The door was closed. Emily went to open it, but Helen stopped her.
“Don’t touch anything.”
Emily pulled the sleeve of her jacket over her hand, then pushed down on the door handle. The door was surprisingly heavy, and she had to lean into it with her shoulder. Then, as she caught sight of the reflection in the bathroom mirror, she saw why.
Evan Holt was hanging from the back of the door, the cord of a dressing gown tied to the coat hook and digging into his neck. And he was naked. Emily staggered into the bathroom. Helen followed.
“Jesus Christ!” Helen stumbled backwards and almost fell into the bathtub.
Emily’s legs turned to marshmallow. A throbbing ache began at the top of her skull and quickly consumed her entire body.
Evan Holt was dead. And he was naked. Pornographic magazines lay open on the floor. Emily felt a strange rush of embarrassment. But it only lasted for a few seconds. Then, horror invaded every cell of her being.
She had a sudden urge to move away from him, but she was paralysed. They had done this to him. The realisation made her head spin, made her want to climb into the bathtub and rock herself quietly into catatonia. Valence Industries had killed Evan Holt. She could never prove it. Just like Max Edwards and Jason Dobbs, Evan’s death appeared to have been caused by his own hand. Only this time, they’d added a touch of sleaze. Killing Evan Holt was not enough, it seemed. They wanted to destroy his reputation as well.
Helen was by her side, gently tugging on her arm. “We need to leave. Now.”
But Emily couldn’t move. This was all her fault. She should have been more careful with the diary.
“Emily, come on! We have to go!”
Taking one last look at Evan’s tortured face, Emily allowed herself to be pulled from the room. But then, as they passed Evan’s office, she dragged her heels. There was no computer, she noted. And now that she was looking closely, she noticed rectangular gaps on the walls, where parts of Evan’s research had been removed.
“Come on, Emily!”
Helen pulled her arm, this time with force.
They hurried out of Evan Holt’s flat, closing the door behind them. Emily pressed the call button, but somebody was already in the lift, moving upwards. They waited, watching each floor number light up on the panel. Ten. Eleven. Twelve. Thirteen. The lift bell dinged. Emily and Helen did not wait for the doors to open.
Throwing open the fire escape door, Helen pounded down the steps, with Emily close on her heels. By the time they’d reached the fifth floor, they were breathless and sweating. Somewhere above them, they heard the boom of a fire door slamming. They hurried on. Reaching the ground floor, they both peered into the foyer. Then, satisfied it was empty, they ran from the building.
The gang of boys was still gathered outside. As Emily and Helen hurtled past, they stopped their conversation and stared.
The women did not stop running until they reached Helen’s car. It took a moment for Helen to still her trembling hands enough to insert the key into the ignition.
“We have to call the police,” Emily said. She felt strangely numb.
“Just hold on for a second.”
“We can’t just leave him there.”
Helen shifted the gearstick into reverse, backed out of the parking bay, and spun the car around. Hands clamped to the wheel, she slammed her foot on the accelerator. The car shot out of the car park, hurtling its passengers down the street at breakneck speed.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Neither of them spoke until they’d cleared Elephant and Castle and joined the traffic of Borough High Street. Then Helen said, “I’ll call the police and say I’m a concerned tenant, that Evan’s place is being broken into.”
Emily stared at her. “Why would you do that? Helen, it’s too late. We have to tell the police what we’ve found out about Valence, about what they’ve done.”
“We don’t have a shred of proof. For all intents and purposes, Evan died choking himself while choking the chicken. You really think the police are going to take on a company as big as Valence Industries on the word of a hack journalist and a crazy woman? Because that’s how they’ll see us.”
She was right, of course. Valence had been clever in their disposal of the people who’d threatened them. Any evidence that Evan had acquired was now back in their hands.
Emily clutched her chest as anger burned her insides. Valence were going to go free. They would continue to poison millions of children, who would grow up into angry, violent, damaged adults. They would walk free from the murders of Max Edwards, Jason Dobbs, and now Evan Holt. Emily felt suddenly powerless. How long would it be before Valence Industries caught up with her and Helen?
