‘So, what do you say?’ Bethany asked me.
‘I’ll think about it.’
I was sitting across Bethany’s desk from her in the office of her estate agency. We were the only ones inside. The office was brightly lit with colourful furnishings. Framed property details were displayed in the large picture windows facing onto the street, suspended from discreet wires.
Bethany swivelled her touchscreen computer monitor to face me, swiping through a series of images of an apartment on-screen.
‘It’s got everything you’re looking for. One bedroom. Modern facilities. Middle floor of a really secure building. I can get you an amazing deal on the rent.’
‘You’ve said that about every place you’ve shown me.’
‘Because it’s true. I want you to be happy.’
I stood up from my chair, buttoning my coat and looping my handbag over my arm.
‘Then make an appointment for a viewing,’ I told her. ‘We’ll go together.’
‘Yay.’ Bethany stood from behind her desk and clapped her hands. I leaned forwards to kiss her goodbye on her cheek, but as I pulled back she reached up and took hold of both my shoulders, peering into my eyes. ‘Are you sure you don’t want me to come with you? I’m due a break.’
As she spoke, the door behind us opened and a middle-aged couple walked in.
‘No, I’m fine,’ I told her. ‘You have customers. I’m going to do this bit by myself.’
I smiled to the couple as I passed them on my way to the door.
‘Wave if you need me,’ Bethany called.
‘I’ll come back afterwards,’ I replied. ‘Tell you how it went.’
It was cold and damp outside. Middle of the morning. The rain had stopped, but the pavement was greasy. Water splashed up in fans from the tyres of passing vehicles as I waited to cross the road.
When the pedestrian lights changed, I glanced back over my shoulder at Bethany, who was already engaging the couple in animated conversation and drawing their attention to a property brochure.
I smiled to myself. Bethany was determined to help me get back on my feet, no matter what it took, just as she was absolutely committed to carrying on with her career.
Only recently I’d discovered that she’d designed some business cards for me and that she was getting all the estate agents at her firm to pass them on to any clients they thought might be in need of an interior designer. In all honesty, I hadn’t been sure it was something I wanted to contemplate again, but then the first few calls had reached me and I’d started to find that I was intrigued by some of the projects people wanted to discuss.
When I reached the opposite pavement, I skipped on towards the small independent cafe that faced Bethany’s estate agency and then stopped cold.
Donovan was sitting at an outside table beneath the sodden awning. He was wearing a dark padded jacket over stonewashed jeans and leather boots. He was also looking straight at me as he set aside the newspaper he’d been reading, leaving me in no doubt that he’d known I was coming here today.
‘Sit down,’ he said. ‘I won’t keep you long.’
I shook my head slowly, fighting against the urge to turn and run, shout for help.
‘What do you want?’ I managed.
‘To say goodbye. After today, you won’t see me again. You’ve had enough trauma. I didn’t want that to be a concern for you.’
I felt my face pull taut even as I experienced a pulse of relief deep inside. I had heard he’d survived Sam’s attack on him but that it had been touch and go during his surgery. Looking at him now, there were few signs of the injuries he’d sustained. I could see a small scar on his cheek close to one eye as well as a slight stiffness to his movements that he was doing his best to conceal.
‘They told me you asked them to drop the charges against me,’ he said.
‘They told me that would make no difference.’
‘It didn’t.’
‘And yet here you are.’
He raised his eyebrows and parted his hands, as if the assault offences the police had told me they would be issuing were only a minor inconvenience.
‘I told you I was an intelligence officer,’ he said.
I waited, not wanting to give him the satisfaction of asking how that factored in.
‘Let’s just say I have influential friends. People who’d prefer for me to be able to do what I do, where they need me to do it.’
‘Bethany won’t be happy about that.’
Donovan pressed his lips together in contemplation and looked past me for a moment in the direction of Bethany’s estate agency. ‘No,’ he said. ‘I don’t suppose she will be.’
I was a bit more conflicted. On one level, despite the terror he’d visited on me, I knew that I owed him something that went beyond the truth he’d been searching for. On another, I was painfully aware that Donovan’s mother had already lost one son and I hadn’t wanted her to lose Donovan to a prison sentence.
‘I never told the police about Amy being in the ambulance with me,’ I said.
He nodded.
Based on what I was able to gather from DS Sloane, Donovan had denied that he’d ever had an accomplice. To my mind, it would have been relatively simple for the police to prove otherwise. They had the mobile phone Donovan had been using to stay in touch with Amy, and while I suspected she would have been on a burner phone, the evidence of Donovan’s calls to her was still there. On top of that, LSE could have assisted them with their investigation, presumably by putting them in touch with some of the other people who had attended the same support group as Sam and Amy who might have identified her. Or the police could have checked CCTV footage from Sam’s Tube journey home.
I guessed now I had an answer for why none of that had happened.
‘How’s John?’ Donovan asked.
I shook my head without answering him. Not simply because he didn’t deserve to know that John was now in a specialist care home, but because I was certain he already did.
