by Val McDermid
That’s when I finally did cry over what Pete the bastard had done. Looking back at it now, I do take solace from the fact that it was kindness rather than malice that provoked that response.
Pete had done everything in his power to make me doubt the reality of Scarlett’s friendship. If I’d harboured any doubts, they died that morning. I knew Scarlett and I had the kind of bond that makes women friends for life.
I only wish we’d had longer to enjoy it.
25
Vivian wasn’t much of a homemaker, but even so, she understood the violation Pete Matthews had inflicted on Stephanie. It sounded as if this was a man with a serious axe to grind. The only question was whether he could bear a grudge for four years. ‘I get why you maybe thought going to the police was pointless. But you must have wanted to make him pay for what he did to you?’ she said.
Stephanie sighed. ‘To be honest, what I wanted was to have him gone from my life. I didn’t want to do anything that would prolong my connection to him. It was everybody else that wanted to avenge what he’d done to me. Scarlett, Leanne, Maggie, my other friends. My pal Mike wanted to get a bunch of the lads together and go round to Pete’s. Trash the place and beat the shit out of him. But I put the blocks on that.’ She shook her head. ‘It wouldn’t have made me feel any better. I was determined not to be dragged down to his level. Can you understand that?’
Vivian wasn’t sure whether any law enforcement officer would have felt kinship with Stephanie on that one. ‘I strive for justice in my job,’ she said. ‘I don’t think people who do bad things should walk away scot free.’
‘But shouldn’t the victims have some say in outcomes? I wanted to draw a line under what he did to me. I didn’t want to think about him for one second more than I had to. Any connection to him would have been a bad deal for me. That was my thinking at the time. As it turned out, I probably made the wrong decision. But it was the choice I needed to make then and there for the sake of my own well-being.’
‘I take it that wasn’t the last you heard from Pete?’ Now Vivian could explore what interested her – whether Pete Matthews was the kind of man who would cling to his sense of being wronged down the years.
Stephanie shook her head ruefully. ‘Far from it. I thought he’d vented his feelings and I’d never hear from him again. But he apparently thought we still had unfinished business. After I’d been at Scarlett’s for a couple of days, he started texting me. It was as if nothing had happened. He was talking about work, when he’d be finished for the day, and where should we meet for dinner?’
‘That’s very weird.’
‘You think so?’
Vivian wondered if Stephanie was quite as balanced as she appeared. Not to think Pete Matthews’ follow-up was weird seemed perverse to her. ‘You don’t?’
‘Stop and think for a moment. He didn’t know I’d seen him leave the house with the door standing open. For all he knew, I hadn’t been back there. I assumed he was fishing to see whether I was aware my house had been wrecked and, if so, whether I held him responsible. I mean, he had to be at least a little bit worried that I was going to report him to the police.’
Again, Stephanie had caught her on the back foot. This was one seriously smart woman, Vivian thought. Her stories might be long-winded, but along the way, a lot of useful points got made. ‘That makes sense,’ she acknowledged. ‘What did you do about these texts?’
‘I ignored them. I didn’t read most of them. At first I deleted them, but Scarlett pointed out that if I did have to go to the police, they would be evidence of him hassling me. So I kept them on my phone but I didn’t pay attention to them. Then he started emailing me as well. These hurt, bewildered emails, acting like he didn’t know why I was ignoring him when his only crime was to love me.’ She rolled her eyes and groaned. ‘I’m sure you’ve seen the kind of thing.’
Vivian nodded. She didn’t think it would be helpful to remark that generally she’d viewed them in the aftermath of violent death. ‘I get the picture. And did you call the cops?’
‘I didn’t think there would be any point. On the face of it, there was nothing threatening about his texts and emails. Apart from the sheer volume of them, I suppose. Scarlett said I should talk to the police, but I thought they wouldn’t take me seriously. Because there was no apparent threat.’
‘Did that change?’
