My name is Rachel Watson. You don’t know me. I would like to talk to you about your wife. I do not have any information on her whereabouts, I don’t know what has happened to her. But I believe I have information that could help you.
You may not want to talk to me, I would understand that, but if you do, email me on this address.
Yours sincerely,
Rachel
I don’t know if he would have contacted me anyway—I doubt that I would, if I were in his shoes. Like the police, he’d probably just think I’m a nutter, some weirdo who’s read about the case in the newspaper. Now I’ll never know—if he’s been arrested, he may never get a chance to see the message. If he’s been arrested, the only people who see it may be the police, which won’t be good news for me. But I had to try.
And now I feel desperate, thwarted. I can’t see through the mob of people in the carriage across to their side of the tracks—my side—and even if I could, with the rain still pouring down I wouldn’t be able to see beyond the railway fence. I wonder whether evidence is being washed away, whether right at this moment vital clues are disappearing forever: smears of blood, footprints, DNA-loaded cigarette butts. I want a drink so badly, I can almost taste the wine on my tongue. I can imagine exactly what it will feel like for the alcohol to hit my bloodstream and make my head rush.
I want a drink and I don’t want one, because if I don’t have a drink today then it’ll be three days, and I can’t remember the last time I stayed off for three days in a row. There’s a taste of something else in my mouth, too, an old stubbornness. There was a time when I had willpower, when I could run 10k before breakfast and subsist for weeks on thirteen hundred calories a day. It was one of the things Tom loved about me, he said: my stubbornness, my strength. I remember an argument, right at the end, when things were about as bad as they could be; he lost his temper with me. “What happened to you, Rachel?” he asked me. “When did you become so weak?”
I don’t know. I don’t know where that strength went, I don’t remember losing it. I think that over time it got chipped away, bit by bit, by life, by the living of it.
The train comes to an abrupt halt, brakes screeching alarmingly, at the signal on the London side of Witney. The carriage is filled with murmured apologies as standing passengers stumble, bumping into one another, stepping on one another’s feet. I look up and find myself looking right into the eyes of the man from Saturday night—the ginger one, the one who helped me up. He’s staring right at me, his startlingly blue eyes locked on mine, and I get such a fright, I drop my phone. I retrieve it from the floor and look up again, tentatively this time, not directly at him. I scan the carriage, I wipe the steamy window with my elbow and stare out, and then eventually I look back over at him and he smiles at me, his head cocked a little to one side.
I can feel my face burning. I don’t know how to react to his smile, because I don’t know what it means. Is it Oh, hello, I remember you from the other night, or is it Ah, it’s that pissed girl who fell down the stairs and talked shit at me the other night, or is it something else? I don’t know, but thinking about it now, I believe I have a snatch of sound track to go with the picture of me slipping on the steps: him saying, “You all right, love?” I turn away and look out of the window again. I can feel his eyes on me; I just want to hide, to disappear. The train judders off, and in seconds we’re pulling into Witney station and people start jostling one another for position, folding newspapers and packing away tablets and e-readers as they prepare to disembark. I look up again and am flooded with relief—he’s turned away from me, he’s getting off the train.
It strikes me then that I’m being an idiot. I should get up and follow him, talk to him. He can tell me what happened, or what didn’t happen; he might be able to fill in some of the blanks at least. I get to my feet. I hesitate—I know it’s already too late, the doors are about to close, I’m in the middle of the carriage, I won’t be able to push my way through the crowd in time. The doors beep and close. Still standing, I turn and look out of the window as the train pulls away. He’s standing on the edge of the platform in the rain, the man from Saturday night, watching me as I go past.
The closer I get to home, the more irritated with myself I feel. I’m almost tempted to change trains at Northcote, go back to Witney and look for him. A ridiculous idea, obviously, and stupidly risky given that Gaskill warned me to stay away from the area only yesterday. But I’m feeling dispirited about ever recalling what happened on Saturday. A few hours of (admittedly hardly exhaustive) Internet research this afternoon confirmed what I suspected: hypnosis is not generally useful in retrieving hours lost to blackout because, as my previous reading suggested, we do not make memories during blackout. There is nothing to remember. It is, will always be, a black hole in my timeline.
MEGAN
• • •
THURSDAY, MARCH 7, 2013
AFTERNOON
The room is dark, the air close, sweet with the smell of us. We’re at the Swan again, in the room under the eaves. It’s different, though, because he’s still here, watching me.
“Where do you want to go?” he asks me.
