Free Someone To Save you by Paul Pilkington

interrupted a conversation between a guy he recognised as being one of Louisa’s colleagues and a small woman who appeared to physically shrink into the chair at his appearance. ‘I was looking for…’
    ‘Louisa,’ the bearded man said, rather tersely. ‘She should be next door.’
    ‘Thanks,’ Sam replied, closing the door, feeling simultaneously embarrassed and elated that Louisa was here. He went for the second door, knocked and entered.
    ‘Sam?’
    Louisa was mid conversation with a young man. Like the woman next door, he seemed shocked by the intrusion, as if he’d been caught red-handed doing something illicit. Sam turned his eyes away from him, recognising his need for privacy. He understood the delicateness of these consultations and the potential damage his intrusion, if handled badly, could cause – Louisa had explained how you had to be so careful to build and keep their trust, to get them to the point where they could truly open up and release the emotions that had been slowly choking the life out of them.
    ‘Sorry to disturb,’ Sam said, hiding his relief that Louisa was safe and well, ‘but can I have a word?’
    Louisa hesitated as her professional persona fought against her natural instincts.
    ‘It’s urgent, Lou.’
    Her eyebrows creased, and then she nodded. ‘I’m really sorry about this,’ she said to the client. ‘I’ll just be a second.’
    The man nodded, his head down, angled away from Sam.
    ‘What’s the matter?’ Louisa asked, as she closed the door behind her, her face full of concern.
    ‘Where’s your phone,’ Sam said. ‘Have you lost it?’
    She frowned. ‘My phone? You mean my mobile?’
    ‘Yeah,’ Sam nodded. ‘Do you know where it is?’
    ‘My locker,’ she said. ‘I always leave it there during the day. Why?’
    ‘Someone just called me,’ Sam revealed, ‘using your mobile.’
    Louisa looked confused. ‘What?’
    ‘A man phoned me using your phone,’ Sam repeated. ‘He talked about the train crash, and about Cathy.’
    ‘Cathy?’ she said, aghast, ‘but, who would…’
    ‘The same person also called the radio station. Did you hear it?’
    ‘No,’ Louisa said, absentmindedly, as if deep in thought. She snapped back. ‘I had a consultation, so I couldn’t listen. I was going to listen to it later on the internet. Are you sure it’s the same person?’
    ‘Pretty sure,’ Sam replied. ‘Same voice, saying the same sort of things. He knows who you are, Louisa. He made it sound like something had happened to you.’
    ‘My God,’ Louisa muttered under her breath, looking down.
    ‘Have you got any idea who this person might be?’ Sam asked.
    ‘Maybe,’ she replied.
    ‘Who?’
    ‘Go to my locker,’ she said, evading the question. ‘Find out if my mobile is missing. Here’s the key. I’ll be finished here in five minutes.’
    Sam made his way quickly down to the locker room, which was located just down the corridor. The room, which also doubled as a kitchen, was empty, and at first glance, it didn’t look like anything was wrong. But as he approached Louisa’s locker it was clear that it had been forced open – the door was ajar and the metal lock was bent at a right angle. He looked inside and the first thing that hit him was the piece of paper that was blue-tacked onto the back of the door. It was a photocopy of a newspaper article that Sam knew well. The headline read: BEST-FRIEND MURDERED SCHOOLGIRL AFTER RAPE ATTACK. Sam pulled the paper off the metal, and stared at the photograph of himself and Marcus Johnson, stood side by side, smiling from the camera. The mystery of how the photograph had made its way to the press had never been solved – no-one was going to admit betraying the family so callously. But the betrayal had caused tensions among friends and family at a time when emotions were already fraught. It still hurt him to look at that photograph – to see Marcus’s face – to think of how things were before that