Page 46 of Perfect Strangers

Sophie felt sure they would have seen them, that the car would run them down. But suddenly it screeched to a halt and began reversing. In the distance she could hear the faint swell of police sirens.

‘Josh! It’s the police!’ she hissed, almost laughing with relief. ‘We have to go to them.’

‘No chance. The shooter is between us and them. Come on,’ said Josh, hauling her to her feet. ‘We need to get out of sight.’

Reluctantly she allowed him to lead her onwards, taking each turn blindly, trusting he knew where he was going. Eventually they found themselves in what looked like an abandoned parking area, surrounded on three sides by old-fashioned pebble-dashed garages, the kind with corrugated-iron doors. Josh led her to one and, fiddling around with his set of keys, pushing one key into the garage door lock.

‘This is yours?’

‘Get inside,’ he ordered, pulling the door out and upwards. Sophie ducked under his arm and stepped inside a dark, cramped space that smelled of petrol and Christmas trees. Josh closed the door with a clang and moved over to Sophie’s right.

‘What is this place?’ she whispered.

There was a rasping sound as he struck a match, then lit a lantern.

‘Welcome to my office, Sophie Ellis.’

15

The garage was crammed with industrial steel shelves, each loaded with boxes: TVs, DVD players, even some labelled with luxury fashion brands.

‘What is all this stuff?’ she asked.

‘Most of it belongs to a friend of mine,’ said Josh in a low voice. ‘Calls it his “rainy day fund”. And I guess days don’t get much more rainy than this.’

He reached into a box and pulled out a Ralph Lauren branded beach towel, wrapping it around Sophie’s shoulders. It was only then that she realised just how cold she was, and she began shaking hard.

She glanced up at him in the low light and couldn’t help but notice how good his body was: tall and well defined, with firm pecs and biceps and a taut stomach. He was not someone who lived in the gym, though, she thought idly, just someone blessed with a strong, athletic body and who looked after it. He caught her looking at him and she turned away, made a show of drying her hair.

‘There’s a heater in the back, and a kettle too,’ he said quickly. ‘No milk. But you’ll have noticed it’s not the Ritz.’

Sophie opened her damp bag and starting rummaging through her possessions. They were soaked, her purse, her phone, everything apart from her plastic make-up case. Thank God she’d thought to put her passport book in there – not to mention her copy of I Capture the Castle. She couldn’t have stood losing that.

‘What are you doing?’ asked Josh.

‘It’s all soaked, Josh,’ she said, feeling herself begin to crumble. He must have heard the crack in her voice and gently took the bag from her. ‘All right, don’t rush,’ he said, guiding her to a plastic chair and draping his own towel over her shoulders. ‘Just take a few deep breaths. We’ve lost those guys, they won’t find us in here, okay? We’re safe now.’

Sophie looked at him, then gave a tight nod. She didn’t feel at all safe, but she knew that panicking wasn’t going to help.

‘Let’s see what I can find in here,’ he said gruffly. He flicked on a torch and moved off behind the shelves, leaving her in the semi-darkness. God, what am I doing here? she thought, feeling a sudden stab of longing for her old life. Not the Chelsea one, with the flat and the money and the rich boyfriend; no, her recent life, her normal one with her little flat and her tiny seedling of a business. Back then, she had thought it mundane and unexciting, but at least no one had forced her into the river. People were always criticising ordinary life, complaining about suburbia and the daily struggle to make ends meet, but it wasn’t until you had it taken away, like some trapdoor opening beneath you, that you realised just how happy you had been. Sure, Sophie had shared her dad’s dreams of adventure, of escaping to exotic places, but this? Shivering in a black puddle on a concrete floor, hiding from men who wanted to shoot her dead? She certainly didn’t want this. She stood up and peered around the shelves where Josh was digging in boxes.

‘Who’s afte

r me, Josh?’ she asked.

He looked up and his face was earnest in the torchlight.

‘Whoever killed Nick, I’m guessing.’

‘But why?’

He tugged a handful of white T-shirts from a box, then pulled one over his own head.

‘Perhaps he had something they wanted. And now maybe they think you have it. Whatever it is, they must want it pretty badly. It’s the only explanation for getting shot at back there.’

She nodded, thinking.

‘So who was Nick, Josh?’