RACHEL
Sunday, 21 July 2013
Morning
I WAKE WITH MY head full of him. It doesn’t seem real, none of it does. My skin prickles. I would dearly love to have a drink, but I can’t. I need to keep a clear head. For Megan. For Scott.
I made an effort yesterday. I washed my hair and put some makeup on. I wore the only jeans I still fit into, with a cotton print blouse and sandals with a low heel. I looked OK. I kept telling myself that it was ridiculous to care about my appearance, because the last thing Scott was going to be thinking about was what I looked like, but I couldn’t help myself. It was the first time I was ever going to be around him, it mattered to me. Much more than it should.
I took the train, leaving Ashbury around six thirty, and I was in Witney just after seven. I took that walk along Roseberry Avenue, past the underpass. I didn’t look this time, couldn’t bear to. I hurried past number twenty-three, Tom and Anna’s place, chin to chest and sunglasses on, praying they wouldn’t see me. It was quiet, no one around, a couple of cars driving carefully down the centre of the road between ranks of parked vehicles. It’s a sleepy little street, tidy and affluent, with lots of young families; they’re all having their dinner around seven o’clock, or sitting on the sofa, mum and dad with the little ones squeezed between them, watching X-Factor.
From number twenty-three to number fifteen can’t be more than fifty or sixty paces, but that journey stretched out, it seemed to take an age; my legs were leaden, my footing unsteady, as though I were drunk, as though I might just slip off the pavement.
Scott opened the door almost before I’d finished knocking, my trembling hand still raised as he appeared in the doorway, looming ahead of me, filling the space.
‘Rachel?’ he asked, looking down at me, unsmiling. I nodded. He offered his hand and I took it. He gestured for me to enter the house, but for a moment I didn’t move. I was afraid of him. Up close he is physically intimidating, tall and broad-shouldered, his arms and chest well defined. His hands are huge. It crossed my mind that he could crush me – my neck, my ribcage – without much effort.
I moved past him into the hallway, my arm brushing against his as I did, and felt a flush rising to my face. He smelled of old sweat, and his dark hair was matted against his head as though he hadn’t showered in a while.
It was in the living room that the déjà vu hit me, so strong it was almost frightening. I recognized the fireplace flanked by alcoves on the far wall, the way the light streamed in from the street through slanted blinds; I knew that when I turned to my left there would be glass and green and beyond that the railway line. I turned and there was the kitchen table, the French doors behind it and the lush patch of lawn. I knew this house. I felt dizzy, I wanted to sit down; I thought about that black hole last Saturday night, all those lost hours.
It didn’t mean anything, of course. I know that house, but not because I’ve been there. I know it because it’s exactly the same as number twenty-three: a hallway leads to the stairs, and on the right-hand side is the living room, knocked through into the kitchen. The patio and the garden are familiar to me because I’ve seen them from the train. I didn’t go upstairs, but I know that if I had, there would have been a landing with a large sash window on it, and that if you climbed through that window you would find yourself on the makeshift roof terrace. I know that there will be two bedrooms, the master with two large windows looking out on to the street and a smaller room at the back, overlooking the garden. Just because I know that house inside and out does not mean that I’ve been there before.
Still, I was trembling when Scott showed me into the kitchen. He offered me a cup of tea. I sat down at the kitchen table while he boiled the kettle, dropped a teabag into a mug and slopped boiling water over the counter, muttering to himself under his breath. There was a sharp smell of antiseptic in the room, but Scott himself was a mess, a sweat patch on the back of his T-shirt, his jeans hanging loose on his hips as though they were too big for him. I wondered when was the last time he had eaten.
He placed the mug of tea in front of me and sat on the opposite side of the kitchen table, his hands folded in front of him. The silence stretched out, filling the space between us, the whole room; it rang in my ears, and I felt hot and uncomfortable, my mind suddenly blank. I didn’t know what I was doing there. Why on earth had I come? In the distance, I heard a low rumbling – the train was coming. It felt comforting, that old sound.
‘You’re a friend of Megan’s?’ he said at last.
Hearing her name from his lips brought a lump to my throat. I stared down at the table, my hands wrapped tightly around the mug.
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘I know her … a little. From the gallery.’
He looked at me, waiting, expectant. I could see the muscle flex in his jaw as he clenched his teeth. I searched for words that wouldn’t come. I should have prepared better.
‘Have you had any news?’ I asked. His gaze held mine and for a second I felt afraid. I’d said the wrong thing; it was none of my business whether there was any news. He would be angry, he’d ask me to leave.
‘No,’ he said. ‘What was it that you wanted to tell me?’
The train rolled slowly past and I looked out towards the tracks. I felt dizzy, as though I were having an out-of-body experience, as though I were looking out at myself.
‘You said in your email that you wanted to tell me something about Megan.’ The pitch of his voice raised a little.
