Afternoon
I fell asleep in the afternoon. I woke feverish, panicky. Guilty. I do feel guilty. Just not guilty enough.
I thought about him leaving in the middle of the night, telling me, once again, that this was the last time, the very last time, we can’t do this again. He was getting dressed, pulling on his jeans. I was lying on the bed and I laughed, because that’s what he said last time, and the time before, and the time before that. He shot me a look. I don’t know how to describe it, it wasn’t anger, exactly, not contempt – it was a warning.
I feel uneasy. I walk around the house; I can’t settle, I feel as though someone else has been here while I was sleeping. There’s nothing out of place, but the house feels different, as though things have been touched, subtly shifted out of place, and as I walk around I feel as though there’s someone else here, always just out of my line of sight. I check the French doors to the garden three times, but they’re locked. I can’t wait for Scott to get home. I need him.
RACHEL
Tuesday, 16 July 2013
Morning
I’M ON THE 8.04, but I’m not going into London. I’m going to Witney instead. I’m hoping that being there will jog my memory, that I’ll get to the station and I’ll see everything clearly, I’ll know. I don’t hold out much hope, but there is nothing else I can do. I can’t call Tom. I’m too ashamed, and in any case, he’s made it clear. He wants nothing more to do with me.
Megan is still missing; she’s been gone more than sixty hours now and the story is becoming national news. It was on the BBC website and MailOnline this morning; there were a few snippets mentioning it on other sites, too.
I printed out both the BBC and Mail stories; I have them with me. From them I have gleaned the following:
Megan and Scott argued on Saturday evening. A neighbour reported hearing raised voices. Scott admitted that they argued, and said that he believed his wife had gone to spend the night with a friend, Tara Epstein, who lives in Corly.
Megan never got to Tara’s house. Tara says the last time she saw Megan was on Friday afternoon at their pilates class. (I knew Megan would do pilates.) According to Ms Epstein, ‘She seemed fine, normal. She was in a good mood, she was talking about doing something special for her thirtieth birthday next month.’
Megan was seen by one witness walking towards Witney train station at around seven fifteen on Saturday evening.
Megan has no family in the area. Both her parents are deceased.
Megan is unemployed. She used to run a small art gallery in Witney, but it closed down in April last year. (I knew Megan would be arty.)
Scott is a self-employed IT consultant. (I can’t bloody believe Scott is an IT consultant.)
Megan and Scott have been married for three years; they have been living in the house on Blenheim Road since January 2012.
According to the Daily Mail, their house is worth ￡400,000.
Reading this, I know that things look bad for Scott. Not just because of the argument, either; it’s just the way things are: when something bad happens to a woman, the police look at the husband or the boyfriend first. However, in this case, the police don’t have all the facts. They’re only looking at the husband, presumably because they don’t know about the boyfriend.
It could be that I am the only person who knows that the boyfriend exists.
I scrabble around in my bag for a scrap of paper. On the back of a card slip for two bottles of wine, I write down a list of most likely possible explanations for the disappearance of Megan Hipwell:
1. She has run off with her boyfriend, who from here on in I will refer to as B.
2. B has harmed her.
3. Scott has harmed her.
4. She has simply left her husband and gone to live elsewhere.
5. Someone other than B or Scott has harmed her.
I think the first possibility is most likely, and four is a strong contender, too, because Megan is an independent, wilful woman, I’m sure of it. And if she were having an affair, she might need to get away to clear her head, mightn’t she? Five does not seem especially likely, since murder by a stranger isn’t all that common.
The bump on my head is throbbing, and I can’t stop thinking about the argument I saw, or imagined, or dreamed about, on Saturday night. As we pass Megan and Scott’s house, I look up. I can hear the blood pulsing in my head. I feel excited. I feel afraid. The windows of number fifteen, reflecting morning sunshine, look like sightless eyes.
Evening
I’m just settling into my seat when my phone rings. It’s Cathy. I let it go to voicemail.
