Dying for Christmas (28 page)

That account tells how I allowed myself to be picked up by a charming stranger and went with him willingly to his apartment. It’s not the kind of thing you want to read about your girlfriend.

Particularly not now it’s come to light Lacey is being treated in the same hospital where Travis works. It’s a huge building and Travis’ department, Paediatrics, is in a completely separate block to the rest of the hospital, but still, knowing that he’s nearby must add salt to the wounds.

‘I’m sorry,’ I say now, making a nervous gesture with my arms that lifts the cuff of my sweatshirt slightly so that he can see the marks on my wrists. ‘I know I should never have gone to his apartment. I hate myself for being so easily flattered. It’s just that you and I were … not getting on so well. First the abortion, then Winston … and you’ve seemed so distant lately.’

Sometimes when I lie awake in the dead hours of the night, forcing my eyes open so I don’t have to listen to Cesca in my head sobbing or Sam or Bella, I wonder what possessed me to write all that stuff about our relationship for all the world to read – the stuff about the lack of passion and our mutual ambivalence. Was I deliberately trying to provoke a reaction from Travis to catapult us out of the rut we seemed to be in? Or was I just using it as a forum to say the things I was unable to say to his face?

He gazes at me through his black-rimmed specs and suddenly I want more than anything to win back his favour. My Travis. We’ve been through so much together. After twelve days with Dominic I appreciate everything Travis has to offer – his steadiness, his kindness, the way he doesn’t switch moods for no reason at all, his lack of vanity, his integrity.

‘Please come and sit next to me,’ I say. ‘It was an error of judgement, a moment of madness. I just wanted to be someone else for a while.’

Travis sighs heavily, but he does come over and drop down next to me on the bed, allowing me to nestle under his arm just as we’ve done a million and one times before.

‘This feels right, doesn’t it?’ I ask him.

And it does. For the first time since it all began, I feel relaxed.

Only later, after he’s gone, does it occur to me that Travis never replied.

Chapter Thirty-Seven

From: [email protected]

To: [email protected]

Subject: he woke up!

I am hyperventilating. Oh fuck oh fuck. Dominic woke up. They just told me. He was conscious for about ten minutes or so. He didn’t say anything. Maybe that’s because you severed his vocal cords. But they’re going to get a pen and notepad ready for the next time. THE NEXT TIME. Did you get that? Dominic is going to come round and tell them everything.

From: [email protected]

To: [email protected]

Subject: CHILL THE FUCK OUT!

And breathe. This is just how we planned it, remember? Plan A? You would escape while Dominic was out of the flat and it would be his word against yours. They won’t believe him. This last week while he’s been unconscious has bought us a head start on the public image stuff. You should be grateful.

Nx

From: [email protected]

To: [email protected]

Subject: not grateful – shitting it!

You know perfectly well the minute the press get wind that Dominic might pull through, they’ll have to back right off. If there’s a court case in the offing, everything becomes
sub judice
. Why did I ever, EVER, let you talk me into this? You have ruined my life.

From: [email protected]

To: [email protected]

Subject: GET OVER YOURSELF!

Firstly, I haven’t ruined your life. You did that all by yourself by sleeping with Dominic in the first place. If you’d just been satisfied with your nice, sweet boyfriend none of this would have happened. Secondly, you know very well why you went into this. You had no choice. Think about the film. Think about your gorgeous niece. And thirdly, I’m about to start eating my own arm off with boredom sat in here all day watching
Jeremy
fucking
Kyle
, and you don’t catch me moaning about it all the time.

N

She’s right.

I slam down the lid on my laptop and push it off my knees on to the sofa next to me, and stare at the wall ahead. Even after a couple of days it still feels weird to be back here in Wood Green.

I’m still fuming – but I know she’s right. I did this to myself.

* * *

It wasn’t long after my second encounter with Dominic that the emails started again. He knew deep down I’d enjoyed it, he said. I needed to explore that side of my personality. He had no shortage of willing partners, he assured me. But there was something special about me. Something restrained and hidden and repressed that turned him on. A boil waiting to be lanced.

