Don't Come Looking by AJ Campbell (top 100 novels of all time TXT) 📕

Chelsea, tight-lipped, nods her agreement as she blows her fringe out of her eyes. ‘All good, thanks, Eva,’ Luke says with a wave. Chelsea throws him a look of disgust and marches off to rejoin the party.

‘Friendly tiff,’ Luke says. ‘What smashed?’

‘I was helping to clear up, and I dropped a glass,’ I say pointing behind the bush. I know he knows I was snooping.

‘Let me help you. We can use my torch.’ He finds the right app on his phone and beams a light on the path. ‘Here, hold this.’ He passes me his phone. Bending down to pick up the shards of glass, he carefully collects them in his hand. ‘It’s gone everywhere. We need to sweep up,’ he says. It’s like he’s a grown man, not a teenager still living under his parents’ roof. ‘I’ll go and find a dustpan and brush.’

‘Leave this with me,’ I say, holding up his phone, ‘and I’ll keep looking.’

‘No, I’ll take it with me, thanks.’ He snatches the phone out of my hand. ‘Wait until I get back. You might cut yourself.’

Damn, damn, damn. I pick up the larger pieces, puzzled by what I’ve just viewed in the Luke and Chelsea performance. What was he showing her on his phone? He reappears within minutes and begins sweeping up the remaining glass, chatting about the success of the party. ‘Everyone’s having a great time over there. You should go and join them. I’ll finish clearing this up.’

In the line of duty, detectives develop an intuition. Call it a sixth sense. An inherent instinct that forewarns us when something or someone doesn’t look, sound, or feel right. Or even smell right. It tells us when to delve deeper and ask more questions. My senses are heightened. ‘Everyone seems to know each other well around here.’

He pauses mid-sweep and looks up at me. ‘We’ve all lived here for a long time.’

‘How long?’

‘Sasha and Marc since before us. Pen and Pete too. And the couple who’ve just moved out.’

‘What about you?’

‘We moved here when I was eight, about ten years ago.’

‘Where did you live before that?’

‘Barnet, North London. My dad wanted to be closer to his parents, and he wanted somewhere he could work from home, so we moved here. His parents lived in the next road, but they both died a few years ago.’

‘You’ll miss it here when you go to uni.’

He shrugs. ‘Not really.’ He stands up and wipes his forehead. ‘There, I think I’ve got it all. I’ll come and have a look in the morning.’ He waves and turns towards the party. I watch him go, shivering.

I find Jim helping Hannah and Grace man the chocolate fountain. Not that they need any help. I think people are sugared-out by now. ‘Where’ve you been?’ Jim asks. ‘I’ve not seen you all night.’

As I slip on my cardigan, I give him the look. Our “I’ll explain later” expression. We can have a whole conversation with these kinds of exchanges. ‘I’ll take over here, Hannah, for a while. You two go and enjoy yourselves.’

‘You sure?’ Hannah asks. ‘Come and find me if you need help.’

The music is louder, the beat faster, and most of the teenagers are dancing now, jumping in a clustered group with their hands pumping towards the sky. Family, and family friends, congregate around the bar in small groups. Some are drinking beer and wine, chatting, while others are hunched over their smartphones. The couple I served earlier is letting off party poppers and shooters, showering the crowd in a cascade of metallic confetti and multi-coloured streamers. And someone has set off a bubble machine, unleashing hundreds of bubbles into the night sky. Above the roar of the music, I see Sasha, her hands covering her ears, mouthing to Hannah, ‘We need to turn this down.’

‘Top marks for the playlist,’ I say to Jim.

He pulls me onto his lap ‘I hope you’re being careful.’

‘There’s something very odd about this lot,’ I say and brief him about my evening so far.

‘Why don’t you take this to Arthur now?’

‘I know what you’re saying. Not sure what he’d do about it, though.’ I massage his thighs. ‘If Marc were missing, yes, he’d probably start an investigation. But technically Marc’s not missing, and there’s no evidence he’s at risk.’

‘What about the fact he was depressed?’

‘That would have a bearing, but he has specifically said he doesn’t want to be found. We’ve got nowhere to go.’ I sigh heavily. ‘I can just hear Arthur’s voice: “We have drug dealers and murderers roaming the streets, and you want me to direct my already scarce resources at hunting someone down who has expressly stated they don’t want us to.” He’d laugh me out of the station.’ I lean back, and he enfolds me in his arms.

The freakish commotion commences simultaneously in the night sky and on the dance floor, advancing from nowhere into an onslaught of pandemonium. A pull of wind tugs the air and the skies burst open. Rain starts to hammer down like we’ve been hit by a water cannon, and the music abruptly stops as if someone has ripped the power supply from the speakers. Screams fill the air, along with howls of, ‘Fuck off, just fuck off!’

‘Whatever’s going on?’ says Jim.

I hoist myself up, seeking a better view of the drama unfolding. The voice is male and familiar, but I can’t place the owner. Is that Harry or Luke, or maybe George? ‘Fuck off the lot of you!’ The aggression in the tone intensifies. Panicking, people stumble and tumble in their hysteria to escape. Glasses are smashing and screams of, ‘Help me. Help,’ resonate across the chaos.

I pull away from Jim and grab an umbrella out of his bag. A necessity he keeps in there for occasions like this. I open it up and cover us. We sit there huddled together until the rain stops, almost as quickly as it started, filling the air with an earthy freshness. I