The Victim

by Jane Bidder

  And that’s when I knew it was time to get out of this game. The trouble is that too many people know what I do. Sometimes you just can’t escape your past. So you have to do the next best thing.

  You have to embrace it.

  THIRTY-SIX

  The Royal Academy had always been one of Georgie’s favourite haunts. She’d discovered it soon after they’d returned from Hong Kong with two irritable teenagers in tow. London was a good place for day trips and – desperate for some European culture – she’d dragged a rebellious Nick and Ellie round several galleries and museums.

  But it was the RA, with its beautiful yet welcoming architecture, which always drew her. Was it coincidence that the anonymous caller knew that Georgie was familiar with it? Or was it just a convenient place to meet?

  As Georgie walked through the streets, trying not bump into people or be walked into by others, she tried to work things all out in her head.

  ‘Georgie Hamilton,’ the voice had said. The tone had suggested the caller knew her. ‘I’m ringing on behalf of a friend.’

  Who? A friend of hers as well as the caller? Or was it not a friend at all? An enemy. Someone who somehow knew enough about Georgie to have her work number.

  Someone who maybe, if her instinct was right, was connected with the threatening notes about Sam and the money.

  None of it made sense. Then again, hadn’t she been waiting for something like this to be happening for most of her adult life? You couldn’t live a lie – couldn’t steal someone else’s life – for as long as she had, without expecting it to catch up with you.

  In some ways, it was almost a relief. Or would it be?

  Where had she felt that mixture before? Back in Australia when Sam’s sudden proposal had shown her that, despite everything, she was still scared of being discovered. Instead, she wanted to be rescued. And that’s exactly what he had done.

  The wedding took place quietly, just as she had requested, at a small church in Hong Kong – shortly after their arrival there – followed by dinner at the Jockey Club.

  Sam and Rufus’ mother had flown out for the occasion. She was a widow – their father, Sam had explained soon after meeting, had been much older and had died when the boys were still teenagers.

  ‘It’s one of the reasons I feel responsible for my brother,’ he’d added. She could understand that. Not for the first time in her life, did Georgie wish she had a brother or sister to give her support.

  ‘Such a shame your family couldn’t be here,’ Sam’s mother kept saying pointedly during the celebrations.

  Georgie, who didn’t care for Sam’s mother’s sharp features and condescendingly cold manner, was getting tired of saying the same thing. ‘I don’t have much of a family left any more and besides, my mother doesn’t like travelling.’

  ‘You must wish that your mother was here,’ Sam’s mother had persisted.

  ‘Not really.’ She waited until the attentive waiter had finished serving them. ‘We’re not particularly close since she married again.’

  Sam’s mother’s thin lips, which were perfectly coated with a pale pink creamy colour, pursed. ‘What a shame. I do dislike family arguments. I always feel that whatever one’s differences, one should put them aside where blood is concerned.’

  If Sam’s mother knew her family better, she might think otherwise.

  It was a relief when her new mother-in-law flew back home shortly after the ceremony, via Singapore where she was staying with friends. She could just imagine the conversation there. ‘Poor, dear Sam, wasting himself on some girl who had neither breeding nor education. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if she was pregnant. In fact, I’m almost certain that she was showing …’

  Indeed, it had been difficult to hide that little bulge underneath the ivory dress she’d had made up – in only forty-eight hours! – by one of the clever seamstresses she’d found in the dressmaker section of Hong Kong. So much better than she could have done herself …

  Within a few months, she was as ‘big as a house’, as Rufus put it when he visited. ‘Fantastic!’ he beamed, patting her tummy without asking permission first. ‘I’ve always wanted to be an uncle. Can’t wait to see what fatherhood does to Sam. Really loosen him up with any luck.’

  Just as well her husband wasn’t in the apartment at the time. ‘Actually, he’s being really attentive,’ defended Georgie. ‘I can’t move anywhere without him asking if I’m all right.’

  ‘Exactly what I mean.’ Rufus helped himself to a glass of wine from the huge fridge which the maid stocked every day. ‘There’s a difference between loosening up and being a control freak, you know.’

