The Honeymoon, page 20
‘How did it come about, you going to the gig together? I don’t think you told me.’
‘I thought I did. We just bumped into each other. I’d finished with a client and he was doing routine checks on security cameras in the same building. Mad, really. We got chatting and he asked if I knew anyone who would want to see the band. I was like, er, me! He wouldn’t take a penny for it, either. The tickets must have cost a bomb.’
A flutter of anxiety rises in my stomach.
‘You don’t think that’s weird? The coincidence of it all?’ I’m about to explain, then stop. ‘Does anyone else have access to our cameras?’
He shakes his head. ‘No, only we have the log-ins.’
‘But could they be hacked?’
‘I guess anything that runs online could be hacked, but the system Jamie upgraded us to is like ridiculously secure – it’s the type of security that commercial businesses use. Why? You think we’ve been hacked?’ He immediately gets out his phone and taps open the smart alarm app.
‘I think he’s watching us. All of us,’ I say, quietly.
‘What? Who?’
‘Jamie.’
This niggle in the back of my mind started to grow when I came back from seeing Richard and Marie. They have the same security system as us. Installed by the same company: Steele Security Solutions. Jamie’s company. I think of the app he let Mark have access to for free. At the touch of a button, he could be seeing everything in our lives.
‘I think we need to unplug the cameras. Something has been bothering me since visiting Claire’s parents and I think—’
Mark reels backwards. ‘What? You went to see Jamie’s ex-wife’s parents? Jesus, Sophia.’
‘Their daughter fell to her death and everyone seems to think it was an accident, but something tells me Jamie had a bigger part to play.’ My words tumble out. ‘They said she had a stalker but nothing was ever formally reported. There has to be evidence of that somewhere.’
The only problem is how to prove any of it.
‘Sophia.’ His tone is a warning. ‘We’re not getting rid of the cameras.’
‘Listen.’ I bite down the irritation that he’s not taking me at my word. He’s become reliant on this security system and my suggesting taking his comfort blanket away is making him nervous. ‘Jamie installed a similar system at Claire’s parents’ house. He also installed the CCTV at Claire’s flat, the place where she died. Jamie’s clearly been watching us, maybe even listening in. But the only place where there aren’t any cameras or alarms is his own home . . . Don’t you think that’s odd?’
‘How do you know they haven’t got any?’
‘I don’t remember seeing any.’
Mark’s hand is on mine. ‘Soph, you’re acting like a crazy person. Have you listened to yourself?’
I ignore him. ‘The thing I can’t work out is his motivation for watching us. Why is he trying to get closer to you, taking you to a gig and giving you mates’ rates on things when we barely know each other? I just don’t know what he has to gain. Unless . . .’ I swallow. ‘Unless it’s all tied back to him needing control. He must be panicking that I’m getting closer to exposing him and his wife for their part in George’s, and possibly his ex-wife’s, death. This is just a game to him. He’s trying to mess with our heads!’
Mark groans. ‘Sophia, Jamie isn’t watching us. Our lives aren’t that interesting.’
I pull my hand away and shiver with the memory of the man on my run. Could that be linked to Jamie too? I took what he said to mean stay out of Rupert’s business, but what if it was a warning to stop looking into what happened to Claire?
‘OK, I need to tell you something, then you might take what I’m saying seriously.’ I swallow. ‘This morning, after you left for work, I went for a run.’ I pause. ‘There was this really threatening guy. He had a dog. A Vizsla. The same breed as Rupert. And this—’
‘What?’ Mark sits bolt upright. ‘Shit. Why didn’t you call me? Are you OK?’
‘I’m fine.’ I nod, trying to think straight. ‘You haven’t told Jamie about what happened with Rupert?’
‘Course not.’
‘So he wouldn’t know what breed of dogs the gang used, or how hard they tried to scare us into silence?’
He looks shocked. ‘What? No!’
‘What about when you went to the gig? You were drunk – maybe something slipped out?’
