by Linda Coles
But she had drunk it. And Sebastian had swapped that keycard for a single baggy of cocaine – the value of her hair.
Chapter Forty-Two
Present day
Stephanie sat staring into space, lost in her own world of distant memories, jarred loose by the women’s discussion of “Mr. Sleazeman.” As their chatter quieted and they tucked into their food, she realized with a start that Matt the barman was hovering nearby. It was obvious he had spoken to her, though she had no recollection what he’d said. She shook her head gently as if shaking out the cotton wool in her head.
“Sorry, I was miles away.”
“It’s okay. I was merely seeing if you wanted a top-up. Or something to eat. Can I get you anything?” He had an easy, welcoming smile and gentle, soothing eyes. Or was that the glass of wine on an empty stomach? She checked her watch. Did she have to be someplace?
“Thanks. I’ll have one more, and how about a chicken salad sandwich with fries? That should soak the wine up and put my day back together.”
“Coming right up.”
Stephanie took the opportunity to make a phone call; she wanted to talk to Ruth. She pressed her speed dial number and Ruth answered on the third ring.
Breathlessly, Stephanie blurted out what she’d remembered.
“Whoa, whoa, whoa!” said Ruth. “Slow down – you’re not making any sense. Now start again, slowly.”
“I overheard a conversation about sexual harassment in this woman’s workplace and her having to clear his mistakes up again and how much damage it’s doing to the company’s reputation. She was really heated up about it, and it jogged my memory about something that happened not long before my hair went missing.” She paused to catch her breath.
“Go on,” Ruth prompted. “Tell me what happened. From the top.”
And so Stephanie relayed the story of how her boss had become too familiar with her, and cornered her in the kitchen one night, and how she’d basically stabbed him. And how, the following day, the problem had vanished. He’d never mentioned it, she had certainly never mentioned it, and the whole thing appeared to have gone away.
“I can’t believe you stabbed him, Steph!” Ruth said incredulously. “That was a big risk. Mind you,” she went on, “I’d have probably done the same if it had been me. And he never said anything about it again?”
“That’s right. If someone had stabbed you with a fork, you’d have said something, wouldn’t you? And being the boss too?”
Ruth thought for a moment. “I wonder why not.”
“Well, that’s just it, Ruth. I told my friend Chris that night, nobody else, and I wonder if the whole thing is linked with something else that happened?”
“Oh?” Ruth’s voice perked up. “What?”
“Well, the following night after work, Chris and I went out for drinks and, well, that was the night I ended up with Sebastian Stevens, back at his place. I think.”
“Go on,” Ruth prodded again, her voice serious now.
“Well, Chris was with me for most of the night. And then he went to the loo, and that’s when Sebastian came over and sat down. After a while, Chris started back to our table, but he bumped into an old girlfriend. I gave him the signal I was okay with Sebastian, which I was, and Chris stayed with his old friend. I never saw him again that night after we left the bar. Sebastian and I went back to his place, and then I was drugged, and you know the rest.”
Ruth was quiet on the other end of the phone for a moment. “So,” she said at length, “you’re saying you wonder if your friend Chris set you up somehow because he’d done something to stop your over-amorous boss?”
“I think so. Yes.”
“Wow. That’s a big jump. Are you still in touch with this Chris guy? Does he have a surname?”
“Chris Meeks, and no, he moved away soon after that night. I’ve not heard of him since. I can’t help thinking there are too many coincidences, though – that I was set up, that a debt I didn’t know I had was paid back. In full.”
“Shit. Have you told Amanda yet? You’re going to have to, you know.”
“I know. I wanted to run it past you first.”
“Well, even if it is something to do with this Chris guy, she’ll need more than hearsay and gut feeling. I’d start thinking about how you might find him again. And I’d write out what you’ve remembered. It might help jog more memories loose when you read it back again. She’s going to need some help, and the name ‘Chris’ and not much else is a bit thin, I reckon.”
Stephanie knew she was right: she had to come up with more. The arrival of her sandwich and fries distracted her, and her stomach growled in anticipation.
“I’ll write it all out, then I’ll call her later,” she said. “May as well get it all out of the way. And if he was involved then, and another woman has lost her hair now, there will probably be others.”
“Keep me posted, Steph, and you know where I am if you need me.”
Stephanie blew her friend a kiss down the phone and hung up. She picked up a couple of the hot fries and chewed on them, thinking. The salty grease tasted damn good. If she had put the right pieces together and figured it out, then someone needed to track Chris down. Rather than waiting, she picked her phone up again and called Amanda while it was all summer-fresh in her mind. She’d know how to find Chris.
If Chris Meeks was his real name.
Chapter Forty-Three
Griffin lay in his bed; the alarm was due to go off in a few more minutes. It wasn’t unusual for him to wake before his alarm, but it was unusual for him to lie in bed. Eventually it was his bladder that made him get up. He tapped the alarm button as he passed his clock, just as it was about to bleep, and dragged the bedclothes back so the sheets and mattress could air. As always, he gave a moment’s thought to the bed lice, and then almost forcibly switched the thoughts off again. Bed lice were invisible to the human eye, he told himself again, so technically what the eye couldn’t see shouldn’t worry him. And he wasn’t about to get a magnifier to feed his curiosity.
