Rivalry (The Cardigan Estate Book 4)

by Emmy Ellis

  God, the things you had to do for your ego.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Ada, not one for experiencing guilt to such a degree, couldn’t get Shaun out of her head, and it confused her. While she didn’t have feelings for him beyond using him for sex and his work skills, she did have empathy for him regarding his mother, Noreen, and sister, Janice.

  His mum had only wanted girls, and of course, with the arrival of Shaun, she’d been devastated, then spent the whole of his life acting as if he didn’t exist. Janice was born first and, two years later, Shaun appeared with the wrong equipment between his legs, crushing Noreen’s fantasy of having two daughters. This, according to Shaun one drunken night when his life story had spilt out. The poor man had cried, and while Ada had said all the right words and rubbed his back, she’d quite spitefully thought: Oh, grow a pair.

  No wonder he’d buggered off. Not only had his family cast him aside, he must have sensed Ada would, too, once the proposal was in the bag.

  Why was it bothering her, though? She hadn’t got to where she was by indulging in sentiment. It was an alien concept to her, caring for men she used along the way, so perhaps he’d wormed into her heart more than she’d realised.

  This morning, she’d handed over control of the London office to her capable manager—it was definitely time to do her stint in Poland—but before she left, she was going to visit Janice. She knew where she lived as Shaun had stopped there one night after work, Ada in the passenger seat—they’d planned saucy times at her penthouse, but he’d needed to drop off some money Janice wanted to borrow. Why Shaun had loaned it to her Ada would never know, especially because the woman didn’t want anything to do with him otherwise. She only ever crawled out of the maggot-infested woodwork if he was useful to her.

  The parallel stung a little. Ada had done the same, using him, except her woodwork was pristine, polished to a high shine.

  She waved goodbye to her staff with promises of a bonus coming their way and left the building, relieved the proposal was signed, the cash in the bank—she was going to pay off her parents’ mortgage once in her homeland—and got into her flashy sports car, one that would sit in her garage for six months until she returned. She paid her manager to check the penthouse while she was gone—she trusted her implicitly—and left her UK life behind, sinking into her other self, the one who had feelings she displayed easily to her family and friends.

  She was two different people. The CEO and someone else.

  Maybe that was why Shaun’s disappearance was bothering her. She had a wonderful Polish network and couldn’t imagine any of them not being concerned if she went missing. Ada hadn’t been concerned about Shaun, he was driftwood on her vast, sparkling beach of a life, something to be picked up and thrown away when it suited her.

  She’d been a bitch, the UK bitch she immersed herself in while here.

  The drive to Janice’s didn’t take long, Ada lost in the journey, the houses and streets passing her by almost without notice. She parked in a rough residential road, got out, and sneered at the run-down house with its mucky windows and shoddy paintwork on the frames. She forgot, for the most part, her humble beginnings, preferring to pretend she’d always had the luxuries she had now. Who wanted to remember scrimping and saving, being cold in the winter because your parents couldn’t afford the heating bill? The hand-me-down clothes, the looks from people who thought you were— Oh, she’d done just that, turning her nose up at Janice’s place.

  She must stop doing it but doubted she could.

  She picked her way up the garden path, one littered with stray grass cuttings that hadn’t been swept up, broken knobbles of concrete, and a withered weed that draped across as if it had died while struggling to live, chopped at the base by the blade of a mower. At least Janice had attempted to keep the garden tidy, if failing somewhat.

  Ada used the silver knocker, conscious of how many people had touched it previously with filthy hands, and fought the desire to wipe her fingers on her suit jacket. The door swung open to reveal Janice in all her unsavoury glory, a woman who, it seemed, never had two pennies to rub together, her clothes worn and tatty, her blonde hair clean but in need of a professional cut.

  Judgy, you’re being judgy again.

  “Hi.” Ada smiled.

