‘Probably. I remember that when this girl, Abigail, died in a car accident over in Australia, it got back to us almost immediately, even though she’d left the show I was in a few years before.’
‘Exactly.’
‘And what if you run into you-know-who?’
‘Charlotte? Then I’ll say hello and be nice. It’s such a shame she feels the way she does, because we were close for so long.’ Emma sighed. ‘But I can understand why she feels upset and bitter about what happened. She’s lost her brother, and she thinks it’s my fault.’
‘But it wasn’t!’
The unpleasant altercation eight weeks before with Stuart’s little sister, Charlotte, was still fresh in Emma’s mind. ‘I know, but she’s looking for an explanation as to what happened, and, as far as she’s concerned, I’m it. I hope she comes around, and it would be great if we could be on friendly terms, but if not, it won’t spoil things – there will be plenty of other people to catch up with. The cast I worked with were lovely, so it would be great to see some of them again.’ Emma’s voice warmed as she began to see the reunion in a more optimistic light.
‘Sounds like it could be an ideal distraction, then. How many people are they expecting?’
‘I’ve got no idea. I don’t know very much about it as it’s all come through my agent. But I expect there should be quite a few people there, seeing as the show has been running for so long, and the cast turnover is pretty high.’
‘Cool,’ Lizzy replied. Then, ‘So, where’s the hoover?’
‘Hoover?’
‘Yes.’ She smiled. ‘If we’re going to stay inside, I want to keep busy.’
‘Oh, don’t be—’
‘No, I mean it. Just show me where it is, and I’ll make a start.’ She looked down and around at the floor. ‘I mean, this place could do with a clean.’
‘It’s in the bottom of the main wardrobe, in our bedroom, but really, Lizzy, I don’t expect you to do our housework!’
But Lizzy was already out of the door, and within a few seconds had come back out of the bedroom, dragging the vacuum cleaner by the hose. And then she was off, vacuuming down the hallway like a pro.
Emma watched her, feeling lazy. She decided to join in and, locating the polish and duster in the cupboard, went to work on the photo frames in the lounge.
She paused at the photograph of her and Dan, taken just one year into their relationship, holding hands, the Eiffel Tower their backdrop. Dan had booked the three-day break as a surprise for their first-date anniversary. They’d travelled first class on Eurostar, having got a great last-minute deal which had included an upgrade, and had stayed in a lovely little hotel called the Hotel Louvre. They’d been taking the photograph, with Dan stretching his arm out and turning the camera back on themselves to try to get them both in shot, when a passer-by, a local Parisian student, had offered to take their picture.
It had only been a few years ago, but they both looked so much younger, and so carefree. She wondered just how much they had aged in the past few months.
Lizzy entered with the vacuum, the machine still whirring noisily, and stopped as she saw Emma staring at the photograph.
‘I’m just reminiscing,’ Emma explained, over the noise.
Lizzy nodded and carried on cleaning, getting on her knees as she manoeuvred the hose around the base of the sofa. ‘You know, this is really rather satisfying,’ she shouted over the noise, her head almost disappearing under the sofa. ‘It’s much more fun cleaning someone else’s home!’
Emma gave the Paris photograph a final wipe with the duster and placed it back onto the mantelpiece. She was just about to pick up the next photo – a family shot of a five-year-old Emma with her mother and father at a holiday camp in Wales – when she heard a jarring noise coming from the cleaner.
Lizzy extracted herself from under the sofa. ‘What the—?’
‘Something’s caught,’ Emma said, pressing the off button with her foot. She crouched down and took the hose from Lizzy. A quick waggle of the hose revealed that whatever had been sucked up had now travelled up into the bag. Which was a pity, as it would be a messy job to recover the item.
‘Probably money,’ Lizzy said. ‘Happens to me quite a lot, but unfortunately it’s always one or two-pence pieces. Never a pound coin.’
‘It sounded like metal,’ Emma agreed, opening up the vacuum cleaner’s casing and easing her hand into the bag. She felt around among the clumps of dust and fluff, pushing her hand in as far as it could go.
