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An emotional reaction victims can have after being held captive: feelings of having bonded with a captor, of missing them when they are separated. People suffering from Stockholm syndrome can experience insomnia, flashbacks, high suspicions of others, nightmares.
Is that what I have?
I go upstairs and crawl onto the mattress without undressing, wanting to hide my shame. How could I have bonded with the man who had Hunter killed? I screw my eyes shut, craving oblivion. But it doesn’t come.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
A few days later, my phone rings. It’s Paul Carr again.
“Amelie, you may have heard that there’s to be a memorial service for Justine Elland and Lina Mielkutenext Wednesday.”
I feel a wash of relief. I hadn’t checked theExclusivesFacebook page for the last few days. “Thank you for telling me,” I say. “I would hate to have missed it.”
“Ah.” There’s an awkward pause. “I’m afraid it has been suggested that you don’t go.”
My heart thuds. “Why not?”
“Something to do with media presence, I think. Concern about you being put in the spotlight, perhaps.”
“Who?” I demand. “Who suggested that I don’t go?”
“I hope you understand.”
“No, I don’t. Could you please go back to whoever gave you this message and tell them that I need to be there, that I need the closure?”
“I’m afraid I only receive messages.” Paul sounds unhappy. “But I would have only been asked to pass this message on to you if it wasimportant.” Another pause. “Can I have your assurance that you’ll respect it?”
It’s not his fault, he’s just the messenger. “Yes, of course. Goodbye, Paul.”
I hang up politely, but inside I’m seething. I’ve done everything they’ve asked of me, those men who disrupted my life so brutally. But I will not do this for them. I am going to the memorial service, whether they like it or not.
In the dining room, I open my laptop and bring up theExclusivesFacebook page. There are more messages about Justine and Lina, and details about the memorial service, on Wednesday, at St. Anne’s, near theExclusivesbuilding. I make a note of the time—2 p.m.—and then I do something that I hadn’t thought to do before. I look for articles about my marriage to Ned.
I’m surprised at how much space was given to it, mainly in the tabloid press. But with Ned described as one of the most eligible men in England, perhaps it’s not surprising. As I read the various articles, I learn things that I already knew—that Ned’s fortune was left directly to him by his grandfather, and that his father and grandfather had fallen out, largely because Jethro Hawthorpe disapproved of the way Ned Senior spoiled his grandson—and things that I didn’t—Ned, at eighteen years old, assaulting another young man so badly that he ended up in the hospital; a car crash six months later, his red Ferrari wrapped around a tree and a young woman with life-changing injuries.
I don’t know why I’m shocked. Ned had told me, when we were in Las Vegas, that he’d been involved in a couple of incidents that had angered his father, because he’d had to put the launch of the foundation on hold. He had never mentioned that he’d caused catastrophic injuries to a young woman, and had put a man in the hospital. No wonder Jethro Hawthorpe was paranoid about any scandal involving Ned.
I continue searching to see what else I can find and I’m about to give up when I come across a news story from 2008, about the deathof an ex-girlfriend of Ned Hawthorpe, suffocated in a sex game gone wrong.
I draw in my breath, scared of what I’m going to read. But all the four-line article mentions is that the young woman, Tanya Haughton, was an ex-girlfriend of Ned’s. There’s no mention of who she was having sex with when she died, just that the police are investigating the circumstances surrounding her death. I search for related articles later that year, and the year after, and all the years up to the present day, hoping to find the results of the police investigation. But there is nothing, nothing at all. Which means that somebody must have made it go away.
Nothing can calm the anger I feel at Ned being able to get away with so much because his father is a powerful man. I tell myself that I don’t know for sure that Ned was involved in Tanya Haughton’s death. But everything points to it, from the method to the cover-up.
Remembering that I was trying to find out what was reported in the press about my marriage to Ned, I return to those articles. There’s little about me personally. Some digging had been done, because there’s mention of me being an orphan, and of me being reported missing at seventeen years old, after the death of my father. But the focus is more on how Ned and I met, and our sudden marriage. Interviews with Vicky, and others fromExclusives, tell of their surprise at the news, because they hadn’t known that Ned and I were in a relationship. No one calls me a gold digger, at least not in writing. But reading their words, I can feel the accusation beneath the surface.
There’s a flurry of articles about Ned’s suicide, and as I read, I learn about the extensive trolling Ned had been subjected to because of Justine’s accusation of sexual assault, and his subsequent persecution by the media. It makes more sense now, the easy acceptance of a suicide verdict. But I hate that he was portrayed as a victim, when he was guilty of so much.
There’s something I’ve wanted to do for a long time, something I haven’t been able to do, because I haven’t had the courage. But I dig deep inside me and type “male body found Dorset” into my search engine. There are several articles, and I scan them quickly, my heart thudding, discarding each one until I find the one that I hoped I wouldn’t find, Wednesday, August the fourteenth, about a man’s body being found on a wooded road, not far from Haven Cliffs, the seeming victim of a gangland killing.
The room tilts, I grip the table, wait for the dizziness to pass. At the time, the all-consuming murder of Lina just days before had taken precedence over Hunter’s; it had seemed wrong to mourn a man I barely knew. But now, waves of grief rack my body, for what might have been, if Lukas hadn’t ordered him to be killed.
Lukas. I can hardly bear to think about him now that I know he was my captor. But he is still the only person who will be able to give me the answers I need. My mind goes back to the phone call from Paul, warning me away from the memorial service. It has nothing to do with me being besieged by the press; why would I be? The service isn’t about me, it’s about Justine and Lina. Even if someone recognized me, they wouldn’t ask why I was there, not when everyone knows I worked at the magazine. The warning to keep away is about someone else being there, someone the kidnappers don’t want me running into, and that person can only be Lukas. And if Lukas is coming over from Vilnius, or Los Angeles, for the memorial service, the chances are that he’ll stay in his home away from home, the house in Haven Cliffs.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
I step off the train in Bournemouth, exit the station, and walk to the taxi stand. The driver rolls down his window.
“Where to, love?”
