the whole thing. My friendship with Sylvia, how it had gone cold when she’d left for London and I’d been trying to get out of the relationship with Lee. How I’d seen her on the bus and how Lee was using her address as a base to try to get a job at the place where I worked. Then I told her about the visit a few weeks ago, and how I’d met up with her, and finally—the note.
I took it out of my pocket, unfolded it and passed it to her. She studied it for a moment and then handed it back to me.
“What do you think it means?” she asked.
I felt my patience fray a little. “Well, that she believes that Lee was violent toward me because he’s now doing the same to her.”
“Has she told you she’s in a relationship with Lee?”
“Not exactly.”
“Did she tell you she was afraid of him? Or give you that indication?”
“She didn’t tell me, but lots of things made sense. When she phoned me to set up the meeting on Wednesday, she called me from a public phone, not from her cell. Lee used to bug my phones and read my e-mails, that’s how he knew I was planning to escape, so he’s probably doing the same to her. The place she chose for us to meet was somewhere public, with lots of different entrances and exits, suggesting she thought either one of us might have been followed there. And when I met her she was dressed in the most peculiar clothes.”
Sam looked at me quizzically. She had deep blue eyes, big baby-blue eyes, yet set in a face that didn’t look innocent or beguiling.
“Sylvia always wears really bright colors—she’s like some sort of bird of paradise, always in yellows, pinks, purples, turquoise—that sort of thing. Silks, cashmere, leather. Nothing plain, ever. On Wednesday she was wearing a black skirt and a white blouse. She told me she’d just bought them, that she was going to go and do a serious interview and wanted to tone down a bit. Her normal clothes were stuffed into the shopping bag she had with her. But I’d never known her to do that before. She thought her dress style made her stand out from the crowd—that’s why she did it.”
“So you think she was trying to blend in with the crowd?”
“Exactly. He must have been following her, the way he used to do with me. And she didn’t have her handbag with her. Just the shopping bag.”
“No handbag?”
“I didn’t think about it at the time. But it’s likely he’s put a bug in there somewhere, or a tracker. I know this all sounds crazy. It does until you’ve lived with someone like that.”
She gave a little shrug and nodded. “But she didn’t say anything about him, about being unhappy? Even though she didn’t have her bag?”
“No. I guess she was working up to it, when she got a call on her cell. I assumed it was him. And then she left almost immediately after that. We’d only been there a few minutes.”
“And you think she slipped the note into your pocket.”
“It was the receipt for the drinks and food she’d bought. Look—the date and time shows that it was when we met. She must have written the note before I arrived.”
Sam picked up the note again and regarded it, not the printed receipt but the words scrawled hastily on the back. I wondered whether she was considering that I could have written it myself.
“Look, why would she suddenly believe me? She testified in court that Lee hadn’t hurt me, that I was a complete psycho, that my injuries were all self-inflicted—and she was my best friend! What could have happened to make her believe me, all of a sudden?”
Sam Hollands took a deep breath in and let it out in a long sigh, casting a glance across the rest of the small yard before leaning a little closer to me.
“I called at the address you gave me, before I came here. There was no reply. I’m hoping that we don’t have anything to worry about, with this, but I’ll admit that it concerns me that Mr. Brightman does seem to be trying to make contact with you.”
“It’s not me you should be worried about,” I said boldly. “I know exactly what he’s like, what he’s capable of.”
She gave me a smile, reassuring. “I’ll do what I can, all right? I’ll make some inquiries, check on