‘Soph, it’s not Jamie. That fucking scumbag Rupert must have found out about you speaking to Lou. Clearly he wants to scare you and stop you looking into the story again.’
Maybe he’s right. It’s too much of a coincidence. Perhaps the gig tickets are completely innocent too and I’m just trying to make things add up when they don’t.
‘But—’
‘No,’ he says, assertively. ‘If Rupert is back, then the cameras are definitely staying. End of.’
50
Erin
Wednesday 28 September
I’ve spent too long in this house feeling as if I have no control. There are plenty of jobs I can do to keep busy, especially as I’m still waiting for Jamie to call me. I hoped he would be better at staying in touch since he raced off yesterday. I rub a hand against my stomach where a bump will soon be. Now that there’s a deadline to get the house renovation work done, I’m re-energised, grateful to these growing and multiplying cells for giving me a purpose now. We’re still waiting for approval from the planning office, but I won’t let that hold me back. There are walls to strip, carpets to rip up, floors to sand and varnish . . . the list goes on and on. As long as I’m careful with paint fumes and make sure every room is well ventilated – not difficult in this draughty place – then I shouldn’t cause the baby any harm.
I have the ladder pushed against the wall up on the landing and am on the third, maybe fourth, step from the bottom. I need to try to get as much cleared in here as I can. I reach to tug a section of the ugly Paisley-print wallpaper that has given me a headache for far too long. The ladder wobbles precariously.
I reach out for something to hold on to. There’s a split second when I feel like I’m falling, but the ladder rights itself and I try to calm my beating heart. Memories of George tumbling down the wet stone steps rush back and I’m there once again in the gloom of the fading storm, running away from his bloodied dead body. I’ve given up talking to Jamie about the possibility that someone else was there. As time has passed, even I’m unsure – I can’t trust myself or my memory. Did I invent the sound of footsteps all along? If someone else was there then we would have heard them find the body; there would have been more commotion, a scream maybe. Why would anyone even head to such a remote spot on the night of a storm? It doesn’t make any sense.
I climb carefully down the ladder. My nerves are shot. A thought hits me. With Jamie away, what would happen if I hurt myself and couldn’t call for help? I pat my pocket. My phone must be in the kitchen. I should really keep it on me at all times when I’m here alone. I need to start thinking more clearly and making better decisions for me and the baby’s safety.
I head downstairs to find my phone and make a cup of tea, promising myself to take it easy this afternoon – Rome wasn’t built in a day and all that. However, something isn’t right. There’s a split second before my brain registers that the top, spongy step feels different under my feet. There’s a huge crack down the centre of the wood. A pungent, earthy smell hits my nose. It’s completely rotten.
There isn’t time to think before I’m thrown off balance.
I let out a scream as my arms shoot out to grab the banister, but it slips through my grip, the force of the fall pulling me to the foot of the stairs, gravity taking over. With a heavy thump, I tumble to the parquet floor of the hallway and land in a heap. I’m paralysed with shock, my head swimming. A sharp dart of pain ricochets through me.
The baby.
Pure panic consumes me. Almost immediately, I double over with a white-hot cramp that sears through my abdomen. My breathing comes out in frightened gulps. Tears stream down my burning cheeks. With every ounce of strength, I grit my teeth, letting out a squeal of pain, and pull myself up.
I tentatively shuffle across to the downstairs bathroom, where I catch my reflection in the dusty gilt-edged mirror and do a double take. My left cheek is swollen, with a puffy, angry welt where I must have caught the edge of the bottom step. The rest of my face is ghostly pale, glistening with snot and tears. I ever so gently lower myself on to the toilet seat. My stomach is in knots, my breath trapped in my chest.
Please, please, please let my baby be OK.
With a wince I manage to tug down my jeans, the skin of my thighs tender and hot to the touch. Amazingly, nothing appears to be seriously broken; I’ve not even cut myself. The pain is trapped inside me. I squeeze my eyes shut, letting out a slow, forced exhale of shaky breath, before I dare to look down.
There is rust-coloured blood inside my knickers.
