Fuck. Fuck.
She puts the cup down on the bedside table, harder than she meant, so that the tea slops over and the wood makes a loud thunk.
And beside her, Will stirs.
“What time is it?”
His voice is sleepy, loving, and she feels her muscles instantly uncoil, as if his very presence is all she needed to chase away the doubts. Her fears, so real in the silence of a few minutes ago, disappear, like she’s a child turning on the light after a nightmare.
“Six thirty,” she whispers, and he groans and slides his arm over what used to be her waist, cradling her bump.
“Six thirty? You’re shitting me. On a weekend? Couldn’t you sleep?”
“It’s good practice,” she says, laughing. “For when the baby comes.”
She doesn’t want to say, I couldn’t sleep. I couldn’t sleep because I was spiraling into a stupid, dark fantasy that you were April’s killer. Now, with Will’s arm around her, the words seem absurd.
“Well, let’s practice something else,” he murmurs, his lips warm and soft against the ticklish skin of her side. And Hannah slides down beneath the duvet and somehow the heat, and the comfort, and the reassuring feel of Will’s skin against hers succeed in driving out the demons… for a while, at least.
* * *
AFTERWARDS, WILL MAKES COFFEE FOR them both, and Hannah yawns and stretches, working out the kinks the long train journey yesterday left in her spine and hips.
“What do you fancy for breakfast?” Will calls through from the other room.
“What have we got?”
She hears the sound of the fridge opening.
“Um… nothing, basically.”
“I could murder a bacon sandwich,” Hannah says. “I had an amazing one at the hotel in Oxford, and ever since then I’ve had this craving for another.”
Will comes into the bedroom, holding her coffee.
“I’ll go to the shop.”
“You don’t have to do that,” Hannah says, taking the coffee. “I was only thinking aloud.”
“Now you’ve said it”—he throws himself down beside her, kisses her cheek—“you’ve got me craving one too. I can’t rest now.”
“It’s too early.” Hannah looks at her phone on the bedside table. “It’s only… quarter past seven. The Sainsbury’s mini-market doesn’t open until eight on Sunday.”
“I’ll go for a run,” Will says. “Get the bacon on my way back. Can you last that long?”
She smiles.
“Yes, I can last that long. See you in an hour or so.”
* * *
AFTER WILL IS GONE, HANNAH opens up her book, but she can’t settle. As soon as he left, her doubts began to creep back, like shadows wavering at the edge of a candle’s glow, rushing in when the lamp is taken away. Reading doesn’t help, her mind is too full, and in the end she gives up and heaves herself out of bed.
As she opens the wardrobe to grab her clothes, she catches sight of herself in the full-length mirror inside. Without her glasses everything has a fuzzy, softened quality, but even so her reflection arrests her and she stands for a moment, side on, just looking at the alien shape of her belly, at the reddish stretch marks creeping around from her hips. The air is chill, in spite of the radiator, and the baby quivers inside her. It’s impossible for her child to be cold, but still, Hannah shivers in sympathy and pulls on a T-shirt and sweatpants.
In the kitchen she makes herself another coffee—decaf this time—and sits by the window, looking down at the street, chewing her thumbnail. It’s still almost dark, and she imagines Will running alongside the road past the park, the pavement wet and slick with overnight rain, the reflective stripes on his running jacket shining back at the cars as they pass.
At the thought of him, running through the morning darkness to get the bacon that she was craving, her heart hurts. How can she be having these doubts? This is Will—who wrote to her, month after month, year after year, even when she was too sad and broken to reply. Will, who came to find her in Edinburgh, and in doing so turned the city from a place of exile into a home. Will, who she’s argued with over flat-pack furniture, and laughed with over bad films, and shared a thousand candlelit dinners with—from a single Pot Noodle in their very first flat to Michelin-starred restaurants on their honeymoon. This is Will—whose child she is carrying.
And yet, in the silence of the flat, she cannot stop thinking of Hugh’s words.
This is worse than any of her sleepless nights over Neville, because whichever way this falls out, she is a terrible person. If Will has been hiding something from her for all these years, she is married to a liar and maybe a murderer. But if he’s innocent, what kind of wife does that make her? One willing to believe the man she loves might be a killer just because of a few sounds in the night?
She has to find out one way or another. But the thought of confronting Will on such a tiny shred of proof makes her feel sick. Were you in Pelham College the night April died? She just can’t imagine saying the words—destroying her marriage on the basis of something Hugh may or may not have even heard.
Then it comes to her. Ryan.
Ryan’s room was on the other side of Will’s. There is a strong chance he would have seen or heard Will arriving. And if Ryan remembers Will turning up at 4 p.m. that Sunday with his rucksack on and his rail card in his pocket, well, that is all the proof she needs that Hugh was mistaken.
Hannah glances at the clock on her phone. 7:35. Early, but not ridiculously so, not for someone with two small kids.
She opens up WhatsApp, sends Ryan a message. Are you awake? Can you talk? I need to ask you something.
There’s a pause. The minutes tick by. Hannah goes into the bedroom to get dressed, but between every garment she finds herself checking to see if the two ticks have gone blue, showing Ryan’s read her message. Ten minutes later she is fully dressed, but they still remain stubbornly gray.
Any time is good she adds, not because it’s true, but just to make his phone ping again in the hopes that it will attract his attention. And this time it works. After a couple of seconds the checkmarks go blue, and Typing… appears at the top of the screen.
Sure. Is now good? We’re heading out to the park in a bit.
Hannah’s pulse quickens.
Now is great, she texts back. She glances at the clock: 7:51. Will can’t be back before 8:10 at the absolute earliest, even if he’s queuing at the door at 8:00. Shall I call you?
Hang on, Ryan texts back. Give me two secs, I’ll phone you.
Hannah goes back into the kitchen and waits. Her heart is thumping. Her fingers are numb and cold. Her mouth tastes of metal.
She paces up and down, staring at the screen.
And then at 7:56 her phone rings with a jangle that makes her jump and drop it, clattering to the tiles with a crack that sounds deeply ominous. Swearing, she crouches past her bump and picks it up. There’s a long silvery fissure across the screen with a shadow of something dark that seems to be seeping out across the LCD display, but it still works when she presses to accept the call.
“Ryan!” Her voice is breathless.
“Ey up, Hannah Jones.” She can hear cartoons in the background, Bella’s voice yelling at the girls to finish up their Weetabix. “How’s things, pet?”
“Good.” She wants to talk, procrastinate, put this off, but she can’t afford to. Will could be home very soon. She needs to spit this out. They can chat afterwards—if—
But she can’t think about that. Ryan has to give her the answer she’s hoping for. He has to.
“Listen, Ryan, I—I have a weird question.”
“Is it about how wheelchair sex works?”
“What?” She laughs at that, not meaning to, but so nervous that it comes out like a burst of tremulous hysteria.