At Your Door

by J. P. Carter

  Sophie knew that she was now in an impossible position. Fate had conspired against her and she’d been driven to despair by a series of events over which she’d had no control.

  It began a couple of weeks ago when Anna Tate discovered that her missing husband Matthew and daughter Chloe had been living under false identities for the past decade. There could be no denying that it was a fascinating human interest story, and so it was picked up by the Evening Standard.

  As part of the coverage the paper had carried the age progression image of Chloe. And that had reminded one or more of its readers of a young girl who attended Oakfield School.

  It was shocking bad luck for Sophie and now she was paralysed by indecision. An inner voice was telling her to take flight before it was too late. That private investigator was closing in and he wouldn’t just leave her alone if she refused to speak to him. Anna Tate wouldn’t let him do that. The woman was probably paying him a fortune to find her daughter. And as a police officer she could count on her colleagues to lend her support.

  But Sophie knew that running away from everything would be hellishly difficult. She had a day or two at the most. And in that time she had to construct a plausible story to tell Alice, then pack up their things, decide where to go and work out how to get there.

  It would be a nightmare and there was no guarantee she could pull it off. All it would take was one mistake and it could go terribly wrong. Just like it did three years ago when they fled Spain because Bruno had found out where she was living.

  The memory of what happened back then crept into her mind again now and caused her saliva glands to dry up and her guts to twist involuntarily.

  Three years ago

  The drive up through Spain and France is long and uneventful. They make one overnight stop in Bordeaux.

  While there James books seats on the Eurostar from Calais. When they arrive the next day they abandon the car in a street close to the port, leaving the windows open and the key in the ignition. Chances are it won’t be long before it’s stolen.

  Soon they’re on a train passing under the English Channel en route to London.

  ‘We’ll be OK,’ James tells Sophie. ‘I promise I will look after you and keep you safe from that monster.’

  Alice is fast asleep on the seat facing them, her mouth wide open.

  ‘I’m really sorry it’s come to this,’ Sophie says. ‘I should have been honest with you from the start. I was just so afraid that you wouldn’t stay with me.’

  ‘It was the wrong call, but we all make them. There are things I’ve done that I bitterly regret. But it’s not always easy to change direction once you’ve embarked on a particular course of action.’

  ‘I really don’t deserve you,’ she says as she snuggles up to him. ‘My life changed for the better that day you walked into the restaurant with Alice. And I’ve loved every moment of every day since then. You both mean so much to me.’

  Once they reach their destination they check into a bed and breakfast close to St Pancras Station and stay for three days and nights. While there James goes off to get the fake driving licence and birth certificate from someone who has promised to produce them within forty-eight hours. Sophie had no idea they could be so easily obtained.

  They spend hours making arrangements about where to go next. The decision on where to set up home for at least the first six months is left to James. He decides on Southampton because he knows the city well having gone to university there.

  When they get there they lease a furnished house with two bedrooms from a local estate agents and move in, hoping against hope that Bruno Perez will never find them.

  But he does – and after only three weeks.

  They’re caught completely off guard. It’s early evening and already dark outside. Sophie is in the kitchen preparing dinner for when James gets home. Alice is sitting at the table playing on her tablet.

  The poor child still isn’t settled, and who can blame her? She knows that despite what they’ve told her all is not well. Fear and anxiety followed them from Spain and it’s proving difficult to move beyond it.

  Alice can sense their unease and is confused by it. She keeps asking questions that they try not to answer. Are we going to stay here? When will I have to go to school? Why won’t you let me go out by myself? Why is Daddy so miserable these days?

  Sophie knows that on the face of it they must seem like a normal family – cosy, comfortable, content in their own little world. But that couldn’t be further from the truth.

  Sophie is already missing her adopted country and still can’t believe what’s happened. Both she and James are still in a state of flux. The drama they were swept up in has taken a heavy toll. Their nerves are frayed and uncertainty over what the future holds is a constant worry.

  What savings they have left – mainly from the money James inherited after his mother died – will soon run out, so one of them will need to get a job. They also have to decide how long to stay in Southampton, and whether to enrol Alice in one of the local schools.

  On the plus side they all like the little terraced house within walking distance of the city centre, and they’ve hired a brand new Fiat for a couple of months to get around in. Sophie is also relieved that James isn’t blaming her for their predicament. He says he’s forgiven her for lying about her past and insists that as long as the three of them are together they’ll be able to weather any storm.

  She’s expecting him back any minute. He walked into the city centre via the park to pick up a parcel. It’s been sent from Spain by their former landlord and arrived late this afternoon at the courier company’s office off the High Street.

  The parcel contains a few treasured items – including Sophie’s only photo of her late father – that they accidentally left behind when they hurried away from their flat above the bar.

  The landlord was kind enough to get the stuff together after James rang him and then said he was happy to bear the cost of sending the parcel to the UK.

  It’s just after six-thirty when James calls her on her new mobile phone. They both got rid of the old ones so they couldn’t be used to trace them.

  ‘It’s me,’ he says, but she knows that because he’s the only person who has her number.

  She starts to ask him when he’ll be home but he talks over her.

