Lost and Found

by Natasha West

  April smiled and took the hug. ‘Yeah, me too.’

  Barry released her and stood back, pink in the face. ‘Yeah, good, so that’s that done.’ He looked around awkwardly as though concerned his colleagues might have seen. ‘Now we go back to the station, take statements from you two. I’m hoping this time it’ll stick.’

  April nodded. ‘It better had, Barry.’

  ‘I’ll do my best,’ he swore. ‘But they’re wriggly buggers.’

  Sophie tutted. ‘Are you telling me you still think they’ve got a chance to get off? From this?’

  ‘Depends. How specific was her threat?’ he asked April.

  ‘Not very,’ April had to admit. ‘But I knew what she meant. They were going to…’ Sophie pressed against her again, wanting to comfort her. April pressed back once more.

  Barry scratched his chin and turned to regard the garage, where officers were bagging evidence. ‘I’m sure she was going to do what you thought. But Marla Gardener is the cleverest criminal I’ve ever dealt with. She finds a way. All this? She’ll try to spin it. I just wish I had one clear cut piece of evidence that wasn’t a witness statement. Something big to really KO ‘em. But Marla’s smarter than that.’

  April raised an eyebrow. ‘What if she gave me some info about a shipment they’re getting tomorrow?’

  Barry turned back to April, almost in slow motion, electrified. ‘What kind of shipment?’ he asked, practically aquiver.

  April shook her head. ‘I don’t know; she didn’t get around to telling me. I just know when and where.’

  Barry’s face creased into the biggest smile. April had never seen him do that before. It was unnerving. ‘When and where, eh?’ he muttered happily to himself. ‘Then we’ll be there. Let’s just hope it’s something really juicy.’ He walked off towards his car, calling, ‘You two, come on.’

  April reached out a hand to Sophie, and Sophie took it with her remaining good hand. They looked at each other. ‘I can’t believe you found me,’ April said to her.

  Sophie breathed. ‘I can’t either. I thought I’d lost you for a minute.’

  ‘Apparently, that’s not something we do,’ April said. ‘No matter what, we always end up finding our way back to each other.’

  Sophie smiled as they walked to Barry’s car. ‘Comforting to think there’s no force on earth that can get between us.’ She stopped smiling. ‘But we came close. Way too close. That’s it. I’m not letting you out of my sights from now on.’

  ‘What about if I need the bathroom?’ April asked.

  ‘Then I’m gonna stand outside talking through the door. If I hear a pause, I’m busting in,’ Sophie said.

  ‘You don’t need to do that,’ April said. ‘I think everything might be alright now.’

  ‘Do you?’ Sophie asked, amazed. ‘After the day you’ve had?’

  ‘This has been a terrible day, nearly my last. But the only reason I got through it was that I had one thing to hold onto, the strength you gave me by loving me. It was literally life-saving stuff, that love,’ April told Sophie.

  Sophie was melted. ‘Back at you.’

  April smiled and joined her in the car, and Barry started the engine. Sophie and April touched hands and looked ahead as they drove the hell away from the garages, down Jackson Road for the last time.

  Thirty-Six

  ‘Jesus, I’m hot!’ Sophie complained. ‘Aren’t you hot?’

  April rubbed sun cream into her thigh. ‘Of course I’m hot. It’s Australia. I’m a Brit. I’m not remotely equipped to deal with this kind of heat.’

  Sophie pulled an ice cube from her drink and pressed it to her forehead. ‘Then why do you look daisy fresh? I’m sweating like a pig, here.’

  ‘What a sexy comparison,’ April said. ‘Your shoulder could do with a reapplication. Looks a bit pink.’

  ‘Just another way I’m similar to a pig,’ Sophie moaned, grabbing the cream and slapping it on as she looked out at the ocean. Though she was complaining, April knew she was happy to be where she was, Bondi Beach. They’d missed their flights last time around, and Sophie and April had been determined to get out here eventually. And after the year they’d had, they felt they deserved it, a few weeks in Australia to unwind and spend time together before April started back up at art school in a month. The bloody court case had dragged on forever. The prosecutions seemed endless. Gardener after Gardener had watched the bars slam shut on them this year.

