The One You Trust: Emma Holden Trilogy: Book Three

by Paul Pilkington

  David nodded. ‘The person is in another couple of photos. At first I didn’t spot it at all, because they’re not in most of the shots. But the ones in Windsor, and one at the train station, there they are, in the background.’ He shrugged. ‘But, as I said, I might be overreacting, it might be nothing.’

  ‘You’re not overreacting,’ Lizzy said, looking up. ‘This is the person, Em.’

  David looked between them for an explanation.

  ‘While Dan and I’ve been on honeymoon, someone has been sending Lizzy letters. And they posted one to me, which I got this morning.’

  ‘One was hand-delivered here,’ Lizzy continued. ‘I chased after whoever it was – I saw them leaving the building. They were wearing a blue cap, just like the one in the photos here. And the build looks right.’

  ‘So I was right to be suspicious,’ David said.

  ‘Have you got any better images than this?’ Emma asked. ‘Closer-up shots, so we can try and see who it is?’

  ‘Sorry, no,’ he replied. ‘In all the shots I was focusing on Scott Goulding, because I’d identified him as following you. So any time this other person is in frame, it’s just luck. Particularly as they’re hanging back, as you can see in those two photos. Of all the four images, these are the best ones.’

  Emma looked closely at the photograph. It was impossible to identify the person, or tell their sex.

  Lizzy gave the photo back to David. ‘So, at times, there were actually three people following Emma? Scott Goulding as Stephen Myers, Firework Films’ Adrian Spencer and this person in the cap?’

  ‘It sounds ridiculous but, yes, sometimes there were three people following.’

  Lizzy raised an eyebrow. ‘Do you think each of the three people was unaware of the others?’

  He shrugged. ‘Well, I didn’t see Scott Goulding or Adrian Spencer interact with anyone else whilst I was there. I certainly didn’t see them talk to the person in the cap.’

  ‘It was busy,’ Emma said. ‘I can imagine how they might not have seen one another.’

  ‘Yes,’ David said. ‘It’s not as if they were following you down quiet roads. Each of the three people could mingle with the crowds, blend in to some extent. And if you think that Adrian Spencer was only following for a shorter period of time, while the person in the cap was hanging back more – I think it’s possible that they just didn’t see one another.’

  ‘There were actually four people following us,’ Emma said.

  Lizzy looked across at her. ‘Four?’

  ‘David,’ Emma explained, gesturing at him.

  ‘Yes, that’s right,’ he said, the thought obviously not having occurred to him. ‘But what are you getting at?’

  ‘Well, the three others didn’t see you, so it’s very possible that they didn’t see one another either.’

  He nodded. ‘Good point.’

  ‘There’s another possibility,’ Lizzy said. ‘They might have been working together. Maybe not all three, but two of them could have been working as a pair.’

  ‘You’re thinking of Sally?’ Emma said.

  ‘Yes. We already know that she was telling Scott Goulding what to do, directing him. We thought it was just from a distance, but maybe sometimes she was closer to the action.’

  ‘You could be right. And even if it isn’t Sally,’ Emma said, ‘it still might mean that either Adrian Spencer or Scott Goulding knows who the person in the cap is.’

  Lizzy nodded. ‘You’re right.’

  Emma looked at David. ‘What do you think?’

  He was caught by surprise, lost in thought. ‘I . . . I don’t know, to be honest. It’s possible that these people might have been working together. But I think it’s equally possible that they weren’t.’

  ‘So what do you think we should do?’ Emma said, a little desperately.

  David Sherborn almost laughed. ‘You’re asking me? I’m just a photographer. I haven’t got a clue with this sort of thing. Photographs, I’m your man, but anything else . . .’

  He was right. He was a photographer, not a private investigator or law enforcement. It wasn’t fair to expect him to be able to offer any solutions.

  ‘I’m sorry I can’t be of more help,’ he said. ‘I really am. You don’t deserve all this, Emma. I wish I could do something.’

  ‘Maybe you can,’ Lizzy said. ‘Em, why don’t you show him the photo that came this morning? He might be able to tell whether it’s real or not.’