I wipe and wipe but the tissue stays spotted with a dark brown pattern of blood. More tears rush out. I bang a fist against the wall and scream. My petrified cries reverberate around the impossibly small bathroom, bouncing off the ugly avocado-coloured sink. A wave of dizziness overpowers me.
When I finally catch my breath, my legs numb and tingling with pins and needles, I stand on shaking legs. I flush the blood away, wash my hands and try to find where I left my phone.
The screen is so cracked, I can barely see the internet page I bring up. A voice in my mind tells me not to panic, to stay calm: there was only a small amount of blood. I google ‘bleeding when pregnant’. It’s hard to read the results or open the web page without getting tiny slivers of glass in my finger. Some sites say it’s perfectly common, that up to one in four women experience what they call ‘spotting’, but another site says to notify your GP as soon as any sort of bleeding occurs.
This is where I need a woman to talk to. Someone who will hold me and tell me everything is going to be OK. For the first time in a very long time I have such an overwhelming longing for my own mum that it takes my breath away.
I roughly wipe the tears away and dial my best friend. Kat will know what to do. She’s always been so calm in a crisis.
I hold the phone to my ear as it tries to connect. An ice-cold sensation washes over me: the shock is kicking in. It rings and rings, but when her voicemail kicks in I jab a shivering finger on the button to hang up. I can’t leave a message. What the hell would I say? I throw my head in my hands.
I’m about to call Jamie when I stop myself. This would break him. He’d only blame himself for not looking at how dangerous the floorboards have become, when I’ve asked him about them so many times. It’s not as though he can do anything to help from his work event.
What do I do? Should I call an ambulance? No, I’m not haemorrhaging or in severe pain, even if this does feel like life and death. Instead, I call my GP’s number and am informed by a snooty receptionist that there are no more telephone appointments for today. She asks whether it is an emergency and I have to bite my tongue and say that it isn’t. Remembering what the miscarriage felt like when we were in Girona, I know the pain and physical signs to look out for. This time it’s just the blood, and the fear of what could happen next. There’s a walk-in clinic in town that I could visit, just to get some reassurance I suppose, but I haven’t got a car. It’s still in the garage and I’m not sure when it’s due back. What would a doctor do anyway? They couldn’t save the last one once my body had decided to take charge.
All I can do is wait.
51
Sophia
Wednesday 28 September
‘Where are we going to get lunch from around here?’ I ask, looking around the residential street where the Uber has dropped us off.
When Amira invited me to actually use our allotted lunch hour for once, I thought she would be taking me to some hidden gem of a restaurant.
‘Lunch will have to wait,’ Amira winks, tapping her phone screen. ‘First, we need to see Kat Broome. She lives at number forty-seven.’
‘Who?’ I stare at her blankly.
‘You know you told me that you were struggling to find anything about Erin?’
I nod.
‘Well, I used my initiative and managed to track down someone who knows her well. I’m hoping her friend might be able to shed some light on things.’
‘Ha, how did you find her? Erin is like a closed book online!’
Amira proudly explains how she discovered that some of Erin’s older Facebook posts weren’t set to private. There were a couple of gushing birthday messages and a best-friend-iversary post tagging someone called Kat Broome, who, in her own profile, lists working at Red Bees youth facility, the same place where Erin worked. To get Kat’s address, all Amira had to do was pretend to be interested in buying the sandwich-maker that Kat has listed for sale on Facebook Marketplace. Bingo.
‘Come on. We have to be back at our desks in forty-five minutes. We haven’t got all day.’ Amira trots ahead. I smile after her.
I can’t stop thinking about the frozen reel frame of them heading towards the cliffs on the night George died. Towards the scene of a crime that they lied about being anywhere near.
While Amira double-checks that we’re at the right house, I pull my jacket a little tighter against the chill in the air and try to shake off the constant feeling that I’m being watched. This is ridiculous. I scan around for an imminent threat, but there is nothing untoward on this quiet terrace-lined street.
A woman who looks around my age opens the front door with a nervous smile. She’s heavily pregnant, wearing a light blue jumper dress that’s pulled tight around her bump over thick black tights.
