A Window Breaks

by C. M. Ewan

  ‘I’m still worried about them finding him.’

  ‘Me too, Rachel.’

  I’m pretty sure we’ll always worry about Adams being found, and that that is just one of the prices we have to pay for what happened and the agreement we all made with Lionel. Oh, he couldn’t keep Adams’s name out of things in the end, but he did help him to get away and hide. A private helicopter flight to Europe. A new name, a new ID and ample funds in a new bank account.

  Or, possibly not.

  I haven’t said anything to Rachel or Holly, but it occurs to me that Lionel had a much simpler and more reliable solution available to him. He’s already proven himself capable of killing people, burying their bodies in those woods and getting away with it, so what would it take for him to kill one more?

  I hope I’m wrong about that, but the truth is I don’t know for sure either way, and I doubt I ever will. Some nights it keeps me awake. Some nights it doesn’t. That’s one more burden we have to bear, I suppose.

  As for Brodie, again, I don’t know quite what to feel about him. He saved my life, and for that I’ll always be grateful. He helped uncover the truth about Michael. But by abducting and imprisoning Kate Ryan, he set our whole nightmare at the lodge in motion. Does that make him more of a bad guy than a good guy? I don’t know. And perhaps it’s not that simple. Because none of us left the lodge untarnished. We all have our secrets to keep.

  On the other hand, I don’t think it’s any great mystery why Brodie acted the way he did. Rachel tells me the two of them spent a lot of time together during the weeks and months when Brodie’s investigation developed. There was a period when he was keeping Ryan and her colleagues under surveillance and reporting back to my wife late at night. Was it more than a one-way infatuation? Again, I don’t know. But something pushed Brodie to act when he did. There was the mugging, sure, but sometimes I think about that weekend Rachel spent alone at the lodge with Lionel and Brodie. Did he press her to make a decision then? Did something happen between the two of them? Maybe. And maybe I haven’t learned my lesson, but that is not a question I’ve asked Rachel. I guess there are just some secrets I’d rather not know.

  There is a ring at the door. I hear Holly come rushing downstairs.

  ‘I’ll get it!’ she shouts.

  She must think it’s the postman. It’s about the right time. I hear the door open. There are many seconds of silence. The door doesn’t close.

  Rachel and I listen to the ambient noise from out on the street and then, as the air tightens around us, we exchange a worried glance.

  Not again. Not now.

  I drop the cheese I’m grating and hurry into the hallway. Holly is there, and I feel a surge of relief to see her, but something in her eyes tells me all is not well.

  ‘Dad? I think it’s for you.’

  I get as far as the doorway. There’s nobody there. Then I look along the path leading away from our house. The gate is open. A black BMW is parked at the kerb. A sudden coldness seeps through me. There is a door hanging open at the rear of the car.

  I know I could try to ignore it. But I also know I can’t dodge this forever, no matter how many more phone calls, voicemails and text messages I block or delete.

  ‘Tom?’ Rachel sees the car and tries to pull me back. ‘Don’t do this.’

  I almost cave. I almost tell her I won’t go. But then I look at Holly. I see the fear that lives in her eyes. And I remember my vow.

  ‘I won’t be long,’ I tell her, not knowing if that is true. ‘We’ll still have plenty of time to make practice, Holly, OK?’

  And then I am walking along the pathway, up to the car, feeling like a man wading out to sea, snared by an unseen rip tide.

  ‘Get in, Tom,’ Lionel says.

  He’s dressed in a sharply tailored suit and tie. Freshly shaved, his hair neatly cut. There is not a single blemish on his face. It rocks me. I’ve known Lionel for more than six years but he is a stranger to me now.

  I ease in slowly. Every instinct screams at me to stop. A driver I don’t recognize sits behind the wheel, acting oblivious.

  ‘Where are you taking me?’ I ask. ‘Some woods? Is this more of a one-way trip?’

  It’s a cheap shot, and the look Lionel gives me tells me as much. Maybe I’m projecting, but I think I see some hurt in it too.

  ‘That’s all over, Tom.’

  ‘Is it?’

  He nods sagely. I would like to tell you I believe him, but I honestly can’t say. Oh, I can believe he’s mothballed his Scottish lodge, but what’s to stop him setting up another JFA killing room somewhere else?

  ‘You haven’t been back to work, Tom.’

  ‘I quit. Maybe I should have written you a letter?’

  This time there’s no doubt about the pained look he gives me, but then he shakes off my comment and leans forwards to look along the pathway to my front door, where Rachel and Holly are watching. For the briefest second, his features soften. A smile plays about his lips. Light dances in his eyes. He begins to lift a hand to wave.

  I reach out and steady his wrist.

  ‘Don’t.’