  Janice peered with beady brown eyes that stood out in her skinny, angular face, as did her pointed nose with the slope on the end, so much like Shaun’s Ada experienced yet another pang of guilt. What was wrong with her? She needed to leave this country and put him behind her. Forget.

  “I’m your brother’s boss,” she added.

  “Oh. You.” Janice sniffed, as if Ada were beneath her.

  That didn’t sit well. “I’m concerned for his safety.”

  Janice shrugged. “Why? He’s a grown bloke. Like I said to you on the phone, and to that copper, he doesn’t need the likes of us going round wiping his arse for him.”

  “Are you not bothered he’s just disappeared?”

  Janice sighed. “If that copper isn’t, why should I be?”

  Clarke. He must have gone with the idea Shaun had decided to start again elsewhere. If truth be told, it wasn’t the guilt that was getting to Ada, it was the fact that Shaun hadn’t included her in his plans, or at least told her about them. Okay, she didn’t want him in any solid relationship capacity, couldn’t allow it, but surely he thought more of her. Surely he wouldn’t do a midnight flit and not let her know. She was more important to him than that, wasn’t she?

  The uncharitable thought that Janice may not have to pay back the money she’d borrowed from her brother left a sour taste in Ada’s mouth.

  “Can you speak to the police and push for them to look into this further, seeing as you’re family?” Ada struggled to understand her feelings, why she wanted this looked into when she wasn’t supposed to get attached. Her Polish husband and children wouldn’t appreciate it.

  Janice huffed out a grunt. “No, he’s fucked off, end of.”

  “If he has fucked off, that’s your loans unavailable.”

  The door slammed in Ada’s face.

  She stared at it for a moment, appalled that someone like her could do such a thing, a member of the dregs of society daring to treat her this way. She turned and stalked to her car, using an antibacterial wipe from the glove box to wash off whatever disgusting germs were on that knocker. She shuddered and drove to Shaun’s flat, parking behind his BMW. At least he’d had some ambition, the need to get himself out of the gutter, studying, finding himself a good job, which was more than could be said for his dreadful sister, a benefit scrounger if ever there was one.

  Stop it.

  Ada stormed up the path, annoyed with herself for slipping into that mindset again, and pressed all the bell buttons in some mad pokeathon. So long as someone opened the door, that was all that mattered. She didn’t care that she was disturbing their day either. She wanted some answers, some sign that Shaun had just walked off into the fog-laden London sunset and had forgotten to tell her. She didn’t dwell on the fact that she didn’t like being discarded.

  It’s me who does that, not the other way around.

  A woman from the ground-floor flat popped her head out of her door and frowned. It was clear in her expression: Who the fuck are you? plus a touch of fear there, perhaps, or it could be Ada’s imagination.

  Ada beckoned for her to open the main door.

  The woman padded over and did so, standing in the gap, a protector of the foyer: You have to get past me first if you want to come in here.

  Ada wasn’t in the mood to play games. “I’m here to see if Shaun’s come back.”

  The resident jolted, her eyes going wide momentarily. “Um, I haven’t seen him for ages. Are you a copper?”

  “No, I’m his boss.” And lover, although we won’t go into that. “I need to know whether he’s going to be coming back to work.” That excuse would have to do.

  “I wouldn’t know. I don’t speak to t
he people who live here.”

  “Do you know if anyone else has a key to his flat?” Of course not, she’s just said she doesn’t know anyone.

  “No idea.”

  For the second time that day, a door closed in her face.

  Ada spun and stared across the street. A shadow flitted past some voile curtains, and she cursed nosy neighbours. But if this person is nosy, they may have seen Shaun coming home from mine the other night. And he had come home, his parked car was evidence of that.

  She strutted over the road and used the knocker on the door, thankfully a clean one. A skinny woman answered, black dye on her head, and on top of that, cling film. Why, oh why, didn’t people go to the salon?

  Because they can’t afford it.

  Okay, I forgot.

