recrimination wouldn’t get him anywhere, not now. Taking a deep breath he sat up straight, trying to calm himself. To think. He didn’t know why the journalist had been targeted. But Stokes was a killer, that much was obvious. Even leaving aside what may or may not have happened to Theo — and Jonah knew he couldn’t afford to go down that rabbit hole now — he’d already murdered at least four people. He was unlikely to baulk at one more.

Perhaps Corinne had just been in the wrong place at the wrong time, tarnished by her association with Jonah and a convenient prop to frame him. The question of why Stokes would bother to do that still troubled him, but right now that was less important than what the twisted bastard might be planning to do next.

And what Jonah could do about it.

The duty solicitor was a woman in her forties called Farah. She had greying hair and tired eyes, and Jonah expected her to just go through the motions. But she seemed competent, and her questions were probing enough to make him feel the first flicker of hope since Fletcher had read him his rights.

‘How long do you think they’ll hold me?’ he asked, even though he knew what she’d say.

‘For something as serious as this I’ll be surprised if they don’t want to keep you in custody for the full ninety-six hours. Unless they charge you before.’

After that they would either have to charge him or let him go. If they charged him, then he’d be remanded in custody and kept locked up until the trial, for however many months that was. Funnelled into the British criminal justice system as that despised cliché, a police officer turned bad. Even worse than Gavin.

‘I know you’ll hear this a lot, but I didn’t do it,’ he told Farah.

Her smile gave nothing away. ‘We’ll go over things again tomorrow, OK?’

Back in the holding cell, Jonah lay with his arm over his eyes, shielding them from the bright overhead light. He tried to sleep but he might as well not have bothered. Each time he closed his eyes he was greeted by the sight of Corinne Daly’s body, broken and twisted inside the locker like an obscene ventriloquist’s dummy.

He drifted in and out of a thin, fitful sleep in which he never lost awareness of being in the cell. But at some point it must have given way to something deeper, because next he knew he was shocked awake by a metallic clatter. He sat up, with no idea of where he was. Then, as though he’d stepped through a trap door, memory came crashing back. Oh, Christ. He rubbed the fatigue from his eyes and swung his legs off the bunk as a hatch in the cell door opened and a tray was slid inside.

On it was a plate with two slices of anaemic toast smeared with a greasy butter substitute, and a mug of lukewarm tea. Breakfast. Jonah realised he was starving. He’d demolished the toast and was finishing the tea when there was another noise as the door was unlocked. Jonah felt his stomach tense as it swung open, expecting to be escorted back for more questioning.

But it was Bennet who appeared in the doorway, not a uniformed PC.

‘You’re free to go,’ she said.

Jonah thought he must have misunderstood. ‘What?’

‘You’re being released on bail.’

Bail? That wasn’t usually granted for anything as serious as murder, so Jonah had never even considered it a possibility. And it didn’t mean he’d been cleared. He could still be brought back in for questioning or charged at any time. But at least he’d be free until then.

‘How come?’ he asked, relief sweeping through him as he reached for his crutches.

‘We’ve no further questions at this time.’

Pushing himself to his feet, Jonah stopped to look at her. Bennet’s face was as closed as ever, but he thought there was a tension about her.

‘You wouldn’t be releasing me on bail without a good reason. What’s happened?’

She held the door open. ‘Do you want to go or not?’

He did, but now his relief was tempered by suspicion.

‘Why am I being released now?’ he asked, going out into the corridor.

‘You’ll have to ask DI Fletcher.’

She waited for him to go in front of her, but Jonah stayed where he was. She sighed.

‘Now what?’

‘Why won’t you tell me what’s going on?’

‘Look, I don’t have time to argue—’

‘Then tell me why I’m being released.’

Bennet looked on the point of taking his head off, then some of the fight seemed to go from her. She looked away.

‘There’s new evidence.’

Jonah waited, but she didn’t explain. ‘What sort of evidence?’

Again, there was a pause.

‘We’ve had a reported sighting of Owen Stokes at the house where McKinney had his bedsit. One of the residents saw someone matching his description running downstairs, the same afternoon you and McKinney’s son were there. The witness described him as a tall man in a baseball cap, with what looked like either a birthmark or a tattoo on the back of his neck.’

So it had been Stokes at the bedsit. Jonah felt a bitter frustration to think how close he’d been, but that still didn’t answer his question.

‘That only proves Stokes knew about the bedsit,’ he said, setting off down the corridor. ‘It doesn’t have anything to do with Corinne Daly, so why are you letting me go?’

They’d come to a door. Bennet stopped to present her fob. ‘Have you never heard what they say about mouths and gift horses?’

‘Come on, there has to be something you’re not telling me.’

Bennet wrenched on the door when it buzzed. She opened it and stood back for him to go through.

‘The custody officer will return your things,’ she said.

Jonah had lost all sense of time when he emerged from the police station. It had been night when he’d last passed through its doors, and once inside he’d been in a clockless limbo of artificial light. Walking out into broad daylight felt disorientating, as though he had emerged into a different world.

There was a fine mizzle in the air, cold and penetrating. He turned his face up to it as he stood on the wet pavement, relishing the clean feel. Relatively clean, anyway. His clothes were creased and grubby and there was a thick rasp of stubble on his face. With no clear idea of where he was going, he set off down the street. Joining the queue at a bus stop, he boarded the first bus that came without caring where it was going. Even that was a struggle on his crutches, but once he’d paid he found a window seat close to the doors. Taking it, he stretched his leg out as best he could and watched the streets slide by outside.

He felt as though his life had come untethered. The fact that he’d been arrested — for murder — was still too huge a concept to grasp. As the bus swayed and jolted through the traffic, he tried to think what to do. His mistake had been to regard this as a one-way contest, with himself the hunter and Stokes the quarry. He couldn’t afford to do that anymore, not after Corinne Daly. Stokes had obviously been watching him. Stalking him, just as he had Gavin. If he was going to survive, Jonah had to adapt to a frightening new reality.

He was being hunted as well.

It took three changes of bus before he found a route that went close to where he lived. A fresh tension grew in him as he got off at a stop in his neighbourhood and began walking back to his flat. He scanned the street and doorways, alert for any sign of ambush. None came, and the forecourt in front of the flats was deserted except for a group of young kids slouching on bikes. There was no sign of Owen Stokes, or the teenagers who’d thrown the bottle at him, come to that. An elderly woman came out of the flats’ entrance as he was going in. As he stood back to let her pass, she looked at his crutches.

‘Lifts aren’t working,’ she told him.

By the time he’d hauled himself up to his floor, labouring one step at a time on his crutches, Jonah was out of breath and sweating. Unlocking his door, he let himself into his flat. Stripping off his clothes, he showered and then sat on the bed to pull on a clean T-shirt and jeans. His phone was next to him, and as he finished dressing there was the chime of an incoming text. It was from a number he didn’t recognise, and a shock ran through him as he read the short message.