  Then his face got serious. ‘Seriously, Georgie. I do worry for you. Sam’s a good chap. Too good. He expects perfection; not just in himself but in others too.’ He rolled his eyes and the joker Rufus returned. ‘It can be very wearing.’

  Georgie shivered. She was already learning this herself. Sam got upset if the maid put something in the wrong place or – as happened the other day – placed a coffee cup on a book cover, leaving a stain.

  What on earth would he say if he knew about her past? Thankfully, she hadn’t seen any more headlines about Joly and the others. Maybe it would die down in the press. But it could never die down in her heart. As she grew larger and larger, so did her imagination. At night, she would wake screaming with terror at a nightmarish picture of Joly in a filthy Bangkok prison with cockroaches crawling up his legs …

  ‘Shh,’ Sam would say soothing her. ‘I’ve told you. Don’t eat strong cheese. It’s renowned for nightmares. What were you dreaming about anyway?’

  ‘I can’t remember,’ she’d lie. But Joly’s face continued to haunt her. Sometimes it was Vanda’s too, and Jonathan’s. She hadn’t liked them but that didn’t mean she couldn’t feel pity for them. If she hadn’t left them to it, she would have been there too.

  ‘Be grateful,’ she told herself firmly. Put it all behind you. Maybe it was time to put Georgie behind her too, as well. A new baby. A new life.

  The shell, warm in her hand, seemed to agree.

  She was here now. Georgie walked across the beautiful courtyard of the Royal Academy as she had done so many times before. But this time was different. Which of these people she was passing was the one who had called her?

  Was it the man with the walking stick by the fountain who had given her a sharp glance?

  Or the boy in the orange anorak who was sitting on one of the outside café chairs, staring at the ground?

  ‘Be outside,’ the voice had instructed.

  But had he meant by the doors or in the café area?

  Unsure, Georgie ordered herself a latte and took a seat. Her mouth was dry and her chest felt tight with apprehension. Maybe she should have told the girl in the office that she was meeting someone here. It might have been sensible. Just in case …

  ‘Georgie!’

  She jumped as a tall, slim, confident woman slid into the seat opposite her. For a minute Georgie couldn’t place her. The Hon. Mrs David R-R belonged to a different part of her life. It threw her. Made her babble with nerves and stammer slightly.

  ‘What a coincidence! Look, I’m sorry I haven’t been in touch about the house. I hope it’s going all right. I had to come to London unexpectedly for a few weeks and …’

  ‘It’s not.’

  She stopped. ‘I’m sorry?’

  ‘It’s not all right and it’s not a coincidence.’

  Mrs R-R’s eyes hardened. At the same time, a cold tendril of fear wrapped itself round Georgie’s heart. ‘What do you mean?’

  Without speaking, she undid her purse and placed a small piece of paper in front of her. It was a receipt. A bank receipt, showing that a large sum of money had been paid into an account. Sam’s account.

  ‘He won’t be able to trace it,’ she said, showing a neat row of pearly teeth in a small smile. ‘We’re good about that kind of thing. But it’s there all right.’

  Georgie cou
ld only stare. ‘You? It was you? But why … how?’

  There was a shake of the head. ‘You still don’t recognise me, do you, Georgie?’

  Recognise her? From where?

  ‘We met before we were “introduced” in Devon. But then again, the surgeon did a good job.’ Her face hardened. ‘He had to after what I went through in prison. Thai prisons aren’t like British ones, you know.’

  Georgie’s heart began to race. ‘I don’t understand …’

  ‘Oh, but I think you do.’ There was another click of the handbag opening. This time it was a small black and white photograph that was being pushed across the table. A group of youngsters grinned back at her. Joly. Vanda. Jonathan. Georgina. And herself.

  ‘We all looked rather different then, didn’t we, Georgie? After the guards slashed my face and I was finally released, my parents paid for plastic surgery. I used the opportunity to get my nose fixed. Never cared for it.’

  Another small smile. ‘Rather thin, if you remember. Unfortunately they couldn’t do much with my ankles. “Lumpy”, I think, was the term you and Georgina referred to them when you hadn’t thought I was listening.’

