The Lost

Chapter 5

Jonah had just finished breakfast when the detective inspector arrived the next morning. It was still early, and when the door opened he expected it to be a nurse or orderly to collect his plate. Instead, a cadaverously thin man in plain clothes came in, and the sight of him momentarily took Jonah aback. Beneath a thick mop of brown hair, the man’s face resembled a plastic mask that had been melted. Burn scars had alternately drawn the skin to an unnatural smoothness, or else puckered it like dripped candle wax.

His trousers flapped around skinny legs as he breezed in, indifferent to Jonah’s stare or so accustomed to the reaction that he ignored it.

‘Glad you’re back with us, Sergeant Colley. I’m DI Jack Fletcher.’ He cursorily flashed a warrant card before pulling over a plastic chair without asking. ‘The doctor says you’re well enough to be interviewed, and I’m sure you can appreciate there are a few questions we’d like answered.’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Wonderful. But you’re off the clock, so let’s drop the “sir”, shall we?’ The DI settled himself on the chair, fidgeting to get comfortable on the hard plastic. ‘How much can you remember?’

‘Up to trying to phone for help. Nothing after that.’ Jonah paused, for a second transported back to the warehouse’s cold stone floor. ‘How did you find me?’

‘You were lucky.’ It was so blunt as to sound accusing. ‘You managed to call in before you blacked out. Although it took a while to locate you, because you didn’t make much sense.’

Jonah searched his memory, but there was no recollection of any of that. ‘How’s the girl? Nadine?’

Fletcher leaned forward, suddenly intent. ‘How do you know her name?’

‘She told me when I tried to get her out. Is she OK?’

‘Did she say anything else? A second name?’

‘No, she was too weak.’ Jonah didn’t like this. ‘Haven’t you spoken to her yet?’

Fletcher sat back again. ‘None of the victims survived.’

The news hit Jonah hard. He thought of the young woman he’d struggled to save. Jesus, for her to have gone through all that...

‘Do you know who they are?’ he asked.

Fletcher paused before apparently deciding to answer. ‘Not yet. The other two were males in their twenties or early thirties. One was black, the other probably Eastern European, going on his dental work. But we’re still trying to identify them.’

‘What was—’

Jonah was going to ask him about Gavin, but then the door opened again and a woman in black jeans and a leather jacket came in. She looked a year or two shy of Jonah’s own age, dark- skinned and slim, her black curls cropped close to her head. A leather shoulder bag, like a satchel, was slung over one shoulder and she carried two disposable cups with lids.

‘Coffee with,’ she said, handing one cup to Fletcher.

Peeling off the lid, the DI sniffed at the steam rising from it and took a sip. He grimaced.

‘Christ, where’d you find this?’

‘All there was, sir.’

She seemed unconcerned by his disapproval. Without saying anything to Jonah, she went to stand at the foot of the bed.

‘This is DS Bennet,’ Fletcher said, setting down his cup with an expression of distaste. ‘Sergeant Colley was just telling me he spoke to the female victim. Apparently, he tried to get her out. She told him her first name was Nadine.’

The policewoman gave Jonah a speculative look. ‘You uncovered her from the plastic?’

‘Only her face, then I was hit from behind and knocked out.’ He noticed Fletcher and Bennet exchange a look. ‘Wasn’t she uncovered when you found her?’

Fletcher seemed to debate for a moment whether to answer. ‘No.’

Jonah felt sickened. The man he’d fought must have put the plastic back over the young woman’s face while Jonah was unconscious. Making sure she was dead this time.

‘What about the suspect?’ He was almost afraid to ask. Since waking the day before, Jonah had been trying to come to terms with the possibility that he might have killed someone who’d attacked him. He’d known when he became a firearms officer that he might have to take a life during an operation: that was an accepted part of the job. But this was different. He’d been off duty, blundered into a situation he knew nothing about. Self-defence or not, if the man who’d attacked him had died, there’d have to be an inquest. Maybe even charges.

The DI ignored the question. ‘We’re going to record the interview, so let’s get started. Bennet?’

The DS took a digital recorder from her bag. After she’d set it going and they’d gone through the formality of identifying themselves for the recording, Fletcher turned to Jonah.

‘Why don’t you start at the beginning?’

Neither of them interrupted as Jonah told them about Gavin’s call, and how he’d gone out to the quayside. He was faltering at first, but habit and discipline soon clicked in. He’d made countless verbal reports during his career, and as he spoke, the familiar pattern and cadences took over, insulating him from the worst of the memories.

Even so, some threatened to overwhelm him. Describing finding Gavin, then having to watch while his body was wrapped in polythene and dragged away brought it all vividly back. And his breath caught as he relayed the fight and his nightmare crawl to try and call for help.

