SIXTEEN

Jay didn’t want to leave Blake, but the men bodily picked her up and shoved her back inside their vehicle. She had no idea how long the journey was before they stopped, opened the door, and pushed her outside. Dumbly, she watched the car vanish up the street.

With shaky legs, she began to walk. Her mind was blank as she made her way slowly along. She looked at her watch. Three a.m. Where was she? The sky was brown, coloured faintly orange from the street lights. No stars. It began to rain.

She became aware she had her handbag. She paused, rummaged inside with stiff fingers. Withdrew her phone. At the next street corner, she checked the street names and dialled. It rang for a long time, then disconnected. She tried again.

‘Hello?’ Angela’s voice was thick with sleep.

‘It’s me.’

‘Jay?’

‘I need a favour.’ Her voice was hoarse from screaming Blake’s name. ‘Can you come and pick me up?’

‘Where?’

‘I’m on the corner of Leyborne Avenue and Carew Road,’ she said.

She heard Angela talking quickly to Denise. ‘South Ealing. We shouldn’t be long. Are you all right? Do we need to bring a medical kit or anything?’

‘No. I’m OK.’

‘We’ll be there in –’ Jay heard them making calculations – ‘less than twenty minutes. There’s no traffic, so maybe we’ll be there faster. We’ll keep both our phones on.’

They hung up, and Jay sank to the ground, clutching to the numbness inside her to keep her mind from absorbing what she didn’t want to know. The rain increased. Became icy cold. Jay huddled on the pavement, shivering.

‘Jay.’

Jay blinked rain from her eyes to see Denise crouched in front of her.

‘Are you hurt?’ She gestured at Jay’s face, where she’d grazed her cheeks trying to scrape the duct tape free.

Jay shook her head. Denise held out both hands. Jay gazed at them for a second, and then Denise gripped Jay’s wrists and pulled her up from the ground and into her arms. ‘You’re soaked,’ she chided, and then she paused, turned Jay’s hand over to expose the cut from the strimmer blade, still fresh, still seeping blood.

While Angela drove, Denise put a plaster on the cut. Dabbed Jay’s cheeks with antiseptic cream. ‘Just in case,’ she murmured.

The journey home was a blur. Upstairs, the girls helped her into a pair of striped pyjamas – bought especially for winter nights in her aunt’s farmhouse in the country – and helped her into bed. Her hips and shoulders were sore from wriggling across the concrete garage floor, but it was nothing compared to the emotional pain she held inside. Denise made her drink a mug of hot chocolate. When Jay had finished, she said, ‘What happened?’

‘He’s dead.’

‘Who?’

‘Blake.’

‘What?’

Denise looked horrified, but Jay didn’t want to talk. She pulled the duvet up over her head.

‘She says Blake’s dead,’ Denise whispered to Angela.

‘Shit. What happened?’

‘She didn’t say.’

‘Should we ring Tom?’

‘No. Not when she’s like this. It could jeopardize their relationship if he sees how devastated she is . . .’

‘I didn’t realize she cared for Blake as much.’

‘I don’t think she did, either.’

Jay drifted into unconsciousness. Fell into a deep, exhausted sleep.

Jay awoke to hear Angela calling her name, and she immediately thought, I’m late for work, but at the same time a memory was clawing to the surface of her mind, something she didn’t want to know.

‘Jay?’

She looked at Angela, who looked anxiously back. ‘You were dead to the world,’ Angela continued. She gave a tentative smile. ‘You up for some coffee?’

The image of Blake’s eyes, the cloud creeping across them, burst into Jay’s head. Pain clamped around her heart, tight as a fist. For a moment she couldn’t breathe.

Angela eyed her carefully. ‘Are you OK?’

She shook her head. She knew that nothing would be the same again.

‘What happened?’ Angela asked.

She remembered him hooking a finger in her waistband in Paris, asking her to stay with him for the night. She pictured his mouth. She’d only kissed it once, and it had been soft – far softer than she could imagine – and now she wished she’d kissed him unreservedly, held him close and made love to him.

‘What happened to Blake?’

Hearing his name was like a blade slicing through her body. She closed her eyes. ‘I was kidnapped.’ Her voice was still hoarse. ‘They used me as bait. They shot him as he came to rescue me.’

‘Who shot him?’

Jay didn’t reply. It didn’t seem to matter any more.

‘Do you want to report this?’

Jay shook her head. She curled into a ball. Her throat swelled with tears, but she couldn’t cry.

‘It’s OK.’ Angela’s voice was gentle. ‘We’re here. You take your time.’

The girls stayed around all morning and, in-between putting up some shelves in the hallway – something that they’d wanted to do for months, but had never got around to – kept an eye on Jay. Not that Jay cared. She slept most of the time, wanting to escape the pain, but each time she woke it came rushing back, engulfing her.

