Chapter Thirty

By Saturday morning the storm had swept clear of York, leaving trails of gravel strewn with petals and branches about the streets as though a thousand careless landscape gardeners had passed by. I was up as soon as it was light, pacing about my bedroom, muttering to myself – there was still so much that could go wrong, so much that I couldn’t leave to trust, to faith, to Cal.

But I had to, didn’t I?

It had to work. It just had to.

At least I knew that Luke would be there. Whoever, whatever else might go wrong, Luke would be there. Yesterday’s phone call had made sure of that. Although he’d been a bit cool to start off with.

‘How did the gig go? I would have come and said hello as soon as I realised it was you, but you were … chatting to that man.’ A clever insertion of a pause, long enough to make me wonder whether he’d seen anything incriminating, until I realised we hadn’t been doing anything incriminating.

‘It was good, thanks. I thought I’d ring to let you know that the bank is releasing the money, so that I can write you out a cheque tomorrow, if you like. At the hotel? Are you still on for that?’

The word ‘money’ acted on Luke like Viagra cream applied direct to his libido. Suddenly he was the besotted, devoted boyfriend, couldn’t do enough for me. Did I want picking up? Could he bring anything? Oh, and by the way, the dress I’d worn on Sunday to perform in – stunning, made me look like Jennifer Lawrence.

I wasn’t entirely sure who Jennifer Lawrence was.

I set out for the hotel at ten. I’d booked the suite from lunchtime, but I wanted to get to the place early to spy out the land, wander round a bit, settle in. I wanted to be in control, confident and relaxed, when Luke arrived. I had to play perfect girlfriend a while longer. Accordingly, under my plain slip dress I was wearing the tightest black lace basque that I’d been able to find. The ‘God’s gift to Men’ picture was completed by sheer stockings, a pair of lace knickers which obviously weren’t meant ever to be walked in and the highest heels this side of a transvestite’s cocktail party. My hair was piled up on my head and secured with a few indolent pins which let random swathes tumble onto my shoulders, and when I walked into the hotel reception they clearly thought I was a hooker.

Having reassured them with my credit card, I found my way to the honeymoon suite and began laying out the first stage of my plan, although I had to take my shoes off to do it. The carpet pile was so thick that my heels kept snagging. The alluring knickers, which had looked so sexy on the rail, kept riding up between my buttocks, and the boning in the basque meant that I couldn’t bend down without being suffocated by my own breasts. Obviously I hadn’t missed my vocation as a top-class prostitute. Although, looking around the room at the velvet blindfold beside the bed, the serious handcuffs and silk restraints, the scented massage oils, maybe I had.

I’d finished and it was still only twelve thirty. Luke wasn’t due until two. Somewhere, elsewhere in the hotel, Cal was hopefully putting the rest of the plan into action. I was slightly disturbed that I hadn’t heard from him, nor seen any sign of his presence. The Micra definitely wasn’t parked at the front. Maybe they’d worried about their profile and made him park around the back. Maybe he’d got a lift. Maybe the whole thing had fallen through and I was here alone. I shuddered. Don’t even think it. Trust him.

I ought to have been hungry. Maybe I should eat something. If nothing else it would pass the time.

No. No room. My stomach was caught in the pincer movement of anticipation and fear, boiling and rolling with something that fell between both emotions and might even have been guilt. Was it fair to do what I was going to do? Was it right? Was it my place to deal out justice? Maybe those other women hadn’t cared that he’d taken their money, maybe they’d shrugged their shoulders and got on with their lives?

Maybe this was wrong.

But then I thought of Nadine. He’d conceived a child with her, a woman he was planning to abandon. Brought another innocent person into his filthy schemes without caring that Nadine was going to find herself a single mother, without a penny.

A tap at the door and my heart nearly fell out through my mouth. ‘It’s okay. It’s only me.’ Cal put his head inside the room. ‘Just wanted you to know that I’m here. Everything is fine.’

I ran over and grabbed him, hiding my face against his chest, feeling his warmth and the press of his bones against me. ‘God, Cal, I am so scared.’

‘Hey.’ And then he caught sight of the arrangement on the bed. ‘Hey. Whoo, where’d you get this from?’ He held up the silk restraint. ‘Don’t tell me, Ash.’

I gave a shaky giggle. ‘How did you guess?’

‘Well, I hope you washed it, is all. I’d better go, just in case. See you later.’

