‘I mean it. Nothing will ever happen between us again,’ I repeated, as much for my sake as Alfie’s.
‘I heard what you said.’ A slow smile lifted the corners of Alfie’s lips. ‘But I’m not sure I believe you.’
‘Well, you should,’ I replied, allowing myself one last subtle look at Alfie’s semi-naked body.
‘You don’t sound very convincing, Gemma.’
When Alfie draped his arm around my shoulder, my heart skipped a beat, and my pulse began to race. I knew I needed to calm myself down before he noticed. I didn’t want to make a complete fool of myself. But no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t seem to control the butterflies in my stomach.
‘I’d better go,’ I said, realising the sooner I put some distance between us the better. I wasn’t sure I could trust myself.
Alfie was a very good-looking man, but I didn’t want to admit that I was attracted to him, because then I’d have to face up to what I’d done. At this moment in time, my emotional state was too fragile to handle the truth.
‘Why don’t you stay?’ Alfie’s eyes never left mine while he waited for me to respond.
‘I can’t.’
‘That’s a real shame.’ Alfie slid his hands around my waist and leant down to kiss me.
I turned my face away before his lips made contact with mine. Clasping my hands together to stop myself fidgeting, I took a step closer to the door.
‘Do I make you nervous, Gemma?’
‘No, of course not.’
‘Then why can’t you look at me without turning red?’ Alfie smirked.
Leaving his question unanswered, I headed back out of the door with his words ringing in my ears.
50
Gemma
‘Let me give you some advice, Gemma. Never go on a job expecting to get caught. If you do, you’ll line yourself up to fail, and failure isn’t an option.’
Attempting to get on top of my nerves, I tried not to pace as I walked around the exotic gardens of the Place du Casino. The central square was bustling with tourists enjoying the scenery and glorious winter sunshine. I hoped I appeared as carefree as they did. Taking one last look at the palm trees and the azure blue sky above me, I made my way to the Chopard Boutique.
Stepping through the dark wood door of the tiny jewellery store, armed with nothing more than a smile and my designer handbag, I made my way to the counter. Gazing into the glass cabinet, I scanned the contents for the ring on my shopping list.
‘Are you looking for anything in particular?’ the sales assistant asked.
I looked up at the sound of her voice. ‘I was admiring that beautiful ring. Is it a sapphire?’ I asked, giving her my best smile.
‘It’s actually a blue diamond,’ the middle-aged lady informed me.
‘Oh, I didn’t know there was such a thing.’ My eyes sprung open.
‘They are one of the rarest gemstones. Would you like to try it on?’
‘Yes, please.’
‘The stone is mounted on an eighteen-carat white gold band and paved with diamonds,’ the assistant said, handing it to me.
‘It’s beautiful. How much is it?’
I slipped the oval-cut ring on and off my finger. Then delved my hand into my bag while the assistant checked the price.
‘It’s nine hundred and fifty thousand euros, madame.’ When she told me the price, it just tripped off her tongue. She was so used to serving customers with bottomless bank accounts.
‘That’s more than I was expecting. It is a lovely ring, but before I spend that amount of money, I’d like to have a think about it.’ I handed her the replica before walking out of the door.
*
The Mercedes engine was running when I got in the car. Alfie usually always sat behind Tommy. For some reason, he’d swapped positions with Nathan and was in the middle seat, so I had no option but to sit next to him.
‘How did it go?’ Alfie asked, turning towards me.
I looked down at my hands, trembling in my lap and realised there was no need for me to go into details.
‘You see, I told you she’d be fine.’
Alfie turned to look at my husband. While he did, he ran his hand up my thigh. Nathan didn’t seem to notice, but if he did, he chose to ignore it. Instead, he stared out of the car window at the yachts lining the harbour.
‘You shouldn’t have sent Gemma in there. It was too risky,’ Nathan replied, not looking in my direction.
‘Would somebody like to tell me what’s going on?’ I asked, turning sideways in the chair so I could face them both. ‘You’re talking about me as if I’m not here.’
