Dani was already on her feet, rushing for the lounge door, when a crashing sound rattled in her ears. She sped into the hall, then the kitchen. Stef was standing, staring into the darkness beyond the kitchen window.
‘What happened?’ Dani said, pulling to a stop a couple of steps from Stef. Her eyes fell to the mess of tea-covered crockery on the floor. ‘Stef?’
Stef turned around, her face ashen. She opened and closed her mouth but said nothing – too shocked to speak?
‘Stef?’
‘What’s going on?’ Easton said, coming up behind Dani and sounding less receptive than she was. Dani held her arm out to hold him back.
‘Stef, what did you see?’
Still nothing from Stef.
‘Someone in the garden?’ Dani asked.
The slightest of nods. At least Dani thought that was the silent reaction she saw from Stef. She strode for the back door. Turned the key and pulled it open and a whoosh of icy air barrelled in.
Dani rushed outside, into the near pitch-dark space. There was no security light, no illumination at all except the light seeping from the kitchen, and it took Dani’s eyes several seconds to adjust as she tentatively edged further into the black. Shadows swirled all around her.
Or was that just the effect of her warm breath in the freezing air?
‘Dani?’
Easton’s voice right behind her made her jump. She stopped moving, heart pounding against her ribs. She whipped her eyes left and right across the modest space. A sliver of lawn. Some crazy paving. Fences on three sides. No sign of a person. Dani rummaged for her phone, took it out and shone the paltry torch about.
‘There’s no one out here,’ Easton said.
Had there ever been?
Or had Stef actually been spooked by the reflection of someone – something? – in the house? Dani shivered at the thought.
She turned and stomped back inside.
There was no sign of Brigitta in the kitchen. Was she even aware of the commotion? Stef was crouched down with a dustpan and brush, sweeping up the dripping mess of broken crockery.
‘What did you see, Stef?’ Dani asked.
Stef carried on what she was doing.
‘Stef, tell me what happened,’ Dani said. More of a demand now. The harder tone caused Stef to pause. She straightened up and turned to face Dani, brush in hand.
‘Nothing,’ she said. ‘It was just a cat, or a fox.’
‘You sure about that?’ Easton asked. ‘You seem a bit rattled to me.’
Stef gave the silent treatment once more.
‘Why don’t you go and make sure Brigitta is OK,’ Dani said to Easton.
He hesitated but then relented, shutting and locking the back door before he disappeared off. Dani gave Stef a few more moments to compose herself. The young woman finished clearing the mess from the floor, putting the broken pieces of cup into the bin and wiping the floor clean with a cloth.
‘What do you want me to say?’ Stef said, quite sternly, when she’d finished. She was facing Dani, arms folded.
‘Just talk to me. I can see you’re on edge. Why?’
Dani always felt that way in this house. Was Stef the same?
But had there really been someone out there? The same person who’d spied on Dani and Easton at Liam Dunne’s house perhaps?
‘There’s nothing wrong,’ Stef said. ‘I thought I saw something in the dark. That’s all. I wasn’t expecting it.’
‘A little jump, I could expect. But that was a hell of a scream.’
Stef ignored that comment and set about boiling the kettle again.
‘Why don’t you leave that?’ Dani suggested. ‘Come and sit down. I want to talk to you.’
She indicated the small, battered table, with its floral plastic cover which was scratched and permanently stained in places from many years of use.
Stef seemed unsure of Dani’s proposition but eventually relented. They took seats opposite each other, both sitting back on their hard chairs, Stef with her arms folded, her now calmer face hard and defiant.
‘Every time I come here… I get this odd feeling,’ Dani said, blushing a little at her lame and somewhat inarticulate words. ‘Brigitta is—’
‘Brigitta is amazing,’ Stef said. ‘But she lives in the past.’
