Page 36 of Don't Let Him In

As far as I was concerned, Emma had been watching too many stupid documentaries. There is nothing dodgy about me. What you see is what you get. I can be a good man, a good husband, a good person. I can give women exactly what they want. But I do have to be creative with my finances, yes. I just don’t have thatthingthat some people have, that ability to streamline and think ahead and get my ducks in a row. It’s just a bit haphazard, that’s all, but the women in my life have benefited from this just as much as they may have suffered as a consequence, because when I do have money, I am generous to a fault. There is always champagne, luxury travel, there is always silk and satin and caviar and the sorts of truffles that are placed in boxes one by one with silver tongs. So, nobody is a loser, not really. And the women in my life know that. Or at least they do until people around them start planting these stupid doubts in their heads.

“You know,” I say carefully to Emma, “your mother adores me. I make her happy. So, I don’t know why you are so keen for her to cut me out of her life. It makes no sense. I can only assume, Emma, that you are jealous of me somehow. Jealous of the bond I have with your mother.”

The minute the words are out, I regret them. I have just given her the key to the door.

I see her face contort. “Are you serious? You think I’m jealous of you? Jonathan—I am nearly thirty years old. I left home ten years ago. I have a husband and a home and a job and a baby on the way. All I want in thewhole worldis for my mother to have a bond with a man. All I want is to go to bed at night knowing that my mother is safe and loved. That I don’t need to worry about her. But all I have done, Jonathan, for the last four years is worry about her. I worry about her from the minute I wake up till the minute I go to sleep. I worry about her finances, her mental health, her physical health. I think you’re a psychopath, Jonathan, I actually do. I’m sorry, but that’s just the truth.”

Her cheeks are flushed and I can tell her body is pumping volumes of industrial-strength adrenaline through her system and that, I assume, of her unborn child. I can’t imagine that it’s very good for either of them.

I arrange my face into the softest shape I can make it into and say, “Emma, you know I have always loved you, from the minute I first met you. As if you were my own. You know that having never had children of my own, I always hoped I’d meet someone who was a mother, and it’s always made me sad that neither you nor your brother had any interest in having that kind of bond with me. But I get it. I really do. I don’t trust men either. You know about my father. You know the kind of man he was, how abusive he was, and I know that men can be awful, so I see why you want to protect your mother from me—well, not just me but any man. But, Emma, honestly, you have to just trust me when I say I’m one of the good guys, seriously.” I turn my hands palms up and make a small, sad sighing sound. But she appears unmoved by my appeal. I see her face contort and her eyes flash.

“It was me,” she says triumphantly. “It was me who told the girl on the neighborhood app about you. I saw that footage and I messaged that woman, and I told her your name and your address. And I do not know how you got away with it, truly I don’t, because it was soobviously you. And not only that, but it was so obviously the sort of thing that you would do. I have waited all these years for my mum to finally wake up to you and your bullshit, and then she did. Because she knows it was you as well as you do, whatever crap you told the police. There is literally nothing now that is going to make her want to be with you. She’s over you, Jonathan. It’s done.”

The big mental fist in my head smashes into Emma’s unpretty face over and over and over as she talks. In my mind’s eye, I see her face turn to pulp. But my expression remains impassive. I sigh the small, sad sigh again and say, “I’m sorry it’s ended like this. Truly. But you are wrong about the girl on the street, and you are wrong about me. All I ever wanted was to be accepted by you. All I ever wanted was this…” I gesture around the soulless new-build house that I have come to hate so much.

Her face is a picture of disdain. “Christ, Jonathan. You are such a bullshitter. Literally every word that comes out of your mouth is a lie.”

I simply smile, sadly, and head for the front door.

As I pass Emma at the threshold, she faces me; she is so close to me that her pregnant bump brushes slightly against my body and I shudder with revulsion. Her face is inches from mine as she says, “It’s over, Jonathan. OK? You’re not coming back. And, Jonathan, if anything bad ever happens to my mum, anything at all, I will be going straight to the police. I won’t even wait one minute. Do you understand?”

I hold her gaze as coolly as I can and then I nod, just once, before picking up the key for the Tesla by the front door and slowly leaving the house.

THIRTY-TWO

Jane Trevally messages Ash a couple of days after the impromptu viewing of the beach pavilion in Bangate with Nick.I have news,she says.Can we meet up?

They arrange to meet again at King’s Cross, this time for cocktails. Ash feels the same rush of nervous energy as she disembarks from the train. Her eyes stay low to the floor as she walks, her pulse racing with terror at the thought of catching the eye of someone she knows, someone who remembers her, someone who knows what she did. She sees a pair of soft leather men’s shoes coming toward her and a pump of adrenaline goes through her. Ritchie’s shoes? But no, they belong to a young man, not much older than her. She pulls in her breath.

Calm down, Ash, she tells herself.Calm the fuck down.

She finds Jane in the tiny jewel-box bar above the station where they had arranged to meet, and they face each other on small velvet armchairs across a copper-topped table. Jane looks younger in this soft light than she did outside the brasserie by the fountains in the cold light of day. Ash finds older women’s faces fascinating, the way they morph and wax and wane, how they can look five different ages within the space of a minute. Jane looks about thirty right now as she flirts with the waiter who is depositing their cocktails onto paper coasters.

“So,” Jane begins, when the waiter has gone, “I did some digging. And frankly, I don’t know where to start.”

Ash’s flesh tingles. “Go on.”

“I called the bar in Mayfair. I asked for him. The person who answered the phone said they’d never heard of him.”

Ash blinks slowly and gasps. “No way!”

Jane throws her a look that says,That’s just the beginning—buckle up, then scrolls down the screen of her phone and turns it toward Ash.

It’s a photo of Nick Radcliffe. Except the name in the caption under the photograph is not Nick Radcliffe, it’s Justin Warshaw, and he’s not described as a restaurateur, but as a life coach.

“What!”

“Yes. Exactly. I’ve googled him extensively and found very, very little. But it appears that this ‘Justin Warshaw’ guy ran a life-coaching consultancy from a suburb of Cambridge for many years and was then never heard of again.”

“But why the weird name?”

“I have no idea. But it fits in with your theory that there might be something off about him.”

“Are there any customer reviews? Of his life coaching?”

“Yes. There’re six on Google. All five stars. Frankly, I wonder if they’re even real.” She sighs and takes another sip of her cocktail. “Do you want food, by the way? Snacks? Olives? Anything? You’re very thin.”

“I am not very thin,” Ash replies. “I’m totally normal. I would probably have been thought fat back in your day.”

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