‘Please, Dad, be careful with it!’
‘Get downstairs, now,’ he ordered. ‘Before I do something I might regret.’
‘But, Dad, please don’t dama—’
Peter Myers swiped his son hard across the side of the head.
Stephen cowered. The side of his face was stinging. But it could have been much worse. It had sometimes been much, much worse.
‘Now look what you made me do,’ Peter Myers said. ‘Get downstairs, now.’
‘Yes, Dad, I’m so sorry. I’m sorry I made you do that.’
‘If you tell your mother about this, I won’t be responsible for my actions,’ his father warned. ‘I’ll be down in a few minutes.’
Peter Myers waited for his son to start descending the stairs before he looked again at the photograph. He nodded to himself. ‘Well, Stephen, you’ve excelled yourself this time,’ he said softly to himself. ‘You’ve really excelled yourself with this little one.’ He picked up the notebook – Stephen always put it in the top dressing-table drawer – and flicked to the most recent page, reading the message intently.
By the time he came downstairs, the dinner was cooling, but he didn’t mind that at all. In fact, he didn’t really notice.
His head was full of fantasies of the beautiful girl with the chocolate-brown hair.
Chapter 13
Present day
‘Hi,’ Will said, greeting Sally with a slightly awkward smile as she approached him in the middle of the bustling concourse at Waterloo Station. At six o’clock on a Tuesday evening, it was filled with commuters.
He hugged her, but pulled back, suddenly feeling as though the embrace may not have been welcome. ‘It’s great you could come at such short notice.’
Sally smiled, her shoulder bag tucked down by her side, and brushed back a strand of hair. ‘I came straight from work. So, what’s this about, Will?’
‘You’ll find out in a few minutes.’ He smiled, hiding the nerves that had kicked in as he’d waited for Sally to arrive. Part of him had wondered whether she would turn up. After all, he had only called her a few hours before, during what he knew would be her lunch hour, requesting that she meet him later, at Waterloo. He knew it was on her normal route home, and had hoped it might sway her decision to take him up on the offer. To his surprise, she’d accepted, without many questions.
‘This is all very mysterious,’ she said, searching Will’s face for clues.
‘Come on,’ Will said, in reply. ‘Follow me.’
They walked side by side out of the station, crossing the road and heading up towards the river. Night was drawing in, and the lights from the London Eye shone brightly as they turned towards the big wheel.
Will paused as they neared the structure, and Sally waited for an explanation. ‘I loved that surprise trip you booked on this for me,’ he said, peering up at the pods. ‘So this evening, I’m repaying the gesture.’
‘But why?’ Sally asked, surprised.
It wasn’t quite the reaction Will had been hoping for, but it could have been worse. And, to be honest, it was to be expected.
‘Because I want to show you what you did for me, and I wanted to say thank you.’
She appeared confused. ‘Okay.’
‘C’mon,’ he said. ‘I’ll explain more in a few minutes.’
‘You’re joking,’ Sally said, looking first at the waiter in the open pod with the bottle of chilled champagne, and then at Will.
‘I wanted to make it special,’ he explained.
Sally hesitated. ‘This is too much, Will. Remember what I said?’
Will held up his hands. ‘I know it looks like a romantic set-up, but, honestly, that’s not my intention. I just wanted to do something different, that’s all. And I remembered what you said last time we went on it.’
She smiled. ‘That I’ve always wanted to sip champagne at the top.’
‘Exactly,’ Will said. ‘So, please, just accept it as a present from a friend.’
Quite uncharacteristically for Will, or least the old Will, he’d arranged the trip after a spur of the moment decision that afternoon. And it was looking as though it had been a good plan.
Sally looked back at the pod. ‘I don’t deserve this.’
‘Rubbish,’ he said. ‘And we’d better get on board, before we miss out!’
She nodded, and they entered the pod to be greeted by the waiter, who handed them a glass of champagne each. He then exited, leaving the rest of the bottle in a chiller bucket on top of the table in the centre of the pod.