‘It’s no big deal,’ Alfie replied, giving nothing away as usual.
‘Well, I’d call it a big deal.’ Nathan turned and looked Alfie straight in the eye. ‘The police have released CCTV footage of you, Gemma.’
My heart was in my mouth as I processed his words, and all of a sudden, I had a horrible feeling in the pit of my stomach.
‘Don’t look so worried, Gemma,’ Alfie said, flashing me a pearly white smile.
Adrenaline rushed through my body, sending my pulse racing and making the palms of my hands sweat. My nerves intensified when I realised they were waiting for me to speak. But my mouth was so dry, I found myself gasping for air instead when I attempted to clear my throat. Taking a deep breath, I tried not to give away how I was feeling, but I knew it would be difficult to stop my voice from wobbling.
‘Where did the police get the footage from?’
‘Cartier’s,’ Alfie replied.
‘Oh shit!’ I let my face fall into my hands.
Alfie pulled my hands away. ‘It’s OK, Gemma, there’s nothing to worry about. Even though they’ve got footage of you looking at the expensive panther bracelet, they didn’t see you take it.’
‘So why have they released it?’ I looked Alfie straight in the eye, hoping for once he’d give me an honest answer.
‘If you don’t tell her, I will,’ Nathan said, raising his voice.
‘It’s your lucky day, Gemma, your knight in shining armour’s arrived to save you.’ Alfie laughed.
A flash of anger spread across Nathan’s face.
I was so worried, I couldn’t think straight and all Alfie could do was make stupid comments. ‘Stop changing the subject and tell me what happened. I want to know the truth.’
‘After you left the store, the manager decided to check the bracelet over and realised it was a fake. He knew you must have switched it. So he checked the CCTV images, but he still couldn’t see the moment you took it, even after closely inspecting the tapes.’ Alfie settled back in the chair and stared straight ahead.
It suddenly became apparent why Nathan hadn’t wanted to make eye contact with me. Guilt was written all over his face. He knew there wasn’t going to be a good outcome to this.
‘What else did the report say?’
‘The detective in charge of the case said a professional thief must have been responsible, seeing as the store was robbed in broad daylight, despite being protected by sophisticated security devices.’ Alfie threw his head back and laughed.
‘Oh my God.’ I ran my fingers over my forehead, hoping to ease the throbbing in my temples.
‘The detective said the woman had clearly done this before and feared this was no isolated incident. He reckons you might be responsible for similar unreported robberies and urged jewellers to check their stock for fake items, as they could have been targeted without being aware of it. He advised stores to routinely check expensive items after a customer has handled them to stop this from happening. If they did that, we’d be out of business.’ Alfie laughed again.
The footage had opened a can of worms, and now my life felt like it was crumbling around me.
‘The description the police have issued of you is surprisingly accurate.’ Alfie interlaced his fingers behind his head and smirked.
‘What’s so funny about that?’ Anger seeped into my words.
�
��We were meant to be travelling to Paris next, but it’s too risky to go back over the border at the moment, so we’ll take the scenic route and head to Italy instead,’ Alfie replied, ignoring my question.
‘But shouldn’t I be in hiding if the police are looking for me?’ I knotted my hands in my lap.
‘There’s a look of terror in your pretty green eyes. Do me a favour, don’t blow this out of proportion.’ Alfie patted my thigh with his hand.
‘That’s easy for you to say, but the police know what I look like. They’ve got footage of me on CCTV.’ I bit down on the pad of my thumb.
‘You haven’t got a bounty on your head.’ Alfie turned to face me. ‘Trust me, Gemma, everything will be OK. We need to get out of Monaco and lie low for a while to give the dust time to settle.’
