I wait for Jimmy’s response, but there is none. Just silence.
‘Jimmy! Answer me!’ I try again, but still nothing.
Then the line goes dead.
‘What happened?’ Chloe asks.
‘I don’t know,’ I reply, looking at the phone in confusion as to how the call cut off. That’s when I see a text message come through.
I will only deal with Chloe now.
That’s when I realise why he didn’t answer me. He really does want me out of the equation.
‘You’re going to have to speak to him,’ I tell my daughter, handing her the phone.
‘What am I going to say?’
‘Tell him that you won’t do it. Tell him that I will meet him again, but you’re not getting involved.’
Chloe nods, and I watch as she makes the call on speakerphone once again.
‘Hi, Chloe,’ Jimmy answers.
My daughter says nothing at first until I give her a nudge.
‘Hi,’ she eventually replies.
‘I take it you got my request,’ Jimmy says.
‘Yeah.’
‘And?’
Chloe looks at me as if needing help, so I shake my head and mouth the word “no.”
‘I won’t do it,’ she tells him. ‘This wasn’t the deal.’
The sound of Jimmy chuckling to himself does nothing for my mood, and it takes all my restraint not to grab the phone back from my daughter and give him a piece of my mind. But I know he will only hang up again if I do that.
‘May I remind you that I am the only thing keeping you and your mother out of prison,’ Jimmy says.
Chloe looks at me again for answers, but it’s difficult for me to formulate one when I’m so angry. I can’t believe I put myself through that experience in the hotel room, only for Jimmy to essentially render it meaningless. The whole point of me sleeping with him was because it was supposed to put a stop to his threats of speaking to the police and thus keep Chloe and I safe. But now he wants something else, and it’s not just what he wants that is causing me so much concern but the fact that I don’t know if this is where it will end.
What is stopping him from making another demand after this one? How many things could he make Chloe and I do while dangling the threat of prison over our heads? He’s already using sex, but there’s no limit to what he could move on to from there. He said he wasn’t interested in money, but that could have just been another lie. He may even want us to engage in further criminal activity for his gain after that. This could never end, and part of the reason I’m so furious now is not just with Jimmy.
It’s because I failed to see this scenario happening.
I was so consumed with meeting his demand and getting it over with in that hotel room because I thought it would keep us safe that I didn’t even stop to consider that he might not be telling the truth with his conditions. I should have realised that he could just keep coming back for more, increasing the stakes, forcing Chloe and I into doing things that only got worse over time. Because of what he saw that night, he has all the power. No matter what we do for him, he will always have that control over us.
Unless...
I can’t believe the thought has even crossed my mind. Was it not enough to bury two bodies in my life?
Am I really considering making it a hat-trick?
‘Talk to me, Chloe.’
Jimmy’s voice is a reminder that we have left him hanging as he waits for a response and Chloe looks at me as if to say she needs help with what to go back with next. At that moment, I have an answer for her to give. She isn’t going to like it, but Jimmy will, and that is the whole point.
‘Tell him you will do it,’ I say, as Chloe looks at me in shock. ‘Tell him you will sleep with him.’
32
CHLOE
I’ve just finished telling the despicable man on the other end of the call that I am willing to sleep with him. I also had to listen to his smug voice telling me that he would send me the details of where and when it would take place shortly.
I’m confused, scared and disgusted, and not just because of what I must do, but because it is Mum who is telling me to do it.
How can she expect me to sleep with this man?
How can she offer up her child like this?
This doesn’t make any sense. Then I notice Mum shaking her head at me again, and that means she is going to make me say something else now.
Hasn’t she already put enough words in my mouth?
‘Tell him that you will only sleep with him if you can set the time and place,’ Mum whispers to me, ensuring that Jimmy has no chance of hearing her. But I’m still reeling from the fact that she thinks it is a good idea for me to sleep with him at all, which means I’m not in the right frame of mind to do as she asks.
‘Tell him,’ Mum says again but with more urgency this time, and I find myself doing as I am told even though I don’t understand the thinking behind it.
There’s a pause on the other end of the line before Jimmy replies again, and he was obviously surprised to hear that I am now the one making a demand of him. Less surprising is that he doesn’t agree with it.
‘I make the rules,’ he says forcefully. ‘So I will set the time and place.’
All I want to do is hang up and get as far away from my phone as I can because then I don’t have to listen to this horrible man, but I know that’s not an option right now. If I end this call then he could take that as non-compliance and that might mean he tells the police what he saw
