Elle （Past）
ELLE
PAST
The morning after the incident where I’d almost been crushed by a bus, I looked out of the window and saw a man standing on the opposite pavement, at the very spot where Bryony had climbed into Brett Parker’s car.
Thinking him to be a reporter, a groan escaped my lips.
Had someone discovered what had happened yesterday when I’d been pushed into the path of a bus and wanted to cause me more grief?
But then he raised his head and as his eyes bore into mine, I realized I was looking at Brett Parker’s son.
I pulled sharply back from the window, my breath catching in my throat. I didn’t bother to wonder how he knew where I lived; any journalist would have been glad to share my address with him. My fingers were trembling as I found my phone and called DC Moss.
“Damon Parker is outside my flat!”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes.” Because DC Moss was on the other end of the line, I found the courage to check the street. It was empty. “Oh, he’s gone.”
“Are you sure it was him?”
“Yes, positive.”
“Well, if he comes back, let me know.”
“But I need to go out,” I said, shocked that DC Moss wasn’t treating it more seriously. “What if he’s hanging around somewhere? What if he follows me?”
“Why would he do that?”
“Someone tried to push me under a bus yesterday,” I blurted out. “I think it was him.”
“That’s a serious allegation, Elle.”
“It’s true. I was pushed onto the road from behind. If someone hadn’t pulled me back onto the pavement, I’d be dead.”
“And you know for sure it was Damon Parker? You saw him?”
I couldn’t lie. “No.”
There was a meaningful pause. “You have my number. If you see him again, call me.”
DC Moss hung up before I could say anything else.
I stood for a moment, wondering if I’d acted too hastily.
What if Damon Parker only wanted to talk to me?
What if he wanted to tell me not to blame myself for his dad’s death, that it had been an accident, his dad’s fault for running into the road without looking?
A buzz on the intercom made me jump. My heart thumping, I edged closer to the window and angled my body so that I could see who was at the outside door.
I recoiled in shock. Damon Parker was back.
The intercom buzzed again, and then again, and then again, each buzz accompanied by an angry shout—“Let me in! Let me in! Let me in!”
I redialed DC Moss’s number.
“He’s come back,” I said, my voice shaking. “He’s ringing on the intercom, I don’t know what to do.” The sound of the outside door being hit reached me. “He’s thumping on the door! What if someone lets him into the building?”
“Make sure your door is locked.” The DC’s voice was urgent. “I’m sending someone over.”
By the time they arrived, Damon Parker had gone.
“We’ve given him a warning,” DC Moss told me when she called later that day.
“Is that it?” I asked.
“For now, yes. He understands that he isn’t to go near you again.”
But I couldn’t relax. Whenever I left the flat, I felt I was being followed.
At first, I put it down to paranoia; Damon Parker turning up at the flat had spooked me.
But the feeling was so pervasive that I called DC Moss.
The DC was sympathetic but she told me there was nothing she could do unless I actually had proof that he was following me.
“You’ve been through a lot, Elle,” she said.
“I’m not imagining it,” I said heatedly. “I’m not paranoid.”
“If there is someone following you,” DC Moss said carefully. “It doesn’t follow that it’s Damon Parker. There are journalists out there looking for a story while they wait for your case to come to court. A new angle, that sort of thing.”
“I know how to spot a journalist,” I said. “But it doesn’t matter. I just wanted you to know because the day he pushes me under a bus again, I don’t want you to turn around and ask me why I didn’t tell you he was following me.”