Chapter 34
THIRTY-FOUR
The hallway wasn’t lit, and Sophia and I edged down it towards the source of the sound. Light shone from around Christa’s closed door, and we heard another stifled groan. It sounded male.
Sophia pulled at my arm. ‘What if someone’s hurt?’ she whispered. ‘I mean, what if this situation’s more dangerous than we thought?’
I glanced at the door. ‘What do you think? That she’s taken Jake hostage and tied him up?’
Sophia nodded readily.
‘You don’t seriously…? This isn’t The Sopranos ; it’s Palmer’s Arcade. Come on.’
I dragged her to the door, hearing a slapping sound and another moan. Now I felt a bit more uncertain. But it was now or never. I pushed open the door, and what I saw then would scar me forever.
There was nobody tied up, but someone was certainly getting a beating. Jake was bent over the cash desk, trousers around his ankles, Christa slapping his bare arse with a bright pink cat o’ nine tails which I recognised from my Liaison Secrète collection. The multi-tailed whip had left livid stripes on his skin.
Both of them spun round at the sound of our arrival, and then Jake scrambled like a cartoon character, desperately trying to drag his pants up over his maimed buttocks. Christa dropped the cat o’ nine tails to the floor with a light thwack.
Sophia gave a sharp squawk of laughter and covered her mouth, murmuring, ‘Bloody hell!’
‘What are you doing here?’ Christa asked, her face now almost as red as Jake’s backside.
I blinked at her, lost for words, but Sophia took over, stifling her amusement.
‘Well, we thought we’d catch you in the act of screwing over Annie’s business, but we weren’t expecting this.’
Christa’s face crumpled. ‘Annie, I’m so sorry. I know it’s bad of me, and I always intended to pay you back, but I feel terrible.’
‘ Pay me back ?’ I snapped, my temper flaring. ‘How could you ever pay me back for everything you’ve done? All I want to know is… why?’ The wind was knocked out of my sails just as fast as it had risen, and I now felt nothing but hurt and betrayal.
‘It was just a spur-of-the-moment thing,’ she pleaded. ‘And I was embarrassed to come into the shop and buy it from you so I… I took it. I intended to slip some money into your till, but I forgot. I’m so sorry.’
‘What are you talking about?’ I asked, glancing at Sophia in confusion.
Christa gestured to the S it’ll still be hanging up in the shop. Come and see.’
She stormed back up the corridor, the rest of us following behind, and she looked at the empty coat peg, her mouth falling open. ‘It was here. I swear it was here…’ She looked at us wildly. ‘But why would I wear it? Why would I wear something so identifiable? I’m not lying,’ she wailed, tears now welling in her eyes.
I hesitated, seeing what looked to be genuine distress on her face. But there was more I had to confront her with.
‘There’s something else,’ I said. ‘Olivia texted me from her holiday. Said you’d messaged her and offered her a job. You told her I’d be shutting down, presumably once your plan had come off.’
Her mouth was a round O, her face almost green with shock.
‘Annie, I don’t even have her number.’ She grabbed her phone and showed me her contacts list. There was no Olivia in there.
‘You could have deleted it,’ I said. Frustration started to build in my belly. I thought the video would be our trump card, but now it felt like I was clutching at straws. I showed her my own phone, pointing at the messages from Olivia. ‘See! It’s right here.’
‘I never sent her any messages. I barely know her! I just can’t understand why she’d say any of this.’
I stood there breathing heavily, my hand gripping my phone tight. A silence spread through the room as everyone seemed to take it all in. Then Sophia came to my side, her eyes fixed on my phone, which was still lit up with Olivia’s text messages. Curiously, she reached out and moved the last holiday photo she’d sent me into full view on the screen.
‘Give me this,’ she said quietly.
I handed her the phone, wondering what the hell was going on.
She enlarged the picture, frowning. ‘This is Water Canal Bridge,’ she said. ‘In Dubai. This is where Olivia said she’d gone on holiday?’
I nodded. ‘She went a few days ago.’
Sophia shook her head. ‘She can’t have. I’ve been to Dubai loads of times. See that hotel in the background? I saw it when I holidayed there last year, but when I went to Dubai again a few months back, it had been demolished. This can’t have been taken a few days ago.’
I held my breath as Penn came over and looked at it too. My mind was reeling.
‘If that’s true,’ he said, looking me fiercely in the eye, ‘then maybe Olivia never went anywhere at all.’