The Day We Disappeared (33 page)

I smiled
hopelessly. I could think of better things to be talented at.

‘So, anyway, Claudine saw you on
the documentary –'

‘I do not 'ave much of a
life since I kicked out Sylvester,' Claudine put in ruefully.

‘And after a lot of thinking we
called Mark's yard in case they'd had any contact with you since the
accident and a lovely lady told us there was a groom here called Kate Brady and we
thought, Aha!'

‘Stephen did exactly the
same,' I said. ‘He wrote to me. This morning. I'm on my way out of
here.'

They were horrified. ‘He what?
Where is he?'

‘In Somerset. He keeps texting me.
I don't know where he is, but he's very close.'

‘Motherfucker,' Claudine
hissed. ‘I will kill him. I will kill his stupid English arse.'

I was woozy still from the panic attack
but adrenalin was circulating darkly around me. ‘I really have to get out of
here,' I repeated. ‘I have to go to the airport and fly somewhere to
stay for a week or so while I decide what to do.'

‘No,' said Lizzy.

‘No,' said Tim.

‘I will kill you before I allow
this,' said Claudine.

‘I will too,' Becca said
guiltily. ‘Sorry, pet.'

‘Are none of you listening?
He's on his way! He is a
lunatic
!'

‘Well, it's actually classed
as a personality disorder,' Tim began, but Claudine held up a hand to silence
us and, as always, we obeyed.

‘Annabel,' she said quietly.
‘Here is what is actually going to happen. You come back to London with us
–'

‘Yes,' she insisted, when I wailed,
‘
No!
'

‘You are coming back with us and
you are moving in with Lizzy. It is all planned. I have told Tim he is not allowed
to stay the night with Lizzy while you are there because if you hear them having sex
you might, quite reasonably, throw yourself out of the window.'

I held my head between my hands. It was
all too much.

‘We take out a restraining order
against Stephen, and then –'

‘
No!
Never! Claudie, are
you
mad
? Do you not understand how dangerous he is?'

Claudine sighed. ‘Read this,
please,' she said. ‘And then we talk.'

It was a letter from a girl called Ros
Martin, sent to Lizzy at her work address.

Dear Lizzy,

I'm trying to contact your sister but cannot find any way of getting
hold of her. I decided to write to you at your workplace; I really hope
that's OK. If you read the enclosed letter to your sister you'll
perhaps understand why I went to the lengths of tracking you down.

Please do feel free to read this message in full before deciding if you
think she will be up to dealing with this.

I looked nervously at my sister but she
gave me a smile of encouragement. ‘It's not nice, but it's
good,' she said. ‘We're all here, Annie.'

I glanced up at the lane, scanning for
cars, but everything was still. I started reading.

Dear Annabel,

I thought long and hard about whether or not to send this letter, but it
felt wrong not to. I am very sorry if the contents of this message are
upsetting.

My name is Ros and I'm an artist, based in Lea Bridge. Until a few
months ago I was in a relationship with a man called Stephen Flint, whom
I'm afraid I think you know.

Stephen was a really fantastic boyfriend for a while, but I became
suspicious when I kept finding my phone in places that I had not left it.
I'm not the sort of person to forget where I've put things, and
I suspected that he was checking my messages, even though I couldn't
imagine why he would.

I blushed. How sharp Ros Martin was,
noticing what was happening with her phone. And what a useless fool I had been with
mine.

At the same time, he started working extremely late and became a lot more
irritable and difficult. I tried to be understanding about it, because
relationships are as much about getting through bad times as they are about
enjoying the good. Unfortunately, it seems that our
‘relationship' was skewed a lot further towards the bad than I
could possibly have imagined.

I called the switchboard at FlintSpark once at around eleven p.m., shortly
after he'd texted me to say that he was starting a video conference
with San Francisco. The night-time guard said that nobody was in the
building at all, other than security. But when I called his direct line a
few minutes later, he said he was at his desk. I realized he must be
diverting his calls to his mobile.

To cut a long story short, I then decided to find out exactly what was going
on, as it was clear that he was lying to me
frequently, and I had a quick check of his
emails one night when he was in the bath. Regrettable behaviour, but it paid
off: I found some shocking pieces of information and am now in touch with
many of the girls whose lives he's destroyed.

With regard to you, I discovered that he had hired a man to hack your email
account and find you in Thailand. I'm very sorry if this is
distressing news but I wanted you to know. From what I can tell he even went
to Thailand himself but didn't find you, and the email hacking was
fruitless as you appeared to have closed the account down.

I hope that you remain safe out there.

When I confronted him about you – you were the first person I found out
about – Stephen said that you had run off with a vast sum of his money, and
that he was pursuing you for legal reasons. His argument was very convincing
and for a few days I believed him. I wish I hadn't. I knew by then he
was bad news. The problem is, as you no doubt know, he is incredibly
convincing and lovely when he wants you onside. Even though I was in a state
of heightened suspicion, he was able to manipulate me.

Because of my investigations I'm now in contact with six women with
whom Stephen has been in a ‘relationship' in the last two years.
Two appear to have been involved with him at the same time as you – a girl
called Petra Navarro who I believe you met in a restaurant in Hackney, and a
Nancy Stevens who lives in New York.

Nancy broke up with Stephen on New Year's Eve because she had begun to
suspect that he was seeing someone else. He flew out to patch things up with
her a few days before New Year's Eve but she discovered that he was
staying in a hotel with another woman. From what she's managed to work
out, that woman was you.

I sat back,
stunned. The last-minute decision to take me to New York, rather than Paris. The
endless calls from Stephen's ‘office' and his cold fury when he
finally got back only minutes before midnight.
He had just been dumped
. By
another woman. And then asked Claudine out on the internet. You couldn't make
it up.

