The next morning, Caroline still couldn’t shake the unease that Paul Stone was now definitely in the area. Everywhere she turned, it was as though she was being watched. Uncharacteristically snappy with her staff, she was relieved when the lunchtime service was over and she had a couple of hours to herself to regroup and calm down. Flipping the sign on the door of the restaurant, for the first time she really felt the isolation of being situated at the far end of the cider farm, away from the centre of the village. Preoccupied with her thoughts, she forgot to lock the door. It was only when she was returning the last of the cutlery, still warm from the dishwasher, back to the trays behind the bar and she heard the swish of the front door being pushed open again that she realised. She started to shiver again as the familiar scent of Stone’s aftershave permeated the air as if it would suffocate her.
‘Get out of here before I call the police,’ Caroline said, in a voice that sounded far stronger than she felt.
‘You wouldn’t do that,’ Stone said.
‘Try me.’ Realising that the sound she could hear was a handful of cutlery clinking together as her hands started to shake, she put them down hurriedly on the bar. Belatedly, she wondered if she should have kept hold of one of the knives.
‘I thought I’d drop in now that this place is a bit quieter.’ Stone reached out a hand towards the carefully arranged carnations in a glass vase at the table nearest him. In a swift gesture, he’d beheaded one and began to roll the delicate petals around between his fingers.
Caroline felt physically sick. ‘I’m warning you. Get out of here or I’ll have the police round here so fast you won’t be able to breathe.’
Stone laughed. ‘In this village? I should think the local bobby, if there is one, is far more accustomed to returning lost cats and helping little old ladies across the road than strong arming polite visitors from the local dining establishment.’
‘You’d be surprised.’
Stone held her gaze for a moment too long. The silence between them seemed to crackle. Caroline remembered, with utter shame, the oblivion this man had provided her and the thought of it was enough to make the bile rise in her throat.
‘Since you didn’t have time to talk last night, I just thought I’d let you know that I’m now working in the area,’ he said. ‘I’ve been transferred to the South West regional branch in Bristol. It should have been a promotion, of course, but thanks to your interference it’s been more of a sideways move.’
‘I don’t know what you mean,’ Caroline said, glancing at the clock on the wall. Her staff weren’t due in for a couple of hours yet but he didn’t need to know that. She wasn’t going to reveal any vulnerability to him if she could help it. ‘Whatever meant you didn’t get the promotion to Regional Manager in Surrey, it was nothing to do with me.’
‘Oh, don’t play the innocent with me, Caro,’ Stone snapped, beheading another one of the flowers he’d picked up from the vase on the nearest table. ‘We all know you whispered in Alan’s ear to try to get him to pass me over for that job. What did you have to do? Sleep with him?’
‘Why would I do that?’ Caroline said. ‘It makes no difference to me whether you get promoted or not.’ She resented the assertion that she’d slept with her former boss. The man was happily married and devoted to his wife. The polar opposite, in fact, of Stone, who got through women as quickly as he changed his very expensive socks. Men like him always assumed a woman had to lie on her back to get what she wanted though; it made her angry to think about it. She’d had a couple of conversations, off the record, with Alan about her team’s suitability for promotion, certainly, but nothing that would mean someone was passed over if they had enough talent for the job. She’d favoured another colleague for the Regional Manager’s job, but Alan was more than capable of making up his own mind; he didn’t need her to do it for him.
‘As it turns out, though, perhaps it’s for the best,’ Stone’s expression changed lightning fast. In the old days, Caroline had been bewildered by his sudden mood changes, but now she just wanted him out of her sight. ‘After all, I got transferred to Bristol, and I knew that one of my highest spending former clients was in the area as well.’ He paused, and dropped the shredded flower carelessly. ‘Just so you know, I’m keeping my hand in on the other business, should you need… anything. I won’t charge you for the sample I sent a few weeks back.’
‘I’d rather die,’ Caroline snapped. ‘Now please leave.’
Stone gave a knowing, sardonic grin. ‘You have my mobile number now, Caro. Don’t be afraid to use it. Although…’ he trailed off meaningfully, ‘perhaps, actually, I’ll be the one to call you. This place is clearly doing very well. It would be a shame if it was to get out that the desirable manager of this lovely establishment had a rather less than savoury past, wouldn’t it? Wouldn’t do your reputation any good.’
Caroline felt a surge of anger mixed with fear. How dare he come onto her territory and start throwing his weight around? ‘Are you threatening me, Paul?’
Stone laughed. ‘You always were rather melodramatic, Caro. Think of it as a suggestion. After all, this place isn’t going to miss a few quid here and there, is it? I daresay we can come to some… arrangement. Let’s say, oh, I don’t know, a few grand for my silence? And you do owe me. If it hadn’t been for you, I’d have been overseeing quite a few projects in Surrey now instead of being stuck out in the West Country as an organiser.’ He reached into his jacket pocket for his phone and after a few seconds, located the file he wanted. Silently, he handed the phone over to Caroline. As she saw what was on the screen, she gasped.
‘When did you take this?’
‘I don’t exactly remember when; after all, you and I had quite a lot of nights like that back in Surrey, didn’t we? And there’s plenty more where that came from. Including a few rather interesting videos.’
