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‘Really? You sure? All right. Wait there.’

  Jackson stood and left the room. Fortune looked around while he waited. There were black-and-white photos of nudes on the walls, framed. They looked like the kind of thing you’d see in a Pirelli calendar, prurient yet tasteful. Well, kind of.

  ‘Here.’ Jackson came back into the room and carelessly threw an A4 envelope onto the coffee table. ‘Take a look. Take a good look.’

  Fortune sat forward and reached for the envelope. It was already open. He upended it and shook out what was inside. He saw a photo, a naked form but not like the ones on the walls. This was young, very young, and frightened and contorted and in pain. He looked away, picked up the envelope and covered the photo with it.

  ‘Jesus.’

  ‘From your daughter. She sent it to me. Sent a whole lot. Nice, huh?’

  ‘I …’ Fortune struggled for words. ‘I don’t know what to say.’

  ‘The police knew what to say. They told her that it was an offence to possess these kinds of images, told her she was sick. They took them away, thank God. Only got this one because it arrived later. You get a good look?’

  Fortune didn’t answer.

  ‘She denied everything, that’s what the police told me. Told me she lost it with them. Mental bitch.’

  Fortune put his head in his hands and closed his eyes. The image he had seen, the photo, reappeared in his mind, as unwelcome as the words Psycho Bitch. Like the body he’d seen in the morgue, there were some things you couldn’t unsee.

  ‘And turning up here, shouting, screaming. I wouldn’t let her in. My neighbours, coming out of their houses, Jesus Christ. I called the Old Bill, they arrive, van full of them, find a knife. A big kitchen knife.’

  ‘I was told,’ said Fortune. ‘The police told me.’

  Jackson nodded. ‘So come on,’ he said. ‘Let’s have it. What do you think you’ve found?’

  Fortune looked up. ‘What?’

  ‘On her computer. What is it?’

  Fortune prided himself on his honesty. He wasn’t, he knew, good at lying. ‘Photos,’ he said again, hearing how lame he sounded.

  Jackson raised his eyebrows. ‘Oh? Of what? Me romping with some schoolgirl? High on drugs in some hotel room?’

  ‘Maybe.’

  Jackson looked closely at Fortune, his blue eyes narrowed. ‘You’re talking crap, aren’t you? There’s nothing.’

  ‘How do you know?’ said Fortune. Jesus, he sounded like a schoolboy, clumsily bluffing, pathetically transparent.

  ‘All right,’ said Jackson, standing up. ‘Out. Get out of my house. Trust me, I will call the police. Thanks to your daughter, I’ve got the wankers on speed dial.’

  Fortune stood and looked at Jackson, who was smiling, an expression of arrogance mixed with pity.

  ‘But you did it, didn’t you?’ he said. ‘Slept with that underage girl. Then got to her. That happened, right?’

  Jackson shook his head. ‘You sad little boy scout. Just get out.’

  ‘My daughter was right,’ Fortune said. ‘Whatever happened, she was right about you.’

  ‘Out.’

  ‘I’ll see you again.’

  ‘Sure. Sure you will.’

  Fortune turned and walked out of the room, down Jackson’s hall to his front door. As he opened it, Jackson spoke from behind him.

  ‘You know, whatever happened to her? To your daughter? She had it coming. Believe me, the mad bitch had it coming.’

  Fortune paused, considered turning around, defending Sophie’s memory. But if he was honest, he didn’t know what the truth was. Didn’t know his daughter, had no idea what she’d become. He walked slowly down the steps, back into the drizzle. He badly needed a cigarette.

  *

  Smoking and walking, Fortune thought back on what Jackson had told him, while trying not to think about the picture he had been shown. It existed in his mind as something ghastly, monstrous, hardly seen and impossible to understand. That people could do those things. To children. And what was his daughter doing, looking at such photos and sending them to Jackson? He didn’t want to believe she had done it, had sent the picture, but he couldn’t ignore the evidence. She had brought a knife with her to his house. Why? he thought. Sophie, my Sophie. Why?

  His phone rang and he picked up. ‘Hello?’

  ‘Ah, yes, Mr, ah, Fortune.’

  Dr Aziz. Fortune dropped his cigarette, put it out guiltily. ‘Yes?’

