She Did It: You think you know her - think again.

by Mel Sherratt

  Tears poured down her face as she argued with herself. She was close to her destination now. All she had to do was finish what she’d started and then perhaps she could take Tamara to the hospital. She could say she had been mugged. No one would know she had made the story up.

  ‘Stop being so weak and get on with things!’ she chastised herself as she put her foot down on the pedal.

  She pressed on, determined to finish what she had started. She heard a beep and a red light started flashing on the dashboard.

  ‘Tamara!’ Her hand made a fist and she banged it on the steering wheel. ‘You let it run low on fuel. You idiot.’

  Esther got out her phone and typed the address she knew so well into Google maps. There was a petrol station nearby. She could fill up on the way.

  CHAPTER FIFTY-NINE

  Being bumped around in the back of the car was a nightmare. The confined space hurt Tamara’s limbs, but at least the wound in her stomach didn’t have room to bleed much more as its opening was clamped together in the tight space.

  How could Esther have put her in the boot of her own car? Her chest tightened: please don’t let me die in this confined space!

  She tried to move around in the back, see if there was anything she could put her hand on to attack Esther with when she opened the boot again. But she knew there hadn’t been much in there to start with, and anything there was, Esther must have left on the roadside. She was stuck.

  But she had one saving grace.

  Esther thought she was more hurt than she was. She just needed to keep her cool, stop the blood from escaping too much and get out of this mess. Of course, she was hurting, but she was putting some of it on too. She had known she was taking her to the car. She had known she had put her in the boot – she could clearly remember the punch in the stomach.

  But what she also knew was she couldn’t get away because of her injury, so it meant playing the game until she could.

  She had no idea where Esther was taking her. It wasn’t to a hospital that was for certain or else she would have put her in the back seat. Esther had assumed that she wouldn’t be able to attack her. But she had her feet.

  She tried to manoeuvre herself around so that she could kick out at Esther when she opened the boot lid again. But it was no use; there wasn’t enough room. She hurt too much. She didn’t want to pass out again.

  She could hear noise outside every now and then, when they stopped. Traffic, music, lights beeping at crossings. Where was Esther heading? She had given up long ago trying to understand, and reason, with her.

  Now she knew about the rape she could understand more, and it had been her downfall to doubt that Jack had anything to do with it. But she wasn’t sure whether that was another lie. The Jack she knew wouldn’t do that, would he?

  Yet maybe he had been frightened of his father. When Tamara had met Reggie Maitland, he seemed someone who exerted his authority. Perhaps Jack did as he was told. Having said that, although Tamara’s father was strict there was no way she would cover up anything like that for him.

  But she didn’t know what Jack had been through as a child. She hadn’t known what Esther had been through until two hours earlier.

  Tamara wondered why she had changed her name; perhaps to leave her past behind. She had been stupid not to check her references but at the time she had no reason not to believe her. Esther had been very good at her job, no matter how she had turned out.

  But Tamara still couldn’t believe she had fallen for all her lies. Esther was so nice to her face: behind her back she was scheming, using her to get to Jack and his family. She must have had this planned for some time. How could she have been so stupid?

  If she got out of this alive, she was going to make this her own PR campaign. She was coming back from this.

  Tamara groaned as the car swerved around a corner, pain slicing through her abdomen. She pressed her hand to it. It was still bleeding but it had eased off slightly.

  The car came to a stop. Tamara sniffed, her remaining senses on full alert as she couldn’t see.

  She could smell petrol.

  She could hear noises, a car door opened and closed. It was quiet for a few seconds but then nothing. She wondered, if she banged on the inside of the boot, would anyone hear her? She had to try.

  She raised her fists and shouted. ‘Help!’

  Please, someone hear me!

  CHAPTER SIXTY

  Esther had stopped at a station to fill up with fuel. Her phone rang as she got back to the car. It was the same number that had been calling for the past few hours. As she approached the boot of the car, she heard banging and rolled her eyes. Stupid Tamara!

