Page 27 of Don't Let Him In

Jane eyes it curiously. “Whose is this, did you say?”

“Dad’s. Apparently this Nick guy found it back in the day. My dad left it in the kitchen one night and Nick put it in his pocket for safekeeping, but then Nick left and forgot to give it back to him. He saw the story about my dad in the papers and then somehow found our address and mailed it to us. Well, to my mum, really. And now he’s kind of, well, he’s dating Mum. And it’s all a bit weird.”

Jane reaches out for the Zippo and turns it over in her hand.

“Not Paddy’s,” she says decisively.

Ash flinches slightly. “What?”

“Paddy never had a lighter. It was a thing, you know? He was always cadging lights off people, always had pockets full of those flimsy matchbooks from restaurants and bars, or shitty old Bics that never worked. He never had a proper lighter.”

Jane pushes the Zippo back across the table toward Ash, slowly, with a kind of apologetic tilt of her head.

“Are you sure?”

“Oh yes,” Jane says decisively, comprehensively. “I was the world expert on Paddy Swann, remember. I was obsessed with every last detail of him. I could have written a book.” She sighs. “Sorry,” she says. “Inappropriate again. I’m not very good at…” She gestures at the space between them, suggesting delicate human discourse.

“So, you think this guy is lying? About the Zippo?”

Jane pulls the lighter back toward her and examines it at close quarters. “It doesn’t even look old enough, to be frank. It looks quite new.” She pushes it back once more, leans into her chair, and blinks slowly.

Ash shrugs. “Maybe he thought this was Dad’s, but it was someone else’s,” she says, her hand covering the Zippo. “Or maybe Dad did own it for a while, and you didn’t know. But it just feels… I dunno. It all feelsoff. Somehow.”

Jane nods, her mouth open slightly, as if she is pondering whether to speak her mind. “I know people,” she says, leaning toward Ash. “Peoplewho can run checks. You know. Run him through systems. Police records. That kind of thing.” She ripples her fingers. “Which makes me sound kind of mysterious and exciting, which I’m not, I just come from a very wealthy, very paranoid family who trust no one, and I have two paranoid wealthy ex-husbands who also trust no one. I could ask someone to check him out? If you’d like?”

Ash inhales sharply. “Yes. Please.”

“What do you have?”

“Not much. A name. Nick Radcliffe. A wine bar that he says he co-owns. A deleted LinkedIn profile. He lives in Tooting. He’s fifty-five. He has a dead fiancée. No kids. Although I did find something in his coat pocket the other day and didn’t know what it was at first, but turns out it’s the thing that clips a baby’s pacifier to their clothes, so they don’t lose it?” She shrugs and takes a sip of her coffee. “And, oh,” she says, putting the cup back down on the table. “A poo bag, for a dog. I mean, you wouldn’t have one of those in your pocket, would you, unless you had a dog, and he never mentions a dog or brings a dog, andanyway. He’s just very… sus.”

“Leave it with me,” says Jane, picking up the last section of her croissant and popping it in her mouth. “Now,” she says, rubbing her greasy fingertips together to dislodge the crumbs and leaning down to pick up the bag at her side, “I brought some photos. Of your dad. When he was a young thing. Do you want to see?”

Ash feels her stomach turn to liquid and she nods eagerly. “Oh,” she says, forgetting for a long moment about Nick Radcliffe and all his disquieting loose ends. “Yes. Yes, please.”

TWENTY-FIVEFOUR YEARS EARLIER

She comes to the door very quickly. Her blond hair is fried with too much bleach—I used to tell her all the time to take it easy, that it was ruining her hair—and piled on top of her head. She’s wearing yoga pants and a hoodie and is chewing the remains of something, suggesting I’ve caught her halfway through a meal. It’s half past six, so that makes sense. She always did like to eat her dinner early. It’s clear she was expecting someone else, her posture is too easy, she seems as if she’d already decided what she was going to say to the person she’d assumed would be at the door, and when she sees me, it takes a split second for it to register—then she opens her mouth and I have to clamp my hand down firmly over it and push her back hard into her hallway. I’m aware of the sound of the TV in the background, or is it someone on a phone? I’m pretty sure she’s alone—I’ve been watching for a while from across the street—but at the suggestion of there being another person in there, I clamp my hand tighter around her mouth and manhandle her into the darkness of a room just to my left. I click the door closed behind us both, and then I throw her into a chair, my hand still hard against her mouth. I wait until her eyes are less wide, until her breathing is less ragged, and then I release it. Her hands go to her face, moving spit-covered hair from her cheeks, then they rearrange her clothes, but her eyes stay on me all the while.

“Damian?” she whispers hoarsely.

I nod.

“What the fuck? What the… I don’t understand.”

“Just stay quiet,” I say. “Is there anyone here?”

“No! Just me. But… what is this? Is this some kind of sick joke?”

“It’s not a joke, Amanda. It’s very far from a joke. I need you to help me, OK? It’s very important.”

I see her eyes fill with tears; I see her bunch her hands up into small fists and bring them to her mouth. A convulsion passes through her then and suddenly her arms are around me and she is sobbing. “Is it really you, Damian?” she keeps asking. “Is it really you?”

“Yes,” I say, rubbing her bony back through the cheap cotton of her hoodie. “Yes, it’s me.”

“But we… Jesus Christ, Damian, we had a fuckingfuneral. Your kids were there, at your graveside, they did speeches, bought suits. Where have you been, Damian! Where the fuck have you been?”

Part Three

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