Sapphire (30 page)

She considered herself in the mirror in the floor-length black dress – she’d had her hair put up in a sleek up-do and was wearing huge fake sapphire earrings, and no other accessories. It was quite a dramatic look but Sapphire thought it suited her, and black was just about the only colour she felt like wearing right now – even her nails were black, Chanel of course. Jazz had been outraged when she’d heard Sapphire was wearing black and had begged her to wear a bright colour, telling her black was such a safe option, it was plain boring, ‘I just don’t feel like it,’ Sapphire had told her. And then asked the question she asked every time she spoke to her friend, ‘How’s Sam?’

Really it was code for finding out if she was still seeing Jay.

‘She’s fine, counting down the days to the marathon. You should call her.’

‘I’ll text her,’ Sapphire replied, knowing that she’d find some excuse not to. I mean what was she supposed to say to her? How’s it going with the love of my life?

Sapphire paced round the apartment, sipping a vodka and tonic and looking out at the river, while she waited for Cal to pick her up. The apartment was modern and situated next to the Oxo Tower on the South Bank. It was owned by one of the production team who was out of town and he had rented it to Sapphire at a reduced rate, otherwise she doubted she would have been able to afford it and its impressive views of the capital. From her living-room window she could see the Houses of Parliament and the London Eye to the left and the Tower
of London to the right. It gave her such a brilliant sense of excitement and possibilities being in the heart of London. And of course it was great being by the river – having lived by the sea all her life Sapphire always wanted to be near to water, it calmed her and stopped her feeling hemmed in.

The buzzer rang and she walked over to the entry phone to let Cal in. She opened the front door while she made a quick final check of her appearance in her bedroom. ‘I’ll be with you in a second,’ she called out as she heard Cal walk into the apartment. She loaded her lipstick and eyeliner into her clutch bag and gave her hair a blast of spray. Then she froze in horror. It wasn’t Cal she could see behind her, in the mirror, it was Markov. He strolled into her bedroom, hands in his jacket pocket and casually sat down on her bed, his eyes never leaving her.

‘What are you doing here?’ she demanded, struggling to contain her apprehension, horribly aware that Markov was between her and the door.

‘I just thought I’d see how you were, Sapphire. You’re looking very well. London life must suit you. I always thought that Brighton was too small a city for someone as ambitious as you. And,’ he held up one hand and considered his manicured nails, the large diamond catching the light, ‘I know Alina came to see you and no doubt spun you a story of lies about me. Now I understand why you wouldn’t come to Vegas. But really, Sapphire, she was lying.’

Oh God! What had he done to Alina?

‘I’m about to go out,’ Sapphire replied, aware that her voice sounded tight with fear. ‘You’ll really have to go, I’m expecting my boyfriend any minute.’

She started moving towards the door. If she was quick maybe she could get to the front door before him. If only she wasn’t wearing her bloody heels. Markov didn’t move, but when she was almost at the bedroom door he
stood up and grabbed her arm and pulled her to him. Sapphire almost gagged as she caught a waft of his overpowering aftershave.

‘Please don’t tell lies, Sapphire. I really find that a most distasteful habit. Cal Bailey is not your boyfriend. You are simply friends. You do not have a boyfriend, Sapphire.’ He was smiling but his grip on her arm was painful. Sapphire struggled to get away but he only gripped her harder. She could feel panic bubbling up inside her. She was only too aware of how vulnerable she was, but she tried to keep a lid on the fear. She had a feeling that Markov thrived on people’s fear, especially that of women. On the dressing table her mobile beeped with a message.

‘Okay, but he is due here now and Cal is never late.’

‘That’s true, he is always punctual, always – except when he discovers his beloved Bentley has been vandalised and he phones the police to report it. I expect that text message you just received was him, telling you he is going to be a little late.’

‘I don’t believe you,’ Sapphire tried to sound defiant. She turned her head and looked at her phone where it lay on the dressing table.

Markov saw where she was looking, and hesitated for a moment before replying, ‘Check if you like.’

He let her go and Sapphire hurried over to get her phone, feeling as if her insides had turned liquid with terror. Her arm tingled painfully from his tight grip. Oh God, had Markov set this up so that she would be alone with him? With trembling fingers she picked up the mobile and accessed the message. It was indeed Cal, letting her know that he was going to be half an hour late. Sapphire’s eyes scanned the dressing table, looking for something that she could use against Markov – perfume, hairspray and then she realised she was holding it – her phone.

