It’s Thursday evening, and I’ve just got home from work in a state of… apprehension? Anticipation? I’m not sure what it is, but I feel wobbly and I can’t seem to stop checking the time and the volume on my phone, fearful of missing Felicity’s brother Nathan’s call. It’s just after six-thirty, and he’s due to call me at seven. I have time to eat something, but I don’t seem to have an appetite, so I pour a glass of white wine from the half-drunk bottle in the fridge and sip it slowly, putting it down every now and again to straighten a cushion or wipe a speck of dust from a vase. The place is already immaculate, just as I like it, but I’m trying not to think too much, and the tidying distracts me.
It’s big, my flat, for a one-bed; one of the benefits of buying a period conversion instead of a purpose-built apartment. I have the ground floor of an Edwardian semi on a quiet side street not far from Chiswick High Road. There are just two of us in the building; I share a spacious hallway and the small rear garden with Johnny, my sixty-six-year-old upstairs neighbour, who grows flowers and vegetables in beautifully maintained beds and is quite happy to share them with me, even though my only contribution to garden maintenance is wandering around with a watering can when he goes on holiday. We get on great, Johnny and I, with many a happy summer’s evening spent drinking cocktails on the little patio as the sun goes down. It’s nice, having a neighbour who’s become a good friend. Sometimes we’re joined by his on–off Spanish boyfriend, Carlos, or one of my friends; sometimes it’s just us. In the winter, we sit indoors instead, upstairs in the huge, comfortable armchairs in the big bay window of his lounge, or downstairs on the sofa in front of my fireplace, snug in the light of the extremely realistic-looking flickering flames of the electric faux fire.
Johnny’s away this week though, and so the house is quiet. No gentle thuds from above or footsteps on the stairs, just me and, right now, my racing mind and restless legs. I take another sip of wine then cross to the mirror on the wall, rubbing a finger across a smear and making it worse. I sigh and stare at my reflection for a moment, aware that I’m frowning, and that I look tense and nervous.
‘Come on, Nathan, call me,’ I murmur. ‘Let’s get this over with.’
I run a hand over my jet-black bob – I’m naturally brunette, but I dye it darker – smoothing the blunt fringe, then dab at the corner of my mouth where my trademark red lipstick has bled a little into the crease. I think again about Felicity Dixon, and the extraordinary lengths she went to to get me to sit down in a café with her and persuade me to speak to her brother. She certainly knows how to leave things on a cliffhanger, I’ll give her that.
That line, my God!
She’s not just in prison for a crime she didn’t commit, she’s in prison for a crime that never even happened…
I stared at her, open-mouthed, for a full five seconds when she said that. Then I asked her what the hell she was talking about.
‘That makes no sense, Felicity,’ I spluttered. ‘Of course it happened!’
But she’d shaken her head, mouth set in a tight line, and told me that Nathan would explain everything. And so here I am, beyond intrigued but at the same time experiencing a mixture of emotions I can’t seem to identify.
Amber Ryan. Somehow, back in my life again, I think, then jump violently as my phone, sitting on the arm of the sofa behind me, finally rings. I grab it.
‘Hello?’
There’s a moment of silence, then a deep, male voice says: ‘Hello? Is this Heather? Heather Harris?’
‘Yes. Nathan?’
‘Yes. Hi. Thanks so much for agreeing to speak to me. I hope you have a few minutes? This might take some time,’ he says, and I’m almost sure I can hear a wry smile in his voice. For some reason this instantly makes me feel calmer.
‘I have no plans for the evening, and a glass of wine in my hand,’ I reply, and I find myself smiling too. I reach for the glass and sit down. ‘So, shoot. What on earth is all this about? Your sister certainly pulled out all the stops to get my attention.’
‘She told me,’ he says. ‘The girl did good. Might have gone just a bit over the top though.’
‘You’re not kidding!’ I say, and hear him laugh. ‘So much subterfuge. I still don’t get why she was so paranoid about using social media to send me a message, and about CCTV? I’m hoping you’re going to explain?’
‘Oh, she has her reasons, trust me,’ Nathan replies. ‘I mean, she’s always been the anxious sort, even when we were kids. But it’s definitely got worse recently, especially since we embarked on this… well, this thing I’m about to fill you in on. I’m pretty twitchy, but she’s properly scared, and she’s trying to protect me by being super security conscious. That bookshop thing, well, she just wanted to play it really safe, and not have any possible record of her contact with you.’
He pauses.
‘Yes, she said something about life and death. I’m sorry, but I just don’t understand,’ I say.
Nathan sighs.
