‘Wouldn’t what? Tell people the truth? That the charming little café everyone’s raving about is nothing but a stolen vehicle, and that every cup of tea you serve is funding your life of crime?’
I almost laugh. My life lately has been baking and making tea and thinking up pub quiz questions. It’s hardly what someone imagines when they picture a life of crime, but panic is clawing its way up my neck. After so many months have passed, I thought he’d have moved onto the next shiny thing by now. I thought he’d be all too glad to get rid of it, and get a monthly payment in return. If he won’t accept that, I’ve got nothing else to bargain with, and no way of stopping him from revealing the truth.
‘Oh, Iwould… Unless you can make it worth my while to keep what I know to myself. You see, this whole situation has been incredibly inconvenient for me. The time spent talking to the police. Paperwork for an insurance claim that was turned down because I stupidly gave you my spare key for safekeeping. The hours that Vickie and I have spent trying to figure out where you would have gone, phoning around every friend we could think of to see if you were hiding with them. The time lost with my beloved Genevieve.’
‘Her name is Campervan.’
He laughs a dangerous laugh and I wish I’d kept my mouth shut. ‘And now I discover that you’ve been living the life of Riley up here, and you’ve damaged my vehicle. Had modifications made by someone who clearly didn’t know what they were doing, painted it with what looks like a bloody brush and roller – something that will cost me an arm and a leg to strip and respray, and you’ve been using it as a cash cow to make yourself rich.’
‘I serve tea to walkers! I’m lucky if I make thirty quid a day sometimes!’ I deliberately downplay it. It’s usually more than that, but I don’t want to give him something to latch onto and take advantage.
He shrugs. ‘You owe me compensation for all the trouble you’ve caused.’
My heart is pounding. Fear and anger are warring in my chest, and the anger is making my nails dig into my palms as I try to stop it bubbling over. ‘What kind of compensation?’
He thinks for a disturbingly long time. ‘Ten grand for the van, plus an extra few thousand for theinconvenience.’
‘That’s ridiculous! The van isn’t worth?—’
‘Ah, but it’s not just the van, is it?’ His smile turns cold and calculating. ‘You’re also paying for my silence. My discretion. Your own need for peoplenotto find out you’re a wanted criminal on the run… How long do you think your little business will last when everyone knows the truth?’
‘It wouldn’t make a difference.’ I refuse to give him the satisfaction of showing how much that scares me. Of course it would make a difference, but the one thing Jared has come here for is a reaction, and I’mnotgoing to give him one.
How dare he invite himself in and try to intimidate me, and now he’s resorting to blackmail? What did I ever see in this man? How can someone so attractive on the outside besorepulsive on the inside?
Once upon a time, I would’ve given in and agreed to everything he wanted, but things are different now.I’mdifferent now. The anger reaches boiling point and carries on bubbling over like a faulty kettle.
‘I’ll pay you for the campervan but that’s as far as it goes,’ I snap at him. I don’t know how much the van really is worth, but hedidput a lot of time, effort and materials into refitting it. I’m going to lose momentum if I stop to google it but, on balance, his asking price is probably about fair. ‘Ten grand for the campervan in monthly instalments. It’s that or nothing.’
He scoffs. ‘I won’t accept that, and I’ll make sure everyone knows the truth about your little car park empire.’
‘Then you can have the van back and you can tell people anything you want because there won’t be anything to tell them about. If it reallyisworth that much, then you’ll be glad to keep it or sell it on to someone whocanpay you in one lump sum, which I can’t, and you know it.’
‘You’re going to give me the van back? After all this? After you’ve built a business in it and you clearly want to keep it?’
‘I do want to keep her, but not at this cost. The money is one thing, but the threats aren’t worth it. It’s just a van. I can get another one.’ I pat Campervan’s wall in an attempt to let her know I’m just trying to call Jared’s bluff and I don’t mean it.
I can’t imagine giving her back. We’ve come to an understanding over the last couple of months and now she’s part of this. It wouldn’t be the same without her. I can feel my heart breaking at the thought of letting him take her, but Idon’town her, and if he really is determined not to sell her to me, then… what choice do I have? She’s given me the confidence to know I could start again. Even if I do lose her, I could build up something new, something I never believed was possible before, but I do now, because she gave me the courage to try, and between us, we’ve made something special.
‘Her? Oh, you really have fallen in love.’
‘Not at all.’ I lean my shoulder against one of her walls to reassure her. ‘She’s your van, Jared, she always has been. If you aren’t going to accept monthly instalments then you can take her back with you right now. Give me ten minutes to clear my stuff out and you can be on your way.’
I hate the words. I can’t imagine how I’ll feel if he says ‘alright then’. Devastation wouldn’t even begin to cover it. I’m certain he’s just trying to coerce me, and he coerced me enough during our relationship, I’m not about to let him start again.
Judging by the spluttering as he tries to come up with a counter-argument, I don’t think he was expecting me to say that.
‘Well, what if I don’t want it back? You’ve… you’ve ruined it! You’ve damaged it with the paint job! And that ridiculous hatch contraption! You can’t give something back in a worse state than it was when you took it! And aren’t you living in it? You don’t have anywhere else to go, do you?’
He’s clutching at straws and I suddenly see what’s going on – exactly what I thought would be the case, and he’s been doing a good job of covering it until now. ‘You don’t want it back because you’ve seen something shiny and new and you thought you could extort enough money from me to buy it, am I right?’
‘Not at all. But you’ve been missing for months. I didn’t think I’d ever get it back, and I must admit my eyes… wandered.’
It’s an unfortunate word choice given how our relationship ended. ‘Well, you can bugger off! You can get out ofmycampervan and you can accept monthly payments until it’s paid off, or you can take it with you right now and you can spread whatever poison you want to about me. The best thing I’ve ever done in my life is jump in that campervan and drive off with it, and I will never regret it.’
‘I’ve driven over five hours to get here, Dolly. I’m not going home empty-handed.’ He sits down in Reece’s space on the bench seat and reclines, looking like he’s settling in for the day. ‘Like I said, this is not just about the campervan. I’m not interested in payment plans or wasting any more time than I’ve already wasted in looking for you. If we can’t sort this out between us like adults, I can always call the police. There’s an open investigation into the van theft, I’m sure they’d be overjoyed to have an update on the case and send an officer or two round to arrest you. It would be an unexpected ending to all those lovely articles about the mystery café owner who saved a village.’ He gives me a wolf-like smile and waves his phone towards me. ‘In a little village like this, news of someone being arrested won’t go unnoticed. They’ll impound the campervan and, yes, you can start again, you can build up a new café with everyone knowing you’re a criminal. It’s hard, I would imagine, to start a business when you’ve lost everyone’s trust…’
‘I had a key. They won’t arrest me.’ I sound more confident than I feel. Key or not, the van wasn’t mine to drive, and everyone will know that.
