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CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
HANNAH – NOW
I’ve cancelled all my work commitments, instructing Amy about a few urgent tasks that need taking care of today – mainly scheduling staff, a new client briefing and an important call with another customer about managing their Airbnb portfolio. She’ll easily handle these jobs, and relishes the chance to show me that Greene & Clean won’t fall apart if I take the day off.For personal reasons, I’d told her, remaining vague about why I wouldn’t be going into the office.
‘I think I might know where Belle is,’ I’d told Rob as we’d sat in the study earlier, his desk a barrier between us as we silently tried to read the other’s thoughts. I was restless and nervous, and it was a brave move by me to admit this, though it didn’t take a mathematician to work out that she’d most likely followed Jack to London. And I wasn’t specific with the location. No way was I about to reveal that. ‘And I’m going to fetch her back.’
Rob had reluctantly agreed with me – that the burning hole left inside my daughter by ‘Jack’, how she’d been moping about and missing him, his sudden lack of contact, seemingly ignoring her after their whirlwind engagement – had created an internal void too large for her to stand and had sent her running after him. She needed him to fill it.
‘I’ll keep in touch often,’ I tell him as I head out to my car, having gathered up a few essentials. Initially, he’d insisted on coming with me, but I persuaded him to stay and be at home for Amber, as well as Leanne and Kate, in case there was any trouble with their mother and her partner. Reluctantly, he’d agreed, leaving me grateful for their presence as a reason for him not to come.
I set off, heading out of the drive in the direction of the motorway, but it’s not long before I see a familiar car parked outside a row of shops, making me do a double take as I get a glimpse of the number plate. The last three letters are the same as on the one Rob and I saw last night. The dark-grey Toyota is outside a convenience store about a quarter of a mile down the road from our house. There’s no one in it. Without thinking, I do a U-turn in the next street, backtracking and pulling up in a space several cars behind it.
There’s no doubt it looks like Grant Webster’s car, making me wonder if he’s gone into the shop for something. Maybe Rob was right, and hewasbeing followed earlier – but why? It’s the type of car to blend in easily, not uncommon, and my suspicions are confirmed almost immediately when I see Grant come out of the shop with a bottle of water and a packet of sandwiches. He glances around for a moment, as though he’s looking for someone, before getting back into his car. Then he drives off and, against my better judgement, I follow him.
‘Don’t change, don’t change…’ I mutter as the Toyota crosses a set of traffic lights up ahead. Another car has cut in between us and I don’t want to lose him. Grant is leaving our neighbourhood and I want to know where he’s heading, and more to the point, why he’s so interested in our family. Instinct tells me it’s not because he wants to invest money or that he was concerned for my safety in the pub.
I just manage to slip through the lights on yellow, keeping my eye on the Toyota. A couple of minutes later, he turns left onto another main road that leads towards the city centre. The car in front of me indicates down a side street, leaving me directly behind Grant again, so I hang back just enough for him not to catch a glimpse of me in his mirror. I don’t know how I’d explain it away if he slowed to a stop and confronted me.
I nearly lose him at a roundabout when I have to wait for several cars to pass but catch up with him shortly after – just in time to swerve over into the right-hand lane to follow him right at another set of traffic lights. About half a mile further on, he slows and indicates left down a small slip road. I don’t know whether to do the same or hold off and just watch where he goes and carry on past. He’s driving slowly past a mix of offices and shops, with several low-rise blocks of flats and…I gasp, hardly believing what I’m seeing.
Grant has pulled into the forecourt of a police station.
Without thinking, I quickly indicate and follow him in, driving past him as he slowly eases his car into a space. I continue for twenty yards or so, slowing to a stop and idling the engine. In my rear-view mirror, I watch him get out of the car and, as he’s walking towards the building, he stops and chats to a couple of uniformed officers.
I swing round in my seat to make sure I’m not mistaken. The three of them are talking and laughing, looking as if they know each other. Then another uniformed officer comes out and pats Grant on the back as he walks briskly past on the way to a marked police vehicle. Then Grant turns and continues on but, instead of heading into the building through the wide glass sliding doors the public would use, he veers off to an entrance further along, stopping briefly to swipe a card he pulls from his pocket across the entry lock. Then he disappears inside.
‘Fuck,’ I whisper to myself, closing my eyes for a second.Grant is a cop.
I stand at the petrol pump, watching the display creep up as my tank fills. I figured it was best to top up before I get on the motorway and, besides, I don’t trust myself to drive in fast traffic until I’ve got over the shock of what I just witnessed. A cop…a bloodycop, I keep repeating in my mind, trying to convince myself that Grant’s presence these last few days is just a coincidence. He was at the pub, intervening when Jack…Darren…lunged at me. Then I encountered him in the café where he insisted on joining me, making me feel uncomfortable. He somehow wangled Rob’s number out of me, and after that he was lurking on a street corner in his car near our house. Then Rob reckoned he was being followed earlier, and now I’ve just witnessed him going in through the side entrance of a police station. The only conclusion I reach is that he’s interested in one of us. I’m just not sure who.
