The One You Trust: Emma Holden Trilogy: Book Three

by Paul Pilkington

  ‘Because we wouldn’t be able to afford it,’ Lizzy replied. ‘It’s unlikely we could ever find that amount of money.’

  ‘In which case, the person could just tell the police anyway, and they’ve still got their fifty thousand pounds. Or they could leave us hanging, ready to come back in a few years, when we’re likely to have more money. They’ve got the information, the power, and they’ll use it to their full advantage.’

  Emma sat back and stared at the ceiling. ‘So there’s no hope.’

  ‘Which is why I have to take away the power they have,’ Will said, ‘and go to the police myself.’

  For the next half an hour, still sitting on the sofa with Miranda tucked in beside him, Edward Holden considered his next move.

  Then he spent another couple of minutes rehearsing his lines.

  ‘Damn,’ he eventually said. ‘The papers for Clive Munroe – I forgot to drop them off this afternoon.’

  Miranda raised her head. She’d been dozing. ‘Is that a problem?’

  ‘It is. Clive needs them early tomorrow morning for an important meeting.’

  ‘Can’t you drop them off early tomorrow then?’

  ‘The meeting is in Sheffield, and he’s leaving really early.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘Exactly,’ Edward said, standing up from the sofa. ‘I’ll have to drive over now, there’s no other option.’

  Miranda nodded. ‘Your clients come first.’

  Edward didn’t know whether that was an accusation or not. ‘Well, I wouldn’t say that, but . . .’

  Miranda pulled herself upright. ‘Oh, I didn’t mean it badly. I just mean that you can’t afford to let them down. We know what it’s like when clients start to drop off, how fragile it all is. We don’t want to go back there, do we?’

  ‘Yes, you’re right, we certainly don’t.’ Edward smiled briefly at Miranda, appreciating her understanding. Even if it was misplaced. He shifted uneasily. ‘Especially not now we’ve just bought the rental property.’

  They’d recently purchased a small buy-to-let house in Croydon, south London. It was an investment that Edward had pushed for. The dwelling was a repossession, so they’d got it for a good price.

  ‘Any idea how long you’ll be?’

  ‘No longer than half an hour. Maybe forty-five minutes if we get talking.’

  Miranda nodded. ‘I’ll go and have a bath. Then do some reading in bed. I’ll probably be asleep by the time you get back. I’m so tired recently.’

  Edward smiled and kissed her goodbye. She was so beautiful, so trusting, and he didn’t like lying to her. ‘I’ll be as quick as I can.’

  Edward headed over to Will’s flat, knowing that his son had said he was going to visit Emma that evening. Edward had cautioned him against telling her about the blackmail, but he doubted whether Will would heed that warning. He wasn’t very good at keeping things to himself.

  That had been the problem from the beginning.

  ‘If only you hadn’t told me about all this,’ he said to himself now, as he clasped the steering wheel and looked across the road at Will’s place. ‘You could have dealt with all this yourself.’

  Will had told his father how he had helped to dispose of Stephen Myers’ body just a few weeks after it had happened. He had been desperate to tell someone, but Edward had never been sure what Will wanted from him: reassurance that he wasn’t a bad person; comforting words that the police would never find out what had really happened; or maybe someone who would convince him that the best course of action was to come clean? If it was the latter, then Will had been disappointed; there was no way Edward was going to allow his son to go to jail.

  Edward got out of his car and headed over the road to Will’s flat.

  He rang the doorbell, just in case Will had changed his plans. No answer. He knocked. ‘William, are you in there?’ Still no answer, and no signs of movement from inside.

  So he used the spare key that Will had left him in case of emergencies, and entered the flat.

  He knew what he was looking for. William had an old-style address book – a habit that he had inherited from his mother. It didn’t take long to find it. And there was the name, address and telephone number he had been looking for.

  ‘Perfect.’

  He copied down the details and replaced the address book in the drawer where he had found it.

  Chapter 18

  It was a quarter past nine, and Emma, Dan, Lizzy and Will were still discussing the blackmail. ‘There must be another way,’ Lizzy said. ‘We’ve got two weeks, right? Two weeks to find another solution, which doesn’t involve paying them, or you going to jail, Will.’