I took a deep breath. I felt awful. I was acutely aware that what I was about to say was going to make everything worse, was going to hurt him.
‘I saw her with someone,’ I said. I just blurted it out, blunt and loud with no build-up, no context.
He stared at me. ‘When? You saw her on Saturday night? Have you told the police?’
‘No, it was Friday morning,’ I said, and his shoulders slumped.
‘But … she was fine on Friday. Why is that important?’ That pulse in his jaw went again, he was becoming angry. ‘You saw her with … you saw her with who? With a man?’
‘Yes, I—’
‘What did he look like?’ He got to his feet, his body blocking the light. ‘Have you told the police?’ he asked again.
‘I did, but I’m not sure they took me very seriously,’ I said.
‘Why?’
‘I just … I don’t know … I thought you should know.’
He leaned forward, his hands on the table, clenched into fists.
‘What are you saying? You saw her where? What was she doing?’
Another deep breath. ‘She was … out on your lawn,’ I said. ‘Just there.’ I pointed out to the garden. ‘She … I saw her from the train.’ The look of incredulity on his face was unmistakeable. ‘I take the train into London from Ashbury every day. I go right past here. I saw her, she was with someone. And it … it wasn’t you.’
‘How do you know? … Friday morning? Friday – the day before she went missing?’
‘Yes.’
‘I wasn’t here,’ he said. ‘I was away. I was at a conference in Birmingham, I got back on Friday evening.’ Spots of colour appeared high on his cheeks, his scepticism giving way to something else. ‘So you saw her, on the lawn, with someone? And …’
‘She kissed him,’ I said. I had to get it out eventually. I had to tell him. ‘They were kissing.’
He straightened up, his hands, still balled into fists, hanging at his sides. The spots of colour on his cheeks grew darker, angrier.
‘I’m sorry,’ I said. ‘I’m so sorry. I know this is a terrible thing to hear …’
He held up his hand, waved me away. Contemptuous. He wasn’t interested in my sympathy.
I know how that feels. Sitting there, I remembered with almost perfect clarity how it felt when I sat in my own kitchen, five doors down, while Lara, my former best friend, sat opposite me, her fat toddler squirming on her lap. I remember her telling me how sorry she was that my marriage was over, I remember losing my temper at her platitudes. She knew nothing of my pain. I told her to piss off and she told me not to speak like that in front of her child. I haven’t seen her since.
‘What did he look like, this man you saw her with?’ Scott asked. He was standing with his back to me, looking out on to the lawn.
‘He was tall – taller than you, maybe. Dark-skinned. I think he might have been Asian. Indian – something like that.’
‘And they were kissing, out here in the garden?’
‘Yes.’
He gave a long sigh. ‘Jesus, I need a drink.’ He turned to face me. ‘Would you like a beer?’
I did, I wanted a drink desperately, but I said no. I watched as he fetched himself a bottle from the fridge, opened it, took a long slug. I could almost feel the cold liquid sliding down my throat as I watched him; my hand ached for want of a glass. Scott leaned against the counter, his head bent almost to his chest.
I felt wretched then. I wasn’t helping, I had just made him feel worse, increased his pain. I was intruding on his grief, it was wrong. I should never have gone to see him. I should never have lied. Obviously, I should never have lied.
I was just getting to my feet when he spoke. ‘It could … I don’t know. It might be a good thing, mightn’t it? It could mean that she’s all right. She’s just …’ He gave a hollow little laugh. ‘She’s just run off with someone.’ He brushed a tear from his cheek with the back of his hand and my heart screwed up into a tight little ball. ‘But the thing is, I can’t believe she wouldn’t call.’ He looked at me as though I held the answers, as though I would know. ‘Surely she would call me, wouldn’t she? She would know how panicked … how desperate I would be. She’s not vindictive like that, is she?’
He was talking to me like someone he could trust – like Megan’s friend – and I knew that it was wrong, but it felt good. He took another swig of his beer and turned towards the garden. I followed his gaze to a little pile of stones against the fence, a rockery long since started and never finished. He raised the bottle halfway to his lips again, and then he stopped. He turned to face me.
‘You saw Megan from the train?’ he asked. ‘So you were … just looking out of the window and there she was, a woman you happen to know?’ The atmosphere in the room had changed. He wasn’t sure any more, whether I was an ally, whether I was to be trusted. Doubt passed over his face like a shadow.
‘Yes, I … I know where she lives,’ I said, and I regretted the words the moment they came out of my mouth. ‘Where you live, I mean. I’ve been here before. A long time ago. So sometimes I’d look out for her when I went past.’ He was staring at me; I could feel the heat rising to my face. ‘She was often out there.’
He placed his empty bottle down on the counter, took a couple of steps towards me and sat down in the seat nearest to me, at the table.
‘So you knew Megan well then? I mean, well enough to come round to the house?’
I could feel the blood pulsing in my neck, sweat at the base of my spine, the sickening rush of adrenaline. I shouldn’t have said that, shouldn’t have complicated the lie.
