by Janet Tanner
Mac had been Dinah’s son but Mac was dead. Mac had been Dinah’s son but no one in the world except he and Des knew it – and Des was no real threat. He never read a newspaper and he did not know that Steve was in possession of Mac’s birth certificate. This was his chance, Steve thought, to start afresh with a new identity – and what an identity!
Steve had always harboured the suspicion that Van had not been speaking for Dinah when he had turned Mac away; now he turned the idea over in his mind again. Everything he had read about the partnership suggested that Van had been totally dominant, deciding the course their lives should take, manipulating and coercing. Van had been a fixer and Steve was convinced he had fixed Mac for some reason of his own. But now Van too was dead and Dinah was alone. What better moment for the reappearance of that other man in her life, her son? When Mac had gone to Bristol he had met no one but Van – if Van had told anyone about the meeting they would have no idea what the mystery son had looked like. And in Steve’s possession was Mac’s birth certificate – the one thing he would need to prove his identity.
It was possible, of course, that Dinah would reject him. She might refuse to see him, let alone accept him. But conversely she might welcome him with open arms. It was a gamble Steve was all too ready to take.
Steve sat down and wrote to Dinah, a carefully worded letter, and whilst he was waiting for a reply he went into Aberdeen, kitted himself out with a new wardrobe, spending lavishly from his savings and counting it an investment.
When her answer came it was everything he had hoped it would be. At her invitation he headed for Bristol – not for the impersonal flat in town where Van had interviewed Mac, but for the family home in its acres of beautiful grounds. His mouth watered as he stood on the drive looking around at what might very well be his – if only he played his cards right. Then he rang the bell.
She answered the door herself, a slim blonde, past the first flush of youth but still quite beautiful. She was pale, she was nervous, and for a moment he could not tell from her face whether she was going to laugh or cry.
‘Stephen?’ she said. Her voice was trembling.
‘Yes,’ he said.
And she opened her arms and took him into them, there on the doorstep.
‘Oh Stephen, Stephen!’ The tears were falling now; he could feel them wet on his cheek. ‘Is it really you? I thought I’d never see you again!’
‘But now I’m here,’ he said.
It had been easy – so easy. He need not even have had the birth certificate – she never asked to see it. In her joy at being reunited with the son she had given up as a new born baby she accepted him completely.
There were questions, of course, later, and plenty of them, as they sat, Dinah holding tightly to his hand as if she was afraid he might disappear again if she let it go. Questions, questions and more questions – not because she doubted him but because she wanted every detail of the years between, the years she had lost.
And he gave her what she wanted. Lying had always come easily to Steve. He told her the couple who had adopted him had emigrated to Canada and that they had both been killed in a car crash when he was fifteen years old. She wept then, hugging him, saying how dreadful it must have been for him, but at least now he had her – at least they had each other.
And she begged him to stay.
‘Don’t leave me again, please. I couldn’t bear to lose you again!’
He hesitated. He had no intention of going far, but he did not want her to know that.
‘I have to earn a living. Diving is all I know.’
‘You don’t have to earn a living, not now. Look, I realise you have your pride and I don’t want to patronise you, but everything I have is yours too.’
‘I couldn’t take it. It wouldn’t feel right.’
‘Work for me then! Join the company! I see how you feel, I respect you for it – only please, don’t go away again!’
‘I’m a diver, I’m not a businessman.’
‘But you could be, I know you could! And diving is so dangerous. If something happened to you I couldn’t bear it.’
He’d almost smiled at the irony of it. He’d let her go on and on, putting up token resistance until he judged he had done enough to make her believe the whole thing was her idea, and then he had capitulated. He had moved to Somerset and everything had gone so smoothly he felt like laughing. He was Dinah’s son, heir to a business that would keep him in comfort for the rest of his life. He had everything he had ever wanted. And he was safe – or so he had thought.
But when the security of his position was threatened Steve did not hesitate. The ruthless side of his nature, well hidden beneath the easy charm, came swiftly to the fore. All that mattered to him was preserving his charade.
Steve acted swiftly, unconcerned by the enormity of what he was doing. There was only one thought in his mind and that was that he had no intention of letting anything – or anyone – deprive him of the new life he had made for himself.
Chapter Eighteen
Maggie was feeling edgy though she could not have identified the reason. She finished tidying the cottage, made herself a sandwich and went outside to check on the washing she had hung out on the line. It was still not quite dry. Back in the house she looked at the clock. Liz Christopher had said that Ros’s things would be ready for her in about an hour, and that was more or less up.
Maggie took her hired car and drove through the leafy country lanes to Vandina. The girl on the reception desk recognised her at once.
‘You’ve come for Ros’s belongings. Liz told me Jayne was sorting them out and would leave them with me but she hasn’t done that yet.’
‘Jayne. Is she about?’
‘No, she’s gone to lunch. Hang on, though, I’ll go and look in her office and see if the things are ready for you.’
Maggie stood in the foyer waiting and a few minutes later the girl was back carrying a manila envelope, a pink cardboard file and a scarf – how Ros loved her scarves!
