CHAPTER 29
Ella
The guests sweep through the house, bringing with them an energy which bounces off the walls and fills the corridors with echoes of laughter.
The energy doesn’t quite reach me as I move through our living room and out into the garden.
Despite the cold, the guests are milling around, the outdoor heaters working hard to produce an unnatural warmth that I can feel from the threshold.
The champagne is cold and tasteless on my tongue, but I wash it down fast, grabbing another from a passing waiter and thanking him in a low tone.
Rufus’s colleagues, our esteemed guests, have congregated on the deck, all matching suits and heavy cologne.
Immi’s chatting to one of them, offering him a smile with a gentle tilt of her head as he speaks.
The conversation is mid-flow by the time I join them on an empty seat next to her on the patio.
I smile, a peace offering for Immi, which she acknowledges, eyes on mine for a moment.
Things haven’t been great with us, but there’s hope that one day they will.
Once I find the stalker, this can all end.
“It’s been a dream, really, driving the open road. Getting to explore something different,” the man says, his thin moustache quivering as he speaks.
“Oh, I can imagine.” Immi nods encouragingly.
“But it’s the maintenance that’s the killer,” the man says, and my attention wanes, eyes drifting across the rest of the lawn.
A large table has been covered with a thick white tablecloth, and a bunch of deep red, pink and yellow flowers bloom from a large crystal vase.
The petals move in the cool breeze, touching and bobbing apart.
I scan the sea of faces. Someone here knows more than they are letting on.
“Oh, you had a vintage car?” A sudden hitch in his voice, disbelief, drags me back to the conversation. The man, whose ill-fitting suit hangs off his bony shoulders, leans forward. Immi nods, her hand finding mine in a gesture that is so reminiscent it draws a sharp breath from me.
“Yes,” Immi says with a soft chuckle, giving the look that she saves for when she catches someone in an assumption about her.
I smile. Immi has always been an enigma.
Easy to assume that there’s little behind her immaculate, tailored dresses and bespoke, handcrafted jewellery, but I’ve learnt quickly that assuming anything about Immi is often your own mistake. Could the same be said for Benji?
“My dad had an old 1996 XJ300. I helped him with it until it finally became mine.” There’s a softness in her voice that I recognise.
She doesn’t often talk about her parents, but when she does, you know that you’re getting an insight into something beautiful.
Something pangs in my chest, the assumptions I’ve made about her and Benji, how that might feel for her.
“A Jaguar? Wow,” the man says.
“It was old, falling apart and bought cheap, but it was our pride and joy.” Immi’s smile widens.
“I never knew that,” I say, feeling the warmth of her hand in mine.
“There’s a lot that happened before we moved here,” Immi replies, her eyes steady on mine, the subtext heavy.
I offer her a small nod, a smile pulling at my cheeks as I accept that I’ve caught so many in this tangled web.
Immi knows Benji better than anyone else, could she be telling me something?
I glance across the garden, finding Benji in the same place I spotted him earlier.
“What was it like to drive?” the man chips in on our silence.
I manage to whisper, “I’m sorry,” just as Immi turns her head, but I need to move, an idea is already forming.
My pulse quickens as I skirt around another neighbour, throwing them a gracious smile over my shoulder.
I’ve spent so long looking at the present, trying to be one step ahead of my stalker.
But what if the answer to finding out who he is, is in looking back?
The itch since I made the connection to Henry grows, spreading across my spine.
The key is Henry. It’s always been Henry.
And now I know that someone nearby knew Henry.
The next piece of that puzzle is who? There’s Robbie’s aunt, Susan, she could have played a part in this.
Or better yet, maybe she holds the answers.
I move through the busy kitchen, the catering staff skirting away from me with downcast eyes.
Helena stands by the door. Her eyes catch mine, but she’s deep in conversation.
I offer her a nod as I pass before padding down the hallway.
Perhaps Jude could speak to Susan again, with her dazzling smile and inquisitive nature?
And then there’s Benji. His motive to stalk me is weak, but it’s there.
I’m just missing something, I can sense it.
I need to connect the dots. My studio door clicks shut behind me, and I press myself against it.
The yellow dress is too tight around the thighs and arms now.
I run my fingers over it, tugging the fabric away from my skin.
Breathe.
First, I need to speak to Susan somehow.
Then what? Hope that with one answer, the other pieces fall into place?
I wave my hand. The spotlights come to life as they register my presence, and I sink into the chair behind my desk.
And then what, Elsie? Rufus wouldn’t want to hurt me, but there’s been a growing distance.
And what about Colin? We have a history, an affair, but would he want to hurt me?
Benji is the only real lead I have. Jealousy, anger, frustration.
These are motives as old as time. My laptop hums to life.
Benji’s name sits in the search bar, and I wait for a reason not to press enter.
He’s threatened me twice now, he’s violent, and he has a reason to want me gone.
I need to find the connection to Henry. I open his professional social media, staring at a slightly edited picture of him in a sharp blue suit.
He’s young. His arms are folded in a way that I imagine he thinks shows off his muscles the way he does in person. It’s familiarly obnoxious.
My teeth bite into the corner of my nail as I scroll, scanning the mundane details of his career history.
The alcohol sloshing and bubbling in my stomach.
My head falls onto the table, my eyes closing.
I don’t know what I’m looking for, but I can’t look away.
When I reach the end of his professional career, I switch to scrolling through his academic history, clicking on the minuscule logos of schools and professional bodies.
Nothing stands out. I glance at the door.
Rufus will soon notice that I’m not out there playing host. But my shoulders hunch and I keep flicking through the faces and names of Benji’s friends.