‘My hands are a little smaller,’ Lizzy said.
Emma stretched just that bit further. ‘It’s okay, I’ve got it.’ Like one of those grabber-machine games at the funfair, Emma clung on to the item firmly as she drew it slowly back through the opening.
As it emerged from the inside of the cleaner, she couldn’t quite believe it. She picked off the dust that masked the gold band. ‘It’s Dan’s wedding ring.’
‘Wow,’ Lizzy said. ‘Lucky we realised. I wonder how it got there.’
‘Fell off, I guess.’ But Emma was perturbed, and Lizzy could see it.
‘Is it too big, then?’ she said.
Emma slipped the ring onto her own finger. ‘No. At least, I didn’t think so.’
Just then Lizzy’s phone rang from the kitchen. Emma sat on the sofa, inspecting the ring, as Lizzy took the call.
Around the inside of the ring were Dan and Emma’s names, along with the date of their wedding. It had been such an amazing day – the most brilliant day of her life so far. She closed her eyes and pictured the stunning Minack Theatre in Cornwall, its stone amphitheatre bathed in golden sunshine, as the ocean sparkled blue behind it. It had felt like the happy ending that they all deserved.
But what if our story isn’t going to have a happy ending?
‘I’m really sorry, Em,’ Lizzy said, hurrying back into the room. ‘I’ve got to go down to the theatre. The producer’s called a full cast meeting. They won’t say what it’s about, but they want us there right now.’ She looked at her friend. ‘Will you come with me? It’d be absolutely fine, although I don’t know how long the meeting will last.’
‘It’s fine, I’ll be okay here.’
‘Are you sure?’ Lizzy looked doubtful. ‘I suppose as long as I come straight back . . . I won’t hang around afterwards.’
‘I’ll watch one of the box sets,’ Emma said. ‘Or carry on cleaning. Honestly, you just go, and don’t worry.’
‘Thanks, Em,’ Lizzy said, kissing her friend goodbye. She headed for the door. ‘I’ll be back in no time.’
Chapter 24
He watched from the van, parked across the street, as Lizzy exited the apartment block.
Emma is now alone.
His persistence had paid off. He followed Lizzy with his eyes as the strawberry-blonde crossed the street, just in front of his vehicle, and headed for the bus stop, some thirty or so metres ahead of where he was parked.
There was no way he could risk her seeing him.
He waited with growing impatience as Lizzy stood there, letting two buses pass by. He looked up at the window to Emma’s flat.
Soon we’ll be together.
The thought gave him a glow, a thrill, of deep satisfaction.
A bus stopped, and Lizzy was gone.
He smiled as he admired his bruised and battered face in the rear-view mirror.
It was time.
Chapter 25
Emma placed Dan’s wedding ring out of harm’s way in a small, decorative dish that they’d bought in Cornwall, and took up where Lizzy had left off with the hoover. But the physical exertion of the vacuuming couldn’t banish the anxieties about why the wedding ring had been under the sofa in the first place.
Dan hadn’t mentioned anything about the ring being too big – they’d had the rings fitted properly in the shop. Normally, she wouldn’t have thought anything of it, but the revelation about Dan and Stuart had shaken her confidence.
Emma’s anxieties were interrupted by the door buzzer. She felt unnerved by the insistence of its sound and, for a moment, she waited, frozen to the spot in the living room. She was briefly surrounded by silence, and then it buzzed again. And again. And
again
– this time for longer, more intrusively, more menacingly.
‘Please, just go away,’ she whispered.
And her wish seemed to have been answered. The buzzing stopped. She moved over to the window and peered through the rain-spotted glass at the street below. It was busy with people, many with umbrellas up. Her pulse was racing. She focused on the people, scrutinising each person who passed by.
She couldn’t see anyone who resembled Peter Myers.
And then the landline rang. It shocked her much more than it should have done, sending her moving for the protection of the wall, unconsciously seeking shelter.