I ignored the emails and deleted them. I didn’t want to be reminded of that second night in a hotel room with him. Then one Wednesday evening in June as I lay on the sofa while Travis studied at the table, I heard the ping of a message arriving in the Hotmail account. There was a knot of sickness in my throat when I went to my inbox and saw he’d sent an email with a movie attachment. As I watched the footage, I had to clamp my hand over my mouth to stop myself from screaming out loud. Edited highlights of our night together, every nauseating moment.

There was a message:
One more night and I’ll delete the footage
.

I won’t fall for your blackmail a second time
, I emailed back. There followed a couple of weeks of silence from him and I dared to hope he’d gone away. Sitting back against the sofa cushions staring up at the ceiling in our flat, I allow myself a smile at the preposterousness of it – me imagining Dominic would give up like that.

The next time he emailed, there was another attachment. It was a photograph of one of our vaults at work. I couldn’t tell which one, as they all look very alike. Nestling on the shelf amid the hundreds of silver reels was a DVD case. There was a close-up of the spine:
Jessica & Dominic
, it read.

Of course I tried to find it. I quizzed the security guards on reception. I even stayed late and went down to the vaults, but there are dozens of them, and I hadn’t even got a quarter of the way through before someone came in and I had to come up with an excuse for being there. After that I couldn’t risk it again.

I’m going to the police
, I emailed him.

That’s a shame
, he replied.
If you watch the film carefully – which believe me, I have done, many, many times – there’s no sign of you putting up much resistance. I wonder what your parents will think, when they watch it. And your brothers. And your boss …

That night I didn’t sleep.

The following day I emailed him again:
One more night and you’ll delete that film?

I wasn’t going to go along with it. I just wanted to keep the dialogue open, so he wouldn’t post the footage anywhere else.

No, silly Jessica Gold, that was the Early Bird rate. Now you’ve taken so long, I’m afraid the price has to go up.

And then … Nothing.

Every morning I logged into the secret Hotmail account with my mouth dusty with dread. And after the initial relief of not seeing his name in my inbox would come the inevitable slump when I understood the agonizing wait would continue. I realized by now that he wasn’t going to just disappear. He was biding his time.

And then one day there was a message. Only it wasn’t from him, it was from her.

Natalie
.

* * *

Jessica Gold is hiding something. Kim was watching her carefully when Robertson told her about Dominic Lacey waking up. There was something in her eyes, a particular kind of fear.

‘Obviously she’s going to be afraid. The bastard practically killed her, and now it looks like he’s going to pull through. She’s going to be shitting herself.’

Martin is right. Of course Jessica is going to be petrified thinking that the man who put her through such unimaginable horror is awake. But Kim saw something else in her reaction, something other than the primal sweat-fear she’s seen in victims of domestic violence. Jessica Gold was scared on a whole other level – a rational, knowing level. It was the fear of someone who has a lot to lose. Kim recognized it from her own face in the mirror.

Chapter Thirty-Eight

Travis is sleeping on the sofa. I try not to mind. He says it’s because I’m still so fragile, still recuperating, but I think it’s because of the tattoo on my hip and the lash marks on my body, faded now but still visible, a pattern of pale pink lace on my skin. I lie on his side of the bed, and imagine things are different.

Now I’ve started thinking about her, Natalie, I find I can’t stop. Her face, with that expression of entitlement beautiful women so often wear, crowds my memory and even here in our bedroom, I can almost smell a trace of the perfume she always wears.

When she first sent that email, I thought it was Dominic playing more mind games. It hadn’t occurred to me he could be married. She’d found my messages on his computer, she said. She watched the film of our night together. She thought I’d probably worked out by now that Dominic was dangerous.

She wanted to meet up.

We met in a crowded bar in Charing Cross. I’d asked her how we’d recognize each other and she reminded me that she’d already seen me. Every bit of me.

In the event I knew it was her, even before she saw me. I expected that Dominic’s wife would have to be striking. And she was. Long tawny hair and green eyes. She was wearing a tight jacket of soft, butter-coloured suede that zipped up snugly over her chest. I felt like a frump in my work outfit – plain black top and trousers.

