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  Was that it? He lay in bed with his eyes closed and wondered if he had forgotten anything. Probably. It was hard to keep track. He touched another finger to thumb. Seven. Her father had practically disowned her from the age of, what, thirteen? Disowned her, dismissed her, disapproved of her, deserted her. Behaved disgracefully. Disgustingly. Yes, that wove throughout the stocktaking. Fortune’s absence, his culpability, his inadequacy as a father and husband. Now, this morning, lying in bed, he could think of no way of making up for it. No more avenues to pursue, save for walking into the police station and holding Marsh hostage, demanding that he do something, that he listen, that he act. As if.

  How long had it been since he’d eaten? He couldn’t remember. At least a day. He got up with difficulty and dressed himself like an old man would, pulling his trousers on in slow motion, one leg in, then the other, sitting on the edge of the bed. He was breathing like he was summiting Everest. He stood up, put a hand to the wall on the way out of his room, and felt his way down the corridor. It rolled and wallowed like a ship’s gangway in a storm, Fortune again putting out a hand, trying to keep his balance. He got to the lift and pressed the down button, seeing two arrows as if he was drunk. He was sweating now, his chest so tight it was as if someone was turning the screw on a monstrous vice, and he was trapped in it like some laboratory rodent. He tried to breathe and heard the muffled ting of the lift arriving. How could it be muffled? He was standing right next to it. The doors opened and he walked in, stumbled, and fell to his knees. He put a hand on the brass balustrade and caught a glimpse of himself in the mirrored wall. In the lift’s gloom, under the bright lights, his face shadowed, he looked like some creature from a horror film, dreadful and barely human. He must eat. He must eat, look after himself, keep going for just a few more days.

  He pulled himself up with difficulty and was only barely upright when the lift doors opened. He composed himself and walked out, into the lobby, then headed for the breakfast room, concentrating on walking steadily as if he was a drunk in a pub trying to find his inebriated way to the loo. Look after yourself, he thought, furiously. Sophie needs you. You’re all she’s got. You, you fool, you weak, contemptible man. Think you’ve got what it takes, huh? Think you’ve got what it takes to save your daughter? Sitting down with relief, ordering coffee, Fortune wasn’t sure. But he knew that he’d try, give it his everything. That he promised.

  thirty

  A CATFISH. A CATFISH, AND I FELL FOR IT, HOOK, LINE AND sinker. Like some teenager, wet behind the ears. Pathetic. Sad. No, tragic. That’s it. Sophie, you idiot. You silly hysterical desperate needy tragic idiot. You almost deserve it. Except I don’t want to die. No, I don’t deserve that, I’m sure I don’t. But I think it might happen, I really do.

  Josh didn’t exist, and he never existed. There was never any such person, just a catfish, an online profile and nothing more. What did we have, the two of us? An email exchange, a couple of phone calls. And I thought I loved him. Based on that, just that, I thought I loved him. Well, maybe not loved. But I wanted to love him and thought that I could, that it might be possible. And I told him everything about my life, about my fears, my friends and family, my frailties. All because I liked his photo and I thought his job was cool and his emails made me smile. Really? Really, Sophie? Seriously?

  Everything that happened, he did. Not Josh; Josh doesn’t exist. The other one. The one who’s keeping me here, in this room. In this cell. The one who pretended to be Josh, who set me up, who made complaints about my non-existent parties, who hacked my account and sent emails to Jackson, who stole a knife from my kitchen, who planted drugs in my luggage, made me lose my job, tried to spray acid in my face. Who ruined my life, robbed me of everything I have, and almost made me lose my mind. The troll. He did all this.

  So Josh wrote to Sophie. I’ll refer to her as Sophie for now, because I’m too horrendously ashamed to acknowledge that it was me who fell for it. Sophie, she reads this email. And the email tells her that somebody’s out to get the two of them, and that nowhere is safe. Oh, thinks Sophie. It’s happening to you, too. Well, that makes me feel a whole ton better, because a problem shared, etc., right?

  You know the London Fields Brewery? he asks.

