Page 40 of Don't Let Him In

“He conned you?”

“Well, yes and no. No, in that he gave me the services I was paying for and a lot of the stuff he did with me was great. But yes, in that I don’t think I needed two sessions a week, I didn’t need all the overpriced books and accessories. He definitely led me to believe I needed to spend as much money as possible to achieve certain goals. Money, in retrospect, I’m not convinced I needed to spend. But I just put it down to being young and desperate, you know? I never felt for a moment like there was anything bad about him. I liked him. I thought he was amazing. Like really amazing.”

“So why did you stop seeing him?” asks Jane.

“He moved away. Very suddenly. Said his parents were ill? Or something like that? I can’t really remember. But yes, he left. And that was that.”

“And you never heard from him again?”

“No. Never did.”

“And where did you used to see him? Did he have a clinic, or something?”

“No, he worked from home. He had a little room at the top of his house.”

Ash glances at Jane on the screen. “You went to his house?”

“Yes. Twice a week for a year.”

“And did he—did he live with anyone else?”

“Yes. His wife.”

Jane glances back at Ash—both of their eyes are wide.

“His wife?”

“Yes. She was really lovely. Her name was Laura. And they had a couple of little girls, as I recall.”

“Wait. Are you serious?”

“Yes. Of course I am.”

“Were they his children?”

“I don’t know. I mean, I assumed they were. But they might not have been, I suppose.”

“And this house, where was it?”

“It was in Cherry Hinton. Just outside the city.”

“Can you remember the address?”

Sarah blinks and shakes her head. “Er, God. No. It’s been ten years, after all. But I can still picture the house. It was on a crescent. It had three floors. One of those houses where you walk straight into the living room, no hallway, and then kind of—what are they called?—open-tread stairs up to the next floor and then his office on the top floor. It was tiny, the whole house. Tiny for a family of four and a professional practice. But very pretty. A cottage, I suppose. And in the spring, it had wisteria outside. And there were bollards on the pavement. And… a little park over the way, with a tall wall. You could see into it from Justin’s study. But God, the name of the road…” She shakes her head again. Then she pauses and looks at Ash and Jane. “Are you saying that he’s some kind of scammer? Is he… is he bad?”

Ash shakes her head. “He hasn’t actually done anything bad, yet. He just seems to be a bit… slippery? And my mum is vulnerable. And I really need to know that he’s not going to take advantage of her, that he’s not going to hurt her. We’re just—”

“Doing our due diligence,” Jane finishes.

“Yes,” says Ash. “Exactly.”

“Well, for what it’s worth, I think he was a good man. A bit overenthusiastic, maybe? A bit over-the-top. Maybe in over his head a bit with the life coaching. But he always struck me as a great husband, a great father, just a, you know, a really decent human being. I’m sure he doesn’t mean your mother any ill will. And I do know that there was some strange family stuff in his background. He used to allude to a dark past that he was trying to escape, which could explain the name change?”

The moment the Zoom is over, Ash switches her browser to maps and types in “Cherry Hinton.” Then she spends the best part of half an hour zooming around the map with her little virtual person, looking at all the streets that abut the park, looking for bollards and wisteria branches, and then there it is, finally, she’s sure it is. She takes a screenshot and WhatsApps it to Sarah May, who replies immediately and says yes, that’s the one, definitely.

The number on the door is twelve and the name of the street is Kingston Gardens. She googles this and finds that the last time the house had been sold was in 2016, but there are no names connected to the house. Nothing on Companies House. She types the address with the name “Justin Warshaw” included and the internet returns nothing at all.

She sighs and closes her laptop.

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