by Elle Croft
What secrets was she hiding now?
Back on the results page, I customised the date range to exclude the past few days, since news of Calum’s murder had broken.
The resulting headlines were no fewer, and no less vapid, than the ones I’d just flipped through.
Women’s magazines seemed to feast on Claire’s every move, reporting anything from which A-list friends she’d been seen with, to her wardrobe choices at every one of the many events she attended.
Gossip sites were less kind, choosing to focus on the few unflattering photos they could take of her, or speculating on why she hadn’t had children. It seemed that the only two options anyone could agree on were selfishness or barrenness.
I found an interview, now a few years old, in UK Vogue, during which Claire had opened up about her choice to be childless.
It was a conscious decision, she’d said, underneath a black-and-white photograph of her in an expensive-looking pencil skirt and shirt.
Calum and I discussed it in great detail, but in the end we recognised that our lifestyle isn’t conducive to looking after children. If we were going to be parents, we’d want to be there for our kids. Our lives just don’t allow for that, and we aren’t the sort of people to do a half-hearted job of anything. It was all or nothing.
I raised an eyebrow. I hated to agree with her, but she was right about one thing. Flying around the world to sleep with an assortment of different men didn’t exactly make for an idyllic child-rearing environment.
Aside from her reproductive choices, the rest of the interview was fairly innocuous, giving away no more than her favourite lipstick (Bobbi Brown Rum Raisin is my signature lip colour. I tried loads over the years but I always come back to the classics) and her evening beauty routine (I just swear by Rodin’s Olio Lusso oil, I never go to sleep without it).
Frustrated that my search was proving fruitless, I turned to social media to see if I could get a glimpse of the real Claire, the one that wasn’t curated for interviews.
I stalked her Instagram, her Twitter, her public Facebook page, which had all been silent since the murder, but of course there was nothing to find besides parties and magazine features and charity events. Between searches I checked my own Twitter feed. Just in case. But there was nothing new, and nothing to be worried about. I tried to dismiss my paranoia, and turned my focus back to the task at hand instead.
For a moment I considered getting in touch with Claire, telling her the truth so that she could point the police investigation in the right direction. She had the power to do that, and I knew she could keep her mouth shut. If it suited her. But I doubted she’d warm to me, or even believe me if I told her I’d not seen anything useful.
Perhaps I could ring in an anonymous tip to the police, telling them to look more closely at Claire, but I was sure they’d have looked at the spouse first anyway. And I had no useful information to offer, other than a hunch that was based purely on the information I’d gleaned from television crime dramas. It’d be a waste of breath, and a risky one at that. They could trace phone calls, and I really didn’t fancy explaining why I was calling a hotline about my dead client’s wife. I’d sound crazy.
I sighed and closed my laptop, hoping that the Met police force really was one of the best in the world, so that they’d find the actual killer quickly. In the meantime, I needed to lie low and cross my fingers. It was the best I could do.
It was easy enough to avoid Jason during the day, but by the time evening arrived, he’d returned from his walk armed with fresh meat and vegetables, ready to cook and relax together. I watched as he chopped carrots in the rustic, wood-heavy kitchen and talked about the promotion he was hoping for at work. I felt cheated. It wasn’t Jason I wanted in front of me, it was Calum.
Jason caught me staring at him and stopped.
‘Penny for your thoughts,’ he said, smiling.
I forced my lips into a smile.
‘Nothing,’ I said. ‘Just thinking about you.’
He practically glowed. It made my insides shrivel with the knowledge that I was a terrible person.
I was strangely sad when it was time to leave our little cottage in the countryside. It wasn’t that I wanted to be stuck in the middle of nowhere with Jason, pretending that everything was fine. But I knew what I was returning to: a life without Calum, and a manhunt centred around an unidentified woman who was actually me. I’d much rather have stayed hidden, in denial. Safe.
