The Lies We Told(26)

‘It’s just, I wasn’t expecting this,’ he said. ‘I thought … I thought he would be home by now, that he would be OK.’

‘I know,’ she said, ‘I’m so frightened. What if he’s dead, Mac, what if this bloody maniac has killed him?’

‘He’s not dead!’ Mac said, so loudly it was almost a shout. ‘We can’t think like that. If he was dead they’d have … they’d have found a body. We have to keep positive.’ He took a deep breath, then said more calmly, ‘The police will find him, I promise, Clara. You said yourself, they’re putting more people on it. It’s going to be OK.’

She nodded, fresh waves of panic washing over her at Mac’s clear distress.

As he made them both a cup of tea she looked around at the familiar disorder of his flat, somewhere the three of them had spent so many hours together, surrounded by the hundreds of photographs that covered every inch of the walls: the bands and musicians he’d shot over the years; the concerts and gigs and festivals he’d documented. A gang of Mac’s large circle of friends would often end up here after a night out, it being the biggest space and central to where everyone lived. Sometimes Mac’s girlfriend would come along, if he was seeing anyone, but usually, after everyone else had gone home, it would end up just the three of them, talking long into the night, drinking and listening to records.

The flat was situated over two floors, Mac’s photographic studio, dark room and bedroom above the kitchen and large living room that housed his vast collection of books and records. The best bit was the building’s flat roof where they could squeeze out and sit on summer evenings, looking out over their patch of North London, Highbury Fields behind them, the Holloway Road below.

Now, as she sipped her tea, she spotted a picture on the wall she’d not seen before and getting up, went to look at it. It was one Mac must have put up very recently, unusual in that it showed the three of them together. ‘Who took this?’ she asked.

‘What? Oh …’ he came and stood next to her. ‘My friend Pete, at my birthday last year. Do you remember? I found it the other day.’

She nodded. It was a brilliant shot. A close-up black-and-white in which she and Mac were turned to each other, their heads thrown back in laughter, while Luke grinned straight ahead at the camera. ‘What were we laughing at?’ she murmured.

‘Christ knows. Probably taking the piss out of Luke about something.’

She smiled and he put an arm around her. ‘Listen. Why don’t you move in here for a bit? I can’t stand thinking of you in that flat by yourself. Go and get some things and come and stay for a while. If we’re going to lose our minds with worry, we might as well do it together.’

She thought about it. There were other friends she could stay with, but none of them lived as close to her place as Mac did. Staying across the river with Zoe would have felt too cut off from her old life, as though she were abandoning Luke somehow. And she and Mac were the closest people to Luke other than his parents, the two people who cared most about finding him. It made sense. She looked at him gratefully. ‘That would be brilliant,’ she said.





11


London, 2017

Hoxton Square was almost empty when Clara arrived a couple of hours later, its bars and restaurants locked and silent now, no sign of life on the pavements except for a postman doing his rounds, a homeless woman yawning in her sleeping bag, pouring water from a bottle into her hand for her dog to drink. The sky was filled with a cool, yellow light and behind the black railings shadows lay still and dark upon the lawn. She made her way towards her flat, telling herself she’d stay only long enough to throw some clothes into a bag then drive straight back to Mac’s.

Her building was silent as she let herself in and climbed the stairs. She noticed nothing unusual until she put her key to the lock and the door to her flat opened without resistance. She paused in surprise: she had locked it; she knew she had. Fear prickled the back of her neck now as she stepped inside. And as she looked around she gasped in horror. The flat had been completely ransacked. Drawers pulled out, their contents spilled all over the floor, books torn from shelves and left scattered where they fell, the sofa taken apart, wardrobes and cupboards plundered. Nothing had been left untouched. It looked very much as though someone had been searching for something, but what it was, or whether they’d found it, she had no idea.

It was a long time later that the police finally allowed her back in. Clara closed the door behind the officers as they trudged grimly away with their bags and cases of equipment, then she stood alone, surveying the chaos. Who had done this, and why? The downstairs front door hadn’t been forced, so how did they get into the building? Whoever it was must have known she hadn’t been at home last night. She glanced up at her ceiling, the usual pounding music eerily absent now. The silence seemed to fill the room, travelling to each corner and pressing against the walls and when her mobile rang she jumped in shock then leapt to answer it, desperate to hear another human voice.

It was Anderson. ‘Clara. How are you? DC Mansfield told me they’ve finished searching the flat.’

‘Did you speak to my neighbour?’ she asked. ‘The one I told you about?’

There was a pause. ‘She wasn’t in when we called,’ he told her. ‘We’ve left messages with her to get in touch as a matter of urgency.’