Tom shook his head. ‘We’re here to try to find your husband. We’re not after you, so unless you’re going to admit to a major crime, you can relax.’
Dawn looked at her hands, playing distractedly with her fingers as she considered whether to speak.
‘Okay. You can’t prove anything, and it will be your word against mine if you try to arrest me.’ She lifted her eyes and gave Tom a fierce look. ‘I was involved in a carding scam when I was at uni in Manchester. I worked weekends at a hotel. Whenever I saw an opportunity I would call up to a likely-looking guest’s room after he’d checked in and tell him the credit-card reader hadn’t worked, but there was no need to come back down to reception; he could give me the details over the phone. It always worked – no one ever questioned it. Then I sold on the details for cash.’
Credit-card fraud had been one of Tom’s focuses early on in his career as a detective, and Dawn was talking about several years ago when carding was much less sophisticated than it was now.
‘Cameron was one of my victims. I’d heard stuff about him, but I was a cocky kid who for some bizarre and totally senseless reason thought it would be funny to get one over on him. I believed I was smarter.’ Dawn gave a mirthless bark of laughter. ‘I wasn’t. He worked it out and came for me – with Jagger. I was terrified, but Cameron decided he liked the look of me, and having a wife and kids would make him appear more respectable. So he offered me two options – a criminal record or marry him. If it wasn’t for my children, I would definitely think I’d made the wrong choice.’
‘You said you’d heard stuff about him. What did you mean?’ Tom asked.
‘Cameron’s dad vindicated the lack of attention he gave his son by ensuring he wanted for nothing. So Cameron was loaded, and he decided to use his father’s money to make more for himself. He became widely recognised as the university loan shark – “helping” students and then fleecing them. I knew that, but nobody talked about what happened to the kids who failed to pay up. Nobody dared, and I didn’t find out until after we were married. At least one kid committed suicide because of him. I eventually learned – too late – that he has no boundaries.’
Tom sat forward. If Cameron had hurt so many people, could one of them be seeking vengeance? Was he still in the same business? Tom knew that hundreds of thousands of households were in debt to loan sharks and for one of them this could be payback.
35
Nowhere feels safe to me any more. Scott has left a photo in my shed, and now that he’s infiltrated my school with his emails and the sponsorship campaign it feels as if he can get to me wherever I am. I’m so ashamed of what we did, and terrified of what he is going to reveal on the radio on Monday. Even more petrifying is the thought that he might try to get to me through my children.
I still don’t know how he survived, or how he managed to fake his own death. Why would he have done that? All I know is that I have to find him before he tears my life apart.
The staff meeting I called at the end of the day had gone as well as could be expected, and the staff had responded with shock when I told them that the page on the website was a complete fabrication – someone’s idea of a joke. A few of them were bewildered by the idea that someone would want to pull such a terrible stunt, but I apologised profusely and promised to make sure every single one of them got their money back. If the site wouldn’t refund it, I would give them the cash out of my own pocket.
I kept an eye on Dominic’s inbox too. It seems I managed to catch the email in time, but my body feels as if it’s trapped in a vice and someone is turning the screws, tightening the jaws inch by painful inch, minute by agonising minute. I will be crushed if I don’t do something. I have to find Scott, to stop him, and I only have a few days left before every detail of my past life is revealed. I keep imagining the headlines and seeing the shock on people’s faces. Most of all I picture Dominic’s reaction to all I haven’t told him and see nothing but disgust in his eyes.
Is that what Scott wants? There have been times recently – even before the radio programme – when I sensed eyes watching me. Has he been following me? It doesn’t matter now. I need to draw him out so I can confront him. Anything is better than trying to anticipate what he’s going to do next.
When I reach home I know Dominic can sense my tension, but I’m hoping that spending half an hour with Holly, telling her stories until she falls asleep, might soothe me as well as her. I kiss Bailey goodnight, and his eyes are already closing by the time I take myself into my daughter’s room and lie down beside her on the bed to weave fantasies of far-flung beaches and painted elephants. Gradually I see her drift off to sleep, a smile on her face, and I kiss her gently.
