Copyright © 2026 Patrick Hardy

  The moral right of the author has been asserted.

  Apart from any fair dealing for the purposes of research or private study, or criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, this publication may only be reproduced, stored or transmitted, in any form or by any means, with the prior permission in writing of the publishers, or in the case of reprographic reproduction in accordance with the terms of licences issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside those terms should be sent to the publishers.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

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  Troubador Publishing Ltd

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  Leicestershire LE16 7UL

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  ISBN 978 1806344 505

  British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data.

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  For Susan, Anna and Tara

  Contents

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  Is this it? How he will die? Tonight, alone in this bed, his head twisting violently from side to side as his body convulses? He calls out for help and hears an unfamiliar voice. But there is no one to help him. From somewhere an instinct is telling him what to do. But it will involve a perilous walk to the bathroom and the danger is that he will lose his balance and fall over. He may hit the floor with just a bruise or a sprain. Or he may knock his head and that could be very bad. It hasn’t happened yet but there is always a first time. He pulls himself upright and tries to stand but he can’t. He sways like he was drunk, then trips, stumbling sideways. His body catches the edge of the mattress and cushions his face as he slides down. He will look back later, remembering some of this, and believing, if only in that moment, that there is a God. Slowly, he crawls to where he thinks he will find it. A bottle left on the floor. It should be by the bed but it isn’t. He must have stopped on the way because it is taking him so long to get there, far too long for such a short distance. He stares ahead, confused, dimly aware of where he is. And when at last he finds it and some sense of preservation kicks in, he pulls the top from the loosely screwed bottle and gulps greedily, the liquid running down his chin and onto his chest. This will save him. The fog will lift. And the confusion will dissipate. But it will take time. At least fifteen minutes. For now, all he can do is sit on the bathroom floor, still twisting, but more gently, and hoping the worst is over.

  It is two-thirty in the morning, almost an hour since Josh Stern left the bathroom and made his way back carefully to bed. From the top of the side table, he takes a small plastic device and presses it against a disc attached to his arm. A reading of his blood sugar appears on the device’s screen with an arrow indicating if it is stable or moving. Up or down. It is back where it should be. He does this one more time to be sure. For now, the danger has passed. He will lie like this for another twenty minutes until it is safe to sleep. The outside sounds which would usually disturb him do the opposite, comforting him in their familiarity, signaling that everything is becoming recognizable again. He feels secure here but awful, really awful. His neck is sore and the sheet beneath him is damp from his wet body. He curses himself, this self-inflicted torture, avoidable but sometimes impossible to avoid. And the timing is terrible. In three hours, the alarm on his phone will sound and he’ll need to be up. His first client is at seven and they are expecting something close to physical perfection from him. The irony is that they will get it. Or, at least, that is what they will see.

  1

  March 2018

  At just after six, his phone comes alive with the alarm he has never bothered to change, a piano which grows louder and more insistent until he manages to silence it with a violent tap. His head still throbs and his neck is stiff as he eases himself out of bed, but considering what he has been through, he could be feeling so much worse. He examines himself in the mirror for any damage from the night before. None that he can see. A silent acknowledgment that he is one lucky bastard, although of course, in the scheme of things, not that lucky. Ten minutes in the bathroom, another five before he’s out the door and then a short walk to the tube. At just before seven, he reaches the gym. His fingers are now numb from the icy cold and he pats his hands hard against each other to recirculate the blood. March is the month when winter becomes spring but it doesn’t feel like it this morning. Outside it’s unusually quiet, the sound of traffic still a distant hum, but as he enters the building, inside it is already buzzing. An exercise class from downstairs is playing seventies disco so loudly that it has risen up into the reception and a couple of the gym members ahead of him sing along. He recognizes the song from a TV commercial. Behind the desk sits Lorraine who does the first shift, six in the morning until two. She is, he thinks, looking a little the worse for wear today, bleary-eyed, her heavy make-up exaggerated by the harsh strip lighting. As usual, she takes little or no interest in the queue of people who are swiping their cards across the entry panel. But she looks up for him and smiles. “Hiya, Josh.” She says that every time. He smiles back, swipes and heads into the changing room, dumping his hoodie and bag and heading back out with just his phone and wallet, fortuitously as it turns out, although he will only realise that later. He scans the gym which is already packed and spots Annie stretched out on a mat doing one of her yoga poses. Despite the early hour, she looks like she’s already showered, her hair neatly pulled back, dressed in purple Lycra leggings and a matching Lululemon top. Annie always seems a little nervous, particularly when she sees him. She looks up and does her half-smile-half-frown, the smile disappearing as quickly as it arrives, as Josh says, “Legs today. You warmed up?” In these early-morning exchanges, he sees no need for full sentences. He then leads her to the only spare rack, strips the bar of all the weights and watches as she begins slow-rhythm squats, three seconds down, three seconds up. Annie has done them so many times she is on auto pilot.

