The Lost

Chapter 4

Ten years ago

‘Daddy, are you awake?’

He tried to burrow his head into the duvet but it was tugged away from him. He blinked as sunlight jabbed at his eyes.

‘Daddy, wake up!’

A small hand took hold of his cheek. ‘Ow,’ said Jonah.

‘Are you awake?’

‘No.’

There was a cackling laugh. ‘You are!’

I am now. Lack of sleep dragged on him. He’d worked late and hadn’t got in till after dawn. He closed his eyes. ‘No, I’m asleep. I’m dreaming a hideous monster’s sitting on me.’

More laughter. ‘That’s not a monster. It’s me!’

‘Who’s me?’

‘Theo!’

‘No, this is too big to be Theo. It’s definitely a monster. And you know what happens to monsters, don’t you? They get EATEN!’

Theo squealed as Jonah grabbed him and pretended to bite his arm. As the small arms and legs flailed delightedly, the bedroom door opened.

‘You’ll make him sick, he’s just had his breakfast,’ Chrissie said, heading to the wardrobe. She was wearing a short bathrobe, and Jonah took a moment to admire her legs. He enjoyed watching her, and a flicker of interest crossed his mind. But she’d already done her hair, which in Chrissie’s language was a clear ‘hands off’ signal. And even if there wasn’t an excitable four-year-old to consider, it had been a long time since daytime sex had figured in their marriage.

‘OK, champ, you heard your mum.’ Jonah swung Theo off the bed and set him down.

‘I want to go to the funfair!’

‘What funfair?’

‘The one with the castle! By the seaside!’

Not being aware of any fortifications or seafront in North London, Jonah took that to mean it wasn’t an actual funfair. But Theo rarely let reality cramp his imagination, and Jonah didn’t want to either. That would happen soon enough.

‘Tell you what, let’s skip the funfair today. How about the park instead?’

Theo considered. ‘Will there be dragons?’

‘Absolutely no dragons.’

‘What about magic carpets?’

‘No magic carpets, either. But there will be some rusty swings, and a creaky roundabout. And if you’re really lucky, I might let you skin your knees on the slide again.’

More outraged laughter. ‘No!’

‘Oh, you mean you don’t want to go to the park?’

Theo bounced his head in a vigorous nod. ‘Yes!’

‘OK, then. And if you like, we can—’

‘Theo, Mummy needs to get ready for work. Go and watch TV,’ Chrissie cut in.

‘But Mummy...’

‘Now, please.’

Theo looked at his father. Hoping. Jonah gave a rueful smile. ‘Better do as your mum says.’

Dragging his feet, the image of desolation, his son trudged to the door. Jonah waited until he’d left the room.

‘You’re going into work? I thought this was your day off?’

Chrissie was rooting through drawers. ‘Neil asked me to go in.’

Neil Waverly was senior partner in the law firm where Chrissie worked part-time. She’d started off as a pool secretary, but two months ago had been appointed as Waverly’s PA. The lawyer was a few years older than Jonah, and a lot more successful. His cashmere suits were tailored to camouflage an expense account paunch, and he arranged his hair to hide a bald patch. Neither dented his ego. Jonah had started visualising the man’s face when he worked out on the punchbag.

‘Well, if Neil wants you to go in, there’s no more to be said, is there?’ he said. So much for him getting any more sleep today.

‘Don’t start.’

He hadn’t meant to. Couldn’t help it. ‘Can’t somebody else go?’

‘No, that’s what they pay me for. You’re glad enough of the extra money.’ She pulled on a pair of pants under her bathrobe before taking it off. Jonah tried to stifle the suspicion that they were new. ‘Anyway, I don’t complain about you working late shifts, like last night.’

And here we go. But Jonah was too tired to face the same old argument. One he knew he wouldn’t win. ‘I thought we were having a family afternoon,’ he said. Knowing it was capitulation.

‘So did I, but it’ll have to wait. I’ll be late finishing, so I’ll have to meet you at the restaurant later. The babysitter should be here at seven.’

Jonah had forgotten they were seeing Marie and Gavin that evening. ‘Theo’s going to be disappointed you won’t be home when he goes to bed.’

‘It’s only for tonight. You’ll have a better time without me anyway.’ Chrissie reached behind her back to fasten her bra. It had lace insets. Jonah couldn’t remember seeing it before either. ‘Don’t pretend you won’t.’

‘Maybe you should try coming with us sometime.’

‘Maybe you should get off my back,’ she said, turning away.

Which was how most of their conversations ended these days.

Jonah pushed Theo on a rusted swing until his laughter turned to hiccups, spun the creaking roundabout until he felt dizzy himself, and was waiting to catch his son’s small body before he could skin his knee again on the slide. The play area didn’t have much else in the way of equipment: a jungle gym that predated any recent health and safety laws, a lopsided hobby horse that threatened to dislodge its riders, and a crawl-through length of bendy pipe that would have looked more at home in roadworks. But Theo never minded any of that. As far as he was concerned, the play area was a magical place of excitement and laughter, regardless of the cracked tarmac on the park paths, the overgrown rhododendron bushes choking the trees, and the uncut grass that doubled as a minefield of dog waste.

Jonah felt his tension from the scene with Chrissie fall away as he watched his son’s simple joy. He wondered how long it would be before the world ground that away. Not yet, he hoped.

