The Girls Who Disappeared(80)

The money was more than she could ever have earned working for her parents in their riding stables, but she knew it was more than that. She was so infatuated with Derreck she’d have done anything he asked.

When she returned to England, pining for Derreck and guilt-ridden at what had happened with John-Paul, she found out she was pregnant. When she broke the news to Derreck over the phone he assured her that it made no difference: he still wanted to be with her. That he loved her. Not long afterwards he moved his ‘distribution services’ to the UK so they could be together and they met up regularly in different seaside bed-and-breakfasts around the country. She wanted to keep Derreck and his distribution business away from Olivia so he became her secret. She never even told Maggie and the others about him, and in the end she could almost convince herself Derreck was just doing a bit of courier work on the side, a well-paid delivery man. After he got arrested in Dover in 1982 he started going by his middle name, Jason. Until she suggested shortening it to Jay. Like her hero, Gatsby. She loved him so much she closed her ears to his dodgy deals and the many businesses he’d set up to clean the money he’d made through drugs.

In the last eight months he’d even begun visiting her in Stafferbury on the odd occasion – although they were very careful never to be seen together, usually holed up in the little Airbnb apartment he rented under a false name. She was looking forward to seeing him tomorrow night as he was in Stafferbury on ‘business’. At first, she’d been terrified one of her old friends would recognize him but it had been nearly eighteen years since Thailand and he had changed a lot, losing most of his lovely blond hair and growing a beard. He was still sexy to her, though. He always would be.

Just as she was turning off the TV the headlights of a vehicle swept across the room. Olivia was home later than usual. Stace loitered in the hallway, expecting to hear the key in the front door. She waited but there was no sound. She didn’t want Olivia to think she was waiting up for her so she tiptoed to the front porch to see what her daughter was doing. Maybe she had a boy in the car with her – perhaps that Wesley Tucker she’d been hanging around with. Stace didn’t want to pry but when she cupped her hands around her face and peered through the glass, instead of Olivia’s little Peugeot she saw a white van. She wondered if it was Derreck but he’d never just turn up because of Olivia. Maybe she would tell Olivia about him one day but she knew he – like her – preferred to keep their relationship separate from everyone else. Derreck wasn’t the marrying kind and that was fine by her as long as he was in her life. Other couples lost their heat, their lust for one another, but not them and that was, at least in part, because she didn’t have to pick up after him and wash his dirty pants. Theirs was a love that took place inside luxury hotel rooms and quiet little Airbnbs, having sex in bath tubs with champagne on the side.

Someone was getting out of the van. It was a man she didn’t immediately recognize, although there was something familiar about the way he walked, the curve of his back, the arms hanging limply at his sides. And then he stopped and looked directly at her, with haunted brown eyes, and she knew straight away who it was. A ghost from her past.

She grabbed her coat from the peg and rushed outside, still in her slippers. The ground was wet although the rain was slowing.

Why was he here?

‘John-Paul? Is that you?’

‘Stace …’ His voice was thick, like he was dehydrated. As he stepped closer the light from the porch illuminated his ravaged face, his hollow cheeks, his closely cropped hair and wild beard. She hadn’t seen him since that terrible afternoon when he was arrested at the airport. Nearly nineteen years ago.

‘What … what are you doing here?’ She couldn’t keep the shock out of her voice.

‘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.