As Jason turned the rental car into our narrow street, I breathed a silent prayer of thanks to the God I hadn’t acknowledged for years. There were no police cars in sight. I wondered if I was under some kind of surveillance, if they were lurking out of sight, waiting to pounce and ask where I was on the night of Calum Bradley’s murder.
‘Will you grab the post?’ Jason asked as he swept past me, carrying our bags towards the bedroom. I looked down and noticed the pile of paper I’d been standing on. Scooping it up, I followed Jason and dumped the envelopes on the kitchen table, making a beeline for the TV. Only after I’d watched the news to be sure I hadn’t been named as the mystery woman, unpacked my bag and put a load of washing on, did I remember the stack of unopened envelopes.
I began sorting the bills into a pile for myself and a pile for Jason, who was whistling to himself while he ironed a shirt for work the next day. The last envelope in the stack made me look twice.
Rather than an address, my name was scrawled across the front in thick black marker; a childish, messy script. I turned it over, but there was no return address. Frowning, I opened the envelope and pulled out a single piece of paper folded around something thicker and sturdier. A photo.
I turned it over and adrenalin surged, an army of insects scuttling across my skin down to my fingertips. I stared for a few seconds, recognising what I was seeing but unable to work out what it meant. It was a grainy black-and-white print. The same one that was plastered all over the news and across social media.
My hands clenched so hard that I thought my nails would puncture the palms. Someone knew that it was me in that footage. I remembered the piece of paper that had been folded around the photo and collected it from the floor, where it had fluttered from my hands. It was emblazoned with the same child-like writing that marked the envelope, letters slanting this way and that, like a right-handed writer had struggled through it with their left hand. The message was short.
I DON’T OFTEN GIVE ADVICE, BUT HERE’S A PIECE FOR FREE: IF I WERE YOU, I WOULDN’T TALK TO ANYONE.
UNLESS, OF COURSE, YOU WANT THE POLICE TO KNOW THE TRUTH. THE WHOLE TRUTH.
BECAUSE, BETHANY … I KNOW.
Chapter Sixteen
I could feel my dinner crawling back up my throat as I realised that this note hadn’t been mailed to me. It had been dropped off by hand. Whoever sent this message knew who I was, they knew where I lived, and they knew what I’d done.
My veins turned icy.
Who sent this, and what did they really know? They could obviously identify me as the woman in the CCTV footage, but that didn’t mean they also knew about the affair. Did it?
I ran to the front door to secure the deadbolt. Jason was always insisting that I lock up behind myself, but I thought he was being unreasonable. This part of London was safe. At least, I’d thought it was.
But suddenly, knowing that the sender of this note had been at my home, Jason didn’t seem so irrational. I had no idea if this person posed any kind of physical threat, but their anonymity made me squirm. What did they want, and if they knew where I lived, why not just send the letter in the mail? I wondered briefly what would have happened if I’d been home when this delivery had been made, but I forced myself to focus on what I actually knew instead.
Someone could identify me as the woman in the video. That in itself wasn’t so surprising – I’d expected it since the moment I’d seen the news breaking. But whoever this was obviously hadn’t gone to the police, which made absolutely no sense.
I tried to think logically, to work out who could have sent me that note and the photo. It was someone who knew where I lived, although my address probably wasn’t difficult to find. I’d never thought to hide it; never had a reason to. But then again, whoever brought that note to my front door had to be someone who knew me. A stranger wouldn’t see that footage, identify someone they’d never met, find my address and hand-deliver a note designed just to let me know that someone out there knew. They’d call the police instead. So that narrowed down the pool of suspects slightly, but not much.
And then there was the question of what they didn’t want me to talk about. Obviously it was in my favour not to tell the cops that it was me in the footage, but that couldn’t be what the note-sender meant. Don’t tell the cops your secret or I’ll tell them your secret … what kind of threat was that?
My thoughts leapt back to my brief online search at the cottage over the weekend. Could it be Claire? Could this be her way of letting me know that she was on to me, aware of the affair, scared I’d reveal all of hers? She probably wanted to protect her secrets just as much as I wanted to protect mine.
