The Chertsey maisonette had never really looked or felt lived-in. No pictures on the wall; no plants to bring color and life. Yet despite the scarcity of furniture or accessories (and Steph had made tentative offers to “brighten up the place”), it had always felt claustrophobic, as if congested with something other than the normal stuff of a home.
Though the place was small, its rent and upkeep had cut harshly into Steph’s salary over the last four years. The rent was particularly high, in return for a no-questions-asked landlord, an agreement that she could pay in cash, and no official paperwork or real names involved. Occasionally, and ashamedly, she’d had to borrow from the account where Paul’s “severance package” from the police sat barely touched, saved for Freya’s university fees, wedding, house deposit. He’d asked her about a withdrawal once and she’d made an excuse about emergency car repairs. Paul had accepted her explanation, just as his original “Did you take seven hundred pounds out of the savings?” had been more curious than interrogatory.
He’d trusted her. Even though he’d once been trained to be suspicious, observant. It seemed their daughter was the one with those attributes now.
Steph felt sick as she glanced up at the curtains of the maisonette. She’d done the same thing countless times before, flicking her eyes toward the upper floor as she approached, always with mixed emotions. Sometimes she’d looked forward to the visits, in a strange way, but there’d also been apprehension, guilt, the suffocating feeling of a responsibility she’d never be free from. Now it was all heightened by fury, and fear . . . and hope. Dizzying hope that Freya might somehow be there.
A bloodied coat doesn’t mean the end, she told herself yet again.
She just couldn’t waste any more time.
It was this thought, and the memory of the note she and Emma had found, that made her take the knife from the pocket of Paul’s jacket and slip it up her sleeve. She shivered at the metal against her skin, shed the heavy coat, and got out of the car. Fleetingly, she remembered she’d left the shoebox and its contents in the hallway of their house. The exhibits of her past, which she’d guarded so carefully. She dismissed the thought before it could divert her. It didn’t matter anymore.
Opening the door of the maisonette was such a familiar action, pulling up the handle and wriggling the key, but tonight she had no idea what she’d find. The hallway smelled, as always, of old cardboard and dust balls. The lower floor was a steep staircase with a boarded-up shop to the right. Above was the place Steph visited regularly, the place nobody knew about. Except maybe Freya. Clearly she’d seen her mum heading this way when she should have been at work. And clearly she’d already noticed those lies about money and errands and working late. She’d known dishonesty when she’d seen it, though she’d been mistaken about the reason. According to Zeb, Freya had even wanted to buy a car so she could do her own detective work. Was that what the money in her jacket pocket had been for? Had she managed to follow Steph all the way here, and become tangled in something much bigger than she’d anticipated?
Steph’s heart boomed as she climbed the stairs. I can deal with anything else now. Just let me not be too late. She should have come sooner, told the police, done everything differently. Denial and fear had paralyzed her at first. Then, for a brief moment, she’d hoped she could keep her own secrets, hold on to her life and save Freya. Stupid, stupid, stupid. But now she was here and ready to sacrifice everything except her daughter.
She opened the door at the top to reveal a deserted living room. Her eyes picked out details in the normally tidy space: a desk drawer pulled out, coins dotting the carpet below. A scruffy holdall on the sofa, bulging with clothes.
A creak from the back of the house made her right hand fly to her left sleeve, finding the outline of the knife. Familiar footsteps traveled down the small corridor that separated the bedroom from the lounge.