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However, today, it takes very little prompting before it all spills out and she confesses to what she’s been up to. She recounts breaking into Paul’s house – I don’t even ask how on earth she knows how to do such a thing – and later, confronting him with the evidence she stole and demanding Gwen’s house is returned to her. Sheeven admits to how she hid evidence in my dovecote, something I’m not thrilled about but for which she apologises. She finishes by recalling the police warning to leave him alone. I’m trying my hardest to play it cool, but inside, I want to strangle her for putting herself at such risk and not going to the police first.
‘I’ve messed it all up,’ she admits. ‘I shouldn’t have tried to blackmail him. I was greedy.’
‘You weren’t greedy, you were desperate, sweetheart,’ I say in the faint hope of consoling her.
‘I lost my perspective. I was so worried about being evicted and being left with nothing that I panicked.’
‘Are things that bad?’
She nods. ‘I don’t have any clients left in Italy, I can’t afford the bills or rent on the bungalow. I thought that inheritance was going to solve all my problems. Then I’d give the evidence to the police, Paul would end up behind bars and that would be it. But he’s still free and now I’m trapped. I’m too scared to sleep in my own bed anymore.’
‘Why?’
She takes her phone from her pocket while I move my glasses from around my neck and slip them on to my nose. She plays me a video of her sleeping. I’m not sure of the relevance until the next clip of her appears in the shower. She quickly presses stop.
‘He’s been recording me for months,’ she tells me. ‘There are more like it.’
‘Sweet Jesus,’ I gasp. ‘You need to give this to the police, you simply have to.’
‘I can’t,’ she argues. ‘The video could have been filmed by anyone for all they know. I could have done it myself to set Paul up. He’s already made me out to be a stalker.’
Her stubbornness infuriates me sometimes and makes me glad I don’t have kids of my own. They’d have put years on me. ‘So what are you going to do then?’
‘Nothing. He’s won. I give up. Game over. Paul has what he wants, so that’s it. I have no choice.’
I pause for thought. There’s a way I can help her, but if I tell her, I can’t guarantee her head is in the right place to do the right thing. I decide to keep schtum for now, until I’ve weighed up the pros and cons. But I do make a snap decision about something else.
‘You’re staying with me, here,’ I say. ‘This house is large enough for the two of us to muddle around in without feeling as if we’re on top of one another. If you’re under this roof, I’ll know you’re safe.’
‘I can’t impose on you like that,’ Connie replies. But it’s not an outright refusal.
‘It’s no imposition. You’re here every day anyway to walk Oscar or to clean, so you’re already a part of the furniture you polish. I’m not arguing with you on this, Connie. If you’re struggling to make ends meet then there’s no point in staying in a bungalow you can’t afford. You need a little time to save up some money, so the spare room is yours. You’ll need to clear the crap out of it first though.’ She’ll have her work cut out for her as I’ve used that room as a dumping ground for the last twenty years.
‘Thank you,’ she says quietly.
And for the first time in today’s visit, I relax a little. Until her phone vibrates. We both glare at it and then at each other. Eventually she picks it up, and by the way the remaining colour drains from her already pallid complexion, I know she’s received another message from Paul. She turns the screen so we can both see what he has sent her.
Send Walter my love, reads the caption, and my blood chills. It’s followed by another video. This time it’s been taken through a window, and it’s of Connie walking away from her bungalow.
She holds her hand over her mouth. ‘This was filmed a few minutes ago,’ she whispers. ‘He was in the house while I was still there.’
CHAPTER 49
CONNIE
I take a lingering look around the place I’ve called home for the last twenty months, and realise I won’t miss it one little bit when I move out. Paul has ensured this is no longer a safe place for me. Every door and window now remains locked and repeatedly checked day and night. There’s a padlock on the inside of next door’s loft hatch. Yet each creak of a floorboard or clunk of a water pipe still has me on tenterhooks, frightened Paul is breaking in again.
And I know that by sending me those videos, it’s how he wants me to feel. He’s toying with me like a cat with an injured mouse. The predator hurts it, lets it go, plays with it, sets it free again then hurts it some more. Eventually, the cat grows bored and strikes a final, fatal blow. And I fear that’s what Paul is going to do with me. I don’t think he can help himself. Like the cat, it’s in his nature.
I’ve spent all day cleaning each room from ceiling to skirting board. I don’t expect to get any of my deposit back because I’m already four months in rent arrears, so the letting agency will be keeping that. I’m doing it because I feel bad for how much the owner has lost out financially by my inability to pay. I’ve promisedmyself that they’ll be the last people I take advantage of. It’s taken me almost forty-three years to realise I need to start leading a more honest life, but I’m finally at that point. It’s like a mid-life crisis, only I’m not buying a sports car or dating a man half my age.
I reckon I’ll soon be ready to move my stuff into Walter’s place. It’s taken days but we’ve finally managed to get rid of dozens of bin bags full of clutter from his spare room. I won’t be able to pay my way at first, but I’ve told him I’ll cook all our evening meals and I’ll clean the house for free.
I’m a little reluctant to lose a place of my own as, Caz aside, the only time I’ve shared with anyone is at Her Majesty’s pleasure. But needs must. And I’m sure Walter’s offer isn’t an entirely selfless act. He’ll have company and someone to look out for him. He’s in his mid-seventies, and after his strokes, there must be an underlying fear in living alone.
Walter reminds me of Gwen in many ways, as she too was a kind soul. Their behaviour couldn’t be any different from my mum’s, although lately I’ve been trying harder to focus more on the good times Mum and I spent together than the bad. They’re few and far between, but one memory keeps swimming to the surface. She loved my manicures and pedicures. For a woman who only cared about her appearance when she needed to make money for her drug habit, she loved having her fingers and toenails filed and polished. I guess it was quite an intimate moment, just her and I, me gently cleaning and repairing fingers and toes that resembled my own, often in a comfortable silence. It was the closest we ever came to being a typical mother and daughter.
I remember painting them for her the night before her funeral. In truth, she didn’t deserve my care, but it was my way of saying goodbye to her despite all she’d done and failed to do. The make-up artist at the funeral home had tried to hide the substantial bruising to her face and body from the fatal beating given to her bythe person the police believed to have been a client when she was prostituting herself. They’d then dumped her body in a wheely bin in Walthamstow. It was a fitting end. She died as she had lived, in and as waste.