But threatening to tell the police that it was me in the video would be counterproductive, if she didn’t want to be found out. My thoughts were all wrapped up with fear. I couldn’t make sense of the scrawling words on the sheet of paper I’d shoved into my bag.
All I knew for sure was that someone knew enough to cause me a lot of trouble.
And that person knew exactly where I lived.
Chapter Seventeen
Poor Fran.
It wasn’t like she’d done anything to deliberately upset me, but after half an hour of pretending to listen to her theories about who killed Calum, I couldn’t hold my tongue any more. She’d stayed quiet after that, and I’d silently berated myself for the unnecessary outburst. I’d have to make it up to her soon. Just not today.
I watched the clock all afternoon in anticipation of finally catching up with Alex. Seeing her was exactly what I needed to make me feel just a little bit normal again. As I arrived at the pub, my phone buzzed against my leg. Four messages had come in quick succession.
B, I’m so sorry but I’ve been called into an emergency meeting. Huge case.
Won’t be able to make it for drinks, sorrrrrrry. Hope you haven’t left yet.
Oh God, I just saw the time, you’re there already, aren’t you? I will make it up to you. So sorry.
PS love you x
I dialled her number but it went straight to voicemail. Hanging up, I sent a text.
You owe me big time. Now I have to drink alone and it’s all your fault. Love you too, good luck with the case. x
I stood outside the lively pub and considered what to do next.
I thought about going home, securing the deadbolt and waiting in fearful silence to detect any noise that could be a threat. I pictured myself clutching a kitchen knife in the dark, muscles clenched until Jason came home.
I shook my head. That wasn’t an option. I was out already and Jason wouldn’t be back from work for at least a few more hours. No. I needed a drink, and if I had to down it alone, then so be it.
I barely noticed what a beautiful evening it was as I walked through Golden Square, littered with after-workers playing ping-pong and drinking on the streets. Spring in London was buzzy with people who tumbled outside, clutching their pints and clinging onto the warm evening light. But there were too many dark thoughts flitting through my mind for me to appreciate the bright evening like everyone else was.
I was upset that Alex couldn’t make it, but I knew it wasn’t her fault and besides, this wasn’t exactly a shock. She was flaky at the best of times, which made us an unlikely pair. I’d met her just a few months after I’d moved to London, when the enormity of the city was still overwhelming. I’d loved it, of course. London was vibrant; alive. It had its own heartbeat and its own life force thanks to its vast array of inhabitants. You could be whoever you wanted to be here because no one cared, and there was something both terrifying and beautiful in that. The anonymity gave me a freedom I’d never experienced before, and I started, for the first time in my life, to explore who I really was.
When I wasn’t drinking or smoking weed with colleagues, I was satisfying my curiosity in other ways: taking life-drawing classes, learning French like I’d always wanted to, signing up for pole-dancing lessons.
Although most of these hobbies had been overpriced and short-lived, I’d loved trying new things and meeting new people. Like Alex. She and I had been the only two who found our pole-dancing class hilarious, spending entire lessons in hysterics, in large part because of our mutual lack of coordination. Alex’s tall, muscular figure refused to wrap gracefully around a pole, and I possessed absolutely no upper body strength whatsoever. Our fits of self-deprecating laughter drew disapproving glares from the rest of the class, which, of course, had only made us laugh harder. It seemed inevitable that we’d end up as friends, so one day, after another unsuccessful class, we grabbed a quick drink together, which had soon escalated to a very boozy night out. The next morning’s hangover was one of the worst I’d ever had.
Our friendship, surprisingly, survived far longer than our interest in the classes. It had seen Alex move through three promotions, and me through the terrifying leap into starting my own photography business. She’d taught me to wear heels without tripping over, and I’d been her shoulder to cry on through countless break-ups. She was the only person who could always make me laugh, and I knew that today would have been no different, despite everything that had happened over the past few days. But her job as a lawyer meant lots of late nights, and last-minute meetings. Rescheduling with Alex was a regular occurrence.
