For Your Own Protection(49)

Now he’d got Sean’s interest.

‘So I thought, well, maybe that’s what was happening with me. She was being paid to entrap me.’

‘Did you ask her about it?’

‘I tried. But she wasn’t answering her mobile. And I went around to her flat, but she’d cleared out. And I mean, totally. Her next-door neighbour said she hadn’t given any warning about leaving.’

‘You think she cleared out because of you? But who did you think had paid her to entrap you? Beth?’ Sean looked unconvinced.

Matt shrugged. ‘She was the only person I could think of.’

‘But why would she do that? I mean, it wouldn’t make sense, would it? After all, she’s with . . . Well, you know what I mean.’

‘I went through the same thought process myself,’ Matt replied. ‘But like I said, she seemed like the only person who would have done it.’

‘Have you asked her about it?’

‘No. Because there’s more. On Sunday, I took Charlie swimming, and he went missing.’

‘Missing?’

‘Yes. For a few minutes. I was going mad, looking everywhere. And then someone found him – handed him in to one of the staff. From the description, I suspected it might be Catherine, but I didn’t know for sure. Until a bit later, when a woman approached me in the playground across the road from the leisure centre. She’d seen the woman who found Charlie, and had just spoken to her. And that’s when I saw her, walking away. I called and she answered the phone, but she didn’t come back to explain. She just said what she was doing was for my own protection.’

Sean leaned forward. ‘I don’t understand. To protect you from what?’

‘Last night she contacted me, and I met her this morning. Her real name is Natalie. The guy in the pub, he’d been telling the truth. But she said with me it wasn’t about entrapment, it was different – it was about protection. Except it wasn’t me who she’d been asked to protect. It was Charlie.’

Sean’s face knotted in confusion. ‘Protect Charlie. But why? What from?’

‘She didn’t know. But she said that’s what she’d been asked to do.’

‘By whom?’

‘She wouldn’t say. Said she had to maintain confidentiality for the client.’

Sean ran his fingers through his hair as he struggled to take in the information. ‘I can’t believe it,’ he said at last. ‘Why would someone, anyone, want to hurt Charlie?’

‘I was hoping you might be able to help with that.’

‘Me?’ Sean said, shocked. ‘But why would I be able to help?’

Matt had spent the past hour and a half after his meeting with Natalie walking around London, thinking about who could have employed her to protect Charlie. It wasn’t difficult to zero in on his chief suspect, although he recognised his prejudices may well be clouding his judgement. ‘Is there any reason you think James might pay someone to look out for Charlie? Any reason why he might be in danger?’

‘James?’ Sean thought. ‘No, I really don’t. I’m sorry, Matt, I have no idea. This doesn’t make any sense to me. Do you believe this woman? She might be lying.’

Matt hadn’t actually considered that option. It was certainly possible. But his gut instinct was that she was telling the truth. ‘I don’t think so.’

‘What makes you so sure? I mean, you don’t know her. You thought you knew her, but she was lying to you. She could be lying again.’

‘There was something else,’ Matt said. ‘Something that happened the other day. A woman fell in front of a Tube train at King’s Cross. The police think she may have been pushed.’

‘I heard about that.’

‘You saw the man the police are looking for?’

Sean shook his head. ‘I caught the story on the radio. But it did say they were looking for someone.’

‘Natalie thought – thinks – that the same man may have been following me and Charlie. She’s pretty sure she saw the guy on the same boat as us, two weeks ago. And yes, she could be making it up, I know that, but it didn’t seem that way. She seemed genuine.’

‘But if it’s true, what does it mean? Why on earth would the man who may have pushed a girl under a train be a threat to Charlie? And why would this have anything to do with James?’

‘I don’t know,’ Matt admitted.

Sean rubbed at his left eye with the ball of his hand. ‘It just seems fanciful, that’s all. Maybe she doesn’t want you to know the real reason. Why do you suspect James? Apart from the fact that you dislike him intensely.’

That Matt couldn’t argue with. But he had good reasons. ‘Because I know it wouldn’t be Beth.’

Sean’s reaction was a tell.

‘What? What is it?’

‘Nothing.’

‘I can tell there’s something, Sean,’ Matt pressed, as Sean hid his face with a long drink of his pint. ‘The way you just reacted then, when I said it wouldn’t be Beth, you know something.’

‘I don’t know anything,’ Sean said, glancing at his watch. ‘Look, Matt, I’d better shoot off. They let me out for a quick break—’