The Warrior’s Princess. Barbara Erskine

sat up and reaching for the handset again dialled 1471, her hands shaking. The caller had withheld his number.

      Half an hour later the phone rang again. She stood staring down at it for several seconds before she answered.

      ‘Jess? I wanted to check you’d received all the bumph from the Head’s secretary.’ It was Dan. He was calling from school. When she didn’t answer immediately his voice sharpened. ‘Jess, what is it? What’s happened?’

      ‘I’ve been having calls, Dan. When I answer there is no one there. This time he asked how I was. Then he hung up.’

      ‘Did you recognise his voice?’

      ‘No.’

      ‘So it wasn’t Will?’

      ‘No, I don’t think so. I don’t know. You didn’t say anything to Will about where I’m going, did you, Dan?’ Dan was the only person she had told; after all, he had known Steph as long as he had known her. They had all been at college together.

      ‘You made me promise not to.’

      ‘And I meant it.’ Jess bit her lip.

      ‘If it wasn’t Will,’ he said slowly, ‘it could have been Ash.’

      She breathed deeply for a moment. ‘No. Yes. I don’t know.’

      ‘Ash is an actor. He is quite capable of disguising his voice, Jess. OK, so he shouldn’t know your phone number. Anyone could find it though. He could have looked while he was in your flat.’ There was a pause. ‘He was in your flat, wasn’t he, Jess?’ When she didn’t reply he went on. ‘Or he could have looked it up in Jane’s office here. I know the kids aren’t supposed ever to get in here, but they do.’

      She nodded numbly.

      ‘Do you want me to come over?’

      ‘No. No, Dan. Don’t worry. I’m OK.’

      ‘Well, you know where I am if you need me. When are you going?’

      ‘In a day or two. As soon as I’ve sorted all the paperwork.’

      ‘All right, take care. I’ll ring you tomorrow, OK?’

      Her case was lying open on her bed. She was folding the last of her clothes into it when the phone rang again. She paused for a moment, her heart thumping then she leaned across to her bedside table to pick it up. There was no one there.

      ‘Hello?’ She started to shake. ‘Who is it? You may as well tell me! Ash, is it you?’ There was no answer. ‘Hello!’ She shook the receiver. ‘Hello! Who is there?’

      There was a quiet laugh the other end of the line. Male voice. Deep. Anonymous.

      She dropped the receiver back on its base with a whimper of fear. The bastard was enjoying this. Well, she wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction. She glanced at her watch. She could leave tonight. Now. There was nothing to keep her here a moment longer. She had even found a tenant for a few weeks to look after the flat. And if she left now she could catch up with Steph before she left for Rome. She would be safe in Wales. No one would find her there. She glanced at her mobile. He hadn’t rung her on that so far. Hopefully he didn’t know that number which was another reason to think it wasn’t Will. Will knew her mobile number; he knew Steph’s address – he had even been to Ty Bran. He knew everything there was to know about her. It couldn’t be Will who was tormenting her. If it was, she was lost. He would guess at once where she had gone.

      Dan was the weak link in her plan. The only person who knew where she was really going. He answered at the third ring.

      ‘Dan, if anyone asks, tell them I’m going to Italy to spend the summer with Steph and Kim, OK?’

      She smiled grimly as she heard Dan laugh. After all, it might even be true. If Kim didn’t mind maybe she would follow Steph there. And just in case, it would do no harm to throw her passport into her bag.

      Closing her case she stood it by the front door. The contents of the fridge went into a cardboard box and a cool bag; the papers scattered across her desk into her briefcase with her laptop, and beside that her two beleaguered house plants with her artists’ materials and sketchbooks too long abandoned for lack of time, already in another cardboard box.

      Cautiously she opened the door and peered out onto the landing. She had already dropped off a spare key with Mrs Lal who had promised to keep an eye on the flat for her until the tenant arrived. Her car was parked two streets away. Picking her keys up off the kitchen counter she ran down the stairs. It was early yet and the streets were still bathed in sunshine as people made their way home from work. She could hear music echoing above the sound of traffic and smell the smoky spiciness of cooking meat from the tandoori restaurant near the tube station.

      Someone, probably Mrs Lal, had left the street door on the latch. She hesitated, looking left and right along the street, then pulled it to, leaving it unlocked for the old lady as she hurried round the square to find her car. It was hemmed in tightly as usual and the roof had been liberally splattered with bird droppings from the plane tree under which she had parked it. With careful manoeuvring she managed to extricate it and drive back to her flat leaving it double-parked outside. The street door was still open. Frowning, she glanced up and down the road. She couldn’t see Mrs Lal or any of the upstairs people. There was a gang of boys hanging around on the corner, some builders packing ladders and paint pots into a van; two African girls in bright dresses were giggling at them; beyond them she could see a couple of women in black headscarves. No one was near her door; no one who would have been into her house. Pushing the door open carefully, she looked into the hallway. All was quiet. She ran up, taking the stairs two at a time and stopped on the first floor landing which was in deep shadow, the lightbulb broken yet again.

      ‘Hello?’ she called out nervously. ‘Is there anyone there?’

      There was no reply.

      With a shaking hand she groped in her pocket for her keys. Before she tried to slot the first into the lock her door swung open. Holding her breath she looked in. Her bags and boxes were still standing in a line where she had left them. The flat was silent but something had changed. Someone had been there; she could sense it. Smell it. She sniffed. Aftershave. And sweat.

      ‘Will?’ It wasn’t the brand he used, but he was the only person she knew of with a key. Unless she had left the door open. But she hadn’t. She knew she hadn’t. Had she? ‘Will, are you there?’ she enquired shakily – she was poised, ready to run.

      There was no reply.

      Cautiously she peered into the living room. There was a large bouquet of flowers lying on the coffee table.

      Her heart seemed to stop beating. Frozen, like a rabbit in the headlights, she stared round the room.

      ‘Will?’ Her voice was trembling.

      There was no sound. Even in her panic she could feel the emptiness of the flat.

      ‘Will?’ Her mouth dry, she tiptoed to her bedroom door. There was no one there. The neatly made bed, the tidy surfaces, the half-drawn curtains were all as she had left them. She turned and went to glance into the kitchen and bathroom. Both were empty. No one appeared to have been in there. Her boxes by the door had not been touched as far as she could see. Whoever had been into the flat in the short time she had been away, had gone. Pushing the front door closed she took a deep breath and went back to the flowers. There was a card tucked in amongst the pink and blue petals of the shop-bought chrysanthemums in their swathes of pink Cellophane and ribbon. With shaking hands she pulled it out and opened it.

      We two, that with so many thousand sighs Did buy each other, must poorly sell ourselves With the rude brevity and discharge of one. Injurious time now with a robber’s haste Crams his rich thievery up, he knows not how. As many farewells as be stars in heaven, With distinct breath and consign’d kisses to them, He fumbles up into a loose adieu, And scants us with a single famish’d kiss, Distanced with the