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

But then the signal went dead, and we are left refreshing the page, praying that it will pop back up again when he emerges from the tube, if that is what has caused us to lose track of him for now.

‘Come on, where are you?’ Louise mutters under her breath as she double taps the mouse pad again. Even though the circumstances are far from ideal, I feel glad that she and I are spending some time together. At first, I was completely against the idea of Louise joining me as I went after James, not willing to risk her being in any more danger than she has already been in today. But she insisted on coming, and after all she has been through because of me, I could hardly say no. Besides, she seems to understand this technology on her laptop much better than I do, and the fact she is accessing the internet through something called a dongle is just more evidence of that. It helps to have her operating the laptop while I stare out of the window and think about what I will do if and when I am able to catch up with the man who stole from me.

I have a plan, one that Louise helped me put together, but it isn’t without risk, and I’m not confident of its chance of success. But it’s the best one we could come up with in the limited time we had before we raced from the flat to the station, and we at least have this train journey to London to iron out the details.

‘’It’s so weird seeing you as a blonde,’ Louise says with an amused look on her face. I smile, which may be the first time I’ve done that since I realised the man on the train wasn’t flirting with me earlier. ‘I might have to borrow it for a night out sometime.’

‘You’re not old enough for a night out,’ I remind my daughter with a wry smile.

She is referring to the wig I put over my dark hair before leaving the flat, which, along with my change of clothes and dark sunglasses, is part of the disguise I am wearing tonight for my potential encounter with James. It’s a similar disguise to the one that I wore for my escorting jobs, although this time I’m not wearing it just because I’m worried about male clients trying to find me online after our dates.

I’m wearing it because it’s my only way of getting close enough to James without him realising that something is wrong.

I figured that James would most likely be aware of my appearance, either through his work with his partner as they followed me over the last few weeks or simply because he saw the photos of me around my flat when he visited Louise. Therefore, a disguise is in order if I want to get close to him without raising his suspicions. The plan Louise and I have come up with requires me to get very close to the thief, but I’m confident that my trusty escorting disguise and persona is going to help me do just that. The fact that my own daughter barely recognised me when I emerged from the bathroom after getting changed told me all I needed to know about how good a disguise it actually is. But that doesn’t mean it’s a comfortable one.

‘I hate this thing,’ I say as I fiddle with the wig for what must be the hundredth time since we boarded the train. ‘It’s so itchy.’

‘But you look hot,’ Louise says with a shrug, as if that is more important than comfort, which perhaps it is. ‘No wonder you made so much as an escort. Maybe I should give it a go.’

‘Don’t even think about it,’ I reply with a stern expression.

‘Well, hopefully, neither of us will have to do that after tonight,’ she says as she goes back to refreshing her laptop. ‘Aha!’ she cries suddenly. ‘I’ve got him! He’s at King’s Cross.’

My daughter was right. James must have been on the tube. That explains how he got across the city so quickly.

‘Where do you think he is going?’ I ask again, even though there is no way for either of us to really know until we catch up with him.

‘I’m not sure. From King’s Cross, he could get a train to pretty much anywhere in the UK,’ Louise replies, and I’m afraid she is right.

I wonder just how far from Brighton we are going to have to go tonight to try to catch him. But it doesn’t matter. I’ll go to the ends of the Earth to get back the things from my safe if I have to.

‘Unless…’ Louise says, thinking out loud.

‘What?’

‘Well, it’s not just trains to parts of the UK that go from there,’ Louise says, and a wave of nausea comes over me as I realise that she is right. St Pancras Station is right beside King’s Cross, and from that particular station, he could get a train into Europe.

‘The Eurostar,’ I say dejectedly.

Louise nods.

‘Will we be able to track him on this if he goes abroad?’ I ask my daughter.

‘I’m not sure. I don’t know if it works overseas.’

‘Shit,’ I say, because that’s about the best word to sum up the situation right now.

I turn to look back out of the window, silently cursing this train driver and the speed at which we are going. We’re going fast, of course, but it isn’t quick enough, especially not if the man we are chasing is preparing to board a train out of the country.

‘We’re going to get him, Mum,’ Louise says to me after a moment of silence between us.

‘Yeah,’ I reply, nodding my head, more for her benefit than my own. ‘We’re going to get him.’

But I don’t feel any better for saying it. That’s because after all the bad luck I have had in my life, I don’t believe a single word of it.

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