When he’d finished there was a silence. Jonah felt exhausted, his nervousness mounting as he waited for one of them to speak.

‘I just want to get this straight,’ Fletcher said after a moment. ‘You say you hadn’t had any contact with Gavin McKinney for years, yet you claim he phoned and asked for your help completely out of the blue. He wouldn’t say why, yet you went to meet him at an abandoned warehouse at a place called, God help us, “Slaughter Quay”. At midnight. Have I got that right?’

A headache had started to form, throbbing in time with Jonah’s pulse. ‘Yes.’

‘And when McKinney didn’t show up, you tried calling him and heard a phone ringing from inside the warehouse. So you went to investigate. On private property.’ Fletcher let that hang. ‘Leaving aside the fact that you’re supposed to be a police officer, I’m curious why you’d go running to help someone you claim you hadn’t spoken to in a decade?’

Jonah didn’t like that you claim. ‘I didn’t “go running”. But it sounded like he was in trouble.’

‘What sort of trouble?’

‘Like I told you, he didn’t say.’ Jonah shrugged, uncomfortably aware of the gaps in his story. ‘I’m guessing he must have been working undercover, but why he’d call me, I don’t know.’

‘What makes you think he was undercover?’

‘Why else would he have been there on his own?’ Fletcher’s attitude was sounding a warning bell for Jonah. ‘The language the girl spoke sounded Middle Eastern, and last I heard, Gavin was working trafficking and organised crime. The only thing I can think is that he was following up some lead on an investigation that got out of hand.’

‘So he called an off-duty firearms officer for help instead of requesting emergency back-up?’ One of Fletcher’s eyes had started watering. Taking out a tissue, he began to dab at it unhurriedly. ‘Trust me, Colley, whatever McKinney was doing in that warehouse, he wasn’t undercover. And it wasn’t part of any investigation.’

Jonah was more confused than ever. ‘Then what was he doing there?’

‘That’s the question, isn’t it? Which reminds me...’ Fletcher folded the tissue and put it away. ‘Bennet, will you do the honours?’

The policewoman reached into her satchel again and handed Jonah a small evidence bag. His phone was inside, scuffed and scratched beneath the plastic. He flashed back to it skittering across the warehouse floor when he’d accidentally kicked it. The memory left him clammy.

‘Is that your phone?’ Fletcher asked.

‘Yes. Thanks.’

‘Oh, I’m not returning it,’ the DI said before Jonah could open the bag. ‘I just wanted to confirm it’s yours. And I’ll need your passcode and permission to examine it.’

Jonah felt as though the temperature in the room had dropped ten degrees. ‘Why?’

‘I’d like to check the call data to see when McKinney called you.’ Fletcher’s smile was predatory. ‘We found his phone at the warehouse, but we’re still trying to unlock it. I’m sure you’ll want us to corroborate your story.’

As much as Jonah hated the idea of his private life being pored over, he knew if he refused it would look like he’d something to hide.

‘Have you got something for me to sign?’

Bennet handed him a form and a pen. He made a show of reading it, but the words might as well have been a foreign language for all he could take in. His fingers felt wooden and reluctant as he filled in the form, hesitating over entering the pin number, before finally signing. Bennet took the form and his phone, putting them both back in her satchel.

‘Let’s talk about you and Gavin McKinney,’ Fletcher said. ‘You met at school, didn’t you? Both of you came through the fostering system. He got put in care as a kid, you never knew your parents. Must have given you a shared bond, wouldn’t you say?’

Jonah couldn’t see where this was going. ‘I suppose.’

‘More than “suppose”. McKinney’s wife said the pair of you were thick as thieves at one time. Joined the Force together, best man at each other’s wedding. He was even your son’s godfather.’

There was something about the way Fletcher looked at him that kindled Jonah’s unease. He said nothing.

‘Then about ten years ago the pair of you suddenly lost touch,’ Fletcher went on. ‘McKinney’s wife couldn’t say why, but something must have changed. You’d been best mates for most of your lives and suddenly you stop talking. What happened?’

Jonah didn’t want to talk about this. ‘We’d got families, commitments. We just drifted apart.’

‘Just drifted apart.’ Fletcher nodded, as though that was perfectly reasonable. ‘A pretty abrupt “drift”, if his wife’s to be believed. And it happened not long after you lost your son.’

The question felt like a punch to Jonah’s heart. ‘A lot of things changed after that. I got divorced, I lost touch with people. It wasn’t a good time.’

‘I’m sorry if it’s painful for you,’ Fletcher said, not sounding it. ‘I’m just trying to establish why McKinney would call you for help after a gap of ten years. Not one of his colleagues, not someone he was still in touch with. You. There has to be a reason, and a good starting point would be understanding why the pair of you went your separate ways in the first place.’

