‘I’m sorry … I’ve done something stupid. So, so stupid. I didn’t know where else to come.’
A coldness washed over her. ‘What do you mean? Where’s Olivia?’
‘She’s my daughter and you never told me,’ he sobbed. ‘I’ve been watching her for the last few days. I took photos.’ He tapped his pocket. ‘I know she’s mine. The same chin, the same nose.’
‘I did tell you. I wrote to you in prison when I found out,’ she said, trying to speak calmly despite the panic rising within her. After everything that happened in Thailand she owed him that at least. ‘What’s happened, John-Paul? Where is Olivia?’
‘I never got a letter.’ He gave a strange kind of howl, his breath blooming out and dissipating into the damp air. ‘I blamed you. I blamed you all. I came back here for an explanation and then I saw her. Found out her name. Olivia …’
‘Where is she, John-Paul? Where is Olivia?’ she cried. She felt more scared than she ever had in her life. John-Paul looked deranged standing there with his puckered scar and his unkempt appearance.
‘There’s been an accident. It was my fault …’
‘Where? Where is she?’ Stace felt for her car keys, which were in her waxed jacket.
‘The Devil’s Corridor. She’s hurt, Stace. I couldn’t get her out of the car but I’ve got the others.’
She pushed past him to her jeep and started the engine, veering away from the drive so vigorously that her tyres screeched on the gravel. From her rear-view mirror she could see him standing there, looking after her car. But she couldn’t think about him now. She had to get to her daughter. She drove as fast as she could through the dark lanes, along the high street until she was out on the Devil’s Corridor. A low fog made it hard to see clearly but then her headlights picked out Olivia’s car on the opposite side of the road, which was otherwise empty. She swung the car into the other lane so that she pulled up in front of Olivia’s Peugeot. She could see her daughter in the passenger seat, conscious and blinking, blinded by her headlights. There was a man with her. It was the oddball, Ralph, who lived in the caravan, she was sure of it. Where were the others, though? Olivia had told her she was going out with Sally, Tamzin and Katie. But she could see they weren’t in the car.
And then she remembered John-Paul’s words. I’ve got the others. What did he mean? Why did he have the others? It wasn’t like he was taking them to a hospital.
Her blood turned cold as she recalled his other words. About blaming them all. About revenge.
And then she heard the far-off sounds of a police siren. Help was coming. Olivia would be okay. She looked like she was conversing with Ralph, that he was helping her.
She hesitated. All her instincts screamed at her to go to her daughter but what about the others? What had John-Paul done with them? She had to make a decision, and quickly. So she reversed, did a U-turn and put her foot down. As she drove back towards the stables she rang Jay on her car phone. ‘It’s urgent. I need you to come to the farm. As quickly as you can. John-Paul is back. I think he’s done something … something awful.’
She was home within five minutes. John-Paul was standing exactly where she’d left him. As though no time had passed at all.
‘Where are the other three girls, John-Paul?’
He turned to look at her, his face full of anguish. ‘I didn’t mean to hurt them. I just wanted to take them … for a little bit. I thought if I took them for a few hours, a day at the most, it would scare you. It would scare all of you and then you’d come clean. One of you would admit what you’d done. It was a moment of insanity.’
‘I don’t … I don’t understand. You’re making no sense.’
‘One of you set me up back in Thailand. I know it wasn’t Derreck because he wasn’t at the airport. And there were no drugs in my bag when I left the villa. I’d made sure. I hadn’t trusted the bastard after what he did with you. So someone slipped those ornaments into my bag at the airport.’
‘Please, John-Paul. Where are they? Where are the girls?’
He threw her an odd look before walking calmly to his van. ‘In here,’ he said opening the rear doors. ‘I didn’t realize … I didn’t realize how injured they were …’
Stace couldn’t take it in at first. The sight that befell her. Tamzin, Katie and Sally. They were unconscious.
She pushed past him. ‘You stupid, stupid man. What have you done? Are they alive?’
‘I … I don’t know.’ He looked sick. ‘It was a stupid spur-of-the-moment thing. I was following Olivia from the club and I was behind her but it was raining so heavily and I had to slow down but I figured she’d be coming back here and then … I came upon her crashed car. She must have been just a minute or two in front of me. I pulled up behind her and saw them all, unconscious, and it was a stupid wild plan.’ He clutches his head. ‘I don’t know what I was thinking. They were alive when I took them from the car, I promise they were. Unconscious but alive.’
Stace climbed into the back of the van, kneeling beside each girl, horror washing over her when she couldn’t feel a pulse for any of them.
‘You need to call an ambulance, John-Paul. Now!’
‘I can’t. How am I going to explain why I took them? How can I explain that I didn’t call an ambulance at the scene? They were alive then. Maybe the paramedics could have saved them. They’d say I killed them. I can’t …’ He rocked back on his feet, anguish and fear on his face. ‘I can’t go back to prison.’
Stace was gripped by fear. This wasn’t the man she’d left behind in Thailand. That John-Paul wouldn’t have hurt a fly. And then she remembered how he’d pummelled Derreck in the face. How he’d stormed out and left him bloodied and bruised on the cold wooden floor. How he’d been dealing drugs before she met him, had caused a teenage boy to die in Goa. And he’d spent eighteen years in a Thai jail, facing horrors she couldn’t even comprehend.
She stared at him now, sickened. There were three dead girls in the back of his van because of some spur-of-the-moment revenge plan for the actions of one of their parents.
And it had all been for nothing. Hannah and Trev, Leonie and Griff, Maggie and Martin. They were innocent. All innocent.
‘John-Paul, you stupid fucking fool,’ she sobbed, getting out of the van. She wanted to scream into the cold night air. ‘I was the one who set you up. I put the drugs in your bag! Not them. Me!’
She saw too late what a terrible mistake she had made by admitting it was her fault he’d spent nearly twenty years in a Bangkok prison. His face changed. His once warm eyes grew cold and hard and furious.
And then he lunged for her.
50
Jenna
I’m frozen to the sofa as I watch the events unfolding in front of me, like I’m the only audience member in a warped stage play. When I found Jay sitting in the armchair with a German Shepherd at his side everything began to slot into place as he ranted at me about Olivia’s mother and how this was all her fault. He was acting deranged, not like the cool and collected businessman he’d appeared when I’d first met him. And all I could think about was trying to find a way to escape. I’d been relieved when Olivia and her mother had turned up. But now, after listening to Anastacia’s story, I realize I’ll be lucky to get out of this situation alive. They’re telling me too much.