Safe House Read online

  Jo Jakeman

  * * *

  SAFE HOUSE

  CONTENTS

  PROLOGUE

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

  CHAPTER FORTY

  CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

  CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

  CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

  CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER FORTY-SIX

  CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER FORTY-NINE

  CHAPTER FIFTY

  CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Jo Jakeman was the winner of the Friday Night Live 2016 competition at the York Festival of Writing. Born in Cyprus, she worked for many years in the City of London before moving to Derbyshire with her husband and twin boys. Safe House is her second novel, and Sticks and Stones was her debut thriller. Find out more at www.jojakeman.com.

  Also by Jo Jakeman

  Sticks and Stones

  For Danny and Alex.

  My heart. My home.

  PROLOGUE

  Interview Room 3

  Wednesday, 28 November 2018, 10.18 a.m.

  Conor Fletcher slams the palm of his hand on the table between them and says, ‘I knew something like this would happen!’

  DC Naz Apkarian covers a yawn with the back of her hand. The long night had turned into a slow morning.

  ‘Yeah? I’d love to borrow your crystal ball one day, Mr Fletcher.’

  Conor shakes his head. ‘Funny,’ he sneers. ‘But your incompetence led to a woman’s death.’

  He looks towards the door. Naz can see he’s itching to get out of here. You and me both, she thinks. He’s not under arrest. He can leave whenever he wants but he needs to understand what happened just as much as Naz does.

  Naz’s partner, DC Angus Harper, sits in silence. He’s an imposing man. Though he uses words sparingly, his presence is all that’s needed to shut people up, or to make them talk. He folds his arms, knowing this makes the fabric of his shirt strain around his biceps.

  ‘Go on then,’ Naz says. ‘I’m all ears. Why don’t you tell us where we went wrong?’

  Conor glares at her. His cold blue eyes are too close together. On instinct Naz dislikes him. She doesn’t appreciate being criticised – especially before she’s had her first caffeine hit of the day. He’s not really angry, he’s defensive. In this job it’s important to recognise the difference.

  ‘I think you know,’ Conor says.

  ‘I’m not sure I do.’ Naz turns to her colleague and asks, ‘What about you, Harper? Any idea what he’s talking about?’

  Without taking his eyes off Conor, Harper shakes his head. ‘Not me.’

  ‘Nope. See?’ Naz says. ‘We’re clueless, Mr Fletcher. You’d be doing us a favour if you’d care to share your thoughts with us. We’re just trying to understand what happened, and it seems you have all the answers.’

  She waits.

  Naz knows Conor Fletcher has plenty to say. She can see it in the twitch of his cheek and the set of his jaw. The words on the tip of his tongue are desperate to be heard.

  ‘She tried to warn you,’ he says at last. ‘You should’ve known someone would come looking for her. She told you she wasn’t safe, but you wouldn’t listen, would you? You should have done more to help.’

  ‘If you knew that she was in danger, Mr Fletcher, it begs the question, why you didn’t do something to help her yourself?’

  ‘Don’t try to shift the blame on me. I did everything I could. Can you honestly say the same?’

  ‘You’re saying this was inevitable?’ Naz asks.

  Conor folds his arms and laughs, though there’s no humour in his voice. ‘It was only a question of who was going to get to her first.’

  CHAPTER ONE

  Charlie Miller

  Friday, 5 October 2018

  Charlie’s new life began today. Luckily, she never much cared for the old one.

  With one hand on the steering wheel and an eye on the road, she checked her reflection in the rear-view mirror and barely recognised herself. The darker hair still took her by surprise. The tips were almost ginger where ‘chocolate brown’ supermarket dye had fought the blonde, and lost.

  She looked back to the empty lane that was narrower than it had any right to be and still dark with overnight rain. Puddles captured sections of blue sky, as if it had fallen from the heavens. She had missed the tangy smell of a world washed clean by rain. It was the scent of new beginnings.

  Fear and excitement battled it out for supremacy in her stomach. The cautious part of her – which was both sizeable and used to getting its own way – thought about turning the car around, going back the way she’d come, but there was nothing waiting for her there. Her old life didn’t exist any more.

  Charlie’s new life could be so … well, it could be so safe.

  Her mum used to accuse her of ‘playing it safe’, as if safe was something to be avoided. She could never understand why Charlie didn’t apply for a better job – but who would want the extra responsibility and the paperwork? And, of course, she never took risks. What kind of fool would willingly expose themselves to danger? Her mum said that Charlie was stuck in her ways and Charlie supposed she had a point – until the day before yesterday she had the same hairstyle she’d had since she was twelve.

  Safe. Yes, Charlie played it safe on a semi-professional level. And until two years ago she thought she was doing a fine job of it.

