AllFreeNovel
Share Us
‘Which number, Oakridge?’ Bevan asks.
Lydia shakes her head. ‘This wasn’t Georgia. I set this up.’ She gestures at the blood in pools on the floor, in the bath. ‘This is syrup and food colouring. She’s okay – she was okay. I sent the texts getting everyone here on a new phone.’ She pulls a cheap-looking phone from her pocket and thrusts it at Bevan. ‘I locked in Ash and Ava. I-I sent the photos of Dan and Tristan to you and Mina. I dobbed Tristan in to the press. I stole your card and bought… I don’t even know what I bought. I wanted you to feel something, Frances. I wanted you to understand what you’d done and feel some guilt for God’s sake.’ Her face swings from fear and regret to anger and back again.
She thinks I feel nothing? I want to hold up my dress and show her what I’ve done to achieve it.
Bevan speaks into a walkie-talkie and looks around the room.
‘This was all me,’ Lydia goes on. ‘Georgia didn’t… She has had enough punishment for nothing. She didn’t know what I was planning.’
My head feels like it’s been put on fast forward, buzzing, jumping. ‘Theo thinks he’s just going to go around, deleting copies of this tape. Tristan wanted our phones. He implied that Theo would do something to them – the girls. Hurt them. If we didn’t give him everything they wanted. And Theo’s obsessed with my daughter. The moment he realises Tristan has been arrested, that the police know what he’s up to… What if he feels like… Is he going to—’ I say and then stop because I can’t bear to finish the sentence.
What happens if the man who has been grooming my daughter, the man who has her… tied up? Locked in a room? What if he realises the police are onto him? What if he thinks he has nothing to lose?
96
BEFORE
‘Your father seems to have had a long and fulfilling life. It would be a shame if it were to come to an end so abruptly.’ Theo pulled a face full of regret as he slid his shirt back down.
A gun? In Cornwall?
I remembered the gun in the school weapons amnesty – a school so different to PES it was laughable they were both educational institutions – and my conversation with the policeman about how a child could possibly get hold of one in this country. I’d thought we were safe here, in the UK.
He had smiled at me. This wasn’t America, he had said. We were still, by and large, safe from guns. But it wasn’t impossible to get hold of one. Not when you figured in money and corruption, greed and desperation.
My mind was working too slowly. I needed to figure out what to do, but I couldn’t stop thinking about the gun.
‘Hmm?’ Theo said, still smiling.
There were cameras, but I didn’t doubt that he’d disabled them.
Where was God now? Say something. ‘You aren’t going to kill anyone.’
He laughed. ‘Maybe I’ve never killed anyone, but who’s to say I won’t?’ His cheeks flushed – was he aroused? His grin widened. ‘Or maybe I’ve killed before. Maybe, if you look at the small print, it’s part of my job description.’ He shrugged. ‘You just don’t know what you don’t know.’
‘Where are the girls?’
‘Which ones?’
A thrill of fear rushed over me. This was the man who Jenna couldn’t figure out if she loved or feared and hated, all the while trying to ignore her love for Rose. I could see it now. From afar, he had just seemed like every other slick and shallow PR brat. Up close he had charisma. But surely she could see through that?
I realised he thought I’d kidnapped the girls, that I’d had the tape, that whatever Lydia had done at Trevethan was down to me. But he had found Jenna and Rose here, probably asleep on the sofa, not restrained, not particularly pleased to see him, and then what? They hadn’t told him everything or he wouldn’t still think this was all me.
Where were they?
His car bonnet had still been warm. Were they in the trunk? That’s where the thud had come from, wasn’t it?
But why would he have put them in there?
Because they’d refused to speak and he’d hurt them and needed to hide them, or… or was I mad and he had just given them the bus fare home?
God, I didn’t want any more harm to come to those girls. But, more than anything, I just wanted this nasty young man gone.
I got out my phone and handed it over. ‘Lydia’s the one who had the tape. She only sent it to me a few hours ago. I don’t have any more copies.’
‘Sure,’ he said, smiling. He took the phone. ‘It’s on here?’
I nodded. ‘Text message. From an unknown number. But it’s Lydia.’
