Page 96 of One True Love

“Hmm, I’m pretty sure you will.”

“Bye, love.”

“Bye, hun.”

I don’t know why, but that evening, something forces me out of the door and onto my bike. I end up riding down into Chelsea with my helmet on, hair tucked into the collar of my workout jacket, my clothes mostly black except for reflective strips. Aidan doesn’t know I’m a keen cyclist.

I hang around on Carlyle Square in the gardens that lie in the centre, camouflaged in the dark, since there are no lights that keep the gardens lit up. I wait around an hour before something happens.

The Phantom enters the area and stops outside one of the three-storey properties. I assume the building houses apartments, one of which will be his.

I see George park up, then wait by the side of the vehicle. He’s waiting to take someone somewhere, isn’t he?

Since it’s so dark, I move into a better position but keep to the bushes so he doesn’t see me. Before long, a large black door opens and there’s Aidan in one of his sexy billionaire outfits. Understated sweater, light chinos, bare feet and angular face.

On the doorstep, he starts kissing a woman who looks a lot like me. Tall, blonde (she’s actually much taller than him) and the way he’s grabbing her bum is exceedingly suggestive of congress having taken place.

The girl leaves him there and he waves her off. George is ready to drive her home, waiting with the Phantom’s door open. At this point, I’m very low to the ground, praying nobody sees me observing. I’m closer to the streetlights now and any movement could give away my presence, given I’m wearing clothes with reflective strips.

He does indeed look around the square as if he can tell he’s being watched—or perhaps he’s paranoid about such things. I watch the property and nothing seems to change for the next ten minutes, until, all the lights on the second floor go off.

I’m holding my breath wondering what the fuck will happen.

He leaves the property and something catches the light. A wedding ring. I’d have noticed that if he were wearing it before. No doubt about it.

I watch him jump the steps down and my heart is in my mouth, cursing how I could have been taken in by this charlatan. If what I suspect to be true, is, well…

He jumps into a bog-standard estate car parked on the square and pulls away. I’m on my bike in seconds, racing after him, the snood around my neck pulled up, not only to save me from the London pollution, but also from detection by him.

The good thing about London is that bikes can get around quicker than cars and I manage to keep up, nearly losing him a couple of times, but always picking him back up. I keep to the cycle lanes and never overtake him. Wherever possible, I mount kerbs to keep out of sight, such as at lights or zebra crossings, briefly looking down at my phone to appear like I might be a delivery person or something.

We end up in Islington, the scruffy end. I hang back thirty metres and watch while he carefully parallel-parks into a space. Then I watch him jump a new set of stairs and launch into a different house. A kind of non-descript terraced house that looks like all the others around here.

There’s an alley opposite the house and I ride my bike into it, then hang in the shadow of a deep alcove where the side door to someone’s back garden exists.

I vaguely see as he picks up a toddler and carries them around, then I notice another attached to his leg. Upstairs, there’s a woman’s shadow as she settles a small baby in her arms.

Jesus fucking Christ.

Who is that bloke?

This is so weird… but I thought he didn’t look right. I hadn’t wanted to judge, but he didn’t look like a massively successful billionaire. I never quite believed it. Miles dresses so much more extravagantly at work than Aidan does. That has to mean…

Feeling sadistic, I call his phone, but when I do it goes to voicemail. It’s switched off, has to be. While I’m looking down at my phone, I notice Kallie emailed me a little while ago, possibly while I was on my bike.

I make quick work of reading her email. She says she can’t find anything on an Aidan Linklater. Almost as if he doesn’t exist. But she says the name Aidan is familiar to her. She remembers a friend of a friend once meeting a guy who called himself Aidan Leadbetter. She remembers because it was the oddest thing. He approached her on LinkedIn for a job working as his PA. Apparently claiming to be some kind of oil baron. Kallie says:

She went for the interview in a huge warehouse out near Battersea Power Station, kind of an empty, strange, soulless place… nobody around but him and this sort of French receptionist. He was very odd, didn’t really want to interview her, more like he wanted to find out about her life and get to know her… like he was looking for a girlfriend. She went along with it even though she knew there was something fishy. But he would pick her up in sports cars and take her for fancy dinners. Eventually, he invited her to his Chelsea flat and they were about to have sex… she’d almost bought in… when his phone rang and he had to answer it. While he was gone from the bedroom, she had a good snoop around and found cameras everywhere. Everywhere. The woman got out of there as quick as she could and never saw him again! Odd, right? Now, if I know you, you’ll be on his case already. Speak soon, babe. K x

“Oh, how right you are, babe,” I chuckle, shaking my head.

I watch the house for a while longer. Eventually, all the lights upstairs go off and then it seems like Aidan or whoever he really is busies himself watching TV downstairs. Upstairs, his wife seems to be asleep alongside all the children. God knows what the woman actually thinks he does for a living. Is this really what people have to do these days to keep a roof above their heads? This is literally like one of those TV dramas you watch about a conman who got away with all sorts and only did it because he was twisted and enjoyed it, not particularly because he needed the money.

The internet tells me the unit where “Linklater Investments” was recently became available and is up for rent. When I search LinkedIn for the company he allegedly works for/owns, it’s nowhere to be found. I google it and nothing. There used to be a website. I checked it out before going for that interview. I didn’t particularly delve deep, I only studied it briefly, just to determine it was legit. On the surface, it really seemed so, but now it’s vanished. Now I look back, the place seemed like a ghost town except for Aidan and his accomplice.

I make a note of the house number, street, and take a picture, too just in case I somehow mislay the information. Then I jump back on my bike, my mind racing with the possibilities.

This is some dark, dark shit and needs to be stopped.

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