The radio remained unplugged, the slightest creak of a floorboard or the sound of the cat stirring would startle me. When Tony wasn’t with me, sometimes I’d lock myself away from the world, turn on the burglar alarm and hide in the bedroom. I only left the house for doctors’ appointments, and it was Tony who drove me to them.
The mornings melted into afternoons and the days into weeks. All the time, I tortured myself by allowing Steven to dominate everything, waiting for him to make another appearance. He was in the food I ate, the wine I drank to get me to sleep, the face of every stranger who passed the house. That’s what scared me the most: that he knew so much about me, yet all I knew about him was his appearance.
The freedom I took for granted had been taken away from me. My actions had also placed Henry in harm’s way, as Steve knew where he lived. I was scared to visit him again and risk putting him in danger. I called the care home every day, and they’d hold the phone to his ear so he could hear Mummy’s voice, but it wasn’t even close to being the same.
Without my anchor, I was adrift and lacked purpose. One morning as I bathed, I wondered how it might have felt if I – instead of Charlotte – had been with David the day he’d stepped off the cliff. What had it been like for him to drown in the sea?
I held my head under the water and tried to imagine what it must have felt like to have had no control over anything: over the temperature of the water, the current dragging him deeper and further away from shore and the pain his body felt from the impact. I inhaled water through my nose and mouth and it hurt so badly and so quickly that I pulled myself out. But it felt like the only control I’d had over my life since before that night in the cottage. And unless I took charge of myself again, that was how it would remain.
This is not who you are. You’re a survivor. You need to pull yourself together.
I began thinking about all the people who were suffering without me to guide them. I thought about how Tony, the girls and Henry were coping as I hid from the world, and how Steven was winning.
I couldn’t let that happen any longer. I climbed out of the bath, took some deep breaths and felt the warmth of the sun on my face through the window. It was time for Laura’s return.
On the morning of my first day back at End of the Line, I took one last, lingering look at myself in the hallway mirror, adjusting my blouse and tweaking tendrils of hair to ensure they framed my face correctly. I’d chosen my wardrobe carefully: a smart pantsuit that said ‘survivor’ not ‘victim’.
Despite it being only thirty minutes to the office by foot, I took the car, emphasising to everyone – but without saying as such – my lingering fear of walking alone. I gathered myself when I arrived and opened the office door to Janine.
‘It’s nice to see you again,’ she began, and offered me a lukewarm handshake.
‘Thank you,’ I replied, as those colleagues not on the phone made their way towards me. As twitchy as each hug and peck on the cheek made me feel, I accepted them. I reassured them I was doing better and better by the day, and handling what had happened as best I could.
I hadn’t been allowed to go back to the charity immediately. Our job takes so much emotional strength that we all need to be at the top of our game to do our callers justice. But I’d persuaded the powers that be that what hadn’t killed me that night had made me stronger. And eventually, like when I’d returned from my cancer treatment, I’d been allowed to sit with Mary and listen in on her calls to help re-acclimatise myself to End of the Line’s environment.
Within a month I was back up to speed, and I began with three shifts a week. My confidence had returned – if Steven wanted me, I was ready for him. I’d brought myself out of hiding and hoped I could lure him out into the open. He had put so much effort into unmasking me, it was my turn to do the same to him.
I was living for his next call.
CHAPTER TWO
RYAN
It felt peculiar not speaking to Laura any more.
The time on the car stereo read 7.40 a.m., and at this time a few months ago I’d be putting together some notes ready for our conversation later in the day. Three times a week, ‘Steven’ had called her and I’d talk about his life in detail like she’d asked me to. There were some elements I’d made up and scribbled inside a notebook or typed into my phone as and when I thought of them. But when I spoke of his feelings of despair and hopelessness, they were more my words than his. I’d spent more time opening up to Laura than I had to my family and friends. It was like Stockholm syndrome, only I’d developed a psychological alliance with someone who wasn’t even holding me captive.
I was her project and she was mine; she wanted me dead and I wanted to stop her from ruining other people’s lives. And while I’d never let myself forget she had an evil streak in her a mile wide, I came close to understanding what my wife had seen in her. Laura was easy to talk to and we’d given each other a purpose of sorts. We’d developed a fucked-up, codependent relationship based on my lies and her sickness. Marriages have been built and survived on less.
But now there was nothing between us but silence. It was as if someone else in my life I’d relied on had died.
I parked in my allocated spot at work, grabbed my bag and an armful of folders from the back of the car, and made my way into the building. One folder slipped through my fingers and fell to the floor. I felt a twinge in my stomach as I went to pick it up. Having spent so long away from my job, and mostly in the company of my family or a handful of friends, I had to get used to being surrounded by a lot of people. But as the months passed, it gradually became easier.
My parents and Johnny were relieved that I’d turned a corner. I’d begun meeting friends for nights out, I was planning on rejoining my Sunday-league football team and I’d started going to the gym again. To them, I was returning to my old self. But they had no idea I’d buried the man they knew alongside Charlotte.
I walked the corridors with a fixed grin and nodded hello to familiar faces as I headed for my pigeonhole. Inside was a note from Bruce Atkinson requesting a catch-up before my working day began.
‘Sit, sit,’ he ushered, and pointed to the empty chair in front of the desk in his office.
‘Is there a problem?’ I asked.
‘No, no, not at all, Ryan,’ he replied. ‘I just wanted to check how things have been since your return. You’re in, what, your third month now?’
‘Fourth, but yes, it’s going well, I think. It’s nice to be back . . . It takes my mind off things.’
‘Yes, um, I’m sure after, um, what . . . happened with . . . your, um . . . wife . . . well, yes, I’m sure it has.’ Ebony in Human Resources must have told him to check up on me, because this conversation was way too awkward for him to have instigated off his own bat. But a little part of me was amused watching him squirm.
‘And how is everyone treating you?’ Bruce continued.