Chapter 22
22
ISAAC
It wasn’t Joe. It couldn’t be. That only leaves one other option, a conclusion Joe must also come to.
He’s up and on his feet in an instant, and I’ve seen so many expressions from him. This devastation spells Josh as clearly as if he shouted. I should know. I just saw the same heartbreak in a school car park when Joe remembered life without his brother in it.
That version only hinted at what I witness as the train picks up speed.
Joe’s so unsteady, he lurches like I did already.
Like I do again.
It doesn’t matter that both of my feet are planted on a concrete platform. Everything I took for granted as sure and solid fractures when I take a second look at a desperate message.
Don’t let him anywhere near Lenny.
Steam billows from the old locomotive behind me, clouding my view of the high-speed London train departing with my brother’s hero aboard. It doesn’t only carry away someone he trusts.
Lenny loves Joe.
I let that happen.
Me.
The one and only person left to keep him safe in Mum’s absence.
My phone rings, Joe calling, and part of me wants to drop the handset like Noah once dropped an envelope into a time capsule as if it burned him. The other part of me that a librarian once had to give survival lessons hasn’t learned a single fucking thing—I clamp my phone to my ear in a hurry to listen.
“None of that happened.” Joe must realise that he just called my mother a liar. He backpedals so fast he stutters. “I-I mean, she didn’t see me because I wasn’t there, and she can’t have seen Josh.”
He pauses as if waiting for an answer.
I can’t give one. Can’t breathe. Can’t give him anything but silence.
“Isaac, you gotta trust me on this.” His own breathing hitches. “Please.”
Who knows why that final word snips through a strangling crab line, but I can inhale enough to wheeze out, “How?”
“By...” I hear his swallow over the clack of wheels on train tracks. “By giving me until tomorrow to make Josh tell you himself. Before your emergency visit, yeah? Shit, no. It’s right when I’ll be at court. I’ll postpone,” he offers. “I’ll make it happen. Leave it to me. You get the next train, and I’ll meet you—” His next curse is muffled. “No. That won’t work either. This is the last train out today, and the first one in the morning won’t get you there in time.” He’s as strangled as I feel. “Thank fuck I fixed your van.”
I can move then. Can end our call to sprint across a station car park towards a rusty Transit. The driver’s seat is a weird place to replay what Luke once listed outside a school chapel, but fight hits hard regardless, and it’s a good thing Joe’s brother isn’t in Cornwall. I’d lash out first and ask questions later.
I can’t count how many times I’ve wanted some alone time with whoever made her arrest happen, never once thinking a da Silva would be a contender. I told myself that prison was too good for whoever took her from us. That I’d incinerate every single thing they valued.
My last sight of Joe was of him already ashen, and my next urge to fight should only be for my missing parent. Or for Len, who lost so much more than his voice. It’s Joe I can’t stop picturing, which is a mindfuck given what else Mum typed.
You can’t trust him.
I battle that, but like Luke promised about fight, flight swoops in next for a rollercoaster ride along the coast road. Freeze slams me hard on the approach to a familiar lay-by where I pull over to message Ruth about having to leave a day early. And thank fuck for her quick thumbs-up. I can set aside worrying about my brother when I know he’s in her safe hands.
Another message arrives from Joe.
Please, please drive carefully.
Flight takes the wheel again on the way out of the county. My hands clench around the wheel as I make slow progress behind Friday traffic just when I need to hurry. Who knows what the hell I’m thinking—there’s no way I’ll be fast enough to catch up with Joe’s train at the next station.Besides, what would I tell him?
All I know for sure is that if Mum isn’t mistaken, I can’t be around his brother.
Ever.
How can I, when I’ll only want to end him?
A car horn beeps behind me. That blast barely registers. Neither does the sun starting to set in my rearview mirror, and if there are stars above the road north later when traffic finally starts to pick up speed, I don’t see them.
All I see is Joe.
He’s visible in the outline of each sleeping giant formed from granite. So must be the heart of the da Silva who led the drug squad to my mother instead of leading her away from danger.
Like Joe would have.
I feel that to my core, and not due to another trauma response Luke first suggested.
I’m not fawning. What I am is certain that Joe wouldn’t have kept this from me. He’s as steady as my van’s engine, which doesn’t cough or rattle now he’s taken care of it like he did with me. With us. With my whole family.