‘Kat Broome?’ I ask.
‘Yes,’ she says slowly. A protective hand jumps to her stomach.
Amira’s eyes are on me, waiting for me to perform.
‘Hello, Kat. My name is Sophia and this is Amira. Don’t worry, we’re not here to sell you anything.’ I smile.
Kat warily flicks her eyes between us both.
‘We’re both journalists who are investigating a woman that I think you might know. Is there any chance you could spare five minutes? We’re not looking for you to speak out publicly or be quoted, but I really hope you might be able to help.’ I quickly take a breath. ‘It’s about Erin Steele.’
There’s a brief pause, enough time to worry that she might close the door in our faces and immediately call her best friend and tell her we’re digging for information. Instead, after a moment of hesitation, she asks, ‘Have you got any ID?’
We both hurry to show her our work lanyards.
After a quick inspection, she nods. ‘What’s she done now?’
‘Perhaps we could come in and have a little chat?’ I suggest.
The door opens up and we walk in.
‘When are you due?’ Amira asks, as we enter the tastefully decorated lounge. Plump mustard-velvet scatter cushions sit on a charcoal-grey sofa. Warm light flickers from a lit wax melt burner. The scent of vanilla is quite overwhelming.
Kat points a remote at the television to mute Come Dine With Me. ‘Not for another four weeks, but I don’t know if I can get much bigger,’ she says, smiling nervously. ‘So, er, take a seat.’
Kat chews an unpainted fingernail as we sit down. A cluttered coffee table holding an untouched bowl of red grapes and several empty biscuit wrappers sit between us. She doesn’t offer to get us a drink.
‘I’m happy to speak to you as long as I remain anonymous.’
I promise that she won’t be named.
‘So, what do you want to know?’
‘Perhaps we could start with how you know Erin?’ I click my ballpoint pen against my shorthand notepad.
‘Did you meet her at a youth club, Red Bees?’ Amira asks.
There is something that flickers on Kat’s face. She pulls one of the velvet cushions towards her and begins wrapping a tassel around her fingers.
‘Yeah.’ The cotton thread is pulled taut, cutting into her skin, turning it white. ‘It was called Red Bees, but it wasn’t a youth club. It was more a centre for troubled teens. A place where foster parents or social workers would send difficult kids to keep them off the streets and contained in one damp and chilly room. There were some proper characters in that place. I wasn’t much older than most of the people there, actually, but it was a fun, interesting job.’
‘What was it like working with Erin?’
‘What?’ The cotton thread breaks off. Kat locks her eyes with mine. ‘Erin wasn’t a colleague. She was one of the teens.’
No wonder I couldn’t find anything about Erin in iSearch, if she’s been through the care system.
‘Trouble just seems to follow her around. There were all these rumours that she was kicked out of different schools because of her temper. She had a history of obsessing over her boyfriends’ ex-girlfriends. A couple of complaints were made that she was harassing them, threatening them, but that was a side to her that I never saw. She was only ever friendly and polite to me. I’m only a year or so older than her, but I think she saw me as the big sister she never had. Because I was the youngest member of staff, a lot of the other teens disrespected me, but she never did.’ Kat shreds a chocolate biscuit wrapper between her fingers. ‘I should never have let it get this far, but I just felt sorry for her, you know?’
‘Let what get this far?’
‘We were a little too friendly as teens. I suppose it’s frowned upon to strike up a friendship when, at the time, I was in a position of authority. Then when my contract at Red Bees ended, I left, and that was it. Or so I thought.’ She sighs. ‘I mean, I was young and didn’t realise the boundaries. Perhaps I did cross a line.’
I sit up.
‘It must have been ten years or so with no contact. Then one day, out of the blue, Erin got back in touch with me. She sent me a message on Facebook, asking if I wanted to hang out like we did when we were teens. Except, well, I wasn’t that girl any more, so I said no. But she messaged again. So, out of curiosity, I met her for a coffee but it was awkward. We had nothing in common.’