  She has now finished her third set and Josh is loading the bar. A five-kilogram weight on each end. Enough to make her sweat but not to make her too uncomfortable. When all’s said, this is a business and he needs his clients to come back. Attached to the gym wall are huge vinyl panels on which are written motivational statements in an emphatic font: “Perspiration is inspiration,” “Abs are made here,” “If you’re reading this, you’re not moving.” In between sets, when Josh lets Annie rest for thirty seconds, she sometimes tries to buy extra time by asking a question or starting a conversation. They all do that but they seem to think he doesn’t realise. Today she asks why they put up motivational slogans and then tell you that you shouldn’t be reading them. Josh smiles and just says, “Yeah.” His PT clients have taught him how you can save a lot of words with just one. “Yeah.”

  The next twenty minutes are uneventful. They move on to some dumbbell exercises. Lunges, different squats. He increases the weight and now Annie is grimacing, and Josh is slowing the tempo which makes the exercise twice as hard. Looking back later, the only memorable thing is Annie suddenly saying, out of context and just as her thirty seconds of rest time are ending, that she needs to be a little more careful because she is pregnant. Josh arches his eyebrows dramatically and almost says “Fuck!” but thinks better of it. It’s strange what you do with information like this. His first thought is not to say that it’s great news or to wonder if the pregnancy is planned or even wanted. He knows she has a boyfriend because she sometimes talks about him. Richard, although he’s never met him. He doesn’t even know if they live together. No, Josh’s first thought is to wonder how many months Annie is going to stop training and how much is that going to cost him.

  And then, almost immediately, something strange happens. The music playing through the speakers suddenly stops and Lorraine’s voice cuts in, amplified and exaggerated, saying that there’s been an incident and everyon e is asked to stay where they are. She actually uses the word incident which is so unLorraine-like that this alone is suspicious in Josh’s mind. He looks at Annie and arches his eyebrows again. She looks back, neither of them quite sure what to say. Around them, the running machines are starting to slow down and the majority who are all wearing earplugs and headphones are beginning to realize something is up. Then a couple of police officers appear, both men, dressed in full uniform and make their way to the middle of the gym floor, one of them starting to shout: “Excuse me! Excuse Me!” He pauses whilst the other one looks around. Out of nowhere, “I’m afraid we need to close the gym.” Another pause but this one filled with the audible murmur of opposition. Someone shouts, “What? Wait?” and another, “You serious?” The policeman continues. “Yes, I am serious. We need to close the gym and we need everyone to leave now.” He emphasizes now. Another murmur. “Unfortunately, the men’s changing room cannot be accessed until later, so anyone who has anything in a locker there will have to wait until we can reopen the changing room.”

  He continues but the last comment has caused something close to pandemonium among the men. Questions and comments are now flying with someone saying something about an urgent meeting and a suit he needs to retrieve. But the officer stands firm. Those who don’t have warm clothes on them (which is pretty much everyone) can wait at the police station nearby. Anyone who needs to make a call and doesn’t have access to their mobile phone (which is pretty much no one) can call from the station. “That’s the men,” he clarifies. “The women’s changing room is open but I need you to remove any items immediately.” Some of the men are visibly bristling with the unfairness of that last sentence. “As you all leave, you will be asked to provide your name and contact details to the officers at the entrance.” Someone asks him what has happened but he replies that he is not “at liberty to say” which sounds a bit clichéd and might ordinarily produce a few smirks but not this morning.

  There are probably at least eighty of them, more men than women, all wearing work-out kit with just a phone and a towel and a headset. Almost every one of them is furious. Josh and Annie head towards reception with Annie diverting to the changing room at one side. “I’ll text you later,” says Josh and then, remembering just in time, “and congratulations.”

  There are two more police officers at reception. This time a man and a woman. The women have all gone into the changing room, so the long queue is just of men in their gym kit being asked for their details, two at a time. It moves slowly and when it’s Josh’s turn at least twenty minutes have passed. He provides his name, address and mobile number and then is back on the street. It’s now almost eight o’clock. He thanks God that he kept his phone and wallet out of his bag and that his keys never left his pocket. He texts his next client, Sal: “The gym has suddenly been closed. Police here. Need to reschedule. Will text later,” and puts his phone away before it turns into a conversation. Then he takes the tube home minus his hoodie and minus his holdall.

