Before We Met(24)

The computer was beyond fast and within four or five seconds she had the browser open and was typing in ‘Birmingham Midshires’. When the page came up, she reached for her bag, got out her diary and flicked to the back where her codes and passwords were written down. Yes, she knew you weren’t supposed to, but how else were you supposed to keep track of them all? She could spend her whole life trying to remember the answers to her ‘personalised security questions’. Well, she thought bitterly, maybe she was about to learn her lesson the hard way.

She hit the ‘Log in’ button and entered the passwords. She had codes for four airlines’ frequent-flyer programmes, Amazon, iTunes and numerous other sites for online shopping, but her banking arrangements, at least, were simple: this ISA, her HSBC current account, and then, also managed via HSBC, two thousand shares in a tech company that she’d bought three years ago on a hot tip. She’d paid two pounds each for them but the last time she’d looked, last week, they’d been worth £120 in total.

She hit ‘return’ and the page with her account details started to open. Suddenly she didn’t want to see. She pushed the chair back and stood up. Her heart was thumping behind her sternum. She rested her head against the cold window and closed her eyes. When she opened them again, she saw a man jogging up the steps to the entrance seven storeys below. David.

Quickly, she came back to the computer, took a breath and looked at the screen.

She’d expected it – really, from the moment she’d found her statement she’d known – but that didn’t make it any less shocking: her ISA had been cleared out. The balance onscreen now read £29.02. She stared at it until the numbers blurred in front of her eyes. £29.02. She clicked on the link to her recent transactions and there it was, four days earlier: a transfer to M. J. Reilly of £46,800. It was gone – he’d taken it all.





Chapter Six

The glass panels shook as the front door slammed behind her. Still in her coat, Hannah sat down at the foot of the stairs and put her head in her hands. A sharp stabbing pain had started behind her left eye and was spreading across her forehead. It was so intense she thought she might throw up.

On the way back from Hammersmith, the shock had been joined by a feeling of intense loss. Her savings, everything she’d managed to put aside in the fifteen years she’d been working, were gone. Before she’d met Mark, her ISA had been her flat-deposit fund, the money she’d planned eventually to use for buying a place of her own. New York prices were mad, of course, and she’d loved her rented apartment and hadn’t wanted to move to a different, cheaper area, so she’d put it off and put it off and then she’d met Mark and that had been it. All that work, she thought now, all those months of little transfers, especially at the beginning, just after university, when she was living in London for the first time and had no real money to spare. Determined to be independent, though, and never ask her parents for anything again, she’d opened a savings account and set up a direct debit of £75 a month. She’d watched it slowly accumulate, feeling proud and in control; as soon as she’d got her first small pay-rise, she’d increased the direct debit to £100. Her first-ever bonus, too, £300 – she’d bought a pair of cheap winter boots, then resisted temptation and salted the rest away.

Now came a hot sweep of panic: she was broke – completely broke. She had about £250 in her current account, the near-worthless shares and £29.02: less than £400 in total. And without a job, she had no way of earning any more: there was no salary coming in at the end of the month. She was sweating, she realised, her armpits were wet, and a string of adjectives was running through her head: stuck, screwed, powerless. Fucked.

Needless to say, she hadn’t been able to get out of DataPro without being seen by David. She’d called the lift then stood in the lobby and watched the numbers on the overhead panel as it climbed towards the seventh floor, agonisingly slow. At last the doors pinged open and, without looking up, she’d stepped in and almost collided with him as he came out. Shit. She’d had a momentary impression of his body warmth and a sharp, lemon-soap scent before he moved away with a short laugh of embarrassment, his hand on her forearm holding her away from him as much as greeting her.

‘Hi.’ He’d pressed the button to stop the doors closing and let go of her arm. She’d stepped back out into the lobby and he’d followed her. He was smiling, his expression friendly but curious. ‘Hannah – lovely to see you.’