The Lost - Jonah Colley Series 01 (2021) by Beckett Simon

Author:Beckett, Simon [Beckett, Simon]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 20

Jonah stayed a couple of cars back. The silver Vauxhall continued to head north through the outer boroughs of London with no sign of stopping. He wondered where the hell Dylan was going. Apart from anything else, the taxi fare would be costing a small fortune.

After a few more miles, the Vauxhall turned off into a street of large but run-down Victorian and Edwardian villas. A hundred years ago it would have been an affluent, professional neighbourhood. Now the once-grand houses were dilapidated and subdivided into cramped bedsits and flats. If Dylan was intending to buy drugs, this looked the right place to do it. Up ahead, Jonah saw the taxi indicate and pull in to the kerb. He drove past, then pulled in and parked a little further along. Angling the rear-view mirror so he could see the street behind him, Jonah watched as the Vauxhall’s passenger door opened and Dylan got out. The teenager looked around furtively, then turned onto the path of a large house, disappearing behind its overgrown privet hedge.

Jonah climbed out – awkwardly, because his knee had stiffened up – and retrieved his crutches. There was no gate on the path Dylan had taken, but wrought-iron gateposts stood at either side, rusted and crooked. The garden was long, overhung with old sycamores and horse chestnuts that had shed most of their leaves. The path’s uneven paving led past overflowing wheelie bins to a tall, four-storey house that still bore signs of its former grandeur. There were elaborately carved wains-coting and cornices, their timbers now rotting and hanging loose. Bay windows stood either side of the front door, one of them obscured on the inside by a pinned-up sheet in place of a curtain.

He made his way to the scuffed plastic intercom panel, its double row of buttons testament to how many people now lived there. There were no names, only flat numbers running from one to twelve, some of them barely legible. He was about to press one at random, hoping to bluff someone into buzzing him in, when the door abruptly opened.

‘Sorry,’ Jonah said, shuffling aside as a woman came out. She barely gave him a glance as she brushed past, trailing an odour of cigarettes and soup. Catching the door before it could close, he went inside.

The hallway was gloomy. At some long-ago point it had been decorated in various shades of green. Pea-green walls, dark green paintwork, and a swirl-patterned green carpet. With the only light coming from a small window on the stairway, it felt like being at the bottom of a stagnant pond. There were several doors on the ground floor, all of them painted the same dark green and all of them closed. The house was quiet, but as Jonah debated what to do, he heard a distant door open and close from somewhere above him.

It came from one of the higher floors. He considered the steep stairs without enthusiasm, then started up. The threadbare carpet threatened to snag his crutches with every step.

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