The Pact_A gripping psychological thriller with heart-stopping suspense

by S. E. Lynes

  ‘This morning, when I brought the phone in, did we check if there were any straightforward texts?’

  ‘There was one came in from Emily, but no, we didn’t, I didn’t.’ Bridget flipped her thumb over the screen. ‘Here,’ she said. ‘OT. That’ll be him. It says, See you in a bit. And there’s a love-heart emoji. Sent at 10.55 a.m. He must have sent it after she left the house. That’s why she hasn’t deleted it.’

  ‘She was deleting things too?’

  ‘Yes, I told you. Focus, Tones.’

  ‘But… surely,’ I said, ‘if we have his mobile number, can’t we just trace his phone?’

  Slowly, your auntie Bridget turned to face me, her eyes wide. She grabbed my face in both hands and kissed me on the nose.

  ‘You absolute beauty,’ she said. She leaned back, pushed her hand through her hair, making the spikes even spikier. ‘I’ve got all bogged down in the online stuff, and all the time, yes, yes, bloody obvious, all the time, if we know his number, which we do, we should be able to trace the bastard. I couldn’t see the bloody wood for the trees, Tones! I was thinking we could only trace Rosie’s phone through mine, but she’d left it here so I thought that was a non-starter… but she’s got the Find My Friends app, hasn’t she, so instead of finding her, I should be able to find him! In seconds!’

  ‘Really?’ I couldn’t believe it, couldn’t believe it was me – of all people – who had found the solution.

  But your auntie Bridget’s eyes closed a little; lost their shine. Her shoulders sagged.

  ‘But there’s no way he’d disclose his own location, would he?’

  ‘What d’you mean?’ My chest tightened once again. Hope, so alive a moment ago, died.

  ‘I don’t have you on Find My Friends because you’re still chiselling epistles into a stone tablet, but I have Helen and Rosie so I can find them whenever. Or find their phones. But I can only do that because we all agree to it, unless…’ She tapped her fingernail against her teeth.

  ‘Unless what?’

  ‘Well, unless in the grooming process…’ She winced. ‘Sorry. Unless he gave his location as a way of persuading her to share hers, as a way of tracking her at all times. It’s all about trust, about getting them to think… If they get access to their location at all times, there’s nothing anyone can do. Stopping her going for a coffee or whatever wouldn’t work – you’d have to keep her prisoner, and even then you could never leave the house yourself. She would be a living target.’

  Your auntie moved her thumb over your phone screen, her lips pressed tight together. ‘But then he would’ve had to leave his location on, and surely he would’ve switched it off once he had hers. Unless…’

  Despair rose within me. I didn’t dare speak. I could only hope, focus on the fantasy of that hope and how, if it was strong enough, you would be delivered to me. And if you were safe, everything would change. I would be different. I would be better. Everything that was broken could be mended. We would never argue again.

  It was a matter of seconds before Bridget jumped out of her chair, eyes glittering like a crazy person with a knife, and said, ‘I’ve got him!’

  Forty-Nine

  Rosie

  When we get to the junction, Emily says:

  Oh blow me.

  Which makes me want to laugh because hello? Rude! Emily calls cats pussies too, which I told Naomi and we absolutely wet ourselves.

  What’s the matter?

  I’m such a scatterbrain, she says. That’s what’s the matter, my dear. I’ve left your audition notes at home. I can see them – they’re on the sideboard in the parlour. I was so busy with the tape measure… drat! Dash and drat and double drat.

  We could go and get them, I suggest.

  Are you sure? Do you mind making a little detour? I’m just the other side of Richmond.

  Not at all. Mum’s not expecting me back till later. I was supposed to be meeting… I was supposed to be meeting a friend, but they flaked.

  I want to come home to you, Mum. I want to say I’m sorry and have a hug. But I don’t want to put Emily out of her way, and I don’t want to get out and walk. I’m way too scared. I’m still trembling, even though Emily has made me laugh, calling the man silly names as we drove along.

  It won’t take long, she says. I may as well pop back and get them, eh?