  The road ran parallel to a river that dipped towards the glimmering sea in the distance. She thought back to family holidays where they’d spend what felt like an eternity in the car before she’d shout from behind Mother’s headrest, ‘I can see the sea!’, as if being the first to spot it deserved a prize. She didn’t have a family any more and no one to share a car journey with. Funny how much could change in such a short space of time.

  The Buttery was waiting for Charlie on the other side of the river. The name made her think of thick stone walls and homely fires. Old-world charm and heavy wooden doors. If she couldn’t get a moat and a drawbridge, a cottage at the crumbling edge of Cornwall was the next best thing to keep the world at bay.

  The automated female voice coming from her phone told her, Take the first turning on the left, but it was only a twist in the road that dipped beneath a few inches of water and popped up again on the other side. She half expected to be washed downstream in an elaborate game of Poohsticks. As she inched towards the sign for Penderrion the phone told her she was, Arri
ving at destination.

  The houses here were trim and expensive. Set back from the lane, they had lawns that would be perfect for warm-evening G&Ts and a game of croquet. They represented a life that Charlie would never be part of.

  She slowed the car as the road began to peter out. The neat lawns melted away, replaced by a bank of trees and unruly hedges. She glanced in her rear-view mirror. Had she missed the house? Gone too far? But then she saw the Sold at Auction sign poking from beneath a huddle of trees that bowed and bobbed in the breeze. Beyond it, she turned down an overgrown track that was dense with wizened brambles – nature’s barbed wire – telling her to Keep Out. As she pushed the car forwards, a rabbit lurched from the undergrowth and kicked its heels at her to lead the way.

  Charlie brought the car to a halt behind the cottage. She turned off the engine and pulled herself out of the car. Hands on the base of her back, she stretched and groaned. Though she’d seen pictures, this was the first time she’d seen The Buttery with her own eyes. Phrases like ‘investment opportunity’ and ‘in need of modernisation’ were euphemisms that should have told her everything she needed to know, but still she’d set her expectations too high.

  ‘You’ve got to be joking,’ she said, though her words were tugged from her mouth and blown to the top of the trees like discarded litter before they could reach her ears.

  The roof bowed like a washing line of bedsheets, and the kitchen window was missing its glass. A lot of work would be needed to turn this house into a home, but Charlie had come prepared.

  She looked at the upstairs window where a limp curtain fluttered and fell. Did she see, or just imagine, a figure in the shadows? She took a slow step backwards.

  The curtains swayed again but there was no one there. They were curled by the tender caress of the wind. Nothing else. She unclenched her hands that she didn’t realise were in tight fists by her side.

  ‘Idiot,’ she muttered.

  There’s no danger here. There couldn’t be, because no one knew where she was. This was her fresh start.

  She could be anyone in the world – anyone she wanted – except Steffi.

  If she wanted to stay safe, she needed to make sure everyone forgot that Steffi Finn had ever existed.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Steffi Finn

  Thursday, 28 December 2017

  Day 37 of sentence

  ‘Cold out,’ said Prison Officer Manning. ‘Didn’t think my car was going to start this morning.’

  Though Steffi appreciated the attempt at normal conversation she found it difficult to sympathise with anyone who was able to sleep in their own bed, drink tea out of their own mug and drive their own car to work.

  ‘Any snow yet, Miss?’ she asked.

  ‘Some up in the Peaks,’ Manning said. ‘They’ve shut the Snake Pass and the Cat and Fiddle Road again.’

  Steffi loved the sound of places she’d never seen. She tucked the words away for later when she’d be alone and could let the roads take her mind out of here.

  HMP Hillstone was generally considered to be less harsh than some of the other prisons she could have been sent to. With seven wings and two hundred inmates, there was never a quiet moment, and Steffi looked forward to being locked back in her cell, which, for now, she didn’t have to share with anyone else.

  Steffi looked back to the newspaper on the table. As long as she kept her eyes down, and folded herself small enough so she was almost invisible, the prison officers and the other inmates left her alone. She was no fun if she didn’t fight back.

  This period between Christmas and New Year fell flat whether you were locked-up or not. The prison had made ineffective attempts to provide some Christmas cheer. There’d been roast turkey and carols, and the women had been allowed to watch The Polar Express in the afternoon lull. There were paper-chain decorations made by the inmates. Some of the women seemed excited, happy even. Steffi supposed that, for some of them, this was better than the alternative.

  Steffi’s only acknowledgement of the day came in a Christmas phone call to her mum and dad but she wished she hadn’t bothered. It was too painful for all of them. They couldn’t bring themselves to sit around in paper crowns when their daughter was in prison and Steffi couldn’t bring herself to pretend that she was anything but miserable.