‘Yes,’ I whispered as he closed the door. Strangely, the fact that I knew Cal was here made me relax and I lay down on the bed, adjusting my underwear so that I could lie comfortably.

Bleeurgh. I woke up, blearily aware that one leg had gone dead because my suspenders were pressing against a nerve, and checked my watch. It was ten to two! I leaped up, rearranging myself, tweaking stockings straight and repinning bits of hair, fighting my cleavage back into the containment vessel of the basque. I felt smeared, distant, as though I hadn’t properly woken up yet. My reflection reassured me that I didn’t look quite as dislocated as I felt, although my make-up had fallen into my skin and my lipstick was non-existent. I was reapplying the lipstick when the door to the suite opened, framing Luke.

‘Hello,’ he said, his voice dropping down the register as he noted my appearance. ‘You look absolutely bloody amazing, Willow.’

‘Thank you.’ I sparkled at him, smoothing my skirt over my thighs so the bulges of the suspender belt stood out and the low neck of the dress pulled even lower over my chest. ‘There’s a bottle of champagne in the fridge. Would you like to open it?’

‘Not as much as I’d like to open you.’

Nadine, think of Nadine. ‘Plenty of time for that in a minute. Let’s have a drink first.’

Luke’s eyes were almost red-hot with friction, running up and down over my body, taking in my wasp waist and the way the high heels made my legs look forever and slender, veering back towards my breasts every time they got bored. ‘Yeah. Good idea.’

Carefully I poured the champagne, watching in the mirror as Luke took in my back view and then glanced around the room. There was a noticeable flicker as he saw my bag with the cheque book right on top. ‘I thought’ – I turned around slowly to give him plenty of time to change his field of vision – ‘that we might test out the bed before we do anything else.’ Now he looked at the bed and his eyes flickered again, seeing the props I’d laid out. It wasn’t like me to instigate sex quite so blatantly. Had I panicked him? ‘Of course, if you don’t want to …’

‘Oh, it’s not that, I’m just a bit … You always seem so proper about sex. I didn’t think you were really into all the tying up and that, and now, here you are.’ He waved a hand at the blindfold I’d left on the bedside table.

‘I thought you’d like it.’ Demurely I turned away, letting one shoulder drop so that my dress fell away to reveal the tight-fitting black underwear, making my skin look extra pale where my breasts spilled out over the top. ‘If it’s too much, that’s fine.’

‘Shit, Willow, I didn’t mean that.’ Luke drained his glass and stood up. ‘It’s a real turn-on knowing that you got off on it all the time. All that time you laid there, you were really getting kicks from it.’

‘Oh, yes.’ I backed towards the bed. ‘Absolutely.’ Another shrug and my dress fell clear of my body, leaving me standing in black lace underwear and high heels, fingering the silk cords which tied the velvet blindfold. Honest to God, Oscar Wilde would have got a hard-on. ‘Now, come here.’

Now, for reasons of good taste, decency and suchlike, I’m not going into what happened in the next half-hour. But for those of you shuddering and thinking of Cal, sex never took place, all right?

However. Time passed, and now Luke was beginning to fret for some sort of conclusion. He lay, naked and coated in aromatic oil, spreadeagled across the huge bed with his arms handcuffed to the bedhead and legs loosely tied to the foot, a purple blindfold across his eyes and a most impressive erection on his lower quarters. As I continued to massage the oil into his torso, he bucked and thrust beneath my hands trying to bring his groin into contact, moaning slightly and biting his lower lip. ‘Aw, Will, if you don’t sit on me soon, I swear I’m going to coat the ceiling.’

I smiled, although he couldn’t see it. ‘Don’t worry, the longer you have to wait, the more spectacular it’ll be. I’m going to go and take this basque off in the bathroom, and then I’ll come and attend to you properly.’

‘Christ.’ He shuddered and for a second I wondered if I’d misjudged. But he lay back and a lazy look came over his face. ‘Okay, but don’t be too long.’

‘I’ll just be a moment.’ I went into the bathroom and hastily climbed back into my dress, tweaking it down so that the tarty nature of my underthings was more-or-less concealed. Then I tiptoed out. Crept across the thick, plush carpet with half an eye on Luke in case he’d managed to escape his bonds, and turned the door handle to release the lock. ‘Hey Luke, I’m on my way,’ I murmured in my most seductive tones to cover the sound of the door inching open. I don’t really think I needed to bother. He was so far gone in his own exotic fantasy that I could have driven a herd of wildebeest through and he wouldn’t have noticed, straining his weight against the ties that bound him, jabbing his hardness ineffectually into the air.

