My head pounds as I walk to the train station, the facts and theories tugging and pulling it in every direction, making me feel like I’m living somebody else’s life. I wish I was.
I try to pretend I’m on my old commute back to Whitstable and, as the train passes through the North Downs, I briefly lose myself in the banality of normal life.
The young man opposite, with bulbous headphones over his beanie hat, is playing out a drumbeat on his legs in time to the music. From his denim waistcoat over a black T-shirt, I’d hazard a guess he’s listening to something like the Red Hot Chili Peppers. He’s probably doing a history degree at Canterbury University, with a bar job on the side to supplement his marijuana habit.
He catches me looking and I move my attention to the girl two seats down from him. She’s tap-tap-tapping on her phone, her thumbs moving faster than I’d think possible, smiling at whatever she’s reading. She laughs out loud, before self-consciously looking around the carriage, as if surprised to find herself in the real world and not the one she’s created on the screen.
She’s rushing home to watch the new series of Love Island, while her boyfriend’s in the next room playing Call of Duty against a stranger in Australia.
Having made my stereotypical judgments, I pull myself up, wondering what a passing stranger would think my life looked like right now. Dressed in calf-length printed trousers and a white shirt, I probably seem like your average office worker.
My ring finger will give my enviable status away, telling them I’m in a secure relationship that’s meant to last a lifetime. I’m old enough to warrant perhaps three children, who are all currently being fed whole wheat pasta with an organic tomato sauce by their grandmother.
An unexpected barrage of tears rushes to my eyes, but I don’t know if they’re for the nan my mother will never be, or the fact that my world is so far removed from the one I’m portraying. An onlooker would never guess, as I twist my wedding band, that I’m about to go into battle to save my marriage. No one would know that the denim jacket draped so casually over my arm had to be taken off when I perspired under a police officer’s questioning. And I’d give a thousand pounds to anyone on this train who thinks I’m a prime suspect in a man’s disappearance.
As I squirm under the invisible microscope, an overwhelming heat envelops me. Pinpricks of sweat spring to my fingertips, as every pore on my body feels like it’s being suffocated. My legs are like red-hot pokers, burning from the inside out, and my ribs feel charred from the furnace that’s emanating from my core. I have to get off; I have to get some air.
If the train wasn’t coming into Faversham, I’d pull the emergency stop lever, such is the panic collecting in every fiber of my being. I gasp as I fall through the opening doors, stumbling onto the platform, no longer caring who sees me or what they think. I drag myself over to a bench, collapsing onto it, fighting for breath.
I can’t go home to Leon in this state; I need to think. I need to have a plan of action. I just need to sit him down and start from the beginning; explain why I haven’t told him about the flat, tell him that I couldn’t admit to meeting Jacob in the hotel …
The hotel. Shit.
Without even making a conscious decision to do it, I’m racing down the stairs and through the underpass to the other side of the tracks. I hear the slow rumble of an approaching train and take the stairs two at a time, reaching the top just as it thunders onto the platform.
“The train approaching platform three is to Dover Priory,” sounds the announcer. “Calling at Selling, Canterbury East…” I don’t listen anymore; I’ve heard all that I need to hear.
I don’t know if Andy, my former boss, is even working a shift at the hotel right now, but I’ve got to take this chance. It might be the only one I get.
Once I get back to Canterbury I want to run up the ramp toward the hotel, but I can’t risk drawing attention to myself so I speed-walk instead. The lobby is surprisingly quiet, caught in the lull between guests having gotten in from their day’s expeditions and going back out again for dinner. I force myself to walk slowly over to the reception desk.
“Hi, is Andy on duty?” I ask.
Everyone knows who he is; he doesn’t need a surname.
“Andy Kerridge?” asks the receptionist, disproving my point. She must be new.
I smile and nod. “Please.”
“I certainly saw him earlier,” she says. “Let me see if he’s still here.”
“Thank you,” I say, tapping my fingers on the marble countertop.
“Who shall I say is looking for him?” she asks, covering the mouthpiece of the phone with her hand.
I hesitate, suddenly conscious of leaving a trail that witnesses will be able to attest to later. This is ridiculous. I’m a victim, not a suspect.
“Can you just tell him it’s Naomi.”
She looks at me waiting for more, clearly worried that it won’t be enough. I offer her a tight smile to let her know it is.
I loiter around the potted palm trees, trying to blend in so no one will remember me if asked. Though my cover is blown when Andy strides across the polished stone floor with his arms aloft, shouting, “Darling!”
I fall into his open embrace and kiss him on each cheek.
“I haven’t seen you in ages,” he says. “How are you?”
“I’m good,” I lie. “How are things with you?”
“Well, Lance is driving me insane,” he says. “But when isn’t he?”
I smile, remembering the warm rapport he shares with his boyfriend, even though he likes to pretend he doesn’t.
“Listen, I wonder if you could help me out?”
“Of course,” he says. “Anything for my favorite former employee turned superstar psychotherapist.”
“It’s actually a bit sensitive,” I say, leading him gently by the elbow out of earshot of anyone else.
“In-triguing,” he muses with a widening of the eyes. “Tell me more.”
“Well, a few days ago, one of my clients came here, was supposed to check in, but hasn’t been seen since.”
“Oh no!” says Andy.
“I know he was here,” I say, wondering how much I should share. “Because I met him in the bar to make sure he was OK.” I’m in it now.
Andy nods thoughtfully. I give him a few seconds to hopefully come up with the suggestion before I have to spell it out.
“So you left him in the bar and he was fine?”
I nod. “I could just really do with knowing where he went afterward.”
“We’ll look on the CCTV,” he announces.
“Could we?” I ask gratefully. “Does it cover the lobby?”
He nods excitedly, thrilled by the opportunity to play Columbo. “It covers the bar as well.”
My heart lurches, wondering what angle it captures, knowing that it could make all the difference in portraying what happened between Jacob and me as either an unrequited advance or the spark of sexual chemistry.
“Come this way,” he says, beckoning me over to the Staff Only door I used to go through at the start of my shift.
Not much has changed in the labyrinth of corridors beyond it, aside from the lilac uniforms the housekeeping team are bustling past in. They were blue in my day.
As we turn the corner to where a bank of monitors used to be tucked into a cubby under the stairs, I’m reminded of Ian, the security guard who worked here at the same time as me. He was Canadian and we forged a friendship over the fact that neither of us had visited the other’s country, even though we were neighbors.
I’d spent many a lunch hour hunched under these stairs, eating a limp sandwich while alternating between studying for my licensing exams and playing the “business or pleasure?” game with the guests. Ian and I would bet on whether a couple were here for work or play, going by their body language and how they greeted each other. It never ceased to amaze me how often a furtive peck on the cheek in the lobby was a prelude to them taking it in turns to ascend to a room on the upper floors. Ian would almost always win the wager, but then he’d seen more secret liaisons than I’d had hot dinners. I can’t help but wonder how much he would have put on Jacob and me the other night.