‘After he vandalised my home, I stayed at Scarlett’s for four or five days. To be honest, I was dreading going back home. My recollection of what he’d done was too vivid. I couldn’t see a cleaning company doing much to erase that image. But I was wrong. Scarlett hadn’t only got them to clean the place up. One day when I thought she was at the TV studios she’d done a commando raid on John Lewis and Waitrose. Obviously, she hadn’t been able to replicate what I’d lost, but she’d done a bloody good job of finding acceptable replacements. You know that theory the quantum physicists have about multiple universes? Well, when I finally walked back through my front door, it was as if I’d walked into a parallel version of my house. It felt the same, but there were lots of subtle differences. It was very weird. It was only when I went upstairs that I really noticed big differences, because of course Scarlett had never been up there. Her guesswork wasn’t bad, though. Even when she’d gone for something very different from what had been there, she’d chosen things I liked. I was so touched.’
There was no arguing with what Scarlett had done. And Vivian imagined that if Pete had found out, it would have driven him crazy. ‘Did Pete know what she’d done?’
‘I don’t know if he realised it was down to Scarlett, but he was obviously keeping tabs on the place. His emails said things like, “You can try to erase the traces of me from the house, but you can’t erase me from your heart. You know you love me, there’s no escape from that. You can put different paintings on the wall, but I’ll still be the face you see when you close your eyes at night.”’ She closed her eyes momentarily and Vivian could see the strain in her face.
‘You read that one way and it’s incredibly romantic,’ Vivian said. ‘Read it another way and it’s oppressive and threatening. I understand why you felt it might be hard to have people take you seriously. Did you pluck up the courage to move back into your house?’
Stephanie picked at the lip of her cardboard cup. ‘I did. And for a couple of weeks, it was OK. I wasn’t going out much because I was transcribing interviews. When I’m in that phase, I’m very focused on what I’m doing. I sit with my headphones on, oblivious to the outside world. I have my groceries delivered so I don’t have to leave the cocoon of the client’s voice. It’s total immersion.’ Her face relaxed into a smile and Vivian caught a glimpse of how Stephanie must seem when her life was not infested with fear and anxiety. ‘It makes it easier to catch the flavour of their voices when I come to write the book itself. During that period, Pete could have been sitting on my garden wall for hours at a time and I would have been blissfully unaware, sitting up in my little office under the eaves.’
‘Do you think he was?’
The stressed and worried woman was back. ‘Probably,’ she sighed. ‘Well, maybe not sitting on the wall, but certainly driving past several times a day, parking where he could see my house, walking up and down the street. Because those were the things he was doing when I became more aware of my surroundings after I’d finished doing the transcripts. It seemed as though every time I looked out of the window, he was there. Or his car was parked outside the house. I tried hard not to let him stop me going about my normal business. But it was almost impossible. When I left the house, he would fall into step beside me and speak to me. I ignored him but he wouldn’t give up. If I caught the bus or the tube, he was there across the aisle or strap-hanging further down the carriage. One time he even tried to get into a cab with me. I practically had to slam the door shut on his fingers to get him to back off. But that wasn’t the worst. There was one other occasion that really freaked me out.’
‘What happen
ed?’
Stephanie shuddered. ‘You’re going to read more into it than there was. It was me he was trying to get to, not Jimmy.’
‘What happened, Stephanie?’ Now Vivian was warm, slipping effortlessly into woman-to-woman mode to extract more from Stephanie.
‘Scarlett had brought Jimmy into town with her. They’d been to the Natural History Museum to see the dinosaurs, then I met up with them in Regent’s Park. Jimmy was letting off steam in the kids’ playground while we sat on a bench chatting. We had half an eye on Jimmy, the way you do. And we both realised at the same moment that there was a man over by the slide who was having much too much to do with Jimmy. I’d kind of registered the guy and thought he was with a couple of other boys, so I hadn’t really paid attention. But then he turned round and I recognised Pete. With his hair cut short. Looking really different. But clearly Pete.’
‘That must have been horrible. What did you do?’
‘We took off like raging banshees, me and Scarlett. But he only smiled and walked away. Briskly, but nothing that would look suspicious to anyone else. It was as if he’d flicked us the bird. Saying, “I can find you wherever and whenever I want.” It really unnerved me.’
