Maybe now you’re back it’s time to discuss your plans for the new year.
All these messages were, of course, squashed in between countless others, ranging from gushing invitations to parties through to yet more of the usual violent vitriol. These felt different, though. And after that last one, a tendril of fear coiled around my lungs, constricting every breath. Only once Marcus had picked me up and we were safely over the Severn Bridge and well on the way to our New Year’s Eve party could I suck in enough oxygen to think straight. With Marcus’s solid presence beside me, in the warm glow of the beautiful castle, surrounded by people who dealt with this sort of crap all the time, I was able to regain my perspective. Someone out there really hated me, but I could hardly blame them.
After arriving back in London a single woman, I let Lucy deal with the social media side of things while I cried, wallowed and tried to yank myself together and finally come up with a plan to move forwards with my life.
And then, late Thursday afternoon, I got a message to my personal email account. The sender was [email protected]:
Not such a Happy New Year? Maybe it’s time for Nora to RIP.
For once, I completely agreed. Outside of using it for things like Amazon purchases and my energy bills, about ten people knew that email address. In a flood of panic, I decided it was time for a break. I nearly bought a train ticket home, but then I imagined this person following me onto the train, finding out where my parents lived. What if they booked themselves into the Tufted Duck? Plus, how could I explain any of this to them? I needed to go somewhere far more difficult to trace, and I needed the flexibility and privacy of my own transport.
I needed to be with someone who knew who Nora was, and who’d listen to the whole story, hug me while I cried, have me laughing about the whole sorry mess and then come up with an outrageous plan to help me make it right.
I did a hasty search for used car dealers, diving into a taxi with my face encased in a scarf, hat pulled down low, and returning a couple of hours later with the only car I could afford to buy in cash.
I spent the rest of the evening pacing up and down, stuffing in Pringles and trying to form coherent thoughts that allowed me to rationalise what was going on. It was probably easy for someone with basic hacking skills to find out my email address, once they knew who I was. They still hadn’t threatened me, not really.
They just wanted to torment me, it would seem.
I tried to calm down, collect my wits. I went through all my social media accounts, but Lucy had kept on top of things and there was nothing new that seemed to link to the stalker, or any of the Alami family. I tried to search the family’s Facebook accounts again, but they were mostly set to private, and the few I could access were completely innocuous.
First thing in the morning I would pack up and head to Nottinghamshire, trusting and hoping that Charlie had meant it when she’d insisted that this time she’d be home for good. I put my doubts to one side and pretended to try to go to sleep.
When the first message pinged through to my WhatsApp, I nearly fell out of bed. Before I’d untangled myself from the duvet and fumbled for my phone on the bedside table, another one had arrived. Six more followed in quick succession. I read them perched on the edge of the bed, the only light the glow from the attachments as I opened each one with the apprehension and speed of a bomb-disposal expert snipping the red wire on a homemade device. The dread and dismay grew with each one. Most of the messages were a mix of news clippings, formal notifications and photographs clearly showing six different restaurants that had gone out of business in the past year. I recognised the name of each one because I’d reviewed them. Three of them were terrible and would have failed with or without me. Three more were okay, nothing special, and given how few new restaurants survived they wouldn’t have succeeded without taking my carefully worded criticism on the chin and making some serious changes. My review could potentially have been their saviour.
The final news clipping was an obituary. Layla Alami’s cancer had returned, and this time the chemotherapy could not save her.
You did this,message number eight starkly informed me.You stole her will to fight.
More messages, then:
How can you live knowing she has died?
Do you enjoy spending the blood money?
I told you to stop but you ignored me. Now it’s too late…
Now it begins.
The flat intercom buzzed, and I let rip with a scream. I automatically threw my phone across the bed, heart thumping, the rest of me like one giant spasm of fear. Chest jerking with each heaving breath, I scrabbled off the bed and to the window, pulling back the blind with a quaking finger. I couldn’t make out enough of the main entrance to see whether anyone lurked in the shadows there, but the rest of the street appeared to be empty.
Another message pinged.
Bloody hell.Should I call 999? I grabbed my phone and saw, to my utter terror, a photograph of the flat entrance. Not the main entrance, but the door into my actual flat, only a few metres down the corridor. In front of the door was a box, wrapped in brown paper and tied up with a red bow.
I waited an agonising fifteen minutes before creeping down the corridor, staring through the spyhole, heart still veering dangerously close to supersonic, trying in vain to quieten my sobs and rampant breathing long enough to hear whether anyone was still out there. I could leave it until the morning. Call Lucy and ask her to come over so we can look at it together.
While agreeing with myself wholeheartedly on this wise and rational decision, another part of me whipped the door open, snatched the box and slammed it shut again, clicking the locks into place before sliding down to join the delivery on the welcome mat.
‘Crap, Eleanor, what did you do that for?’ I whispered.
Now I was going to have to open it, wasn’t I?
Slowly, gingerly, I unwrapped the box.
Inside, encased in plastic packaging, was, if my food-industry expert eyes were not mistaken, a heart.
A lamb’s heart, at a guess.