  Vanda? The Hon. Mrs David R-R was Vanda? No wonder she hadn’t allowed her to use her first name. Georgie could hardly find the breath to breathe. ‘How … I don’t understand …’

  Mrs R-R sat back, a satisfied expression creeping over her face. ‘At first it really was a coincidence. Your husband mentioned to mine that his wife was an interior designer. He knew I needed help.’ Another smile. ‘Statistics are more my forte than art, although I appreciate the latter. Then when you arrived, I recognised you immediately.’ The smile went. ‘You always did have an incredible similarity to poor Georgina.’

  A lump rose into her throat. ‘I often think about her –’

  ‘Don’t.’ The face grew fierce. ‘You murdered her.’

  ‘I didn’t –’

  Ignoring her, Vanda went on. ‘You ran away, leaving us to carry the can, and then you ratted on us about the drugs –’

  ‘That’s not true –’

  ‘You told the police about where we kept it.’

  ‘No.’ Her voice came out choked, attracting the attention of a well-dressed couple at a neighbouring table who eyed them curiously. ‘I wouldn’t do that.’

  The face that met hers was steely. ‘How else would they have known? Joly was always so careful.’

  ‘Is this why you are punishing me?’

  ‘What do you think?’

  ‘But how did you do it … the car … my car that disappeared and my handbag …’

  Another satisfied grin. ‘That was nothing to do with me. All I did was recognise you – especially when you showed such interest in the Thai paintings – and then I told my husband. Sam had already told him about living in the east. So we made investigations. Somehow you had to be made to pay. It wasn’t difficult to get access to your husband’s account – it was clear he had no idea of your past from the glowing way he talked about you.’

  She snorted. ‘You might look like Georgina but you’re nothing like her in spirit. She wouldn’t have harmed a fly.’

  ‘I’ve told you,’ whispered Georgia through gritted teeth. ‘I didn’t kill her. It was a boy. A boy who ran away after he tried to hurt me.’

  Vanda snorted. ‘Tell that one in court.’

  Georgie’s head was still reeling. ‘I still don’t see how you got into Sam’s account.’

  A pigeon flew overhead. As it did so, a passing Japanese tourist let out a little startled cry. For a second their conversation was interrupted, teasing out the reply.

  ‘Because they work together. You still don’t get it, do you? Jonathan is my husband. We got married soon after we were released.’

  ‘But he’s called David …’

  ‘That’s his real name. The one he was christened with. The one on his paperwork which your husband would have been familiar with. All his friends call him Jonathan – one of his middle names.’

  Someone tried to squeeze past her chair. Automatically, Georgie put out her hand to check her bag was safe while trying to take all this in. The fear of being robbed was always with her thanks to the stolen car. But this was different. This was a different kind of theft.

  Jonathan was David Romer-Riches? It struck her that she hadn’t even known Jonathan’s surname when they were all together. That sort of thing hadn’t seem that important.

  ‘So,’ she murmured disbelievingly, ‘you planned this as a revenge.’

  Vanda’s face darkened. ‘Why should you have it all when you murdered Georgina and then dropped us in it? After what they did to me…’ Her voice dropped. ‘After what they did to me, I couldn’t have children.’

  Georgie gasped. ‘I’m so sorry.’

  She laughed shortly. ‘I had mental issues too.’

  I know about mental illness. Wasn’t that what Vanda had said when they’d met in her house? Hadn’t they all? Wasn’t that one reason why she, Georgie, didn’t drink any more? If she and Joly hadn’t had so much wine, they might not have got together and then Georgina wouldn’t have died …

  She’d sworn after that not to touch a drop again.

  ‘I know what you mean,’ she said slowly.

  ‘Then you accept responsibility, do you?’

  ‘No. No! It wasn’t me who murdered her –’

  ‘I don’t care if you’re lying or not. Because the fact remains that you left us and stole Georgina’s identity. Now you know what it’s like to have yours taken too.’

  ‘So you were responsible for my credit card and the YouTube video and –’

  There was an impatient wave. ‘I told you. Nothing to do with me, although I did take a certain pleasure in the gossip about that. Just as I am taking a pleasure in the fact that your husband now knows the truth about your past.’

