by K. L. Slater
Brenda sniffed into a hanky but gave a little smile and nod, and Steph watched the relief flood over Darcy’s face. She really thought everything was settled. She really thought her new life would just fall into place as easy as that.
But Steph knew everything about Darcy, and she’d bet her bottom dollar George knew next to nothing.
The Darcy he was making his fresh start with bore no resemblance to the version Steph was accustomed to.
Perhaps someone ought to enlighten him.
Thirty
‘Phew!’ When we all leave Brenda and Leonard’s house and get back in the car, George wipes his brow. ‘I got out alive.’
I laugh. ‘Oh come on, they weren’t that bad. I think you won Brenda over within minutes, and Steph seemed very interested in what you had to say.’
‘Dave and Leonard didn’t seem that impressed, though,’ George remarked.
‘Can’t win ’em all.’ I grin. ‘I thought it went rather well, considering.’
‘Considering what?’
‘I dunno. Considering they all think I shouldn’t even look at another man.’
George glances at me. ‘Really?’
‘That’s what it feels like.’ I shrug, and turn to look in the back at the kids. Romy’s already asleep; Kane and Harry are poring over the Nintendo Switch. I lower my voice. ‘I got a package of photos through the mail the other day.’
‘Oh yeah?’ George stares ahead, his hands on the wheel.
‘Yes. Pictures of the five of us at Bounce. No letter or anything, just photos of us in there.’
George frowns and glances at me briefly before looking back at the road. ‘How weird. Maybe they’ve got an official photographer there?’
‘But how would they know my address! Besides, they have to have permission to take photographs; they can’t just go around clandestinely snapping pictures of kids. And anyway, it’s highly unlikely they’d be sending them out as freebies. No. Someone took those photos and then sent them expressly to show me they were there. Watching us.’
‘Who’d do that?’
I don’t reply.
‘Darcy?’
‘I’m not sure. Have you got any ideas?’
He sticks out his bottom lip. ‘Can’t think of anyone.’
The car is a neutral place, making it great to talk and this is the perfect time to broach the subject of Daniela before we get home.
But when I open my mouth to begin speaking, I find there are no words there at all.
The days leading up to our Christmas break at the lodge are a whirlwind.
We decide, in the end, to take most of our food with us, although Christmas lunch is laid on at a nearby pub, thank goodness. But ensuring all the presents are wrapped and tagged and that we’ve all got adequate warm clothing… I soon start to doubt our sanity in making such an immense last-minute decision.
From the moment we arrive, though, I know it was completely the right thing to do.
The park is nestled in the middle of a forest and the whole campus is festooned with white fairy lights and fake snow – to make up for the fact that real snow hasn’t been forecast.
At the check-in desk, Romy and Kane are speechless with glee at the news that Santa will most definitely be stopping off here.
‘You have to listen really carefully for the reindeer bells so you can run out of the cabin and wave, OK?’ the young blonde receptionist, dressed in a short red and green elf dress, tells them enthusiastically.
Romy and Kane both nod vigorously, but Harrison looks a little more cynical. Still, he seems happy enough to play along.
I only realise during the check-in process that George has paid an extortionate premium to stay in one of the biggest and best lodges.
‘I thought you said it was one of the last ones left?’ I challenge him playfully.
‘And that was the truth,’ he says defensively. ‘I just failed to mention that the reason it hadn’t been booked was because nobody had been daft enough to pay a small fortune for it. Until I came along, that is.’
The cabin is stunning. Four double bedrooms, an enormous lounge complete with log burner and glass doors that lead directly out into the forest, plus a fully equipped dining kitchen. George laughs when I insist on taking a few snaps before we mess it up.
The kids’ faces are a picture when they see the hot tub on the decking outside.
They disappear outside to take a look, squealing with excitement and at that moment, a text pings through on my phone.
It makes me smile and warms my heart. I feel both relieved and touched she wants to get back on an even keel again.
Sorry for being such a grump lately. Hope we can have lunch when you get back. Happy Christmas! Love, Steph.
I tap out a quick reply, attaching it to one of the snaps I took of the lodge.
Would love to! Lodge is amazing… Merry Christmas!
I turn off my phone then and drop it into my handbag before stepping closer to George.
‘I have a feeling this is going to be the best Christmas ever,’ I say, kissing him.
‘I have a feeling you’re right,’ he replies, pulling me closer.
‘Our kids are so lucky; they’re going to love it here.’ I look up at him. ‘Is this what your childhood was like?’
‘How do you mean?’ He draws back a little.
‘I mean that as far as childhoods go, mine was happy enough, but there wasn’t much money spare. We never went anywhere like this.’
A shadow passes over his face, and his smile falters. ‘No. I never did anything like this either.’
I’m worried that I’ve said something to upset him. ‘George?’
‘I’m fine.’ He sniffs. ‘My childhood was… well, I try not to think about it, to be honest. Put it this way, it wasn’t the stuff of fairy tales.’
‘I see. Sorry… Forget I said anything.’ But my interest is piqued. George doesn’t talk much about his past, and I suppose I’m equally reticent. But I’d always assumed, because of what he’s achieved, that he must have had quite a privileged upbringing, with no shortage of money… or love, for that matter.