“A house on the beach on the Costa de la Luz,” I tell him.
He smiles. “What will we do?”
I laugh. “You mean apart from this?”
His fingers are tracing slowly over my belly. “Apart from this.”
“We’ll open a café, show art, learn to surf.”
He kisses me on the tip of my hip bone. “What about Thailand?” he says.
I wrinkle my nose. “Too many gap-year kids. Sicily,” I say. “The Egadi islands. We’ll open a beach bar, go fishing . . .”
He laughs again and then moves his body up over mine and kisses me. “Irresistible,” he mumbles. “You’re irresistible.”
I want to laugh, I want to say it out loud: See? I win! I told you it wasn’t the last time, it’s never the last time. I bite my lip and close my eyes. I was right, I knew I was, but it won’t do me any good to say it. I enjoy my victory silently; I take pleasure in it almost as much as in his touch.
Afterwards, he talks to me in a way he hasn’t done before. Usually I’m the one doing all the talking, but this time he opens up. He talks about feeling empty, about the family he left behind, about the woman before me and the one before that, the one who wrecked his head and left him hollow. I don’t believe in soul mates, but there’s an understanding between us that I just haven’t felt before, or at least, not for a long time. It comes from shared experience, from knowing how it feels to be broken.
Hollowness: that I understand. I’m starting to believe that there isn’t anything you can do to fix it. That’s what I’ve taken from the therapy sessions: the holes in your life are permanent. You have to grow around them, like tree roots around concrete; you mould yourself through the gaps. All these things I know, but I don’t say them out loud, not now.
“When will we go?” I ask him, but he doesn’t answer me, and I fall asleep, and he’s gone when I wake up.
FRIDAY, MARCH 8, 2013
MORNING
Scott brings me coffee on the terrace.
“You slept last night,” he says, bending down to kiss my head. He’s standing behind me, hands on my shoulders, warm and solid. I lean my head back against his body, close my eyes and listen to the train rumbling along the track until it stops just in front of the house. When we first moved here, Scott used to wave at the passengers, which always made me laugh. His grip tightens a little on my shoulders; he leans forward and kisses my neck.
“You slept,” he says again. “You must be feeling better.”
“I am,” I say.
“Do you think it’s worked, then?” he asks. “The therapy?”
“Do I think I’m fixed, do you mean?”
“Not fixed,” he says, and I can hear the hurt in his voice. “I didn’t mean . . .”
“I know.” I lift my hand to his and squeeze. “I was only joking. I think it’s a process. It’s not simple, you know? I don’t know if there will be a time when I can say that it’s worked. That I’m better.”
There’s a silence, and he grips just a little harder. “So you want to keep going?” he asks, and I tell him I do.
There was a time when I thought he could be everything, he could be enough. I thought that for years. I loved him completely. I still do. But I don’t want this any longer. The only time I feel like me is on those secret, febrile afternoons like yesterday, when I come alive in all that heat and half-light. Who’s to say that once I run, I’ll find that isn’t enough? Who’s to say I won’t end up feeling exactly the way I do right now—not safe, but stifled? Maybe I’ll want to run again, and again, and eventually I’ll end up back by those old tracks, because there’s nowhere left to go. Maybe. Maybe not. You have to take the risk, don’t you?
I go downstairs to say good-bye as he’s heading off to work. He slips his arms around my waist and kisses the top of my head.
“Love you, Megs,” he murmurs, and I feel horrible then, like the worst person in the world. I can’t wait for him to shut the door because I know I’m going to cry.
RACHEL
• • •
FRIDAY, JULY 19, 2013
MORNING
The 8:04 is almost deserted. The windows are open and the air is cool after yesterday’s storm. Megan has been missing for around 133 hours, and I feel better than I have in months. When I looked at myself in the mirror this morning, I could see the difference in my face: my skin is clearer, my eyes brighter. I feel lighter. I’m sure I haven’t actually lost an ounce, but I don’t feel encumbered. I feel like myself—the myself I used to be.
There’s been no word from Scott. I scoured the Internet and there was no news of an arrest, either, so I imagine he just ignored my email. I’m disappointed, but I suppose it was to be expected. Gaskill rang this morning, just as I was leaving the house. He asked me whether I would be able to come by the station today. I was terrified for a moment, but then I heard him say in his quiet, mild tone that he just wanted me to look at a couple of pictures. I asked him whether Scott Hipwell had been arrested.
“No one has been arrested, Ms. Watson,” he said.