  ‘I can’t see what other option there is,’ Will said. ‘I appreciate what you’re saying, and I’m really grateful to you all, but I’ve been preparing for this. I’ve always thought I was on borrowed time.’

  ‘I don’t like you talking like that, Will,’ Emma said. ‘It makes me feel so sad. You’re not a criminal. Stuart lied to you, and you made a stupid mistake, but what good would it do to anyone if you went to jail?’

  ‘Lizzy’s right,’ Dan said. ‘There must be another way. Or at least we must have hope that there is. And, as you said, Lizzy, we still have two weeks to come up with something.’

  Will didn’t look convinced. ‘Like what?’

  ‘The first thing,’ Dan said, ‘is that we need to find out who these people are, so we know who we’re dealing with. Who might be doing this?’

  ‘Well, it sounds obvious, but someone who knows what I did,’ Will said.

  ‘And who knows?’

  ‘All of us. Then there’s Dad. And Peter Myers. That’s it. There’s no one else.’

  ‘But there must be,’ Dan said. ‘They’re just the people you know about. What if other people found out?’

  ‘Maybe, yes,’ Will acknowledged. ‘But it wouldn’t have come from any of us, would it?’ He looked at the other three, who nodded their agreement.

  ‘None of us would breathe a word,’ Lizzy added.

  ‘What about your dad?’ Dan asked. ‘Do you think he’s told anyone?’

  ‘No, no way,’ Will said.

  ‘Not even Miranda?’

  ‘No way,’ Will repeated. ‘Dad wouldn’t say anything because it looks bad on him that we didn’t tell the police. He would be too scared that if he told someone else, the truth would come out.’

  ‘I don’t think Dad would have told anyone,’ Emma agreed.

  Dan seemed satisfied. ‘Then that leaves two other people.’

  ‘Two?’ Emma said. ‘Peter Myers and—?’

  ‘Stuart Harris,’ he stated.

  ‘Of course,’ Lizzy said. ‘Stuart may have told other people before he died.’

  Dan nodded. ‘Or left evidence that someone found after his death.’

  And then Emma realised. ‘I see what you’re getting at. The person who had access to the photograph of you and Stuart could also have been told what Will did, by Stuart.’

  ‘Exactly,’ Dan said. ‘If we assume that the person who sent the photograph is also the person who is doing the blackmailing, then it narrows down our list of suspects, potentially.’

  ‘I don’t understand,’ Will said. ‘What photograph?’

  Dan had forgotten that Will didn’t know anything about what had been going on. He glanced across to Emma, who nodded at him to explain. ‘Someone has been sending letters to Lizzy, including a photograph showing me with Stuart Harris. It was taken a few years ago, before Emma and I first met.’

  Lizzy, open-mouthed, looked across at Emma, who hadn’t had a chance to tell her that Dan had confirmed the photograph was genuine.

  Emma smiled reassuringly. ‘It’s okay, we’ve discussed it and it’s fine.’

  ‘The person, whoever they are, is trying to cause trouble,’ Dan said. ‘They’re trying to wreck things.’

  ‘But we’re not going to let them,’ Emma continued. ‘We have to stick together.’

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p; Will looked troubled. ‘You didn’t tell me this was going on.’

  ‘I was going to tell you,’ Emma said. ‘This week.’

  ‘So do you have any idea who this person is?’ Will said.

  ‘Yes,’ Dan replied. ‘Sally Thompson. Or Amy, as you knew her.’

  Will sat back abruptly in his chair and shook his head. ‘I don’t think it would be Sally.’

  ‘Why?’ Lizzy said. ‘She lived with Stuart, so she would have had access to the photograph, plus it’s possible that Stuart told her about what he had done – including your role in it.’

  ‘I don’t think so,’ Will said again. ‘I don’t think she knows anything about what Stuart did to Stephen Myers.’

  Dan was unconvinced. ‘We don’t know that.’

  Will was thinking. ‘What about Peter Myers? He could have told someone else, maybe someone he met in jail, or someone on the outside.’

  ‘But that doesn’t explain how the person got hold of the photograph,’ Dan said. ‘Peter Myers wouldn’t have had access to that, unless he knew Stuart.’

  Will turned to his sister. ‘What do you think, Em?’