  ‘You, ah, are still in … You are not in Dubai?’

  ‘Still in London.’

  ‘You, ah, you really need to return. You need treatment.’

  ‘Yeah.’ Fortune looked about him with the phone to his ear, at a pair of acrobatic starlings, a double-decker advertising a beach holiday. ‘I know.’

  ‘So, you are, ah … you are coming back?’

  Fortune did not answer for some moments, then he sighed. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Yes, I’m coming back.’

  twenty-two

  ONE OF THE PERKS OF BUSINESS TRAVEL WAS ACCESS TO THE lounge. No screaming children, no package holidays. No groups of teenage holidaymakers, getting into the spirit before their plane left. Fortune looked around the lounge at the other privileged few, mostly men, past middle age, wearing suits. Comfortable, complacent. Just like him. Unremarkable. Unlovable.

  A voice broke the calm, an announcement. A delayed flight, QR4584 to Dubai. Fortune’s plane, which apparently had some technical issue. He looked about the lounge for expressions of petulance, the snap of a newspaper, angry jabbing at a phone’s keyboard. There were one or two, men like him who had places to go, business to attend to, and couldn’t afford to wait. He sat for some moments, then reached into his hand luggage and took out his daughter’s computer. He didn’t know why he’d taken it with him, perhaps to keep up the pretence that he wasn’t really abandoning his investigation, if you could call it that. To maintain the fiction that he hadn’t given up on her, accepted her suicide.

  The clutter and confusion of Sophie’s desktop was about as far from the efficient, smooth, organized environment of Fortune’s airport lounge as it was possible to be. How did she ever find anything? How had she ever found anything? he corrected himself. Past tense. Get used to it, he thought, she’s gone, though he still didn’t believe it, not really. He clicked on a folder titled ‘Junk’, looked at the sub-files inside. ‘Personal’, ‘More junk’, ‘Musings’, ‘Weird junk’. He smiled despite himself, clicked on ‘Weird junk’. Inside were Word files, all with different titles. ‘Way home’, ‘Boys’, ‘Things I don’t dare say’. He opened up the last one and read what Sophie had written:

  I have no idea what ‘good’ wine tastes like

  I can’t do long division, haven’t got a clue

  I don’t like children, or ever want them (I don’t think)

  Giving people a tip makes me stupidly anxious

  Sometimes the only thing that makes me happy is gin

  I can’t contemplate the future

  I don’t like myself

  Other people’s bad news sometimes makes me feel better

  I wish I had the nerve to be ruder to people

  Fortune could identify with one or two of them. Gin, certainly. He approved of that. And not liking himself. Plus, he was fairly sure he’d have been able to help Sophie with the last one. The thought made him smile briefly, before a picture of the river where they had found his daughter’s belongings, the water swollen and swirling, came into his mind, imagined but still all too real. Again, he felt a strange guilt at breaching her privacy. He thought about closing the computer, leaving her secrets undisturbed. What right did he have, after all? It wasn’t like he had earned Sophie’s trust, had done anything to deserve this intimacy.

  He closed the document, went back and opened up ‘Personal’. There were many documents, and Fortune had looked at most of them. Mostly admin stuff, rental agreements, old payslips. There was a folder called ‘Forget it’, which he hadn’t looked in yet. He opened it.
There was only one document inside, titled ‘To Dad’.

  Fortune gazed at it for some time. To Dad. The business lounge was hushed and the screen, the title of the document, seemed as loaded with power and quiet menace as a bomb. To Dad. What had she written to him? He could not imagine that it would be good, that it would be an affectionate note to a loving father. He hadn’t been a loving father. He had been a poor father, a neglectful and distant father. He knew this. Did he need to read about it, to have it confirmed to him by his dead daughter? He looked at the screen with a feeling of dread. Because he couldn’t not read it. But he so wished he didn’t have to.

  He looked up, saw that his plane would not be boarding for an hour. What else was there to do? He took a breath, considered going for a cigarette, decided against it. After. After he had read this.

  Dear Dad,

  It’s been a long time since we properly spoke. It’s been years, so many years, and I feel bad about that. I wish we could talk. I wish we could erase all this time that we’ve been strangers to each other, and start back like we used to be. When I’d hold your hand and you’d swing me up onto your shoulders, and you were Dad, and I didn’t want anything else but you.