“Where are we going?” She checked the wing mirror. The string of cars behind made it difficult to tell whether or not they were being followed.
Helen shook her head. “I don’t know.” Then, she said, “This isn’t over, Emily. We can’t just let it go, even if we wanted to.”
Emily wondered if she wanted to. Did she want to return to her life where she was running out of money, where bills needed to be paid, where she had no idea what she was doing?
As if on cue, Emily’s phone buzzed. She stared at the screen to see a text message from Carter.
“What do you suggest we do?” She was all out of ideas. Valence Industries had backed them into a corner. The only weapon Emily had against them was knowledge. But without proof, it was a weapon with a dull blade.
The car rolled onto London Bridge. Beneath them, the dark water of the Thames reflected myriads of city lights.
“We start again,” Helen said. “We know they’re selling TEL and where. So, we follow the trail just like Evan did, until we find out exactly what they’re hiding.”
“And we do that from the safety of where exactly? They know who we are. They know where we live. They’re not going to let this go.”
Emily was troubled by her own cynicism. She stared at her phone screen. Just last week, she was making a fool of herself over coffee with Carter. Now, she was giving serious thought to jumping on a train with a one-way ticket to the remotest corner of the country, where she could not be found.
With nothing more to say for now, Emily opened Carter’s text message. Under the right circumstances, she thought she might like to spend more time getting to know him. He was kind and caring, and he had tried to help her without demanding immediate answers. It was a shame then, that the right circumstances were unlikely to ever materialise. For now, she read his text message: Are you okay? You need to check your voicemail!
Helen had retreated into silence, her gaze pinned on the road in front. Lights reflected in her eyes like fires. Emily pressed the phone to her ear and listened to the voicemail Carter had left earlier that evening. Her hand shot out and gripped Helen’s arm.
Helen shook her off. “Are you trying to get us killed? Because, hello, doing a fine job of that without crashing the car.”
Emily hung up and immediately called Carter back.
“Can I come over?” she asked when he picked up. “Can I come over right now?”
Grabbing notebook and pen from her bag, she scribbled down Carter’s address. When she was done, she said, “I’ll be there as soon as I can. And Carter? Thank you!”
She hung up. Helen glanced at her.
“Who was that? What’s the matter with you?”
Despite the horrors of the last hour, despite the hopelessness she’d felt, Emily found herself smiling in the dark.
“We might not have to start from the beginning after all,” she breathed. “I think we’ve just found Anya Copeland.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Carter lived alone in a quiet, leafy neighbourhood in West Hampstead, in a two-bedroom ground floor flat, which he owned, with a garden he didn’t have to share with the upstairs neighbours. Emily and Helen had pulled up outside at around ten p.m. Helen had been relegated to waiting in the car. She had complained bitterly at fir
st, but Emily had explained that Carter knew nothing about Valence Industries, and only the barest of bones about her being hired by Diane Edwards. It was safer for him this way, she’d explained. Besides, Carter was already curious, and Helen’s presence would only lead to further questions. And there was also the fact that she was incapable of subtlety.
Now, Emily sat next to Carter at the breakfast bar in the kitchen, huddled over his laptop.
“I thought we’d had no luck with the shout out,” she said.
Carter nodded. “We didn’t. So I spoke to my manager and talked her into stepping things up.”
“You talked to Kelly? And she agreed?”
“She was a little suspicious at first because it wasn’t an officially reported case. But when she heard all about how Anya has a history of running away and how one whiff of the cops will send her bolting with her young child, she folded like a wilting flower. I’ve been posting Anya’s picture on our Facebook page and Twitter feed three times a day for the last few days. And voila! An upstanding member of the public got in touch to say she thinks she’s seen her.”
Carter looked immensely pleased with himself. His expression soon turned to one of concern.