  ‘Yes?’ she answered the call this time, ignoring the noise.

  ‘DC Evans, Esther. You remember me from the police station?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Where are you?’

  ‘Out for a drive, it’s a nice evening.’

  ‘Is Tamara with you? I need to talk to you both.’

  ‘About what?’ Esther ignored mention of Tamara.

  ‘Things in general. Nothing to worry about. Can you meet me somewhere?’

  ‘Not at the moment. We’re rather busy. We can call at the station tomorrow, if you like?’

  ‘First thing? Around nine?’

  ‘A bit early. Can we make it ten?’

  ‘Okay.’

  Esther disconnected the phone. They were on to her, she was sure of it. But she had the night to do what she wanted. She would be gone in the morning. As long as Tamara kept her mouth shut. She released the boot lid, all the time muttering to herself.

  ‘Will you shut—’

  Tamara launched at her. Taken by surprise, her fist connected with Esther’s chin. Esther staggered back for a moment and then came to her senses. She hit out, punching Tamara a few times in quick succession. Then she slammed the boot lid shut, trapping Tamara inside again, and got into the car. She banged her hands on the steering wheel.

  ‘Damn you, Jack Maitland,’ she wailed. ‘This is all your fault!’

  As she drove away, Esther didn’t spot the man talking on his phone.

  ###

  Tamara didn’t know which part of her hurt the most after Esther’s assault but, as the car pulled off, in a way she was glad she could feel it. It meant she was still alive.

  It was maybe two hours since she had been attacked, so perhaps her stab wound was more superficial than she had originally thought. She prayed she could keep going long enough. She didn’t want to die in the boot of her own car.

  She pressed her hand to her nose, thankfully not feeling any more blood there either. Her lip was split though. Most of the punches from Esther’s recent attack had gone to her head, leaving her with a constant ringing in her ears. She screwed up her eyes as a pain rushed through her again.

  The car veered to the right and she clung on for dear life. She wondered where Esther was going now, where they had stopped and why? She hadn’t been able to make out where they were. She could still hear cars in the distance, but nothing nearby so she decided to save her energy for when she would need it.

  Because as soon as Esther opened the boot of her car, she was going to go for her again. She had to try and get away somehow.

  For now, she tried to think happy thoughts when her doubts of getting out alive began to resurface. Maybe this was the chance she had to prove herself again. She was not going to let Esther win.

  It was only now that she realised how much she had going for her. She had her own business, her own flat, her own everything. She couldn’t die in the boot of a car. It couldn’t happen. She wanted to live.

  Please let me live.

  Her head caught the side of the boot as Esther took another corner with speed. Tamara cried out as the car mounted the kerb and went back down to road level. She was lifted and then put down again. She prayed her wound wouldn’t get any wider, cause her problems before she could get out.

  She didn’t want to die in there.
She banged the palm of her hands against the inside of the boot lid.

  The car stopped.

  ‘Let me out,’ Tamara sobbed, banging again. ‘Please, let me out.’

  CHAPTER SIXTY-ONE

  Esther pulled up on the road outside the house for a moment, to gather herself. She had one chance at this and she wasn’t going to mess up. There was a light on at the downstairs window that she had stared into so many times.

  At the side of the house was the large double garage with a room over the top, where she had often stood while watching them in the back garden. She was glad he had moved from Ascot so that she didn’t have the memories rushing back at her.

  There were no gates to this house, so she started the engine and drove right in, parking next to a Toyota Land Cruiser. The suitcase was on the passenger seat so she reached inside it and removed the gun from its toweling wrapper. She shoved it into the waistband at the back of Tamara’s trousers and pulled her jumper over it.

  Next, she took out the knife, covered in Tamara’s blood, flicked it closed and pushed that deep into a pocket. Reggie Maitland might be older now, but he was still a big man.

  She got out and stood by the side of the car, listening. The outside lights were flooding over her, but she could hear nothing coming from the boot of the car. Instead she saw a figure appear in the bay window of the house.