‘Love you,’ I whisper against her ear.
Quietly I slip out of the room and into our bedroom. I can’t stay up here all evening. It’s only a couple of days since I last went out alone, but I’m finding it hard to breathe. I quickly undress, pull on my gym kit and make my way downstairs.
Dominic turns his head towards me as I walk into the room, and I see an expression in his eyes that I don’t recognise. There is something sad in his gaze, and for a moment I wonder if I’ve pushed him too far. But he holds out a hand to me and I take it. ‘You off?’
‘Do you mind?’ I ask, and he shrugs.
‘I miss you when you go, but you’re the one with the stressful job, so I understand it’s what you need to do. Don’t fall asleep again though, will you?’
He tries to smile, but it doesn’t quite reach his eyes.
I’m not sure if I should go. There’s something in the air – a sense of disquiet. I glance towards the window. Our lights are on, but the curtains are open. What if he’s out there, looking in, watching us? I shake the feeling away and grab my car keys.
I could drive this route into Manchester with my eyes shut, I’m sure. For eighteen months I’ve been making the same journey at least twice a week – more frequently if I can find a plausible excuse. What started as a necessity, though, has become a part of my life that I keep telling myself will end soon. However, I’m not sure I believe that.
I drive into the underground car park and head towards the bay reserved for my apartment, right next to the lift.
‘Shit!’ I mutter, when I see someone has taken my spot. I slam the car into reverse and back into the one remaining spot in the furthest corner.
The car park is quiet, as it always is at this time in the evening. Thick concrete pillars cast shadows from the few ceiling lamps, some of them flickering, creating a strobe effect. My trainers make no sound as I walk. It is eerily silent.
I hear a dull bump, as if a soft object has hit something hard, then a rustling sound coming from the other side of one of the pillars, like fabric brushing on fabric, maybe two legs rubbing together as someone moves.
I stop dead. ‘Who’s there?’
Nothing. The silence returns.
I wait a moment and then start to walk again, faster this time. I want to run, but then I wouldn’t be able to hear. I force myself to stay calm and look around – to the left, to the right, over my shoulder. I squeeze between two cars and stop dead. A man has stepped out from behind one of the pillars and is standing facing me, hands held loosely at his side.
There’s no point screaming. No one will hear me. I think of running for my car, but he will catch me. I know he can move quickly, and I know how dangerous he is.
‘What do you want?’ I ask, swallowing the lump that’s threatening to choke me.
‘We need money. It’s time for a payment,’ Jagger says. ‘A big one.’
‘Cameron gave me until Christmas.’ It’s true, but there are no rules in this game.
Jagger slowly shakes his head. ‘Things have changed. He needs cash, and he needs it now.’
He’s had cash, lots of it, from me. Usually I find Jagger waiting for me in the street, lurking at the mouth of a dark alley – just where he belongs. He rarely speaks. He simply holds out his hand, and I pass hi
m an envelope stuffed with notes.
‘So Cameron’s wife was telling the truth. It wasn’t him in the car.’ I try to keep the disappointment from my voice, but Jagger scowls and I rush to say something else. ‘Do you know who tried to kill him?’
‘I’m working on it.’
I have to ask, and the words tumble from my lips before I can stop them. ‘Do you think it was Scott?’
Jagger looks at me as if I’m deranged. ‘Scott Roberts? He’s dead, Anna. I know you were besotted, but don’t go imagining things. Just get me the money.’
I move to Jagger’s left to pass him, but he reaches out a hand that feels as if it’s made of steel and wraps his fingers around my arm.
‘Don’t fuck with me. Tonight, Anna! No excuses.’
I struggle to break free of his grasp, anger and an explosion of panic making me reckless.
‘Go screw yourself, Jagger.’
He laughs at my boldness.
