Nothing can calm the anger I feel at Ned being able to get away with so much because his father is a powerful man. I tell myself that I don’t know for sure that Ned was involved in Tanya Haughton’s death. But everything points to it, from the method to the cover-up.
Remembering that I was trying to find out what was reported in the press about my marriage to Ned, I return to those articles. There’s little about me personally. Some digging had been done, because there’s mention of me being an orphan, and of me being reported missing at seventeen years old, after the death of my father. But the focus is more on how Ned and I met, and our sudden marriage. Interviews with Vicky, and others from Exclusives, tell of their surprise at the news, because they hadn’t known that Ned and I were in a relationship. No one calls me a gold digger, at least not in writing. But reading their words, I can feel the accusation beneath the surface.
There’s a flurry of articles about Ned’s suicide, and as I read, I learn about the extensive trolling Ned had been subjected to because of Justine’s accusation of sexual assault, and his subsequent persecution by the media. It makes more sense now, the easy acceptance of a suicide verdict. But I hate that he was portrayed as a victim, when he was guilty of so much.
There’s something I’ve wanted to do for a long time, something I haven’t been able to do, because I haven’t had the courage. But I dig deep inside me and type “male body found Dorset” into my search en gine. There are several articles, and I scan them quickly, my heart thudding, discarding each one until I find the one that I hoped I wouldn’t find, Wednesday, August the fourteenth, about a man’s body being found on a wooded road, not far from Haven Cliffs, the seeming victim of a gangland killing.
The room tilts, I grip the table, wait for the dizziness to pass. At the time, the all-consuming murder of Lina just days before had taken precedence over Hunter’s; it had seemed wrong to mourn a man I barely knew. But now, waves of grief rack my body, for what might have been, if Lukas hadn’t ordered him to be killed.
Lukas. I can hardly bear to think about him now that I know he was my captor. But he is still the only person who will be able to give me the answers I need. My mind goes back to the phone call from Paul, warning me away from the memorial service. It has nothing to do with me being besieged by the press; why would I be? The service isn’t about me, it’s about Justine and Lina. Even if someone recognized me, they wouldn’t ask why I was there, not when everyone knows I worked at the magazine. The warning to keep away is about someone else being there, someone the kidnappers don’t want me running into, and that person can only be Lukas. And if Lukas is coming over from Vilnius, or Los Angeles, for the memorial service, the chances are that he’ll stay in his home away from home, the house in Haven Cliffs.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
I step off the train in Bournemouth, exit the station, and walk to the taxi stand. The driver rolls down his window.
“Where to, love?”
“Haven Cliffs, please,” I say, climbing into the car.
“Do you have an address?”
“The house is called Albatross, but I’ve stupidly forgotten which road it’s on.”
“No problem.” He fiddles with his GPS. “Got it.”
“Great, thank you.”
I sit back, look out of the window, trying to calm my nerves. I have no idea how the next hour will play out but I know what I’d like to happen. Lukas is there, he agrees to talk to me, he admits giving the order for Hunter to be killed, admits kidnapping me and Ned, admits killing Ned. He tells me that everything was payback for Lina’s death, because he once loved her, or because he was meant to look out for her, and then I leave, and go straight to the police with the recording I’ve secretly made on my phone. But I’m not so na?ve as to think things go exactly as we’d like.
“Here you are,” the driver says, some fifteen minutes later.
I look out of the window and see a pair of black double gates with a high white wall stretching on either side of it. I recognize the small black gate a few yards along from the main gates; it’s the gate I went through when I pretended to look for Ned on the beach.
I pay the driver, get out of the car, and stand for a moment, studying the upper windows of the house where I was held captive for two weeks. When the kidnappers first brought us here, I didn’t smell the tang of the sea in the air. But maybe the fear I felt as they dragged Ned and me from the car had blunted my senses. Even if I had smelled the sea, I wouldn’t have thought we were at the house where Ned and I had had lunch with Lukas. In my mind, the place we’d been brought to was old and derelict, hidden away in some woods.