The doors closed and the pod began its ascent.
As they climbed higher, Sally and Will watched the illuminated city of London in silence from their private pod. Last time, on the trip booked by Sally to challenge Will’s fear of heights, they had shared the space with a dozen or so tourists, young and old. Will had welcomed their presence, as it had calmed his nerves that there were others, including small children, wandering up and down the pod, unconcerned by the experience. But this time he was relishing the opportunity to be alone with Sally – and he no longer needed the support.
‘I’ll never get tired of looking at that view,’ Sally said, peering off into the distance. ‘Especially at night, with all the lights. It just seems so alive, so vibrant.’
‘I love London too,’ Will said, cradling his champagne glass. ‘Especially from this height. And, because of you, I can do this. I can be this high up, without panicking. I can book a trip on the London Eye without worry. Without your encouragement, I wouldn’t have been able to do this. I might never have done this, and experienced this feeling.’
Sally looked away. ‘You’re underestimating yourself, Will. You would have done this eventually, without my help.’
‘I don’t think so,’ Will said, taking a sip from his glass. The champagne was cool and refreshing. ‘You see, I’d always been the same. I’d always set these boundaries, and barriers – things that I either thought I didn’t want to do, or wasn’t capable of doing. Even when I was really young, I used to be the same. I was always the one at school staying in the background, sticking to my comfort zone. But then you came along, and you changed everything.’
Sally put her head on one side. ‘I think you’re seeing me through rose-tinted spectacles.’
‘Not at all. You’ve transformed the way I think about things, what I want to do, what I think I can achieve.’
‘What, even now that you know the truth? I’m not the person you thought I was, Will. I’m Sally, not Amy.’
‘Amy is Sally. Sally is Amy. It’s just a name. The person is the same.’
She looked away again. ‘Maybe.’
‘I must admit, when I first found out the truth, I was devastated. I felt so hurt, and I was also grieving, in a way, for the person I thought I was in love with. She’d just gone. It was as if the whole thing had been a dream. But I couldn’t stop thinking about you, and what you’d gone through. And I thought, well, maybe things weren’t as bad as they looked. I decided that I had to see you, to speak to you, and let you know how I felt.’
Sally blushed. ‘I don’t know what to say.’
‘Just say that you’ll give us a chance. And I don’t mean a relationship; I mean as friends.’
‘But you said you love me.’
‘I know, I know. Maybe I shouldn’t have said that.’ Will sighed. ‘I didn’t really intend to say it.’
‘Friendship in those circumstances isn’t easy.’
‘Yes, I understand that. But it happens all the time, it must do. There must be thousands of people around the world in the same position.’
‘Unrequited love?’
He seemed unhurt by that phrase. ‘Yes, I guess. Where a man and a woman are good friends, but one loves the other, and would ideally want to take things further.’
Sally exhaled, thinking this through. ‘I’m not ready for another relationship yet, even if I wanted to.’ She sensed Will’s disappointment. ‘I’m not saying that I would never want to, but not yet, and maybe not for a long time. Are you sure you’d be able to handle that?’
‘Yes,’ Will replied. In truth, he desperately wanted to continue with the relationship that, even though it had been false, had made him so happy. ‘I want to try and be friends.’
Sally thought about that briefly. ‘There’s still the issue of trust. Do you really trust me, Will?’
‘Yes.’
‘On what evidence? Why would you trust me, after what happened?’
‘Because I just have a feeling.’
‘And that’s good enough?’
‘It is for now, yes.’
Sally smiled, suddenly relieved. ‘You don’t know how much that means to me, Will. You might think that I’ve given you all these things but, believe me, I’ve gained so much from you, too. And to hear that you’ll put your trust in me, well, it means the world. It’s been so hard, since Stuart . . .’ She stopped.
‘You can talk to me, you know, about him. I don’t mind.’