‘You owe him. Twenty-five grand. Tonight. I’ll be waiting, and if you don’t have it I’ll be taking a little trip to see your mum. So isolated, her house, isn’t it? She must get scared from time to time.’
I feel my T-shirt sticking to my back, but I can’t let Jagger know how he’s making me feel.
‘I’m sick of your threats. It can hardly come as a surprise to you that someone wants Cameron dead. Maybe you’ll be next, and frankly I don’t give a shit.’
Jagger grabs me by the throat and pushes me against the pillar. This time he’s not laughing.
‘You might think you can evade me tonight, but tomorrow and every day after until we’re paid I will be in your face. At home, at school. You can’t hide, Anna. I’ll see you very soon.’
36
I flee from the car park into the lift, whimpering with relief when the doors close, then rush into the apartment, slamming the door, leaning hard against it. My legs are shaking so much that I need to sit down. The anger I felt as I stood looking at Jagger’s weasel-like features has gone, the adrenaline fading with it. I dart into the bathroom, knowing I need to shower the cold sweat from my body.
I didn’t need this tonight. Isn’t it bad enough that Scott is promising to destroy the safe, stable parts of my life? Just as I am three people, I have three lives: home, school – both of which have felt calm, steady and secure – and my secret life; precarious, thrilling but until tonight carefully under my control.
I still don’t know what Scott intends to do, how he plans to make me suffer. I pause as I remember Jagger’s conviction that Scott is dead. Until recently I believed that too, and I still have no idea how he survived what I did to him, or why he would fake his own death and allow his family to mourn him. But I saw him with my own eyes, fleeing from the hospice. And who else would leave his photograph in our shed? Who else knew about the scams, the fraud and Nebraska?
Of course it’s Scott. Jagger is wrong.
Jagger. I don’t want to think about what happened in the car park, but however brave I felt then, the danger hasn’t gone away. I know what Cameron will do if I don’t get him his money. He’ll start with the photos – the ones he took of me all those years ago – then he’ll get Jagger to pay Mum a visit. I can’t let that happen. If I don’t fix this, we’ll lose our house, Mum’s too, and my family will fall apart. I have to get him the cash, and I have to do it tonight.
I dry myself and hurry to the mirror to start the remodelling of Anna Franklyn into the other me. My hands are shaking as I put on make-up and clothes, then deftly arrange a blonde wig and apply an extra layer of dark red lipstick.
Saskia Peterson is ready.
I stare at the face in the mirror and stop shaking. Saskia is scared of no one. She knows no guilt. She is true to herself and she’s good at what she does. More than good. Saskia moves confidently – her stride long, her hips swaying as if there is a beat in her head that no one else can hear.
If I manage to pay Cameron the money he is demanding, maybe it will be enough and Saskia can fade into obscurity. I have always thought that would be a good day, but she is part of me now, a part I don’t think I can let go. Because while Anna has kept her feet firmly on the ground, Saskia has learned to fly.
I pull a handbag from the wardrobe and make my way out of the door, down the staircase to the main entrance of the building and out onto the street.
I don’t have far to walk, and tonight I am glad. Once again I feel as if eyes are watching me, and I glance across the street to a dark doorway. I’m sure I can see someone there. But maybe it’s a shadow, or perhaps Jagger is checking that I’m doing as he demanded.
My work is about to begin. It’s an easy way to make money, and one that I enjoy more than I can say. And I have Cameron to thank for that.
And Scott, of course. It all started with Scott.
37
Then
Two weeks after our return to university following the Christmas break, I decided I had to do something. Scott seemed to be falling apart. He looked lost – as if he was in a huge hole and didn’t know how to climb out. He was gambling again, I was certain, using the latest instalment of his student loan in the belief that he would get lucky. I wanted to beg him to stop, but then the last of his hope would crumble and the remaining morsels of bravado that were holding him together would disintegrate.
I can still see his expression the night I told him I was pregnant – the horror on his face. Was he simply shocked that I was pregnant, or was he dismayed because it scuppered his plan for me to work as an escort?
