Monkey Business by Kathryn Ledson Page A

even
never
coming home. Damn you, denial! Where had you gone? I shook my head to get rid of the growing anxiety.
    â€˜Stop it!’ I said out loud. It was Friday, and I’d been looking forward to spending the weekend with Lucy while Steve was busy with his kids. I tried to focus on the fun we’d have tonight at the pub and a weekend of hanging out together – shopping and lunch on Bridge Road, movies and pizza, my favourite things in the world apart from being anywhere with Jack Jones.

CHAPTER NINE
    My mobile rang, waking me up, pissing me off. Where was my phone? I got out of bed, staggered around, tried to work out where the ringing was coming from. Kitchen? Who’d call me at seven a.m. on a Sunday morning anyway? Oh! Maybe it was Jack! I ran down the passage and snatched up my phone.
    â€˜Hello?’
    â€˜Erica!’
    â€˜Jack!’
    The line was breaking up.
    â€˜. . . need you to . . .’
    Not Jack.
    â€˜. . . tell J.D. . . .’
    â€˜Joe? Joe, is that you?’ There was a terrible noise in the background.
    â€˜. . . M.I.A. . . .’
    I could barely hear him. ‘What? Who’s M.I—
what?
’
    The line dropped out and I redialled. But that stupid recorded woman told me the phone was ‘either switched off or out of mobile range’. I dialled Jack’s number for the four-hundredth time since he’d left. Same infuriating message.
    Axle clawed my bare foot. ‘Ow!’ He galloped across the living room and I followed, letting him out, staring at my phone.
    That was definitely Joe on the phone and I thought he said Jack was M.I.A. And all I could hear was my mother’s voice telling me about her favourite cousin who went M.I.A. in Vietnam. How sad she’d been and how awful it was that he was never found.
    I went to the dining table, needing a seat, racking my brain for some innocent meaning behind Joe’s words. Maybe he meant a different M.I.A. Of course! Maybe there’s a hotel called M.I.A. somewhere? I rushed to my bedroom, opened my laptop and googled ‘M.I.A.’. Migration Institute of Australia and Malaysian Institute of Accountants came up. I remembered that Jack owned businesses and either option was preferable to the obvious. Denial tried hard. What else? I scrolled down. Miami International Airport. Maybe he was in Miami. I wanted it badly. I scanned and scrolled. What else, what else? But as I scrolled I could sense denial dissolving like an Aspro. Common sense kicked in and smacked me around the head. I tried to stand but slumped to the floor instead, my back against the bed.
    Jack was Missing In Action. No doubt about it.

    I had John Degraves’ secret business card in my hand, still stained with Jack’s blood from that romantic first meeting. The card had just a number on it, gold-embossed; no name.
    I took a deep breath and dialled, but hung up before the phone started ringing. I needed more courage for this. JD didn’t know I knew anything about Jack’s mission. Would it hurt Jack if JD knew? But what did I know? Nothing, really. It was a mission of four men, but Jack had sacked two of those men. I had no idea if he and Joe had gone ahead, just the two of them, or if Jack had recruited others. And if he hadn’t, how could he and Joe achieve whatever they were meant to achieve with just the two of them?
    I made a cup of tea. Axle crawled onto my lap and head-butted my hand. He clawed my lap and purred so loudly I couldn’t hear myself think. I put him outside.
    JD didn’t answer and there was no voicemail. I followed the prompts to send my number, hung up and waited. Calling JD’s secret mobile was a bit like calling the bat phone. It was used for Team business – emergencies only – so I thought it wouldn’t be long before he called back. But he didn’t. After an hour I sent a