  She made her way to the front door.

  It was thrown open before she got to it. Reggie Maitland stood on the doorstep.

  ‘Yes?’

  Esther pulled out the gun and, without a shake in her hand, aimed it at him. ‘Get inside,’ she said.

  He raised his hands in the air and stepped back. ‘Please, whatever you want, I can get. Just don’t harm us.’

  She stepped into the hall. He was moving backwards into another room. She recognised it as the one with the bay window. She followed him and stood in the doorway.

  It was a fancy room, far too old-fashioned for her liking. Set up like an old gentleman’s boardroom, it had thick, red carpet and dark, velvet curtains to match. A family portrait hung over the fireplace, a gilded frame the only brightness in the room.

  Gabrielle Maitland was sitting in the chair nearest to her. She stood up quickly when she saw Esther, putting down her drink on the dark oak coffee table.

  ‘What’s going on?’ she asked, moving to her husband’s side. ‘Reggie?’

  ‘I want some money.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Money. You owe me.’

  ‘I don’t understand. Who are—’

  ‘Tell her,’ she said to Reggie. ‘Tell her what you did to me when I was fifteen!’

  His eyes narrowed as he stared at her.

  ‘You don’t recognise me?’ She sniggered. ‘How many girls did you attack in the stables?’

  That did the trick. Esther took great delight in the recognition on his face.

  ‘You were that stable girl? Bethany?’

  She nodded slowly.

  ‘Get out of my house,’ Gabrielle said. ‘You have no right to be here. I want you to leave, or I’m calling the police.’

  ‘I don’t think you are in any position to tell me what to do.’ Esther held the gun a little higher. She aimed it at Gabrielle, enjoying the fearful look on her face. Then she looked back to Reggie.

  ‘I want you to tell her what you did to me.’

  Reggie still had his hands in the air. ‘Bethany, let me explain.’

  ‘My name is Esther!’ she screamed.

  He took a step back. Gabrielle covered her ears with her hands.

  ‘I left Bethany behind a long time ago, because I couldn’t bear what had happened to her, and what you turned me into.’ She pointed at Reggie with the gun. ‘You ruined me, my childhood, my life! And then you lied. You denied doing anything. How could you do that to me?’

  Reggie averted his eyes from her stare. Esther turned to Gabrielle.

  ‘When I was fifteen, I worked as a stable girl. Your husband raped me.’

  Gabrielle nodded. ‘I remember the fuss you caused over a little misunderstanding. You tarnished our reputation. It took us a long time to recover from it.’

  ‘I ruined your reputation?’ Esther’s voice trailed off at the audacity. ‘It was him, the dirty bastard. He took advantage of me and then he tried to deny it.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ said Reggie, taking both of them by surprise. ‘I was younger then, not a nice man at times.’

  ‘You don’t have to defend yourself against her,’ Gabrielle insisted. ‘What’s done is done and all in the past.’

  ‘Not for me,’ Esther said. ‘I had to live with it for nearly twenty years!’

  Gabrielle paled and her hand went to her mouth. ‘Does this have anything to do with Jack’s death?’

  ‘What do you think?’ Esther snapped. ‘I wanted revenge on all your family. I was coming after you next, and he shouldn’t have died, but I wanted to deal with him first.’

  ‘But this had nothing to do with our son,’ said Reggie.

  ‘Of course it did. He was in on it too.’

  CHAPTER SIXTY-TWO

  ‘I saw him!’ Esther yelled. ‘I saw him standing in the doorway, watching as you—’

  ‘Did you push him?’ Gabrielle interrupted.

  ‘No.’ Esther turned to her, ‘but I got my own back on him for what he did.’

  ‘He didn’t do anything!’ Gabrielle almost shouted as loud as her. ‘Did you kill Jack because of what Reggie did?’

  ‘No, that was an accident. But I wanted to embarrass him, ruin his family. I was going to take some photos of me and him together and then show them to Natalie.’

