Forget Me Never

mate?’
    ‘Pretty much,’ I said.
    The man introduced himself as Jed. ‘You’re probably bored with people saying this, but I’m really sorry about Danielle,’ he said. ‘Couldn’t believe it. She was only a kid.’
    I shrugged. ‘Yeah.’
    Jed gave me a look, and I had the feeling that he was weighing up whether to tell me something. I waited. After a long pause Jed said, ‘We only knew her for a few weeks, but we liked your cousin, the wife and me. Felt a bit sorry for her.’
    ‘Why was that?’
    ‘Didn’t strike me as happy. Not that I knew the full of it, but she chatted to us quite a bit.’
    That sounded like Danielle, latching on to people. I glanced over my shoulder, then back at Jed. ‘Did she seem . . . scared to you?’
    ‘I was wondering if you were going to ask that.’
    Canned music blasted out; the Euro ride had started up again. Jed and I moved to the pier side, where we didn’t have to shout.
    ‘She was scared looking-over-your-shoulder scared,’ he said. She’d got into some kind of trouble and she was worried she was going to be caught.’
    ‘Please . . . you’ve got to tell me everything you know. It’s important.’
    He gave me a long look. ‘Exactly what she did I don’t know, but she said she’d got hold of some information she wasn’t supposed to have. Information she thought might be dangerous.’
    ‘Did she mention Aiden at all? Her ex?’
    ‘Yeah. She was obviously really upset about them breaking up. Kept calling him a cheating bastard. She seemed to blame him for everything.’
    I took this in, rearranging the dynamics between Dani and Aiden in my head. So he’d roped her into this – and he’d cheated on her too? It had to be with Cherie. I bet Dani had wanted nothing further to do with him – or what he’d asked her to do. Maybe that was why she’d quit her job and run away.
    ‘Not much more I can tell you.’ Jed’s eyes were on his stand. ‘But she did say she needed to make a decision – whether to speak up or shut up – and I don’t know which she chose. The local paper said it was suicide, but me and the wife didn’t believe it. Doesn’t tally.’
    I thanked Jed and let him get back to work. He’d given me a lot to think about – and some much-needed reassurance.
    I bought myself a notebook from the station newsagent’s before catching my train. There was so much information racing around in my head I was scared I’d lose it.
    So – what did I know? Aiden, Cherie and Dani all worked together at Vaughan-Bayard. After they’d started seeing each other, Aiden had asked Dani to access confidential information – presumably to sell on. Dani had done this, believing at first it was the right thing to do. And then at some point she’d found out Aiden had cheated on her. She’d have felt hurt, angry and, above all, used.
    I wondered if Aiden had ever really liked Danielle – perhaps he’d manipulated her right from the start. He’d have broken her heart, I thought, filled with rage and sadness on Danielle’s behalf. You had to be seriously cruel to use another person that way.
    But there had been more to Dani running away than that. Aiden had mentioned her ‘attack of conscience’ – and Jed had said Dani had been scared and was thinking of ‘speaking up’. And where did the serious side effects come into this?
    I laid down my pen and looked out of the window. It wasn’t a very interesting journey – right now we were coming into Southampton Airport station. The last time I’d passed through here had been roughly the time Dani had fallen . . .
    Why did my mind keep going back to those dowsing crystals? A few had been scattered about the flat when Reece and I had been there. I could remember Dani taking the mick out of them.
    Dowsing crystals . . .
    I wondered how Cherie had felt when Aiden and Dani had got together. She must have known Aiden was using her to get information, but it still would have made her sour. Dani wouldn’t have known that – she thought Cherie was her friend . . .
    And then my mind slipped back to the dowsing crystals and I realized why they bothered me.
    When I’d phoned Cherie about Reece’s work experience we’d talked about Dani’s hobbies. Cherie had reeled off a list – shopping, watching soaps, cinema . . . and dowsing crystals. That had jarred at the time – it sounded so unlike Dani. And it was such a specific interest to mention – Cherie wasn’t the kind who made mistakes.
    Danielle