Outside, I tell the driver that we need to take a small detour on the way back to Leanne’s home, and give him the postcode for Claire’s mother’s address. She may not be home and she may refuse to see me, but I am still a journalist, even if they won’t allow me back into the office just yet, so working on this story feels like the right thing to do. If Claire and her partner are trying to rip off the victims of stalkers, I have to do something.
The address is a terraced house divided into three flats and I realise the odds are stacked against me. I would have better luck with a bell and a front door. An intercom gives me less of a chance to plead my case. She won’t be able to see my face. Damn.
I press the small buzzer.
‘Yes. Who is it?’
‘It’s Alice – the journalist. I phoned about your daughter Claire. I have some new information that I need to share with you. It’s very important.’
‘I told you, we’re estranged. You need to go.’
‘I think you’re going to want to hear this.’ A punt. A fib. There is a long pause, and then to my astonishment there is the buzz of her releasing the door lock.
‘Come up.’
Claire’s mother looks curious as she lets me into her small flat. It is neat and bright with a red velvet sofa and cream cushions. Not what I was expecting at all. For some reason I had imagined something sadder and more disorganised.
‘So, what’s this new information you think I’ll want to hear?’
‘I don’t want to cause offence, and there’s no easy way to say this, but I’m worried that Claire may be involved in something shady – possibly illegal.’ I watch her face. She does not look shocked at all. ‘OK, so my research suggests Claire and her partner may be using a charity to try to trick people out of money.’
She makes an odd noise, letting out a puff of air. ‘Well, that wouldn’t surprise me.’
‘Really?’
‘I take it she’s still hanging around with Paul Crosswell?’
‘I don’t know for sure, but she’s set up a company – an alarm company for victims of stalking – with him. She told me she had a sister who’d been stalked. A nasty attack. She said she’d had to move abroad and that’s why Claire is running the charity.’
‘Utter rubbish. She’s an only child, like I told you. He’ll have put her up to this.’
‘Can I sit down?’ I take out my notebook and pen from my bag.
‘If you must. But I can only give you five minutes.’
There’s no offer of a drink, and despite my best efforts Mrs Bruce is clearly keen for me to leave. She doesn’t want to go on the record but she shares enough for me to know that I’m on the right track with this story.
Paul Crosswell is the reason Claire and her mother are estranged. And Hardy isn’t Claire’s married name, as I’d assumed. Just a new cover, apparently.
Claire and Paul apparently have serious financial difficulties. He first tried to set up a different kind of security alarm system – for business users. It went to the wall and there was a police inquiry which came to nothing. Turns out he told customers there was a call centre which put queries straight through to the police where necessary. Just like the pitch Claire gave me. But there was no call centre. No grand system. The calls just went through to Paul’s personal phone. He was charging customers a hefty monthly fee for a service which was a scam. Users would have been better off phoning the police themselves.
I tell Mrs Bruce that I think they’re trying a new version of the same scam with the stalking charity.
‘How would they pull that off? Are there not checks and balances with charities? Regulations?’
‘Technically, yes. But criminals can work round them.’
‘That sounds like Paul. He’s certainly set up and dissolved a whole string of businesses.’ There is a pause, and she stands as if deciding this is enough.
‘Look, it’s why we’re estranged,’ she says finally. ‘I told Claire I want nothing to do with her until she steps away from that dreadful man. I made her choose.’ She looks sad for a moment. ‘Naive of me. Stupidly, I thought she would choose me. I’m sorry, but I really do need to ask you to go now.’
I leave my card, and in the car to Leanne’s London home, I ring Matthew to update him. I feel sad for Mrs Bruce but am quietly excited about the story.
He’s not.
‘I thought we agreed that you need to leave this to the police, Alice.’
‘I’m sorry?’ I’m a little shocked at his tone. We agreed no such thing. He just said it would be wise to let Mel look into Claire and her boyfriend. It’s the first time since my real name came out that Matthew has sounded truly cross with me.
‘Mel’s still looking into Paul Crosswell and he’s a nasty character. Not just fraud. There’s stuff you don’t know; he’s had a couple of charges for actual bodily harm too. He could be a suspect, Alice.’
‘Oh, come on, Matthew. I told you – I approached the charity, not the other way around. There’s no way this pair are involved with my stalking. They’re just trying to rip people off and they’re hoping to use my writing.’
‘Please, Alice. We’re still checking this out on our end. You need to keep a low profile. Keep yourself safe. And you need to leave this alone.’
CHAPTER 58
ALICE
Somehow the days pass. The weekend. Monday. Tuesday. And now here we are again . . . Wednesday. Every week now I ricochet between fear, anger and boredom. I’ve endured well over a month of this and I’m exhausted.
I’m fed up especially with feeling so isolated. Too many people telling me I can’t be a journalist just now is extra salt in my wounds. I fire an email to the head of HR at my paper, telling them that I have now used up all my spare holiday as requested and I demand to return to work. I reiterate that I’m prepared to take every Wednesday off, as we agreed, but warn that I’ll take my case to an employment lawyer if they continue to keep me from my desk.
