Last Night

by Kerry Wilkinson

‘I thought you didn’t know the person who paid you?’ I say.

  ‘I don’t.’

  ‘So how did you get the pill or whatever it was you put in my drink? Do you have that sort of thing lying around?’

  Stephen is barely moving. His head is in his hands and he’s staring at the tablecloth. ‘I got it in the post,’ he says. ‘They said they’d send it and it arrived a day later. They said it would dissolve in a drink and it did.’

  ‘What was it?’

  ‘I don’t know. Probably Rohypnol, something like that.’

  ‘You put Rohypnol in my drink and thought that was fine…?!’

  I’m on the verge of shouting but also on the brink of not caring. He shushes me and I’ve never been closer to hitting someone in the face. I’ve never been violent, never had those urges and yet my fists are clenched. The whole of my upper body is coiled. I’m not sure how but I manage not to shout or lash out.

  Stephen must see the fury in me because he leans in again, his voice low and pleading. ‘They said it was a joke. That you’d think it was funny. They said you prank each other all the time. I wasn’t going to do it, but…’

  ‘But what?’

  He shrugs, not needing to say he did it for the money. He’s either an idiot, dangerous, or both. Someone sent him a pill in the post which could have been anything. It could have poisoned me but he slipped it into my drink anyway because of the pay-off. I can barely comprehend it – but, if I’m honest, when it comes to money, people have done far worse things for what would likely be far less. Junkies have mugged and killed for pound coins. Pensioners have had their houses burgled while they sleep for the contents of their purses and wallets.

  ‘Why’d you need the money so badly?’ I ask.

  ‘Do you care?’

  ‘Perhaps.’

  With all sense of decorum gone, he wipes his nose the back of his hand and cleans it on his trousers. ‘Online poker,’ he says. ‘I spent over a hundred grand last year. I’m constantly moving money between three credit cards just to pay rent.’

  He’s right that I don’t care – but at least I have a degree of understanding.

  As if reading my mind, he glances to the envelope on the table but doesn’t reach for it.

  ‘Is there anything you won’t do for money?’ I ask.

  He’s past caring as well. ‘Not much.’

  ‘How much were you paid for me?’

  There’s no delaying this time. He answers straight away: ‘A grand.’

  I wish I could be surprised but I’m not. I wonder how Dan got hold of Stephen’s details, or how he knew about Stephen’s financial problems. It could have been luck, or perhaps Dan cruised a host of websites and tried multiple people before stumbling across Stephen. Perhaps someone turned his request down but gave him Stephen’s email address and said to try him instead. I’m not sure it matters. It’s the here and now that counts.

  ‘What did you do after taking me to my room?’ I ask.

  ‘Put you to bed.’

  ‘And…?’

  ‘And I left you. The email said to put the door on the latch so they could walk in. It said they were going to surprise you.’

  There’s something terrifyingly creepy about the way he says it. He must have known how vulnerable I’d be. I was left on a bed, barely conscious, with the door unlocked. Anyone could have walked in.

  It’s hard to contain my emotion. I’m scared of what might have been and I’m so furious that I have to grip the arms of my chair to stop myself shaking. I can barely get the words out.

  ‘What was the name on the email?’ I hiss.

  He shakes his head. ‘I don’t remember.’

  ‘I still don’t believe you.’

  He looks around, hoping the waiter will save him. Either that or a meteor.

  No such luck.

  ‘You’ve still got the email, haven’t you?’

  He swallows and rolls his eyes. I know I’m right. Without me having to ask, he digs into his pocket and pulls out a phone. He shields the screen with one hand, scrolling with the other and then re-pocketing it.

  ‘What was the name?’

  He shakes his head but I push the envelope across the table towards him. He takes his time, looking for the absent waiter, then to me, and then he picks up the money. He folds the envelope without checking the amount and pockets it.

  ‘Tyler,’ he says. ‘The name on the email was Tyler Lambert.’