‘Come … on … bitch …’

‘Would you like me to show you something, Luke?’ I asked teasingly. ‘Something that’ll really, really shock you?’ Just another few seconds.

‘Oh, God … yeah …’

The door closed again and my mouth went dry. Shit, come on, Willow.

‘Okay.’ I climbed onto the bed and pulled the blindfold free. For a second Luke blinked, seeing me fully dressed again, then his eyes focussed and he glanced over my shoulder.

‘Shit! You fucking, fucking bitch!’

Behind me, the room was nearly full. More people stood in the doorway, and a line snaked out and down the corridor outside. All women. All stone-faced, some with tears in their eyes. To my left stood a young woman with an acne-scarred face and a blank expression, beside her a middle-aged lady in an unfetching pleated skirt and seventies perm. On the other side of the bed a girl who didn’t look much out of her teens hoisted a child higher on her hip, two more women flanked her, both with equally pinched faces.

‘Hello, Luke,’ said the girl with the child. ‘Say hello, Hugo.’ The child obediently removed the thumb from its mouth and burbled something. It had Luke’s violet eyes and blond nearly-curls. ‘Looks just like you, doesn’t he?’

I was impressed by her cool. And also, grudgingly impressed that Luke hadn’t instantly lost his erection, although flaccidity was beginning to arrive, his willy drooping like a sulking Dalek.

‘Smile.’

Neil leaped forward from the throng and pushed between the women, clicking his camera over Luke’s body.

‘You fucker.’

‘And another one, for the dailies. Can you pop it up a bit for me, give me the full-frontal look? Ah, perhaps not, all right, dahlin’?’ Neil gave me a wink. ‘Will that do, love?’

‘Perfect, thanks, Neil.’

And there, in the second rank, stood Cal, with Ash, Katie, Jazz and Clive, all grinning fit to bust. ‘He ain’t all that big in the bathroom regions, is he?’ Clive nodded towards Luke’s rapidly drooping appendage. ‘Wouldn’t need a wide angle lens to get that one in.’

‘Nah, perfectly normal aperture, mate.’ Neil chuckled. ‘I ’ad to use a flash though, geddit! Flash?’

For some reason I found this hysterical. The tension which had been holding us all broke. One woman burst into tears and ran out of the door, clutching a handkerchief to her eyes. The acne-marked girl let out a sudden scream and launched herself at Luke with a nail file in her hand and had to be escorted out by Clive.

‘I suppose you think you’re so fucking clever, don’t you?’ Luke addressed the crowd, propping his naked body up on his elbows. ‘What is this, get-back-at-Luke day? You’re bitches, all of you. None of you worth a fuck in bed. You’re ugly, you’re fat, you’re too fucking old. I used to have to close my eyes to poke you … and you …’ Now his attention was back on me. ‘If it hadn’t been for the money, I couldn’t even have got it up for you.’

‘Funny, I don’t have that problem.’ Cal came and put his arm around me. ‘But then, I don’t have difficulties in that department. I hear that you sometimes have a bit of a case of Mr Floppy.’

Luke looked as though he’d been hit. ‘Who?’

‘Me.’ Nadine. I hadn’t seen her. She’d been at the back of the room, behind Cal.

‘Dee-Dee? Oh Christ, look love, I can explain.’

‘No, I really think you can’t.’ She looked frail, greenish-pale with huge dark circles under her eyes. ‘But I’ve been listening to these other women, they’ve all explained things to me. Charlotte told me how you tried to accuse her of having an affair so that you didn’t have to pay for Hugo. Melanie says you stole the money she’d saved to buy a house. Anna and Jemima said you were going to marry them, and you took their money. You swindled all of them.’

‘You swore you loved me. That money I gave you – my mother’s inheritance …’

‘I remortgaged my home for our future!’

‘I had the dress, the church was booked, my cousin was so excited to be a bridesmaid …’

‘Everything. You took everything I had. I’ve had to move in with my brother and you knew how much I hated him …’

The women all started talking at once. Each one with a new accusation, another tale of woe, of expectations dashed and bank accounts emptied. Then, into a moment of silence, one lady, a little older than the others and with greyish hair swept up in what I always thought of as ‘Pony Club District Commissioner’ style, said, ‘Did you ever love any of us?’

