The One You Love (11 page)

She handed back the book and pen, wanting desperately to wipe her hand clean. She watched as Stephen studied her message intently as if trying to decipher a World War Two code.

‘To my number one fan, love from Emma,’ he read out loud. He looked up at her and smiled. ‘Thank you,’ he said, again with more than a hint of desperation. ‘You’re not just beautiful – you’re really kind. I think we’re going to be really good friends. I knew we would, from the first moment I saw you.’

‘Thanks. Look, I’d better get going now.’ She had managed to turn him in a circular motion so now he was against the wall. ‘Nice to meet you.’

‘Just a second,’ he said, bringing the camera up to his face.

Emma put a hand up to block the shot. ‘No, Stephen, please don’t.’

‘It’s okay, it’s done now.’

She could have tried to protest, but all she really wanted was to get away from him.

‘I have to go,’ she said, turning and walking away.

‘See you again soon,’ he shouted, waving.

***

‘Emma, over here.’

Emma shoved the change from the sandwich in her pocket and looked across the canteen to see who had just shouted at her. Claire Donovan, a fellow cast member who was sitting towards the centre of the room on her own, was gesturing for her to come over.

‘Hi,’ said Emma, sliding into the chair opposite. ‘What’s up?’

She had never eaten with Claire before. The cast tended to break into cliques, mostly depending on how long someone had been in the show. And while Emma had been on cast for only six months, Claire had been around for nearly four years and was reportedly one of the most highly paid actors in the show.

‘I saw you talking with Stephen Myers yesterday,’ said Claire, putting down her knife and fork.

‘The guy at the gate? He asked for my autograph, that’s all.’

‘And he took a photograph?’

‘Well, yes, and I didn’t give him permission to do that. I won’t be speaking to him again, that’s for certain. He made me feel pretty uncomfortable but I think he’s harmless really. Why do you ask?’

‘He isn’t harmless,’ corrected Claire. ‘Stay away from him. He’s bad news.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘He’s been hanging around the studios for a couple of years, on and off, bothering the female cast. And it’s always the girls. The guys can walk past him and he won’t ever bat an eyelid. I know he seems harmless, Emma, but once you give him some encouragement it’s very difficult to get rid of him.’

‘He’s a stalker?’

‘Karen Rodham had a lot of trouble with him a year back. She was nice to him at first, signed his little autograph book, and thought nothing of it. But then he started wanting to talk to her every evening after work, going up to her at the gates. After a few weeks he began turning up outside her house, ringing the doorbell in the middle of the night, shouting up to her window, telling her that he loved her. Karen nearly left the show because of it. So yes, he is a stalker.’

‘My God, that’s terrible. Did she tell the police?’

‘Yes, but it took a while before they treated it as seriously as they should have done. Eventually, though, they put a restraining order on him and that seemed to work, because he stopped following her and even stopped coming to the studio. Then I saw him talking with you yesterday. I’m really sorry I didn’t come over and pull you away, but I just can’t bring myself to be anywhere near the guy. I’m scared that if I go near him, he’ll start latching onto me.’

‘So what should I do now?’

‘Just don’t speak to him again,’ advised Claire. ‘I know it sounds horrible, but if he tries to talk to you just blank him, pretend he’s not there. Hopefully he’ll get the message. Whatever you do, don’t give him any sense of encouragement; otherwise what happened to Karen will happen to you. I’m going to warn the rest of the guys too, now I know he’s back.’

‘Okay,’ Emma said, ‘thanks for telling me.’

***

‘Emma,’ he said that afternoon as she exited the gates.

Her heart sank as she saw Stephen Myers approach, smiling as you would do when welcoming a close friend. Although totally against her nature, she took Claire’s advice and walked straight past.

‘Emma!’ he shouted as she passed him. ‘What’s the matter?’

Despite knowing about his past, she still felt uncomfortable blanking him like that, but she took a deep breath and hoped that was the end of it.

But he raced up behind her, the camera bouncing up and down off his pigeon chest.

‘I’ve got your photo,’ he said, struggling to keep up as Emma tried to out-walk him. ‘Here it is.’

She didn’t stop to look at the photo he was holding up.

‘I’m going to put it on my bedroom wall.’

‘Please, Stephen, I need to get home,’ she said, resisting the temptation to snatch the photo from his sweaty hand.

‘Are you okay?’ he asked, now starting to jog. ‘Has someone upset you? Did he upset you?’

‘I’m in a hurry,’ she said, not knowing what he was talking about.

‘Getting home to your boyfriend?’

Emma stopped. Maybe if she reasoned with him, ended this now, she could avoid problems later on. She had always believed that if you could just connect with someone, even the most unreasonable people could be brought onside.

‘Look, Stephen. You seem like a nice guy, but I’ve really got to get home. It’s getting dark and I have to get back.’

‘To your boyfriend, to Darren.’

‘Darren?’

‘Yes, Darren… Darren Clarke.’

He was referring to her boyfriend’s on-screen character. He worked on the show too – that’s where they had met.

‘His real name is Stuart,’ she said, ‘but I don’t live with him.’

Immediately she regretted telling him that.

‘I think you can do better than him,’ Stephen said. ‘You shouldn’t be going out with a criminal – not someone like Darren. What do you see in him?’

Stuart played the “bad boy” of the show, and Stephen Myers obviously had difficulty in determining fact from fiction.

‘Please, Stephen, I have to go now.’

She turned and began walking off.

‘Emma, I love you,’ she heard him shout. It took all her willpower not to break out into a run.