  Emma hesitated. She looked across at Lizzy, who nodded at her to go ahead.

  Emma didn’t feel completely comfortable sharing the image with David Sherborn before speaking to Dan about it, but it was an opportunity to gain some professional insight. She pushed away her reluctance and passed across the photograph. ‘I received it in the post. We think it was sent by the person in the cap.’

  David Sherborn inspected it. ‘This is your husband, with . . .’

  ‘My ex-boyfriend, Stuart Harris.’

  ‘And what am I looking for?’

  ‘Do you think it’s real or could it be fake?’ Lizzy said.

  ‘Fake in what way?’

  ‘Could it be more than one photo, combined, to make it look as though Dan and Stuart are together?’

  He looked closer. ‘It’s impossible to say, with a hard-copy image. If I had a digital file I’d be able to examine it using some specialist software, and then I could say for sure. You can do that pretty easily now. But with a hard copy like this, well, there’s an element of guesswork.’

  ‘So, what’s your best guess?’ Lizzy asked. ‘Is it real or not?’

  Emma watched as David Sherborn looked at it some more. She almost didn’t want to hear the answer.

  Finally, he looked up. ‘My best guess is that the photo is a single image.’

  Emma’s stomach lurched. She concentrated fiercely on the carpet for a moment or two.

  ‘What makes you think that?’ Lizzy asked.

  ‘Well, as I said, it’s an educated guess. But if you look at the light, especially the way it reflects here,’ he said, pointing at Dan and Stuart’s faces, ‘and off the two glasses, then for me, it seems that the light source is coming from the same place, which indicates that it isn’t an overlay of two separate images.’ He looked hopefully at Lizzy and Emma. ‘Is that what you wanted to hear?’

  Lizzy looked at Emma, who was still staring straight down at the floor. ‘Not exactly, no.’

  Chapter 11

  ‘Archie, you’d better come quickly. It’s Peter Myers.’

  Slightly irked at the interruption of his morning break, Archie Turner looked up reluctantly from his copy of the Sun newspaper, clasping his cup of stewed tea.

  Stephanie Steward, one of the more junior guards stood, breathless, at the door. He didn’t show his irritation, as he was fond of the girl. She was a good kid – too good for working in a place like this. For him, it was far too late, but not for someone so young. He’d told her as much, on more than one occasion. ‘What’s he done?’

  ‘He’s not done anything,’ she said. ‘Someone’s done something to him.’

  Now Archie stood up. ‘Attacked?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘How bad?’ he said, already moving towards the door.

  She followed him out. ‘Pretty bad. He’s not moving much.’

  ‘Christ,’ he said. ‘Where is he?’

  ‘In the washroom.’

  They hurried in that direction. ‘Is there anyone with him?’

  ‘Johnny.’

  Another young prison guard. Another good kid. Archie climbed the staircase and approached the washroom. He prayed that this wasn’t going to be as bad as it could be. He didn’t like Peter Myers, hadn’t taken to him from the first few minutes after meeting him – the guy had no respect, for one thing. But that didn’t mean he wanted something like this to happen. Archie prided himself on the fact that events such as these were extremely rare under his watch.

  By now, there was a group of gu
ards outside the entrance to the washroom, preventing interested prisoners from seeing what was happening.

  ‘Is he dead?’ One of the prisoners asked grinning.

  Archie ignored the comment, and breezed past as the guards stood aside. ‘Bloody hell.’

  Peter Myers was on the floor in the recovery position, unmoving, his face battered. It looked as if someone had given him a serious kicking.

  Johnny was kneeling beside him.

  ‘Is he breathing?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Archie knelt down and placed a hand gently on Myers’ side. He groaned softly. Blood was trickling from his nose, and his left eye was already blackening. ‘Have you called an ambulance?’

  ‘No, sorry,’ Johnny replied.

  ‘We wanted to see what you thought first,’ Stephanie explained.

  ‘Well, call one now,’ Archie said. ‘This guy’s in a bad way. He needs proper medical attention.’