Luke wouldn’t look up. ‘Do me a favour.’

‘So it was lies? When you called me “gentle soul”? You were making it up?’

‘Oh come on! Have you lot looked at yourselves lately? Every one of you was up for it! You gave me the money, all of you. I never asked, made a point of never asking, you wanted me to have it!’

The woman looked at me now. ‘I had hoped …’ she tailed off, then cleared her throat. ‘Cal has told me everything.’ A glowing look over her shoulder at Cal himself, leaning against the dressing table, who gave a little wave. ‘I would have stopped this if I’d thought there was even the smallest amount of affection there, Luke.’ Her voice was surprisingly gentle. ‘I could have stopped this. But now …’ She turned her attention to me. ‘Do whatever you want to make sure he can never do this again, Willow. I and my family will back you to the hilt.’

Luke’s expression had turned a bit nervous now. He was looking from one to another, his gaze flicking around the room like a bluebottle in a dustbin. ‘Do you know what we’re going to do, Luke?’ Now I had his attention.

‘Oh, let me guess.’ He narrowed his eyes at me. ‘Tell me to go away and never do it again?’

‘Well, no.’ Katie stepped forward. ‘We’re going to put all this in the paper on Tuesday, and Neil’s got contacts in the national press, so we reckon we’ll be able to sell the story to all the dailies. Fraud Exposed – they’ll love it – and the pictures, oh, obviously we’ll have to have some fuzzy pixels over your fuzzy pixels.’ Katie started to giggle but managed to carry on. ‘So, we think, by the time you hit the tabloids, your name and, er, face, will be well enough known that you won’t be able to do anything like this again.’

‘Probably get offered a deal presenting on Channel Four.’ Trust Ash to stick his oar in. ‘I hear Gay Guys Talk Sex is looking for a front man. You’d be ideal. Every boy’s wet dream.’ And he licked his lips, making Luke widen his eyes in shock and turn his head away.

‘And, as a rather nice little by-blow, we should all come out of it with a bit of cash. Plus the York Echo is going to be the name on everyone’s lips for at least a week. Not exactly cutting-edge journalism, but good on the CV.’

Luke made a dismissive noise. ‘Yeah, right. And I’ll sue you all for defamation of character. You show me one piece of proof that all that money wasn’t given to me willingly. Go on. One tiny bit of evidence that any of you asked for it back or were coerced into handing it over.’ He laughed a bitter, twisted sort of laugh. ‘You can’t, can you? And it’s too late now to come whining about “the nasty man”, because you all handed that money over of your own free will at the time, so …’ He sneered. ‘You can all fuck off and do one.’

Cal said. ‘You don’t realise who this lady is, do you? Maybe you never knew.’ He indicated Pony Club lady, who gave a sad smile.

‘Jemima Horton,’ Luke answered smartly. ‘I never forget an heiress.’ He twisted sideways to conceal his groin from Cal’s frankly amused stare.

‘She’s also the sister of a High Court judge.’ Cal gave a ‘so you see’ sort of grin and an open handed shrug. ‘Like all these ladies here, she didn’t come forward at the time to report your fraud, she was too ashamed. Everyone thought they were the only one, the only person stupid enough – forgive me, everyone, please – to have fallen for your lies. Now they know about each other, well, the phrase “support group” springs to mind. Also the phrase “collective prosecution”.’ His grin widened. ‘And with Jemima’s family connections, well. I’m also beginning to hear the phrase “throw away the key” echoing around, anyone else?’

‘You’re shitting me.’

Cal’s stare turned cold. ‘No.’ Then he turned to me. ‘Let’s get out of here. It’s beginning to smell bad.’ The room started to empty as everyone began to filter out into the corridor, chatting and even laughing. It had begun to take on the air of a Women’s Institute outing, several people banding together and talking about going off to Betty’s for tea as though this had been a coach trip to a stately home rather than, well, what it had been.

‘Hey, Willow. You can’t leave me here!’ Luke writhed on the bed. ‘At least unlock the cuffs, eh, babe? Come on, for old time’s sake?’

I hesitated. Tried to think of a pithy leaving statement, but settled for ‘fuck off, Luke’ before following Cal out of the door and into the corridor, where I leaned on the wall and panted with relief.

Cal held my hand until I calmed down. ‘You were incredible there, Will,’ he said. ‘Just incredible.’