  What if the man follows us? I think. What if he has a car right there, or jumps in a cab and says, Follow that red Mini? No, that’s mad. All that’s happened is that some perv was hassling me. That’s all Emily needs to know. That’s all this is anyway. He fooled me by being friends with my friends, but it’s easy to get friends; loads of people don’t check, they just press accept, accept, accept. I’ve been a total dork. But I’ve got myself out of it, and I’ve learned my lesson. I can delete Ollie’s profile, whoever he is. I will never ever accept a request from someone I haven’t actually met again. What’s the point in telling you what’s happened? That’s what I’m thinking now. There’s literally no point making you worry more than ever, you’re bad enough as it is. And if I call you from Emily’s phone I’ll end up having to explain everything, and if I do that, you’ll never let me out of the house again. I need time to think. You don’t know what’s happened and I’m not going to be late coming home, so you won’t be worried, not now, not yet. If I go with Emily, I’ll have more time to calm down, get my story straight.

  Emily is saying, What’s it to be, youngster? I can easily pop you back if you’d rather.

  No, let’s go to yours, I reply.

  Fifty

  Bridget

  Bridget pushes her arms into the sleeves of her leather jacket. ‘Wait here,’ she says to Toni. ‘He’s in Ham. I’ll be there in ten, fifteen minutes tops.’

  ‘But how do you know he’s there?’ Toni is crying.

  ‘He left his Friends app on. I can only think he must have thought he’d swiped it off, but it didn’t stay off. That happens sometimes on iPhones, but whatever, I’ve got him, I’ve fucking got him, and I’m going to get her right now.’

  ‘No,’ Toni wails, her face red and shining with tears. ‘We’re calling the police now, Bridge. Come on, it’s time.’

  ‘But I’ll be there before them, Tones. I’ll be halfway there by the time they’ve even picked up the phone. I’ll have her in my van before some dick in a uniform can find a fucking pen. She’s in fucking Ham, Tones – it’s ten minutes away.’

  Toni is shaking her head, sobbing. ‘No, Bridget.’

  Bridget crouches down in front of her sister and takes her hands. ‘I get it. I do. But just… just… Look, give me an hour, can you do that? One hour. If you don’t hear from me in an hour, we’ll call, OK?’

  They lock eyes. Both know what they see reflected there: themselves, the pact, and everything that has rested on it ever since. Even the fact that Bridget is here now, at her broken sister’s side, where she has been since that terrible summer’s day when all their lives were turned upside down.

  ‘One hour,’ she insists. ‘But I’ll be less.’

  Toni sniffs. ‘I’m coming with you.’

  Oh Christ.

  ‘No.’ Bridget stands, grabs the keys for the van from the hook by the door. ‘Think. You’ll only slow… you can’t… we need someone here in case… what if she comes back? The police would make you stay here, because you’re her next of kin. Trust me. You’ve got your phone. Keep it close to you. I’ll be in touch.’

  ‘Fucking hell!’ Her sister’s face crumples. She bangs her fists on the table, bashes them against her head. ‘I feel so helpless, Bridge! I feel so fucking trapped!’

  Bridget kisses her sister’s cheek and presses her lips to her ear. ‘You’re not helpless. We are not helpless. You’re the one who saw the wood when all I could see were the trees, remember? And I drive faster. We’re a team, so keep it together, yeah? I’ll call you once I’ve got her. After I’ve cut that motherfucker’s balls off with a rusty knife and made them into a key ring, all right?�
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  Before Toni can argue the toss, Bridget runs from the house. The van starts first time and she cries out with triumph. She is wired. She can’t believe her luck. The bastard must have given his location in the early days to create trust, all part of the grooming, all part of the I’ll show you mine if you show me yours. Sick, sick, sick. Did he know he’d left it on? Did he mean to cancel and forget? Or did he do like she does sometimes with her mobile data – think she’s swiped it off and then a day later realise it’s pinged back without her knowing and she’s had it on 3G by mistake all this time and run up a nice fat extra cost? It doesn’t matter. What matters is the motherfucker is now a flashing circle. It may have the cheesy too-good-looking face of Mr Raoul Mendez in it right now, but pretty soon Bridget will be planting her fist into another face entirely. It won’t be the first time she’s beaten up a man.