I’d visited John a couple of times. He was doing about as well as could be expected. I don’t think he remembered me but that was OK. The care home had their own cat and I knew he liked that.
My suspicions about Sam turned out to be true. The police checked and discovered that he had been siphoning off funds from John’s savings over a period of at least a year. Small sums to begin with, then larger amounts when he didn’t get caught. Bethany had told me there would be a queue of developers eager to snap up John’s house when it went on the market. The proceeds of the sale would cover his ongoing care costs.
As for Sam’s house, I was sure that would sell too, in time, despite the fire damage it had sustained. I knew for a fact that Bethany had no interest in marketing the property. Some well-meaning people had told me that I should sue Sam’s estate for damages when the sale eventually went through, but I wasn’t interested. I was ready to move on.
‘How long were you planning what you did to me?’ I asked Donovan.
‘Not long. I moved pretty fast.’ He glanced down ruefully at his torso. ‘Too fast, on reflection.’
‘And Sam? Did you always suspect him?’
‘I knew things about him. I also knew it was possible he was sheltering you, protecting you. Then there was the chance you’d tricked him and he knew nothing at all. That’s why I wanted to get inside the house with you. Talk to you without you knowing why I was there. And when I did . . .’ He paused to study me closely, as if assessing how much more he should say. ‘In my line of work, you see things. A lot of the time you wish you never had. But when you showed me around, the way you talked, some of the things I saw, I got echoes.’
I shivered and he saw me do it. He then twisted to one side, bracing a hand on the back of his chair and levering himself to his feet with some discomfort.
‘Still healing,’ he said.
‘Me too.’
He stared at me a moment, appraising me, then he picked up his paper and gestured inside the cafe with it.
‘Better go in. They’re waiting for you.’
He walked away without looking back. I stood there, my heart thumping, my throat closing up, waiting until he’d weaved between other pedestrians, then turned a corner until I couldn’t see him any more.
When I glanced back across the road at Bethany, I saw that she was still talking with the couple, blissfully unaware of what had happened, and I decided then and there to keep things that way.
My head felt light. My knees were rubbery. But I refused to let Donovan distract me from why I’d come here today. After taking some deep breaths and closing my eyes briefly, I shook the nervous stress out of my hands and arms, cleared my hair from my face, then spun and walked directly through the fogged glass door of the cafe. A woman in a taupe apron looked up from behind a counter as I entered.
‘It’s OK,’ I told her, pointing to a table by the window where three people were gathered around steaming coffee cups. ‘I can see my group.’
I wobbled a bit as I approached but I paused to get it under control, then drew back a chair and sat down. I could feel my nerves fluttering against my ribs. Tears pressing against the backs of my eyes. I was very conscious of the empty table outside where Donovan had been sitting, and when I looked at it, I felt undone for a second, then clenched my hands into fists and pushed on.
‘Thank you all for coming,’ I said. ‘How is everyone?’
‘Good.’
‘Better.’
‘I’m doing OK.’
I believed them.
The taxi driver had lost some weight. He was wearing a charcoal suit, a crisp white shirt and a striped tie.
The girl’s hair was longer and lighter. I guessed it was her natural shade. She had on a pretty blouse over jeans, and her make-up was much less dramatic than it had been, though she still had the lip ring.
The skinny guy was still skinny. He was still a bit hunched up and nervous. But he met and held my eyes without looking down or away and his smile seemed genuine.
‘What about your phobias?’ I asked.
‘We were just talking about that,’ the taxi driver said. ‘I’m pretty much over it. I went with hypnosis therapy in the end. It really helped. I jacked in the cab, though. Got a job as a personal driver for a rich guy who lives not too far from here.’
‘And I’m sleeping almost normally,’ the girl said. ‘Some of what we learned at the support group . . .’ She broke off, looking uncomfortable for a moment.
‘It’s OK,’ I told her. ‘You can say.’
‘I’m sorry, but it really helped. And I have a boyfriend now. He holds my hand when I’m falling asleep.’
‘I’m glad,’ I told her. ‘Truly.’
‘I’m more of a work in progress,’ the skinny guy admitted. ‘But it’s a long time since I’ve been as low or as bad as I was back then. I’ve been seeing a therapist. I know the warning signs to watch out for. My bosses at the uni have been really supportive. And I’ve confided in some close friends.’
‘That’s great,’ I said. ‘You have no idea how good it is for me to hear that. But before we chat more, do you mind if we do one small thing? Can we all just introduce ourselves properly this time?’
‘Mike,’ the older man said, with a nod and a smile.
‘Caroline.’
‘Ross.’
‘Well, you all know who I am by now.’ It had been in the press enough. I knew they would have read the stories. There had been a lot of coverage of the events at No. 18 Forrester Avenue. So I didn’t think any of them were surprised or embarrassed when my voice began to tremble and my eyes welled up. ‘It’s a pleasure to meet you all,’ I told them. ‘I’m Louise.’