Chapter 48
TOM
Sam’s footsteps are still in my head when the front door clicks shut, and he’s gone.
The house suddenly feels too quiet, like someone has turned the volume down on the world and left me with the scratches and hiss of static. My brain is a whirlwind, so much to process from such a short conversation, which felt like grenade after grenade.
Sam’s words keep looping: “He’s never been charged with anything. Whoever told you that was lying.” The small, defiant smile he gave when he said it—like he’d just baited me and watched the hook sink in.
Craig had been very clear. James had been charged, twice for assault. Investigated for intimidation. A whole catalogue of indications that painted James as exactly the sort of man who would control and abuse.
Either Sam’s gaslighting me, or Craig got it wrong? But Craig doesn’t get things wrong. Ever. Well apart from the time when he confidently predicted Olly Alexander would smash Eurovision 2024. But he never gets important things wrong.
Whoever told you that was lying.
Would Craig lie to me? I trust him more than anyone.
He’s supported me through everything. My relationship with Daniel, the loss of my father.
He was also a very prominent support in the late ‘90s when I tried to dye and perm my hair like Justin Timberlake, which ultimately ended up like a selection of microwaved Super Noodles on my head.
Of course, I trust Craig infinitely more than I would ever trust Sam. Either way, the not-knowing feels like a mosquito buzzing near my ear.
I stand in the middle of the living room, hands shoved into my pockets like a character in a bad romcom and try to locate the logical centre of my brain. Buster scoffs at me from a sunbeam on the sofa—he acts like he’s personally disappointed.
One more spark and he could snap.
I grind my knuckle into my forehead as I think this through. James is dangerous, this is not new information. Although this was positioned as a friendly warning, it came across more as a threat. Was Sam telling me to stay clear? Or is James genuinely going to snap at any moment.
The thought of what that means for Pete is unbearable for me. More than ever now, I want to help Pete save him from this. He needs to get out before it’s too late.
Pete and James are forever
I don’t believe this. They can’t be forever. No one can live in a relationship like this forever.
Or until one of them is six feet under.
These are the words that make me sick the most.
I look out to the garden, the haze of the sun warming my face, but does little to calm me.
Then the final bombshell. Sam said he’d seen a bloke trying to get in, fitted Daniel’s description perfectly.
What is he still doing around here? I’ve told him to stay clear.
We’ve not spoken again since the “Emma is a fraud” revelation, which, okay, turned out to be true.
But as Craig reminded me, that doesn’t give him a key back into my life.
Keys. Another thought. Sam mentioned it looked like he had keys. No, Daniel definitely doesn’t have keys, there’s no way he can get in. Unless…
My jaw tightens. Surely not.
I find myself sliding open the back door and heading into the garden, bare feet on the dewy grass because of course I forgot shoes in the mad dash out.
The fake rock by the patio—my cheap, tasteful garden ornament that conceals the spare key—is among a pile of small rocks that create a boundary in the garden. I grab the rock and open it.
Empty.
I feel my stomach do somersaults and the cream cheese bagel I shoved in my mouth moments before Sam arrived is now grasping up into my throat.
The idea that anyone has a key to my house and could be wandering through my things while I’m here and drinking tea in another room makes me more queasy.
But the fact that it’s Daniel.
It’s a movie-level panic: you know that sick, cinematic lurch when the protagonist realises they’ve been hoodwinked? I experience it now in high-definition shame and low-grade hysteria.
Locksmith. Change locks. Call Craig. Call the police. Call Sam and punch him through the phone for leaving me with more questions than answers.
All that, plus save Pete.
All sane options. All reasonable.
Too many priorities, but short term all I want to do is keep my home safe.
I need to get the locks changed. I rush to my office and flip open my laptop to search for locksmiths.
It pings to life, but before I open the browser, I see the remaining CCTV videos on my desktop I had copied over from the memory stick.
I hadn’t told Pete that I had copied them over. I couldn’t, not when we were having such a glorious afternoon together, pretending everything was normal. I didn’t want to break that feeling.
But they’re still here and I’d only watched a selection yesterday.
Thoughts of changing the locks disappear from my mind as the remaining videos call to me. I know what to expect. More videos of James and Pete’s cruel and vicious relationship. And while I know looking through the rest of these videos is immoral, a betrayal of trust, I have to see them all.
The first video is grainy, timestamped a year ago—late afternoon light, same kitchen, same lived-in chaos.
It starts tame: James and Pete are at the breakfast bar.
They’re arguing in cramped, private gestures—hands, faces that shift like tectonic plates.
No sound, so I read the mouths and their bodies.
James slams Pete up against the fridge by his throat.
The video makes me feel sick so I click out and on to the next.
Video after video plays in a cascade, each one shows James’s shadow looming over Pete as if it could swallow him.
There are hits—one clip shows James grabbing Pete’s arm so hard it looks like it might break; Pete’s face goes slack and then draws back as if to contain a sob.
Another clip shows plates shattering to the floor at Pete’s feet.
Another of James pushing Pete down on the sofa, the movement sharp and ugly.
I get to the last video.
The screen jolts into motion — a blur of limbs, shirts, chaos in the doorway. It takes me a second to understand what I’m seeing. Two figures. A fight. A mess of soundless violence.
I sit up so fast the chair shrieks across the floor. My pulse spikes, every nerve buzzing. The image stutters, then focuses.
Chris.
His face cuts through the blur like a blade. Blond hair, a smile I’ve seen in photos turned into something raw and terrified. He’s on the floor with James.
They’re not just fighting. They’re destroying. Every movement is jagged and desperate. The table goes over. Plates explode. A fork skitters across the tiles like a bullet ricochet. It’s chaos.
Blood flashes across the screen—I don’t even know whose. Chris’s, maybe James’s. Both. They’re slick, tangled, feral.
Chris manages to get on top, his face twisted in a mix of fury and survival. He lands a punch—brutal, clean—right to James’s jaw. The impact throws James back. I flinch as if I can feel it.
For a heartbeat, Chris has the upper hand. He draws back again—one more hit, maybe enough to end it.
Then James’s hand moves. A flicker of metal catches the light.
A knife.
It happens in a blink.
The first strike lands at Chris’s throat. A horrible, jerking motion—too fast, too real.
Chris’s hands fly to his neck.
The second blow follows instantly. A flash of red against white.
The third. The fourth.
By the fifth, I’m gripping the edge of my desk so hard my fingers ache. I can’t breathe. The screen shows movement, then stillness.
Chris collapses forward, half onto James, blood soaking his shirt, his arm twitching once, twice—then nothing.
The camera keeps recording. Silent. Cold. Unflinching.
And I just sit there, frozen, the world narrowing to the size of that flickering image.