  Chapter Forty-Two

  I’m driving back to North Melbury, fingers trembling on the steering wheel and barely able to concentrate. Cars flash past me as I stick to the slower lanes, only focusing on the strip of tarmac directly in front. I’m so angry, so scarred, that I shouldn’t be driving. I know that – but I want to be home.

  I should call the police. I know that. Stephen is almost certainly not his real name but, whoever he is, he’s a danger to women. I figure I’ll call the agency and tell them Stephen’s working on the side. It’s not as much as I should do but it’s something. If I call the police, there’ll be too much to explain.

  As for Tyler, my first thought is that there’s no way he’d have a spare thousand pounds lying around. Except, I don’t know much about him. Perhaps he deals drugs and has plenty of cash – it’s just that he likes using Olivia to pay for things anyway. He has shoplifting convictions but perhaps there are many more crimes of which he’s guilty, where he hasn’t been caught. He might burgle houses, or rob shops and sell what he steals. It’s possible he’d have the money to set me up.

  It could be straightforward: Tyler arranged this, I found out in my hazy drug-addled state, somehow ran him over, left him dying in a ditch somewhere and then woke up in that field. I’m not sure why he hasn’t been found but everything else makes sense.

  Sort of.

  It takes me a good twenty minutes to realise that none of those assumptions have to be true. It would take me five minutes to go onto the internet and set up an email address in Tyler’s name. It might have been him – but this is no more proof than I had before.

  All it does show is that whoever set me up knew Tyler’s name and which hotel I was staying in. And when.

  Off the top of my head, that’s Dan, Olivia and Graham from work. Graham’s a stretch because I’ve only mentioned Tyler’s name to him once when he said he’d seen Olivia outside the Cosmic Café with ‘some kid who looks like he’s homeless’.

  It’s not only those three, though. Other people at work could easily have found out in which hotel I was staying – and then discovered Tyler’s name by looking at Olivia’s Facebook page. As could anyone else.

  Once the hotel had been booked, I pinned the details to the fridge in case of an emergency. Tyler could have seen it there before he disappeared. Ellie hasn’t visited the house in a while – but she has a key. Jason was released from prison a few days before all this happened – but he could have used her key and got into our house.

  And then there’s the fact that any of those people could have passed the information onto anyone else.

  To a degree, I’m no closer to knowing who set all this up – except for the thousand pounds that was paid from Dan’s credit card. I’ve seen first-hand that he has something between a crush and an infatuation with Alice, so perhaps his long game is a divorce from me; while still being able to keep the house, Olivia’s affections, and everything else. It feels long-winded and ridiculously drawn out but it’s not beyond comprehension – especially if part of that long game is to frame me for whatever has happened to Tyler. If the police had searched the garage, I would have been in serious trouble. Everything happened shortly after I argued with Tyler and we’ve been at odds for months. That’s motive. Blood on my car and his chain in my glovebox is some degree of proof. Perhaps that would have been enough to charge me? If I was charged, let alone convicted, that’s Dan’s out.

  It still doesn’t feel quite right.

  This is a man I’ve known and lived with for two decades, someone with
whom I have a child. It’s hard to believe this could be him – but then he does have a stun gun in his gym locker. And it wasn’t that long ago Stephen was telling me he’d do more or less anything for money. People do strange things at the promise of cash.

  I suppose the talk with Stephen has cleared up one thing. After Stephen left me, whoever paid him entered my hotel room and then got me out to my car while I was barely conscious. Perhaps that person stayed in the hotel as well, or maybe they simply walked in and headed up the stairs without pausing. Looking confident is half the battle in situations like that. Staff aren’t going to challenge someone who walks up to a hotel room like they belong. The person might have used the fire escape to get me out and avoid being seen. Or maybe they simply held me up, smiling at any members of staff who passed, making a joke of it by saying, ‘One too many’, or something like that. Once I was outside, they drove my car out to that field and then put me in the driver’s seat.

  I still have no idea what went on with the blood on the bonnet, nor if this is what happened. It’s still a mess.