‘Have you made arrangements?’ he finally asked. He didn’t say what for, but I knew.
‘You mean an abortion?’
He nodded.
I burst into tears. ‘No. And you haven’t even asked me how I feel about it.’
He pulled me to him, stroking my hair as I sobbed.
‘I’m so sorry, Spike. I’m such an idiot. I was just surprised. I’m so focused on getting that twat Cameron off my back that I rarely think of anything else. How do you feel?’
I looked at his face and could see the panic in his eyes. To him this was just one more problem – but that wasn’t how it felt to me.
‘I don’t want a termination, Scott. I know some people think it’s nothing and other girls do it as soon as a pregnancy is inconvenient, but to me it’s a baby. Our baby. There’s a life growing inside me, wanting to be loved.’
We talked for hours, Scott giving all the logical reasons why an abortion would be best, while I tried to explain why I didn’t think I could do it. In the end I said we should leave it for a couple of weeks – let the idea settle, rather than make a snap decision.
But I knew I was going to have the baby.
The more immediate problem was how to keep Jagger off our backs. Scott had no chance of complying with Cameron’s demands, and I couldn’t even afford my own interest payments. I had no idea what punishment would be meted out to me if I failed to pay. There was only one thing to do. I was going to have to speak to Cameron.
I hadn’t seen him since the day I had signed the agreement. All interest payments were made via Jagger, just as all penalties were imposed by him. I had no idea if Cameron still hung out in the same place, but I thought it likely given the set-up in the back room.
Going there that night was the hardest thing I had ever done, but as I walked into the crowded bar I thought only of my unborn child. If Jagger hurt me, it could harm my baby. And that couldn’t happen.
My spiky hair had grown out a bit by then, and although I had kept it blonde, it suited me as it waved over my ears and the back of my neck. I dressed with care in the new jeans my parents had bought me for Christmas and a black V-neck sweater. I didn’t want Cameron to realise how badly he was hurting us.
He was seated in exactly the same spot as last time, facing the door, surrounded by what I now recognised as his usual bunch of sycophants, hanging on his every word, laughing at whatever he said. Cameron spotted me immediately and raised his eyebrows. Jagg
er followed his gaze and, without a word, got up and walked towards me.
‘What do you want?’ he asked without preamble.
My mouth turned dry, and I struggled to get the words out. ‘To see Cameron,’ I finally managed.
‘He’s busy.’
I didn’t know what to say. I couldn’t deal with Jagger. I didn’t know if I could deal with Cameron either, but at least his corruption was concealed under a layer of fake respectability.
I was about to leave when over Jagger’s shoulder I saw Cameron stand up. He was coming towards me. ‘Anna!’ he said, as if we were old friends and it was a happy reunion.
‘I wondered if I could have a few minutes of your time.’ I sounded like a supplicant, and hated myself for it.
He beamed. ‘Of course.’
Like last time we went into the small back room, where Cameron and I took the seats while Jagger stood behind me. It was supposed to intimidate me, and it worked.
‘How’s that boyfriend of yours doing? Someone told me he’d had a bit of a mauling. Football thugs or something, wasn’t it?’
He was smiling as if showing his concern, but there was neither humour nor sympathy in his eyes. They glittered with something that looked like amusement.
‘He’s fine.’
My stomach was in knots, but I tried hard not to sound nervous, reminding myself that Cameron wasn’t much more than a boy. He was only a couple of years older than I was. Jagger was something else entirely. Young as he was, he looked like a man who’d had a hard childhood in a rough neighbourhood, but he was clever. It was a dangerous mixture.
Cameron’s head was on one side, waiting for me to speak.
‘I misunderstood the terms of the loan agreement.’ I couldn’t put the blame on him; I had to be the guilty party here. ‘I’m going to struggle to meet the repayments, and I’d like to help Scott too, if I can, so I was thinking that maybe I could work for you to cover the interest. I don’t know what you need. Cleaning, ironing?’
The Shape of Lies: New from the queen of psychological thrillers Page 16