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‘Wait for wait?’ Enoch demands. His grip around Drew’s phone tightens.
Joseph’s mouth has turned so dry he can barely speak. ‘I just think …’ he begins, but the rest of the sentence fails him, because there’s no credible reason in existence to delay or second-guess any initiative that might locate Drew.
‘Joe?’ Erin asks. ‘What is it? What’s going on?’
His guilt must be written large on his face, because Enoch slides the phone back into his pocket and draws himself up to full height. He raises his bloodied hand and points his index finger at Joseph. ‘You,’ he whispers, ‘fucking know something. Don’t you?’
FORTY-FOUR
Joseph steps forward, out of the arch, hoping to convey that he has nothing to hide. Except, looking at Enoch’s face, the opportunity has already passed. ‘Of course not,’ he says. ‘I’m—’
‘I can see it, clear as day.’
‘Joe,’ Erin says carefully. ‘I think you need to explain why you wouldn’t want us to unlock that phone.’
Since Friday, Joseph has known that to survive this with Max he’ll have to become a competent liar. Now, when it counts most, it feels like there’s a tightening iron band around his chest, steadily crushing his ribs.
‘Joe?’ Erin asks.
The longer he’s silent, the worse this gets. He has to say something, anything, but his tongue has glued itself to the roof of his mouth. He glances at Erin in mute appeal, sees nothing encouraging in her expression.
‘Even your wife doesn’t believe you, you piece of shit. What do you know? What don’t you want to tell us?’
‘I don’t know anything,’ Joseph says, finally managing to speak. But he hears the lie in his voice and knows they’ve heard it, too.
Enoch’s eyes shrink into slits. ‘Tilly said there was an older man. Fucking hell, it’s you. Isn’t it?’
‘Enoch, please,’ Erin says. Her gaze flicks between the two men. ‘Just hold on a moment. Joe hasn’t—’
‘Where is she?’ Enoch hisses. ‘You tell me right fucking now.’
And Joseph, looking at him, realizes that this really is the inflection point, the moment at which his efforts to save Max will need to become something else entirely – because he simply cannot let Enoch see whatever evidence is on that phone; and because this conversation has already reached the point of no return.
He thinks of Claire, lying brain-dead in her hospital bed. He thinks of the man who killed her walking free. He thinks of the doorstep seller, last winter. The depthless chasms of guilt into which his heart plummets each morning. The powerlessness he feels every day.
He thinks of Max.
His North Star.
His everything.
Protect our son, Joe. Whatever it takes.
Joseph has never been in a fight, has never climbed into a boxing ring or stepped on to a martial arts mat. Enoch is younger, stronger, far more fierce. A physical confrontation would likely have only one outcome. Attacking him unprovoked, while Erin looks on, is simply unthinkable.
Joseph believes that right up until the moment he doesn’t.
He strikes Enoch square in the face with his leading left fist, following it with a swinging right which snaps the taller man’s head around.
Enoch crashes into the kitchen worktop behind him, his skull cracking off a wall unit. Erin cries out in shock.
Blood running from two split lips, Enoch roars. He lunges forward, grabs Joseph’s shirt, shoves him back. Joseph staggers. His knee gives out and his feet slip from under him. The world upends. The floor punches him in the back,emptying his lungs and driving the hammer head tucked behind him into his spine.
He doesn’t even have time to breathe before Enoch is straddling his chest, blood and saliva spilling from his mouth in glossy strings.
‘You want to take me on?’ the man spits. ‘I’ll fucking take you on.’
He grabs two fistfuls of Joseph’s hair, yanks his head off the floor and slams it against the tiles. The impact knocks loose a shower of silver sparks across Joseph’s retinas. Before he can recover, Enoch’s hands encircle his throat.