‘It wasn’t because of Theo.’ Jonah was trying to stay calm but he could hear the emotion in his own voice. ‘If you want to ask me about the warehouse, go ahead. I’ll tell you everything I know. But leave my son out of it.’

The DI’s jaw moved, as though he were chewing something. ‘So there was no falling-out between you and McKinney? You didn’t hold any sort of grudge against him?’

‘If I had, why would I have gone to help him?’ But a cold feeling had begun to grow in Jonah. ‘You think I’m lying? Jesus Christ, you don’t think I killed him, do you?’

‘We’re just trying to establish the facts,’ Fletcher said.

Which wasn’t the same as a no. Jonah felt he’d slipped into a nightmare.

‘Is that why there’s a police guard outside the door? Because I’m a suspect?’

Fletcher gave a shrug. ‘The guard’s a precaution. The press have been all over this. We’ve been keeping a tight lid on details, including your name, but it’s only a matter of time before something leaks out. I’m sure you wouldn’t want a reporter waltzing in here any more than we would.’

‘So I’m not a suspect?’

‘What you are is the only witness from a multiple homicide,’ Fletcher snapped with sudden heat. ‘We’ve only your account of what happened, and frankly I’m finding some of that hard to believe. So you’ll have to excuse me if you don’t like some of my questions.’

Jonah felt the nightmare worsen as the implications of the DI’s words sank in. If his was the only account, it meant that they hadn’t been able to question the suspect. He remembered the man’s unresponsive body after the fight, the thock of his head hitting the stone floor. Oh, Christ...

‘You didn’t answer before when I asked about the man who attacked me.’ Jonah hesitated before going on, afraid of what he’d hear. ‘Is he dead?’

Fletcher sat back and crossed his legs, showing a band of livid scar tissue above his sock. ‘Let’s talk about him, shall we? You watched him bundle up your mate’s body and drag it outside to what you think was a boat, and then had a knock-down fight with him, yet you didn’t get a good look. You can’t say how old he was, or if he was black, white or whatever. Only that he was a big, heavily built man who was taller than you.’

Jonah’s mouth had dried. He didn’t know what game the DI was playing, but he’d no choice except to go along with it.

‘I told you, it was dark. And I’d got a cracked skull by then. Ask the doctors, if you don’t believe me.’

‘Oh, I’m not disputing your injuries. That’d be stupid, wouldn’t it? It’s just that we’ve only your word for how you came by them.’

Even through his anxiety and confusion, Jonah realised that something about this wasn’t right. He was missing something.

But before he could say anything there was a brisk rap on the door. A nurse poked her head around it, the same one who’d been on duty when Jonah woke the day before. She gave the detectives a smile, tapping her watch.

‘Sorry, but I’ll have to ask you to—’

‘Jesus Christ, do you mind?’ Fletcher snapped, the taut skin of his face an angry red. ‘I’m in the middle of an interview!’

The nurse’s smile vanished. ‘You’ve already run over the time you agreed with the doctor. If you want to arrange another—’

‘I tell you what, don’t tell me how to do my job and I won’t tell you how to clean bedpans, all right? Or is that too—’

‘Sir,’ Bennet said quickly.

She didn’t say anything else, but didn’t flinch as the DI turned his glare on her. He was the one who looked away first.

‘Fine, OK, we’re done.’

Bennet gave the nurse a tight smile. ‘Five minutes to wrap things up, then we’ll be out of your way.’

‘Five minutes, that’s all.’ The nurse shot Fletcher a last angry look before she went out.

‘We’ll pick this up next time,’ Fletcher said, climbing to his feet as Bennet switched off the recorder and put it back in her bag.

‘Wait, I don’t understand what’s going on.’ Jonah was relieved they were going but more confused than ever. ‘At least tell me if he’s dead or not.’

The DI paused by the door. He and Bennet exchanged another look.

‘That’s a good question. There was blood on the warehouse floor we were able to identify as McKinney’s. It looked as though it had run off whatever he was lying on, so that supports your story about the plastic sheet at least. There was a smaller amount belonging to you, as well as from another individual we haven’t been able to identify.’

‘I told you, the man I fought hit his head when we fell. That’ll be his.’

‘So you say. The thing is, the only fingerprints we found were yours, and the only bodies there belonged to the three victims wrapped in plastic. We found McKinney’s car parked near yours, but there was no sign of his body or any boat moored outside the warehouse. And this mysterious attacker you claim you fought and left unconscious?’ Fletcher spread his hands, a magician demonstrating they were empty. ‘Well, it looks like he got up and walked away.’