  Somewhere in all this, Tyler is involved. I can’t know whether it was really him who emailed Stephen but his blood was on my car and his dog tag inside. He’s also missing, so did he do all this and then disappear; or has someone kidnapped him to get to me?

  There is someone else who might be able to help. Someone else who has helped make my life miserable in the past week. Before I contact him, I’ll have to do a bit of non-literal digging.

  Chapter Forty-Three

  Monday

  The spare room is starting to feel like my own bedroom. I make the bed each morning and then return each night. There’s a lock on the spare room door and I click it into place each night, just in case. Neither Dan or Olivia mention me sleeping in there and I don’t bring it up either.

  I have a mini lie-in the next morning and, by the time I get downstairs, Dan has already left for the gym or school. Olivia is up, though – which is quite the surprise. I only need one hand to count the number of times she’s beaten me downstairs this year.

  She’s on the sofa eating a yoghurt; something I’ve forbidden her to do in the past after a spillage a few years ago. I say nothing, clicking on the kettle and then slotting onto the other sofa.

  ‘How are you holding up?’ I ask.

  Olivia looks so tired. She peers up with ringed eyes and an aimless stare.

  ‘Empty,’ she replies. ‘I feel empty. I’m doing all the things I normally do – I go to work, I message my friends, I go out, I stay in, I’ve got a class with Ellie later. I do everything the same – but it’s all empty without Ty. I used to tell him about all these things. I know you don’t like him but he’d listen. Now I don’t have anyone to talk to.’

  I think about Tyler and how he might be involved in everything that’s happened to me in the past few days. How his name was on the email to Stephen. I can’t reconcile it all.

  I could say, ‘You have me’ – but it’s not right. It’s not the same thing. Those mothers and daughters who share everything are weird. It’s not supposed to be like that.

  Olivia puts the yoghurt pot on the side table and then slumps back further onto the sofa. ‘I just want to know what happened to him.’

  I cross and sit next to her, putting an arm around her shoulders. ‘I know, honey.’

  Olivia lets me hug her for a second or two but then shrugs away. She mutters an apology and then pushes herself up and stretches. ‘I’ve got to have a shower and get dressed,’ she says. ‘I’m at Ellie’s for accounting class in a bit – and then I have work after that.’

  She puts her rubbish in the kitchen bin and then yawns her way into the hallway before disappearing up the stairs.

  I wish I knew what to say but what is there? The not knowing is awful. It would be awful if he was dead – but at least she’d know. For now, Olivia doesn’t know whether to mourn or to keep searching. She’s stuck in limbo. So am I, though for different reasons. At the centre of it all, seemingly, is Tyler.

  With the living room empty, I do at least get a chance to do the rest of the googling from last night. It’s surprisingly easy, probably ominously so, to find the information I need. I spend a bit of time learning the names and places, making sure it’s clear in my mind before putting the laptop away.

  I text Graham, telling him I’m not feeling well, and then say goodbye to Olivia before heading to my car. The journey is straightforward enough and I spend the time repeating back to myself the names I need.

  When I reach my destination, there’s nobody there. I park outside and go to the window, pressing my hands to shield the glare. All the lights are off inside, which is quite the annoyance. I’d worked myself up for a big showdown and now there’s nobody around.

  I head back to the car and go for a drive. When my stomach starts grumbling, I realise I haven’t eaten in almost a day. I left the restaurant before my spaghetti arrived, didn’t eat when I got home yesterday evening, and didn’t have breakfast this morning.

  Luckily, I passed a roadside café a mile or so back. I drive there and pull into a car park rammed with vans and lorries. The smell of sausage and bacon is almost overpowering and I’ve not even left the car. By the time I get inside, I’m practically drooling. The air is thick with grease and there’s a fizz of frying food hissing across the chattering voices. I’m in my work clothes, drastically out of place against the backdrop of truckers and men in overalls.

  I still don’t care.

  I head to the counter and order a full English. The manager gives me a sideways look. ‘You sure? It’s a lot of food…’

  ‘I think I can handle it.’