  2

  March 2018

  Home is a one-bedroom flat in Earl’s Court, nine stops from the gym in Holborn. He wasn’t planning to be there this morning and the area is still busy with commuters, all heading towards him. It is a basement flat on Warwick Road which is relatively cheap for an expensive location. There are some steps down from the pavement to his own entrance and a small hallway leading to a small living room, a small kitchen, a small bedroom and a small bathroom. To be fair, the living room is not tiny and could be described as comfortable if you’re a glass half-full kind of person or even generous if you’re an estate agent. It’s just over four hundred square feet gross which is big enough if you live on your own like Josh. And it has the advantage of being private and quiet because the people in the flats above him use the main door entrance and are largely invisible to him. His living room doubles as an office and sometimes even a gym. Some free weights and resistance bands, a foam roller and a couple of mats are neatly stored in an IKEA plastic box. He has a white dining table which is also his desk and it sits on wheels so it can be moved around. A couple of oversized framed prints hang on the wall, both looking like something Andy Warhol might have produced on an off day. A parquet floor and a beige rug. It would look good on Instagram if Josh was into that. If there is any interior design to the flat, it loses steam in the bedroom which is just a double bed and a single wardrobe and the narrowest of side tables wedged between them. Today, at least his day as a personal trainer, was always going to be short with just Annie and Sal in the morning and a free afternoon and evening to do his other stuff. The other stuff is mainly why the living room is so neat because it’s where he sometimes meets his clients. He makes himself coffee in the kitchen. Ground coffee in a cafetiere with hot almond milk. He resists the strong temptation to eat. His next meal is due at ten-thirty and he likes the discipline that keeps his body the way it is.

  He looks at some of the online local news to see what’s being reported, but he can find nothing. A bomb scare? But they wouldn’t have let the women back into the changing room or let the men queue so slowly to get out. It has to be some kind of crime. And why the need for everyone to provide contact details when the gym already has them and knows who swiped in? Anyway, not his problem except now he won’t be paid by two clients this morning. And he still needs to retrieve his hoodie and bag. He sips his coffee whilst he reads his emails. He has multiple email addresses – at least five – which he uses for his different businesses and a couple for ordering stuff which might result in junk mail. Most of his PT clients use WhatsApp so he checks those messages again. And he looks at his two websites, one for personal training and the other for his main business. He can see how many visits he’s received overnight and then he starts working through who needs a reply. Every second minute or so his phone buzzes with a message or notification. He puts it face down and mutes the sound to avoid the distraction and sets to work.

  He currently has two active cases. He likes it that way. Two cases are manageable, each usually generating enough work to keep him busy, but not so busy that it interferes with the personal training which he treats more like a paid hobby. At some point that morning he receives an email from Caroline O’Keefe, a former client from an old case. When he first met her, they used to communicate daily, but it’s been almost a year since their last contact. More than twenty-five years ago, Caroline’s daughter had gone missing and has never been found. She was just nineteen. There had been a long investigation by the police, but the outcome was inconclusive. No one could explain why or what had happened to her. There had been no sightings and no body. Nothing. The police had worked on two possible explanations: either that she had been murdered, most likely by someone she knew, or alternatively, that she had staged her own disappearance. Since there was no body and no evidence of a murder and because a lot of people choose to go missing, the second explanation had been considered the more likely – and, from early on, it had been treated as a missing person’s case. Kat was already an adult when she disappeared and to go missing is not a crime, so several months after they started, the police ended their search and archived their files as a cold case.

  But Caroline O’Keefe could not believe her daughter would just disappear and had become one of Josh’s early clients and the only one who has ever asked him to find a missing person. When the case had been closed by the police, Caroline had continued to dig, contacting all of Kat’s friends to see if they had a different version of events from the one they had told the police. But none of this led to anything new and, after more than a year, she was reconciled to the idea that she might never know what had happened. And that’s how it stayed for the next four years when something had happened which could have reactivated the search. One morning she received a handwritten envelope in the post. There was no note inside, just a blurred photo of a woman looking like she was in her mid-twenties and on the back was written, “She’s still alive.” The picture could have been Kat. The hair was different, shorter and not the same colour, lighter. But there was a definite resemblance. The eyes might have been a give-away, but the blur made it impossible to be certain. Caroline had taken the photo and the envelope to the police but if this was new evidence, it was not evidence of Kat’s murder, and the police declined to restart their investigation. That was twenty years ago and there had been no developments until last year when Caroline had hired Josh. Josh whose other business, when he is not a personal trainer, is “Investigations – private, comprehensive and effective.”

 

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