The German police had found the bus, torn it apart and found nothing. No money, no sign of the women. However, under the guidance of Ridley, they had discovered that the front edge of each seat and the top edge of each seat-back had all been recently re-sewn. Jack’s hunch about the seats being stuffed full of the stolen cash was right. Unfortunately for Ridley, it seemed that the staff at Hyatt House had “lost” the women’s booking information—and the bus parking around the back was not covered by working CCTV. The women had switched from the bus to a new vehicle or vehicles, unseen, and Ridley had no idea what sort of transport he was now looking for or the pseudonyms the women were using. So far, no known forger of passports and ID documentation had been connected to the women. Ridley was stumped. And for the first time in this entire investigation, he wished that Jack was there.

In West London, Angela’s neighbor Irene from number 36 had been worrying ever since she’d directed DC Warr to Rob’s garage. Unable to bear it any longer, she opened a secret drawer in her bureau and took out a mobile phone which had one number stored in it. She sent a WhatsApp message:

Jack Warr knows about Rob’s garage and the bus. Sniffed about the bins too. Dining chairs were admired by all at afternoon tea on Monday! Love to the kids. Irene.

Then she took out the SIM card and flushed it down the toilet. She watched the water settle, made sure the card had gone, then put the kettle on.

Chapter 35

Jack couldn’t believe how beautifully Maggie had transformed their spare bedroom for Charlie and Penny. There was bedding he’d never seen before and framed photos he’d not seen in years. The effect was spoiled slightly by the commode and the stash of cardboard urine bottles underneath the bed, which Maggie must have snatched from the hospital the second she got the call from St. Lucia.

One of the photos on the wall was of Jack on Charlie’s shoulders, aged about 5. Charlie’s arms were raised, his huge builder’s hands lying gently on Jack’s thighs, holding him safe. His triceps and biceps—even the muscles on top of his shoulders and down his sides—stood out through his tight white T-shirt. The gentle giant.

Jack pulled open the spare bedroom door as the puffing and panting coming along the hallway got closer. Charlie was now a skinny gray man, with too much skin to cover his non-existent muscles. Jack felt a swell of emotion come from deep inside, but it wasn’t sadness, it was anger. How dare the man who’d held Jack high enough to touch the sky be leaning so heavily on two women because walking ten feet is too much for him? How dare this be happening to his dad when the world was full of bastards like Tony Fisher, who refuse to fucking die? How dare this hard-working, generous, gentle man be taken from people who needed him in their lives?