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

of designer never-to-be-read hardbacks. Slipping my phone out of my back pocket, I checked the camera was paired correctly, waving my hand in front of the spy hole. Abracadabra, there it was; the magic performing its trick to perfection. I couldn’t wait to view the footage on this one.

No time to waste, I legged it back downstairs to pick up where I’d left off.

‘How long before you can transfer the video for my website?’ Alisha asked when I’d finished.

‘I’ll have to go home and edit it. Then I’ll come back and load it onto your website for you.’

‘Oh, no need. I can get my website designer to do that.’

Think, Luke, think. ‘Probably best I do it myself. Sometimes there are issues with buffering. How about I come back on Friday and get it all sorted for you. I can have it done in no time.’

‘Can’t you do it remotely if I give you the passwords?’

Think, Luke, again. Think.

‘Doesn’t always stream right, and it’s never wise to share passwords. Best I upload it straight onto your computer. Do you have a Mac?’ I knew she did. I’d seen it in her study opposite the front door.

She nodded.

‘Perfect. Always easier.’

She bought it, thank God.

I couldn’t wait for Wednesday to come around. At two-thirty, which was the usual time for Tom and Pen’s rendezvous to begin, I clicked the app. The pair of cheaters disgusted me so much, I had to decrease the volume and turn away when they got to it. But there was no need to watch it all. It was sufficient to know that I had enough for my plans to come to fruition.

On Friday I returned, only to be challenged yet again when asking to use the toilet. Alisha said, ‘Plumber’s been, you can use the downstairs one now.’

Think. Think.

But I couldn’t this time. There was no way I could get away with nipping upstairs to collect my belongings. I would never be able to get back down in time. But I am never one to give in so easily. So, when I was in the toilet, I banged my head against the mirror. One, two, three. Bang. Bang. Bang.

I returned to her study with a plan. I’d have to come over another time. I sat at her glass desk which ran the length of the room, clicking away on the keyboard of her Mac, faking irritation with each click of the keys.

‘Something wrong?’ she asked from the sofa where she was tapping away on her laptop.

‘There’s a problem with the beginning of the video. I’m sorry, it seems to have corrupted. We’re going to have to reshoot.’

She tutted. ‘Really?’

‘Won’t take us long. We know what we’re doing now. Twenty minutes, half an hour tops.’

She sighed in irritation. ‘Let me go and get changed and sort my makeup.’

Ten minutes later we had recommenced filming when the doorbell rang. Alisha rushed to answer it, returning with Sasha and her friend.

They started yakking away, asking me questions I didn’t particularly want to answer. Boring questions about where I was going to uni and what I was studying. I kept my cool, though, and, when I was finished, I left them to it and went back to Alisha’s study to work on the upload. And that’s when I took my chance. While they were rambling on in the kitchen, I darted upstairs to the bedroom, whipped my button camera from the bookcase and slipped it in my pocket.

Job done.

I can just hear my dad’s voice. “See, if you hang tight, you get there in the end.”

Twenty-Eight

‘Steady on,’ Jim says as I screech out of Art’s gym car park. ‘What’s happened?’

I open the car window, trying to dispel the nausea burning my throat. Of all the sights I’ve witnessed in my career to date, why has what I’ve just seen affected me so much? Hell, I’ve been subjected to far worse. I cast my mind back to my first year in the force, when I attended a stabbing on the Lindley Estate in Peckham. Boy, that was a rough one. It was the first time I witnessed death firsthand. A man had stabbed his wife in both eyes. One eye was hanging out and the knife remained embedded in the other like something from a Halloween movie. The wife’s brother had turned up before we arrived and pummelled his brother-in-law who died at the scene. The image of the hanging eye tormented me for days after.

That man in Art’s gym reminded me of the wife’s brother. Was that it? No. He reminded me of my brother, Ben: the slight frame, the mass of curls, the lost-soul look. That’s it. He didn’t even flinch when I barged into that storeroom. He turned to me. But here’s the thing. He didn’t look at me. Rather he stared right through me as if I weren’t there. He didn’t appear to be a user, though – no bloodshot eyes or dilated pupils.

‘I think Art’s dealing drugs.’

‘Drugs? But he’s a fitness freak.’

‘What’ve I told you before? Don’t judge a book by its cover.’ I relay what I’ve observed.

‘You sure they were drugs?’

‘Pretty sure.’

‘Not one hundred per cent sure?’

‘I know what I saw.’

‘Why didn’t you arrest him?’

‘I need to think about this.’

‘What’s there to think about if he’s guilty? Shouldn’t you arrest him?’

Jim. You’re always so black and white.

Thoughts of Art’s reported involvement with Marc over the past few weeks are unnerving me.

Jim nudges me. ‘Eva?’

‘What?’

‘Shouldn’t you arrest or report him?’

I sigh. ‘Probably.’

Gill is ready to dish up dinner when we get home. The table is set, and Joe and Isabella are belly laughing at the jokes they are instructing Alexa to tell via the Echo Dot. Jim uncorks a bottle of white wine, laughing with them. I fix the kids a glass of apple juice, and the five of us sit down to a helping of shepherd’s pie. Watching Gill dishing out spoonfuls of her homemade delight makes me realise how much I love it when she