  ‘We’ve got a problem, Sophie. The bastard has found us.’

  A blast of ice whips through every vein in Sophie’s body.

  ‘What do you mean?’ she says.

  ‘I mean Bruno is here in Southampton. I just spotted him and I think he’s been following me since I left the courier company’s office. It could be that the landlord told him I’d be picking the parcel up today.’

  ‘Oh no. Are you sure it’s him?’

  ‘Positive.’

  ‘So where are you?’

  ‘I’m crossing the park. I just lost sight of him, but I know he’s close by so I daren’t come straight back to the house because I’ll lead him to you.’

  ‘Then what will you do?’

  ‘I’m not sure.’

  ‘Please don’t confront him, James. He’s a dangerous psycho.’

  ‘That’s why he needs to be stopped. We can’t keep running from him.’

  ‘No, James. Stay away from him. For all our sakes.’

  He ignores her plea. ‘You need to leave the house right away in case he knows where we live.’

  ‘But we can’t just—’

  ‘Do it, Soph, and do it now. He might have others with him and I don’t want you and Alice there if someone turns up at the door.’

  ‘Then I’ll call the police. Get them to come here.’

  ‘You can’t do that,’ he says.

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘I’ve got no time to explain, Soph. Just trust that I know what I’m doing. You need to get out. Cram all our stuff into the cases and leave. I don’t want to have to worry about you.’

  ‘But where will we go?’

&nb
sp; ‘Drive out of town and find a hotel or a B and B to check into for the night. I’ll call you as soon as I can.’

  ‘Why can’t I just meet you somewhere now?’

  ‘It’s too risky. I have to be sure I’ve lost him first.’

  ‘But are you certain we need to do this?’

  ‘We haven’t got a choice. He’s come all this way for a reason. He wants to hurt you, Sophie. And there’s a chance he’ll hurt Alice as well.’

  ‘But you have to promise me that you won’t approach him.’

  ‘OK, I promise. But you need to promise me that whatever happens you’ll look after Alice. Don’t let anyone take her from you. You’re her mother now, Sophie, and you’re all she’s got.’

  ‘Oh, Christ, James. You’re making it sound like I’ll never see you again.’

  ‘Don’t be daft. Of course …’

  He stops speaking suddenly and she hears him catch his breath. ‘I have to go,’ he says. ‘I can see him again and I think he’s seen me. Please get out of the house now, Sophie. I love you.’

  He ends the call before she can tell him that she loves him too. Fear clutches at her stomach as she screams for Alice to come down the stairs.

  In a blind panic she follows James’s instructions while praying that he keeps his promise not to approach her estranged husband.

  It only takes her thirty minutes to pack up the car because they have relatively few possessions.

  After locking the house, Sophie heads straight for the M3, which is less than a mile away, and they drive north for twenty minutes to the turn-off for Winchester. By the time they get there Alice is in tears in the back seat, demanding to know why her father isn’t with them. Sophie tells her he’s got some business to attend to but it fails to placate her.

  It takes Sophie forty minutes to find a small hotel that has vacancies and she manages to calm Alice down enough so that they can check in.

  But once inside the room, Alice starts crying again and Sophie comes to realise that the only way to ease the girl’s growing alarm is to get her dad on the phone.

  But that’s when she realises that she doesn’t have her mobile. She tells Alice to wait in the room while she goes outside to see if she’s dropped it in the car. But it’s not there and it’s not in any of the cases either.

  It dawns on her then that she must have left it behind in her rush to get away. And that’s a big problem. It’s her only way of contacting James since she still hasn’t memorised the number of his new phone.

  It means she’ll have to return to the house even though it might not be safe to do so.

  Since that fateful night three years ago Sophie has deeply regretted doing what James told her to do. She should have gone straight to the park to look for him or called the police.

  She now knows why he was reluctant to alert the cops. He’d been afraid that it would have uncovered Alice’s true identity and led to his own arrest for parental abduction.

  She recalls now how she drove back towards the house with poor Alice half asleep in the back. But to get there she had to drive alongside the park and her attention was drawn to the flashing blue light of an ambulance just beyond the low perimeter fence. She pulled over to the kerb. Gut instinct told her that it had something to do with James. Alice had fallen asleep in the car so she left it parked with the doors locked and went to check it out.

  A small crowd had gathered just off the path. They were watching as two paramedics attended to a figure lying on the grass. Sophie was swamped by a rush of intense dread as she approached them, but even before she was close enough to see the face of the person on the ground she knew it was James.

  She had to stifle a scream when she saw the blood on that familiar white shirt and she froze when she heard one of the paramedics tell his colleague that the man had been stabbed twice and was dead.

  Sophie was about to throw herself on the ground next to James’s body but stopped herself when her mind seized on an image of Alice in the Fiat. It made her realise that she couldn’t let anyone know that she was the dead man’s partner. If she did she risked having Alice taken away from her. And she couldn’t let that happen.

  Her best bet was to disappear so that no one, not even the police, knew how to find her.

  ‘You’re her mother now, Sophie, and you’re all she’s got.’

