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‘It isn’t even half as simple as that.’
‘I can’t just stand by and have illegal shit happen outside the house.’
‘I know, I know.’
‘Missing babies. Stolen cars.’
‘Missing babies?’ he says. His eyes flash, then meet hers, his expression changing from irritation to panic.
‘The missing baby.’
He pauses, breathing hard, then looks at her. ‘If I say something – will you trust me on it?’
Jen spreads her arms wide, right there in the street. ‘Of course.’
Kelly comes over, grasping her shoulders urgently. ‘Do not look into that baby.’
Nothing could have shocked Jen more than this sentence. ‘What?’
‘Whatever you’ve found. Stop.’
‘Who’s Joseph Jones?’
‘Do not look into Joseph Jones either,’ he says, his tone as vicious and as sharp as a snake’s.
They stand there in silence for a few seconds, Jen still in his arms.
‘Kelly – I … you’re asking me to –’
‘Just – stop. Whatever it is you’re doing. Stop.’
Jen hates this tone of his. It provokes an ancient emotion in her. Her body wants to run, she wants to escape: fear.
‘Why?’ she says, barely a whisper.
Kelly’s fuse finally reaches its end. ‘You’re in danger, Jen,’ he says. She steps back from him in shock. Her shoulders are covered in goosebumps. She begins to shiver, feeling so alone. Who can she trust?
Kelly looks at her. Behind the sorrow, she is sure she can make out an emotion on his features that she hasn’t ever seen before on him, that she can’t read.
She tells him not to come home with her if he won’t tell her anything else, and he doesn’t. He leaves. She doesn’t know where he goes, almost doesn’t care. The takeaway bag sits there, its brown sides buffeting slightly in the wind. She picks it up and takes it home, for Todd. For once, she has no appetite.
Ryan
Ryan is loitering before the emergency briefing led by the sergeant, Joanne Zamo.
Leo, Jamie and Ryan are standing along the back wall of the briefing room. ‘One for you,’ Jamie says, right before Zamo starts speaking. ‘OCG is Organized-Crime Group.’
‘Thanks,’ Ryan says. ‘I knew that.’
‘All right,’ Zamo says. She’s in a trouser suit, flat black shoes, holding a coffee in her hand. Her weight is on one leg, and she’s clearly thinking, staring at the floor but probably at nothing, her brow lowered. ‘Surveillance are feeding some stuff through to us now. Everybody ready?’
The briefing room is ablaze with adrenalin in a way it isn’t usually. A copper whose name Ryan doesn’t know is erecting a board, pinning various items on to it. Two others are on the phone, talking more and more loudly.
‘Okay,’ Zamo says. ‘Surveillance have told us that the OCG were targeting an empty house. Then they saw a BMW idling on the driveway next door, keys in the ignition, engine on. So they took it.’ She folds her lips in on themselves, dimples appearing either side of her mouth. ‘What they didn’t know is it belonged to a new mother who was intending to go on a night-time drive to get her baby daughter to sleep. She secured her in the car seat, then left her there for just a few seconds while she dashed in to get her phone …’
Something turns over in Ryan’s chest. He can see it all. The panic. The terror. The woman seeing the car begin to move. Rushing out after it. The 999 call …
‘And now it’s five hours post. The car hasn’t been sighted, but we have eyes on the port, where it was heading.’