  ‘Hi,’ Dan said, as he took a seat in Perfetto that lunchtime. ‘Well, this is a nice treat. Just what’s needed for the first day back at work after such an amazing time. And it’s Tuesday – a short week!’

  Emma smiled automatically, thinking that this was how Lizzy must have felt just a few hours ago, back in the flat, wondering how to break bad news to a person who seemed so happy. She had put on a brave face since meeting Dan outside his office, and he didn’t seem to have noticed that anything was wrong.

  ‘I’ll go and get some drinks. Orange juice? Mineral water?’

  ‘Juice would be great.’ Emma watched as Dan went to order. She slid a hand into her pocket, where she could feel the photograph that showed Dan with Stuart. Or that purported to show them together. Despite what David Sherborn had said, Emma wasn’t totally convinced that the image was real. Or maybe she was just blinding herself to the truth?

  Despite what she had said to Lizzy about there having to be a reasonable explanation for it, Emma felt extremely uneasy about the possibility that Dan had known Stuart Harris, and had kept that fact from her.

  ‘Here you go,’ Dan said, returning with the drinks. He slid into the chair opposite hers. ‘I need this. You know, I’ve been back in the office a matter of hours, and it feels like I’ve never been away.’

  Emma decided to avoid the hard questions for the moment. ‘How was the meeting?’ Dan had had a 9.30 meeting with new clients who were looking to develop a dating website. It certainly wasn’t the most original of ideas, and the market, already extremely crowded, had seen its fair share of failures over the past few years. Dan’s job would be to design the site to make it stand out from the crowd, and give it every chance of not only surviving but prospering.

  ‘It was more interesting than I thought it would be,’ Dan replied. ‘The guy I met, he’s got some great ideas. He wants to target the university market – link students in a university to one another through shared interests, connecting to existing social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter. His idea is that it could facilitate finding the right people for one another in those first few weeks at university.’

  ‘But don’t people join societies and clubs for things like that?’

  ‘Yes, I guess. But he thinks this could add value.’

  ‘Add value.’ That made Emma genuinely smile, and for a second she forgot about her problems and the difficult conversation to come.

  ‘He also sees it as a way of connecting students across universities that are located within the same city – for example, university students in and around London or Leeds. Because they rarely ever mix.’

  ‘I can see the value in that. But where’s the money?’

  ‘Paid-for link-ups with entertainment and leisure providers in the cities – pubs, clubs, cinemas, that sort of thing. They would come up as personalised suggestions – with discounts – for places to go, based on the likes of the members.’

  ‘What are the timescales?’ Emma realised she was grasping at straws – she was going to have to confront Dan with the photo. But not yet. He’s so excited . . .

  ‘Challenging. He wants it up and running before next September, and it will need extensive testing.’

  Emma sipped her orange juice. ‘So you’ll have to hit the ground running.’

  ‘You could say that.’ He puffed out his cheeks and looked at her. ‘What I wouldn’t give to be back in Mauritius. Just you, me, the beach, the sea and the sunshine. No worries, no problems.’ He grinned. ‘But I guess unless you’re a millionaire, that’s not very realistic, is it?’

  Emma’s mask slipped as her face crumpled momentarily.

  Dan leant forward, shocked. ‘Em! What’s wrong?’

  She searched for the words. This was going to be so difficult.

  ‘Em, what’s happened?’

  She wouldn’t start with the photograph. Instead, she would tell him about what had happened with Lizzy and the person with the cap. It seemed easier. ‘Lizzy came around this morning. While we were away, someone has been sending her sinister letters.’

  Dan brought a hand up to his forehead and closed his eyes. ‘Dear God, not again.’ Emma just watched, not knowing what to say to make it better. Then he seemed to recover his composure. ‘What did they say?’

  ‘The messages were pretty cryptic. Things about trust.’

  ‘Trust?’

  ‘Yes, warning her about not trusting people.’

  ‘What people?’

  Emma shrugged. ‘Her friends, I guess.’

  ‘You mean us?’

  ‘I think so, yes.’

  Dan shook his head. ‘It makes me so angry, that people won’t just leave us alone,’ he said, almost to himself. ‘Does Lizzy have any idea who’s doing this?’

