The notebook, bound by silver-green Indian silk and tied with a ribbon, intrigued him, though. For a start, it was very girlie, unlike Helen, and also because it looked like the sort of notebook a woman might use for a diary. He’d be a right shit if he intruded on her private thoughts, but what if it contained some information about his father? He wanted to know what she knew.
He was disappointed. The notebook contained nothing more than a few notes detailing various tasks relating to her job, a couple of shopping lists, and a loose piece of paper with a list of clothes shops – no, boutiques – in the most expensive part of London, and not her kind of places at all.
He was closing it again, when he noticed a pocket on the inside cover with what looked like a business card sticking out of it. Pulling out the card, he whistled when he saw the logo for Scotland Yard and the name of a Detective Inspector K. M. Whitehouse. Detectives didn’t just give out their business cards to the general public. Whoever this chap Whitehouse was, he must have a good reason to expect Helen to call him.
Hearing footsteps, he grabbed a pen from Helen’s desk, copied down the number on his hand, then quickly put everything back as it was. But the footsteps turned out to be from the house next door, the walls not being thick enough to muffle the sound completely.
‘Jumpy or what?’ he muttered, thinking it might help if he stopped sneaking around.
He leaned the rucksack against the bed, dressed and left the room. Helen was probably downstairs, and she’d better have a good excuse for leaving him like that. Any decent girlfriend would at least cover up her naked man.
Not that he knew much about having a girlfriend.
She wasn’t in the kitchen either. He touched the kettle; no one had boiled it for some time, so he went back into the hall and knocked on Charlie’s door. He waited a few moments before knocking again, then broke his own house rule and opened the door, but the room was empty. He checked the bathrooms and Fay’s room. There was no sign of either of them.
Strange, he thought.
On the top landing he knocked on Lee’s door. After a moment there was a muffled reply, and he pushed it open just as Lee was sitting up in bed, rubbing his eyes.
‘Whassup? Fay okay?’
‘Concussion and a fractured hip. Plus some other trauma, but they reckon she’ll recover.’
‘G-good. I’m glad.’ Lee swung his legs out of bed and reached for a pair of tracksuit bottoms from the back of a chair.
‘You haven’t seen Helen and Charlie anywhere, have you?’ Jason asked.
‘They w-were here earlier. Didn’t they c-come back with you?’
‘Shortly before me, but they must’ve gone again.’
‘It’s in the m-middle of the night!’
‘You’re telling me.’ Back on the landing he recalled the nurse’s message from Fay. They’re up to something.
Probably. But what? And where were they at half past one in the morning?
A feeling of dread crept up on him. Had they discovered something and decided to look for themselves? It was exactly the sort of thing Charlie would do, just go for it and bugger the consequences. And Helen? He knew the answer to that. If she thought she was getting closer to what she needed to know, whether real or imagined, that anger he’d always sensed in her, lurking right below the surface, would propel her forward despite any dangers. He’d felt deeply uncomfortable about the meeting with the dog owner in the pub, but nothing like he was feeling now.
Or had it been the other way around? Had trouble come after her? Cold sweat trickled between his shoulder blades, and his heart was pounding.
He returned to the kitchen where he’d left his phone and dialled Helen’s number, but it went to voicemail after a couple of rings. Either she couldn’t hear it, or she’d switched her phone off. Hesitating for a moment, he weighed up his concern for her safety against the invasion of her privacy, then sent the text message beacon he’d configured her smartphone tracker to listen out for. Obviously it wouldn’t work if she really had switched hers off, but he hoped she hadn’t. And if she realised he was tracking her by GPS, he hoped she’d understand his reasons. He waited a few minutes, then finally her phone pinged back its location.
‘Yes!’ He punched the air, relieved. ‘I’m a genius!’
Then he saw the location and frowned. His father used to have a warehouse almost in that spot, but how accurate the tracker was he couldn’t tell.
A coincidence? He didn’t think so.
The moment had come where his loyalties would be put to the test, just as Helen had predicted, but she’d been wrong in assuming he would hesitate.