“But the man, the one who’s under caution . . . ?”
“I’m not at liberty to say.”
His manner of speaking is so calming, so reassuring, it makes me like him again.
I spent yesterday evening sitting on the sofa in jogging bottoms and a T-shirt, making lists of things to do, possible strategies. For example, I could hang around Witney station at rush hour, wait until I see the red-haired man from Saturday night again. I could invite him for a drink and see where it leads, whether he saw anything, what he knows about that night. The danger is that I might see Anna or Tom, they would report me and I would get into trouble (more trouble) with the police. The other danger is that I might make myself vulnerable. I still have the trace of an argument in my head—I may have physical evidence of it on my scalp and lip. What if this is the man who hurt me? The fact that he smiled and waved doesn’t mean anything, he could be a psychopath for all I know. But I can’t see him as a psychopath. I can’t explain it, but I warm to him.
I could contact Scott again. But I need to give him a reason to talk to me, and I’m worried that whatever I saw will make me look like a madwoman. He might even think I have something to do with Megan’s disappearance, he could report me to the police. I could end up in real trouble.
I could try hypnosis. I’m pretty sure it won’t help me remember anything, but I’m curious about it anyway. It can’t hurt, can it?
I was still sitting there making notes and going over the news stories I’d printed out when Cathy came home. She’d been to the cinema with Damien. She was obviously pleasantly surprised to find me sober, but she was wary, too, because we haven’t really spoken since the police came round on Tuesday. I told her that I hadn’t had a drink for three days, and she gave me a hug.
“I’m so glad you’re getting yourself back to normal!” she chirruped, as though she knows what my baseline is.
“That thing with the police,” I said, “it was a misunderstanding. There’s no problem with me and Tom, and I don’t know anything about that missing girl. You don’t have to worry about it.” She gave me another hug and made us both a cup of tea. I thought about taking advantage of the good will I’d engendered and telling her about the job situation, but I didn’t want to spoil her evening.
She was still in a good mood with me this morning. She hugged me again as I was getting ready to leave the house.
“I’m so pleased for you, Rach,” she said. “Getting yourself sorted. You’ve had me worried.” Then she told me that she was going to spend the weekend at Damien’s, and the first thing I thought was that I’m going to get home tonight and have a drink without anyone judging me.
EVENING
The bitter tang of quinine, that’s what I love about a cold gin and tonic. Tonic water should be by Schweppes and it should come out of a glass bottle, not a plastic one. These premixed things aren’t right at all, but needs must. I know I shouldn’t be doing this, but I’ve been building up to it all day. It’s not just the anticipation of solitude, though, it’s the excitement, the adrenaline. I’m buzzing, my skin is tingling. I’ve had a good day.
I spent an hour alone with Detective Inspector Gaskill this morning. I was taken in to see him straightaway when I arrived at the station. We sat in his office, not in the interview room this time. He offered me coffee, and when I accepted I was surprised to find that he got up and made it for me himself. He had a kettle and some Nescafé on top of a fridge in the corner of the office. He apologized for not having sugar.
I liked being in his company. I liked watching his hands move—he isn’t expressive, but he moves things around a lot. I hadn’t noticed this before because in the interview room there wasn’t much for him to move around. In his office he constantly altered the position of his coffee mug, his stapler, a jar of pens, he shuffled papers into neater piles. He has large hands and long fingers with neatly manicured nails. No rings.
It felt different this morning. I didn’t feel like a suspect, someone he was trying to catch out. I felt useful. I felt most useful when he took one of his folders and laid it in front of me, showing me a series of photographs. Scott Hipwell, three men I’d never seen before, and then B.
I wasn’t sure at first. I stared at the picture, trying to conjure up the image of the man I saw with her that day, his head bent as he stooped to embrace her.
“That’s him,” I said. “I think that’s him.”
“You’re not sure?”
“I think that’s him.”
He withdrew the picture and scrutinized it himself for a moment. “You saw them kissing, that’s what you said? Last Friday, was it? A week ago?”
“Yes, that’s right. Friday morning. They were outside, in the garden.”
“And there’s no way you could have misinterpreted what you saw? It wasn’t a hug, say, or a . . . a platonic kind of kiss?”
“No, it wasn’t. It was a proper kiss. It was . . . romantic.”
I thought I saw his lips flicker then, as though he were about to smile.
“Who is he?” I asked Gaskill. “Is he . . . Do you think she’s with him?” He didn’t reply, just shook his head a little. “Is this . . . Have I helped? Have I been helpful at all?”