‘You’re not his usual type,’ is what she said.

As we got talking, I quickly realized we had nothing in common, except that we were both scared to death of the same man.

I’d told Travis I was going for a quick drink with some colleagues, and he seemed pleased, relieved even that I was finally making some friends at work. I didn’t think I’d be long but I ended up talking to Natalie for over three hours.

She told me the whole story. The stool, the teacher, Bella, Cesca, Sam. She told me what Dominic was capable of and what he’d done – the trail of deaths he left behind. She told me what life was like for her being married to him, how she kept trying to get away, and he kept reeling her back in. He had various holds on her, she said. She didn’t elaborate, but after my own experience, I could guess. She told me I’d never get rid of him, but when I asked her why she’d married him, she looked at me as if I was crazy. ‘Love,’ she said. ‘Why else?’

‘How come you have access to his computer?’

She looked smug. ‘I installed a keylogger. I’ve done that with all the boyfriends I’ve had. I like to know what they’re up to.’

I was appalled. ‘What about trust?’ I asked.

She rolled her eyes. ‘Is that what that video I watched was about?’ she asked. ‘
Trust?
Bet your boyfriend would be chuffed to death with that one.’

‘I made a mistake,’ I said. ‘He’d understand.’

She laughed out loud.

* * *

She had an idea, she told me. That would set both of us free. She would disappear. Make it look like she was dead, so suspicion would fall on him. The police were itching to get something on him after the deaths of his ex-wife and child. It wouldn’t take much. She knew it sounded extreme, but Dominic was a very extreme man.

She needed my help, she told me. She didn’t have many friends – not ones she could trust not to blab to Dominic. She wasn’t a woman’s woman. You don’t say, I thought.

In return, she’d delete the film. Anyway, she said, once she’d disappeared I’d be free of him. Under suspicion for murder, he’d have to drop everything else.

My part in her plan was minimal, she assured me. She’d already kick-started the process by booking herself into the cosmetic surgery clinic. All I had to do was rent a cottage far away, Scotland perhaps, then collect her from the clinic and drive her up there, and stock up the kitchen before I left, so that she could recuperate from her various operations undisturbed. She had funds stashed away – money she’d got from someone she’d been sleeping with. A Saudi, I think. Plus a couple of styling jobs she’d done cash-in-hand. Enough to keep her going while she recovered. After that, she knew people who knew people who could get you false passports. And she knew people who owed her favours. She knew a
lot
of people. She’d go abroad for a while, she said. It was worth it to get away from him.

When she told me all this, my first reaction was to laugh. My second was to refuse to have anything to do with it. But by the end of the night, I’d changed my mind. Three jugs of margarita will do that. But it was more than the alcohol. This was the only option I’d been offered. The only way out of the mess I was in. Even so, when I told her I’d help her, I honestly believed I’d call it off the next day.

Somehow I never did.

* * *

When Kim was starting out in CID, she worked on the case of a woman who’d drowned her four-month-old son in the bath while in the grip of undiagnosed post-natal depression. After she’d killed him, she looked after the body as carefully as if he was still alive – wrapping him up in his favourite blanket and putting him down for a nap, taking him out for a walk in a sling close to her chest – until her husband came home from a five-day business trip and found her bathing a corpse. Afterwards, and this is what Kim had struggled with most, she explained she’d killed her baby to protect him – from herself. She knew that she was capable of doing him harm and so she held him under the water to save him from what she might do. In her muddled head, that had made a kind of sense. The case had affected everyone who dealt with it, but Kim had been totally rocked by it. She’d thought she understood by then how nothing is ever really just black or white, but this had made her rethink everything she believed she knew about responsibility and blame and love. By the time the case was reported in the papers some months later, Kim was already pregnant with Rory. The first time she read about the woman described as the ‘Baby Killer’ she felt like she’d been punched. The point is, she reflects as she drives into work through still-darkened streets, the truth has as many layers as an onion. Whatever she thinks she knows about Jessica Gold and Dominic Lacey, the reality is likely to lie somewhere in between.