Chapter 9: The Photograph

The message came on Tuesday morning.

Cara was between shifts, sitting in the back room of the café with her coat still on and a sandwich she hadn't started eating, when her phone buzzed.

Unknown number.

She almost ignored it.

I think we should talk. — James Blackwood

She looked at it for a long moment.

Then she put her phone face down on the table and picked up her sandwich.

He messaged again at three.

It's not a threat. I just have some information I think you should be aware of.

And again at six.

I'm trying to help you, Cara.

She didn't respond to any of them.

Instead she called Ethan.

He picked up on the second ring which she was learning was characteristic. He was either completely unreachable or immediately available. No in between.

"James messaged me," she said.

A pause.

"When?"

"Three times today. Unknown number but he signed them."

"What did he say?"

She read them out.

Ethan was quiet for a moment that felt carefully controlled.

"Don't respond," he said.

"I wasn't going to."

"I mean don't respond at all. Not to decline. Not to ask what he wants. Nothing."

"Ethan." She kept her voice even. "What does he have?"

Another pause. Longer this time.

"I don't know yet," he said. "But I'm going to find out."

She found out before he did.

Wednesday morning. She was walking to her shift when a car pulled up beside her — black, expensive, not Ethan's. The window came down.

James Blackwood looked out at her with an expression that managed to be both apologetic and satisfied simultaneously.

"Five minutes," he said. "Please."

Cara stopped walking.

She looked at him for a moment.

Then she got in.

He didn't take her anywhere. Just parked on the street two blocks from the café, engine running, heat on.

He reached into his jacket and produced a photograph.

Printed. Actual paper. Which told her he had prepared for this conversation carefully.

He held it out.

Cara took it.

It was her and Ethan. Outside the restaurant in Mayfair after their first preparation meeting. She was putting something in her bag — she remembered now, the notepad he had given her with their agreed story details on it. He was standing slightly apart, checking his phone.

They looked like two people who had just concluded a business meeting.

Not a couple.

Not remotely.

She kept her face completely still.

"My people took it three weeks ago," James said. "Before Richmond. Before the Cotswolds." He paused. "You look like colleagues, Cara. Not two people four months into a relationship."

Cara set the photograph on the seat between them.

"People look different in candid photographs," she said.

"They do," James agreed pleasantly. "So I had them look further back. Four months back." He glanced at her. "There's nothing. No restaurant. No event. No car outside your building. Nothing that suggests Ethan even knew you existed before three weeks ago."

Cara said nothing.

"I also know about your mother's medical bills," he said. His voice wasn't unkind. That was almost worse. "And your rent arrears. And the fact that your bank account received a very large transfer eleven days ago."

The heat in the car felt suddenly very close.

"What do you want?" Cara said.

James looked at her directly for the first time.

"Nothing from you," he said. "I want you to understand what you've walked into." He paused. "Ethan is using you. Whatever he's paying you — and I imagine it's significant — it's a fraction of what those shares are worth. You're a transaction to him. You always were."

Cara looked at the photograph on the seat.

At the two of them standing apart on a Mayfair pavement.

"And you're telling me this out of concern," she said.

"I'm telling you because when this falls apart — and it will fall apart — I don't want my grandfather hurt." His voice shifted slightly. Something genuine underneath the calculation. "He likes you. That's real, whatever the rest of this is. When the truth comes out it will devastate him."

Cara was quiet for a long moment.

Outside the window, London moved past indifferently. A woman with a pushchair. Two men in high-visibility jackets. A bus that blocked the light briefly and then was gone.

She picked up the photograph.

Looked at it one more time.

Set it back down.

"I need to get to work," she said.

James stared at her.

"Cara—"

"Thank you for the lift," she said. "Don't contact me on unknown numbers again."

She got out of the car and walked without looking back.

She called Ethan on her break.

"James showed me a photograph," she said. "Outside the Mayfair restaurant. He has someone watching us."

Ethan's silence was the controlled kind.

"He also knows about the bank transfer," she said.

"How?"

"I don't know. But he does." She paused. "He said when this falls apart it will devastate your grandfather."

"James is—"

"He's not wrong though," Cara said quietly.

The silence that followed was different from the others.

"Cara."

"Robert thinks this is real," she said. "Eleanor thinks this is real. If this ends badly—"

"It won't end badly."

"You don't know that."

"I do," he said. Firm. Certain in the way he was certain about things that hadn't happened yet.

"How?" she said.

A long pause.

"Because I won't let it," he said.

Cara stood in the back room of the café with her untouched sandwich and her coat still on.

"That's not an answer, Ethan."

"I know," he said quietly. "I'm working on one."

That evening her mother called her to the window.

"Look," she said.

Outside on the street below, a black car was parked.

Not doing anything. Not moving. Just parked.

Cara looked at it for a moment.

Then she picked up her phone and typed one message to Ethan.

James is having me watched.

The response came in under a minute.

I know. I'm outside.

Cara stared at the message.

She looked back at the car.

At the shape of him just visible through the windscreen, face lit briefly by his phone screen in the dark.

She didn't go down.

But she stood at the window for a long time.

And so did he.