‘It was just one time, but I … I know where the house is because I used to live nearby.’ He raised his eyebrows at me. ‘Down the road. Number twenty-three.’
He nodded slowly. ‘Watson,’ he said. ‘So you’re, what, Tom’s ex-wife?’
‘Yes. I moved out a couple of years ago.’
‘But you still visited Megan’s gallery?’
‘Sometimes.’
‘And when you saw her, what did you … Did she talk about personal things, about me?’ His voice was husky. ‘About anyone else?’
I shook my head. ‘No, no. It was usually just … passing the time, you know.’ There was a long silence. The heat in the room seemed to build suddenly, the smell of antiseptic rising from every surface. I felt faint. To my right there was a side table adorned with photographs in frames. Megan smiled out at me, cheerfully accusing.
‘I should go now,’ I said. ‘I’ve taken up enough of your time.’ I started to get up, but he reached an arm out and placed his hand on my wrist, his eyes never leaving my face.
‘Don’t go just yet,’ he said softly. I didn’t stand up, but I withdrew my hand from beneath his; it felt uncomfortably as though I were being restrained. ‘This man,’ he said. ‘This man you saw her with – do you think you’d recognize him again? If you saw him?’
I couldn’t say that I already had identified the man to the police. My whole rationale for approaching him had been that the police hadn’t taken my story seriously. If I admitted the truth, the trust would be gone. So I lied again.
‘I’m not sure,’ I said. ‘But I think I might.’ I waited a moment, and then I went on. ‘In the newspapers, there was a quote from a friend of Megan’s. His name was Rajesh. I was wondering if—’
Scott was already shaking his head. ‘Rajesh Gujral? I can’t see it. He’s one of the artists who used to exhibit at the gallery. He’s a nice enough guy, but … He’s married, he’s got kids.’ As if that meant something. ‘Wait a second,’ he said, getting to his feet. ‘I think there might be a picture of him somewhere.’
He disappeared upstairs. I felt my shoulders drop and realized that I’d been sitting rigid with tension since I arrived. I looked over at the photographs again: Megan in a sundress on a beach; a closeup of her face, her eyes a startling blue. Just Megan. No pictures of the two of them together.
Scott reappeared, holding a pamphlet which he presented to me. It was a leaflet, advertising a show at the gallery. He turned it over. ‘There,’ he said, ‘that’s Rajesh.’
The man was standing next to a colourful abstract painting: he was older, bearded, short, stocky. It wasn’t the man I had seen, the man I had identified to the police. ‘It’s not him,’ I said. Scott stood at my side, staring down at the pamphlet, before abruptly turning and marching out of the room and up the stairs again. A few moments later, he came back with a laptop and sat down at the kitchen table.
‘I think …’ he said, opening the machine and turning it on, ‘I think I might …’ He fell silent and I watched him, his face a picture of concentration, the muscle in his jaw locked. ‘Megan was seeing a therapist,’ he told me. ‘His name is … Abdic. Kamal Abdic. He’s not Asian, he’s from Serbia, or Bosnia, somewhere like that. He’s dark-skinned though. He could pass for Indian from a distance.’ He tapped away at the computer. ‘There’s a website, I think. I’m sure there is. I think there’s a picture …’
He spun the laptop round so that I could see the screen. I leaned forward to get a closer look. ‘That’s him,’ I said. ‘That’s definitely him.’
Scott snapped the laptop shut. For a long time, he didn’t say anything. He sat with his elbows on the table, his forehead resting on his fingertips, his arms trembling.
‘She was having anxiety attacks,’ he said at last. ‘Trouble sleeping, things like that. It started last year some time. I don’t remember when exactly.’ He talked without looking at me, as though he were talking to himself, as though he’d forgotten I was there at all. ‘I was the one who suggested she talk to someone. I was the one who encouraged her to go, because I didn’t seem to be able to help her.’ His voice cracked a little then. ‘I couldn’t help her. And she told me that she’d had similar problems in the past and that eventually they’d go away, but I made her … I persuaded her to go to the doctor. That guy was recommended to her.’ He gave a little cough to clear his throat. ‘The therapy seemed to be helping. She was happier.’ He gave a short, sad laugh. ‘Now I know why.’
I reached out my hand to give him a pat on the arm, a gesture of comfort. Abruptly, he drew away and got to his feet. ‘You should go,’ he said brusquely. ‘My mother will be here soon – she won’t leave me alone for more than an hour or two.’ At the door, just as I was leaving, he caught hold of my arm.
‘Have I seen you somewhere before?’ he asked.
For a moment, I thought about saying, You might have done. You might have seen me at the police station, or here on the street. I was here on Saturday night. I shook my head. ‘No, I don’t think so.’
I walked away towards the train station as quickly as I could. About halfway along the street, I turned to look back. He was still standing there in the doorway, watching me.