As for Petra, Stephen told her that you had mental-health issues; that you
had tried to commit suicide at the age of sixteen and had been mentally
unstable ever since. He told her that since he had ended things with you,
you had stalked him relentlessly. Petra later discovered that this was
wholly untrue, and that you and he were still very much together when they
bumped into you in a restaurant in Hackney.

‘It's not wholly untrue,
though,' I said, now really frightened. I ran a hand over my face. ‘Oh,
God, what has he done?'

‘What do you mean, pet?'
Becca asked. She was still sitting next to me, an arm around my shoulder, reading
the letter in tandem.

I swallowed. ‘I did try to take my
life when I was sixteen.'

‘Oh, pet,' Becca said.

Lizzy squeezed my foot.

‘But that's not the point.
The point is that I never told Stephen.' I looked wildly at Tim. ‘How
does he know? Is there any way of him accessing my NHS records?'

Tim shook his head. ‘Impossible.
Are you sure you never told him?'

‘Positive,' I whispered.
‘What has he done? How does he know?'

I felt dazed.
Stephen was a monster. A monster completely without limits.

‘I have to get out,' I said.
‘We have to go. Please!'

‘Listen,' Tim said firmly.
‘If Stephen turns up here right now, I imagine your sister will probably kill
him. And if she doesn't, Claudine will. We all will. You are not in danger
right now.'

‘Keep reading, darling,'
Lizzy said. ‘It's okay.'

I blew out a long breath. Yes, I could
take a little more. Somewhere inside me, amid the terror and the panic, a spark of
rage had ignited.

I am also in contact with his PA, Natasha Everidge, who eventually had the
courage to resign from FlintSpark six months ago. She was never involved
with him herself – I suspect she was too useful to him – but she helped him
pretend to be working late repeatedly. She is deeply upset about the whole
thing. She has also secured the co-operation of Stephen's ex-chief
operating officer, Rory Adamson. Rory had apparently had several arguments
with Stephen about his persistent habit of sleeping with his female staff,
which frequently led to him missing important meetings and events.

Of course – Rory. The look he had given
Stephen in the château, when Stephen said I was joining them for drinks.
Not
again, Flint
, he must have been thinking.
Not this one too …

There is one other woman in the equation who I'm going to have to tell
you about. Her name is Penny Flint and – as you might already have guessed –
she is his estranged wife. They have a son, Sebastian, to whom Stephen does
not have access.

‘Oh, my
God!' I cried. Barnaby, his nephew. Barnaby was called Sebastian, and he was
Stephen's
son
?

‘Motherfucker,' Claudine
muttered.

Penny replied to my letter, saying that she and her little boy had been
through enough now, and wouldn't be able to help with our case, but
that she wished us luck. ‘You'll need it,' she wrote,
which I have to say I found somewhat daunting.

To the matter at hand. Of the six of us, three have been physically
assaulted by Stephen, he has broken into two of our flats and all of us have
received what constitutes sufficient unwanted contact to put him in breach
of the Protection from Harassment Act. We have decided to build a case
against him together. The charges will include harassment, stalking, GBH and
forced entry. On each count our cases are strong.

However, as you know, Stephen is extremely clever and will hire the best
lawyers in the country to defeat us. As yet, he does not know that we are
building a case against him, but we have all successfully taken out
restraining orders against him so he is already very angry. I am worried
that he will be redoubling his efforts to find you, given that you currently
have no legal protection.

We would like you to join us in our case, Annie, if you feel able to do so.
We are working with a brilliant CPS prosecutor who is completely on our side
– she is determined to have Stephen put away, and she feels that you could
add real weight to the prosecution.

It may be that you've moved permanently to Thailand, but if
you're back in the country and willing to join us (or even if
you're not willing to join us) I'd strongly advise you to take
out a restraining order against Stephen. He has harassed and stalked all of
us
relentlessly, and while none
of us thinks he is likely to cause us serious harm, we want to know we can
live safely in London.

We will understand if you decide you can't go through with a
prosecution case. We, too, are deeply shaken by our experiences but we feel
equally strongly that Stephen cannot be allowed to go on and do this to any
more vulnerable women. Because make no mistake – it's vulnerable women
he's going for.

Here are my contact details, should you wish to talk further about this
letter.

I wish you the very best, whatever your decision.

Ros

I closed my eyes, taking in great gulps
of cold Somerset air. ‘That's awful,' Becca said, in the ensuing
silence. ‘The bit about him targeting only vulnerable women.'

I looked at her absently. A thought was
beginning to grow in my mind. It moved slowly, like a Polaroid print developing.

‘I was vulnerable,' I said.
‘Badly so. He did well to find someone as vulnerable as me.'

The distant sound of giggling Pony Club
girls was carried over on a gust of wind. I remembered myself on the day I'd
met Stephen. Tired, helpless, carried along by a tide I hadn't the energy to
fight. I remembered how kind he'd been, how he'd seemed to switch on a
light and see into my soul. That stuff he'd told me about feeling stuck
himself, the story about the man who'd hugged himself happy.

I remembered the little glow I'd
felt on my way home that night. The sense of not being quite alone in the world.

And then I closed my eyes again. The
Polaroid developed and suddenly I knew.
I knew exactly what Stephen had
done
.

‘I'll join them,' I said slowly.
‘I'll fight him.'

Lizzy stared at me.
‘Seriously?'

‘I'll fight him with
everything I've got. Which isn't much, but it's better than
nothing at all.' Becca rubbed her hand up and down my back. ‘Brilliant,
pet,' she muttered. ‘Brilliant.'