  ‘Come on,’ she shouts at the windscreen, at traffic too slow too slow. Come on; come on. She is going to find her niece and bring her home. She will leave whoever that bastard is sorry that he ever messed with her family. This whole situation is surreal. She can barely believe what she’s doing. When she installed the tracer app, never did she think she’d be using it like this. She thought it’d be for one of the million times Rosie left her phone at Naomi’s house or between the sofa cushions or at the bottom of her school bag. Not this – never this.

  But the bastard isn’t far, not far at all. It won’t be long now. He’ll wish he’d never been born.

  She steers the great hulk of the van through the lights. The green banks of the Thames to her left, the water churned and brownish, she drives as fast as she dares: sailing through T-junctions, gritting her teeth at pedestrian crossings, taking mini roundabouts on two wheels. But by the time she reaches Hampton Wick, the traffic is at a standstill.

  ‘Fuck!’ She slams her fists into the steering wheel.

  There are roadworks, temporary traffic lights. It was all going too well. Bridget chews at her thumbnail and swears prolifically at the road.

  She fumbles for Rosie’s phone, checks that the tracker is still showing the same location. It is. The bastard is still there then.

  I’m coming to get you, she thinks. I’m going to make you wish you’d never laid a hand on her.

  With a surge, the traffic moves forward. Bridget throws the phone into the hollow by the gearstick, makes it, last, through the lights and is filled with insane joy.

  ‘Come on,’ she shouts, to no one. ‘Come on!’

  Kingston town centre is torture. Saturday afternoon: can people think of nothing better to do than buy stuff? Lobotomised sheep, the lot of them. But if the traffic is moving slowly for her, it has moved slowly for that sick bastard too, and she will track him down like a bloodhound tracks a wild boar. She will track him down and rip his—

  The traffic moves.

  ‘Come on,’ she shouts, overtakes, undercuts.

  The sustained, angry blare of a horn. The cars slow and halt once again. With a cry, she bangs her back against the seat and thumps the steering wheel. Calm. Calm down. Focus. There is no way she’d be this close if they’d called the police. They’d still be waiting for some dope to process the call. Those photos are still on her laptop. At least Tones won’t see them on Rosie’s phone. But would they incriminate Bridget if the police saw them? Pictures of an underage girl, even if it is her own niece? Oh God, they might be sick enough to think that. You can’t trust the pigs. You can’t trust anyone it seems to her now in her sudden loneliness, the cold despair of her van.

  Only family.

  Through Kingston at last, left, along, and the common rears up on her left. She takes the corner too quickly, the van lurches, she fights with the steering wheel to right herself. Three more turns and she’s there, the road lined with neat terraced cottages, flowers in their front gardens, twee as fudge tins. This is the edge of the estate; the back gardens of these little houses must give onto the main road that runs between here and the ragged terrain of the Ham Lands. Her eyes dart, searching for a space big enough. She should have brought Toni’s little runaround but she can’t bloody drive the thing. A space, maybe ten metres away. Heart pumping, she parks. Jumps down to the pavement. Checks her phone. Runs.

  She is close. She is there. She is standing in front of a whitish terraced house in a poor state of repair, the window frames peeling, rotten wood. Wild flowers, weeds and long grass spring from the front garden; inexplicably, there is an upended office chair with a wheel missing. The sun is hot on Bridget’s back, but she zips up her jacket all the same. An extra skin. Only now does she think about protecting herself, that she should have brought a knife, a baseball bat.

  A gun.

  Fifty-One

  Rosie

  Emily drives, chattering like she does. I was over in Kempton having a mosey around the market, she says. I saw the most marvellous Welsh dresser but it was too big for the dining room, and when I put my nail to it, the paint scratched off. They obviously hadn’t sanded and primed adequately… preparation, dear, as we know, is key. Anyhoo, I was on my way back when I saw you there. Did you get my text, by the way? I sent it after we spoke.