As soon as I’ve sent the email, I slightly regret it. A part of me can see their point of view. In our last meeting, I cited cases of much higher-profile journalists facing trouble with stalkers. They weren’t stopped from working. ‘We’re not the BBC,’ was the response. ‘We’re a local paper in financial difficulties, fighting to survive. We don’t have the resources the BBC has. We don’t even have someone full-time on reception, Alice. We can’t just get all the mail X-rayed. It’s difficult.’
Difficult? They think I don’t know this is difficult?
I stare at the screen of my phone. Wed – white lettering on a blue background . . . again. So soon. I am at Tom’s flat and the agreement for today is that he will keep an eye on me until Matthew turns up at 10 a.m. It’s very early still but I have been awake since the early hours and so he brings me coffee. He is as patient as ever but I’m like a cat on a hot tin roof. Pacing. Sounding off. Wound up.
I am just updating Tom about the email to work when the intercom buzzer sounds. It’s an early courier with a parcel. Tom is visibly relieved. He’s expecting important papers for a tricky contract he’s negotiating. He tells the courier to bring the parcel of papers ‘up to the second floor, please’. But the guy says he’s wearing a motorcycle helmet and the company rule is they’re not allowed to visit upstairs flats with their helmets on. People complain. Tom tells him to take his helmet off. But the courier says he’s pushed for time – Do you have any idea how little time they allow for each delivery? – and either Tom has to come down or he’ll mark it as a non-delivery.
Tom tries arguing but the guy says he’s not paid to argue.
‘Oh, just go down, Tom,’ I say.
‘No way. I don’t like to leave you.’
‘The flat’s secure. You need the paperwork. Are we saying we can’t receive any deliveries any Wednesday ever now? Even for your work? I mean, this is no life, is it? It’s getting ridiculous. Just go down. Get your papers. Stop fretting.’
I move through into the kitchen and flick the swit
ch on the coffee machine. It’s still dark outside and I check the time on my phone as I wait for the green light for an espresso. There are a few emails. I flick through them one by one. Nothing very important.
It is as I am still turned towards the worktop that it happens.
It is all so fast that I have no time to think. Or to hit back. To grab anything to stop this.
There is suddenly this gloved hand cupped round my face with a large cloth over my mouth. I can smell chemicals. And leather.
I struggle hard, flailing my arms and trying to reach the worktop. But it’s no good. I can smell something sweet now. I expect to collapse but this does not happen immediately. I feel my brain numbing and am suddenly being sucked into this dark tunnel. I keep flailing my arms. I struggle hard and I try to scream through the cloth. I know that I must not go into the tunnel but the lights are fading into the distance until I am so far, far away that they are gone completely. Consumed by the darkness.
When I wake up, my head is thump-thumping and I cannot see properly. Still there is this strange smell. Slightly sweet. My mouth is covered but my eyes are not. But I cannot see anything at all. Somehow I cannot make my vision work properly and so I close my eyes, trying to sense how long I was out, where I am and what is happening.
Am I still in Tom’s flat? I can’t tell. Oh dear Lord. What has he done to Tom?
I am sitting. I can feel a hard surface beneath my bottom. My hands are tightly bound at the wrists. I’m on a chair? Yes. It’s a wooden chair of some kind. I can’t think of a chair like this in Tom’s flat. So I’ve been moved?
I try opening my eyes again and this time they slowly begin to adjust.
I am in a room that I do not recognise. At least not at first. I look around. Some kind of kitchen-cum-sitting room with the curtains drawn and a main door to the right. I try to take in other details. To place where I might be.
There is a strange mix of pictures on the wall. The Queen. A rather kitsch print of some rural setting with ducks and geese, and alongside it a large framed school picture of a boy with a big smile and a big gap between his front teeth. I glance around, my head still pounding, but there is nothing else to help me. A wooden magazine rack. Empty. Some kind of bag on the floor by a tall-backed chair. Shelving in the corner of the kitchen area.
Only now do I take in just how tightly my mouth is covered. Taped. I move my hands instinctively to try to reach up to take the tape from my mouth but they are tied firmly to the arms of the chair.
True panic is rising now. Sometimes, at night, I struggle to breathe through my nose – especially during the hay fever season. I start to feel this deep, deep dread. What if my nose gets blocked now? If I can’t breathe through my nose, I will simply suffocate. I will die. I look around this bleak and terrible space and imagine that this is where everything could end for me. I can feel my breathing quicken with my panicked thoughts and I tell myself that I have to find a way to calm myself. Have to keep my nose clear. You have to breathe, Alice.
And that is when he appears from an adjoining room. He’s dressed all in black. Black trousers. Black jumper. Black gloves and some kind of black balaclava.
And this is when I realise that what I thought was fear before was nothing of the sort. All those weeks – afraid of my stalker? That wasn’t real fear.
I let out this strange animal noise, stifled through the gag as the dark figure sits on the high-backed chair across the room from me.
This is what real fear is.
CHAPTER 59
HIM – BEFORE
He is shown his gran’s suicide note at the police station. It is in a plastic evidence bag. A single line on a sheet of white paper. Her familiar neat writing in blue biro. They let him take a photograph, using his phone, but he’s told that he cannot have the note and file back until after the inquest.
