She lay still and was almost drifting off again when she heard a tiny, but sharp click come from her downstairs hallway. She had lived in the house too long not to know that this wasn’t one of its normal creaks or groans and she was immediately alert.
There was another slight rustling sound and then the third tread on the stairs squealed as someone’s weight rested on it. She was immediately up off the bed grappling with her mobile phone, desperate to dial the police.
The door suddenly burst open behind her and she shrieked as a big shadow of a man came barreling towards her. She grabbed the bedside lamp and was about to swing it into his face when he shouted out.
“Lucy! Don’t. It’s me, Joe.”
She dropped the lamp in shock and scrambled back on the bed unsure whether to believe her ears. She could hear deep breathing in the dimly lit room and then suddenly his familiar scent wafted over her.
“Joe?” She breathed out quietly.
Joe came towards the bed and picked up the lamp. He placed it back on the bedside cabinet and switched it on. For just a second she sat there staring at him. He stared back, his heart in his mouth as he took in the shadows under her eyes and the way her skin looked nearly grey.
“Lucy, I’m so sorry. I should have never said those things or walked out on you like that. None of it was your fault.” He didn’t get any more words out. She threw herself at him, took his face in her hands and began kissing him. She ran her fingers through his hair and dipped her lips to his neck.
“Joe!” It was as though she couldn’t say another word, but now Joe was over his initial shock of seeing her.
He pulled her towards him, held her about the waist with one hand and pushed the fingers of his other hand into her silky hair as they fell back on the bed together. He moved over her, pinning her body to the bed, staring into her eyes for a few seconds more before he buried his face into her neck and began kissing under her ear. He was about to move his lips onto hers when there was a small cough at his back.
Lucy jerked her head to the side to see who else was in the room with them and smiled shyly as David stood there with his eyebrows raised.
“So you’re not going to kick his butt then? I thought you had reasonably good justification actually but it’s entirely up to you.” He smiled as they untangled their limbs and sat round to face him.
Lucy looked up at Joe who was still dragging her close to him. She pursed her lips and looked hard at him.
“I might kick it yet. I still haven’t decided. Depends on what he’s doing here.”
Joe didn’t look like he cared what she did to him. He didn’t take his eyes from her face for a second as he spoke quickly.
“I’ve come to take you home. I know what that Freeman has been up to. I’m sorry I didn’t believe you back at the chateau. I should have listened to you but I wasn’t thinking straight. I was just jealous.”
Lucy pushed back out of his arms.
“What are you talking about? This is my home…Well, it is until mid morning.” She added quietly.
Joe took a deep breath. It was confession time and he knew he had to come clean fast. There could be no more misunderstandings between them.
“You are going to have to forgive me in advance Lucy, but I have seen your bank account.” He held his hand up at her shocked intake of breath. “I had to look. I couldn’t find you any other way. Luckily for me you had left yourself logged on to your account when you used the computer at the chateau and it was all in the computer’s history. I just made a guess at your password after Ellen said you left a copy of your passport as ID. You really should make your accounts harder to get into. I couldn’t help but notice what was going on.” They had decided to keep Ellen and Geraldine out of everything that Lucy would deem too personal. If she was going to be furious it would be at Joe only.
Lucy backed away from him. She hung her head and pressed her hands into his chest as he tried to pull her back to him.
“Don’t Joe. If you’ve seen that then you know that you have to leave here and go home. I can’t come with you. I have too much responsibility here. The debts won’t just go away even if I leave with you. They’ll be cleared in four years, maybe I can call my life my own after that, but I’m not going to duck out of any responsibilities before then.”
David walked forwards and sat on the bed with them. He looked into her sad face.
“It’s not even as easy as that Lucy. Freeman is a complete shark. You won’t be able to pay off the debt in four years. He’s set up the repayments as an endowment policy with his own finance company. You’re not paying any of the capital and at the rate you are paying the high interest charges mean that there will be a huge shortfall at the end of the loan. You’ll still have to pay that back afterwards as the endowment isn’t reaching its target figures for the repayments. It’s a scam for you to keep on paying him but it’s legal as it’s buried in the small print that nobody who is desperate for money ever reads properly. If you keep paying at the rate you are he’ll own you for the next twenty years.”
Lucy had turned a deathly shade of white. Her lips trembled and then her whole body began to shake. She would never be free of him, never be able to escape from his vile clutches. It was all too much. Her eyes suddenly rolled up in her head and she fell forwards into Joes waiting arms.
David breathed out a big sigh as Joe hugged Lucy’s limp from against his chest.
“Probably just as well with what we’ve got planned for Freeman later on today. Don’t really want her to see that. I’ll take her out to the Land Rover and get her back to the pub. I’ll leave her with Adam and Alex. They won’t let her back here until you say that it’s safe for us both to come.”
Joe shook his head.
“I’ll take her downstairs to the car.” He lifted Lucy easily in his arms, cradling her head against his shoulder as her carried her down the stairs. He held her gently as he walked out of the front door and over to the waiting car. With Lucy safely deposited in the back seat David quickly jumped in the behind the steering wheel and sped off the couple of miles to the Cat and Fiddle.