  It had begun with that shipment. A driver carrying six kilos of what was indeed heroin had been picked up right outside the chip shop that April had told Barry about. According to Barry, the street value of those six bricks was over three million quid. And it was directly linked to Marla because she’d given April the time and the place, which also happened to be a business belonging to her. Barry had explained to the nervous driver that Marla and Steve (Ryan too, but no one cared so much about that) were already inside, awaiting trial for abduction. He made it sound like they were definitely going down for it, playing up just how strong the case was. The driver, not fancying spending up to twenty years in prison and no longer fearing retribution by the banged-up Gardeners, had named several names. That allowed Barry to begin the process of making arrests, having a lot of conversations with the residents of Jackson Road. Again, tongues were a hell of a lot looser now Marla was thought to be done for. People were pointing fingers all over the place in exchange for a few years knocked from their sentences.

  By the time Barry was done, the street was half empty. The network’s back was broken, a kingdom crushed. Steve and Ryan got massive sentences, not likely to walk until they were old men, along with Kenny, who’d been up to his nuts in all sorts of dark dealings. Marla got the worst sentence of them all, about seventy years total for a raft of crimes that had been heaped on her by her colleagues and family. It wasn’t a necessary amount of time unless Marla had found the secret to immortality. But still, April was glad for the huge sentence. Her mother was dangerous. She could never be out.

  ‘Hey, it’s Tuesday, isn’t it?’ Sophie said.

  ‘Don’t tell me what day it is. Weekdays don’t exist at the beach,’ April said, lying out on her lounger and putting her hands behind the back of her head, looking at beautiful sands, serene waters.

  ‘Tuesday’s usually your therapy, isn’t it?’ Sophie said, trying to sound casual.

  ‘Yep,’ April replied.

  ‘You going back after this break?’

  ‘Yep,’ April replied.

  Sophie took a sip of her drink and said, ‘So, how’s it going?’

  April tilted her shades down. ‘You know, if there’s something you want to ask, just ask it.’

  Sophie sighed. ‘I guess I just want to know that you’re OK. This year, everything that hap-’

  ‘Yeah, it’s a lot to deal with,’ April said briskly.

  ‘That’s what I’m asking. Are you dealing with it?’ Sophie asked.

  April sat up and went over to Sophie’s lounger. ‘Budge up.’ Sophie shifted over, and April squeezed on too. They had to hold onto each other to avoid falling off, though April didn’t mind. She could do with the contact if she was going to talk about this. ‘You know what always worried me? That all my brothers and my mother were comfy with doing awful things, hurting people. And if that was the case, was there something missing from them? And if they were missing it… was I?’

  Sophie shook her head. ‘There’s nothing missing from you. Whatever they don’t have, you’ve got more of it than anyone I’ve ever met.’

  April smiled. ‘I’ve been kind of drawing the same conclusion. Because my mother could only love me if I was doing as I was told. It was conditional. I don’t love you like that.’

  Sophie gripped onto April tighter. ‘I know you don’t.’

  ‘So there’s a way to go with my therapy, obviously. But I think going back to art school will help too. Art always used to help when I had something to work out.’

  Sophie nodded. ‘I
guess I’m just checking that you’re alright. Because you haven’t really said.’

  ‘I will be, I think. Because I want to deal with this. I want to go forward, let my family go.’

  ‘Because you’re strong,’ Sophie said.

  ‘Trying to be,’ April said.

  ‘You are,’ Sophie said. ‘It blows my mind how strong you are.’

  ‘It helps that I feel like I have a new family now,’ April said. ‘You. And Barry.’

  ‘He still texting you every day?’ Sophie asked. ‘Checking in to see that you’re safe?’

  ‘Yeah. It’s a pain in the arse. And quite comforting,’ she admitted. ‘But I think he’s glad I’ve got you around after you busted into that garage to come save me-’

  ‘Unsuccessfully,’ Sophie noted. ‘If he hadn’t turned up when he did…’

  ‘That’s not how he sees it. Nor me,’ April said. ‘You’re the whole reason he even came back to the street and found us both.’

  ‘Anyway,’ Sophie said, switching topics, embarrassed. ‘Me and Barry aren’t your only family. My mum and dad are obsessed with you. After we had that dinner with them when we got home, they tried to get me to move in and bring you with me!’ Sophie told her. ‘But I told them we’re happy in the new flat.’

  ‘Did they? God, after I robbed them in disguise. Those are some nice people.’