‘OK, so… this is all very complicated, and I’m going to get through as much of it as I can, although there’s been a slight last-minute hitch in that I’m actually at work now. The factory night manager’s gone off sick, so I’m covering— Sorry, I don’t know if Felicity explained? I live in Spain, just outside Valencia. I work for a furniture manufacturer. Anyway, I’m in my office right now but I’m a bit worried I might be called away – there’s a lot going on this evening – so let me just try and tell you as much as I can, in broad terms, and then I can fill you in with more details if you think you can help. It’s pretty intense stuff, I’m warning you.’
I swallow a mouthful of wine and put my glass down.
‘OK. Well, I’m certainly making no promises about being able to help with anything. I’m totally confused. So, unconfuse me,’ I say, and there’s another little laugh at the other end of the line, then he clears his throat.
‘Right. So, I believe you dated Jack Shannon about two years ago, correct? Just for a few months?’
‘Correct. For four months. That was long enough.’
‘I’m sure. I joined his company just a few weeks before you split up, I think, in early May of that year. And I really admired him, at first. The business is mega-successful, as you know, and we kind of got on. He took me on to run the daytime side of things after the previous guy retired, because Jack prefers to work nights – again, as you know…’
His voice tails off, and I think maybe he’s expecting me to respond in some way, but I say nothing, and after a couple of seconds he continues.
‘Anyway, I suppose we sort of became friends. I’m a single dad – my wife died of cancer a year after Lacey, my daughter, was born.’
‘Oh no! I’m so sorry,’ I say.
‘Thanks. It was tough, but… we’re OK,’ he replies. ‘So, you know, I didn’t go out much and when he was between girlfriends – they never lasted long – Jack would invite us both round for movie nights, pizza nights, stuff like that. I’d bring Lacey and we’d put her down to sleep in one of the spare bedrooms and just hang out. I mean, we’d mainly talk business, but we’d have a laugh too. Obviously, I knew even then he was… well, odd. He has issues. But, if you can get past all that, he’s an entertaining guy, charming, funny… Again, I don’t need to tell you that.’
‘When you first meet him, maybe,’ I say, a little more sharply than I intend to, and Nathan agrees.
‘Yes. Anyway… Oh bugger. Hang on. Sorry Heather…’
There’s another voice in the background, a man speaking in Spanish, and I hear Nathan replying, also in Spanish, and then he’s back.
‘I was afraid this might happen. There’s something I have to go and sort out, and it might take a while. I’ve told him five minutes, so I’ll just have to give you a quick outline, OK? And then maybe we can speak again in a day or so?’
‘Sure, OK…’ I say, but he’s still talking, more quickly now.
‘So, in a nutshell I now believe Jack Shannon is a very dangerous man. As I said, we sort of became friends, and I suppose he became quite relaxed around me. Anyway, in February of last year he started dating Amber, and I liked her, you know? I only met her a few times, but we had some nice chats, and I was pleased for Jack, that he’d found someone like her. I’d heard about you before, from Jack, but she told me about you too, how you’d been friends. And then one night while I was round there, just me and Jack – it was late March by then – I found out about something. I’ll explain how I found out later, but it was about something he did, to a woman called Rose. Rose Campbell, who he dated quite a while ago – not long before you actually. Basically, what happened was that she finished with him, and for various reasons he couldn’t handle it, and so he… Rose died, Heather. I’m not saying he killed her, murdered her, but he caused her death, if that makes any sense. What he did to her resulted in her losing her life. And my God, that night, the night in March I mentioned, when I was round at his, and found out about it…’
He pauses, then continues.
‘He was drunk, very drunk actually. And when I confronted him, he just… admitted it all. He bragged about it. He was like a different person. It was creepy. He just started ranting. He told me he’d had enough of women rejecting him, that it had happened once too often, that Rose deserved to die, and he wasn’t going to let anyone else get away with it ever again. He said if anyone else did it, he’d be carrying out a similar punishment. That’s what he called it, a punishment. He even told me he’d already planned his next punishment. How fucking mad is that? Sorry…’
He hesitates again, clearly concerned I’ll be offended by his language.
‘Anyway, he said he’d already planned it down to the last detail, making it “much, much better” than what he did to Rose. Then he went on to describe exactly how he’d do it when he did it the next time—’
‘What?’
I’ve been listening with increasing horror and disbelief, and I can’t keep quiet any longer.
‘Nathan, are you serious? This can’t be—’
‘Oh, there’s more,’ he says. ‘A lot more. But making a long story short and, very foolishly in retrospect, I told him it was all completely unacceptable and threatened to go to the police. I knew that would probably lose me my job, even saying it, but I couldn’t just let it go, you know? What he told me – it was horrendous. And then he lost it, totally lost it. He told me that if I did, if I told anyone, he’d make sure I died too. And Lacey. He threatened my daughter. She’s five years old, Heather, and he said she’d die.’