That afternoon, she was startled to find Nick in her bedroom. She struggled upright.

‘The girls rang me,’ he said. ‘Is it true?’

She nodded. ‘I’m sorry,’ she managed.

The lines grooved into his face deepened, and for the first time Jay realized she wasn’t alone in her grief. Her mind suddenly went to Emilie, lying in a coma in Brussels. Who was going to tell Emilie that her brother was dead?

‘Get dressed,’ Nick said. It wasn’t a request, but an order, and the way it was spoken had the army captain in her responding.

‘Yes,’ she said.

Nick turned on his heel. She heard him head downstairs and into the kitchen, start talking with the girls, but she couldn’t hear what they were saying. She struggled to the shower. Stood beneath it for what felt like an age. She tried not to think of Blake, but then she worried she might forget him if she ignored her memories. Forget the precise colour of his eyes, which were as deep and shiny as the darkest chocolate. The way he teased her. His dry humour, his intense focus on a mission. His strength.

Holding herself tightly together, she peeled the sticking plaster from her wrist to see the narrow cut had healed over. She binned the plaster and pulled on jeans and a sweatshirt. Barefoot, she walked downstairs. Nick and the girls were sitting at the kitchen table.

‘Toast?’ offered Denise.

Jay shook her head. Sat down. Angela poured her a cup of tea, but Jay didn’t drink.

‘You have to tell us what happened,’ said Nick.

Jay nodded.

‘Start from the beginning. And don’t leave anything out.’

Jay thought back to Blake turning up in Tom’s garden. As she pictured the way he’d cocked his eyebrow, asking to be let inside, the pain twisted its familiar way through her body. ‘He wanted me to go to Paris.’ She couldn’t say his name. ‘To meet a friend of his.’

Jay started slowly, feeling her way, but as she spoke, and Nick asked questions, she gathered momentum. The girls sat quietly, listening. When Jay came to the interview with Colonel Greene, Nick stiffened.

‘The Garrison?’

‘Yes,’ said Jay. ‘Why, have you heard of it?’

‘There was a rumour, ages ago, going around the Home Office . . .’ Nick’s gaze turned inward. ‘But everyone shrugged it off.’

‘What was the rumour?’ Denise asked.

‘That a bunch of right-wingers were infiltrating the prison system. Rumour had it that anyone in jail who was considered socially irredeemable – paedophiles, murderers, and rapists – and who would end up costing the taxpayer hundreds of thousand of pounds being housed for the rest of their life in our prison system, would be eliminated.’

Even through her pain, Jay felt the shock of it. ‘Eliminated?’ she repeated. ‘You mean, killed?’

‘It was so far-fetched, nobody took it seriously.’

‘I don’t recall a huge amount of prison inmates being bumped off,’ Angela remarked.

‘Nor I,’ Nick agreed. He looked at Jay. ‘What happened after you left the Colonel?’

Jay talked them through her driving Ruth back to Bosham, then returning to London. Getting snatched outside the noodle house. The car park by the Thames. The motorbike roaring towards them.

‘There was a single rifle shot . . .’ She curled inward, hugging her ribs to hold herself together.

‘Oh, sweetheart.’ Nick’s voice was so tender, she nearly cracked. ‘I had no idea.’

Jay stumbled back to her room, trying to silence Blake’s voice. Stay with me tonight . . . Please.

She remained in her room until night fell.

‘Jay?’ Nick knocked on her door. ‘Can I come in?’

She didn’t respond.

‘I know you’re hurting, but we need you. We have to tackle this Garrison issue. We’re a team, right? You, me, and the girls. We can find who killed Blake and bring them to justice. Don’t you want that?’

Did she? She wasn’t sure. She felt as though she was balanced on the edge of a precipice. For some reason, she knew how she responded to Nick would determine her future. By letting Nick in, she’d be forced to live with the pain, because when they went after the Garrison, she wouldn’t be able to forget Blake, because it had been Blake – and Sol and Emilie – who had started all this. He’d be on her lips and in her thoughts of every minute of every waking hour.

The other option was to do nothing. This would mean she would be allowed not to think of Blake. She could lock him away in a distant part of her memories and avoid the pain for days, and months, at a time. She’d be numb, unfeeling, and could live her life relatively normally. This option, she realized, was very attractive.

‘Jay.’ Nick’s voice was gentle. ‘What would Max want you to do?’

It was the word ‘Max’ that did it. The pain rose, and this time she allowed the tears to come. Max, Max, Max. I’m sorry. I never knew how much I loved you.

She flung open the door. She was sobbing. ‘Get the Garrison,’ she choked.

Nick opened his arms. ‘Good girl,’ he said and hugged her close.