Alfie made it all sound so simple, but we lived in a world where everything could be monitored. It suddenly occurred to me that without even realising it, we left a trail of personal information behind us. Now I understood why he kept changing our names and had banned us from using our iPhones and social media accounts. He’d given us a vintage Nokia to use, no doubt because it was less easy to track than a modern mobile. But it came with a condition. The only person we were allowed to contact from it was him. Although I couldn’t deny I was scared, when I thought about it logically, Alfie had probably done this a thousand times before, so if anyone knew how to avoid detection, he would.
‘Anyway, there’s nothing the police can do to you,’ Alfie said, breaking the silence. ‘They didn’t actually see you steal the bracelet and they won’t be able to locate it. So what are they going to charge you with?’
‘But they have footage proving I was looking at the bracelet. Surely that’s enough evidence.’
‘You’re forgetting one vital thing. The police have got to catch you first, and I’m not about to let that happen.’ Alfie reached for my hand and squeezed my fingers.
That almost coaxed a smile from me.
‘You know most people assume crime is impossible to get away with,’ Alfie said, turning towards me.
I looked at him with a puzzled expression on my face. ‘Correct me if I’m wrong, but aren’t we on the run from the police?’
‘Technically, we are, but they’ll never catch us. You’ve got nothing to worry about, Gemma. We get away far more than we get caught. Whoever said crime doesn’t pay, was mistaken.’ Alfie laughed then handed me a black bag. He sat and watched me as I unzipped the top and peered at the contents. ‘Choose one,’ he said as I lifted out two hairpieces.
‘So I’m going to have to change my appearance, am I?’
‘Just for the moment. Would you prefer to be a redhead or a blonde? Blondes have more fun, don’t they?’ Alfie winked, and then his eyes fixed on my lips.
I looked across at Nathan. ‘What do you think?’ I’d only ever been a brunette, so I didn’t know which one to go for.
Nathan shrugged. ‘It’s up to you.’
Knowing that Alfie was keen for me to wear the blonde wig, I opted to be a redhead instead. It wasn’t easy to sweep my long hair up into a bun in the confines of the car, but I just about managed to, securing it in place with a couple of clips before I put on the hairpiece.
‘You look fantastic. Even your own mother wouldn’t recognise you,’ Alfie said as peals of laughter escaped from his lips.
I doubt she would recognise me even without the disguise, I thought. I hadn’t seen my mother for twelve years.
‘Head to the station, Tommy, we need to update Gemma’s passport photo before we board the train.’
*
Alfie stood outside the photo booth, feeding the machine with coins as I posed for shots with both of the hairpieces. I wondered if this simple disguise would be enough to fool the police. Only time would tell.
‘When will my new passport be ready?’
‘It shouldn’t be too long. We only need to get the photos added; we’ve already got the document. Tommy will sort it out when we get to Milan.’
‘What if I get stopped on the way?’ A vision formed in my mind of armed officers searching the train, accompanied by sniffer dogs, looking for a female fugitive. ‘The police sometimes do spot checks, don’t they?’
‘I’ve travelled through France, Italy, Germany and Belgium loads of times and have never been asked for my passport once,’ Alfie said.
I hoped he was right. I couldn’t help feeling uneasy about the situation. Even though there are no regular checks, it was a legal requirement to carry your passport to prove your identity when travelling from one country to another. What would happen when I couldn’t produce mine? Would I be taken away and thrown in a cell? I’d have to push that thought from my head for now. There was no point worrying about something that hadn’t happened.
Once we were on board the train from Monaco to Ventimiglia, I took my overnight bag into the toilet and changed out of the black suit I’d been wearing. I did a double-take when I saw the redhead in the mirror staring back at me.
Alfie was right: I looked completely different. I didn’t even recognise myself. The wig had drastically altered my appearance. I’d thought it would take more than a simple change of hair colour to do that. No wonder every film that featured a criminal on the run has a scene where the fugitive does this. If I changed the style and colour frequently, I’d be able to keep disguising myself. Maybe this would work after all. The police were looking for a slim woman with long, dark brown hair of about five foot seven in her mid-twenties. I couldn’t change my age, height and build, although the description was slightly wrong – I’m thirty and five foot eight. But by changing my hair colour, it would hopefully be enough to throw them off the trail. I had no choice but to trust Alfie. It remained to be seen if it was possible to slip through the net and avoid detection like he said it was.