‘Was Jimmy bothered?’
She shook her head. ‘Not in the least. He looked bewildered for a minute when we came running across the playground. Scarlett scooped him up and we took off in the opposite direction. But that was the last straw for me. First I googled stalking to see what remedies I might have. There’s a law, the Protection from Harassment Act, that sounds like it should do the trick. Stalkers, in theory, can face criminal charges or you can take civil proceedings against them. Injunctions and the like. I felt quite cheerful about it. I made an appointment to speak to a police officer at my local station. She was really sympathetic, but the problem was that Pete had been very careful about the content of his texts and emails. He hadn’t done anything in the street that could have been construed as an assault or a threat. At least, not in terms of the criminal law. There was nothing she could do.’
‘Not even a quiet word?’
Stephanie’s mouth twisted in a wry smile. ‘That’s the irony. If the police spoke to Pete without good legal reason, they’d be the ones doing the harassing. It’s crazy, isn’t it?’
Not for the first time, Vivian felt the frustration of due process. But this wasn’t the time or the place to get into that. ‘So there was nothing?’
‘She suggested I talk to a lawyer. The civil courts have a lower standard of proof, you see. So I made an appointment with a lawyer who specialises in this kind of case and it turned out that, even with a lower standard of proof, I didn’t have enough against Pete to take out an injunction. It would have been different if I’d reported the criminal damage to my house when it happened. But her advice was to go away and keep a log of everything he said and did. Then come and see her again for another expensive appointment in three months’ time.’ Stephanie shook her head, wondering. ‘Obviously, she didn’t mention the expense. That was just my cynical take on it. The bottom line was, you’re on your own, sister. The law was not on my side.’
‘I take it he persisted.’
‘He persisted, all right.’
26
Scarlett was waiting for me in the car after I’d seen the lawyer. I told her the verdict and she swore like a football hooligan then said, ‘That is just so wrong. He can do what the fuck he likes. Get in your face as much as he wants. And there’s fuck-all you can do? He needs sorting out, he does. I tell you, Steph, I still know some lads in Leeds who’d be happy to come down and do him over.’
‘No, I told you. That’s not the way to go. Apart from anything else, what happens if one of your old mates makes a secret recording of you putting the word out then sells it to the papers? All your hard work over the past year goes straight down the tubes. Not to mention you get arrested for conspiracy to have somebody beaten up.’ I rolled my eyes. ‘We’ve got to find another way to get him.’
Scarlett pouted. ‘And so far you’ve come up with zilch.’
‘Yeah, well. I’ve been giving this some thought. And I’ve decided that I’m going to sell the house. No estate agent’s board, no details in their window. Just a very discreet word of mouth to the people on their books. Then one day Pete the Bastard will turn up to follow me to the bus stop and it won’t be me who walks out of the front door.’
Scarlett looked dumbstruck. ‘Can you do that?’
‘It won’t be easy, but yeah, I think so. Every time there’s going to be a viewing, I’ll make sure I act as a decoy. I’ll trail him all over town on a jolly while the agent’s showing the property to prospective buyers. The day before the move, I’ll let him follow me to the Eurostar and we’ll toddle off to Paris for a couple of days.’
Scarlett laughed with delight. ‘You are one clever bitch, Steph. And where are you going to live then?’
‘I thought I might come and crash with you for a few months. What do you say?’
She did a little shoulder-and-hand jive in the seat. ‘Cool, cool, very fucking cool,’ she said. ‘We’ll have a right laugh.’ She frowned. ‘You never told him about Leanne, did you?’
I shook my head. ‘No way. That was our secret. He knows nothing that can damage you, believe me. I’ve always been very discreet. That’s how I protect my investment.’ I gave her a friendly punch on the arm. ‘Are you OK with me moving in for a bit?’
‘Stay as long as you want. I like having you around.’