‘You were right,’ she said, summoning all her courage, and holding the mobile behind her back she turned towards Markov. ‘I wonder how you knew? Are you psychic or did you have something to do with vandalising Cal’s car?’ She wanted to keep him talking as she speed dialled Cal’s number.

Markov laughed, ‘I do not concern myself with such trivial matters as that.’ He stood up and held out his hand, ‘Give me the phone please, Sapphire.’

Pick up, Cal! Sapphire willed her friend. ‘No I won’t! I want you to get out of my apartment now. If you don’t, I will call the police.’ She was shouting now, praying that Cal would answer his phone and hear her distress.

Markov strode over but before he could grab her she bolted into the ensuite bathroom and slammed the door shut. She quickly turned the lock as Markov threw his whole weight against it, causing the door to shake. In her urgency to escape she had dropped the mobile on the marble floor and it broke open, the battery skidding across the floor.

‘Oh no,’ she whimpered, scrabbling to put it together as Markov continued pummelling the door. ‘Open the door, Sapphire!’ he shouted.

‘I’m calling the police,’ she shouted back at him. She fitted the battery back in the phone and pressed the on switch but the screen remained blank. Oh God, oh God, oh God, think, think! she told herself.

‘I want the police,’ she said in a loud, clear voice, as if talking to an operator. ‘I’m reporting an intruder at flat 20, Riverside, Gabriel’s Walk, please come now. I’m locked in the bathroom and he’s trying to get in. Yes, I’ll keep holding,’ Sapphire carried on pretending to have a conversation, praying that it would be enough to get rid of Markov.

‘You’re making a mistake, Sapphire, just open the door, I only want to talk to you.’

‘Get out of here!’ she screamed back. ‘Please,’ she appealed to the imaginary operator, ‘send someone as soon as you can, I’m in danger!’

She flung open the bathroom cabinet and grabbed a pair of nail scissors, then clambered into the bath and opened the tiny bathroom window, ‘Help!’ she shrieked out. ‘Help me!’ She was eight stories up and she wasn’t confident that anyone would hear her. She could see the people strolling by the Thames below, oblivious to her screams. Behind her she could hear Markov still trying to break down the door. She remembered reading that people rarely responded if they heard someone shouting ‘Help’, it was ‘Fire!’ that got them going. ‘Fire!’ she redoubled her shouts. But no one responded.

She had to do something! She couldn’t just wait for Markov to break the door down. Frantically she looked round the room and her gaze fell on the matches in the bathroom cabinet. She could light one of the candles by the bath and hold it up to the smoke alarm. She climbed out of the bath, grabbed the matches, and with trembling fingers tried to strike a match, but her hands were shaking too much and it took five attempts before she could light the candle. She stood up and held it under the smoke alarm. Come on! She urged the alarm. Thankfully a few seconds later, the ear-piercing alarm went off. ‘Thank God!’ Sapphire thought with relief, but it was short-lived as at that moment Markov managed to smash open the door. He staggered in as the door gave way, clutching his shoulder, and rushed at Sapphire.

‘Don’t do this!’ he yelled at her. ‘I only want to talk to you.’

‘Get away from me!’ she screamed, cowering against the wall as Markov lunged for her. This was it, one part of her thought, it was all over, she was trapped, helpless to do anything. But suddenly her survival instinct kicked in, she swung out the hand holding the scissors straight
at his face, slashing his skin and at the same time brought her knee sharply in contact with his groin. As Markov bent double, groaning in agony, she sprinted out of the bathroom, through the living room and out of the front door. She raced down the stairs to the landing below and started hammering on people’s doors, shouting, ‘Help, I’m being attacked.’

The first three doors she knocked at remained closed, and all the while she looked anxiously over her shoulder, fearing that Markov would have pursued her. Finally a twenty-something City boy in a suit opened the door. ‘Please help me,’ she gasped. ‘A man broke into my apartment, he’s still there, I have to phone the police.’ The man looked in two minds about letting her in, ‘Please, I’m not a crazy person, please let me in.’