He’s the reason Mum could even make this devastating contact and rearrange our visit. Joe’s an open book, like his talk today confirmed. I try to be the same once I give up chasing his train and pull over to call him, only to find voice note after voice note from him already waiting.
I press Play and have to close my eyes while listening to what starts with a rare-for-Joe order.
He barks, “Don’t call me back while you’re driving.” I hear his breathing shudder. “I mean, I’m assuming you’d want to call me back, and that email doesn’t mean we’re over, because you have to know…”
It’s hard to hear him above the background noise of his train when he whispers this repeat of his first phone call.
“Isaac, you have to know there is no way she saw me, because I wasn’t there. And I can’t believe she saw Josh. He’s…”
Police-adjacent.
A back-office data expert.
Someone who prefers code to people.
Joe whispers a different description. “Mate, he’s just like Noah. Not the best at communicating but so fucking softhearted.”
I picture Noah with his dogs, and with Len, as Joe continues.
“Not sure I could have said that until seeing how Josh is about Meera and the baby. Reminded me of how he was with Mum. And you gotta believe there’s no way he’d take pleasure in anyone else losing a mother after we lost ours. I swear he wasn’t at your mum’s place. He wouldn’t have been, not without a?—”
I clench the steering wheel, expecting Joe to complete that sentence with the words good reason .
There’s no reason good enough to justify Len having to miss her for so long.
Joe doesn’t try to.
“I’m just saying that he hasn’t willingly set foot in Wintergreen since…”
I can picture Joe doing what I’ve seen so often, running a hand through his hair before shoving it deep into a pocket.
“I dunno,” he sighs. “It has to be someone who looks like Josh. Like both of us.” He runs out of options, and the voice note ends on a second sigh.
Another message instantly picks up from where he left off. “That has to be it. She must have been mistaken. It was a high-stress event. A lot of noise and movement. I can’t explain why she thinks she saw one of us, but we can figure it out.”
He sounds so certain.
“We can figure it out,” Joe promises, as if I need persuading. “We can and we will. I already called Luke to let him know about the emergency visit.” This is almost sheepish. “I wasn’t thinking for you. Just wanted you to have a soft place to land if she has decided to go all in on pleading guilty, and you don’t want me around as a reminder.”
This is even quieter.
“Luke said he’d give the school’s legal counsel a heads-up about the change in visit in case he hasn’t heard already. And he asked me to tell you to take all the time you need. He’ll make sure Len enjoys seal spotting, and he won’t let him worry if this takes longer than the weekend to resolve. He’s in safe hands. The safest.”
No.
Those were Joe’s.
The recording goes quiet. I think that’s it until I hear his breathing, and I can almost feel his chest rise and fall like it did under my palm this morning. I’d felt his heart thud then. Now mine does the same at Joe’s next offer.
“I’ll postpone my court visit tomorrow and pull every string I can so that she gets to see me for herself. Gets to hear my voice. Even show her my scars, let her touch them if she needs to believe I wasn’t there. I can vouch for Josh to her in person.” Just as quickly he says what I already guessed now the sky is darkening. “Shit. Office hours are over. It’s too late to get added to your visit.”
I picture him sliding a hand through his hair again, then tugging like I do myself when caught between a rock and a hard place, and I wish to fuck this was a real phone call. I’d tell him not to cancel. Remind him that his court client needs him. I lift my phone to make that happen, only he isn’t done yet.
“Just give me until after your visit to prove this is a mistake and that Josh had nothing to do with it. He isn’t answering his phone. Never does when he’s locked in on a project, so I’ve left messages for him to call me. I’ll make him come to the prison. Be there outside with him so you can hear it’s all a case of mistaken identity directly from the horse’s mouth, yeah?”
He repeats his promise.
“I’ll be there.” This snort is almost too soft, drowned out by another train hurtling past his. “Of course I will be. You’re it for me, mate.”
Apparently, someone else already guessed that.
Joe snorts again. “Luke was sorting through that toolbox with Noah when I called to ask him to look out for you. Noah told him why like it was obvious.” Joe does a pretty good teen impression. “‘Duh, sir. They’re a thing. Bet they end up getting married on my farm.’” His next breath is shaky. “Listen, the train keeps passing gridlocked traffic. Lots of accidents on the motorway. So many blue lights. Turn around and try again at early o’clock when there won’t be any traffic, yeah? Call me when you get in?”
