She laughs.
‘Ha, yeah, I like you, Dan, you’re funny – and you’re right! It’s all pretty much a shit show, but the truth is…’ – she pauses – ‘… I was never happier than when I was with Sam. Those months we spent together were some of the best of my life. Actually, maybethebest.’
It sounds as if she means it. ‘Do you know, throughout my first year at Larksmere, even then, I wasstillhopeful that she might just somehow magically reappear and explain everything, tell the truth about what happened and that it was all a mistake – can you believe that, Dan? I was in denial – trauma bonded me to her, you see, even after I knew the truth,even after everything. I still missed her. I stilllovedher.’ Emotion catches in her throat. ‘What a sad, pathetic fool I was.’
‘Why aren’t there any photographs of you and Samantha together, Erin? It says in your file that you knew each other for agood few months before what happened. Surely during that time you’d have at least one or two pictures? Presumably you did stuff together, you went places together… Why couldn’t you produce any? We can’t find any, and Tilly—’ I stop, curse myself inwardly. It was a sloppy slip-up born of sleep deprivation, but that’s no excuse.
‘Ah, so her name isTilly, this new victim of hers that you’ve arrested? You do realise, Dan, that Tilly’s no more a murderer than I am. Well, I know that technically she is, and technically I am too, but she never would’ve been, if she hadn’t had the misfortune of meeting Samantha Valentine… IfI’dnever met Samantha Valentine… Youreallydon’t seem to know what you’re dealing with here, do you?’ She sounds a little irritated now. ‘So let me tell you. I am of the belief that Samantha Valentine is a very slick, experienced con-woman; she’s a trickster, a fraud, a charlatan, a scammer, a swindler, whatever you want to call her, or whatever she wants to call herself on that particular day, I should imagine. She’s a chameleon, a shapeshifter, someone who, I suspect, can, in an instant, morph into anyone she chooses to become with an authenticity that you or I could never hope to imitate, even with a BA from RADA.Because this is what she does, Dan, she fools people, she lies abouteverything, and she’sextremelygood at it, I must warn you. She had me hooked on the line good and proper. I fell for her fictitious abuse story like a burning building. I was the perfect prey.’
She breathes deeply, as though her diatribe has taken it out of her. ‘But getting back to your original question, I tookmanyphotos of us together, though Sam would often delete them immediately. She didn’t much like herself in photographs, or so she said. I always thought she was just being self-critical and humble, because of course she was – maybe still is – very beautiful, only now of course, I know the real reason for hercamera shyness. We even set up a photo-sharing library. When I was arrested, I tried to access that shared library to prove to that stone-cold bitch, Detective Pritchard, that I wasn’t lying, but when I tried, the whole thing had been deleted. Pouf. Gone. Like it had never existed. Likeshehad never existed.’
‘Did she ever defraud you financially? Take money from you?’
‘No, though I’m sure if she’d wanted to she could’ve. I don’t believe money was ever her objective. Not in my case at least – I didn’t have much to extort – though I’m sure she has conned many men out of it in some way, shape or form over the years. She didn’t have much respect for men; we were alike in that way and I mean no offence when I say that, Dan. I get the feeling you’re probably the exception to the rule. I realise that notallmen are monsters –some women are too.’ She pauses.
‘Anyway, Sam always seemed to have a lot of expendable cash. I just assumed it was “Ari’s” money that she was spending. She told me that he worked in the city, that he was wealthy. It was a complete fabrication of course. Because Ari Hussain never even existed.’
‘So why then, Erin, if it wasn’t for money, why do you think she did this to you? What was her motive?’ If what she’s saying is true, then why would Samantha Valentine want either of these men killed? What was her connection to them? Had those men wronged her in some way? And why would she groom two innocent women into murdering them for her?
‘I’dreallylike the answer to that myself, Dan.’ Her bitterness crackles down the line. ‘I don’t knowwhyshe did it. I don’t knowwhyshe chose me. I had very little for her to gain from me in any way. Over the years I have wracked my brains, what’s left of them, to try and come up with a viable reason as to why this happened. I never had any enemies, or none I was aware of. I thought about ex-boyfriends. I’d had a few messy break-upsin the past, but nothing that would warrant the revenge of my complete destruction. I didn’t go around deliberately wronging people or hurting them. Truthfully, I can think of no one who would want to destroy my life foranyreason.’