‘These are the things, I think. They were stacked up on Jayne’s desk and labelled with Ros’s name. Jayne forgot to give them to me, I expect. But I’m sure it will be all right for you to take them.’
She passed them to Maggie who glanced at the meagre pile, somewhat disappointed.
‘Thank you. And please thank Jayne and Liz for me, will you?’
She carried the things out to her car. The car park was deserted – obviously everyone went out at lunchtime. Maggie reversed out of the space where she had parked and took the road back to the cottage. There she put the scarf carefully away in a drawer, opened the manila envelope and the pink file, spreading the contents out on the kitchen table, and began to read.
Steve came hurrying out of Jayne’s back door with something less than his usual self-restraint. As he crossed the courtyard to where he had left his car he was still buttoning his shirt and his tie hung loosely around his neck.
The keys were in the ignition – he had left everything ready for a hasty getaway – but as he revved the engine and roared away from the converted barn he turned not towards the restaurant where his alibi of lunch with Dinah awaited him, but back towards Vandina.
Christ, how could everything have gone so bloody wrong just when it had seemed he was safe, his deception unremarked, his whole future rosy and secure? Even an hour ago, when he had realised that Jayne, at least, knew the truth about him he had thought the situation was redeemable. He had had no scruples about killing her in order to silence her and though he knew he was playing a dangerous game he had been reasonably confident he could get away with it. With the supreme self-assurance that is the hallmark of the most ruthless of men, Steve had thought he could pull it off. When Jayne was found strangled who would suspect him? He would say he had been lunching with Dinah and when she backed him up he did not expect anyone to question the timing too closely. He would have liked more time in which to plan Jayne’s demise, he would have preferred to dispose of her away from
her home and cover his tracks more thoroughly but circumstances had been such that he had decided it would be better to silence her as quickly as possible and he imagined there would be plenty of suspects the police would look at more closely than him. Jayne had had other boyfriends, he knew, and Drew himself, with his racy background and a drug habit, would probably come under suspicion. The very fact that he had acted swiftly would work in his favour, he had reasoned. But things had not worked out the way he had expected.
He had reached for the scarf with which he intended to strangle her, there in the bedroom, and she had seen him do it. Already puzzled by his response to her question about who he really was – ‘That, my sweet, is something you will never know’ – alarm bells had rung for Jayne and she had sat up swiftly, moving away from him.
‘What the hell do you think you are doing?’
‘I’m sorry about this, darling,’ he said casually. ‘ But I am afraid I can’t let you go around spreading nasty stories about me.’
‘Even if they happen to be true?’
‘Especially if they happen to be true.’
‘You’ve gone mad!’ Her eyes narrowed. ‘Or is this some new kind of sex game?’
He almost laughed aloud. She really was insatiable! And of course, that was the way to play it. Jayne was a big girl, she would be quite strong. If he could have slipped the scarf around her neck without her realising what he was doing it would have been one thing. As it was she would put up quite a struggle.
‘Yes, that’s it, a little game,’ he said smoothly, though his pulses were pounding. ‘You like games, don’t you?’
There were high spots of colour in her cheeks and her eyes were hard and bright.
‘You know I do. But not bondage – not for me. Something might go wrong. And that would be very unfortunate – for both of us.’
Something about the tone of her voice alerted him.
‘What do you mean by that?’ he asked sharply.
‘Just that if anything was to happen to me everyone would find out your little secret.’
‘Why?’ The scarf felt slippery in his moist fingers.
‘Because in my office is evidence to prove you are not Dinah’s son.’
‘Evidence? What evidence?’
She laughed. She loved it when the balance of power changed in her favour, and it had swung her way now.
‘That would be telling, wouldn’t it?’
‘And where exactly in your office is this … evidence?’
She shook her head, looking at the scarf which he held in his hand.
‘You really think I’d tell you that, so you could put that scarf round my neck and pull it tight and then go off and get rid of the evidence of what I know? Oh, I’m not that stupid. No, you are just going to have to trust me, darling. And stick to our little bargain.’
‘What bargain?’
‘Surely you haven’t forgotten so soon? You keep my secret and I keep yours. I won’t spill the beans, Steve. Not even about … this. You and I are too good together. And we’re going to be better yet, now that I know what I know.’
Sweat was trickling down his face.
‘How do I know you have any proof at all?’ he asked.
Jayne moved lazily, reaching for her négligé and pulling it over her soft white shoulders.
‘Get dressed, darling. We’ll go back to the office and I’ll show you.’
Steve did as she suggested. His mind was racing. He still did not know whether to believe her or not, but indisputably Jayne did know the truth about him and he could not take the risk that in her office was something that would blow his whole cover wide open.
‘Come on then,’ he said hoarsely. ‘ But for God’s sake be quick. Dinah is expecting me to join her for lunch.’
‘Then let’s go and have lunch with her and I’ll show you when we get back to the office afterwards.’
‘No – we’ll go now.’ He couldn’t wait another minute; he had to know what she had against him so that he could begin amending his plan of action.
