The Good Samaritan
Page 55

It made me want to break him even more.
Suddenly he handed her what looked like a Dictaphone. She glanced at the camera, then pulled out headphones from her bag and spent the next five minutes listening without saying a word. I hunched forward, literally on the edge of my seat, wondering what the hell was on that recording. Finally, she spoke.
‘You need to know that Laura is a popular member of the team and a big fundraiser for us,’ she said. ‘If it wasn’t for her, we’d be struggling to stay open.’
Janine’s appreciation of my hard work wasn’t the response I’d expected, as she’d never shown me anything close to gratitude before. And I began to feel a little relieved when a frustrated Ryan stood up to leave. It was his word against mine – a stranger wracked with grief and desperate to find someone other than himself to blame for his wife’s death, versus me, a people person, a woman whose middle name was charity. Janine might not have liked me, but at least I had her support.
I began to slip the headphones from my ears, but continued to watch the screen as Ryan made his way towards the door. Suddenly, Janine stood up and stopped him. She looked straight into the video camera and whispered into his ear. I couldn’t make out what she was saying, so I replayed it. Again, it was too muffled. Only when I turned up the volume to maximum could I understand a few words.
‘I believe . . . saying,’ she told him. ‘. . . suspicions . . . number of suicidal calls . . . higher . . . other branches . . . I promise . . . me a little time . . . kicked out of here . . . police investigation. This place . . . I’ll take it away from her . . .’
I slumped in my seat, watching both figures leave the room until eventually the computer screen turned black.
Oh, Janine, why did you have to say that?
Everyone was too busy on calls to spot me rifling through her drawers, filing cabinet and the cupboard behind her desk, frantically searching for that damning Dictaphone. But it was nowhere to be found.
I gave up for now and deleted the video file – permanently this time – and it felt like a light switch in my head had just been flicked on. Now I could see everything much more clearly: the present and the future. I didn’t need to compartmentalise Ryan and Janine. I could use them to cancel each other out. Two birds, and me holding the stone.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
RYAN
My mum and dad sat on the opposite side of the kitchen table to me, their expressions serious, like when I was a kid and they were about to tell me off.
When they began talking, I knew they had rehearsed beforehand by the way they took it in turns – a sentence each, like a couple of breakfast TV presenters reading from a teleprompter. They’d even printed off their bank statements and highlighted their outgoings to prove their point.
‘We just can’t afford it any longer,’ Mum continued, and took a sip from a glass of Prosecco. ‘If we keep going like this, we’ll have to cash in our pensions to keep paying for it.’
I nodded. ‘You’re right and I’m sorry. I didn’t think about it. You should have said something sooner.’
They’d asked me to their home to discuss the two mortgages I had in my name. While I was paying for the flat, they’d been stepping in to pay for the empty cottage. A teacher’s income wasn’t a bottomless pit of money, and neither were their savings.
‘I appreciate why you’re reluctant to let either of them go,’ Dad said, ‘but you’re going to need to make a decision soon. You can’t keep both.’
I briefly weighed up the pros and cons of each home. I no longer had any love for the flat since Charlotte died. So making my home in a place she hadn’t set foot in would be the sensible choice.
‘I’ll sell the flat.’
‘Are you sure?’ Mum asked. ‘Do you want more time to think about it?’
‘No, I need to start moving forward and in new directions.’
These were the buzzwords I’d picked up from the self-help websites Johnny kept emailing me links to. Over the Christmas period, curiosity got the better of me and I’d opened them, but it was only recently that their words were starting to resonate. Then I’d made it my New Year’s resolution to start afresh.
When Johnny had confronted me at the flat and asked me what my endgame with Laura was, I didn’t really have an answer. For months I’d thought of very little else except how I could make her life as miserable as mine. Since my brother had pointed out my actions were on a par with hers, I realised the attention I’d focused on Laura was a delaying tactic to stop myself from getting on with the rest of my life.
I’d told End of the Line’s manager about Laura and she’d believed me. Now it was up to Janine to bring Laura down with the evidence I’d given her. I wondered when she might get in touch to update me.
Laura and I were over. I hoped that her defacing Charlotte’s photo in Granddad Pete’s bedroom was just a parting shot.
‘One of Johnny’s old school mates is an estate agent at Corner Stones,’ I said. ‘I’ll ask him to give me a valuation and then I’ll put it on the market.’
Mum placed her hand on mine.
‘I know it’s not easy, but you’re doing the right thing.’
She was right, of course, as parents often are. But there was one more ‘right thing’ I needed to do before I could put all this behind me.
Effie had kept a low profile in school since I’d given her a lift home and turned down her advances. There’d been no detentions and no class disruptions. But come the first term of the new year, she still couldn’t bring herself to look me in the eye. She chose to shrink behind her desk, as if she hoped the ground might swallow her up.
I gradually began increasing her grades until they were around the mark they had been before I’d interfered. But each time I looked at Effie, I saw a girl that I’d broken, and I felt as guilty as hell about it.
‘Effie, have you got a minute?’
She looked startled when I asked her to stay behind as the bell rang for lunch.
Her hand fumbled in her pocket and she looked all around me but not at me. What I’d done to her was unforgivable.
‘About what happened that afternoon,’ I began. ‘It was completely inappropriate and I want to apologise.’
Her eyes lifted from the floor.
‘I shouldn’t have given you a lift. I shouldn’t have said the things I did and I – well, we both took things too far. I’m your teacher and I should have known better. I blame myself for giving you the wrong signals. I won’t put either of us in that position again, I promise.’
She nodded.
‘Have you told anyone else?’
‘No.’
‘So we can keep it between ourselves?’
She nodded.
‘Have you noticed your grades have improved?’
‘Is that your way of shutting me up, Mr Smith? Giving me better marks so I’ll keep quiet about what you did?’
I didn’t reply.
‘Thought so. Can I go now?’
‘Yes.’
As Effie hurried from the room, I thought I could now start putting everything behind me and think about the future, just like the self-help websites told me to. It was time to start my life again, only without Charlotte or Laura.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
LAURA
The estate agent was already parked outside the block of flats in a car emblazoned with his firm’s colourful logo when I arrived dead on time.