  It could be worse. There was more than one way to lose a daughter. For the parents of Katy Foster and Anna Atkins, a daughter in prison was a luxury. They’d be visiting a graveside and setting an empty place at the dinner table. Steffi wondered whether her parents ever wished that she was dead. Instead of shunning them, the neighbours would give them extra hugs and invites for mulled wine and mince pies.

  Once a week the inmates were allowed to visit the prison library. It was the time Steffi looked forward to the most. It wasn’t just the uniformity of the straight spines or the neatness of the shelves that mesmerised her like a moth to a light – it was the newspapers. They were her link to the outside, proof that the world hadn’t stopped as soon as she was sentenced. She sat and read each one, cover to cover, no matter how big or small the story.

  The front pages showed chaos on the roads and queues for the post-Christmas sales. She wondered whether she’d be less materialistic when she got out, or more. She’d appreciate the value of simple pleasures, sure, but she also wanted to be able to buy a new lamp, a pair of pyjamas or a bar of chocolate whenever she wanted.

  The papers didn’t mention Steffi any more. There was part of her that found the omission disappointing. Hurtful even. She wanted them to print the truth about her, but she knew that’d never happen. Instead, she read that women in party dresses were ‘flaunting their curves’. Saw that the picture to accompany a story about a woman sexually assaulted showed her posing in a bikini on holiday and the associated story detailed what she’d been drinking that night.

  Until she’d become a victim of the tabloid press Steffi hadn’t noticed the language they used and how it had seeped into her consciousness. If it hadn’t been for the differing ways in which she and Lee had been portrayed by the media she might never have noticed.

  Steffi wondered what Lee’s prison was like. Was it bigger or louder? Did he have a better gym, better food or better books in the library? Did he get extra perks for serving a double life sentence? She still thought of him every day. It was difficult not to. She was sure that he’d be thinking of her, too. Even if his appeal was successful, Lee Fisher would remain in prison for many more years yet. How long could he hold a grudge? She was willing to bet it was longer than any number of life sentences. The Lee she used to love would have forgiven her in a heartbeat, but the real Lee – the one he’d kept hidden – was capable of unspeakable acts of cruelty.

  She flicked through the paper. Every time Steffi read that ‘a reliable source said …’ or ‘a source close to the actress confirmed …’ she scoffed out loud. She’d had plenty of those when her case went to court. She still had no idea whether they were real or completely made up by the journalists. Were they allowed to do that? She’d accused Conor of talking to the papers. They’d been best friends since school, dated for a while, and then his legal firm agreed to represent her. Now they were arranging for the sale of the home that she would never set foot in again. She wished she didn’t have to rely on him so much. In an ideal world she wouldn’t rely on anyone.

  He’d looked sheepish when Steffi asked if his girlfriend – God, what was her name? – was leaking information to the press. Conor had been seeing The Girlfriend for eighteen months but Steffi hadn’t met her. Conor said she was an actress, though he never mentioned her actually starring in anything. Lee had met The Girlfriend – no, seriously, what was her name? – at Max’s birthday party. He went to great lengths to describe how fascinating she was, how beautiful, amusing, so slim and tall. ‘Could have been a model,’ he’d said. ‘And she was so attentive.’

  Each one of these compliments felt like they were a direct insult to Steffi. And maybe she was just the tin
iest bit jealous that this woman had shown such interest in Lee. Wasn’t Conor enough for her? Of course, with the benefit of hindsight she wished that Lee had eloped with the actress on the spot. It could have saved Steffi a lot of trouble.

  Steffi had never liked parties and Lee didn’t approve of alcohol. There was nothing he hated more than a drunk woman. Steffi had been a social drinker when they’d met but Lee had asked her to give up alcohol and, in turn, he said he’d give up smoking for her. It had been a deal she’d been happy to make. She’d thought that Lee was perfect in every way except for the smoking. And then she discovered that smoking hadn’t been his worst habit after all.

  Lee had been remanded in prison following his arrest. Steffi used to think that he was the lucky one – at least he hadn’t had to live a half-life in the real world, like she had. He wasn’t spat on and intimidated. But then he ended up in hospital with a fractured jaw. It turned out prison wasn’t the safe haven Steffi thought it was.

  Her solicitor – not Conor, but one of his colleagues – was the one who advised her to accept her sentence quietly. In the grand scheme of things, ten months was little more than the blink of an eye, he’d said. But that was easy for him to say. She bit her lip. It wasn’t that difficult to do, she’d always been quiet. She’d quietly stood by as Lee Fisher lied to her. She’d spoken softly behind closed doors and drawn curtains but remained tight-lipped in the face of questions from journalists when Lee had tried to pin the blame on her. She declined to give an interview in response to their claims that she knew more about the murders than she was letting on. She let the lawyers, the papers and the angry mob say what they liked about her. Steffi had been confident that the truth would come out at the trial if she bided her time and waited to clear her name. Patience. An underrated virtue.