  ‘I don’t know if Sally’s behind all this. But it would make sense, after what she did last time.’

  Will seemed deflated by Emma’s response.

  ‘Why don’t you think it’s Sally?’ Lizzy asked him.

  ‘I just don’t,’ he said. ‘The person who called Dad was a man.’

  ‘But Sally worked alongside a man last time,’ Dan said. ‘She could just be doing the same now.’

  ‘Maybe,’ Will said. And suddenly he was thinking about the ginger-haired man whom he had seen talking to Sally in the park. Could she be doing this? Could he have been deceived, for a second time? Have I been taken for a complete fool?

  Emma noticed his consternation. ‘What are you thinking, Will?’

  He breathed out. ‘I don’t quite know how to say this. You’ll probably think I’m an idiot.’

  ‘We won’t think that,’ Emma reassured.

  ‘You haven’t heard what I’ve done yet.’ He took a breath. ‘I’ve, um, been seeing Sally.’

  Everyone in the room was stunned into silence.

  ‘Seeing . . . as in, dating?’ Emma said.

  ‘Well, yes, no – I mean, not dating, but meeting up.’

  Emma watched her brother struggling for an explanation. She felt sorry for him, as he looked very uncomfortable, but she genuinely couldn’t understand what she had just heard. ‘I don’t understand, Will. Why would you meet up with Sally?’

  He closed his eyes. ‘Because I still love her.’

  Emma just wanted to hold him. ‘Oh, Will . . .’

  ‘I know I’m an idiot,’ Will said. ‘And I know it probably makes absolutely no sense to you all, after what happened, that I’d get in touch with Sally. But I just had to see her, and find out what she had to say, and how she felt about me.’

  ‘And what did she say?’ Emma said.

  ‘She said she was really sorry for what she did; that she was ashamed of herself. She said how she’d been in a terrible depression since Stuart’s death, and that she hadn’t been herself. And I believed her.’

  ‘Did you tell her how you feel about her?’

  ‘Yes.’ Will swallowed. ‘I didn’t really mean to, but it just sort of came out as we were talking. I suppose I couldn’t help myself.’

  ‘So what did she say about that?’

  ‘Well, she didn’t say that she felt the same way,’ he said, with some regret. ‘But I think she does want us to be friends.’ Will noted Dan and Lizzy’s continued silence. ‘You both think I’m crazy, don’t you?’

  ‘Actually, yes, I do,’ Lizzy replied. ‘But I also think you’re very sweet, and a romantic. If that’s how you feel about her, then I can understand you doing what you did. I wish there was someone I loved that much, to do something so crazy.’

  Will looked at Dan. ‘How about you?’

  ‘You’re definitely crazy,’ Dan said. ‘But I know how I feel about Em, and if you feel the same way about Sally, then I can totally understand. Even though it does sound like madness that you would want anything more to do with the woman who had planned to send you plummeting into the ground without a parachute.’

  Will nodded, sadly. ‘But now you think that she’s behind the blackmail, and the letters. And you’re probably right. In which case, she’s playing games with me again, making a fool out of me.’

  ‘I’m so sorry, Will,’ Emma said. ‘She might not be doing this, but she is the obvious choice.’

  ‘So what now?’ Will said, looking at each of the three in turn. He seemed drained of emotional energy, and looked completely defeated. ‘You’re going to tell the police about your suspicions of Sally?’

  ‘Did you call them today?’ Emma directed her question at Lizzy.

  ‘No,’ she replied. ‘I was going to, after I got back from work, but I decided to wait until we’d had the chance to talk about it all a bit more.’ She shrugged. ‘I don’t know why I didn’t call them. But you know how much I dislike dealing with the police. I should probably call them first thing tomorrow – unless we just call them now?’ She looked across to Emma for a response.

  ‘Maybe it’s not such a good idea at the moment,’ Dan said, before Emma had a chance to reply.

  ‘How do you mean?’ she said.

  ‘Well, if Sally is the blackmailer, and she knows about what Will did, then maybe it’s not a good idea to go to the police right now. We might need to think about things more carefully before taking that step.’

  ‘Why?’ Lizzy said. ‘Because the truth might come out?’

