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

order, the desk is clear. Even the bed is made as neatly as you would find in a hotel room, with a row of scatter cushions neatly arranged below the pillows.

Annie opens the wardrobe. ‘He’s always been like it. Ever since he was a kid.’

‘I remember you saying,’ Sasha says. ‘I never realised he was this tidy, though. I’m surprised Harry has never said anything. Harry’s wardrobe compared to this is like a Marie Kondo before and after.’

Being the mother of a son, I think there’s hope that Joe will choose not to live in the mess that he does. Clothes hang perfectly here, all facing the same way, the hangers lined up. On a shelf above, jumpers and sweatshirts are folded impeccably and stacked by colour. Rows of footwear line the floor like something out of an upmarket shoe shop.

‘You know he’s always preferred it over at yours. I always thought it was because it was too quiet here. On the odd occasion when Harry does come over, they never come up here. Luke insists they hang out in the office downstairs or the kitchen. It’s like this is some kind of sanctuary. A shrine to Luke.’ She sighs. ‘Even when he was little, he never allowed kids up here to play, which wasn’t often because he was so bloody horrible to other kids, they stopped coming over. And God help Art and me if we dare step past the threshold.’ Her bottom lip protrudes as her arm presents the contents of the wardrobe. She looks from Sasha to me. ‘This isn’t normal, is it?’

It’s a bit late to be asking this question.

Sasha’s eyebrows rise a rung on the ladder of surprise. I can understand why. Teenagers are not like this. Kids’ bedrooms are never this tidy. Even the rubbish in the bin appears to have been placed in there neatly. I tried to put bins in the kids’ rooms a few months ago. Isabella gets it, but with Joe, I still can’t work out if it’s his poor aim or his laziness that results in rubbish accumulating around it, rather than in it.

‘What do you think he’s taken?’

Annie scans the contents of the wardrobe, swiping the hangers of clothes. ‘Not a lot.’

‘If he were to hide something, where do you think that would be?’ I ask.

‘What’re you looking for?’

‘Nothing in particular.’ This is the truth. I don’t know what I’m looking for, but there’s something to be found for sure. ‘Let’s think here.’ I peer around the room but return my focus to the wardrobe.

‘Perhaps under the bed,’ Annie suggests. She walks over and lifts the valance. It’s as immaculate as if a cleaner had sneaked in and spring-cleaned under there only this morning. ‘Perhaps not.’

The wardrobe is built-in, with several drawers and space-saving compartments. I pull open the drawers and shift tidy piles of clothes aside, searching for that something. And there it is, under a pile of immaculately folded T-shirts on the top shelf – a laptop and a plastic file crammed with papers. I slip my sleeves over my hands and hold them up. ‘Are these Luke’s?’

Sasha gasps as she lunges to empty my hands. ‘That’s Marc’s laptop.’

Thirty-Three

LUKE

Pete played his part with admirable speed. As soon as I arrived at the Tube station, my phone buzzed – a text from the man himself:

How do I know you’ll destroy the evidence?

I wasted no time with my reply:

I won’t. I’ll leave that job in your capable hands. Once you transfer the funds, I’ll send you all the files I have, and they’ll be yours to do what you want with.

Can’t say fairer than that!

Despite threatening him with the fear of shame and humiliation, he still tried to barter with me. Some people! As I approached the ticket barrier, my phone vibrated in my pocket. I fished it out to see his name flashing on the screen.

‘What do you want now, Pete? I’m busy.’

‘Look, you fuc…’

‘Pete, Pete, stop! There’s no need to swear. Let’s be civilised about this.’

Shallow breaths sounded in my ear. ‘I’m not transferring any funds to you until you hand over everything you’ve got.’

I thought for a while, to annoy him more than anything. ‘You probably won’t agree, but I’m a reasonable guy at heart.’ I let out a chuckle to provoke him further. ‘I’ll transfer your performance with those bimbos you regularly meet with. You cough up the funds, and I’ll send your entire portfolio.’ I paused for longer than was necessary. ‘See, I told you I was a decent chap.’

I didn’t hear the rest of what he had to say. I wasn’t interested. I turned the phone towards the crowds surging towards the escalator and stood there for a minute or two until his ranting stopped.

Arriving home, I filled a glass with ice and fetched a Diet Coke from the fridge. All this diet crap my mum buys. I keep telling her it’s doing her no good. Perching on one of the breakfast bar stools, I sent Pete a WeTransfer of his shenanigans with a woman he hooked up with last year. The one where they had their tongues down each other’s throats in the lobby of some shabby three-star hotel a few streets from Oxford Circus.

I tapped into my emails. A couple of new flight deals had come in. One, leaving Friday night, piqued my interest. I flagged it for me to return to later when a text pinged telling me to check my bank account. Logging into the one earmarked for Pete, I smiled. My reply, short and sweet, thanked him for his prompt payment. A call came in. ‘Hand over the rest of what you have.’

Of course I’ll hand it over, Pete.

But I hope you are not daft enough to think I won’t keep a copy for myself.

I spent the evening fine-tuning the plans for the rest of the week. Around eight-thirty, I started to get twitchy. Penelope had not been as efficient as her husband. Silly woman. I