She sighs heavily again. ‘Maybe she just liked the look of me? Ordidn’tlike the look of me? Or perhaps I reminded her of something, of someone from her past that triggered a bad memory? Maybe it was because there was a “y” in that particular day, or maybe it was just my rotten luck, a case of wrong place, wrong time?You,the police, should’ve been the ones who found the answers to those questions, Dan.’ Her voice tightens. ‘Questions that were never asked at the time becauseI wasn’t believed. The scam she did on me, and, I suspect, also on this Tilly woman, was an emotional one, a psychological con. Maybe she simply targeted those men just like I suspect she targeted me and Tilly – on a whim? She knew an awful lot about Radulovic as it turned out though, so I suspected that shewasfamiliar with him in some way, or was stalking him perhaps. But equally, it could all have just been a sick, twisted game, her victims targeted at random. You tell me how the mind of a psychopath works…’
She exhales through her nose. ‘On some level I think it was driven by her need for power, some deep-rooted, twisted, inadequate desire to gain control of another person so completely that they no longer have an autonomous thought of their own and exist only for her and her desires. I realise now that I was just a vehicle, someone to do her bidding for her. Perhaps she wanted to see how far she could take it – how far she could exert that level of control over another human being – and what measure of her power and my loyalty could be greater than killing for her? It’s the closest I’ve ever got to finding some way of explaining it all, of understanding it.’
Tilly Ward’s terrified and confused face suddenly flashes up in my head. If all of this is somehow true, then Ihaveto find this Valentine woman; I have to find her fast.
‘I was a normal person once, you know, Dan.’ She sounds different now; there’s a desperate edge to her voice. ‘OK, so I’d experienced some trauma in my childhood and that led to me making some bad decisions in my teens and twenties. I had some personal issues to work through, like many people. My mental health had deteriorated and I was depressed, I was taking drugs and eventually had a breakdown… But you have to understand, I was turning my life around when I met her, I’d turned a corner. I had started to believe that I had the chance to have a normal, happy life and move forward from the trauma of my past and start again… but instead… instead, I mether.’
I hear the pain in her words.
‘Tell me your story, Erin,’ I say. ‘Tell me about Samantha Valentine. I want to knoweverything. Start from the beginning.’
NINETEEN
ERIN
July 2019, seven years ago
The air changes as she enters the room, feels different somehow, like someone important has just arrived.
I take one look at her and my heart drops down into my new shoes.Brilliant.I amnevergoing to get this job now. She comes and takes the seat right next to me, despite there being room elsewhere, squeezes in close so that I’m forced to shuffle up a bit to accommodate her. She turns to me with a smile.
‘Hi, I’m…Oh. My. God.’ She points to my feet, at the shiny black patent high-heeled courts I’m wearing. They have this cute little bow detail on the back and I’d bought them especially for the interview. ‘The shoes though! They’readorable! Where did you get them from?’ Her bright green eyes – not unlike my own – sparkle as they search me. ‘You here about the job as well? Is this your second interview? Hang on.’ She touches her chest with a perfectly manicured hand. ‘Yes!… I remember you! Last week, you were arriving just as I was leaving.’
‘Oh!’ I smile at her politely, secretly pleased.She likes my shoes.She remembered me. ‘I’m afraid I don’t remember seeing you.’ I squirm. That sounded rude. ‘I’m sure I would’ve if I had,’I add, because clearly she’s someone you don’t easily forget. I glance down at her shoes. She’s wearing black patent red-bottomed stilettos too, only hers are fiercely high, six inches at least. She reminds me of one of those women who only seem to exist in films. Women who look expensive and effortless and cool at the same time. Suddenly, I feel like a poor relation sitting next to her in my safe beige skirt and cotton shirt combo – the frumpy sister.
‘I like your perfume.’ The words tumble awkwardly from my mouth, but I’m compelled to return her a compliment – and she does smell incredible. The spicy, exotic scent she’s wearing conjures up images in my head of sexy fire eaters and flamenco dancers performing to live music against a Spanish sunset.
‘Baccarat Rouge,’ she whispers behind her hand, conspiratorially, leaning in closer, like she’s sharing top secret information. ‘It’s a game changer, trust me. A few squirts of this bad bitch and you’ll never have to buy yourself another glass of champagne ever again.’Great. She’s funny as well. I literally don’t stand a hope in hell.
I knew it was a long shot anyway, putting myself forward for a job like this, a receptionist for a trendy TV company in a hip part of town. My confidence levels are practically at zero, but I figured I can greet people, I can smile at them and be helpful, can’t I? Like, how hard can it be? Anyway, maybe a job like this will force me out of my comfort zone, which isn’t even all that comfortable when I think about it. Now though, as I look at her, my fantasy of working for Austin Marz Productions is rapidly evaporating before my eyes like smoke.
My first interview had gone well though, or at least I’d thought so. I’d genuinely liked Jeremy Austin, one of the company directors who had interviewed me. He was nothing like the arrogant, egotistical media mogul who was up his own backside that I had fully expected him to be. Instead, he cameacross as quite humble and self-effacing and had put me at ease. I’d left feeling really hopeful about my chances, and about my future.
‘I’m Samantha,’ she introduces herself. ‘Samantha Valentine.’
‘I’m Erin. It’s nice to meet you.’