  I know that it’s my fault, or at least, a lot of it is. I know that I was difficult and you didn’t know what to do with me, what to say to me. The thing is that I didn’t know what to do with myself either, and I needed you to tell me that it would be okay, that I was worth something. That you loved me. I always wanted you to tell me that you loved me, but the worse I got, the less you did. Until I realized that you didn’t love me any more, that I’d ruined it all and it was too late.

  Perhaps this is just something that happens, something inevitable, when two people can’t understand each other. I do still love you so much, and I don’t want to think that you left me, walked away because you had had enough. But I have to say this to you. I wish you hadn’t. I wish you had been able to make some effort to understand me and to help me. Just a little effort. Who knows? It might have helped. It really might have.

  Do you remember when I was little, and we got separated on the Tube? And I was all alone and I had to wait, and then you came and found me? I wonder if you remember. I said to you that I knew you’d come, that I never doubted it. I knew you’d be there for me, because you’re my dad.

  I can’t say that any more, and just the thought of it makes me want to cry. I don’t blame you. I’ve been so difficult, and for that I apologize, from the bottom of my heart. And I know that it’s too late for us, and that I will never send this letter. I don’t even have your address. But I want to say sorry, and that I wish so so much that I could still say that you’ll be there for me, just like you were once.

  Love,

  Your daughter, Sophie xxx

  Fortune didn’t know how long he stared at that screen, at the document that, with a generosity and kindness he would never have the chance to reciprocate, had laid bare all the faults in their relationship. Sophie, he thought. It’s me who’s sorry. I’ve been sorry for years, but never had the courage or humility to tell you. And now it’s too late, and you’ve left me this letter, and it will haunt me for the rest of my life.

  ‘Sir?’

  Fortune looked up, saw a woman standing above him. She was looking at him with concern and Fortune realized that he had been crying, that his cheeks were wet with tears.

  ‘Are you okay?’

  ‘Yes,’ Fortune said. ‘Yes, fine.’

  ‘Could I get you anything?’

  ‘No thanks.’ The woman turned, but before she left, Fortune said, ‘Actually, yes. Could I have a gin and tonic?’

  ‘Of course. You’re sure you’re okay?’

  ‘I’m okay,’ said Fortune. ‘Just a gin.’ He paused. ‘Thank you.’

  The woman came back with his drink and Fortune drank it in one hit, feeling his heart expand and warm as it hit him. Christ, he needed a cigarette. He put his daughter’s computer away, picked up his bag and headed for the exit, walking through Departures to the smoking area. He lit up in the cold air and took a lungful, breathed it in deeply and tried to hold it, to stifle a cough. A young woman was smoking too and she nodded to him, the secret fraternity of the unfashionable. Fortune nodded back and heard his phone ring.

  ‘Fortune?’

  ‘It’s Alex. Just checking you’re on your way.’

  ‘Yes. My flight’s been delayed, but I’m at the airport.’

  ‘Okay. Cool.’ Alex sounded relieved.

  ‘Is there any news?’ asked Fortune. ‘What’s the situation?’

  ‘The situation is the money’s still missing. Sadler’s working on a new angle, something about the specific amount.’

  ‘The amount?’

  ‘Yes. He thinks it’s significant. Like, why not just steal a nice round number? Why steal just under ninety million? Just over seventy? He’s got some hang-up about it.’

  ‘Maybe it’s down to exchange rates,’ said Fortune.

  ‘What I said. But he doesn’t agree. Says that’s irrelevant. Says there must be something to it.’

  ‘All right,’ said Fortune. ‘I guess that’s why we’re paying him. Well, I’ll give you a call when I land.’

  ‘Do that.’

  Fortune hung up, put out his cigarette and headed back to the lounge, all the way telling himself that, whatever the letter from his daughter had said, he definitely wasn’t abandoning her this time. There was just nothing left for him to do.

  Business travellers boarded before the rest of the passengers and Fortune was one of the first onto the plane, seated by the window near the front. He could barely touch the seat in front with his feet. While he waited for the other passengers to fight their way into Economy, he scrolled through emails on his phone, looking for one from Alex. He couldn’t remember when he’d sent it, must have been four, five days ago. Maybe six.