Joe and James sat at the kitchen table eating the cold Chinese takeaway that Lucy had left on the counter the night before. Joe was tempted to open the very nice looking bottle of wine that stood beside the food and drink it with the special fried noodles and kung po chicken but he managed to restrain himself. He needed to have his wits about him and couldn’t afford to drink any alcohol.
James stabbed a chunk of the chicken and chewed it slowly.
“Damn, nothing quite like cold Chinese after a night out. Tastes good even if we didn’t have any beer. Pity we can’t have a glass of wine.”
Joe twirled another scoop of noodles around the chopsticks.
“No, best not chance it.” He looked at the noodles before putting them in his mouth. “This is the one thing I miss out in France. We don’t have a Chinese restaurant for miles. Nearest one is in Morlaix or you have to buy it from the cold counter at the market and that’s never quite the same. It’s almost worth the trip over here just to have it.” He put the noodles in his mouth and savoured them.
James laughed at his enraptured expression.
“Maybe you should set up a Chinese restaurant there then. Sounds as though it won’t have much competition.”
Joe snorted as he swallowed the noodles and dug in for another load.
“It wouldn’t have many customers either. The French are nothing if not traditional. I might suggest something to Patrick for a themed night though. It would certainly appeal to the guys. We could serve any leftovers for breakfast.” He scraped the foil dish clean as James popped the last chunk of chicken in his mouth.
James looked up as he heard a knock at the door. He looked at his watch. It was only ten thirty.
“Thought he wasn’t arriving until later?” He moved over to the window and without showing his face looked out to the front path. “Tall guy with poncey hair and plastic skin?” He looked
back at Joe who nodded.
“I guessed he’d turn up early. He’d either want to gloat as he chucked Lucy out or try and get her into bed.” He dropped the chopsticks back into the noodle dish and began speaking rapidly into his earpiece.
Lucy came to in the car. She sat up and looked at David as he drove towards the Cat and Fiddle public house.
She blinked a couple of times and caught David’s smile in the rear view mirror.
“Feeling okay?”
She nodded slowly.
“What’s going on? Why aren’t I at home? Where’s Joe?” He questions came rapidly.
David turned into the car park of the Cat and Fiddle. He pulled up at the door and then turned to her.
“We’re just cleaning up few things up at your house Lucy. Things that you don’t need to be there to see. Joe is sorting everything out and he wants to have a few words with your old boss about the blackmail thing. He’s not very happy about Freeman threatening his girlfriend. I want you to stay here with Donna. I have to go and collect another er…interested party, and then I have to get back and help Joe and the others.” He spoke rather mysteriously
Lucy was immediately suspicious. She folded her arms and sat stubbornly in the seat.
“What interested party? Who do you mean? I’m not going anywhere. If you are going back to help Joe with something then so am I. You can’t just drag me out of my own home and expect me to sit here twiddling my thumbs.”
David shook his head. He climbed out of the car and walked around to Lucy’s door. He opened it and stood there waiting patiently for her to climb out.
“I’m not expecting you to twiddle your thumbs. I’m actually expecting you to dish the dirt on your old boss. We’ve found out a few things but there’s always more that might come in useful. Alex and Adam are in the back room. Go in there and see what you can do to help. I have to go and pick up another lump of slime and get back to Joe. We’re all meeting here just after twelve. We’ll fill you in as soon as we get back.”
Lucy’s shoulders slumped in defeat. From the stubborn set of David’s jaw, she could see there was no way he was going to change his mind. She slid across the seat and climbed out then turned and walked into the pub.
Lucy waved a greeting to Donna.
“I’m meant to join the boys in the back.”
Donna gave her a quick smile.
“They’re a great bunch. I haven’t a clue what they are up to but they asked me to go shopping first thing this morning. Right weird list of things they wanted. I had to go to Mr. Cheng’s restaurant for one thing as they didn’t sell it at the local spar. Still, if Major Reeves says he wants lychees, then lychees is what he’s going to get. Adam and Alex are through there. I’ll bring you all some coffee in a mo.”
Lucy wandered through to the back room wondering what on earth Patrick wanted lychees so urgently for. Maybe it was some weird breakfast fad he had going on, though she distinctly remembered his plate piled high with bacon, eggs and mushrooms every morning back at the chateau.
The two men in the room turned as she stepped over the threshold. One of them stood up and came forwards.
“Lucy? I’m Alex and this is Adam. We’re friends of Joe. The others will be joining us in about an hour or so hopefully. But in the meantime we wondered if you would be able to help us with a little problem we’ve been experiencing with a rather ghastly chap called Freeman. Dave seemed to think you might have some inside information that would help one of our friends out of a spot of bother.” He drew out a chair in front of the computer. “Anything you can think of will be helpful.”
James waited until Freeman knocked again and then opened the front door swiftly. The man barely had time to register that it wasn’t Lucy answering the door before James shot out a muscular arm and dragged him inside by the collar of his shirt.
Freeman kicked out in an effort to escape his captor, but he gave up when pain reverberated up through his toes and into his knee joint as his foot struck hard metal.
“What the fuck is going on. Let me go.”