There weren’t many other people in the park. It was an overcast weekday. The morning dog walkers had left, and the only other occupant of the play area was a young mother with a pushchair, busy fussing with her baby’s blankets. It would have been nice if there’d been a potential playmate there for Theo, although he didn’t seem to mind. Most of his friends were at school, but because his birthday fell just outside the cut-off point, he wouldn’t be starting till autumn. Even so, he seemed perfectly content, humming to himself in the bright blue anorak and red bobble hat. Jonah was glad Theo could be happy in his own company. Chrissie said he was like his father, easily satisfied.

She didn’t mean it as a compliment.

Jonah yawned. A short distance from the play area, a man in a grubby combat jacket was sitting on a park bench. His head was shaved and he looked like a rough sleeper, nursing a jumbo-sized bottle of something that probably wasn’t Pepsi. Jonah had clocked him straight away, wary as a police officer and parent for anyone hanging around a children’s play area.

But the man seemed oblivious to anything except the contents of the bottle. Yawning again, Jonah smiled as he watched Theo. His cheeks were pink from the crisp air, matching the colour of his knitted hat as he tried to turn the slow-moving roundabout faster. Jonah stopped himself from warning his son to be careful. You can’t wrap him in cotton wool.

‘Come on, time to go.’

‘Aww...’

‘Don’t you want some lunch?’ There was a park café on the other side of the trees they usually went to, a painted wooden hut that smelled of stewed tea and chips.

Theo considered. ‘One more go on the roundabout.’

‘Just one.’

‘And then the Snake.’

That was Theo’s name for the crawl-pipe. Jonah had already checked it was clear of anything more sinister than dead leaves. Junkies used the park at night, and it wouldn’t be the first time he’d found discarded needles lying about.

Jonah caved, as he always did. ‘OK. Only five minutes, though.’

Lifting his son firmly onto the roundabout, Jonah spun it to the requisite speed and then sat back down. Theo’s face grinned at him as he went past in a blur of blue and red. Smiling to himself, Jonah yawned again. He would have happily stayed at home and had an early night instead of going out. But it would be good to see Marie and Gavin. It had been a while since they’d gone out as a foursome, and Gavin seemed to be having a tough time of it at work. He didn’t go into many details, but from what he’d confided to Jonah he was part of an operation involving a particularly brutal gang of traffickers and drug smugglers from Eastern Europe. Romanian or possibly Russian, because, according to Gavin, trying to gather evidence on them was like grasping smoke. His frustration made Jonah glad he’d chosen firearms. It was no less stressful, but at least in his line of work he generally knew who he was up against.

Jonah rubbed his eyes. Some food would help wake him up. Soup or a sandwich in the park café, and then a quick trip to the duck pond before heading home. Find something on TV to keep Theo entertained and maybe see if he could grab an hour’s sleep before the babysitter arrived. That reminded him that Chrissie had said she’d be late, and from there it was only a small step to Neil bloody Waverly. Was there anything going on there, or was he just being paranoid? His instincts said otherwise. And his instincts were usually pretty good.

He hoped they were wrong this time.

We’ll work it out. We’re both adults. Another yawn overtook him. Christ, he was tired. The roundabout creaked rhythmically as it spun, a mechanical counterpoint to a blackbird singing in the trees nearby. Jonah listened to the gaps between the off-key notes grow longer as it slowed...

The creaking had stopped. So had the blackbird. Jonah’s head suddenly jerked up. Shit, had he fallen asleep? He blinked, realising that the roundabout was stationary and silent.

There was no one on it.

‘Theo?’

A noise came from the crawl-pipe. Jonah breathed out in relief, the sudden fear vanishing before it had time to fully form.

‘Oh, no, Theo’s disappeared. I’d better go to the café and have ice cream without him.’ Jonah got up and went to the pipe. Grinning, he bent down to look in its mouth. ‘I don’t suppose he’s going to be hiding in—’

A blackbird erupted from the pipe, startling him as it broke into panicked flight. Jonah stared into the empty tube, where a circle of daylight stared back from the far end. He straightened.

‘Theo?’

The play area was empty. Theo wasn’t on the swings. Not on the roundabout or see-saw. Jonah could see he wasn’t in the small cage at the top of the slide either, but he hurried over to check anyway.

‘This isn’t funny, Theo, come out now.’

A screen of rhododendrons and leafless trees framed the play area, but there was no blue anorak among them.

‘Theo? Theo!’

The fear was turning into panic. He looked in the pipe again, as though his son might have somehow materialised inside it. Only dried leaves occupied its hollow length. Keep calm, he’s got to be here somewhere. You weren’t asleep that long.

Was he?

‘Theo!’

The impossibility of the small figure not being there was too vast to accept. It couldn’t be. Jonah turned in a circle, looking for anyone who might have seen him. There was no one in sight. The young mother with the pushchair was gone and so was—

Oh, Jesus.

Jonah’s heart was pounding now, really pounding. The bench where the man with the shaved head and combat jacket had been sitting was empty.

‘THEO!’

He ran to the surrounding trees and bushes, searching for some sign, a glimpse of blue. Then as he turned away to call again, he glimpsed something on the ground. A small patch of colour at the fringe of the trees. Not blue. Red.

Jonah ran over.

Lying in the mud and leaves was Theo’s bobble hat.