  ‘You were going to blackmail him?’ asked Reggie.

  ‘Yes, but now he’s gone, I want money from you instead.’

  ‘My son wouldn’t go with the likes of you,’ the older woman scoffed.

  ‘Really? I have so many photos of me and him together, except the ones I thought I was going to get when I went to his house. I was wondering whether to get them printed out and send them to Natalie at home or at work.’

  Gabrielle glared at her, her brow furrowed as she tried to work out what Esther meant. Then her eyes widened. ‘You were going to break up his marriage?’

  Esther nodded, a childish grin spreading across her lips.

  ‘What on earth for?’

  ‘Because I never got the chance to love and to be happy, to marry and have a family, so, why should he? And because he stood by and watched! He could have stopped it from happening.’

  Reggie was pacing now.

  ‘I was going to get money from him and then come after you for the same,’ Esther continued. ‘But he made me angry and—’

  ‘What did you do?’

  Esther watched his fists clench and unclench. She had her back to the door, knew she could get out first if necessary.

  ‘I told you. It was an accident,’ she repeated. ‘We were arguing and I hit him with something I picked up.’

  ‘What was it?’ Gabrielle wanted to know.

  ‘Does it matter?’

  ‘It matters to me!’

  Esther faltered for a moment as flashes of that afternoon came back to her. But then she smiled when she saw the looks going between Jack’s parents. They were scared of her!

  ‘It was a marble paperweight,’ she said. ‘But you’ll never find it. I got rid of it.’

  ‘You stupid, stupid girl!’ Gabrielle cried. ‘Don’t you see? You killed our son for nothing.’

  ‘Don’t you call me stupid!’ Esther scowled.

  ‘It wasn’t Jack who was watching by the door.’ Gabrielle covered her face with her hands momentarily.

  Esther couldn’t take in what she was saying. If it wasn’t Jack who was watching, then …

  ‘It was me,’ Gabrielle admitted.

  ‘You?’ Esther shook her head in disbelief. ‘How could you stand there and watch while he – he violated me? Have you no heart?’

  ‘I mad
e sure it never happened again,’ said Gabrielle. ‘I hired stable boys to be with the horses full-time, rather than girls. I wasn’t going to let a schoolgirl wreck my family and what it stood for.’

  ‘Have you any idea what I went through because of that?’ Esther said. ‘No one believed me; they all called me a liar. And then my dad died – because of the shame that you brought on our family. But you … you stood and watched and you never came to help. How many times did you do that? After me – how many times?’

  ‘I told you. There were no others.’

  ‘That doesn’t make it any better. He ruined my life! I was fifteen, and everyone thought I was lying.’

  ‘We kept it as quiet as we could. Of course, some people found out because you were working with a large team of people and news travelled fast. But I kept it under wraps. I told the police that Reggie was with me at the time he was alleged to have attacked you. You remember, Liam, the stable boy? We paid him off too.’

  ‘You gave him an alibi?’

  ‘Of course I did.’ Gabrielle nodded. ‘I wasn’t about to lose everything I had built up for one silly mistake.’

  ‘He – he raped me!’

  ‘He did no such thing. He was a bit rough with you, that’s all.’

  ‘He raped me!’ Esther repeated. ‘And if you saw him, why didn’t you stop him?’

  ‘Because it would have broken us. Our reputation, our livelihood, our marriage. And I’ve seen him in that rage. He would have turned it on me. He was uncontrollable back then.’

  ‘Oh, yes, I remember his rage,’ Esther said. ‘I remember the bruises he left behind on my body. I remember the dreams he took from me, the embarrassment he forced upon me and the hatred I received from people I knew who thought I was lying. And you – you defend all of that?’

  Gabrielle snorted. ‘It wasn’t that bad. I know he can get a little bit rough every now and then.’

  ‘He told me that I’d been asking for it, that no one would believe me if I said what had happened. That I’d never get to work with horses again.’ She glanced at him. ‘He said he’d do more than that if I told anyone what had happened.’