As usual, his routine was precise, and fifteen minutes later he was in his tiny kitchen pouring milk onto his waiting cereal. Weekends were much the same for Griffin, though without the need to head into town, but he still kept to a regular timetable of sorts, just a little more relaxed. He took tea at home rather than at the office.
The morning sun streamed through the kitchen window, giving a yellowy glow to the room as he ate his Special K. Milk spilled from his spoon onto the table as he completely missed his mouth.
His mind was elsewhere and he knew just where.
Today, he’d agreed to meet up with Vee again and look at a couple of the flats she had lined up to view. The thought of spending the day with her thrilled him; he was finally beginning to relax in her company a little, although it was tough going. Yes, he’d had a girlfriend before, but that had been some years ago, before he’d grown in size like a blow-up paddling pool. Now, he’d shrunk back to a healthier and near normal size for his height. Vee seemed to like him. And if last night was anything to go by, they were getting on nicely. He’d walked her home and they’d stood on the back step, but with her parents inside, he hadn’t dared to lean in and give her a quick kiss. And that had been the excuse he’d stuck to. Draining his bowl of the last of the milk, he wondered how he’d avoid the situation again should it arise. Which it would. His lack of confidence could be a pain sometimes.
On Saturdays he had a slice of toast after his cereal, and he put a slice of bread in the toaster while he waited for the kettle to boil again. His thoughts drifted back to the previous night: drinking Snakebite in the pub, her beating him at darts, and their stroll home under the amber glow of streetlamps. The toast pinged up and gathered his attention, so he spread peanut butter on it for his morning protein. He was finishing the last mouthful when his phone chirped like a bird. A text had landed.
“Are you up yet? I guess you are now!”
He smiled at her cheekiness.
“Of course I am. You?”
“Awake, but still in bed. You still up for today?”
“Of course. Where and when?”
“Coffee first?”
“Excellent idea.”
“Come round here and we’ll go. 10 am suit?”
“Perfect. See you then.”
Griffin waited for a moment in case his phone pinged again, one last emoji perhaps, but it didn’t. He found himself slightly disappointed. He gathered his crockery and placed it in the dishwasher as usual and went through to the living area to retrieve his laptop. With a couple of hours until he was due to leave, he put the time to good use and carried on with his research. Depending on how far they walked today, he could get the remainder of his 10,000 steps in at the end of the day. He opened the lid and the screen sprang into life, the login prompt flashing at him like a pedestrian crossing light. Entering his details, he brought up the TOR browser and continued his search. And there he sat until it was almost time to leave.
He could see her in the distance, stood on the front step of her house chatting to someone. A parent, maybe? From what he could make out, the person looked about the right age, a male, but as he closed the gap, he could tell by their body language that Vee wasn’t the man’s daughter. In fact, moments later the man turned and walked back down the path towards a car that was parked at the curb. As Vee turned to go back inside, she saw Griffin and waved at him. He could see her bright smile easily and he found himself smiling back. She really was pretty in that special way of hers, and he was beginning to enjoy her company more and more each day. He’d even found himself thinking about her while at home on his own, and he couldn’t remember when he’d last done that. Or with whom.
He waved back. She began walking back down the path to meet him.
“Good morning,” he said when they were a few feet apart.
“Good morning to you too, Mr. Formal.” She was teasing him already.
“How am I supposed to greet you – with a ‘Yo’?”
“Good morning is just fine. I’m teasing you, silly.” She threaded her arm through his and they walked up towards the front door. It dawned on him that he was about to meet her parents. No sooner had the thought entered his head when an older male and female filled the doorway. The woman looked like an older version of Vee: same small nose and fine face structure, though her hair had lost its colour some time ago. Her father, on the other hand, had a thick head of dark brown hair, with just a few wisps of grey at his temples and around his ears. There was no mistaking these folks were her makers.
Here goes.
“Good morning. I’m Griffin,” he said, extending his hand. He caught the woman’s eye as he shook with her first. She had the same vivid hazel eyes as Vee.
They shone back at him as she replied, “Lovely to meet you. I’m Vera and this is my husband Bruce.” She nodded to her husband. He too reached out to shake hands with Griffin.
“Nice to meet you both.”
It was Vee who broke the moment’s silence that followed. “Yes, I’m named after Mum. ‘Little Vee,’ as I’ve been known since I was born. But I’ve grown up to simply be Vee now. Perhaps when I get as old as Mum, I’ll blossom into a fully-grown Vera,” she said, winking and smiling at her mother. There was obviously a deep bond between the three of them, Griffin thought as he watched their gestures and expressions. Love was written all over her parents’ faces.
“We’d better get a move on,” Vee said. “I don’t want to be late for the first one.”
“Right. Okay.” He turned to follow Vee, who was already making her way back down the path, and nodded at her two waving parents. “Good bye, then.”
When they were down the road a little way, Vee turned to Griffin and said, “I hope that wasn’t too embarrassing. I should have warned you they’d be nosey and want to meet you, but they mean well.”