I made my way back to our carriage and sat down next to Nathan. When he glanced around at me, at first, he looked startled.
‘Sorry, Gem, I didn’t recognise you for a minute.’ He laughed.
I smiled at how easily I’d just fooled my husband. But then again it made perfect sense. A person’s hair colour is one of the first things we notice about them. Another thing is eye colour. If I wanted to undergo a complete transformation, I might need to invest in some coloured contact lenses. Not many people have green eyes. Having the rarest colour in the population could be the thing that ends up giving me away.
*
The twenty-four-minute train journey took us past some stunning scenery as it travelled along the coastal line. Tall cypress trees clung by their exposed roots to the steep rocky slopes. Far below us, the pristine beach’s only visitors were the waves that gently lapped the shore. In the distance, a solitary yacht sailed across the calm cobalt sea, leaving only a trail of white foam in its wake.
I stared at my reflection in the window and wondered how it had come to this. You could cut the atmosphere with a knife as Nathan and I sat together, awkward in each other’s company. I glanced at my watch while we communicated through our body language that we had nothing to say to each other. Something had definitely changed between us, and with no conversation to interfere with my thoughts, I began to question our future. Since Alfie had entered our lives, he’d made it impossible to predict how things would turn out. We didn’t know what we’d be doing from one day to the next, and that only added to an already stressful situation.
*
I had to put my thoughts on hold while we changed trains at the Italian border town of Ventimiglia for the onward journey to Milan. It would be another two hours before we reached the city. I wasn’t looking forward to sitting next to Nathan again, but if the ocean views continued to be as breathtaking as they had been, it might not be such a hardship after all.
The train pulled out of the station, and as it slowly gathered speed, it reminded me of a roller coaster, and that was the way I felt about my relationship with Nathan at the moment. One minute we were up and the next we were down.
All relationships were filled with uncertainty at some point, weren’t they? Life was complicated, and the longer a couple had been together, the more complicated it became.
I began to consider the pros and cons of us staying together; right now, the cons seemed to outnumber the pros. It shocked me to think about how quickly our marriage had started to fall to pieces. I’d always thought it was rock solid. I loved my husband, but was love enough?
When we arrived at Genoa on the Italian Riviera, the train’s route changed course and headed away from the coast. We finally said goodbye to the sapphire sea, rugged cliffs and white sand beaches as we cut through the mountains instead. The train climbed further up the mountain, and the scenery got better and better. I gazed at the terracotta-roofed houses with pastel-coloured walls before watching them fade into the distance. When we left the villages far behind us, we lost the view altogether and spent the rest of the journey in a tunnel.
With nothing else to look at, my thoughts drifted back to Nathan. At one time, he used to make me feel all warm and fuzzy inside. But he’d let me down so many times over the years, I’d reached the point where I was questioning our future together. Good communication was the key to any successful relationship. But Nathan and I had stopped communicating with each other, and now my emotional pendulum was swaying from one extreme to the other.
51
Nathan
Gemma didn’t deserve any of this. She had paid a terrible price for my stupidity. I’d messed up big time, and I didn’t know how to put things right. She was furious with me and who could blame her?
Being an only child, I’d always craved attention and companionship. From an early age, I’d wanted to surround myself with surrogate siblings and be the most popular boy in the class, but I didn’t have the money to back up the position. It was always the rich kids like Alfie, the ones who had everything, who everybody wanted to be friends with. I didn’t have anything to offer my classmates and found I had little in common with them. Most of them didn’t come from a single-parent family like I did, and the kids whose parents were divorced still had contact with both of them. I had to spend a lot of time with my aunt and uncle so my mum could take advantage of the free childcare, and as soon as I was old enough, I became a latchkey kid.
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