Page 99 of The Way We Are Now

‘Oh, you know that much?’

‘Of course! We all knew. I should have gone to the police there and then.’

‘But why didn’t you, Sara? Surely…?’ I felt real anger over the woman’s apparently cavalier attitude. If she’d reported Patrick there and then, Fliss might still be alive today. I closed my eyes briefly, trying to calm myself, reminding myself that Sara had been just a young vulnerable girl at the mercy of both the agency and the men she escorted.

‘And have everyone know how I was making money? My parents? Any new – genuine – relationship I might have found myself in? I can just see that, can’t you?’ She gave another little mirthless laugh. ‘Oh, what do you do in your spare time? A little student job? Yes, I sell my body to wealthy – sometimes perverted – men… Oh and don’t forget, my teaching career would have been totally out the window. I wanted to be a teacher – had always wanted to teach little ones.’

‘But…?’

‘And then it was all in the papers, and I read the report of the inquest. Accidental death. Too much to drink and she slipped and fell. If you remember, after that there was a big push on trying to stop students drinking so much, especially during Freshers’ Week when, over the years, and at different unis, more than one student has ended up in a critical way through excessive drinking. And,’ she went on, ‘eventually I was almost able to push what happened to the back of my mind. I started teaching, loved my job, had a mortgage, met my husband, had my three children. I could have lost every single one of these had it come out that I’d earned money through prostitution.’

‘I understand all this, Sara.’

‘Ha! Really?’ She gave me a look and shook her head.

I leaned across my desk, took Sara’s hand briefly. ‘Sara, you were a young girl. Vulnerable. Try not to be too hard on yourself. So, do you believe this… what was he called…?’ I scanned my notes. ‘Tony bloke was responsible for Fliss’s death?’

‘Well, he must be, mustn’t he? Who knows what would have happened to me if I hadn’t been so terrified? I sort of went along with it all. If I’d put up a fight, said I was off to the police, it might have been me in that canal.’

‘Hang on, hang on a minute, Sara… Tony?’ My heart raced. ‘Was he about our age at the time? You know, young to be with an escort? Fair hair? Tony? Short for Anthony?’ I underlined the name again and again, my pen digging into the page until it made a hole.

Sweet Jesus, Theo’s full name was Theodore Anthony Patrick Mandeville. And London? A vision of the Holland Park house flashed before me.

‘Fair hair, yes. Lovely plummy voice – he used to tease me about my Lancashire accent – really attractive.’ Sara stared. ‘Do you know who he is?’

When I didn’t say anything, couldn’t bear to say Theo’s name, she went on, ‘But about our age?’ She gave me a look. ‘No, of course not. As far as I know, none of the men on the books were younger than forty. He must have been in his fifties – most of the men we escorted were. Some older.’

I felt the tension in my shoulders drop, felt the slow release of the breath I’d been holding. Oh, thank you, thank you, God. Not Theo then.

Sara looked me straight in the eye. ‘Anna, I know exactly who Patrick is. Probably Tony as well.’ She air-mimed apostrophes round each name.

‘You do?’ I took my pen, poised to write.

‘Hugh Mandeville. Sir Hugh Mandeville of Mandeville Hall in North Yorkshire.’

PART IV

31

DECEMBER 2025 – NOW

From: Theodore A. P. Mandeville

Subject: We need to talk

Date: Friday 12 December 2025 at 22.01

To: Anna Piasecki

Anna, we need to talk.

Theo

From: Anna Piasecki

Subject: Re: We need to talk

Date: Friday 12 December 2025 at 22.10