  “Oh, sorry to disturb you…” Ada smiled. “I’m wondering if you know anything about Shaun in the flats over there.”

  “I know a lot about Shaun.”

  The woman gave a creepy smile, her stubby teeth on show, the gums twice their length. It reminded Ada of a Border Collie’s mouth.

  “But only his comings and goings,” Dye Woman tacked on.

  That sounded sinister—didn’t it? “What…?”

  “I keep notes on all of them.” She smoothed an auburn eyebrow with a fingertip. Would she dye them to match her hair? “For my work. I’m an author.”

  “I see. Do you…look over the road a lot then?”

  She nodded. “He was always regular as clockwork, and on the nights he arrived home late, it was always about fourish—in the morning.”

  Yes, Ada kicked him out around then. “Did he…have any visitors?”

  “No.” She placed the eyebrow-smoothing finger on her lips. “They say he’s missing.”

  “Hmm. I’m his boss. Concerned he’s in need of help.”

  “I’d be concerned, too.”

  Ada’s stomach flipped over. “What do you mean by that?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Right. Well, if you don’t mind, can you let me know if he comes back?” She fished a card out of her pocket and handed it over. “Ring the mobile. I’ll be in Poland but can still use this phone.”

  “Okay.”

  Ada walked away, blocking Shaun’s number on her phone. She’d done something, at least, shown willing. Not much else she could do, really.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Julie had remained over the table in the yard for a while after Lime and Reynolds had left, the stale fag smoke still in her nostrils. They’d both used her, said she was suitable for male ‘consumption’, and discussed terms with Aaron—‘the usual’, apparently, so he must recruit girls often. How odd, though, that he’d played at being her boyfriend. Why not just get Lime to threaten her life in the first place and be done with it?

  Maybe Aaron got a perverse form of satisfaction in beating women down, erasing their fire and spirit, turning them into shells who’d do anything he wanted.

  “Get up,” he said.

  She didn’t want to, could just stay here forever, shutting out the soreness between her legs and the indignity of having been raped. They’d said, Lime and Reynolds, that it wasn’t rape, it was a job interview, and she hadn’t retorted that it was a job she didn’t want, one she’d never have applied for in a million years, but the words had been there, waiting, drying up along with their retreating footsteps.

  “I said, get up.”

  He hauled her off the table by grabbing the back of her coat, the neckline and part of the open zip pressing into her throat, and he spun her around to face him. He’d see her running mascara, the streaks of it on her cheeks, her wet eyelashes, but it had ceased to matter the moment Lime had put his hand in her knickers.

  “Now then, we’re going to your flat so you can get changed, then you can start your first shift. No time like the present, is there. On the way, though, we’ll stop on the corner, get you introduced to the other girls so they know you’re allowed on the patch. They can be a bit catty, getting the claws out if they think you’re an interloper.”

  An interloper. Someone who shouldn’t be there.

  He gripped her elbow and steered her down the side of The Flag, and her ankle turned, slowing her down. She contemplated nudging him off her and running, but a stronger desire kept her by his side, one that wouldn’t let go, something so fantastical, ridiculous, illegal, but right. They emerged onto the pavement, and it was as if she inhabited another world now, which ran parallel to the one she’d lived in prior to going into the yard. Everything was the same but incredibly different.

  She was different.

  She glanced into The Flag. Lime and Reynolds stood at the bar, laughing, glasses half-raised to their open mouths. Bastards.

  “It’s rude to stare,” Aaron said.

  He marched her to the corner, muttering about behaving herself, that he wouldn’t put up with any trouble, and all the while she told herself to play along, to do whatever he said. She’d gain his trust, biding her time until she could pay him back for this. Yes, it would mean having sex with strangers, but as she’d been poked from behind on that table, one thought had kept her going.

  I’ll kill Aaron for this.