  Yes, says Sophie. Let’s not forget, Sophie is an idiot.

  There’s a builder’s yard next to it, he replies. I’ll be there. I’ve got a mate, he’s lent me his van.

  Of course, at this point, Sophie smells the proverbial rat and tells Josh that she’s not, what, not comfortable with this plan. Right?

  Wrong. Oh, so, so wrong.

  No, Sophie eagerly sends her reply.

  Okay, she says. What time?

  What time!

  She almost deserves it, to be frank.

  Anyway, Sophie arrives at the appointed time. And sure enough, there’s a builder’s yard. And there’s a van parked in it. And something else. A groaning sound. Words, faint, weak. Help. Help me, somebody. Please.

  So Sophie rushes over to the van, because Sophie is simple, she doesn’t have a scintilla of sense, not an ounce of nous, not a milligram of moxie. She rushes over, and somebody’s there, only they don’t look injured, no, they look … well, she doesn’t actually know, because at precisely this point, Sophie the Simpleton has been hit by something and is unconscious and is being, let’s call it what it is, kidnapped.

  My cell isn’t big. I don’t know where it is; it could be anywhere. It could be in the middle of a city, or the middle of Syria. I’m sitting against the back wall, watching the door. There’s nothing else to look at, and it’s the only thing I’m frightened of. Of it opening. It’s a couple of metres away, green and made of metal. It can’t be kicked open because I’ve tried, tried and tried. The floor is concrete and the walls are brick and there’s nothing in the cell except a bed and a bucket. The bed has sheets on it. It’s basically your average bargain hotel, only the concierge is a lunatic. There’s a window right above my head, but there’s no electric light, so when it’s dark it really is pitch black. I pray for it not to get dark, as if I can influence the laws of physics or something. When it’s dark, there’s just me and my breathing and almost nothing else. In London, there’s always noise, always something to listen to. In here, there’s nothing, nothing at all. It’s like I don’t exist any more, just like Josh never existed; like I’ve been vanished from the world, disappeared. But. Ah, yes, but. And here’s the big but. At least I know that, whatever happens, I’m not mad. I’m not mad, and I never was. And I guess that’s got to be something.

  Josh doesn’t exist, so he’s not going to rescue me. The police never believed me anyway. My dad’s in Dubai, working, working, always working. There’s nobody to save me, nobody coming to my rescue. I’m in the hands of a sadist, a wacko, a total psycho, and nobody in the whole world cares. I am scared. Oh, I am so, so scared.

  thirty-one

  FORTUNE FINISHED EATING. HE HAD TO ADMIT THAT, TERMInal cancer or not, a plate of bacon, eggs and mushrooms made a hell of a difference, once you managed to actually ingest it. Plus coffee, a whole lot of coffee. And nipping outside for a restorative cigarette. He sat back down and looked out of the window of the hotel’s breakfast room, into the world outside: a wet road, taxis, cyclists, a cement mixer grudgingly stopping for a zebra crossing. As well as he’d eaten, he was still, essentially, dead in the water. What should he do next? All he knew was that his daughter was out there somewhere, alive and frightened. At least for the next seven days. He felt his heart beat as his anxiety dumped another load of adrenalin into his system. What the hell was he going to do?

  His mobile ringing interrupted his thoughts and he took it out of his pocket, recognized the number.

  ‘Alex?’

  ‘Jesus, Fortune, thank Christ. All right. Okay.’ He paused, took a breath. ‘Fortune, what … what the hell did you do?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I wanted to talk to you first. I know I shouldn’t, but … Jesus, Fortune, how could you do i
t?’

  Fortune turned, phone to his ear, looked out over the hotel’s lobby, where an elderly couple were towing their luggage from the lift, backs bent. ‘Do what?’

  ‘Please. How long did we work together?’

  ‘Alex,’ said Fortune, ‘what the hell’s going on?’

  ‘That’s what I want to know,’ said Alex. Fortune pictured him in Dubai, shirtsleeves, tie loose, his oh-crap-what-now face on. ‘That’s exactly what I want to know.’

