For Your Own Protection(57)

Charlie slid his eyes across to meet Matt’s. ‘I’m sorry, I’m not allowed to tell you that. I promised.’

‘Promised who? Was it Uncle James who you saw? Is he the naughty man?’

Charlie’s face darkened. ‘Too many questions, Daddy.’

‘Matt,’ Beth tried again. ‘Let’s talk. Next door.’

As they re-entered the kitchen, Beth said, ‘I still don’t think it could have been James.’ She saw Matt’s doubtful look. ‘What, you now think it could be?’

‘I don’t know,’ Matt admitted. ‘Probably not.’

‘But if not James, then it must be connected to James?’

‘Maybe.’

‘And be someone who might have a key to our home?’

‘I don’t know, Beth.’

‘I don’t feel safe here,’ she said.

‘Well, you can’t stay here. You need to get some things together, for you and Charlie, and we need to leave as soon as possible in case whoever was just in here comes back. We need to get to a safer place. I was thinking you could both stay with Sean.’

Sean’s place, an apartment in an exclusive development overlooking the River Thames and Tower Bridge, was guarded by security on the reception desk.

‘And you too? Sean has the space,’ Beth said. ‘There’s the pull-out sofa bed. I think it’s best if we stick together.’

Matt nodded.

‘I want you to be with us, Matt.’ Beth’s anxiety was still all too visible. ‘I’ll go and get packing. I don’t want to stay here a moment longer than we have to.’

‘Wait,’ Matt said. ‘Before we do that, I want to talk some more about James. And I want to take a look in the office.’

‘Why?’

He shrugged. ‘Just in case there’s something that might help to explain all this.’

‘Okay,’ Beth conceded. ‘But can you be quick? I really don’t want to be around here much longer.’

‘I understand,’ Matt said, already heading out of the door and towards the stairs. ‘If you want to wait in there with Charlie, I’ll be as quick as I can.’



Matt entered the top-floor office. He didn’t know where to start, such was the mess. He stepped over the piles of papers, some of which crunched like snow beneath his feet, and began to sift through the items on the desk.

In the not too distant past, this room had been Matt’s bolthole, the place where he’d come to shut out the world, even for a few minutes. Well, that had been the plan. The reality was that, in the latter months of his relationship with Beth, it became an extension of his workplace, and he’d lock himself away until the early-morning hours, working on reports that should have been done during the day. Beth used to drift up from the floor below, knock on the door and ask, with some frustration and sadness, when he was coming downstairs to bed. But after a while, the visits stopped, and Matt was left to work all the way through the night on more than one occasion.

It might have got him ahead at work, but it killed his home life.

And what was the point of succeeding at work when you were failing at life?

Matt hunted through the many papers that lay scattered around the room. A thought then occurred to him: whoever had just been in the house knew which room to target. They had left the rooms on the first floor untouched. Yet this one they had ransacked. So the person had known the layout of the house well, and had zoned in on the room where James was most likely to keep his personal documents. Again, the thought turned to whether it had been James himself. Maybe he had left in a hurry, before realising he had forgotten something. He might have known it was in this room, but had been unable to find it.

Matt didn’t really know what he was searching for. Yes, he was looking for a smoking gun that would explain everything – but what, exactly? All he could find was bank statements, paid credit card bills. He started looking in more detail at the bills, examining the transactions. There were various recognisable and unsurprising outgoings – he knew James and Beth ate out a lot, and there were numerous restaurant names on there, along with petrol charges and drinks bills. Nothing that screamed suspicious.

He pulled out the desk drawers, but whoever had been up here had already emptied them. Then he remembered the storage area behind the wall. It was a small space running along the outer edge of the room, behind the structural beam and the wall facade. Matt and Beth had used it for storing some of Charlie’s baby clothes and toys, getting them out of the way but close at hand, in case a second child came along. He wondered whether Charlie’s stuff was still there, undisturbed, or whether James had found a new use for the space.

Matt walked over to the storage unit, positioned against the lowest point of the wall as it sloped down at the room’s edge. The small door that led into the space was hidden behind the unit. Unless an individual knew about it or happened to move the unit, the door and space behind it would remain undetected.

Matt lifted the unit aside and was pleased to find the door closed and to all appearances undisturbed. He pulled at the door but was surprised when it failed to open. Only then did he spot the padlock that had been fitted down at the bottom.

‘Damn it.’ James must have added the lock.

The padlock required a small key, and Matt spent the next five minutes searching the room for it. When that search proved fruitless, he retreated downstairs.