‘Her stories of Strigoi…’
Stef rolled her eyes. ‘Fairy tales. I used to believe them too. You have to understand the world was different in the old days. Especially where we came from. Where Brigitta came from. It was nothing like England today. Our world was so much more… our own. Small. Contained. Problems were dealt with by us, we…’
She seemed to lose her train of thought.
‘Were self-sufficient?’
‘Not so much in my day, maybe, but yes in Brigitta’s time, of course. And so when something happened which couldn’t be explained… that’s where witches and Strigoi and superstition come from.’
‘Brigitta is certain Strigoi stole her daughter.’
‘Who knows what happened to her?’ Stef said shaking her head. ‘Or her granddaughter.’
‘Her granddaughter?’
Stef waved the question away. ‘Family problems.’
‘You’re sure?’
Stef said nothing.
‘Brigitta seems convinced that women are still going missing. Here, now, in England. And that—’
‘What are you trying to tell me?’ Stef said, anger evident. ‘That you believe the crazy words of an old lady? Vampires and werewolves, and whatever?’
‘No,’ Dani said. ‘I’m not trying to tell you that at all.’ Even if she couldn’t escape the feeling of a malicious presence in this house. Was Stef’s overreaction moments earlier not further demonstration that something wasn’t right here? ‘But I am telling you that we have more than one unexplained death we’re investigating. I also have Brigitta telling me there may be more bodies. A place filled with bones. Does that mean anything to you?’
‘I have no idea what you are talking about,’ Stef said, and the confusion and doubt on her face seemed genuine enough.
The conversation took a pause as Dani tried to gather her thoughts. She couldn’t escape the idea of her being watched, and her eyes flicked to the dark window every few beats. Was someone out there still?
‘I’ve looked into you,’ Dani said.
Stef looked disgusted. ‘Why? Were you hoping you’d find something bad? Something so you could send me back to Romania?’
‘Where does your animosity come from?’ Dani said. ‘Is it just against me? The police?’
Stef tutted. ‘You don’t know what it’s like for us here. So unwelcome. This town is my home. It has been for years, but every day I’m made to feel like I don’t belong. It’s the same for us all.’
‘I’ve never done that to you.’
‘No? Then why are you here? Again. You won’t leave us alone. You’ll do anything to prove your point. That there’s something bad about us. That we’re all criminals.’
‘I’ve never accused you of anything.’
‘Not to my face. Yet here we are again. And you’ve been spying on me, behind my back. So what did you find?’
Was now the wrong time to say that Dani had found out that Stef had lied to her? But was it a lie or just withholding information?
‘I’m not saying you’ve done anything wrong,’ Dani said. ‘But I do think that people you know have. Your brother included.’
That shut her up.
‘Believe me,’ Dani said. ‘I know how easy it is to get tarred because of the actions of a sibling.’
Stef clearly didn’t have a clue what Dani meant by that. A refreshing change for someone to not know of her and her brother’s notoriety.
‘I barely even speak to Alex any more,’ Stef said.
Alex Stelea. Her older brother. Victor Crisan’s accomplice.
‘And why’s that?’ Dani asked.
Stef scoffed.
‘I’m just trying to understand,’ Dani said. ‘Understand you. Him. What’s happening here.’
Stef kept her mouth shut.
‘You came to England very young,’ Dani said. ‘You were only nineteen, weren’t you?’
‘Yes.’
‘You came alone?’
‘I travelled alone. I came here to stay with Brigitta.’
‘And Nic?’
Stef paused for a moment, as if she believed answering the question might incriminate her somehow, simply by association.
‘Nic was here then, too, yes. But only for a few months before he was sent to prison. And before you ask, I know nothing about what he did or why. That’s not my life, and it all happened before I even arrived.’
‘How do you know his family?’
‘Our families are close back home. That’s all there is to it. I used to call Brigitta my aunt. She was a kind lady who everyone looked up to. We respected her. I still do.’
‘So you came over here, on your own. And then what? Alex followed?’
‘About two years after me.’