  ‘You need to give me something to go on here,’ said Fortune.

  ‘Okay,’ said Alex.

  ‘Okay, fine.’ He sounded angry, frustrated. ‘Recognize these numbers?’ He read off a string of numbers. Fortune lost track halfway through, thought they rang a bell.

  ‘Again?’

  Alex read them off again.

  ‘Sounds like a bank account.’

  ‘Know whose?’ said Alex.

  ‘Could be mine,’ said Fortune. ‘I think it’s mine. Savings.’

  ‘How much have you got in it?’

  ‘Around a hundred thousand,’ said Fortune. ‘Why?’

  ‘Wrong,’ said Alex. ‘Way off. There’s a little over a hundred and thirty million sterling in it. That’s just over a hundred and sixty million dollars. Sound familiar, those numbers?’

  Fortune leant back in his chair, felt sweat break out on his forehead. ‘Yes.’

  ‘You know I have to release this information.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘I just wanted …’ Alex paused, tried to control his emotions. ‘I just wanted to know why. Why you did it?’

  ‘I didn’t,’ said Fortune.

  ‘Come on, Fortune,’ said Alex. ‘It’s me. I need to know. You owe me that.’

  ‘I didn’t steal it,’ said Fortune. ‘It wasn’t me.’

  ‘I’m going to see Owen in, like, five minutes.’

  Fortune closed his eyes, felt himself sinking into the chair, losing any certainty he’d had, which wasn’t a lot. ‘I understand.’

  ‘But I don’t. I don’t, Fortune. Why?’

  ‘Alex, I didn’t do it. It’s complicated. Tell Owen, tell whoever you have to. But I didn’t do it. I promise you that.’

  ‘Right,’ said Alex, his voice suddenly flat. ‘Whatever. I’ll see you, Fortune.’

  ‘Alex—’ began Fortune, but he’d hung up, leaving Fortune with a dead phone pressed to his ear, held too tightly. He put it down on the table in front of him, leant forward and rested his forehead on the table, its cool surface soothing against his hot skin. Okay, he thought to himself. All right. Now it’s happening to you. But that’s okay. If Sophie could cope with it, keep her head, or almost, then so can you. Keep calm. Don’t panic. You can do this.

  Fortune didn’t bother to go to his room, just walked out of the hotel and called a cab, asked the driver if he knew the nearest branch of HSBC and told him to get him there quickly. He didn’t know much, didn’t know who had transferred the money, didn’t know how they’d done it. But what he did know, as the taxi passed commuters walking to work under umbrellas beneath a spiteful rain, was that very, very soon, alarms would be going off. He’d worked in banking long enough to know how it went, had fielded enough suspicious payments himself, investigated them, traced them back to their source to find a ‘warm body’ who could guarantee their provenance.

  If what Alex had told him was true, somebody would be looking at Fortune’s account, wondering why well over a hundred million pounds had just landed in it. Was it money laundering? Was it connected to terrorist funding, or an international sanctions breach, the funds sitting in his account before heading off to Cuba or North Korea? If the money was in his account, then he needed to know more about how it had got there. He couldn’t do that online; he’d have to speak to somebody real. But, he figured as he pulled up outside the bank, it might be a good idea to ask the taxi to wait, just in case. You never knew.

  He was kept waiting at the customer service desk due to the fact that he had insisted on speaking to the manager, because it was very important and very, very sensitive, and no, he realized the woman at the desk was probably very well trained, but still. The manager. Now, please, right bloody now.

  The manager was an overweight thirty-year-old, the kind of figure Fortune mistrusted on sight because if you can’t iron your shirt then it’s very unlikely that you’ll be meticulous in your day-to-day dealings. In fact, he thought unkindly, the manager looked like the kind of man who’d grow into somebody like Marsh, a sedentary incompetent promoted above his abilities. But he smiled and shook the hand that was offered, and the manager told him his name was Michael and asked what, exactly, could he do to help?

  ‘I’d rather not do this out here,’ Fortune said.

  ‘Then in my office?’ said Michael.

  ‘If you don’t mind.’

