He waved the gun at Jake to sit back down.

Now Jake understood what he was still doing there. He was a suspect. ‘This is insane.’ Jake added through clenched teeth, ‘I was in Scotland. I flew back as soon as I heard.’ Jake put his hand in his jacket pocket.

Patrick slowly stood. ‘What are you doing?’

‘Getting out my boarding pass to show you.’ Jake put his hand straight on the boarding pass, and threw it at Patrick. ‘There. And just for your information, I would never take Natty away from her mother, or let any harm come to her. I bloody swear. I just want them both to be okay.’

Patrick pointed the gun. ‘Where do you think you’re going?’

Jake turned around. ‘I’m going to find Natty.’ His gaze dropped to the gun. ‘Are you going to shoot me with that thing, or can I have it back?’ Jake looked past Patrick at the card table. He was about to find out whether his hunch was right and Patrick, like himself, had been bluffing.

A minute’s stand-off ended with Patrick handing over the gun. ‘I guess you haven’t got a licence for that thing.’

Jake didn’t answer that.

Patrick lowered the gun and said, ‘Let me help you find her.’

Jake sighed. ‘Natty talks about you.’

Patrick looked taken aback. ‘She does?’

‘Natty asked me why she doesn’t see her granddaddy anymore.’

The old man’s pained face at this news confirmed that he was sincere. But the fact that Patrick knew nothing about his granddaughter’s disappearance hours earlier meant only one thing: Faye hadn’t contacted him. She didn’t want him involved.

Jake stared at Patrick, at a loss as to what to do next. He’d been convinced he’d find her there. He turned to the door. He could still smell something. ‘What is that smell?’

Patrick said, ‘It’s the gun. The smell of sulphur from the gunpowder lingers for some time after a gun is fired. It would be on your skin too, if you’d actually fired it.’

Jake pulled a face. ‘It smells rank.’ He wondered how long the smell would linger, and whether Aubrey would guess the gun had been fired – that was, assuming he could sneak it back undetected.

Jake opened the door, trying to think what he should do next. When he’d spoken with Faye, as soon as he’d landed at London City Airport, she’d asked him to make his way straight to her flat, in case Natty turned up. Although she had a friend there, Faye must have realised that it would be him who Natty wanted, after her mother, if she were to suddenly reappear.

Jake suddenly realised where he needed to be. Where Faye needed him to be. ‘I’ve got to go.’

‘I’m coming with you,’ said Patrick.

‘No, you can’t.’ Jake’s voice was insistent. What would Faye think if she returned home to find Patrick there? And worse, that Jake had gone to see him and brought him back to her flat.

Jake opened the apartment door, about to leave, when Patrick said, ‘I made a mistake! I didn’t believe her about Yousaf.’

You still don’t. Jake was thinking of that word he’d used –alleged.

‘She won’t give me a second chance.’

Jake turned around and looked at the old man. ‘Maybe you need to earn her trust.’

Patrick walked over to the kitchen table. He stood fingering a playing card. He looked across the room at Jake. ‘You’re right. After what she said Yousaf tried to do, she didn’t trust me because of my friendship with Yousaf.’ Patrick bent down and picked up an overturned chair. ‘At the time, her reaction was completely understandable.’ He picked up the cards and shuffled them into a pile. ‘It coincided with her addiction problem.’

‘Addiction problem?’

‘She was afraid of losing her job, her only means of support. And afraid that social services would step in and take her daughter away.’

Jake thought back to something Faye had said about Marcus.Let’s just say we have something in common.

‘Drugs?’ whispered Jake, not quite believing it. Even so, he involuntarily closed the door to the apartment, as though a neighbour might overhear.

Patrick shook his head. ‘Thank god, no – alcohol.’