My mouse clicks on Colin’s name. Benji and Colin worked together, it seems, years ago. Is that something?
I sigh, flicking back to Benji’s page when I find nothing.
“What am I missing?” I say, my teeth working on the edge of my skin. A bad habit I’ve long given up. I scroll to the bottom again.
Madison Royal Prison.
The name is among the many in a list of volunteer roles, but it catches me as I scroll back up the page. I recognise it. The emblem is blue and white, hauntingly familiar.
I chuck the name into Google, my pulse quickening. It can’t be, can it? He can’t have worked there. The results flood me with a hot prickling sensation that runs down my arms. I click onto the map.
He was there.
Benji worked at the same prison that Henry was in. I scan the dates.
For three years.
I open up Benji’s logged work experience, devouring the contents on the page. Stopping when I see a reference for another familiar name: Colin Carson.
Colin and Benji both worked at the prison where Henry was.
“Hello, Ella.” A deep voice comes from the door. I’m on my feet, heart in my throat, before I fully register the sound.
“Jesus!”
Breathe.
“What are you doing in here?” I say.
Benji smiles at me. “I was looking for the toilet?”
He says it as a question, but he folds his arms and leans against the door frame as though he wants me to challenge him. We both know this door is concealed and that very few people have access to this space. We also know he’s been here many times before, he knows where the bathroom is.
“It’s the next door over.” I take a step back, aware of the way his broad shoulders take up the space. He’s a big guy, bulky and wide compared to my slim frame.
Benji shrugs. “You’re missing the pre-meal drinks. So, this is the notorious office?” He steps forward, his shirt shimmering slightly in the light. Something itches in the spaces between my fingernails and my skin as I watch him run his fingers over my books.
“Yes.” I slide the laptop closed, the results stinging me. This man knew Henry. He must have. He traces my Master’s degree certificate with his thumb. I remember the desperate need to see my family when I received the award.
“Hmm, I didn’t know you had a Master’s,” Benji says, tilting his head, peering at it as though it could tell him something.
“I do.”
Very few people here know that, but I imagined he already did. Benji carries on, unfazed, touching everything he can. He reminds me of the early days at drama class when you were asked to move with a single body part. Benji had chosen to be led by his genitals, it appears.
“Swanky. And what was it for? A podcast episode?” he says, underselling the time and effort that went into the award he’s pointing at.
“That’s an oversimplification. It’s to recognise outstanding–”
“And that’s how you got into what you do? All this research stuff that turned into blabbering on a podcast?” Benji waves a hand at me, shrinking the distance between us.
“It’s not that–”
“And this is where you do it? You sit in here and talk shit about criminals all day,” Benji says, spinning around to take in the studio. He staggers a bit, his hand reaching out to the wall to steady himself. He’s drunk.
“No–”
“And that’s not a conflict of interest? Say, if you did a podcast about a case you worked on?” Benji says, a smile on his face.
I stop, my spine straightening. I breathe through my nostrils until my fingers stop trembling at my side.
“What makes you say that?” I say, steadying myself.
“I’m just making conversation, Ella. No need to shoot the messenger.” Benji raises his hands in mock surrender, which spikes anger through me.
I roll my shoulders, heat prickling across the back of my neck.
“I think it’s time we rejoin the others, don’t you?” I say, breathing through my nostrils. He’s showing his hand here, and he’s too drunk to realise. I made a mistake at work once. It was bad, something that I’ve been working on fixing. Something only I and the stalker know about.
And Benji.
His smile widens, but I don’t rise to it. Instead, I squeeze past him, our bodies pressing close so I can smell the musky aftershave.
I stand at the door and wait.
It takes him a moment, but he moves.
“Sure.” His shoulder bumps into me as he pushes towards the door.
He turns, standing in the hallway. “You should tidy up that desk of yours.”
Then he’s gone.
My body presses hard against the door frame. The room is thick with his smell. I want to rage at Rufus or scream at our guests until they leave in an awkward flurry.
“Is it you?” I say to no one. Benji knows things only the stalker knows. Yet Colin and Benji both worked at the same prison that Henry was in. Colin could be playing the role of the scorned love. I stare across the room, hoping that the ideas will slot together. And yet nothing fits.
My head leans back, hitting the wall. I catch sight of something on my desk that makes me frown. A manila folder sits atop a pile of papers. A folder I have never seen before. I reach up, and the file slips off the edge, falling to the floor.
A trickle of something washes over me but I already know where it’s heading. I turn the folder over, expecting to see my name, but it’s blank.
If I open it, I’ll be one step closer to being crushed in the centre of my tormentor’s hands.
I know that. I could stand up now and walk calmly away from this house.
I could change my name again and find another unassuming role in another neighbourhood far from here.
I could become another hollowed-out version of myself.
But that never fixes anything, does it? Coming here and playing the dutiful housewife has only left me with another dead body on my hands.
I open the folder, and the contents fall to the floor as I do.
It’s an image of me, blown up large and zoomed in.
Despite the darkness of it, it’s clear that I’m in bed, my mouth wide and my eyes shut.
There are small tufts of hair curling from my silk bonnet, and one of my arms is stretched over my head.
I shake my head, but the image doesn’t change.
My reality only gets worse. A stack of pictures, each one of me captured in different angles.
I let out a nervous laugh, trying to ease the worry that builds. Turning the image over, bile rises.
Henry said his favourite moments were making you laugh, but I honestly miss watching you sleep, El. You’re always so peaceful.
And all thoughts of Benji fall away, because I know who wrote this. Only one man has ever said that to me.