When I arrived at my favourite tapas restaurant off Carnaby Street there was just one seat left at the bar, so I claimed it, grateful that I could sit alone without being too conspicuous.
I ordered a large glass of white wine and a handful of tapas dishes and leaned back on my stool, trying to concentrate on the note, on the footage I was in. Searching my brain again for anything useful I might have seen that night.
But Calum, as usual, was hogging my thoughts. Which was my own damn fault. I hadn’t chosen this restaurant for the atmosphere. It was the memories of Calum I’d had an appetite for.
We hadn’t ever gone out to eat together. Not alone, anyway. There was the odd work dinner with colleagues, but being seen at a restaurant as a pair had been too risky, Calum said, and I’d never complained. We’d get what he liked to call takeaway if we’d been hungry, although it wasn’t greasy pad thai or cheap fried rice that’d arrive at the door. Instead, he’d make a phone call and, as if by magic, full steak dinners would materialise, wrapped in luxurious packaging emblazoned with the green and gold Harrods signature.
One evening, our bellies rumbling after hours under the duvet, he’d asked me what I wanted to eat. I’d been too shy to admit that Domino’s was my takeaway guilty pleasure, but Calum hadn’t let it go.
‘Go on, what’s your favourite dinner?’ he’d asked.
‘Well, it’s not a takeaway place.’
He laughed.
‘You’re cute. I think I can work around that,’ he said, his patronising tone earning him a playful punch. I’d relented, and shared the name of my favourite restaurant. Sure enough, half an hour later a spread of hot, fresh tapas had arrived.
Of course, whenever he opened the door to receive our dinner delivery, his staff would see nothing more than a business meeting running overtime. My cameras were set up elaborately around his desk, and I, fully dressed, would be fussing with the lighting in plain view of the front door. Just a photo shoot. Nothing to see here, folks.
To my delight, Calum had enjoyed my dinner suggestion, and it had become one of our regular fast food options. And I still got my Domino’s fix when I was at home with Jason.
Sitting alone now in our favourite restaurant – the one we’d never actually visited together – I’d
ordered our usual selection of dishes, but I couldn’t bring myself to eat any of them. It was stupid of me, really. To think I could still enjoy our go-to meal when all I had to feed on were memories.
‘Bethany? Is that you?’
I stared at the man next to me for a second before a burst of surprised laughter escaped my lips.
‘Oh! Vincent, hi,’ I said. ‘Sorry, I was a little spaced out.’
He leaned over to kiss my cheek, giving me a chance to compose myself and plaster a smile on my face.
‘What are you doing here?’
‘I’m with the team,’ he said, gesturing behind him. I looked over his shoulder and spotted a table full of familiar faces. Tracey, Calum’s publicist, waved and beckoned for me to join them.
‘Bethany! Come sit with us – no, really, there’s a space next to me. Come on!’
I couldn’t think of anything worse than making small talk with a bunch of people who reminded me of Calum, but there was no avoiding it. Declining would have looked rude, especially when I was clearly alone.
I motioned to the bartender that I was moving, took my glass with me and squeezed in, nodding a greeting to everyone. On the other side of Tracey was Ingrid, a pretty young thing with trendy silver hair who did something administrative, and beside her was Laurie who ran the Bradley Enterprises Press Office. Her eyes looked bruised from exhaustion and she ran a hand through greasy locks as she tapped away at her phone, unaware of anyone around her. I didn’t envy her job right now.
Mark was beside Laurie, and next to him was the rest of the security team. The biggest and bulkiest of the lot was also the head of security, an intimidating, yet surprisingly friendly guy named Ben Matthews. He smiled warmly, and I was introduced to the two other guys, who I’d seen before but never met by name. James and Reggie. I turned to Vincent for answers as he slid in beside me.
‘What are you guys all doing here?’
‘Well, we needed to get out of the office, for a start. Too bloody depressing.’