He left the museum, sliding into the anonymity of the streets and walked seemingly endlessly, but each step was calculated, measured, recorded in his brain for future reference. One hundred steps from the Museum took him to the edge of Monk Street. Four hundred paces and he reached the entrance to the park. All day he walked, making sure every route was memorised, every eventuality was accounted for. By the time he reached his bolthole, night had pulled down fully, the city thinned to puddles of light and the occasional hiss of tyres on wet asphalt.
Inside, he shut the door, checked the lock twice, then dropped into the chair by the table. The laptop blinked awake at his touch.
He shouldn’t look. That was the rule. Personal interest clouded analysis. But Clara Sutton’s face had already carveditself into the back of his mind, and Jonas had never been a man who tolerated unanswered questions.
He typed her name.
Her background unfolded in a lattice of records, cross-referenced with the ease of breathing. Born 1995. Parents: Richard and Margaret Sutton. Listed owners of an estate in Sussex. Financial records were thin but telling: two mortgages layered over one another, deferred payments, a trust fund half-emptied. Jonas scrolled deeper, his eyes narrowing. The house itself was crumbling financially, bleeding money faster than they could stem.
His stomach tightened. So that was it. Oliver Grant’s money wasn’t just comfort; it was salvation. Clara wasn’t marrying him for love. She was marrying him to keep her parents afloat.
Jonas leaned back, jaw tight. He knew that kind of sacrifice. The silent, back-breaking loyalty that asked for nothing in return.
He dug further, tracing phone records, cross-links. A second name appeared again and again in Clara’s call history. Lena Markovic. Searches pulled Lena up easily, photographer, part-time gallery assistant, social feeds loud with colour and wit. Pictures of Lena with another woman, smiling, unapologetic. Jonas clicked through a handful before stopping himself.
Her parents would hate it. That much was clear. The Suttons valued polish, appearances, and lineage. Lena Markovic was a rebellion wrapped in laughter, fiercely at Clara’s side for years. Jonas pictured the late-night call records, the constancy of it. Loyalty like that meant something.
He rubbed his thumb against the edge of the laptop.
The file wasn’t just information anymore. It was a map of Clara’s life. And he wanted to know more. Too much more.
Jonas pulled up one of the candid photos Lena had posted months ago, a blurry shot of Clara at a café table, hair loose,mid-laugh. Not polished. Not posed. And beautiful in a way the photographs Oliver had supplied never captured.
Something twisted hard in his chest.
He shut the window with more force than necessary.
This wasn’t why he was here. Clara was leverage. She was a path to Oliver. He wasn’t supposed to want to protect her from her own family. He wasn’t supposed to admire the loyalty of her best friend. He wasn’t supposed to imagine what her laugh had sounded like when that picture was taken.
Jonas dragged both hands down his face, breathing out hard. He’d survived by keeping lines sharp. Cross them and you blurred everything. And blurred lines got people killed.
He needed to anchor himself.
Jonas reached for the phone, punching in a number without looking.
The receptionist answered on the second ring. “St. Brigid’s Care Home. How may I help you?”
“This is Jonas Mason. I’m checking on Margaret Mason. Room twelve.”
“One moment, please.”
The hold music was soft, tinny, the same piano loop he’d heard a hundred times. Jonas stared at the laptop screen, at the dark reflection of his own face.
He could have opened another window, tapped into the feed from the hidden cameras he’d installed in his mother’s room. He’d never told the staff about them; he didn’t trust anyone, not fully, not when it came to her safety. The cameras showed everything: if a nurse lingered too long, if his mother struggled at night, if someone left a tray untouched. They were his way of making sure she was never neglected.
But sometimes he couldn’t bring himself to look. Seeing her blank expression, her hands folding a napkin repeatedly or speaking to people she didn’t recognise, the way she stared at thedoor as if expecting someone who never came, it cut too deep. It made him feel like a stranger in his own mother’s life.
Finally, a nurse’s voice came on. “She’s resting, Mr Mason. Quiet night. She ate well at dinner.”
“Did she…?” His throat tightened. He had to force the words. “Did she ask for me?”
A pause. Kind, but certain. “Not tonight.”
Jonas shut his eyes, nodding though she couldn’t see him. “Thank you.”
When the line disconnected, the silence pressed in, heavier than before.
His mother didn’t remember him. Clara Sutton didn’t know him. The team thought he was tying up loose ends.