I put the filler cap back in and, before I pay, I grab a takeaway coffee from the machine for the journey. I need to switch gears in my mind and focus on finding Belle and getting her home safely. Whatever Grant is doing will have to wait – though deep down, I know it’s because of me. Have they been investigating me all this time? Has my involvement with Darren triggered a cold case – with me believing that I’d got away with what I did? I shudder, putting it from my mind as I pull out of the petrol station and continue towards the motorway.
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
BELLE – NOW
The train cuts through the countryside and Belle watches as it whizzes past in a blur of colours as they speed past farms, villages and occasionally a small town. Her head lolls against the glass, her thoughts veering back to what she’d seen in the folder at Scarlett’s. The girls in the photographs were beautiful, no doubt about that, but she can’t quite work out why the semi-naked and posed photos were there in the first place. Or rather, she considers, what it implies about Jack and his business. But as the scenery passes, she convinces herself not to be judgemental. Scarlett’s is a club, after all – a club with dancers – so a folder containing pictures for what could be auditions and part of the selection process wouldn’t seem wrong. Would it? But either way, she’ll be asking Jack about it.
The train stops at several stations, the carriage emptying and filling with other passengers. She doesn’t look across from her window seat when someone sits down beside her, filling up the table of four. She was the only one sitting there when the train left Bristol.
The man accidentally bumps her arm as he settles in, shoving his bag between his feet. ‘Sorry,’ he says, but Belle just shifts closer to the window, trying to take up as little space as possible. She doesn’t feel like talking, and is bored of watching the scenery now. Instead, she stares at the screenshots of Google Maps she took before she left, studying the route she’ll follow once she arrives at Paddington. She’d switched her phone onto flight mode before she left, double-checking that family location sharing was also turned off in case she needed to use her phone for any reason. She’d had location sharing disabled before she went to France, of course, though she’d turned it back on several times here and there over the last couple of weeks, mainly to appease her mum when she lost her shit over it. But as she’d kept reminding her, she’s eighteen now, she can do what she likes. She’s an adult. The realisation that she doesn’t have to do a damn thing anyone else tells her any more soaks into her like the first few sips of alcohol when she’s had a drink, or the buzz of the first draw on a cigarette. God, that’s what she needs right now. A smoke. Jack will give her one when she gets there. They’ll sit at a street café with Aperols and watch all the interesting people go by.London, here I come, she thinks with a smile.
She imagines Jack’s face when he sees her, how he’ll be thrilled that she’s tracked him down and surprised him. She’s already looked up a couple of places they could go for dinner – her treat, she’ll tell him, now that she’s almost a working woman. Until she gets her first pay cheque, she’ll use some of the money she was given for her birthday. She has several hundred pounds in cash in her bag. She’s brought a few clothes with her, including a couple of the nice outfits Jack had bought for her. She knows she’ll feel more comfortable wearing the skimpy dresses in London. No one will bat an eyelid there, not like her friends would in Bristol. They’re still quite happy slopping about in crap from high street stores, looking about fifteen. It’s not her fault she’s mature, ready for the next stage of life. Wanting more than endless days of study and hanging out with people who don’t understand her. Thank God she met Jack.
She stares down at her left hand, smiling at the sight of her engagement ring. Only a man totally and utterly in love with her, a man who wanted to spend the rest of his life with her, would have given her such a beautiful ring.
‘Want one?’ she suddenly hears. She looks across at the man beside her. He’s holding out a packet of biscuits. Belle shakes her head and looks away again. ‘That’s a very nice ring,’ he continues, not giving up his quest for conversation. ‘Are you engaged?’
Belle nods. Then, sighing, she turns to him. ‘Yeah, yeah I am, actually.’ She gives him a little smile and, on second thoughts, reaches over for a biscuit. ‘Thanks.’ She looks out of the window again, though she senses he’s still staring at her – a man with a receding hairline, geography-teacher trousers and pudgy fingers. He’s wearing a navy anorak, zipped up to his throat, and Belle wouldn’t be surprised if he got out a birdwatching magazine to read at any moment. She’s getting letchy vibes from him.
‘I’ve got a daughter,’ the man says. ‘She’s about your age. In fact, it’s her sixteenth birthday next week. I’d be quite upset if I thought she was getting married so young.’
Belle feels her cheeks redden. She glances at the two women opposite – they got on the train together and look to be in their late twenties. One of them is doing a sudoku puzzle and the other is reading a book. They’re both wearing similar outfits in soft beige that scream comfort and blending in.
‘Actually, I’m an adult, not a child,’ Belle says to the man. She bites into the biscuit but it’s dry and tasteless. She puts it on the table. One of the women opposite looks up, then looks across at the man. She pulls a pitying face.
‘What do your parents think of that then?’ the man presses on. ‘That you’re getting married.’