Now, as he swung the car back towards Vandina, cold with the fear of carefully laid plans that seemed to have gone haywire, a Frankenstein’s monster that was getting out of control, he looked at her sitting beside him in the passenger seat, and felt himself hating this coldly self-possessed woman who was threatening to wreck everything. Oh, he could kill her now, and enjoy every minute of it. Once he had whatever it was that could expose him as a fraud he would do it – and do it in such a way that no one would ever suspect him. But for the moment he needed her – and she knew it.
He screamed his car to a stop in the Vandina car park, composed himself and followed Jayne into the building. The girl at the reception desk was on the telephone; she waved at them as if she wanted to say something but they ignored her and went upstairs to Jayne’s office.
‘Now, darling …’ Jayne turned to him, smiling that infuriatingly smug smile as she opened her door. Then, as she stepped into the room he saw her face change. She took a step forward, ran her hands over the almost empty desk top as if she could not believe what she was seeing – or not seeing – then turned back. There was alarm in her eyes.
‘Well?’ he said harshly. ‘Where is your proof?’
‘Oh Christ!’ Jayne said softly. She reached for the internal telephone and buzzed the reception desk. The girl must have finished with the telephone call she had been taking, for she answered almost at once.
‘The files that were on my desk,’ Jayne said, her voice sharp. ‘Do you happen to know what has become of them?’
Steve could not hear the receptionist’s reply. Jayne put down the receiver and turned to him.
‘It looks as if we’re in trouble, Steve,’ she said, and there was an edge of panic in her voice. ‘My proof isn’t here any longer. Someone has taken it.’
‘Who?’
‘Ros’s sister, Maggie.’
He was dumbfounded. ‘Maggie? But why?’
‘Never mind that now.’ Jayne’s voice was taut with tension. ‘ If you don’t want anyone else knowing what I know, I suggest you get those files back – and get them back quickly! They are dynamite, Steve. And Maggie Veritos has them.’
‘I don’t understand what can have become of Steve,’ Dinah said, looking at her watch. ‘I thought he would have been here ages ago.’
Don smiled at her across the table. He was enjoying the chance of being alone with her. Since Steve had arrived on the scene those occasions had been all too rare.
‘I shouldn’t worry, Dinah,’ he said gently. ‘Obviously something important has come up. I’m sure he won’t mind if we begin without him.’
And Dinah smiled back at him, that lovely smile that could stop his heart beating.
‘I expect you’re right, Don,’ she said. ‘You usually are.’
Maggie sat at the kitchen table, the files and papers spread out all around her, staring into space. She could still hardly believe what she had read there, and yet already her racing thoughts were beginning to have some order to them and the pieces of the jigsaw were fitting into place.
So, this was what had been on Ros’s mind in those last weeks before she disappeared – and it had nothing whatever to do with a mole at Vandina. It was more important, more far-reaching than that, and it had to do not only with the business but with Dinah’s personal life. No wonder she had been so preoccupied.
Steve – an imposter! Never in her wildest dreams would such a thing have occurred to Maggie – and why should it? But somehow it had occurred to Ros and she had begun checking it out – the letters in the file, along with Ros’s diary and scribbled notes proved that. For some reason Ros had been suspicious and she had set out to confirm her suspicions. But why had she told no one? And where the hell was she now?
Maggie shivered, all her fears for Ros’s safety surfacing once more. She had been afraid that Brendan had been in some way responsible for Ros’s disappearance but now she began to wonder if perhaps she had been on t
he wrong track. Could it be that it was Steve who was behind it? Had he somehow discovered that Ros knew the truth about him and set out to make sure she told no one else what she knew?
Maggie lit a cigarette and drew deeply on the smoke, but for once it did not seem to do anything to calm her – if anything it only made her head spin more and she ground it out again, trying to decide on a course of action and succeeding only in chasing around in circles. She had to tell someone what she had discovered, but who, and in what order? Should she get in touch with the police first, or speak to someone at Vandina? The revelation was obviously going to devastate Dinah and even in her present state of confusion and anxiety Maggie, with her ability to empathise, shrank from being the one to break the unwelcome news.
If only Mike were here! she thought. He would know what to do. But Mike was teaching, and it would be several hours yet before she could count on his support. But at least she could telephone and leave a message on his answering machine so that he would contact her as soon as he got home from school. He was expecting her to be there in any case and would wonder where she was. She dialled Mike’s number and drew comfort from simply hearing his recorded voice at the other end of the line – even that nebulous contact seemed to help.
She left a message, simply asking him to call her at the cottage if she was not at the flat when he returned, then went back into the kitchen and packed all the papers together once more in the pink folder. She would go to the police with them, she decided. She was sorry the news would be broken to Dinah by an official rather than a close friend but she could not allow that to sway her judgement. Finding Ros was, and had always been, her priority, and this file was, she felt, vital evidence.
As she closed the folder she thought she heard a car on the lane outside, but took little notice, and a moment later the ring at the doorbell made her physically jump. She went to answer it, wondering if it might possibly be the police. But when she yanked open the door it was not a policeman on the doorstep. It was Steve.
