The Passenger by Daniel Hurst (great book club books TXT) 📕

took my mobile! It means that as long as he still has it on him, we can see exactly where he is,’ she says, typing furiously on her keyboard.

‘Really?’ I ask, thinking that sounds too good to be true.

‘Got it!’ she cries, spinning her laptop around to show me the screen. Then she points at it so I can understand what I’m looking at.

‘I’ve just entered my number in here,’ she says. ‘And this is my phone.’

‘That’s James?’ I ask, watching the flashing red dot.

‘Yes!’ she replies enthusiastically. ‘As long as he holds on to my phone, then we can track him!’

This sounds too good to be true, but I don’t doubt what my daughter is telling me.

I see the map.

I see the flashing red dot moving across it.

And I see exactly where the man who stole my money is going.

40

STRANGER

The beer isn’t going down as well as I thought it would. I’ve never been a fan of drinking alone, but I don’t have much choice right now.

That’s because James isn’t here.

I check the time again and see that another ten minutes have passed since I walked into this pub and expected to find him sitting at one of the tables. I was surprised to beat him here and sent him a quick message for an update as I ordered two pints and carried them over to this table in the corner. But there has been no response, nor was there one when I called him a few minutes ago.

Now I’m starting to get worried.

I take another thirsty gulp of my frothy lager and try to quieten the gnawing sense of dread in the pit of my stomach that is telling me that James isn’t going to show. Of course he will show. This was the plan. Meet here. Debrief. Check in to the hotel around the corner. Head to London in the morning for the Eurostar. Enter France.

There’s no reason to think he has strayed from that schedule.

No reason other than the empty seat across the table from me.

With the alcohol not working on calming my nerves as well as I need it to, I pick up my phone and try James again. One ring. Two. Three. Four. I hang up after six, and now I’m even more anxious.

He told me he was out of the flat, so he should have been here by now. Did something happen along the way? Did the police catch up with him somehow?

Or has he done a runner with all the money?

It’s the last possibility that I deem to be the most likely, and it’s the one that causes me to leave my unfinished pint on the table and rush out of the pub and back onto the breezy Promenade.

I almost bump into an old man eating a bag of chips as I hurry down the road with my head buried in my mobile phone, typing out a message to my partner as I go.

“I hope you’re not doing something you’ll regret?”

I press Send but keep the phone in my hand as I walk, hoping that I’ll receive a message straight back any second now that will put my doubts to bed and have me scurrying back to the pub after learning this was all a misunderstanding. But the fact my phone doesn’t vibrate with any incoming messages keeps me headed away from the pub and in the direction of the flat at the corner of Jossels Road.

I recognise the grimy brown door from the last time I was here and put my hand against the peeling paintwork and knock hard three times. I’m not expecting James to be in this flat, but I’m hoping the woman who he was living with is. Her name is Christine, and James has been staying here with her after he got out of prison. She’s an ex-girlfriend of his from before he served time, but he was using her more as a free place to crash rather than to try to rekindle any past romance between them. It was at this flat a couple of weeks ago where I met James after my own release, and he told me about the teenager he had met online and the safe she knew of in her mother’s bedroom. Back then, this flat had been the place where our exciting master plan had been formed. But now I fear it may be the place where it all comes crashing down.

I’m just about to knock again on the ramshackle door when it suddenly swings open, and I see Christine standing there in her dressing gown. She looks like she’s just woken up, and maybe she has. James told me she worked nights at the casino down by the seafront. What a life. Spending all night serving drinks to the degenerate gamblers of this poxy seaside town and all day sleeping it off in this grimy flat that looks like it should be knocked down. But she isn’t my problem right now. The man she had allowed into her home is.

‘Have you seen James?’ I ask, cutting past all the pleasantries because there simply isn’t time for any.

‘I was hoping that it was him knocking,’ Christine replies, rubbing her bleary eyes and looking past me down the street as if she wasn’t aware that daylight was a thing. ‘You know you just woke me up. I’ve got work tonight.’

‘Do you know where he might be?’ I ask, my tone growing more desperate by the minute. ‘It’s really important that I speak to him.’

‘I’ve no idea. I saw him this morning when I got back from work, but I’ve been asleep since then. He isn’t up here now.’

‘You must have some idea. He lives with you!’

‘Just call him,’ Christine replies with a shrug, and she goes to close the door, but I put out my hand to stop it.

‘He’s not picking it up. Can I come in and have a look around for anything that might tell me where he