James glared at him. Although he had never met the man before he had seen and heard enough about him. If the night’s researches of the man hadn’t already done it, David’s explanation of the man’s departing insult to Joe was enough to convince him without anything else.
James growled in his ear.
“You were the one to turn up here uninvited Mr. Freeman, now we’d like to have a little chat with you about a few things before the sale of this house goes through. We’re going to offer you some options and convince you to change your mind about a few things.”
Freeman looked decidedly uncomfortable. There was a slick sheen of sweat on his forehead.
“What do you mean? This house is mine anyway. My mortgage company already owns it. If any payments are missed then I’m afraid the house is forfeited. It’s quite clear in all of the paperwork.”
James shook his head and smiled chillingly at the man.
“Oh dear. You misunderstood my meaning. I wasn’t going to try and persuade you into doing anything. I am going to tell you what to do and you will listen and then do it. If you don’t, well there will be some consequences that I’m sure you will find as unwelcome as Miss Collins found your threats of blackmail, however that’s up to you. Whatever you decide you have seen the last you ever will of Miss Collins.”
Freeman suddenly paled.
“Lucy? Where is she? She’s meant to be here. What have you gone and done with her?”
James threw his head back and laughed.
“She has been taken where you will never get your filthy hands on her ever again. Predators like you don’t deserve women of her caliber. Fortunately she has a much worthier protector who doesn’t need to blackmail her into his bed.”
They had arrived in the kitchen and Freeman suddenly spotted Joe.
“You! I might have guessed you lot were something to do with this when I realized he has a false leg.” He jerked his head back over his shoulder and glanced at James. “Well, don’t think you will ever get away with this. Everything about my company is legal. We’re backed by the FSA and there’s not a damn thing you can do about it.”
Joe wiped his mouth on a piece of kitchen roll and moved the empty boxes of Chinese food out of the way. He shrugged at Freeman.
“As you say, but that doesn’t mean that your practices are clear or even honourable. You’re getting rich on peoples misery. You could be like some of the other companies that do a similar sort of thing to yours but you go one step further and choose to keep these unfortunate people paying you for years. It’s wrong in principal if not in law. They pay the debt they owe you twenty times over. That’s not business, it’s extortion.” James pulled out the seat opposite Joe and shoved Freeman into it. He tapped the computer tablet that sat on the kitchen table and the screen instantly came to life. He turned it towards Freeman who raised his eyebrows as he saw his personal bank account details lit up on the screen.
His face turned purple with rage.
“How did you get into this?” He spat out eventually.
Joe shrugged.
“Same way as you hacked into Lucy’s account to discover all her personal details. We have a computer expert too.” He leaned forwards and stared right into Freeman’s face. “But ours is a lot better than yours. In fact your Martha Pherson is cosied up in Bedford constabulary as we speak. She’s been desperate to tell the police everything that she’s had to do for you, including sending malicious emails and changing the wording on contracts so that Miss Collins was unable to find employment or to pay off her bills. Fortunately for us it’s all traceable and the police can see exactly what you have been up to.”
Joe watched Freeman’s Adam’s apple bob up and down in his throat as he gulped nervously.
“You’re bluffing. Martha isn’t a fool. There’s no way any of the stuff that she did was traceable.”
Joe shook his head.
“I don’t bluff. I don�
��t have the time or patience for it. Everything she did is now in the hands of the police. Now, let’s take a look and see how we convince you to improve your work practices as the course in France clearly didn’t work. Pity, as I hate to have a failure on my hands, but maybe there are other ways to improve your disposition to your clients. Now let’s see…” He scrolled down the list on Freeman’s bank statement and pointed to a name and account. “Ah! Your tailor I presume. Now let’s see if I can conjure up an email to him. Shall I complain about the quality of the last suit you purchased or shall I just cancel your account?” He touched the screen and Freeman’s email account popped up. Writing appeared without Joe doing a thing as Alex took over the computer remotely from the pub. Freeman looked on horrified as he saw the words being typed as he watched.
“You can’t send that! I never said his work was sub-standard and I never said that the material was of inferior quality. Have you any idea how long it takes to be accepted as a client for one of these guys? They have waiting lists years long.”
Joe waited until Freeman’s name appeared at the bottom of the email and then his finger hovered over the button for a long moment before he hit send.
Freeman slumped forwards. He glared up at Joe.
“If you think that losing my tailor will make me change my mind about anything to do with my business then you are sadly mistaken.”
Joe raised his eyebrows and laughed delightedly.
“Oh no, I didn’t think it would just take that, no actually I was hoping it wouldn’t. So who shall we talk to next? Ah! The Ivy restaurant. What about your weekly booking there. I should think a complaint about the head chef and the standard of his filet mignon should sort that one out.”
Another email appeared on the screen and Freeman shrugged.
“There are other restaurants in London.” He growled out bitterly as Joe hit send again.
Joe smiled pleasantly.
“And what about one to Graff? I’m sure that they will be delighted to hear that you have accused them of selling fake diamonds. I shouldn’t think that will hit the bourse very quickly.”
Forever Scarred (Scarred Series Book 3) Page 17