  It had become her only focus, rubbing out the what-ifs, the queries that sprang up, the warnings from her rational side that you couldn’t just murder someone. The idea had sprouted a marathon runner’s legs, and she’d entertained thoughts of how she’d do it, how she could get away with it. Then she’d move away, to another part of London, and start again. Somewhere Lime and Reynolds wouldn’t find her. She’d abandon her career at the vet’s, do something else, so any poking around at surgeries on their part came up empty: No Julie works here, sorry.

  The redhead who’d winked at her that first night welcomed her into the fold, saying she’d keep an eye on her and teach her the ropes, and Julie imagined using a rope around Aaron’s neck and twisting it into a tourniquet. The woman was older, called herself Princess, and the others seemed to look up to her, seeing her as their leader.

  Julie would do the same. She’d play this sordid game until she won.

  Back at her flat, Aaron ordered her into the shower, and when she went into her bedroom, he’d laid some clothes out on top of her quilt. Tarty ones. He watched her get dressed. Stood over her while she dried her hair and put her makeup on—“Loads of it, and use that eyeliner shit to make you look more Chinese; men like Asians, something different…”—and swept her hair into a ponytail—“Because it gets in the way of blow jobs if you leave it down, that’s why, you dopey cow, and don’t ask me any more questions, just do what I say.”

  The walk to the corner rife with worries, insecurity funnelling through her, Julie listened to his stream of instructions, hate for him growing with every word. He left her with Princess, who also reeled off a long list, and Julie debated whether she should run, now, and go to the police.

  The urge to kill Aaron was stronger, though. While she knew it wasn’t normal for her to play along, a part of her wouldn’t allow him to be arrested if she told the police, only to walk free once he spouted a load of rubbish—that she was a liar and he didn’t know what the coppers were on about.

  She became a different person in that moment, standing there on the pavement, the old Julie disappearing, a new one being born.

  “You’ll be okay so long as you do what Lime wants,” Princess said. “Threaten to kill you, did he?”

  Julie nodded.

  “He will, you know.”

  “I know.”

  But not before she killed first.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Marla’s hair had turned out lovely bar the skin at her hairline sporting a dark-grey line of splodges where she’d forgotten to put Vaseline on to stop the dye spreading. It’d come off soon enough with hand sanitiser, or she could cover it with her short fringe—and she must remember to tint her eyebrows, too. It wasn’t like she planned to see anyone just yet, but they had to match her hair.

  Sh
e had her food shop delivered, a driver wouldn’t notice, and Mum and Dad were in Bali for two months—“You’ll be okay without us?” Mum had asked—so she didn’t even have to go there for Sunday dinners. They were indulging her with this house, letting her live here to see if she was capable. All her life, Marla had been looked upon as dim, ‘special’, someone who needed constant monitoring.

  She had made sure of it.

  It was a family friend, Dr Rushton, who’d stepped in and said she deserved the chance to prove herself. Dad had asked him round to do some kind of assessment on Marla, to deem her ‘not special’, and she’d passed the test. Mum hadn’t liked the diagnosis and said so loudly.

  “Pardon me for saying so, but Marla has lived a life of repression,” Dr Rushton had said, “where you think she’s daft and treat her accordingly, but in fact, she isn’t.”

  Mum had always mollycoddled Marla, allowing Aaron to go off and live his best life, while Marla remained in the family home, watched, everything she did monitored. All right, Marla had played up to that false version of herself in order to curry favour and be the child they loved the most, and it had been enough for a while. But once she had Julie to deal with, her aspirations had changed. If she found out what had happened to Aaron—what had really happened—her parents would adore her even more for bringing it to light.

  For now, she allowed them to pay the rent and the bills, and she used one of Dad’s credit cards to buy whatever she wanted, hence the Uggs. And maybe she’d become the author she said she was. She could write a book on Julie, true crime, and expose her to the world: WOMAN MURDERS BOYFRIEND IN FLAT ABOVE LAUNDRETTE.