  ‘Maybe,’ Dan replied. ‘She might decide to just tell the police if she thinks we’re on to her. If she’s still feeling low and that maybe she has nothing to lose, then she might take Will down with her.’

  ‘If it is Sally,’ Will added.

  Dan nodded. ‘Yes, of course, if it is her. But do you really want to take that chance – antagonising her, and risking everything?’

  ‘No, I guess not,’ Lizzy said.

  ‘Then what do we do?’ Emma said. ‘Nothing?’

  ‘No, not nothing,’ Dan said.

  ‘Go on, then,’ ‘What do you think we should do?’

  Lizzy was interested. ‘Well, as I said, I don’t think we should do anything to rock the boat. But we’ve got two weeks to decide what to do. And, Will, I think you could really help.’

  Will looked hopeful. ‘How?’

  ‘Well, you’re the only one of us who can get close to Sally without her becoming suspicious.’

  ‘I don’t like the sound of this.’

  ‘It’s okay,’ Dan said. ‘I don’t think you should do any more than you’ve been doing.’

  ‘I’m not sure I understand what you mean.’

  ‘I mean, just keep seeing Sally, meeting her, talking to her. She might reveal something, let her guard down.’

  Will sighed. ‘I did see something,’ he said, reluctantly. ‘I saw Sally talking to a man. I was watching from a distance, so I don’t know what it was about. It might have been nothing, but I guess it may have been linked to this.’

  ‘You didn’t recognise him?’ Emma asked. ‘It wasn’t Scott Goulding?’

  ‘No, it definitely wasn’t him. This guy had ginger hair, and he was taller and broader shouldered than Scott Goulding. But I don’t know who it was. I didn’t ask her about it, of course.’

  ‘And would you be okay,’ Emma asked, concerned, ‘seeing Sally, with the possibility that she’s lying to you?’

  ‘Yes,’ he replied, ‘because I’m still not convinced, and I want to give her a chance to prove us wrong. I don’t want to assume the worst.’

  ‘You just need to keep your eyes and mind open,’ Dan cautioned.

  Will nodded.

  ‘And what about you, Lizzy?’ Emma said. ‘Are you okay not going to the police yet? After all, you’re the one this person has been targeting the mo
st.’

  ‘I’m okay with that,’ Lizzy said, nodding. ‘I don’t really feel that threatened by what’s happened so far. If I’d been bothered, then I would have gone to the police straight away, wouldn’t I? Maybe I’ve just become accustomed to this kind of thing, after everything that’s happened.’ She rolled her eyes dramatically, attempting to lighten the mood. ‘And, to be honest, compared to what happened with Peter Myers, it’s just irritating. How do you feel, Em?’

  ‘I’ve got to admit, I feel uncomfortable about it all. But if you’re all okay with it, then I’m okay. On one condition.’

  Dan raised an eyebrow. ‘And that is?’

  ‘If this person gets any more threatening, then we go to the police straight away.’

  They all agreed.

  They opened a bottle of wine and tried to talk about other things. And, despite the near-impossibility of the task, the atmosphere improved significantly, with talk of the honeymoon in Mauritius, and the latest celebrity gossip. Even Will seemed to forget his problems, laughing and joking along with the others.

  It had just turned ten o’clock when the friends were quietened by the landline’s shrill ring.

  Emma’s reaction was the same as that of the others: unexpected phone calls at that time of night were instinctively unsettling. She answered, praying that it wasn’t bad news.

  ‘Hello?’

  ‘Hello, is that Emma Holden?’

  The voice was familiar. ‘Yes, it is.’

  ‘Good. Hi, Emma, it’s Detective Inspector Mark Gasnier. I’m very sorry to call you at such a late hour, but I’d like to come over and see you now, if that’s okay. You’re living at the same address?’

  ‘Er, yes, that’s fine. What’s happened?’

  ‘I’d really like to speak to you in person.’

  Emma looked over to the others. They were all radiating anxiety. ‘Okay, that’s fine.’

  ‘Excellent. I’ll be there in ten minutes. I’m not far away.’

  Emma replaced the receiver. She had been unnerved before picking up the phone, but she felt sick now. ‘That was Mark Gasnier. He’s coming over here right now. I don’t think it’s good news.’