“Is everything all right? You look, I don’t know ... stressed?”
Emily had momentarily drifted back to Evan Holt’s bathroom. She pushed grisly images from her head.
“It’s been a long day,” she said. “So, I’m impressed. Where is she?”
Carter stared at her with doubt in his curiously coloured eyes, then pointed at the laptop screen. “Southfields, near Wimbledon. The woman who got in touch is pretty convinced Anya Copeland is the lady she sees with her son in the park weekdays after school. The same lady whose son attacked her daughter one afternoon when he couldn’t wait for his turn on the swings. Took a chunk clean out of her, apparently. Anyway, she sent us this.”
He clicked the mouse and a photograph appeared on the screen. It had been taken from a slight distance and showed a grassy play area teeming with happy-looking children, who were clambering like ants over swings, slides, and see-saws. But the children were not the focus of the image. Two lonely figures stood at the edge of the play area: a mother and her young son; one holding onto the other as they watched the merriment.
“It’s not the best image, but...” Carter dragged a slider at the bottom of the screen and enlarged the picture. “What do you think? Is that her?”
Emily took out her phone and found the picture of Anya and Max taken at the Clean Water gala. She carefully compared one image to the other. The hair was different—longer, wavier—and she’d lost weight—but Emily was certain the woman in the park was indeed Anya Copeland.
For the first time in days, she felt a spark of hope.
“That’s her.” Smiling, she turned to Carter. Her hand flew to his shoulder. “Thank you. You don’t know how much this means to me.”
Carter grinned. “Glad to have atoned for my sins.”
Their knees bumped together. Then, Emily returned to the picture on the laptop screen. Josh. That was the son’s name. Even though he’d been snapped from a distance, Emily could still read his body language: tense shoulders; arms stiff by his sides; hands balled into fists. Josh Copeland was not a happy child.
“What’s the name of the park? There must be schools nearby.”
“Just a sec...” Their fingers grazed as Carter took the mouse from Emily’s hand. He quickly skimmed the message that the woman had sent.
“Highfield park. I don’t know the area, do you?”
Emily gestured to the computer. “Do you mind?”
Carter leaned back on the stool and stretched out his arms. “So this is all very cloak and dagger. Can you tell me what this is really about or will you have to kill me after?”
Emily said nothing. She entered the park’s name into Google Maps. A few seconds later, she was staring at a map of Southfields, the pointer hovering over Highfield park. There were several schools in the surrounding area.
“It’s complicated,” she said, which was not an explanation at all, but it was all she was prepared to offer. As grateful as she was for Carter’s help, and regardless of her confused feelings about him, what she didn’t need right now was another body to look out for.
“Of course, all will be revealed over coffee take two,” Carter said. He blushed a little. “I suppose I can wait until then...”
“It’ll be worth the wait,” Emily said. They were staring at each other again.
Carter’s lips parted into a wide smile. “I’ll hold you to that.”
Emily found herself staring at his mouth. Then her head filled with images of Evan Holt. She stood up, scraping the stool against the floor.
“Thanks again, for helping me to find Anya.”
Carter walked her to the door. As they said goodbye, he leaned in closer. Emily hesitated, then thanking him again, turned and made her way back to the car.
“So?”
Helen was still angry, but there was also fear in her eyes as they flicked from the rear view mirror, to the driver window, then back again. Emily felt guilty for leaving her out here alone. But then, as she was about to apologise, a terrible realisation struck her. Carter had called her this afternoon with news of Anya Copeland’s whereabouts. What if she’d answered his call, or listened to his voicemail earlier? Would their plans have changed? Would Evan Holt still be alive?
Overcome with nausea, Emily turned away and stared out of the window.
“Hello, anyone in there?” Helen was getting annoyed now. She started the engine. “Did you find her, or what? Where are we going next?”
Emily sat in stony silence. At last, she said, “Right now, we’re going to Daniel’s. Then tomorrow, you’re going to go to work, and I’m going to go and find Anya.”