  Fortune followed Michael, whose white shirt was badly tucked into the back of his trousers. He was the kind of man, Fortune thought, remembering some old joke, who’d look scruffy in a wetsuit. Michael opened a door with a code and waited for Fortune to walk through, then passed him and opened another door into his office. He walked around the desk, put out a hand to the chair opposite. He sat; Fortune sat.

  ‘So, Mr Fortune. How can I help you?’

  ‘I need to look at my accounts.’

  ‘Of course. But you can do that anywhere.’

  ‘I think there might have been some … irregular activity.’

  ‘Oh?’ Michael smiled, a complacent smile, the kind that a man well used to the irrational financial fears of the public wore. The kind that said, Oh, okay, you’re paranoid. I see. I get it.

  ‘I think somebody might have put a hundred and thirty million pounds into it.’

  This statement from Fortune froze that smile. Michael twitched his head, frowned a little. ‘I’m sorry?’

  ‘A hundred and thirty million. Right now, I believe it’s sitting in my account. What I want to know is, how did it get there? Which is why I want to talk to you. So,’ and Fortune took a breath, in business mode but willing himself to stay patient, ‘how about you get my accounts up, and we take a look?’

  He gave Michael his account number, sort code, went through the security questions, his date of birth, mother’s maiden name – Hemmings – and the first two numbers of his PIN.

  ‘So let’s have a look, shall we?’ said Michael, his composure slightly restored by the questions, a small re-establishment of power and control. ‘Let’s see.’ He looked at the screen, moved the mouse, looked some more, then blinked very slowly, staring at the screen as if it was playing out a lurid murder scene. Fortune studied Michael’s desk. There was a picture on it, him with a woman and child. The woman was pretty, very pretty, and Fortune idly wondered if Michael would make a better job of family life than he himself had managed. Eventually Michael turned away from his screen and looked at Fortune.

  ‘A little over a hundred and thirty million,’ he said, unsteadily. He cleared his throat, tried again. ‘A little over a hundred and thirty million pounds was deposited in your account twelve hours ago.’

  ‘By?’

  ‘I couldn’t say.’

  ‘Can you find out?’

  ‘We’ll certainly try,’ said the manager. ‘I’ve got a few notes on your account. From our financial crime compliance people. They’d like to speak to you.’

  ‘I’m sure they would,’ said Fortune. So they could put two and two together and make several million. The money goes missing from his ex-employer’s accounts, turns up in his. The shortest investigation in FCC history. ‘Look, I need to know, right now, where that money came from. What can you tell me?’

  ‘Nothing. An account number I don’t recognize. Starts with three zeros, which is always a sign. Could be from anywhere, Geneva, Caymans. But, Mr Fortune, I can’t tell you anything about it anyway. I’m not allowed.’

  ‘Listen,’ said Fortune. He sighed, sat forward, realized he’d left it a little late for a charm offe
nsive, but what the hell. ‘I really, really need to find out where that money came from. Because if I don’t, somebody’s life is in danger. Clear, real danger. Do you understand?’

  Michael swallowed. He hadn’t been on any course to prepare him for this. ‘Not really, no,’ he managed.

  ‘Give me the account number.’

  ‘I can’t. It’s illegal. It’s under investigation.’

  ‘I’ll come around and find it myself.’

  ‘No,’ said Michael. He fished underneath the desk and looked at Fortune, this time with defiance. ‘I can’t tell you.’

  ‘What did you just do?’ said Fortune. ‘What did you just press? An alarm?’

  ‘You should stay here,’ said Michael, ‘right where you are. We’ll work out what’s going on.’

  But Fortune was already up and opening the door to Michael’s office, pressing a button to open the second door, then out into the main bank floor, trying not to run or look suspicious, pushing open the door to the bank and walking out into the rain. His taxi was still waiting and he opened the door, got in, told the driver to take him back to the hotel. As they pulled away, he looked out of the back window in time to see Michael run out and look around, the rain soaking his white shirt so that Fortune could see the pink of his lazy, generous flesh beginning to show through.

  thirty-two