He pauses, and I gasp. I’m suddenly aware that my throat feels tight, my skin clammy. I’m not sure what I was expecting from this conversation, but it certainly wasn’t this. Jack’s not normal, sure. That’s why I finished with him. In the end, there were too many things about him that deeply disturbed me. But all this? All these allegations? Killing people, or threatening to? ‘Punishing’ women who reject him? Seriously? I mean, I rejected him, didn’t I? I walked away from our brief relationship, and he never ‘punished’ me. Is this guy for real? I open my mouth to say something, but Nathan’s already started talking again.
‘And then, to make matters worse, Jack told me his late father was a senior cop. I’m sure you already know that, but apparently Jack makes regular fat donations in his memory to some police charity. I totally got the implication – that he’s well in with the Metropolitan Police. Very cosy. And I had no real evidence he’d done anything wrong, just what I’d seen and heard in his house. No real physical evidence I could actually lay my hands on, even though I know it’s there. I just don’t know exactly where… Again, I need to explain this properly, and I just don’t have time now. I’m so sorry…’
‘Christ! You really do need to explain properly,’ I say. ‘I’m struggling to take this in, Nathan. What evidence? And what does any of it have to do with Amber, or with me?’
‘I know, I know it sounds mad, and I’m getting to the Amber bit. Hang on. OK, so ultimately, I decided I couldn’t take the risk – of doing anything about Jack, I mean. I was scared to go to the police, I was even scared to try to warn Amber. They were close at that point. They’d only been dating a couple of months, and she seemed really happy, and I thought if I said anything, she’d be bound to tell Jack, and I just couldn’t take the chance. I’d already lost my wife, and if anything happened to Lacey…’
I hear him swallow, as if he has a lump in his throat.
‘… So I quit my job. I just left. I packed up everything and moved over here,’ he continues. ‘It’s nearly a year ago now. I just tried to forget about it all, you know? I made a fresh start. I tried to stop feeling guilty about not doing anything about it. I told myself I had to put Lacey first. And then, I’d only been here a couple of months, and the Amber thing kicked off. And it was just like he told me, Heather. What happened, the way it happened, what he said she did, it was just as he’d described to me, all those months before. She must have tried to leave him, and he punished her, exactly as he’d planned. There was never a crime committed, Heather. He staged the entire thing. I’m sure of it. Amber didn’t die, like Rose did. But she went to prison for life for a crime that never happened.’
‘Oh, come on!’
This is just too much. My shock is turning into incredulity. OK, so when I first heard about what Amber did, I was dumbfounded. But the evidence? Rock solid. I read every article about the court case. Pored over every detail. And the photos, the injuries… Of course the crime happened. It was laughable to suggest it didn’t.
‘I’m sorry, Nathan, but I just don’t believe this,’ I say.
There’s a soft groan on the other end of the line.
‘This is so hard over the phone. Look, I promise you, I honestly believe it was all fabricated, all fake. What Amber was convicted of, it was a crime that didn’t happen. It was just made to look like it happened. Jack must have laid a brilliant false evidence trail, because he totally convinced the police investigation. He must have had help too. I have an inkling about one person who may have been involved, and I’ll share that with you if you— Anyway, he must have started laying the groundwork in advance, long before Amber actually ended their relationship, just in case. I think that’s why, even though she pleaded not guilty, she had so little to back that up. I think she just sort of gave up. She knew the jury wouldn’t believe her, and she was right. The guilty verdict was unanimous, as I’m sure you know. But what I’m almost a hundred per cent certain of, is that she didn’t do anything wrong. Amber’s totally innocent of any crime – I’m convinced of it. There was no crime. There was certainly wrong-doing, but it was all Jack. His perverse, twisted way of getting revenge.’
I’m silent for a few moments, trying to take all of this in, still incredulous. It’s mad, all of it.
Then I say: ‘But I finished with Jack too, Nathan. I left him. If what you say is true, he did something terrible to this Rose, the woman before me, and then something nearly as bad to Amber, who came after me. Why am I still walking around alive and well and not in prison?’
There’s a pause on the line so long that I wonder if we’ve been cut off.
Then: ‘You’re his unfinished business,’ Nathan says.
Another pause.
‘That’s one of the reasons I had to talk to you. Oh shit. Hang on…’
His what? His ‘unfinished business’?
I hear the Spanish voice in the background once more and Nathan’s brusque reply, and I feel a prickling sensation on my scalp.
What does that mean?
I lick my lips and find my mouth is dry. I pick up my wine and take a couple of sips, noticing that my hand is shaking slightly as I put the glass down again. This is… surreal. Do I believe a single word this stranger is saying? And yet… there’s something in the way he’s saying it, the tone of his voice, the urgency. He sounds genuine; his story sounds true. Yet how can it be?