She seemed to close down a little. ‘You don’t want to hear about that.’
‘I really don’t mind,’ Will said. ‘I knew him well too, remember. There was a time when we were pretty close.’
‘I know,’ she said. ‘And thanks. One day I will be ready to talk about it, but not just yet, okay?’
Will nodded. ‘Of course.’
‘It’s just all so raw. I still don’t really know what to think. Part of me hates him for what he did to me – acting on the feelings he still had for Emma, and then taking his own life – but I don’t want to hate him, Will. I know he wouldn’t have done that unless he wasn’t in his right mind. He would never have wanted to hurt me.’
‘I know.’ Will placed a hand on her back.
‘Thanks,’ she said. ‘That day, at the airfield – when I said you were a good man, Will, I meant it. It is great, to have you to talk to. I really enjoy your company.’
Will smiled. ‘So, friendship it is?’
She nodded, and they clinked glasses.
‘And about that parachute jump,’ he added. ‘I’m still on for it, if you are.’
Will was buzzing. He couldn’t believe how well the night had gone.
Following the trip on the London Eye they had strolled along the Thames for a few minutes, before having a quick bite and drink in a nearby pub. Sally had then headed off home, and he was returning to his flat by bus.
Now, he wondered how he was going to tell Emma about what was going on. He hadn’t seen her since she and Dan had returned from honeymoon, but that wasn’t a good excuse. It might be uncomfortable, but he’d decided that he wasn’t going to keep this a secret for any longer. No, if he and Sally had any chance of working, then there could be no deception. There had been enough of that to last a lifetime.
He pulled out his phone and considered calling her there and then, but then decided against it. He needed time to find the right words, and he didn’t want people listening.
He scanned the other bus passengers: people from all backgrounds, all living their own lives in their own worlds yet, for a few minutes, sharing this small space as they stopped and started through the streets of London. What highs and lows were his fellow travellers dealing with themselves, right then?
As he stepped off the bus, his thoughts turned back to what his father had told him earlier that day. Arranging the London Eye trip had been surprisingly effective as a diversion tactic, as he hadn’t thought about blackmail at all during the evening – maybe that was why he had arranged the spur of the moment event, to stop him from thinking about what might happen, and to grasp another piece of happiness, in case things all caved in? But now, alone again as he put the key up to his front-door lock, he couldn’t ignore it any longer.
Was this really it? The thing that he had been dreading but hoping would never come? Was his secret about helping dispose of Stephen Myers’ body finally going to be made public, for everyone to judge and condemn him?
But maybe it wasn’t about him at all. Maybe it was something else entirely; something related to the father rather than the son.
After all, they targeted Dad, not me.
He turned the key in the lock and pushed open the door. Waiting for him on the mat was an envelope. He bent down and picked it up.
And then he knew – it
was
all about him.
Chapter 14
Emma waited by the window of the flat, looking down on the street below. Dan was usually home by now. And he wasn’t answering his phone. She glanced again at her watch. About ten minutes or so later than normal. But that could be explained by a delay on the tube, or a last-minute job to do at the office. She wandered back into the kitchen and made sure that the evening meal – a stir fry and rice – wasn’t spoiling, before returning to her vantage point.
Emma had spent the afternoon replaying the events of lunchtime in her head. Dan’s reaction had shocked her, yes, but, when she thought about it, it had been understandable. From his point of view, it probably did look like she doubted him, or didn’t fully trust him.
And at least she now knew for certain that he still felt hurt by what he saw as Emma’s lack of trust in him when he was imprisoned by Peter Myers.
But, still, she had expected him to call. They very rarely argued, but when they did, they were quick to make things up. Dan especially always said that he never liked prolonging any disagreement. He had suffered from warring parents during childhood – their arguments could go on for hours, even days on occasions. The bitterness and recriminations had poisoned a large part of his home life, tainting what should have been a happy time. He’d promised himself never to follow down their path.