  I pay and then find an empty table. There are newspapers scattered around and I pick one up, flicking through to the Sudoku and finding a pen in my bag.

  It feels good to be doing something that isn’t thinking about conspiracies. Nobody knows me here; nobody cares who I am. For the first time in what feels like a really long time, I actually relax.

  The food arrives after a few minutes – and the guy behind the till was right about it being a lot of food. It’s only now I spot that there’s a half-English on the menu – but it’s too late. The plate is loaded with a good half-tin of beans, half a dozen rashers of bacon, five sausages, four slices of black pudding, three tomatoes, three fried eggs, two turtle doves and a partridge in a pear tree.

  Maybe not those last two things.

  I take my time, both with the puzzle page of the paper and my food. The manager comes around with a pot of coffee and asks if I want more, which I do. He asks how the food’s going and I tell him it’s one of the greatest meals I’ve ever had. I’m not even lying.

  An hour has passed when I stand to leave. My stomach is bloated and I dread to think what the bathroom scales would think of it all. My clothes feel too tight but it’s a bit late now. I’d not even noticed him, but the bloke on the adjacent table points to my empty plate and gives a thumbs-up. I laugh and he congratulates me as if I’ve achieved something worthwhile. It’s so satisfying to enjoy an interaction with someone and not doubt their motives.

  Which is a far cry from what I have to do next.

  Declan is inside his office when I pull up outside for the second time. Graham told me I’d be fired for even texting him, so I figure I might as well go out in blaze of glory. As I get out of my car and step onto the kerb, I spot Declan through the window. He sees me at the same time and rushes to the door, probably to lock it. I get there first and push my way inside, standing defiantly in front of him as he steps away.

  ‘You’re not supposed to be here,’ he says. He’s in the same suit from the other day and there’s not so much lustre about him this time. Perhaps it’s because I’m not trying to sell him something, but I suspect it’s more because he’s so shocked to see me.

  ‘I’m not going anywhere,’ I reply.

  ‘I’ll call your boss.’

  ‘Do it. I quit this morning.’

  I d
idn’t – but Declan doesn’t know that and it’s the one thing he holds over me. He knows it, too. His eyes dart both ways but there’s no way out. I’m standing in front of the only door and it’s only us in the office. The back of the room is still filled with boxes but largely empty otherwise. I have a feeling it’ll always be like this.

  ‘I’ll call the police then,’ he says. ‘You’re trespassing.’

  ‘Please do call the police. I’ll tell them how you made up lies about me and tried to defraud my company. It should make an interesting story.’

  Declan’s worried now. It’s all bluster on my part but it’s starting to dawn on him that he might not have thought all this through.

  Just as I’m beginning to feel confident, my phone rings. It’s instinct to pull it from the pocket on the front of my bag. It’s Ellie and I almost press to answer – except that I can’t talk to her in front of Declan, and I really need to get this over with.

  I press reject – and then turn back to him.

  ‘Your girlfriend is called Nicole,’ I say. ‘You got engaged about six weeks ago while on holiday in Spain.’

  ‘How do you know that?’

  ‘I’ve got Nicole’s phone number and I’m going to call her to say how you tried it on with me. You can make things up – and so can I.’

  Declan has stopped backing away. He’s now staring curiously, eyebrows dipped. ‘Even if you did have her phone number, she’ll never believe you.’

  ‘Maybe not. You know her better than me. But do you think she’ll completely dismiss it? Or do you think she might have the tiniest inkling of doubt? She might tell me to get lost – but every time you leave the house, she’ll wonder what you’re doing and who you’re with.’

  My phone rings again but I ignore it. Declan glances to my bag and then back to me.

  ‘She won’t believe you,’ he repeats.

  ‘I’ll take that chance. What have I got to lose?’

  He gulps and I know I’ve got him. Confidence is the thing. It took a full English and a thumbs-up from a stranger but I feel like a rock star. A fat, bloated one – but a rock star nonetheless.