‘What file?’
They produce an A4 folder in another, larger evidence bag, and tell him that his gran was collecting cuttings from the local newspaper about the future of the flats. She had also just received a final notice to quit from the company responsible for the housing block, along with a letter from the local council urging her to agree to a meeting with the housing association which would offer alternative accommodation.
The police officer tells him that his gran did not respond to any of the letters about sorting out her new home. All this will be set before the inquest.
He struggles to compose himself in front of the police officer. He had talked with his gran in the past about the stupid local campaign to get the building demolished.
It’ll come to nothing, she had said. They’re always sounding off. Been moaning for years. But I’ll be fine.
He’d been busy at work. He’d not visited his gran as often as he should. A little part of him was worried because of the inquiry into Brian’s death. But he consoled himself that his gran was happy. She was in the place she loved and he had promised that she could stay there. He had helped make it safer. He had got rid of the putrid infection who lived next door. He had done his bit.
Two months later, at the inquest, he is the only person to attend. No press. No other friends. There are just a few people waiting for the next hearing.
Only now does he alone fully understand what really happened.
He received a package from his gran two days after her death. A long letter and her diary. She must have posted them to him before she . . .
He closes his eyes during the hearing, picturing her writing the letter at the table. The police said he must hand over anything relevant – but no. He will not give the letter or the diary to the police; he will give them nothing more of his grandmother. What do they care? Justice is his job now, not theirs.
The A4 file found at the flat contained cuttings from six months back, when a local journalist suddenly took up the campaigners’ case. Alice Henderson.
The coroner is shown the many cuttings from the A4 folder and seems puzzled. Questions are asked. Was this elderly woman tired of waiting for a new home? Was that it? Was she struggling with the poor conditions in the flat?
The police say neighbours were questioned but had no helpful insights. The elderly woman was a very private person. Kept herself to herself. She was not involved in the campaign and was not known to have discussed it with anyone. There was no record of correspondence with the local authority.
The post-mortem confirms severe arthritis and there is speculation that the pain from this might have been magnified by the damp conditions.
There are no neat conclusions. All the court has is the short suicide note left on the kitchen table.
I can’t go on. I’m sorry.
He watches the coroner looking through the pages of newspaper cuttings once again. And then the man rereads his gran’s note – not out loud but quietly. His face is grave and sad.
The coroner leaves the room for a bit, then returns to say that he is satisfied that his gran took her own life, though the precise reason remains unclear. The verdict is suicide. The horrible truth is his poor gran took many pills and then put her head into the gas oven. The gas eventually cut out apparently, but not before she had suffered. Vomited. The reason her face was so red and distorted when he was asked to identify her body.
He wonders – this terrible burning inside him – how long it took for her to die. What she felt. What his beloved gran felt. All alone.
After the hearing, he is called to the police station and is allowed to take the final single-line note and the folder stuffed with all the newspaper cuttings. All written by Alice Henderson. Her picture is at the top of some of the longer features. He stares at the face. Alice with her neat hair and her neat smile. Do-gooder Alice. Know-it-all Alice. Some middle-class, privileged bitch who knows nothing of real people’s lives, and just took it upon herself to back the stupid campaign and to push and push and push until the politicians began to listen.
At home, he rereads his gran’s diary. The true story. The whole story – h
ow she became more and more desperate week by week when the campaign suddenly and unexpectedly found wings through Alice wretched Henderson. The tone of his gran’s daily jottings changed further as the campaign gained even greater momentum. From the final entries, it was clear she was beside herself. She wrote that she simply could not face a future living somewhere else. Away from her memories. Away from the beloved bench. She had always thought the campaign would come to nothing and was shocked to be proven wrong. She cursed Alice Henderson and her stupid local paper. Why couldn’t she leave it alone? She scribbled that she told no one how she felt because what was the point? Local authorities never listened to people like her. So when the notice to quit arrived, she made her decision. She would not move. No way . . .
She asked him in her letter to keep the diary safe, as she did not want strangers poking about in her business.
He holds that final letter in his hand again. He has read it so many times that he can recite it in his head. Once more he imagines her sitting that last time at the table to write it . . . all alone.
He has not cried since he was a child. Since those terrible Wednesdays with Brian. He thinks of what he did later to try to keep his gran safe. He thinks of Brian in that alley. The blood spraying. The hammer blows. Bash, bash, bash.
He hated that place – the housing block. But she loved it. His gran. And he loved her. So he came to accept its future in his life for the sake of the only person who had ever cared for him. He did the right thing for her. He was strong. And he promised his gran she could stay.
He watches a tear drop on to the letter as he scans the words, his gran’s voice in his head.
My dearest boy.
I am writing to explain a bit. You must try not to be too cross with me or too sad. This is best for me. I am so proud of what you have become. Please, please forgive me and go forward in your wonderful new life.
I am just not strong enough to move. I cannot bear it. Too old and much too tired, my beloved little soldier.
I Will Make You Pay Page 25
