CHAPTER 32
Ella
“Wait, so how did you hear about this Anya lady?” I say, my wet jacket now slung over my seat as the heater blows a warm, steady breeze onto my face. Jude merges into the slow lane and indicates.
“I got a call from Susan. Completely out of the blue, but I knew from the moment I picked up that something was different.” Jude’s eyes dart to the rearview mirror.
I twist in my seat, flicking on the overhead light.
“Owh.” Jude flinches but keeps driving.
“What do you mean?” I say, pulling out my phone.
“I was cooking dinner. Marcus wants this new fish dish he found online. Anyway, an unknown number called me, and I thought for a second that it might be your guy. You know? Calling to threaten me. It wasn’t. It was Susan.”
Jude looks at me.
I nod, my fingers tapping an uneven rhythm on the back of my phone.
“I answered it, and she sounded scared. Her voice was trembling, Ella. She told me that what I said got to her, that she feels sorry for you. She wants to help, and she thinks maybe Genie is involved.”
I shake my head. “The cousin?”
“Yeah, and this is where it gets weird. Susan sounds panicked at this point. I’ve seen it before when you interview people.
She says that Genie is the best person to talk to about it all.
Following our call, she tried to reach out to Genie, right?
But she was gone, a ghost. She called her old work, the friends she knew, and her old boyfriend, even.
Nothing.” Jude flicks the indicator, merging into a country lane with ease.
“OK,” I say, because the gaps aren’t filling themselves in yet.
“The whole time we spoke, she kept apologising. She kept saying that ‘Genie always means well.’ There was something desperate about the way she said it. And then she gave me the address we’re going to, to meet an old colleague of Genie’s, Anya.
The one friend who has seen Genie in the last five years.
Because Susan is sure that Genie is tied up in all of this. ”
“All of this?” I turn to look at Jude, her hands gripping the wheel.
“In Henry’s death. In what’s happening to you,” Jude says.
My fingers run over the edge of my phone. If Susan thinks her niece is involved in Henry’s death, then things are bad.
“She said they are all worried about her. She’s flighty and possibly dangerous. This colleague of Genie’s promised to speak to me. They both seem really worried about her. Susan even said Genie has been obsessed with what happened to Rob since–”
“Robbie.”
“Right. Robbie. Genie has been obsessed with what happened with Robbie since the trial,” Jude finishes, glancing at the satnav. A gnawing energy moves through me. I shift in my seat, uncomfortable at the thought of Immi all alone at the party. Suddenly, my phone lights up with her name.
“Darling, where are you? Leaving your party is very ‘me’ of you. Are you OK?” Immi’s voice is fast and gentle down the phone.
“Immi,” I breathe, tears suddenly pushing through.
“Ella, are you OK?” she chimes in as I struggle to speak.
“No, I’m fine. I just… something has happened and, well, maybe I was wrong about Benji,” I say.
There’s a small intake of breath. “What?” she says and the noise behind her fades. I can imagine her stepping into my kitchen, leaning against the counter with a crisp glass of wine in her hand.
“I’m sorry, Immi. I’m just so desperate, you know? I just need to find the answers now, and I’m not thinking straight,” I say. Imagining what Rufus has done, the way that Colin has behaved. Those are my real enemies, not Immi.
“Everything is fine, we’ve got another lead. You remember Robbie’s cousin Genie?” I say.
“Oh yeah, like the magic lamp. What an odd name. Have you found her?”
“No luck, but we’ve found someone who works with her,” I say. “She wants to speak to us.”
“And you’re going there now?” Immi says.
I can’t ignore the hitch in her voice.
“Yes, but we can swing by afterwards to fill you in.”
There’s a pause and I can hear her steady exhale. “OK, darling, keep yourself safe.”
Immi rings off. We travel in silence for a few minutes before turning right off a small lane and crunching into an industrial estate full of offices.
“And this girl, she knew Genie?” I slide out of the car, yanking Jude’s spare umbrella from the glove compartment.
“Yeah, still here after all this time. And she’s worried about Genie.” Jude locks the car, striding forward to a door that has a blue and purple sign above it: Chisholm Industries.
“Jude, why do you think Genie is the stalker?” I stop in the car park, the gnawing feeling shifting into nerves that run down my spine. “What if it’s Rufus?” I say the thought that has bugged me since I jumped into Jude’s car.
Jude turns to me, walking back with her head held high until her umbrella bumps mine. She dips her head, placing a hand on my shoulder.
“I love you, but it’s not Rufus. There are too many questions that aren’t answered.
If you wanted to stalk your wife, why drive her out of your home?
Wouldn’t you make her fear the spaces where you can’t see her, not the spaces you can?
” Jude’s voice is low and fast, an energy tumbling with them. Her eyes light up.
“Next, if Rufus was stalking you, why would he need to pay Henry too? To silence him, maybe. But he was already ahead of the story. He could easily slap him with a restraining order, or sue him for slander, he has the spare cash,” Jude continues.