‘I didn’t do anything, it was the others. How the hell did the boys manage to find them?’

‘Give Dix anyone’s email address and he can find their phone number. Don’t ask how, best not to know. We got hold of most of the women that Luke had done the bad thing with, I’m only glad that they were all keen to stand up and tell their stories. Looks like they’re all feeling better about themselves now they realise that he was pretty much a professional at scamming women. Except Nadine, of course. I think she still half-believes he was telling the truth.’

I shook my head. ‘Poor Nadine.’

Cal smiled. ‘Oh, I don’t know. She was getting on quite well with Clive while we were waiting for you to give the nod. I don’t think she’ll be alone for too long.’

Katie and Jazz bounced up alongside us. ‘Way to go, Will.’ Jazz high-fived me. ‘That’ll show men that they can’t fuck you for money.’

A momentary silence. ‘I don’t think that’s quite what you mean.’ Katie pulled a face. ‘But we understand.’

‘I think,’ I added.

‘Right.’ Cal rubbed his hands together. ‘I’ve got this shockingly good recipe for lamb passanda that I’m really keen to try out on people who aren’t likely to die of it, so, all back to our place?’ And he closed his arm around my shoulders, leaning on me slightly to keep his balance.

Ash came alongside me. ‘So, where’ve you been then, you dirty stop out?’ I asked.

‘You are so not going to believe it.’ Ash leaned down to whisper. ‘But you know what Flint was saying? About Ganda’s inheritance?’

‘What, the waders stuffed with tenners were they?’

‘Better than that. While I was dumping them this guy came up to me – oh, gods, Will, he was gorgeous – and asked if he could have them. Turns out, he’s a shoe designer, right. His name’s Simon, he lives in Leeds, he wants to work on some designs based on my rubber waders and, I can hardly believe this myself, he’s invited me to help him.’

‘And you know what about shoe design?’

Ash shrugged. ‘I can learn. Anyway, for Simon I’d learn to slaughter pigs with my teeth. I really think’ – and he lowered his voice even further, with a furtive glance at Cal – ‘that he might be The One.’

Without looking over, Cal squeezed my shoulder, very slightly. ‘I think that’s fantastic, Ash,’ I said honestly.

‘Fantastic? It’s a bloody miracle.’ We’d arrived at the cars by now. ‘Are you really going to leave that guy naked and tied to the bed, Will?’

‘Of course. He deserves it. Why?’

My brother gave me a sidelong glance. ‘Do you think we should scare him a bit more? Just to make sure?’

‘What are you planning? Ash?’

‘I’m not going to do anything.’ Ash turned round and headed back inside. ‘He is so not my type. I’ll just, you know.’ He scrabbled about and dug his phone out. ‘I reckon some YouTube footage, a bit of naked babe there chained to the bed with some of your women there telling what happened to them? Just in case the whole court case sinks. We’ll keep it in reserve, but – should make sure he can’t get off with the whole thing if everyone changes their minds about giving evidence in court.’

Brandishing his phone, Ash disappeared back towards the Honeymoon Suite.

‘You’ve got to admire a mind as devious as that.’ Cal gave my shoulder another squeeze as we found the Micra hidden away behind a convertible Mercedes.

‘Yep. Not just bent, totally warped,’ I said happily. ‘Right. To the lamb passanda, Jeeves, and don’t spare the horses.’

Cal doffed a nonexistent hat and muttered, ‘Yes, milady.’

Sitting in the front of the Micra as we led a procession of cars down the hotel drive, I closed my fingers around the matchbox in my bag and heard the slight, distinct rattling of the nose within. I slid open the tray a fraction and smiled inside.

‘What are you grinning at?’ Cal risked taking his eyes from the road for a second.

‘Just my good luck nose.’

‘Hey, don’t try to outweird me.’

I closed the box up and let it fall back to the bottom of the bag. ‘Wouldn’t dream of it, Cal.’ I rested my head. ‘Wouldn’t dream of it.’ But in the back of my mind a tiny thought took wing. Ganda had known what I needed. Somehow. And it wasn’t what I thought I wanted. Wasn’t money, it wasn’t Luke – it was this skinny, dark-eyed lunatic currently hunched over his steering wheel, blowing imaginative curses at the traffic and occasionally throwing brilliant glances my way. Ganda had known, and somehow he’d got it for me.

As Katie would have said, I was one lucky, lucky bitch.