Helen’s jaw swung open. “Like bloody hell I’m going to work tomorrow. I’m coming with you.”
“If you’re in hiding with your child, would you be more intimidated by one stranger showing up, or two?”
“Then I should go and you should stay here.”
Emily turned to face her. “I made a promise to Diane Edwards that I would find out what happened to her husband. Tomorrow, that’s what I’m going to do. Any evidence I find is all yours. I’m finished.”
She was shocked by her own words. This afternoon, she was ready to do whatever it took to bring ruin to Valence Industries. But Evan Holt was dead now, and she felt the burden of his murder like a weight around her neck.
“You’re kidding, right?” Helen said, the car engine still running. “You can’t back out, Emily. You think Jonathan Hunt is just going to leave you alone? He’s made it very clear this is personal now.”
“We should never have interviewed him.”
“So this is my fault? That’s what you’re saying?” Helen hit the steering wheel with the palm of her hand. Now, she was angry. “You think Evan would be happy to hear that you’re just giving up? Companies like Valence employ people like Jonathan Hunt because they know they’re willing to ignore ethics and morals to get what they want. And what they want is more money and more power. When people like us come along and try to expose their crimes, they’ll use that money and that power to make sure we disappear. It’s not going to stop at Evan. It didn’t stop at Max Edwards.” She paused, dropped her hands in her lap. “Please, Emily. Don’t think for a minute that if you give up now, they won’t come for you. You know about TEL. Tomorrow, if you find Anya Copeland, you could know a lot more. That makes you dangerous to Valence Industries whether you quit or not.”
Emily’s head throbbed. Her heart ached. She wanted nothing more than to sleep.
“Let’s just wait and see what tomorrow brings, shall we?” she said.
“Whatever it brings,” Helen said, pulling the car away from the kerb, “keep looking over your shoulder.”
***
Helen dropped Emily off at Daniel’s house a little after midnight, then announced she would
be spending the night elsewhere.
Emily urged her to stay. “It’s late. It’s not safe to be driving around alone.”
“Believe it or not, you’re not the only woman with a man slave.” She winked. Then, as she rolled up the window, she said, “I’ll be at the office all day. Call me as soon as you know anything.”
She left before Emily could protest any further.
Daniel had already gone to bed, but Jerome was waiting up with a glass of Jack Daniels. When he saw her grey, ashen face, he set down his glass and took her hand.
“Evan Holt is dead,” Emily said. “They killed him.”
Although she wanted nothing more than to lean on Jerome’s shoulder and let the tears come, she remained upright and dry-eyed. Guilt burned her insides like acid.
Jerome squeezed her hand. “What can I do?”
Emily squeezed back. “Exactly what you are doing—I want you to stay away.”
“Emily, I–”
“I mean it. You’ve been through enough.”
“And you haven’t?”
They both fell silent. Emily let go of Jerome’s hand and hugged her ribs.
“Tomorrow, this will all be over.”
She knew the words were a lie even before they left her mouth.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
Highfield park was filled with the screams and cries of children. Emily had been here for an hour, drifting back and forth, waiting for the school day to end. Now, she found a bench to sit on, and observed from a distance as children jostled for turns on the swings and slides, or dangled precariously from climbing frames, while nearby parents kept a watchful eye.
Emily felt conspicuous and out of place, aware of the adults who were casting occasional glances in her direction, no doubt wondering why there was a nervous-looking, childless woman sitting so close to the play area. Ignoring their stares, she pretended to read the book in her lap, while periodically glancing up to watch the children. Taken in by their excitement, her thoughts briefly turned to her teaching days. Sometimes, when her class had been particularly well-behaved, she’d rewarded them with afternoon trips out to the park, to the woods, or to the beach. As the children had laughed and played, she’d handed out the apples that her mother had picked from the trees in her garden. Emily missed those children. She missed her mother. She missed those happy days when everything was in order. But they were all gone now, only found in dreams and memories.
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