“Then there’s the fact that if it is Rufus, why start it at your engagement party? If Rufus is anything, he’s socially aware. He prides himself on the presentation of perfection. The first threat came on a day when you had to be perfect.” Jude licks her lips.
“OK…” I say, a smile twitching. I shouldn’t be in awe, but she’s good.
“Wait, no, one last point. Rufus is meticulous. Our stalker is getting sloppy. Breaking in despite there being cameras. This person is emotionally invested and a little unwell. And that’s not Rufus,” Jude says, turning to face the building.
“And you think that might be Genie?” I say, walking in tandem with her.
“Or she knows who it might be. Only one way to find out.”
Anya is nothing like I imagined she’d be. She’s older than us with bright red hair that’s swept over her left shoulder; her makeup is bright and bold, which complements the sharp angles of her face. She bounces on an exercise ball that sits where a desk chair should be.
“So, you know Genie?” Anya says, her big bulbous eyes moving from Jude to me, unblinking.
“No, we don’t. But we’re worried about her. Sophie here,” Jude points to me, my alias name feels weird and immoral, “was involved in what happened to Robbie over ten years ago. She’s been getting threats, and we think that Genie may be involved.”
Anya turns her wide eyes to me, and I drop mine, playing with my rings. She’s sceptical, who wouldn’t be? It’s been so long.
“I can understand that. Genie was… oh, how do you describe it? It wasn’t normal grief she went through.
She was fixated on what happened to her poor cousin.
It was all she could talk about. She was new to the area when she joined us.
Said she wanted to start a new life for herself.
But she had a funny way of showing it. She would tell anyone and everyone about what happened that night. ” Anya shakes her head.
“Could you tell us about her?” Jude says.
Anya lets out a noisy sigh. Her bouncing stops as she leans forward on the desk.
“Genie was a kooky one, that’s for sure. That wasn’t her real name, but she wouldn’t tell anyone what it really was. She had a rough start of it. Was orphaned young and ended up living with her aunt and uncle. A real Spider-man story.” Anya lets out a belly laugh.
Jude coughs.
“Well, yes, anyway. She joined us on a temp contract and she was good, at first. But then she became scatty, jumpy, paranoid even. Sometimes she’d show up late, telling tall tales.
Other times she’d break down in tears, remembering what happened to her.
We all wanted to help, mind. But I was young myself, and I didn’t know how to handle such a big friendship. ” Anya takes a sip from her tea.
“So, what happened to her?”
“God, what didn’t? She was overdramatic but her life wasn’t easy, so I understood that she needed patience. I let her stay with me for a bit, but she’d be up all night having these loud phone calls. Or drinking too much. I had to ask her to go,” Anya says.
“Did she know anyone else around here?” I say, thinking of Rufus.
Anya smiles. “After being with us for four months or so, she met this boy. Lovely lad. He was a bit younger than us at the time but he was smart. He even got an internship here to give himself a leg up after university. He was going to be a lawyer for deprived youth.”
“So she moved in with him?” Jude says.
“It was awful. They were so bad together. He needed to fix everyone, but after a while, I could see that she couldn’t be fixed.
She needed proper help. He’d come in with bruises or marks on his body.
Sometimes she’d tell him off for eating certain things or doing things in a way she didn’t like. ” Anya resumed bouncing.
“She was abusing him?” I suck in my breath, the idea sending chills over me. If she could do that to someone she loved…
“I don’t know for sure, but it wasn’t a healthy relationship. At one point, before she left, she faked her own death. The poor boy was so distraught, it tore him apart. He was a lovely lad.” Anya tilts her head, drawing her brows together.
“Is that when things ended?” Jude leans forward.
Anya shakes her head. “God no, it only drew them closer together. He was smitten. He promised to drop out of his Master’s course for her, but I talked him down. He was going to be the next big lawyer. I could feel it. He was witty and smart, too.”
I sit up straighter.
“And do you think she could stalk someone, over what happened to her cousin?” Jude says.
Anya shakes her head. “I’d hate to say yes, but… she wouldn’t let it go. It was her Achilles heel, if you’ve ever heard of that. It ate her up that she couldn’t save her cousin. And that poor boyfriend of hers got dragged into it too.”
Something twitches inside me as I run over everything Anya has said.
“It got worse, though. In the end, Genie did get sick. The last I heard, she moved, but she didn’t have long left and that poor boy didn’t move from her side,” Anya continued. She called him “boy”, and so I imagined him young, but this was years ago.
“This boyfriend of hers, how much younger was he?” I say, my voice pitchy.
Both women turn to look at me as though they forgot I was there.
Anya speaks after a moment. “Oh, I don’t know for certain, but she was twenty-five and he had just started his law conversion course, so, twenty-one? He was so proud when he got in.”
I jump to my feet, cutting her off. Handsome. Smart. Savvy. Witty. Lawyer.
“Do you remember his name?” There’s a desperate shriek in my words.
“Oh.” Her smile widens and she sits up, the pride rippling off her broad shoulders. “I still follow him on social media. He was called Ben back then but he uses his full name now. Benjamin Harvey,” Anya says.
Benji.