  So with James’s words ringing in her ears, Sophie did what proved to be the most difficult thing she had ever done. She turned around and walked slowly away from the scene of what was obviously a brutal murder.

  And from the only man she had ever truly loved.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

  Anna decided to keep Nathan Wolf and his lawyer waiting in the interview room. Before going downstairs she wanted to view the CCTV footage that proved Holly’s stepdad hadn’t been entirely candid with them.

  ‘The camera is in an elevated position across the road from the King’s Head pub,’ DS Prescott said as he played the short sequence through the TV monitors in the office. ‘Fortunately it’s a well-lit street and the quality of the video is high-end.’

  It began with a black taxi pulling up in front of the pub. A passenger got out and was still standing on the pavement when the cab drove off.

  ‘That’s definitely Theo Blake,’ Walker said.

  They watched him put what looked like cash back into his wallet before he turned and entered the pub.

  ‘Keep an eye on the time code,’ Prescott said. Two minutes later Blake came out of the pub with a woman who was holding onto his arm.

  It wasn’t his stepdaughter or his wife. But they did look like a couple who were planning to have a good time. The woman had dark shoulder-length hair and was wearing a light-coloured blouse over tight jeans. Anna couldn’t see her face clearly because they were too far away.

  ‘Can you get a screen grab and blow it up?’ Anna asked Prescott.

  ‘I’ve already done that, ma’am,’ he said.

  He waited until the pair walked out of shot along the pavement and then brought up a freeze frame that had been magnified. The woman’s features were slightly blurred, but Anna could tell that she was probably in her mid-thirties or early forties. She was slim and about five foot five tall, and she was carrying a small shoulder bag.

  ‘Methinks that Holly’s stepdad is playing away from home,’ Walker quipped. ‘That’s probably why he offered to go after her that night following the bust-up with her mum. It gave him a chance to pop out for a quickie.’

  It was certainly a turn-up for the books, and Anna felt immensely sorry for his wife.

  She turned to face the room and said, ‘I don’t want Rebecca Blake to know about this. We keep it to ourselves. She has enough on her plate as it is. I intend to drop in on the family later on today so I’ll take Theo to one side and get him to explain himself.’

  ‘Maybe there’s an innocent explanation,’ someone said. ‘Or perhaps he and his wife have an open marriage.’

  ‘Extremely unlikely on both counts,’ Anna said. ‘It seems obvious to me that he’s been caught bang to rights.’

  She told Prescott to send the clip to her mobile phone and then to go to the pub.

  ‘Ask the proprietor and bar staff if they know who she is and where she lives,’ she said. ‘I’m assuming he arranged to meet her there but I want to know where they went. So check every other CCTV camera around there. I also want to know if that woman is connected in any way to Holly or Nathan Wolf.’

  The interview room was small and sparse with dull green walls and a hard, grey floor. It was equipped with state-of-the art recording equipment and a large two-way mirror.

  Anna took DC Sweeny in with her because she wanted Walker to write up a briefing note for Nash and the Commissioner.

  Wolf was sitting next to his lawyer, Gavin Peake. On the table in front of them was a copy of the Sunday Mirror, which Anna guessed Peake had brought in to show his client. The MP looked rough after his night in the cell. His face was taut and pallid, and dark
shadows hung beneath his eyes.

  ‘It’s about time you graced us with your presence,’ the lawyer said after they took seats opposite and Anna placed a folder on the table. ‘We’ve been waiting here for over half an hour.’

  ‘Well, I’m sorry about that,’ Anna said, her voice laced with sarcasm. ‘But we’re pretty busy trying to solve a vicious murder.’

  ‘That may be so, Detective Chief Inspector, but I would like to remind you that the custody clock is ticking and my client has already been here for fourteen long hours.’

  ‘And that means we can hold him for another ten hours without charge,’ Anna said. ‘At which point we can apply to have it extended.’

  ‘I’m well aware of the rules,’ Peake said.

  Wolf banged a fist on the table. ‘Look, can we just get on with it? The sooner I’ve answered your bloody questions the sooner I can get out of here.’ He gestured at the newspaper. ‘I need to tell my side of this story before I lose everything. That bitch has made it sound as though she was forced into doing what she did and that’s not the case.’

  His eyes flashed furiously and his nostrils twitched. Peake put a hand on his arm in an effort to calm him down.

  ‘Before we continue I’d like to know how you’re feeling this morning, Mr Wolf,’ Anna said. ‘As you know this interview was delayed as a result of your panic attack.’

  ‘It wasn’t a panic attack,’ he said. ‘I just got over-anxious. It was the shock. I couldn’t believe what was going on and I still can’t.’

  ‘But you’re OK now?’

  ‘Of course I’m not. But I’m able to do this, so can you please stop wasting time?’

  Anna moved quickly on with the formalities by switching on the recorder and announcing who was in the room and why they were there.

  ‘Let’s begin with you telling us how long you were in a relationship with Holly Blake,’ she said.

  ‘But I’ve already told you that,’ Wolf responded.

  ‘Then tell us again.’

  He rubbed at the stubble on his chin. ‘We’d been seeing each other for just over a year.’

  ‘And what was the nature of that relationship?’