  He stills and looks down then, with a slight, scolded frown, and I sense he knows what I’m going to say before I say it.

  ‘You were my friend, Lionel.’

  ‘Do you think I would have done what I did if you weren’t?’

  There is a long silence between us. It feels like one of the heaviest silences I’ve ever known.

  ‘You can’t come here, Lionel. I don’t want you contacting my family ever again. Not in secret. Not in any way whatsoever. Do you understand?’

  It takes so long for him to look up at me again that I’m startled to see the tears in his eyes.

  ‘I told you going to my lodge would heal your family, Tom. So answer me this. Was it really so wrong?’

  I don’t answer him, of course, because I can’t. Because to the extent we can be fixed, we are. Oh, it might not be for the reasons Lionel thinks, but the outcome is still the same, and that troubles me almost as deeply as my memories of what happened at that lodge.

  ‘I have something for you, Tom.’

  I feel a suppressed quake building inside me and I try very hard to push it back down. Is this how Lionel got the other executive members to join the JFA board? To keep the secret? Did he coerce them with evidence of the crimes they committed? Or were they willing participants from the start? I think of all the video cameras and recording equipment at the lodge.

  ‘Whatever it is, I don’t want it.’

  He lifts a brown paper package onto his lap. It’s about the size of a lever arch file. I watch as he rubs his hand over the paper.

  ‘Didn’t you ever ask yourself what happened to Fiona’s camera, Tom? The police found her phone. They found Michael’s. But no camera. Don’t you find that odd?’

  Not really. To the extent I had thought about it, I suppose I’d just assumed it had been destroyed in the crash or returned to Fiona’s parents. And her parents weren’t exactly keen to communicate with us in the wake of her death.

  ‘Do you know what happened after the crash, Tom? You never asked. We think Adams, Nayler and Kenny got there immediately after the impact. They pulled Ryan out of the rear of your car. She was badly hurt, of course, but not grievously so. They waited until the following morning and then they took her to hospital. Brodie secured a copy of her patient records. The records state that Ryan had been rock climbing as part of a team-building exercise and that she suffered a bad fall. Adams was the one who hid Fiona’s camera. He guessed there was a risk she had them all on film. He didn’t trust the other three. He wanted to protect himself.’

  I don’t say anything. And probably I can’t, because there is a terrible, suffocating weight spreading through my lungs.

  ‘Take it, Tom.’

  He hands me the package, and this time I don’t resist. And then, somehow, I’m standing on the pavement again, watching Lionel for the very last time as he faces forwa
rds and his car slips away. The package is cradled in my arms. Rachel and Holly watch me approach without speaking. I pass them, trembling, like a man walking into his own home with a bomb strapped to his chest.

  Without saying a word, we congregate together around the kitchen table. My hands are shaking so hard I have to sit on them to still them. It is Rachel who tears open the package.

  And even as Lionel’s words repeat in my mind, twisting like a knife – I told you going to my lodge would heal your family . . . Was it really so wrong? – for the time being, I don’t care.

  The photograph album is faced in pale grey leather. The pages are made from a thick cream stock. There is at least one, sometimes two, photographs mounted on every page. Most are in colour. Some are in black and white.

  I see the first image and my heart breaks. It just shatters. Tears run down my face. The shot of Michael and Fiona together is so perfect – and they look so perfectly happy – that I hear Rachel choke back a sob as Holly clutches my arm.

  Michael is kissing Fiona’s cheek. She’s pressing both hands to her mouth, her eyes wide and shining, feigning shock and surprise. Afterwards there are a handful of background shots. A high-rise apartment building. An empty shopping precinct. The top level of a multistorey car park with a damaged estate car in it.

  Every other print is of Michael in motion. There are images of him leaping athletically over walls. Balancing along handrails. Tucked up in a somersault flip. There is so much energy in the images. So much grace and vitality. We sit together in wonder, flicking through the pages and, as my heart soars and the tears blur my eyes, I realize: seeing these photographs for the first time, after not knowing they even existed, is almost like being gifted a precious few seconds more where my son is alive.

  A fortnight before the crash, Michael has a week’s work experience lined up at his dad’s office. He’s not looking forward to it. He doesn’t know what he wants to do with his life but he knows it’s not this.

  7 a.m. and he’s standing on a packed commuter train in one of his dad’s too-big-for-him suits over his school shirt and tie. The train rocks and shuffles. Everyone around him looks stressed and tired, including his dad.

  Michael yawns and thinks of his mum. The way she’d kissed him and ruffled his hair as she’d handed him his lunch that morning. How she’d waved him off from the house. The smile on her face. And he thinks of Holly, watching him from her bedroom window, sticking out her tongue, acting smug and superior because she knows he’ll hate this – that he’ll be miserable and bored.

