“I … I can’t believe it.”
“Look, we don’t have to do this now,” she says. “I just wanted to say hi and let you know that I’m in the UK.”
“You’re here?” I gasp. “Where?”
“London,” she says. “You don’t have to make a decision right here and now, you can take my number and think about it, but I’d really like to see you.”
My head is spinning. I’ve dreamed about this moment for so long, but now it’s finally happening I don’t know if it’s what I want. So much happened back then. So much has happened since—not least in the last couple of days alone—that I don’t feel able to trust anyone.
“I’m different now,” she says, as if sensing my reticence. “But I completely understand if it’s not something you want to do.”
“I just … I just need some time,” I say.
“Of course,” she says. “It’s a shock, I get that. But will you at least take my number?”
I sign to Shelley for a pen and paper and write down the number Jennifer gives me with a trembling hand.
“How … how long have you been here?” I ask, as my faculties slowly return and my suspicions set in.
“Just a few days,” she says.
A chill runs through me as I imagine her spending that time sitting in her hotel room, plotting my demise.
“How long do you intend on staying?” I ask.
“As long as it takes,” she says, unnerving me.
“Like I said, I need time,” I say, suddenly desperate to get her off the line.
“I understand, take as long as you need.”
I sit and stare at the phone long after I’ve hung up, lost in the past and breathless at its impact on my future.
24
The second address on my list is just a couple of miles away in Herne Bay, and as I drive there from Shelley’s, I decide to bite the bullet and call the number I have for Ness. As it rings, I wonder if I’m about to speak to the stranger who is wreaking havoc on my life.
“Hello?” she answers, her voice sounding so unlike the monster Jacob had portrayed her to be.
“Hi,” I say, allowing for the possibility that they might not be the same person. “It’s Vanessa, isn’t it?”
“Yes,” she says, hesitantly. “Who’s this?”
“I’m really sorry to bother you,” I say, ignoring her question. “But I’m trying to reach Michael. I keep trying his mobile, but he’s not answering.”
There’s a loaded silence at the other end.
“Is he with you, as I’d really like to talk to him.”
“Who is this?” she asks again.
“My name’s Naomi,” I say, waiting before going on.
“Chandler?” she asks, her voice high-pitched.
“Yes, has he mentioned me?”
“You’ve got a fucking nerve,” she hisses, sounding much more like the woman I imagined.
“I’m sorry, I—”
“Where is he?” she screeches. “What have you done to him?”
I don’t know what I expected, but this isn’t it.
“The police are on to you. They know what you’ve done.”
“Now, listen—” I start, before she cuts me off again.
“We were happy until you came along,” she yells. “We were finally getting back to how we used to be, but what chance did we have once you decided to get your claws into him?”
A strangled sob comes down the line.
“I only ever tried to help him,” I say. “Help you.”
“Help me?” she says, with a cynical laugh. “What, by having an affair with my husband?”
“Wait,” I say. “Whatever you think has been going on … you’re wrong. We have only ever had a professional relationship.”
“So why has he left me to live in your flat? Why were you in a hotel with him on the night he went missing?”
“Look,” I say, my panic rising. “He was a client, nothing more. I was only ever trying to help him.”
“He didn’t need your kind of help. He may have had a few anger problems, but we were working through them. It was as much my fault as it was his. I understood why he lashed out; he was frustrated, but he never meant anything by it.”
I’m trying to make sense of what she’s saying, but it’s like a square peg being driven into a round hole, battering my brain with an idea so inconceivable that it refuses to accept it.
I remember the cigarette burns he kept hidden with shirt sleeves, the bruises on his shins concealed by trousers.
I’d always believed him.
Do I still? I cannot even begin to comprehend why he would have made it all up. Or worse still, shared his horror stories as a victim, when in fact he was the perpetrator. But had I got it all wrong? Had he spun me a yarn? Was the man I knew as Jacob really that good an actor?
“None of this is making sense,” I say. “Are you at home? I’m coming to see you; we need to talk.”
“If you come anywhere near here, I’ll call the police,” she says, sounding genuinely scared.
“I’m not who you think I am.”
“You’re exactly who I think you are,” she says. “The blood in my husband’s flat is proof of that.”
“Blood?” I repeat.
My mouth dries up as I remember the spotlessly clean flat with no sign of any disturbance, least of all blood.
“It was all over the kitchen floor,” she says, making my stomach lurch. “And they’ve found your footprint in it.”
The line goes dead, but I’m outside the address where I know the only other Michael Talbot lives within a few minutes. I look through teary eyes at the perfect family home, its neat box hedging and white window shutters giving away none of the secrets it holds within.
The thought of what I’m about to walk into almost makes me run back to the car. If I wasn’t trembling so much, not trusting my legs to get me there, maybe I would. But it wouldn’t make my problems go away, it would only make them worse. I’d be relinquishing all control and I’d just be left waiting, wondering when the guillotine was going to fall.
I have to do this. I have to take back my life.
My palms are clammy as I stand at the front door, knowing that just a piece of wood separates me from my apparent nemesis. I clench and unclench my hands to distract from the sudden dryness in my mouth and swallow to ease the tickle in the back of my throat.
The chrome knocker glints in the sunlight and as I raise my arm slowly toward it, I can’t stop the sudden vision of my sister being on the other side of the door.
I shake my head in an effort to dislodge the preposterous thought as I lift the heavy ring, holding it high for just one second longer to ask myself if I’m definitely doing the right thing. You have no other choice, comes another voice from within, as I let go and watch it fall, like a hammer.
I wait for a dog to bark or the marching of feet down the hallway. But the house stands in complete silence. I ring once more, but still there’s nothing, and I peer through the front window between the slats of the wooden blinds, into a perfectly appointed living room with no signs of life.
The two sofas, one navy and one cream, look pristine, the scatter cushions expertly arranged and plumped. Horse & Hound magazines sit comfortably alongside Country Homes & Interiors, fanned out on the coffee table. And there’s an abundance of framed photos on the consoles in the alcoves on either side of the fireplace. I shield my eyes to get a better look, but the light from the sun throws shadows across both displays. Though in the larger frames, I can definitely make out three children against a white background, as if part of a studio shoot. Another shows a young man awkwardly posing in a sash and mortarboard, no doubt eager to throw it up in the air and leave everything it represents behind. I fervently scan for a photo that shows me who the parents in this family are, but they’re either too small to see or just don’t exist.
I go to the house next door, whose front room is a hive of activity with the TV on and a woodwind instrument being played badly.
A cheery-looking woman comes to the door, but the tea towel in her hands tells me she’s right in the middle of something.
“I’m sorry to trouble you,” I say. “But I was hoping to find the Talbots next door. I’ve been knocking, but there’s no response.”