  Sorry, no. I left my phone at home.

  You did? Right you are. And is your mum in today?

  Think so. I remember our argument. I feel terrible now. You knew I was lying, didn’t you? You always know.

  What about your aunt?

  Auntie Bridge? She’s gone to meet her friend Saph, I think.

  We drive past the Prince Albert pub, then Twickenham Green. My tummy still has butterflies in it. I breathe in, breathe out. Do re mi fa so la ti do.

  Not like you to leave your phone, dear, Emily says, and chuckles at her witty sarcasm.

  I had a fight with Mum.

  Oh dear, that’s too bad. What about? The usual?

  I nod. I don’t feel like telling her any more. I don’t want to feel that stomach ache I get when I talk to her about you. I already feel sick after that man. His breath, his dirty glasses. I don’t feel like I’m going to cry or anything, but I feel like I could, like I’m near. I don’t feel right. Do re mi fa so la ti do. Do re mi fa so la ti do. Breathe in; breathe out.

  We pass by the end of the road that leads to our close. I wave to you. I wave to you, Mummy, like a kid. Maybe I am a kid sometimes. I don’t know what I am really. We pass through St Margaret’s, then over the bridge to Richmond, and I think how awesome it looks, like a postcard or a painting of an old-fashioned riverfront. I can imagine women in long white dresses in the olden days, holding parasols, strolling along in front of the tall buildings and sitting on the sloping grass verges. Men with straw hats and those twirly moustaches. There are little boats on the river. A swan trails a long V behind it in the water. My breathing evens out a bit. It’s so cool with the sunroof down.

  Emily turns right. We drive along the road that goes past the poppy factory. The river plays hide-and-seek between the restaurants and houses. Emily isn’t talking any more, which is weird for her.

  You live in Ham, don’t you? I say.

  That’s right, dear. Good town for an actor, wouldn’t you say?

  I know she is joking because she chuckles, but I don’t get it. What does Ham have to do with acting?

  You know ham’s a word for an actor, don’t you? She has read my mind, probably because I didn’t react. Actors have to be good at reading people.

  Ham like ham and cheese?

  She chuckles. Like ham and pickle, ham sandwich, what have you. Haven’t you heard of the expression hamming it up?

  Maybe.

  You know when an actor is overacting, going too big; not so much brave choices but huge melodramatic gestures, hand-wringing and wailing and so forth, do you know what I mean? You’ve seen EastEnders, haven’t you?

  I nod, but I don’t say about Helen writing the scripts sometimes.

  So when an actor has a reputation for overacting, we call him or her a ham. Or you can say his or her acting was
a bit hammy. In fact, quite often, if you’re doing the cryptic crossword in the Guardian or the Telegraph, they use ‘ham’ for an actor in the clues, so for example they’ll put something like, I don’t know, ‘compass points around an actor feel this and blush’. And you’ll have the s and the e for your compass points, that is, your south and your east, then you put those around the ham of actor which gives you shame – feels this and blushes – blushes with shame. That would be your answer, do you see? Not a very good example, but that’s off the top of the old noggin.

  I nod. I don’t really understand what she’s going on about. At least she’s back to normal, jabbering on, as you say, ten to the dozen.

  She turns right at Ham Common. There are ducks on the pond and some people having a picnic in their coats. Another few turns and she parks at the kerb. I realise I didn’t look to see which road this is.

  Lucky with a space, dear, she says. We’re right outside.

  She leads the way through a little white gate in a little white fence. Number 31. The front garden is so neat; there are little red flowers in the beds and the soil is all crumbly, like when you first dig it over. There are no weeds. I think of you digging the flower beds in the garden of our river house when I was very little, your lilac gloves, the way your hair blew across your forehead, stuck to the sweat sometimes when you’d been working hard in the sun. Emily’s little lawn has a pond in the middle with lily pads. The grass edge looks as though it has been combed and cut with scissors. There are two gnomes sitting by the pond, both exactly the same, both fishing. On the front step there is a rectangular parcel about the size of a shoebox for, like, men’s size 12 shoes.