‘Heather? Are you still there?’
He’s back.
‘I’m still here,’ I say. ‘What do you mean, “unfinished business”?’
Even I can hear the tremor in my voice.
‘I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to frighten you,’ he says. ‘Look, I’m going to have to go in a minute. We’ve got a major problem with a piece of broken machinery downstairs. What I meant was that that’s what he called you. Unfinished business. He was working on a huge foreign deal around the time you split up and it distracted him – that’s what he told me. He talked about you a lot, for a while; you were special, he said, and he thought you felt the same. When you ended it, it came as a shock, but because he was so busy, he let it go, and I think that’s played on his mind. He said once that he’d thought about “going after” you, but he’s never done it, for some reason. That’s why I think—’
‘Shit, Nathan. If you’re trying to make me feel better, it’s not working,’ I say, interrupting him. ‘That’s why you think what?’
‘That’s why I think you’re the one who can expose him,’ he says.
‘Expose him? What…? What?’ I splutter.
‘Expose him. Expose what he’s done. All of it. We both think you could, Felicity and I,’ he replies, and there’s a hint of desperation in his voice now.
‘I told her about you, how you were Jack’s ex and also Amber’s friend, and then we started following you on Instagram, and after a while we both agreed. You could do this. We can’t think of anyone else, or any other way. He’d take you back, I know he would. You’re the one who got away. If you could get back in there, Heather, back into that house, into his life, I think we could bring him down. We could prove what he did to Rose, and to Amber. Get him locked up, make me and my daughter feel safe again. The evidence is there, I know it is, and I could help you, but—’
‘No way! Absolutely no way,’ I say, leaping to my feet.
Is he insane?
‘You think I’d go back there? To Jack?’ I snarl. ‘Especially after what you’ve just told me? Are you crazy? I’m still not even sure I believe a word of it, to be honest. But if even a tenth of what you’ve said is true, how could you seriously expect me to go back to him and put myself in danger? You don’t even know me. I don’t know you. Why would I do something like that on your say-so? What’s in it for me? I never knew Rose. Amber and I haven’t been friends for a long time.’
My stomach lurches painfully as I say those words, but I plough on, furious now.
‘And I work in a bookshop, for God’s sake! I’m not a private detective. Hire one, if you’re so keen to expose Jack. Get someone else to do your dirty work!’
I’m livid now and my heart is racing as I pace up and down the room. I’m tempted to just cut off the call.
In fact, my finger’s hovering over the button but then I hear him say, ‘Shit. I’ve done this all wrong, haven’t I? I get it, I really do. But I honestly don’t think he’d physically hurt you, Heather. He’s threatened me, yes, but he didn’t lay a hand on either Rose or Amber, did he? That’s not his style. And he needs to be stopped. The police just aren’t an option – there’s no way they’ll investigate him without any new evidence, especially not with his connections. And as for a private detective, I reckon he’d suss that straight away. He’s too clever, Heather. If we don’t do this, he’ll do it again, and again, I know he will. And if I’m being honest, I’m still terrified. I’m terrified he’ll come after me and my little girl. I’m scared that I’m the only person he’s told about all this, and that one day he’ll come after me to make sure I never tell anyone else. I’m surprised he hasn’t yet, to be honest. Maybe he just thinks I’m so scared I’ll keep my mouth shut forever. And yes, you might work in a bookshop, but crime’s your thing, isn’t it? And you’re smart, and you could get back in there. I know you could. I’ve tried, I promise you. I’ve thought about it non-stop since Amber went to prison but I genuinely can’t think of any other way that has even half a chance of working. Look, please don’t dismiss it out of hand. Could you at least think about it? Amber told me you were once so close, like sisters. If you have any feelings left for her, could you reconnect maybe? Go and visit her in prison, or at least speak to her on the phone? See what she has to say?’
I hesitate, still breathing heavily. And then Amber’s face flashes into my mind, an image I saw in a newspaper on the day she was sentenced, her face tear-streaked, a haunted look in her eyes, and all my resolve suddenly crumbles.
‘Oh, bloody hell,’ I say. ‘OK. I can’t promise anything, not now. But I’ll think about it. Call me again at the weekend.’
‘Thank you. Thank you so much,’ he replies, and I can hear the relief in his voice. ‘And yes, I will. OK. Bye for now.’
The line goes dead, and I stagger to the sofa, my legs unsteady. I sit for a long time, staring blankly into space, everything Nathan’s just told me rocketing around my brain.
Then, slowly, I reach for my phone. I wonder if what I’m about to do might just be the biggest mistake of my life, but I know I’m going to do it anyway. I have to, don’t I? If I don’t, I’ll never know the truth, and suddenly, quite unexpectedly, that seems really important.
I open Google, and type: how to book a prison visit.