Caroline thrust the phone back at Stone as if it was infected. In one sense, it was like looking at someone else; that life seemed so far away from her now. In another, there was no doubt that the person in the picture snorting cocaine from a coffee table in Stone’s flat was her. With social networking as it was, it would be so easy for him to make that image, and the others that he had, public. The Cider Kitchen had a strong online presence and with a few clicks, she could be all over the internet. The damage it would do to the brand would be considerable.
‘I bet you’re sorry now that you didn’t back me for that promotion, aren’t you?’ Stone’s face was set in a smirk as Caroline looked back at him.
‘Get out,’ Caroline said, hating the tremor in her voice. ‘Or I really will call the police.’
‘No you won’t,’ he said. Without warning he moved nearer to her, invading her space and backing her up against the bar. ‘You won’t tell anyone. This is just between you and me, so there’s no need to go running to that boyfriend of yours, either.’ His breath was hot and sour on her face and Caroline felt the acid in her throat.
‘Boyfriend?’ Cursing herself as the word came out, Caroline was further irritated by the brittleness of her voice.
‘You are aiming high, aren’t you, Caro? Joint heir to the Carter family fortune? Quite a change from the idiots you used to fuck. But I bet that pastel shirted pretty boy would go down just as easily in a fight as all the others used to.’
Caroline felt sicker and sicker. The self-assurance in Stone’s tone was what frightened her the most. ‘Think about it, Caro. From the look of this place, you can afford a few quid here and there. More than you can afford for those pictures to go public, anyway. I’ll drop in again soon.’ Turning on his heel, he ambled out of the restaurant and off into the rapidly diminishing afternoon light.
For a long time after he left, Caroline stood rooted to the spot as if she was turned to stone. Stone. That was a laugh, she thought. There was a time when she had been more than happy to see him, more than happy to hand over vast quantities of her extremely large salary for what he offered her. That time was in the past, but it still remained fresh in her mind. What had started as a social ritual, almost as commonplace as a liqueur coffee after dinner, had turned into so much more after the death of her parents. It had helped to dull the pain of losing them.
James, when he had first discovered she was using, about two months after their parents’ death, had been furious. She could still remember the anger on his face when he’d called round late one Friday evening and found her buzzing around her flat like a wasp on steroids. He’d said nothing at the time, merely left her to it, but twelve hours later on Saturday, he’d gone back round there and hit her with both barrels of his rage. ‘What are you thinking?’ He’d yelled. ‘How fucking irresponsible can you get?’ And, the one that eventually roused her out of her stupor. ‘What the hell would Mum and Dad think?’
‘Well they’re dead, James, or hadn’t you noticed?’ she’d finally replied, eyes as dead as the words she was speaking. ‘It’s just you and me now.’ She leaned back against the sofa, willing the pounding in her head to go away. ‘And you’ve got Anna, so you’ll be all right. Who the hell do I have?’
James had stood stock still for a moment, digesting her response.
‘You’ve still got me.’ And with that, he’d turned and walked out of her flat.
It was three days before she saw him again. He called in after work with a bottle of wine and a large portion of chips. They spent the night talking, trying to make sense of how she’d fallen into the trap of snorting her salary up her nose. She’d cried, he’d cried, and at the end of it she’d promised to get help and stay away from those who tried to drag her back with them.
And for a while she’d managed it. She’d avoided the scenes where she knew she’d find cocaine, booked in to see a drug and alcohol abuse counsellor and made sure she was home the right side of midnight. Then James had been killed. And try as she might, she needed something to dull the pain again.
At first it had been the odd snort now and again but before she knew it, she had Paul Stone on speed dial and was snorting cocaine just to keep on an even keel. Anna never knew about it. James had kept her in the dark because Caroline had asked him to. She knew they didn’t generally keep secrets from one another but she’d begged him to keep this one. When Anna, numb from her own grief, had been to see her in the days between James’ death and his funeral, Caroline had been high. She’d seen the question in Anna’s eyes but didn’t have the capacity to answer it. She’d hoped Anna just saw her erratic behaviour as grief.
Six months after James’ death and she was beginning to get a grip. She’d seen her GP and been referred for some treatment and begun seeing the counsellor again. The trouble was, nice as the counsellor was, Caroline had never been one to share her problems and James had been the only person in whom she’d ever confided. Now he was gone, she really did feel alone. If anyone was going to get her to kick the habit once and for all, it had to be her.
But she’d reckoned without her beloved niece, Ellie. Caroline had fallen in love with Ellie the second she saw her. The image of her father, Caroline didn’t have any choice. Ellie’s perfect little face, her miniature toes and tiny fingers, and her feisty wail when irritated, hungry or tired, had captivated Caroline. Getting to know her niece from pretty much the day she’d been born had been one of the most rewarding relationships that Caroline had ever had. So, six months on from James’ death, when Ellie had turned two, Caroline had made a promise to herself and to her tiny niece. There would be no more chasing oblivion in the form of a bag of white powder; no more dealer on speed dial. She would take herself out of harm’s way as soon as she could. A new beginning; a fresh start. That was what she needed. Stone had brooded from a distance, biding his time, waiting for her to lapse, but she never had. And when the offer of the job at The Cider Kitchen had come from Jonathan in the spring, she’d hoped that would truly be the last she’d see of Stone.
And now that fresh start looked as though it was going to be ruined. Well, this time it wasn’t going to happen. She crossed the restaurant floor to the till and opened it. The question was, could she afford what would it take to silence Paul Stone?