“Yes, Ms. Watson. You’ve been helpful. Thank you for coming in.”
We shook hands, and for a second he placed his left hand on my right shoulder lightly, and I wanted to turn and kiss it. It’s been a while since anyone touched me with anything approaching tenderness. Well, apart from Cathy.
Gaskill ushered me out of the door and into the main, open-plan part of the office. There were perhaps a dozen police officers in there. One or two shot me sideways glances, there might have been a flicker of interest or disdain, I couldn’t be sure. We walked through the office and into the corridor and then I saw him walking towards me, with Riley at his side: Scott Hipwell. He was coming through the main entrance. His head was down, but I knew right away that it was him. He looked up and nodded an acknowledgment to Gaskill, then he glanced at me. For just a second our eyes met and I could swear that he recognized me. I thought of that morning when I saw him on the terrace, when he was looking down at the track, when I could feel him looking at me. We passed each other in the corridor. He was so close to me I could have touched him—he was beautiful in the flesh, hollowed out and coiled like a spring, nervous energy radiating off him. As I got to the main hallway I turned to look at him, sure I could feel his eyes on me, but when I looked back it was Riley who was watching me.
I took the train into London and went to the library. I read every article I could find about the case, but learned nothing more. I looked for hypnotherapists in Ashbury, but didn’t take it any further—it’s expensive and it’s unclear whether it actually helps with memory recovery. But reading the stories of those who claimed that they had recovered memories through hypnotherapy, I realized that I was more afraid of success than failure. I’m afraid not just of what I might learn about that Saturday night, but so much more. I’m not sure I could bear to relive the stupid, awful things I’ve done, to hear the words I said in spite, to remember the look on Tom’s face as I said them. I’m too afraid to venture into that darkness.
I thought about sending Scott another email, but there’s really no need. The morning’s meeting with Detective Gaskill proved to me that the police are taking me seriously. I have no further role to play, I have to accept that now. And I can feel at least that I may have helped, because I cannot believe it could be a coincidence that Megan disappeared the day after I saw her with that man.
With a joyful click, fizz, I open the second can of G&T and realize, with a rush, that I haven’t thought about Tom all day. Until now, anyway. I’ve been thinking about Scott, about Gaskill, about B, about the man on the train. Tom has been relegated to fifth place. I sip my drink and feel that at last I have something to celebrate. I know that I’m going to be better, that I’m going to be happy. It won’t be long.
SATURDAY, JULY 20, 2013
MORNING
I never learn. I wake with a crushing sensation of wrongness, of shame, and I know immediately that I’ve done something stupid. I go through my awful, achingly familiar ritual of trying to remember exactly what I did. I sent an email. That’s what it was.
At some point last night, Tom got promoted back up the list of men I think about, and I sent him an email. My laptop is on the floor next to my bed; it sits there, a squat, accusatory presence. I step over it as I get up to go to the bathroom. I drink water directly from the tap, giving myself a cursory glance in the mirror.
I don’t look well. Still, three days off isn’t bad, and I’ll start again today. I stand in the shower for ages, gradually reducing the water temperature, making it cooler and cooler until it’s properly cold. You can’t step directly into a cold stream of water, it’s too shocking, too brutal, but if you get there gradually, you hardly notice it; it’s like boiling a frog in reverse. The cool water soothes my skin; it dulls the burning pain of the cuts on my head and above my eye.
I take my laptop downstairs and make a cup of tea. There’s a chance, a faint one, that I wrote an email to Tom and didn’t send it. I take a deep breath and open my Gmail account. I’m relieved to see I have no messages. But when I click on the Sent folder, there it is: I have written to him, he just hasn’t replied. Yet. The email was sent just after eleven last night; I’d been drinking for a good few hours by then. That adrenaline and booze buzz I had earlier on would have been long gone. I click on the message.
Could you please tell your wife to stop lying to the police about me? Pretty low, don’t you think, trying to get me into trouble? Telling police I’m obsessed with her and her ugly brat? She needs to get over herself. Tell her to leave me the fuck alone.
I close my eyes and snap the laptop shut. I am cringing, literally, my entire body folding into itself. I want to be smaller; I want to disappear. I’m frightened, too, because if Tom decides to show this to the police, I could be in real trouble. If Anna is collecting evidence that I am vindictive and obsessive, this could be a key piece in her dossier. And why did I mention the little girl?