His cell mate had been taken away. It was hard to tell whether it was a good or a bad exit. Home or prison? Afterward, the silence of the holding cell was as cloying as the stench. Despite how lonely he often felt, Chris realized how little silence he actually had in his day-to-day life. In his car there was always the radio. At home there was the click-clack of Vicky’s knitting needles or the chatter of her sisters. Now the silence felt dangerous, allowing his thoughts to roam.
Would they let him make another phone call? The need to call the number he should have erased, which he’d panic-dialed in his car only two days ago, was prickling over him again. It was an absurd idea to contact her from the police station. She wouldn’t pick up anyway. He had to stop obsessing about her, the woman who’d dragged him into this nightmare, but she and Freya shadowed his every movement.
He’d let a stranger ruin his life.
If you’d asked him a few months ago, he’d have said there wasn’t much left to ruin. A marriage that was hemorrhaging love by the day. A business hemorrhaging money at a similar rate. Family who didn’t respect him, routines that made him heavy. But now he longed for all of that. He whispered into the silence that he would never complain about it again if he could just have it back.
He’d felt brief euphoria after speaking to Vicky. He’d managed to do one thing right: Nobody suspected she’d been the one stealing. She’d seemed so surprised and moved that for a moment he’d let himself believe he could go back to his marriage and be redeemed. But now, in this cold, stinking cell, the bleakness returned.
He could never go back. He didn’t deserve to. All he wanted now was to purge all the hideousness he’d been carrying around inside.
It had started with the stolen trinkets, just as he’d told the detectives. When he’d realized Vicky had been stealing again, he’d experienced that sinking feeling, the familiar dread, but also a flame of determination. He had to protect her from her own habit, make sure it didn’t do her any harm this time. And he might have pulled it off if Freya hadn’t stood in his way.
Their deal had made him uncomfortable, but it had served both of them in the beginning. Freya wouldn’t tell anyone about the stolen goods, in return for him letting her keep the money her parents gave her for driving lessons. But as the weeks had gone on, Freya had seemed to become ruthlessly invested in their arrangement, as if it meant more to her than just a bit of cash or her own car. She’d started booking extra sessions, all at her parents’ expense, until eventually they’d accused Chris of trying to cheat them.
That had really, really got to him. The one thing he still had was the integrity and satisfaction of his business, even if he was barely making a profit. Now a teenager was stripping him of his money and her well-off parents were accusing him of fraud. The Wholesome Harlows, who literally looked down on him from the wide windows of their immaculate apartment.
The day he’d got the phone call, he’d been boiling with resentment. Vicky had criticized his loading of the dishwasher that morning and he’d been so close to screaming, Do you know what I’m going through because of you? But she’d walked away before he’d been able to utter a word. And maybe he wouldn’t have said anything anyway, because he never did. He just let the resentment grow while congratulating himself on all his sacrifices.
He’d stormed out to his car to find that Freya had left him another note. One of her taunting reminders that she still had something over him: not just knowledge but photos, too, and the pillbox. Just to add to his sense of worthlessness, he’d left the house to go to work, then remembered he had no learners booked until the afternoon. He would spend the morning driving the streets, using petrol he couldn’t afford, letting fury expand into every part of him.
The call had come through on his work phone. If the woman had caught him on a different day, perhaps he would have dismissed her as a crazy person. But that morning she’d spoken directly to his state of mind, whether she’d known it or not.
“I hear you’ve been having some issues with the Harlow family.”
“What?” he’d said. “Who are you?”
“Someone who’d like to teach them a lesson too. I think we could be of use to one another.”
He’d been intrigued. Excited, even. Like this ally had been sent to him by some weird dark angel. When she’d offered him money it should have aroused his suspicions, but on that day it had just made him more convinced that this stranger could solve all his problems. Reliving that turning point, he was ashamed of how easily persuaded he’d been. How much agony he could have prevented by cutting off the call.
To begin with, the plan was nothing earth-shattering. The woman, who said she’d known Steph Harlow years ago, wanted to dispel her daughter’s illusions about her mother.
“She tells lies to her family.” The woman’s voice had been soaked in bitterness. “I just need you to make sure Freya sees that.”
She’d given him times, locations. All he’d had to do was hit the right spots at the right moments during Freya’s lessons. Sometimes he’d mistimed it of course—it was hard to be precise. But one lesson, they had ended up a few cars behind Steph Harlow’s BMW, and had seen her speeding off down a slip road toward the motorway. Freya had straightened behind the wheel, her foot easing onto the accelerator.
“I knew it,” she’d said under her breath, but with such passion it was as if she’d shouted.
Chris had realized then that Freya already suspected her mum of some kind of duplicity. Did that explain her recent personality transformation? The blackmailing, the anger? Suddenly he’d noticed Freya veering toward the slip road, too, and he’d had to slam on his own pedals to stop her. “The Woman” had told him not to let Freya trail Steph to her destination, only glimpse her somewhere unexplained. Chris would never forget the determination in Freya’s posture, her torso slanting forward, fingers bone-white on the wheel. She’d been desperate to know where her mother was going, and now that desperation seemed crushingly sad. He couldn’t believe he’d colluded with a stranger to prey on it.
They should have stopped it there. Should have been satisfied that they’d upset the equilibrium of the Harlow family enough. But the woman on the phone never seemed satisfied.
And him? Was it the offer of more money? Had he wrecked lives for the sake of a few hundred pounds? Or had there been something addictive about the scheme once they’d started? Had it made him feel like he was taking back some power?