  And he is. All morning. He sits in a corner of his dad’s office, at a small table, not even reading the legal document he’s supposed to be flicking through. Every now and again, he glances out at the high rises scattered throughout Canary Wharf. He thinks of all the other people in their offices. Mindless drones, surrounded by piles of paper, like his dad.

  It’s not the kind of future Michael wants for himself. He wants to hang with his friends, spend time with Fiona, practise his free running, maybe go to Cornwall and surf next year, go backpacking the year after that. He has so much life ahead of him. The world is so big. Michael wants to explore it all.

  His dad puts the phone down, leans back in his chair, rubs his temples. He stares at the mountain of work in front of him – like a man with so much to do, in such an impossible timeframe, he can’t think where to begin.

  Out of nowhere, Michael feels an urge to rescue his dad from all of this. If only for a second. And so he speaks up, asking him why he became a lawyer.

  His dad blinks, surprised – almost as if he’d forgotten Michael was there – and then he begins to talk. In truth, Michael isn’t really listening to what his dad has to say to him. But he is thinking. He’s remembering the awful commute that morning. And he’s looking around this office, thinking of how his dad had seemed to physically shrink when they’d arrived and he’d flicked on the lights.

  And suddenly it hits Michael that his dad doesn’t want this life any more than he does. He’d rather be out in the world exploring too. Anyone would. But the reason he’s here is because of Michael and Holly. Because he wants to give them choices. A future. A life.

  My dad is my hero, he thinks, and the thought is so staggering and new that Michael almost stops him and tells him right there and then. He can feel words bubbling up in his throat and he almost blurts them out: I love you, Dad.

  But he doesn’t. Because too often those are not the words that teenage sons say to their fathers, or that fathers say to their sons. And so Michael waits for his dad to finish speaking and then he tells him, ‘I like your office, Dad. It’s pretty cool.’

  In the seconds that follow – as he holds his dad’s gaze and watches a confused smile soften to something more wistful on his face – Michael can almost believe his dad gets what he’s really saying to him. He hopes so, anyway, although he’ll never know for sure. Because the last thing Michael thinks is how his dad isn’t going anywhere. There’ll be plenty of time to tell him what he means to him in the years ahead.

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  There’s a team behind every book, but I’m incredibly lucky to have such a stellar team behind this one. I owe a massive thank you to:

  Vicki Mellor, my editor, as well as Matthew Cole, Charlotte Cole, Samantha Fletcher and everyone in Sales, Marketing and Publicity at Pan Macmillan who have worked so hard on this book.

  Camilla Bolton, my agent, and all at the Darley Anderson Literary Agency, including Roya Sarrafi-Gohar, Sheila David, Mary Darby, Kristina Egan and Georgia Fuller, as well as Sylvie Rabineau at WME.

  Nicola Anderson, James Cavanagh, Ann Cleeves, Merilyn Davies, Clare Donoghue, Vivien Green, Lucy Hanington, Stav Sherez and Tim Weaver for their input and support.

  Mum and Allie, for all you do, Jessica and Jack, for mostly (not always) letting me close the study door, and – as always – Jo, who makes everything possible.

  A

  WINDOW

  BREAKS

  C. M. Ewan is a pseudonym for Chris Ewan, the critically acclaimed and bestselling author of many mystery and thriller novels. Chris’s first standalone thriller, Safe House, was a bestseller in the UK and was shortlisted for the Theakston’s Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year Award. He is also the author of the thrillers Dead Line, Dark Tides and Long Time Lost, as well as The Good Thief’s Guide series of mystery novels. The Good Thief’s Guide to Amsterdam won the Long Barn Books First Novel Award and has been published in thirteen countries.

  Chris lives with his wife and their two children in Somerset, where he writes full-time.

  Writing as Chris Ewan

  Safe House

  Dead Line

  Dark Tides

  Long Time Lost

  The Good Thief’s Guide series

  The Good Thief’s Guide to Amsterdam

  The Good Thief’s Guide to Paris

  The Good Thief’s Guide to Vegas

  The Good Thief’s Guide to Venice

  The Good Thief’s Guide to Berlin

  First published 2019 by Pan Books

  an imprint of Pan Macmillan

  The Smithson, 6 Briset Street, London EC1M 5NR

  Associated companies throughout the world

  www.panmacmillan.com

  ISBN 978-1-5290-0968-2

  Copyright © C. M. Ewan 2019

  Cover image © Reilika Landen/Arcangel

  The right of C. M. Ewan to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  You may not copy, store, distribute, transmit, reproduce or otherwise make available this publication (or any part of it) in any form, or by any means (electronic, digital, optical, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of the publisher. Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damage.

  A CIP catalogue record for this book
is available from the British Library.

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