  ‘Welcome on board, sir,’ said a stewardess. ‘If you need anything, just call with the button above you. Anything at all.’

  ‘Thanks,’ said Fortune. Business class. You could almost believe that they genuinely cared. Almost. He scrolled down, opened up an email from Alex. Not that one. Closed it, scrolled further down, found another. This was the one. With the amount stolen, the first amount. $89,917,042. A lot of money, a huge sum. But Sadler was right, it was a strange sum. Why not just take a hundred?

  ‘Could you put your seat belt on, please, sir?’ the same stewardess asked him. She was English, long dark hair, very red nails. Pretty. Fortune fastened his belt. ‘Sure.’

  He looked back at his phone. There was something about the number. It seemed to hold some kind of significance, but he didn’t know what. Some meaning greater than just the sheer amount of money it represented. He looked at it, shook his head. Maybe it was because of the letter he had read, the letter from his daughter. He just wasn’t thinking straight. That was probably it.

  His daughter. He felt a stillness in his chest, a sudden arrest of movement. His daughter.

  ‘Excuse me,’ he called to the stewardess. She was walking away from him, rows away, but turned and walked back. ‘Yes, sir?’

  ‘Do you have a pen and paper?’

  ‘A pen, yes.’ She took it out of her skirt pocket. ‘No paper. Sorry.’

  ‘Doesn’t matter,’ said Fortune. He pulled out the in-flight magazine in front of him. ‘You don’t mind?’

  ‘It’s yours,’ said the stewardess.

  Fortune opened it, found a perfume advert with a lot of white space, wrote the number down. 89,917,042. Underneath, he wrote the same number backwards, carefully, making sure he got it right. That it was right, even though it couldn’t be, couldn’t possibly be; even though it was wrong, wrong, wrong.

  240,719,98.

  24.07.1998.

  The day his daughter had been born. The twenty-fourth of July 1998.

  He unbuckled his seat belt, stood and reached into the overhead bin for his hand luggage. He pulled it down and walked the sh
ort distance to the exit. The same stewardess was standing next to it. It was closed.

  ‘Sir?’

  ‘I need to get off this plane.’

  ‘But, sir, the doors are closed. We’re about to leave.’

  ‘I need to get out.’

  ‘But …’

  ‘Now. Now. I need to get out right now. Do you understand?’

  ‘I … Wait, please.’

  She walked quickly down the aisle, found a colleague, an older man, and spoke to him. The man approached Fortune.

  ‘I’m afraid it’s too late to leave the plane, sir,’ he said. ‘We’ve completed boarding.’

  ‘I need to get off,’ said Fortune. ‘Right now.’

  ‘I’m sorry, sir,’ the man said. The stewardess was watching in concern. ‘It’s just not possible.’

  Fortune looked at the door. There was a large lever on it, with a curved arrow pointing to the left and the word ‘OPEN’. It looked possible to him. He reached for the lever, pulled it and felt the door give.

  ‘Sir!’ the steward shouted. Somewhere behind him he heard a woman scream, a passenger. Fortune didn’t care. There was no way this plane was taking off with him on it. No way in the world.

  twenty-three

  SOMEBODY IS DOING THIS TO ME, SOMEBODY WHO KNOWS FAR too much about me. It might be Charlie Jackson, it could be him. I don’t know. But somebody is trying to destroy my life by taking it apart bit by bit. And you know what? I’m not going to let it happen. I will not let it happen.

  Yesterday, Sam the World’s Worst Landlord™ called to tell me that I was being evicted. For some reason, and I don’t know why, I can’t say why, this pissed me off even more than getting the sack, even more than all the crap about stalking Jackson, even more than when they found my knife at his place. Kicking me out of my own flat, making me homeless, it’s just … it’s not on. It’s not fair.

  I knocked on the door of every apartment, house and shop within shouting distance of my flat, and I asked everyone who answered, ‘Have you had any reason to complain about noise recently?’ And you know what? They all said no, that they hadn’t heard anything unusual, and that it was pretty quiet, really, for a street in Hackney. We should count ourselves lucky.