The voice note finishes, but not before I hear how he ends it.
Love you.
I don’t turn the van around to head back to Glynn Harber. Instead, those two little words lead me almost all the way to London.
It’s late when I reach knife crime central, where I park under a streetlight long after midnight, then scroll back through photos Joe once sent to me for Lenny.
They aren’t as good as a map. I still follow a breadcrumb trail made up of happy moments even though my eyes are bleary with tiredness. I have to blink to be sure I’ve found the Tube station where Joe photographed a cat for Len once.
Finding the coffee shop in the background of another photo gets me closer to a conversation I have no idea how to start now that I’m almost at my destination. Locating the same tall, thin trees framing a view of distant Wintergreen tower blocks means I’m going to have to find words soon. For now, I face the building that has the same view as that final photo and text Joe the three little words that are all I can manage.
Let me in.
Joe buzzes me up, and yeah, he’s dressed for bed in shorts and T-shirt, but I catch a glimpse of eyes that look as gritty as mine when he lets me into a night-dark hallway.
He closes the door to his flat behind me, and both of us stand in shadows.
“You been driving this whole time?”
I nod.
“Mate, you gotta rest. Want me to leave so you can? Give you some space?”
Never.
“Want me to stay?”
Always. But...
I didn’t come here to walk into the arms he opens. Or to grip the soft cotton of his T-shirt with no thought about what might be underneath my clutching fingers. All I know is that I’m drowning on dry land.
“What do you need?”
I have no clue where to start if winding the clock back isn’t an option. I’d turn that fucker to long before any of this happened if I could.
Joe makes different offers, caretaker mode activated.
“You need a drink? Something to eat?”
I can’t answer, let alone swallow, and he must see that despite these shadows. His hands find my face, and fuck, I’ll miss him, because if Mum is anything, she’s observant, especially when it comes to men like him. Heroes have always been on her radar. If she saw a photo of Joe and recognised him, she absolutely saw someone who mirrors his genetics.
Joe isn’t the reason for a calendar full of black-crayoned crosses. Isn’t the cause of two birthday cakes and a song I couldn’t sing without my voice cracking. It wasn’t him who made me a liar each and every time I told Lenny that Mum would be in his dreams. A different da Silva made her absence our reality, and Joe must have come to the same conclusion about what that means for us.
“If she does take the rap for everything and ends up serving time, I will always be a reminder, won’t I?” He clears his throat. Apparently, not only his eyes are gritty. “Every single time you see me, you’ll see the reason you don’t have her and the cause of Lenny growing up without his mother. And every single time I see Josh, I’ll think about what he cost me. Cost you and Len. Cost all of us, if...” I’ve never heard him this helpless. “He’s a civilian, not a cop. He tracks data, not drug deals. He wouldn’t have any reason to be on a raid, let alone set one up.”
I still can’t speak.
Joe does it for me.
“Come to bed.”
If I do, that will only prove I’m as soft to the core as a librarian once warned me against. As easily persuaded.
That’s all I want now—to be persuaded by someone who taught my brother that scars could heal and that soon could be a promise. I need to be convinced by someone who I’m equally convinced needs more of his own family in his life.
What will be the chances of that after tomorrow?
Joe leads me to the alcove of this studio apartment where street light through a gap in the curtains shows him pulling back bedcovers and plumping pillows.
He doesn’t extend that fussing to taking off my clothes. Instead, he models sharing by leaving space in his bed for me, and I kick off my shoes to take it.
For a last time, I lie beside him.
“This doesn’t have to be the end.”
I don’t see how it can’t be.
Weave a life with someone who showed me and a gang of teens how much he’s missed his blood relations? Watch Lenny grow up, all the while knowing who made sure cuffs bit into Mum’s wrists?
If I ever meet that da Silva, I’ll only want to stab him.
Joe rumbles, “This isn’t the end.”
It sure feels like it.
I still roll over and hold him like he holds me while streetlights wash us.
There’s no moon visible over London.
Not a single star.
There’s only Joe until tomorrow.