I want to feel I know him on a deeper level, and finding out about his life – as I know he’ll want to know more about mine – is unavoidable.
One day soon perhaps he’ll tell me more, but for now, I let it go.
I inhale his clean, subtle scent and bury my face in his shoulder. My whole body prickles with desire. I can’t wait to get the kids to bed later and to spend some time snuggled up together on that big comfy couch—
‘Mum! Mum!’ Harrison runs in, breathless and alarmed. ‘There’s somebody out there in the woods… They tried to take Romy!’
George moves fast, and within seconds he’s outside, combing the fringes of the trees.
‘What happened, darling?’ I pull Romy to me, but she clams up, her face startled and pale. She won’t say a word.
‘Kane was over there with Romy – they were standing by the wood,’ Harrison tells me, understandably shaken. ‘I saw someone moving in the trees right near them, and when I ran over, Romy started to cry.’
‘Romy, what happened?’ George says, a little breathless from his frantic search. He crouches down in front of his daughter, but she won’t look at him. ‘Kane, can you tell us?’
‘You’re not in any trouble, sweetie,’ I reassure him. ‘Just tell us what you saw.’
‘We were collecting pine cones by the trees and a woman called us over,’ Kane says, looking at George warily. ‘She opened her handbag and said, “Hey, look at this.” I tried to stop Romy going, but the woman held out her hand.’
‘What did this woman look like?’ I feel hot, and my mouth is bone dry.
‘She had a hoodie on, but it was definitely a lady because she had nail varnish and I heard her voice,’ Harry offered. ‘She was about the same height as you.’
‘I couldn’t see her face,’ Kane chipped in, ‘because of her hood. But Romy looked at her.’
I suddenly realise I could show her a picture of Daniela Frost. Could Daniela have followed us here? Would she do that – be so desperate to ruin my chances with George that she’d try and abduct his daughter?
If I’ve put the kids in danger by coming here, I’ll never forgive myself.
‘Everyone inside,’ George says grimly before I can question them any more. He takes Romy’s hand and we shepherd the boys back in. ‘We’ll need to report this to the management.’
‘Never mind the management, we should ring the police!’ I say quickly. ‘I dread to think what could’ve happened here if we hadn’t got outside so quickly.’ I take a breath and pause before speaking. ‘There’s something I need to talk to you about, George. I should have told you before… It could have a bearing on what just happened out there.’
But George seems distracted and doesn’t reply. He locks the doors, and digs out cookies for the kids from the food box. Then he calls me through to our bedroom.
I open my mouth to speak, but he puts up a hand to stop me.
‘My turn to come clean first,’ he says, his face a mask of tension and dread. ‘I thought I had plenty of time to tell you, but it seems things have taken a turn for the worse.’
Then, with the kids safely tucked up watching TV in the other room, he begins to explain the nightmare situation to me.
Thirty-One
George started with the sucker punch. There was no other way to do it.
‘There’s someone I need to tell you about, Darcy. A woman.’
‘A woman?’ she repeated faintly, shrinking away from him.
George sighed, pinched the skin at the top of his nose before looking at her again.
‘I’m sorry, I really am. I should have told you all this before we got so involved. But I thought it would scare you off and—’
‘Just tell me now,’ she said. ‘Tell me everything.’
So he told her. She listened, saying nothing, and he could tell she was trying her hardest not to seem shocked while all this stuff, this awful detail, spewed out of him.
‘Her name is Opal Vardy.’ He felt his mouth twist slightly. He could barely stand the name on his lips. ‘I met her about eighteen months ago and she’s tried to ruin my life ever since.’
‘OK,’ Darcy whispered, somehow managing to sound calm and unflustered, though George knew the probability was that inside her chest, her heart was galloping nineteen to the dozen. She looked as if she might throw up any second.
‘Like you, I’d resigned myself to staying single for the foreseeable,’ he explained. ‘After the heartache of losing my wife, it felt like a positive decision, if you know what I mean. My life felt full enough with Romy and my career. It just seemed simpler not to bring anything or anyone else in to disrupt that.’
She nodded.
‘Anyway, one night, after consuming a bottle of red wine by myself and feeling low, I ended up on an online forum for medical staff, just a way of like-minded people having a moan really. Folks can often get a bit political on there, and in hindsight, it was too close to home. In my senior position, I should’ve never done it.’ He sighed. ‘But I got chatting to a few people about shared concerns we had: funding problems and the never-ending cuts to NHS services. Then Opal sent me a private message asking if I was the same George Mortimer who worked at the City Hospital.’
‘She already knew you?’
George nodded. ‘I was shocked. Like an idiot, I hadn’t realised my messages would appear under my real name.’ He rolled his eyes at his own naïvety. ‘I signed off the forum conversation then but ended up talking to Opal on private messenger. She was on the temporary staff roster, worked in the City Hospital archives and knew of me, but I didn’t know her.’
He hoped Darcy could see how that might be possible. The consultants were very high-profile and respected throughout the hospital. They were right at the top of the medical staff hierarchy and visible to all staff.
