Chapter 4: The Man Named Ethan
1301 Words
The car pulled onto the main road.
Jane let out a breath. She folded her hands in her lap and watched the rain trace lines down the window.
Ethan kept quiet in the first few minutes after something had happened. It was one of the things she had come to rely on, the particular quality of his silences over the years.
“He used Leo’s name,” she said.
“Directly?”
“With the school emergency card on the table.” She paused, “he’s had it for at least twenty-four hours.”
Ethan’s expression didn’t change. He merged onto the A13 without checking his mirror, and said, “He asked who the father was?”
“Yes.”
“What did you say?”
“Nothing.”
A small sound of laugh from him. “Good.”
She looked at his profile. “You know him.”
Ethan kept his eyes on the road. “I knew of him years ago before you.” A pause. “He’s not the kind of man who stops.”
“I know what kind of man he is.”
“Then you know this isn’t over.”
“It was never going to be over,” she said quietly. “I just needed more time.”
The car moved through the grey afternoon.
Ethan and leo get alone very well. He adores this little fella. Since Leo was born, he has been always there, help Jane. He had his suspicious about Leo’s father，but he had never asked her to confirm it.
——
The meeting had been scheduled as a site visit to review the Meridian Capital documentation.
Julian’s suite occupied the top floor of a Forbury Gardens Hotel whose name Jane recognised from the financial press. The kind of address that communicated a particular species of authority.
She arrived four minutes early. The assistant who met her in the corridor was young and almost visibly relieved to hand her over. Julian opened the door himself.
White shirt. Sleeves rolled to the forearm.
A calculated informality, she understood immediately. A deliberate softening of the architecture, designed to make the hierarchy of his hotel suite feel somehow casual.
It wasn’t.
“Jane.” He stepped back. “Thank you for coming.”
“I didn’t have much choice.”
“You always have a choice.” He said it easily, as if the distinction were genuine. “You simply make efficient ones.”
She set her bag on the table and looked at the documents already laid out. Offshore structures. Shell company registrations. Three jurisdictions she had flagged in her preliminary report.
“You’ve made progress,” she said.
“We’ve made progress. This is a joint investigation.” He moved to the window—the city below, rain-grey and indifferent—and turned to face her. “Sit down.”
“I’ll stand.”
For twenty minutes, it was almost manageable. Julian asked precise questions and she gave precise answers, and the offshore structures revealed themselves layer by careful layer. She had always been good at this. Finding the seams in things. Following the money to wherever it had tried to hide.
Then he said, without looking up: “The man who picked you up yesterday.”
Jane kept her eyes on the page. “What about him?”
“Who is he?”
“A friend.”
“What kind of friend.”
She had noticed he rarely phrased things as questions. Questions implied the other person might decline to answer.
“The kind,” she said, “that isn’t relevant to a compliance investigation.”
Julian looked up. “Ethan Shaw.”
She looked at him.
“You’ve done your research.”
“I always do.” He set down the document. “Built his steel business in the same eighteen-month window you arrived in London. There was a period when you were both operating out of the same EC2 postcode.” His voice was entirely even. “Old friends, then.”
“People live in the same areas of the same city.”
“They do.” He paused. “We’ve met, Ethan and I. Four years ago, at an infrastructure summit in Singapore.” A muscle ticked in his jaw. “He strikes me as a man who is very deliberate about who he chooses to be loyal to.”
Jane said nothing.
“I’m sure he knows Leo very well, is that correct?”
The room went very quiet.
She held his gaze. Her hands were flat on the table. The document light between them was the only warm thing in the room.
“Leo,” she said, “is not part of this conversation.”
“I’m not threatening him.” Julian said it quietly, in the register she didn’t trust precisely. “I’m asking.”
“The answer is the same either way.” She gathered the documents into a precise stack and slid them towards him. “Offshore account analysis will be on your system by Wednesday. Anything else?”
He watched her.
“He’s protective of you,” Julian said. “Ethan. I noticed.”
“Most people who know me are.” She picked up her bag. “They’ve found it to be a reasonable response to circumstances.”
She didn’t look at him again on her way to the door.
“Jane.”
She stopped. Her hand on the frame.
“I’m not your enemy.”
The corridor beyond was quiet. Blandly expensive. The kind of carpet that absorbed sound and left nothing behind.
“No,” she said. “You’re something more complicated than that.”
She walked out.
——
Leo was asleep by the time Jane got home.
She stood in his doorway for a moment, long enough to hear the small rhythm of his breathing, to see the lump of him under the duvet with one arm hanging off the edge the way he always slept. A habit she had given up correcting years ago.
She pulled the door to, and went to the kitchen.
She was filling a glass of water when her phone rang.
The name on the screen stopped her.
“Miranda.” She answered.
“He’s back.” Her sister’s voice was low. “I saw it in the financial press this morning. Sinclair Group. Julian Sinclair, running the Meridian acquisition personally.” She paused a bit. “Jane. He’s in London.”
“I know.”
“You know.” The temperature in her sister’s voice dropped by several degrees. “How long?”
“Three weeks.”
“Three—” Miranda stopped. When she spoke again it was in the controlled tone Jane recognised as fear wearing a disguise. “You should have told me.”
“You would have worried.”
“I am worried. I’m worried right now.” her breath caught. “Does he know about—”
“No.” Jane looked at the dark window above the kitchen sink and listened to her sister breathe.
“We were careful,” Miranda said. “Ten years ago. We were very careful. But if he starts looking—there are things, Jane. Things that go further back than Leo. Things that Harold—”
“Miranda.”
The name stopped her.
Both of them went quiet. The word Harold sitting between them on the line like something neither of them wanted to be the next one to touch.
“I have it managed,” Jane said.
“You always say that.”
“I’m doing my job,” Jane said. “That’s all.”
“I know.” Miranda’s voice softened, but only slightly. “Just remember… it’s not only you anymore.”
The line went quiet.
- Writer
