Pete prodded them round the back to a large conservatory. One of the panels on the glass double doors was broken, and he put his hand through the hole, deftly twisting the handle from the inside. He must have been here earlier, Chloe thought – there was evidence that it had been boarded up, but now the boards across the door were lying on the ground next to it.
The inside of the house felt even colder than the grotto had done, if that were possible. Glass crunched under their feet as he led them through the conservatory, down a long tiled corridor and through a door that led into some kind of massive room – A ballroom? Chloe wondered, until she saw the stage. No – it was a little theatre, the seats long gone. There was no furniture anywhere – the place looked as though it had been abandoned for years.
Nobody will find us here, Chloe thought in despair. She squeezed Jade’s fingers again, more for her own benefit than Jade’s, although she had started to feel weirdly calm. The man came over and undid the handcuffs connecting them; then he held up the lamp and studied their faces.
‘One at a time?’ he mused, as though talking to himself. ‘Or both together?’
He tipped his head to one side and Chloe thought again how weird that he looked so normal.
‘One at a time,’ he decided out loud. He pointed at Jade. ‘More fun that way. You first.’
Jade began to shake and whimper again. Pete dragged them both to the side of the stage and expertly clipped Chloe’s cuffs to a pipe running up the wall in the wings, behind the thick, dusty old stage curtain.
‘I’ll be back for you in a bit,’ he hissed in Chloe’s face, then turned to Jade. ‘It’s your moment in the limelight,’ he said, smiling a terrible smile at her before marching her back into the centre of the stage.
Chloe couldn’t look. She bent her head and averted her eyes, but could not prevent herself hearing the heavy thud as Jade’s body was pushed to the floor.
And then the screaming started.
Chapter 56
Day 14 – Patrick
Patrick emerged from interview room three, rubbing his stubble and thinking about the story he’d just heard, at the same moment that Carmella opened the door of room one to let Mervyn Hammond and his lawyer out.
‘Mr Hammond has given us a full list of his party guests and the details of the company who provided the catering service,’ Carmella said.
‘I hope you catch him,’ said Mervyn. ‘This business is terrible for OnTarget’s PR.’ He strode off down the corridor, already talking on his phone, Cassandra Oliver hurrying to keep up with him.
‘He can’t help himself, can he?’ said Patrick, amazed that Mervyn couldn’t drop the bad-guy act even now.
‘I kind of like him now, though,’ said Carmella, shrugging. ‘And at least we’ve got the list.’ She held up several sheets of A4 paper. ‘He could actually remember everyone who was there. I guess that’s one of the reasons he’s so good at what he does.’
‘Any names jump out at you?’
‘It looks like the guest list for the BRIT Awards,’ she replied.
They went into interview room one. Patrick needed space and quiet to talk to Carmella, and to pass on what he’d heard from Kai Topper, who was still in the other interview room, just in case they needed to ask him anything else.
Patrick scrutinised the list, each of the names printed by Hammond in cramped block capitals. As Carmella had said, it looked like a who’s who of the British music industry, many names that he recognised – mostly veteran rock stars – but more that meant nothing to him. Shawn Barrett’s name was there, along with Lana Vincent, the woman he’d been secretly sleeping with. Several of the people they’d met at Global Sounds Music were on there too, plus a section headed ‘STAFF’ under which Mervyn had written Kerry Mangan’s name along with his housekeeper and the name of the catering company that had temporarily employed Jade and Kai.
‘Pop stars; magazine editors; record company people; actors; a couple of football players . . .’ Carmella laughed. ‘Hammond asked me if I’d ever thought about a career in the media. Said he could make me famous.’
‘He used that one on me too.’
‘Suddenly I don’t feel special anymore. I told him I’m happy doing this. He called me a mug.’
‘But you still like him?’
She shrugged again. ‘I like people with hidden depths. Not sure why I get along so well with you . . .’
‘Ha ha.’ He frowned suddenly, aware of the ticking clock. ‘I need to tell you what Kai said. Actually, we should get Suzanne in here – she needs to hear this too.’
Patrick decided to tell the story standing up, pacing. It helped him think. As he spoke he looked down at the faces of the two women staring up at him. Carmella, who he would take a bullet for. And Suzanne . . . How did he feel about Suzanne now? When he was in the same room as her he felt more alive; more aware of his body; the blood pumping in his veins; the hairs standing on end on his arms. She cast other people into shadow. But it wasn’t a feeling he enjoyed – or wouldn’t allow himself to enjoy. When he left her company he felt simultaneously saddened and relieved.
He had no idea if she felt anything like this when she was with him. Sometimes he caught her gazing at him when she didn’t know he was looking, and she would turn her face away quickly. Right now she was all business: drawn with worry; a little tic beneath her right eye. He felt the urge to reach out, touch her face. But it could never happen. They could never touch. And the realisation blew through him like a cold draught, a stiff wind slamming a door shut.
He recounted the first part of what Kai Topper had told him about StoryPad.
‘Then, he said, war broke out. The person who was leaving all the negative comments on Jade and co’s story had written her own OnTarget fanfic. It was far less popular than Fresh Blood – that’s the story written by Jade, Chloe, Rose and Jess.’
‘Boy bands and vampires,’ Carmella said.
‘I see.’ Suzanne shook her head almost imperceptibly.
‘You can guess what happened next,’ Patrick went on. ‘Jade and friends started to slate this other person’s stories, leaving loads of scathing reviews, encouraging other users to join in, to laugh at her writing. This made the other person retaliate and do the same on Fresh Blood. Kai said Jade was pretty sure this “troll” was setting up loads of sock-puppet accounts, as he called them, in order to leave bad reviews. Then it got even worse. It spilled over onto the official OnTarget forum, where this other user also had an account. Everything Jade and her friends posted got slated, and they did the same back. Kai says that it was mainly Jade and Jess, that Chloe and MissTargetHeart, as he calls Rose, wanted to let it go.’
‘But they didn’t?’ Suzanne asked.
‘Far from it. According to Kai, Jade became obsessed with this troll, decided to see if she could find out their real identity. So she started trawling back through the troll’s old posts until she found one in which her nemesis had posted a link to her Tumblr account. The Tumblr account had a link to this girl’s blog—’
‘It was a girl?’ Carmella looked disappointed. ‘I was hoping—’