‘We chatted online for two or three nights that week, and it turned out Opal had been single for three years. We got on so well, I ended up asking her out for a drink. And it all went downhill from there.’
‘So what happened?’ Darcy swallowed. ‘Are you trying to tell me that you’re still involved with her in some way?’
‘No!’ He raised his voice, then softened it again. ‘No. After that initial meeting, we went out several times, maybe four or five. We got on well, but it was just a casual thing. For me, anyway. She was quite full-on, pushing me all the time to see her more. I explained my situation and was honest about the fact that I didn’t feel ready for a full-on relationship.’
‘And she was happy with that?’
‘Seemed to be.’ He hesitated. ‘She said she felt the same way.’
Darcy wrinkled her nose, no doubt disapproving of the obvious ‘friends with benefits’ sort of arrangement he’d just described.
‘Then one day, she came over to Urology to see me, and as she was hospital staff, they let her straight through. I didn’t realise she was standing outside my office door. I was talking on the phone to another consultant, senior to me. Between us, we’d carried out a very difficult and lengthy procedure on a patient, and sadly the man had died on the operating table.’
He looked at Darcy to check she was following, and she nodded. But her guarded expression told another story, like she was wondering exactly where this was going.
‘My colleague asked me, off the record, to tell him exactly what steps I had taken before I’d handed over to him, and I admitted I’d been forced to make a call about a certain course of action and it had turned out to be the wrong one.’ George sighed. ‘I didn’t know Opal was listening. She could only hear my side of the conversation, of course; couldn’t hear my colleague sympathising that such things happened and were part of the job and advising me to say nothing to the family.’
A few minutes after he’d finished the phone call, she’d tapped on the door and asked to see him.
‘She said she’d had second thoughts and wanted us to carry on seeing each other but in a more formal relationship. I told her it would be nice to have a drink together sometime but that I thought our connection had come to a natural end and we should just try to get along as friends.’
Darcy recognised the obvious let-down line and George saw her cringe a little.
‘And how did she take that?’ she asked.
‘Fine! She seemed to take it OK and her contract finished, so she left the hospital soon afterwards. That’s when it all started going wrong.’
Darcy waited for him to continue.
‘At first it was just little things I barely noticed: I’d turn up somewhere and she’d be there. Or I’d take Romy to a pizza restaurant and Opal would walk by the window and end up coming in to chat to us.’
He ran his fingers through his hair, shifted around in his seat.
‘This went on for a few months, but there were long breaks in between incidents so I really didn’t think anything of it. Then other stuff began to happen. Deliveries would come to the department for my attention that I hadn’t ordered. I had a two-day conference in Scotland organised, and when I got to the airport, I found my flight had been cancelled without my authorisation. Annoying, inconvenient things like that.’
‘And you think all this was Opal’s doing?’
‘Oh, I’m certain of it. I called her, asked if we could meet for a chat, but she was having none of it.’ He laughed bitterly. ‘She actually accused me of bothering her. Said that we’d agreed to call it a day and I shouldn’t be calling her!
‘Then it shifted up a notch. Maria, my housekeeper, called me at work one day, said a woman had come to the door claiming to be my girlfriend. She wanted to collect some things I needed that I’d apparently sent her to get. She was quite insistent about gaining entry, but Maria had the sense no
t to allow her in, thank goodness. When I asked her to describe the woman, it was quite obviously Opal, and when I showed her a photo on my phone, she confirmed it.’
Thirty-Two
I stand up abruptly, suddenly dizzy with worry. ‘You think it was Opal outside just now? It was her lurking in the woods?’
‘No!’ Then, ‘I don’t know, Darcy. But the kids are safe now. We’re all inside.’
‘That’s hardly the point! Other families might be in danger if she’s unhinged.’
‘If it’s her, I can assure you it’s just me she’s interested in. Nobody else.’ George sighs. ‘Please, Darcy, just sit down so I can finish. This will only take a few more minutes.’
I think about refusing and then sit down anyway. I feel a tiny flash of relief that it’s not Daniela out there and I might not have to come clean to George after all. But that selfish thought is immediately superseded by concern about what he is telling me, concern for the safety of our children.
‘As you can imagine, the fact Opal had tried to gain entry to the house while I was at work really spooked me, and I contacted the police. Just for some advice. It soon became clear that I had next to no evidence, and although her meddling was annoying and inconvenient, it wasn’t endangering myself or Romy and she still hadn’t threatened us in any way.’ George shakes his head in frustration. ‘It seems when a man is stalked by a woman – the officer I spoke to insisted on referring to it as me being “hounded” – it’s received very differently. I wasn’t scared by Opal, you see. Just annoyed.’
He pauses for a few moments and frowns.
‘Like lots of people, I used to be a bit scornful of stalking complaints, used to think it was as simple as getting a court injunction against the culprit. But it turns out it’s nowhere near that simple. Opal was so clever about it. She never showed up regularly or did the same thing twice so that other people noticed. The police told me they’d still have an informal word with her, if it would help, but I said not to bother. It wouldn’t have done any good. And then she seemed to go quiet and I thought it was over.’