The next few hours passed in a blur as the police turned up, closely followed by Cal, who had alerted them too after hearing Sapphire’s anguished voice on the phone. When the police checked out the apartment Markov was long gone, just a splatter of bloodstains in the bathroom and the broken door testified he’d been there. Sapphire couldn’t stop shaking as she went over what had happened with the detectives. They seemed sympathetic and put out an alert for Markov, telling her they would need her to come to the station and make a statement.

‘I’ll come with you,’ Cal told her, holding her hand reassuringly.

‘What about the ball?’ Sapphire asked.

‘Sapphire, I think I can miss one charity ball – you’re more important.’

By the time Sapphire came to give her statement at Blackfriars police station, in the shabby interview room, sipping an overstrong cup of tea with sugar, she was calm; a slow burning anger was taking the place of fear. How dare that man terrorise her? She thought it was
obvious that the detectives would arrest and charge Markov but they didn’t make any commitments. DI Moustache (she couldn’t remember their names) said that they would have a have a strong word with Markov. While DI Mullet Hair (God, was he auditioning for an eighties cop series?) said that they would tell Markov not to go near her. It didn’t sound as if they had taken the break-in at all seriously. In the reception she froze as standing at the desk, chatting to the duty sergeant, was Markov. Instinctively she clutched Cal. ‘That’s him!’ she exclaimed.

At that moment Markov turned and looked at her. There was a narrow strip of surgical tape under his right eye. ‘I came as soon as I could, I had to get this wound taken care of.’ He turned back to the duty sergeant, ‘I don’t want to press charges, really I came to put the record straight. We just had a bit of a misunderstanding.’

By now the two detectives who had questioned Sapphire appeared.

‘A bit of a misunderstanding!’ Sapphire couldn’t stop herself from shouting. ‘You broke into my apartment and then attacked me.’

Markov smiled, ‘Correction – you let me in to your apartment and you attacked me!’ He gestured to the wound on his face. ‘The nurse said if it had been just two centimetres higher, I might have lost my eye.’

‘He’s lying!’ Sapphire exclaimed, ‘He broke down the bathroom door to get at me, I swung the scissors at him in self-defence!’

‘I broke down the bathroom door because I was worried that you were going to harm yourself. You’ve been very depressed lately, darling.’ He looked at the two detectives, ‘It’s the credit crunch, it’s taken its toll on her business.’

Markov sounded so reasonable, it was terrifying the spin he was putting on what had actually happened.

‘That is not what happened!’ she said urgently to the detectives. ‘Please believe me!’

Without acknowledging her, they approached Markov. ‘Can you come with us, Sir,’ DI Moustache said. ‘We’d just like to hear your version of what happened, for the record.’

‘Of course,’ Markov said easily, ‘I’m always happy to help you boys in blue. But I don’t want to waste your valuable time. It really was all just a misunderstanding.’

He began following the two detectives to the interview room and then turned and said, ‘I’ll see you soon, Sapphire, and no hard feelings.’

‘Oh my God, Cal, do you think they’ll believe him?’ Sapphire asked as she and Cal walked out of the station.

Cal put his arm round her, ‘Of course not, don’t worry, it will be all right.’

Cal insisted on her coming back to stay at his apartment in Mayfair. Although Sapphire tried to make out that she’d be fine going back to her place, Cal wouldn’t hear of it and it was with relief that she gave in. She really wasn’t up to being alone.

Cal’s apartment was as beautiful and stylish as its owner. It was comfortable and had a warm vibe, with bright colours, vintage Bond posters on the walls and practically everywhere you looked there were photographs of Honey and Angel. Sapphire paused in front of a large canvas print of the mother and daughter. Angel was so beautiful, and with her arms wrapped round her daughter, smiling away at the camera, Sapphire thought she had never looked so contented. She sighed with sadness, thinking about what Cal must feel having lost her.

Cal put on the fire and then brought over a blanket for Sapphire which he insisted on wrapping round her as she huddled on the sofa. ‘Don’t move, I’m going to get you a brandy,’ he told her.

Sapphire didn’t reply that she probably couldn’t move even if she wanted to, the shock of what had happened had completely wiped her out. Every time she thought of being trapped with Markov, she was engulfed by a fresh wave of horror.

Cal came back with two large brandies and sat next to her. ‘D’you want me to call your mum or Jazz? Let them know what happened?’