  ‘No, but she saw the person.’

  ‘She saw their face?’

  ‘No, it was hidden by a cap. She ran after them; they were in the entrance hall to our apartment building, hand-delivering a letter.’

  Another angry shake of the head. Emma thought for a moment that Dan was going to thump the table, but he didn’t.

  ‘It’s okay,’ she said. ‘It’s okay to be angry about it.’

  ‘I just feel so useless, Em,’ he burst out. ‘I don’t know what to do to help. I don’t know what to do, to make all this go away.’

  Emma reached across the table and took his hand. Dan looked like he was on the verge of tears. ‘Please, Dan, try not to be upset. We’re all struggling to know what to do.’

  Dan nodded and smiled ruefully. ‘Looks like the honeymoon is well and truly over.’

  Emma again felt the photograph in her pocket. She considered not asking Dan about it, but there would never be a good time. ‘The person also sent Lizzy a photograph,’ she said, her voice cracking with nerves.

  She brought it out and passed it to Dan, afraid of where this action might lead.

  He stared at the image, unspeaking.

  Emma knew Dan so well, thought she could recognise every tic, every expression. But his reaction threw her: she couldn’t tell what he was thinking, how he was reacting. For those few seconds, he even looked somehow different from the man with whom she had shared the past few years.

  It reminded her of the time her mother had been pumped full of drugs during the latter stages of her cancer fight – the times when she just didn’t look quite herself, as if an impressive but imperfect imposter had snuck in to take her place.

  ‘Are you okay, Dan?’

  ‘This isn’t real,’ he said, finally. ‘Whoever sent this, they’ve faked it.’

  It was the answer that Emma had longed to hear. ‘So you never knew Stuart?’

  ‘No.’ He looked again at the image. ‘No, I didn’t know him.’

  ‘The image looks so convincing,’ Emma said. ‘David Sherborn couldn’t tell whether it was real or not.’

  Dan’s reaction was instant and shocking.

  ‘You went to him about this?’ His raised voice drew the attention of several customers, and the young server behind the counter
.

  ‘Let me explain. He—’

  ‘I can’t believe you went to him before speaking to me!’ Dan continued. ‘Don’t you trust me at all?’

  ‘I do trust you.’

  ‘Really? Like when I was kidnapped and tied up by Peter Myers, and you thought I’d just had second thoughts about marrying you?’ His voice dripped sarcasm.

  Emma mentally scrambled for cover. ‘That’s not fair, Dan.’

  ‘Isn’t it?’ He made to stand.

  ‘Dan, please, don’t go like this!’ Emma looked at him, shocked. ‘Let’s talk about it.’

  He shook his head, slapping the photograph onto the table as he stood up. ‘You might need this, in case you want to get it analysed.’

  Emma stood up to stop him as he turned away. ‘Please, Dan, don’t . . .’

  He shrugged her off with surprising force. ‘I need to get back to the office,’ he said, bitterly.

  Emma could only watch as he stormed out of the café.

  Dan strode away from Perfetto and turned down the next side road. Stopping abruptly, he leant against the wall and pinched the bridge of his nose tightly. Kicking out, his heel connected with brickwork. It hurt. He pulled out his mobile. There was only one person who could help him at this moment.

  It rang and rang. ‘Come on, come on.’

  At last they picked up.

  ‘Hi, it’s me . . . thank God, I thought you weren’t going to answer . . . No, I’m not okay. I’ve just done something really, really stupid.’

  Part Two

  Chapter 12

  Some years earlier

  ‘Excuse me, can I have your autograph?

  ‘Sure,’ she said. ‘No problem.’

  ‘Thank you so much,’ he gushed, as he handed Emma the pad and pen. He was so excited to be this close to her, within touching distance. He had waited outside the gates for two hours to get the chance to meet her. An hour ago, a heavy rain shower had drenched him, but he hadn’t wanted to run for shelter in case he missed her. And now it had all been worth it. The wonderful Emma Holden was talking to him! ‘I’m so grateful to you for doing this. I thought you might be too busy – I know you’re busy – but it’s great that you can take time for me.’