  Sophie waved that off. ‘Oh, they got over that once they met you properly. I mean, there’s a repayment plan, but they’re letting me pay them back at a snail’s rate, which is lucky because the call centre pays shite. But they understood the rest of it. So yeah, I think they’re seeing you as the daughter they never had.’

  ‘But they do have a daughter.’

  ‘That’s what I mean. I’m the one they have. You’re the one they didn’t.’

  ‘I don’t think you fully understand that expression,’ April said fondly. ‘But I think, yeah, I might be up for letting your parents semi-adopt me. Oh, and speaking of the call centre, you quitting that soon?’

  ‘What makes you think I’m quitting?’

  ‘Because it’s another job you fell into and I don’t want you to get stuck again. I mean, it’s fine for now, but what’s down the road?’

  ‘Yeah. I felt like I might never have to make that decision again, and now it’s back. What next?’ Sophie asked. ‘We were going to travel, remember? Keep going, live by our wits?’

  April nodded, watching a bird fly low over the water, looking for an unwary fish. ‘Yeah, sounded good at the time. But I don’t know now. Settling might be nice too.’

  Sophie sighed contentedly. ‘It does sound good, doesn’t it? Once this holiday’s over, you and me, just getting on with our lives, watching TV on the sofa. Mmm, yeah. I think I’ll take that.’

  April smiled and snuggled deeper on the lounger. ‘So that’s evenings and weekends sorted, but my question still stands. What’s the big plan for Sophie Hart?’

  Sophie didn’t say anything for a moment, but she had a funny expression. April could read it like a large-print copy of the Reader’s Digest. ‘Wait, what’s that mean? You’ve had an idea?’

  ‘You’re going to laugh,’ Sophie said, turning her face away.

  ‘If you’re going to become a clown, yes, probably, because I’m supposed to. Anything else will be taken seriously.’

  ‘Well,’ Sophie began hesitantly. ‘You remember what we said at that warehouse, while we were waiting for our passports?’

  ‘Caffeine’s a bad idea?’

  Sophie rolled her eyes. ‘You told me that you faked it till you made it. And I took that on. And then, I don’t know, all the stuff that happened next, pretending to be Australian, then a policewoman…’

  ‘Have I ever told you how good an impression that was?’ April asked.

  ‘That’s the thing, I was panicking. But in the middle of that panic, I slipped on another personality. Like when I used to rent houses, I’d pretend to be this other person who gave a shit. So I was thinking about that and…’

  April gawped. ‘You want to act!?’

  Sophie didn’t say anything. April started to laugh.

  ‘You said you wouldn’t laugh!’ Sophie cried, incensed.

  ‘I’m laughing because it’s so the right thing for you,’ April protested. ‘You’re a performer, you always have been. You just never had a stage.’

  Sophie’s rage dropped away. ‘Really?’

  ‘God, yes. It’s your calling. You need to start drama classes, stat,’ April told her, delighted with Sophie’s revelation.

  Sophie relaxed. ‘So you don’t think it’s a waste of time?’

  ‘I think you’re gonna be great.’

  Sophie smiled. ‘I’m already great, whatever I do. Even if I fail utterly.’

  ‘You won’t,’ April promised her. ‘But you’re right, it doesn’t matter what happens next. Whatever comes around the corner, we’ll make it work. Because that’s what we do.’

  ‘You’re right, it is what we do,’ Sophie said, kissing April softly on her shoulder.

  They looked out at the water. The sun was low in the sky now, setting on the warm beach, on the people having fun, on the hungry birds. On Sophie and April, who started talking about what to have for dinner. Sophie had a taste for Mexican, and April was craving Chinese. They decided to order in both to the hotel. Because they weren’t splitting up to eat, not on your life. Though even if they both got lost, they felt pretty sure they’d find their way back to each other. It was just how the universe wanted them. Together, unbreakable.

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  In the meantime, feel free to enjoy these other books by Natasha West

  Hawke’s Prey

  Hawke’s Game

  Hawke’s Flight

  The Plus One

  Plus Two

  Something for the Weekend

  A Marriage of Connivance

  Joined at the Hip

  A Mistletoe Moment

  Real Love

  Waiting for the Punchline

  Chase Me

  Close-Ups and Mess Ups

  Meet You at the End of the World

  By Any Other Name

  Never the Bride

  The Dropout

  Only Ever You

  The A to Z of Girlfriends

  Just Married?

  The Matchmaker

  200 Hours

  Sweetest Thing