She doesn’t even remember thinking it, so is surprised to find herself driving through the Blackwall Tunnel; the gateway between south-east London and its north-eastern counterpart. It’s also the most direct route to Jess’s place, the address on her CV committed to Kate’s memory.
When she pulls up outside the shoddy-looking parade of shops, she doesn’t even notice the state of disrepair, or the hooded figures hanging around outside the Chinese takeaway. All she can see is number 193, and all she can think about is how she’s going to get inside it. She rings all four bells and waits for what feels like an inordinate amount of time before someone comes down the stairs.
‘Hey,’ says a man with dreadlocked hair and a roll-up between his lips. He holds out a twenty-pound note before quickly pulling it back. ‘No pizza?’
Kate holds up her arms and gives him a regretful look. ‘’Fraid not,’ she says. ‘Visiting Jess in Flat C.’
‘Oh man,’ he groans, before turning around and walking back up the stairs.
‘Jess, it’s me,’ she says, for effect, as she knocks on her flat door. She waits until she hears the one above her closing before lifting the wheel brace from her car boot out of her bag. Wedging the straight end between the door frame and the flimsy lock, she applies pressure until she feels it give, then uses her shoulder to push her way in.
Kate quickly evaluates the apartment, noticing that all four doors leading from the hallway are closed. She doesn’t know what she’s looking for, but she knows she won’t find it behind the first door, which leads her into a windowless bathroom. The second is the living room, and if she had anything to hide, she wouldn’t put it in here. Her stomach is tied up in knots, a tangle of nerves that she usually only experiences when she’s sitting in Dr Williams’ office.
The next room, with clothes in the wardrobe and personal effects on top of a mismatched chest of drawers, is clearly Jess’s bedroom. Kate’s eyes are automatically drawn to the hairbrush and she takes a tissue from her bag to fold around the loose strands, which together with the DNA she’s taken from her parents’ house will determine, once and for all, whose daughter Jess is.
She pulls the drawers open, one by one, and furtively rifles through their contents. Jumpers, tops and underwear are displaced in her efforts to find . . . what? What is it she’s looking for that will give her the answers to the questions that are resounding in her head, such as why Jess has targeted Matt and is clearly out to entrap him in her web of deceit? Why Lauren has been indoctrinated to believe that Jess is their father’s child. Why she, Kate, is the common denominator between the two people that Jess has chosen to prey on.
The last thought takes Kate by surprise; as if she’s only just made the connection. She falls down heavily onto the bed and screams, ‘What the hell is going on?’ banging her fists onto the mattress in frustration.
She takes deep breaths, forcing herself to stay calm and think logically. What if the DNA match has been falsified? Kate already knows it’s possible, even if Lauren is blissfully unaware of Jess’s duplicitous plan. She could easily have obtained Kate’s DNA if she’d wanted to; from a discarded water bottle or half-eaten sandwich. Christ, she might even have broken in and taken something from the flat. Kate shudders at the thought of Jess going through her and Matt’s belongings – the irony somehow lost on her.
But even if Jess had used Kate’s DNA as her own, it would have shown that her and Lauren were sisters, not half sisters. Unless . . . says Kate to herself, unable to bat away the abhorrent possibility that maybe she’s not her father’s daughter either.
‘No!’ she says aloud, refusing to give the thought room to breathe.
Jess must be their half sister, otherwise what’s the box of baby mementoes all about? And why was Rose’s reaction to it so extreme if she had nothing to hide? Kate’s head falls into her hands as she acknowledges the only other possibility; that if Jess isn’t her half sister, then not only are her mother and father exonerated, but the campaign that Jess has been inflicting on Kate’s loved ones is aimed solely at one person. Her.
Kate feels like she might be sick as she wonders why anyone would have such an axe to grind. Were there people in her past who hated her enough to go to such lengths?
She thinks about the stories she’s written and the enemies she may have made along the way, but apart from a few erstwhile PRs who’d lost their jobs for not managing to contain a juicy scoop on their client, there were few people in the entertainment world who would take umbrage to this degree. Even those she’d inadvertently got fired had eventually been lauded; the global superstar that had been pictured snorting cocaine off a naked woman’s breast had enjoyed his biggest album success the following year. All publicity was good publicity, it seemed.
She remembers the undercover sting she did on a group of far-right activists some years back, before she decided that showbusiness was a safer option. But aside from the initial death threat and a talking to by the police, she’d never heard anything more. She feels strangely comforted that the queue to witness her downfall is surprisingly short.
As she gets up from the bed, conspiracy theories abound, bogging Kate down with the what ifs, making her brain feel as if it’s banging against the inside of her skull in her efforts to work it all out. Hot tears of hurt and frustration run down her cheeks as she realizes how futile this all is.
She picks her handbag up from the hall floor, having resigned herself to at least telling Matt who his junior reporter really is. Once he knows that she’s