‘To work with Victor?’
‘Yes.’
‘And how does Victor fit into this? The family dynamic.’
‘He doesn’t. Victor is just someone Nic worked for here. Then Alex worked for him too.’
‘Nic worked for Victor?’
‘Yes.’
Dani was a little surprised by that, for some reason. The impression she’d always had was that Nic had been the more senior, but was that simply because he was older?
‘And what exactly is it that Victor and Alex do?’ Dani asked.
‘They own a transport business,’ Stef said, face deadpan.
Dani said nothing. Over the next few seconds of silence Stef became more and more fidgety.
‘What?’ Stef said.
‘Sorry, I was waiting for you to answer my question.’
‘I did.’
‘Not properly.’
‘What are you talking about?’
‘You know exactly what I’m talking about. You don’t need to bullshit me. Victor and Alex are crooks. My best guess is they run prostitutes. Young Romanians and other foreign girls who are easy to coerce. Drugs, extortion, too, usually go hand-in-hand with these types. I will get to the bottom of everything they’re doing.’
‘Whatever it is you think they do, it’s not my business.’
‘I don’t doubt that. But if you know anything—’
‘I already told you that I don’t.’
Yet Dani didn’t believe a word of it. One thing she knew for sure was that Stef was bright, and she was no shrinking violet. There wasn’t a chance that she’d never at least suspected her brother and his business partner of criminality. Would she not admit to it because she was afraid, or was it due to complicity?
‘I asked you before about Clara Dunne, and her brother Liam.’
‘And I told you I don’t know them.’
‘You did. But do you know this woman?’
Dani reached out with her phone, the screen lit up with the photograph of Liam Dunne and the mystery woman. Dani was sure there was a twinkle of recognition in Stef’s eyes.
‘Stef?’
‘I don’t know her.’
‘Bullshit.’
Stef flicked a glare Dani’s way. ‘I don’t know her.’
Dani stared right back, waiting to see if Stef would change her answer, or at least add to it. She didn’t.
‘Tell me about Ana,’ Dani said.
The curveball threw Stef for a moment.
‘You do know Ana Crisan, don’t you?’ Dani asked.
‘I know her, yes.’
‘She’s Victor’s girlfriend?’
Stef scoffed once again.
‘I get the impression that you don’t like Victor much?’ Dani asked.
‘Do you?’
Dani held back a slight smile at that. Whatever Stef’s motives for her not opening up, there was something about her that Dani liked.
‘What’s the deal with Ana?’ Dani asked.
‘The deal?’
‘She’s young, intelligent. Like yourself. Yet here you are working away, earning a living, while Ana… she seems tied to Victor’s side, and I’m not sure it’s by choice.’
‘Victor gets what he wants. And he wants Ana.’
‘What if he wanted you?’
Dani could tell Stef was now clenching her jaw. Disgust?
‘Would you run away to another city too?’ Dani asked. ‘Like Ana did?’
‘I’d run further.’
Both of them smiled at that.
‘But there is a problem,’ Dani said.
That wiped the short-lived smile from Stef’s face.
‘Ana is missing.’
Stef said nothing.
‘We’ve had surveillance on Victor and Alex—’
‘Pretty obvious,’ Stef said. ‘They were hardly well hidden.’
‘No. Maybe not. Yet Ana has still gone missing.’ Dani paused to let that sink in. ‘She was last seen leaving Victor’s warehouse last night, with both Victor and Alex. They got into Alex’s car. Later in the night when that car arrived back at Victor’s house, Ana wasn’t in it.’
Stef was looking more and more worried now.
‘She didn’t run away,’ Dani said. ‘Not this time.’
Stef said nothing.
‘Do you have any idea at all what’s happened to her? Where they took her. Why?’
‘No, I don’t,’ Stef said, shaking her head. She looked far more solemn now than before. ‘I honestly don’t know.’
And the worst thing was, this time Dani believed her.