  ‘He’s told you about my letter to him?’

  ‘He told Rufus.’

  Rufus? Rufus who had stayed in Singapore and had, against the odds, done very well for himself?

  ‘They were at school together.’ Vanda smiled. ‘Ours is a small world, Georgie. We stick together. And we seek revenge together.’

  ‘But why take the money from Sam’s account?’

  There was a crocodile smile showing those rows of tidy, pearly teeth. ‘Because it threw you off the scent. You thought it was related to the other frauds. In fact, it was the handbag and card incident that gave us the idea. You’d assume it was part of the whole complex web of deceit. If I’d just told you to tell your husband about the past, you might not have done it. But we put him in a vulnerable position and made you capable of being his saviour.’

  The crocodile smile faded. ‘This time you’ve dug your own grave. Just as the local undertaker had to dig poor Georgina’s.’

  She got up. ‘My job is done. Good luck with the future. Maybe you’ll make it up with your husband. But from what Rufus has told me, it’s unlikely. Goodbye.’

  ‘But wait.’ There was something else they hadn’t talked about. Someone else.

  ‘What about Joly?’ she gasped, catching up with her by the fountain.

  Vanda’s eyes gleamed. ‘You always did have a thing for him, didn’t you? I wonder what your husband would make of that.’

  Then, throwing Georgie a nasty look, she marched off, disappearing into the crowds.

  THIRTY-SEVEN

  I was Inside with a bloke who got promised a new face. ‘Before they let me out,’ he told, excitedly, ‘they’re going to make me different. Then no one can get me.’

  Made me feel sick, I can tell you. We all knew what he’d done. I don’t usually agree with capital punishment but I would for this bloke.

  The irony is that a week before he was having his face changed, someone else did it for him.

  After that, he didn’t need any more help.

  Boiling water and sugar is highly effective on the skin.

  Do I need to say more?

  THIRTY-E
IGHT

  After Vanda left, Georgie wandered round the RA in a trance. The exhibition of pre-Raphaelites which would, at any other time, have taken up her attention, now faded into memories of the island, Vanda, Jonathan, Joly (always Joly), and poor Georgie.

  Then, rounding the corner, she came across a large painting of a bride by Singer Sargent. The subject wore a look which might be interpreted as either fearful or slightly arrogant at her lot. Judging from the plaque at the side, the woman had married a traditional wealthy member of the aristocracy. An outsider might say that she, Georgie Smith, had done the same.

  Sitting down on a bench seat, opposite the painting, Georgie allowed her mind to wander back to those early days of her marriage in Hong Kong.

  Pregnancy suited Georgie. She didn’t have morning sickness or indigestion or sleeplessness. This appeared to disappoint the other women in the new ex-pat community in which Georgie found herself.

  What they didn’t know was that her internal turmoil more than compensated for the lack of usual pregnancy symptoms. As she grew bigger, Georgie became more and more convinced that there would be a phone call or a knock on the door or an official letter, summoning her to justice.

  Every time she opened the little postal box at the bottom of their building, her heart raced. But there was never anything for her.

  ‘Don’t you and your mother write to each other?’ enquired Sam at the beginning.

  She had shaken her head. ‘Mum’s not a great correspondent.’

  He’d raised his eyebrows, clearly disappointed that her family wasn’t the same as his. His own mother wrote once a week in perfectly-scripted handwriting, on Basildon Bond notepaper with the family address embossed on it. What would he say if he knew that her mother didn’t know where she was?

  Not that it really mattered. Mum had lost any right to filial love years ago – a fact undeniably demonstrated when she’d refused to ‘bother’ the doctor and consequently put her daughter’s life in danger. She still found it hard to forgive her for that. But Georgie’s heart did ache for Lyndsey. If she was able to write to her friend, without telling her where she was and blowing her cover, she’d have described this incredible city with the silent men and women who did tai chi in the park; the tailors who ran you up a dress in a day at a fraction of the prices at home; the muggy atmosphere; the rooftop pool in their apartment block; the parties; the boat trips; and the fortune teller she had taken herself to one day on the Star ferry.