‘I like being around. But I’ll be honest, the big advantage for me in staying with you over any of my other mates is that I’ve got a proper place to work. Somewhere that’s not in the way, so I don’t feel like I’m imposing,’ I added hastily, in case she thought a workroom of my own was the only reason I preferred her place.
‘Not to mention the high wall and the security gates,’ Scarlett said. ‘He could sit out there for bloody days and never get so much as a glimpse of you.’
‘He doesn’t even know where it is. Just the general area.’
She snorted. ‘He’ll find out. All he has to do is ask around the pubs. It might cost him twenty quid, but there’s plenty ready to shop me. For all the good it’ll do him. Like I said, he’s not going to be able to pester you behind my walls. Not now we’ve got the broken glass.’ She pretended to wince.
‘Thanks, Scarlett. I appreciate it.’
‘And I mean it. Stay as long as you want.’ She shrugged. ‘Make it permanent, if you want.’
‘That’s kind. And no disrespect, but I like having a place of my own. I just need to think about where I want to be then find a house that fits the bill. If I can get a bit of breathing space at yours, I won’t be rushing into the wrong choice, making it too easy for him to find me.’
We set off through the afternoon traffic, hoping to make it back to Essex before the roads grew too congested. Scarlett’s offer was kind, but if I’m honest, I couldn’t stomach the idea of living in the fake-tan belt permanently. Not to mention the fact that I’d never see any of my other friends, for whom Essex loomed large in the imagination as a wasteland devoid of culture, cuisine and conversation. I hadn’t made my mind up where I was going to settle, except that I knew it would be outside London. And not Essex.
‘You need to get a new phone as well,’ Scarlett said. ‘And a new email address. Just for your mates and for Maggie. You don’t want to be dealing with his shit on a day-to-day basis, but you do need to keep a record of it.’
What she said made sense. And I’d deal with it in the morning. I’d hoped for a different outcome from the day. I’d hoped it would end with Pete in a police interview room or about to be served with court papers for an injunction hearing. But it wasn’t the end of the world. One way or another, I was determined not to have my life defined by one twisted inadequate.
Realising I wasn’t the only one being stalked by a twisted inadequate probably shouldn’t have made me feel better, but it did. Within days
of me setting up base camp at Scarlett’s, Leanne came back from a night on the town bursting with indignation. It soon became clear that her anger was covering a much deeper seam of unease.
She was sitting at the kitchen table, defiantly smoking, scowling into a mug of tea. She didn’t look up as I brewed a coffee and sat down opposite her.
‘Rough night?’ I said.
‘You have no idea.’
‘What happened? A few too many cocktails?’
‘Huh. I wish. No, I got monstered by this mad fucking stalker chick who thinks Scarlett is her best mate because she donated a few signed boxes of Scarlett Smile to some fucking charity fundraiser. I’d barely walked in the place when she started hovering, doing that, “Don’t you remember me, babe?” thing. It’s always a bit dodgy when they pull that because I’ve got no idea whether they really know Scarlett or not, you know? So I have to busk it. Like, pretend I’ve got a shit memory for faces. Anyway, I thought I saw her off OK. Only I hadn’t.’
‘That must have been uncomfortable.’
‘It was more than uncomfortable. It was fucking spooky. It was like she was glued on. I couldn’t shake her off. And because she was acting like we was best mates, I couldn’t just tell her to fuck off, not in front of everybody. Because that’s the kind of thing that goes straight into the morning papers and on to the Internet. “Foul-mouthed Scarlett devastates charity supporter.” You know what they’re like.’
‘How did you handle it then?’
Leanne suddenly looked shifty. She stubbed out her forbidden cigarette on the underside of the table, a move that Scarlett would have raged at her for. ‘I’d had enough. I couldn’t get a minute’s peace. She kept going on about how she wanted me to come back to her place for a party. Wouldn’t take no for an answer. So I went off to the VIP loo, knowing she’d follow me. Only, I didn’t go into the loo. I went out on the fire escape. And she came after me. I pretended I’d gone out for a fag, and once I’d lit up, I stubbed it out on her neck. Then I kicked her down the fire escape.’