18

Present day

‘Sorry I took so long,’ Lizzy said to Emma as she sat down at the table in the busy coffee shop. ‘It was tricky to get away,’ she added, placing her handbag on the empty seat. ‘It’s complete mayhem there at the moment – the girl taking my place is having real trouble learning the routines, and the director is in the process of having a mental breakdown. They wanted me to stay for another couple of hours really, but thankfully I performed okay so they let me go eventually.’

‘I’m sorry, Lizzy, for dragging you over here,’ Emma said. ‘I don’t want to ruin your big break. They aren’t angry with you, are they, for leaving?’

‘Nah, they need me, Em. There’s no one else who could stand in at such short notice. I like to think that it gives me a bit of leeway.’ She smiled. ‘Anyway, I told them my aunty was sick, and I had to go over and see how she was. I make a worryingly convincing liar, you know.’

Emma smiled. ‘I’m lucky to have you on my side. You’re such a good friend.’

‘I know, I know,’ joked Lizzy. ‘So, what’s this all about? When you called I thought something might have happened with Richard.’

‘I spoke with Mrs Henderson,’ Emma said.

‘I thought you might.’ Lizzy didn’t sound at all surprised. ‘So, what did she say?’

‘Not a great deal – but what she did say was potentially really important.’

‘Go on, don’t leave me hanging in suspense.’

‘I think I know who attacked Richard. And he might now have Dan too.’

‘What?’

‘It’s a long story. Let’s get a coffee; I’ve got a lot to fill you in on.’

***

‘It started when I was working on the soap up in Manchester,’ Emma began, as they both sat cradling their cups of coffee. ‘I’d only been on the show for a few months and one day, as I was leaving for the night, a guy comes up to me and asks for my autograph. His name was Stephen Myers. I didn’t really think much of it, although he seemed a bit creepy. But the next day one of the other girls on the show warned me about him, saying that he had a history of following female cast members around, turning up outside their houses, sending them love letters. She warned me not to encourage him – not to talk to him again.’

‘So he was a stalker?’ Lizzy said, taking a sip of her coffee but not taking her eyes off Emma.

‘Yes. He’d already been warned by the police about what he’d done to another girl. She’d taken out a court order so he couldn’t approach her. Since then he’d gone away, until that day I met him.’

‘So what happened?’

‘I did just what the girl said. That night he was waiting outside the studio for me, and I just tried to ignore him. I hoped he’d get the message.’

‘But he didn’t?’

‘No, he didn’t. Every day he’d be waiting outside the gates. Sometimes he’d tell me that he loved me, other times he’d shout abusive things about Stuart, whom I was dating. He couldn’t seem to distinguish fantasy from reality – he would always call Stuart Darren, his name in the show. He’d warn me that he was a bad influence; that he was involved with criminals. But that was just part of the programme.’

‘My God,’ Lizzy grimaced. ‘He sounds deranged.’

‘He was really into taking photographs, and he’d always have a camera with him. Even though I tried to walk past as fast as I could, every day he’d take pictures of me. The other cast members even started accompanying me on the way out, surrounding me – like bodyguards – but it didn’t deter him. Sometimes he’d post the photographs to my agent, but mostly I never saw what he’d taken.’

‘He was just storing them for his own benefit?’

‘I assume so. I certainly never saw any of the photos in a newspaper or magazine.’

‘What a freak,’ Lizzy said. ‘How long did this go on for?’

‘Just over a year.’

‘Bloody hell. That must have been a living nightmare.’

‘It was. And it got worse. Somehow he found out where I lived – I’m not sure but I think he must have followed me home one night. At first he just sent letters – love letters, I guess – telling me how much he loved me and valued our friendship. He started begging me to leave Stuart and go out with him instead. And then he began hanging around outside the flat, taking photos of me as I arrived or left. Sometimes he’d wait outside in the middle of the night. One night I got up to go to the bathroom, and when I looked out of the window he was there – it was three o’clock in the morning.’

‘How did you cope with it all?’

‘Okay at first,’ Emma replied. ‘But after a while I started getting really depressed. I was on anti-depressants for a time, and the show gave me a few weeks off at one point so that Stuart and I could go on holiday. If it hadn’t been for Stuart and Will’s support, I think I’d have lost it completely. Will was great actually – he used to travel up from London all the time to make sure I was okay.’

‘And what did the police do? I assume you told them about what was happening.’

‘I told them pretty much straight away. Well, as soon as he started turning up outside the flat. And because he’d done that kind of thing before, the police took it pretty seriously from the outset, although when they spoke to him initially it didn’t put him off because he believed it was some kind of plot by Stuart to keep me from leaving him.’

‘So then what?’

‘We got a restraining order. The courts barred him from contacting me or speaking to me. They also banned him from loitering around outside the studio, and outside my flat.’

‘And it worked?’

‘Thankfully, it did. I didn’t see him or hear from him at all after that. But by that time Stuart and I had both decided that we needed a total change of scenery, to try and put everything behind us. The whole thing had put our relationship under pressure, and I knew that I couldn’t bear to stay around Manchester. I even seriously considered quitting acting altogether because I knew that none of this would have happened if I hadn’t been on a television show. But Stuart convinced me that doing that would only let him win, so instead I decided I would try out for some stage shows – somewhere where I was more anonymous.’

‘And that’s why you came down to London?’

‘Yes. We needed a fresh start. Plus, there was always a chance that if we stayed up there I might run into Stephen on the street. I just wanted to be somewhere where I thought there was no chance of ever seeing him again. And I haven’t seen him since – it’s been four years.’

‘So what makes you think that he might have attacked Richard?’ Lizzy asked. ‘After all this time?’

‘It was something Mrs Henderson said. I think she spoke to the person who attacked Richard. And I’m pretty sure that person was Stephen Myers. Do you think I’m jumping to conclusions?’