But as the phone continued to ring, she regained her composure. It could be anyone. There was no reason to assume it was something sinister. Steeling herself, she reached out and snatched up the receiver, her breathing heavy against the mouthpiece. ‘Hello?’
An automated voice responded. ‘This is the SMS messaging service. Press one to hear your message.’
She relaxed. This had happened before, a few months ago. Instead of texting her mobile, Lizzy had texted their home phone by mistake. She had probably done the same thing again.
She pressed one. A computerised voice told her again that she had a message, and then gave the number of the mobile it was sent from. It wasn’t Lizzy’s number, or any other that she recognised. Then, ‘Hello, Emma,’ the computerised voice said. ‘I’m your number one fan. I know you’re alone. You shouldn’t be alone.’
Emma slammed the phone down. ‘Oh my God!’
She spun around, as if someone was hovering just behind her back. Of course there was no one – yet, someone had been downstairs, pressing on the buzzer.
She ran to the door and checked that the internal lock was across. Then she returned to the phone. First she would call Dan, then Gasnier.
But before she could dial, there was a knock on the door.
She thought about making a phone call first but instead, unable to stop herself, she crept over to the door and slowly placed an eye up to the spyhole.
Chapter 26
Will got the call shortly after ten thirty that morning. He’d been totally unproductive in the first hour and a half of the day, his attention wandering between the work he should have been doing, the blackmailer and Peter Myers.
He moved into the stairwell when he realised it was Sally that was phoning. The office was busy, and he didn’t want any of his colleagues listening. ‘Hi, Sally, how are you?’
‘I’m fine,’ she said. But her tone struck Will as curt and rather cold.
He waited a beat to see if she’d add anything else, but she didn’t, so he filled the void. ‘Aren’t you at work?’
‘It’s first break,’ she explained. In the background he could hear children shouting. ‘I’m out on playground duty.’
‘So it’s not raining there, then? It’s just started again here.’
‘No, dry here for the moment.’ A girl’s excitable screams cut into the conversation. ‘Look, Will,’ Sally continued, ‘the reason I called is because, well, I think it would be for the best if we didn’t see each other again.’
The statement, said in such a matter-of-fact way, hit Will hard. ‘What? I don’t understand. Why?’
‘I just think it would be for the best.’
Will tried to hide his anguish as two workers descended the stairs, deep in conversation. He waited for them to pass through the double doors into the main office. ‘Is it because of what I said, about being in love with you?’ He smacked his hand silently against the wall in frustration. ‘What I said about just being friends, I meant it. If you don’t want a relationship, and just want to be friends, that’s fine. I’ll never pressure you, I promise.’
‘It’s not that, Will – sorry, hang on a minute . . . Boys, get back from over there right now! You know it’s out of bounds! . . . Sorry, Will, I had to deal with that.’
‘Don’t worry, I understand. You’ve got your job to do.’
‘Will, I just think that we’d both benefit from a clean break. I’m sorry. Look, I’ve got to hang up now – the bell is about to go and I need to be back over in the school block. I’m sorry, Will. Take care.’
Will let his arm, along with his phone, drop down to his side. He leant against the wall, feeling sick. He knew it was pathetic, mourning the death of a relationship that never really was, but he couldn’t help it.
The trouble with love is that the more you try to contain it, bottle it inside, deny its existence, the more self-destructive it becomes
.
After a minute or so of wondering whether to call her back, Will returned to his desk and desperately tried to lose himself in his work. When his phone rang a few minutes later, he snatched it up, longing to hear her say that she had changed her mind. But one look at the caller ID disappointed him: it was his father. He rejected the call. He didn’t want to talk to anyone at that moment, least of all his father. He would call him back later.
It was approaching lunchtime when Will decided on his bold, and probably foolish, course of action. His line manager gave him permission for an extended lunch break and, armed with a print-out of directions, he caught a bus towards the Angel interchange, where he switched onto the tube and headed south of the river.