She leaves a message: ‘Hi Rachel, just phoning to make sure you’re OK.’ She’s worried about me, because of the thing with the taxi. ‘I just wanted to say that I’m sorry, you know, about the other day, what I said about moving out. I shouldn’t have. I overreacted. You can stay as long as you want to.’ There’s a long pause and then she says, ‘Give me a ring, OK? And come straight home, Rach, don’t go to the pub.’
I don’t intend to. I wanted a drink at lunchtime; I was desperate for one after what happened in Witney this morning. I didn’t have one though, because I had to keep a clear head. It’s been a long time since I’ve had anything worth keeping a clear head for.
It was so strange, this morning, my trip to Witney. I felt as though I hadn’t been there in ages, although of course it’s only been a few days. It may as well have been a completely different place, though, a different station in a different town. I was a different person to the one who went there on Saturday night. Today I was stiff and sober, hyper-aware of the noise and the light and fear of discovery.
I was trespassing. That’s what it felt like this morning, because it’s their territory now, it’s Tom and Anna’s and Scott and Megan’s. I’m the outsider, I don’t belong there, and yet everything is so familiar to me. Down the concrete steps at the station, right past the newspaper kiosk into Roseberry Avenue, half a block to the end of the T-junction, to the right the archway leading to a dank pedestrian underpass beneath the track, and to the left Blenheim Road, narrow and tree-lined, flanked with its handsome Victorian terraces. It feels like coming home: not just any home but a childhood home, a place left behind a lifetime ago; it’s the familiarity of walking up stairs and knowing exactly which one is going to creak.
The familiarity isn’t just in my head, it’s in my bones; it’s muscle memory. This morning, as I walked past the blackened tunnel mouth, the entrance to the underpass, my pace quickened. I didn’t have to think about it because I always walk a little faster on that section. Every night, coming home, especially in winter, I used to pick up the pace, glancing quickly to the right, just to make sure. There was never anyone there – not on any of those nights and not today – and yet I stopped dead as I looked into the darkness this morning, because I could suddenly see myself. I could see myself a few metres in, slumped against the wall, my head in my hands, and both head and hands smeared with blood.
My heart thudding in my chest, I stood there, morning commuters stepping around me as they continued on their way to the station, one or two turning to look at me as they passed, as I stood stock still. I didn’t know – don’t know – if it was real. Why would I have gone into the underpass? What reason would I have had to go down there, where it’s dark and damp and stinks of piss?
I turned around and headed back to the station. I didn’t want to be there any longer; I didn’t want to go to Scott and Megan’s front door. I wanted to get away from there. Something bad happened there, I know it did.
I paid for my ticket and walked quickly up the station steps to the other side of the platform, and as I did it came to me again in a flash: not the underpass this time, but the steps; stumbling on the steps and a man taking my arm, helping me up. The man from the train, with the reddish hair. I could see him, a vague picture but no dialogue. I could remember laughing – at myself, or at something he said. He was nice to me, I’m sure of it. Almost sure. Something bad happened, but I don’t think it had anything to do with him.
I got on the train and went into London. I went to the library and sat at a computer terminal, looking for stories about Megan. There was a short piece on the Telegraph website which said that ‘a man in his thirties is helping police with their enquiries’. Scott, presumably. I can’t believe he would have hurt her. I know that he wouldn’t. I’ve seen them together; I know what they’re like together. They gave a Crimestoppers number too, which you can ring if you have information. I’m going to call it on the way home, from a pay phone. I’m going to tell them about B, about what I saw.
My phone rings just as we’re getting into Ashbury. It’s Cathy again. Poor girl, she really is worried about me.
‘Rach? Are you on the train? Are you on your way home?’ She sounds anxious.
‘Yes, I’m on my way,’ I tell her. ‘I’ll be fifteen minutes.’
‘The police are here, Rachel,’ she says, and my entire body goes cold. ‘They want to talk to you.’