The Guilty Couple(67)

‘Did you really do that?’ His daughter’s expression has softened and she looks like a little girl again, not a raging pre-teen.

‘Yes, I did.’

‘Mum said you’re going to take me to Dubai and never bring me back.’

‘That’s because your mother is a very fearful person.’ He reaches for his daughter’s hand. ‘She was in prison for a long time and she’s scared she’ll lose you again. She’s not allowed to talk to me so she hasn’t been able to ask me about our lovely holiday. Why don’t I send her a message now, and let her know everything’s going to be okay?’

Grace’s chin bobs up and down as she nods enthusiastically, all traces of anger and mistrust gone.

‘There we go then. All sorted.’ He lets go of her hand and glances around the untidy room then frowns as he spots something nestling amongst the folds of the duvet.

It seems he’s not the only one keeping secrets – his daughter is too.





Chapter 49


OLIVIA


I stumble, rather than walk, through Ayesha’s front door, head straight for the sofa and check my phone, just as I’ve done a dozen times since I left the hospital, but there are no missed calls from Smithy’s surgeon. She’ll still be in surgery now, completely oblivious to what’s going on. I pluck her book – The Right Way to Do Wrong by Harry Houdini – from the pile of my belongings on the floor and hug it to my chest. It’s the book Smithy gave me on the day I was released from prison. It’s her bible and her talisman. I wish there was something within the pages that I could use to rewind time, so I could have taken the evidence with me instead of giving it to her. None of this would have happened. She wouldn’t be lying on a surgeon’s table, fighting for her life.

Behind me, on the kitchen counter, are two glasses and an uncorked bottle of wine. I heave myself out of the chair, pour myself a large glass and drink half of it in one gulp. Smithy’s surgeon isn’t the only who hasn’t contacted me. Jack hasn’t tried to ring me again and Grace still hasn’t replied to the text I sent before I got on the tube.

My new plan, the only plan left, is for her to run away with me. I texted her after I left the hospital to tell her the truth about her so-called holiday to Dubai, and that her father’s been lying to her all along. I’ve told her I’ll get a taxi to the house at 5 a.m. tomorrow and that she should sneak out to meet me without waking her dad. I don’t know where we’ll go once the taxi takes us to King’s Cross, or how I’ll support us, but she’s not stepping foot on that plane. If the police track us down, I’ll end up in prison so we’ll have to keep moving around every few months but I’ll do whatever it takes to keep her in my life.

‘Liv!’ Ayesha calls from the back of the flat. ‘Is that you?’

‘Yep!’

‘I’m in the bathroom. Help yourself to wine. I’ll be out in a bit.’

I raise the glass to my mouth again and I’m just about to take another sip when the fresh citrussy scent of Ayesha’s bath oil wafts into the room. She strolls into the kitchen in a shower cap and a fluffy white dressing gown, takes one look at me and her face falls.

‘Liv! What’s happened? Did I screw everything up? I’m so sorry I didn’t ring Dom or turn up to meet you. I had to—’

‘It’s okay.’ I push a glass of wine across the counter towards her. ‘It’s not that. It’s Smithy. Someone attacked her and she’s in the hospital. The doctor said she’s suffering from an abdominal haemorrhage and bleeding to the brain. They think she was pushed down the stairs of her flat and then kicked, repeatedly, in the stomach.’

‘Oh my god, Liv.’ Ayesha throws her arms around me and hugs me tightly then pulls away to look at my face. ‘Is she going to be okay?’

‘I don’t know. The doctor said they’d do their best, which didn’t exactly reassure me. She’s gone into surgery. I won’t find out how it went until tomorrow.’

‘She’ll get through it. She’s a fighter.’

‘Yeah.’ I nod but I’m still gripped by the fear that I’ll never see Smithy again.

‘Who attacked her?’ Ayesha asks. ‘Are the police investigating?’

She listens intently, perched on the edge of the sofa, her wine untouched, as I tell her everything – about Nancy and Lee being thrown out of The Radcliffe Building, about the security guard that nearly rumbled me as I tried to get through the gates, and the fire alarm I had to set off in order to get into Dominic’s office. I skip the part about the restaurant. Instead I tell her about Dani, the fight in the street, the police officer, the ambulance and everything the doctor told me in the visitors’ room. By the time I reach the part about meeting Dani in the hospital corridor and the voicemail Jack left, she looks completely overwhelmed.

‘Wait, what? Jack rang you?’

‘Yeah. Listen.’ I play her the voicemail on speakerphone.

‘That’s it?’ she says as it finishes. ‘Just hello? It could be anyone. It could be Dom. It could even be Lee.’

‘It’s not. I’ve listened to it dozens of times and it’s definitely him. I’d know his voice anywhere. I’ve heard him say hello a hundred times.’