“You look so much like your mum, but with your dad’s colouring. Who do you take after most?”
“Oh. Probably a big chunk of each. I look more like Mum, but I think I take after Dad with my mannerisms and laid-back approach to things. But if something bugs me and I get a bee in my bonnet, then I’m more like Mum. She can be a feisty so-and-so when she gets riled up. My sisters and I used to get her in a fizz sometimes. How about you? Who do you take after the most?”
Griffin had to think about that one. He wasn’t particularly close to his parents and hadn’t seen either of them for at least twelve months, probably longer.
“I’m not really sure, to be fair. I’ve never really seen eye to eye with Dad. He just thinks I’m odd. And Mum is a bit of a social butterfly, so I didn’t really fit in with her ‘perfect son’ goal, either. So we speak occasionally but hardly ever get together. It’s too hard, all the pretence of being something they want me to be rather than who I really am.”
They both fell silent as they walked towards the train station, both thinking about what Griffin had just said. As they approached the entrance, Griffin tried to lighten the mood. “Well, that kind of killed the conversation, didn’t it?” He was smiling as he turned to her and spoke the words without malice. Vee hooked her arm through Griffin’s a wee bit tighter and squeezed some affection up his arm.
“I’ll look after you.”
Chapter Forty-Four
They were on their third property viewing, and almost the instant they set foot on the cracked path up to the house Vee knew she might as well go no further. From the outside, the place looked reasonable, though rundown, and she was prepared to keep an open mind, but waiting outside she’d become more and more dismayed at the place. The only vibe she’d picked up so far on the small estate was a dodgy one. Small groups of youths milled around looking for something to do, and she guessed that would probably include petty crime. Had she asked them, they would have confirmed her suspicions – that is, if they’d dropped their attitude and been civil in conversation.
The estate agent arrived and let them in, then led them straight upstairs. But Vee knew this was never going to be the place.
“And a view out over the local area,” the agent gushed, pointing out of the smeary window like she was pointing to the Atlantic Ocean. In Croydon, the only water feature would be the pond in the back garden, if you were lucky enough to have a back garden. To appease the woman, Vee looked out at what she thought was so impressive. Or maybe the so-called view was the only good bit of the pokey property the agent could find to comment on, more like. Vee wrinkled up her nose.
“Not for me, thanks. A definite no-go, in fact. Thanks for showing us, though,” she said, and walked towards the door. Griffin followed dutifully, leaving the woman to lock up. She didn’t look too pleased at having her time wasted. As they made their way back down the weed-ridden path to the road, Vee let out a disappointed sigh.
“Don’t be despondent yet,” said Griffin. “We have one more to look at, and the first one we saw was quite good. Needs some work, but at least it was a decent-sized space in a nice part of town.” He looked at his watch. They had plenty of time until they were due at the next and last viewing.
“Let’s take a break and grab a drink before the next one, eh? We’ve walked for miles and I know my feet could do with a rest.”
“Alright. Mine too, actually. And a cold one would be nice right now. Café or bar? What do you fancy?”
“Let’s get out of this dump first, then see what comes along. How about that for a plan?”
“Perfect. Let’s go.”
Twenty minutes later they came across the first place that looked half decent. A pub it was to be, then. He opened the door for her and she stepped inside. The interior was dark and cooling after their walk in the warm sunshine.
“Snakebite? Or too early?” Griffin had his wallet out ready.
“Too early for me. I’ll have a Coke, please. But I need to pee, more importantly. I’ll be back in a minute.” He watched her disappear around the corner and he approached the bar.
He ordered two Cok
es –one diet, no ice in either.
He waited. When she reappeared, he steered her to a vacant table in the corner and motioned for her to sit on the bench side. Covered in a deep burgundy-coloured velvety fabric, it looked more comfortable than the wooden chair opposite. Placing her Coke in front of her, he said, “I assumed you meant regular Coke, not diet? Not that you need diet, I should add. And I didn’t get ice. Wasn’t again sure if you took ice. But I can easily get you some if you wish?” He was babbling a little and he knew it. She smiled at his efforts.
“Full-fat Coke is fine. No ice is also fine, thanks.” Then she added, “For future reference though, I drink Diet Coke and don’t care either way about the ice.”
For future reference. He liked that.
He watched her gulp down almost half the glass in one go, mesmerized by the dark liquid disappearing down her throat. When she’d come back up for air, she asked, “What have you been up to this morning then, before we met up?”
“Catching up on some research. I’m writing an article on doping within amateur sports. It’s becoming quite an issue and quite commonplace. It’s not just the big names anymore, but the weekend warriors, the serious amateurs. And it’s rampant.”
“Really? You mean in cycling?”
“I mean many different sports now, even golf. There’s quite a market, evidently. Look at the people who compete in Masters, or age-grade competitions in any sport. They are still serious, even though they’re not professional, and they all want the edge over their competitors. Cycling is probably one of the more common sports you’d think of, but as I say even golfers are doping now. And from what I can gather, it’s prescription drugs mainly that are available and being misused for something else.” He took a breath and paused for a moment, letting what he’d said sink in. He took a long mouthful of Coke.