Hayden is yelling at me to stop. I turn my head and see Dr. Schur talking to the receptionist. She picks up the phone.
I keep moving. Running.
They know! They know! They know!
MEGHAN
* * *
The bastard! The fucking bastard!
Jack had an affair. He took another woman into our bed, into many beds, or on the floor, or sofa, or kitchen bench. I cannot help but picture him fucking Rhea Bowden in all those houses in South London with a FOR SALE sign out front. It makes me feel physically sick.
Every time I push the images away, they come back again. Of all the women he could have slept with he chose a blowsy, painted, bleached estate agent who looks like a cougar. She’s older than I am. The fucking bastard!
He’s been calling constantly, leaving messages, which I delete without listening to. I tell my parents not to answer their phones. Later, I hear Jack knock on the door and my father tells him to “give her some space.” Jack jams his shoe in the closing door and my father raises his voice.
I hate him. I hate him so much that I never want to see or speak to him again. That’s what I tell myself and that’s what I believe. I am not hysterical. I am completely calm. I am rehearsing what I’m going to say when I tell him our marriage is over and I want a divorce. Jack will be numb. He will be distraught. He will beg for one more chance.
At the same time, I’m torn between anger and relief, loving and hating—a perilous dichotomy—because I am not innocent. I slept with Simon. A one-night stand that will always stand. Five minutes of drunken passion, a moment of weakness, my act of infidelity. Jack has been seeing Rhea Bowden for months. Surely his betrayal is bigger than mine. Worse.
The newspapers say the affair ended after someone shoved a note beneath the wiper blades on Jack’s car, warning him to stop fooling around. Clearly one person knew that he was married. It could have been one of my girlfriends. I cringe at that thought. My friends are notorious gossips, incapable of keeping a confidence, particularly a scandalous piece of news like this one. One would have told the others, who would have passed it on, until everyone in Barnes knew except me.
How they must have whispered behind my back, pointing me out and smiling conspiratorially. Real friends tell each other. Real friends help you bury bodies. Real friends bring their own shovel and don’t ask questions.
Maybe I deserve this, but I didn’t mean to sleep with Simon or get pregnant again. Jack made a conscious choice to cheat on me. The stupid, weak, pathetic bastard deserves to be lonely. These are the thoughts that keep bouncing around my head as though I’m forewoman of a jury, considering the evidence, trying to reach a verdict.
I’m alone in my childhood bedroom, which has been redecorated since those days, but I remember which posters once covered the walls and where I positioned my bed so I could lie awake at night looking at the rooftops on the far side of the road. I had a desk in the corner, which had a secret shelf behind the second drawer where I used to hide my cigarettes and my first joint, which I was too scared to smoke.
My mind drifts forward. I remember falling pregnant with Lucy, how excited Jack and I were. How we spent long hours talking about all the things we were going to do. On the night before she was born (she was ten days overdue) we shared a curry and made love to see if we could bring on my labor.
After the birth, I slept for hours. I remember waking up and seeing Jack holding Lucy in his arms, staring at this perfect little model of a person we had just made. He had taken her to the window of my private room and was pointing things out. “That’s a double-decker bus,” he said. “I’ll take you on a bus one day. You’ll love London.”
Next I remember when Jack’s father died. We went to the hospice and sat beside his bed and watched the end approach with each breath. That was the day I realized that life is a series of good-byes and I had to make sure that I didn’t waste my days or use them up too soon.
Two nights ago, Jack delivered a speech in the church that had me in tears. He said he loved me and that I made him stronger. I must believe that’s still true. I’m angry with him. I want to punish him. I want to pinch his skin until he yells. I want him to know what he’s done, but I don’t want to say good-bye, I don’t want to lose him.
The doorbell chimes. My father answers and I hear his footsteps on the stairs. A gentle knock.
“The police are here,” he says, his voice full of concern. “They’ve been trying to call you.”
DCS MacAteer is standing in the hallway alongside Cyrus Haven. They haven’t bothered taking off their overcoats. My heart skips. MacAteer suggests I sit down.
“No, tell me.”
“There’s been a development,” he says. “We may know the identity of the kidnapper.”
“Is it Rhea Bowden?”
Has she been arrested? I hope they marched her into the station in front of the cameras. Where’s Ben?
MacAteer asks, “Do you know a woman by the name of Agatha Fyfle?”
“What? Yes.”
He begins explaining, but I interrupt. “It can’t be Agatha. She had her baby before me.”
Neither man responds.
“How did you meet her?” asks the detective.
“She worked at a local supermarket—the one opposite the Green. We did yoga classes.”
“She was pregnant?”
“Yes.”
“Did she ever come to your house?”
“Once. I gave her some baby clothes.”
“Could she have been faking her pregnancy?” asks Cyrus.
“No. She had her baby before me. I saw the photographs.”
“Do you still have them?” asks MacAteer.
“They’re on my phone.”
I scroll through my emails and show them the images of Agatha holding her baby. Cyrus studies them closely.
“These could have been taken anywhere.”
“She had a home birth,” I say.
“These could have been staged,” says MacAteer.
“How? She’s holding a baby.”
“Her upstairs neighbor gave birth a month ago. She had a baby girl.”
I shake my head, trying to think clearly. Agatha came to my house. Both of us got drenched in the rain. She used my bathroom, borrowed my clothes. I didn’t see her get undressed.
MacAteer continues. “Agatha Fyfle visited a doctor in North London this morning. She didn’t have any of the relevant paperwork for her baby and couldn’t give the doctor the details of her health visitor, or her midwife.”
“She said her mother was with her.”
“Agatha’s mother has been in Spain since early October,” says Cyrus. “I spoke to her an hour ago. The first she knew of Agatha’s baby was when she spoke to her daughter’s fiancé, Hayden Cole, a week ago.”
How could her mother not know?
I go back over the details. Agatha came to the candlelight vigil. She had a baby with her. I touched his head. Surely I would have known if it was Ben. I would have recognized him. In the same breath I hear myself saying, “You have to arrest her.”
“We have to be certain,” says MacAteer.
“But if you arrest her, she’ll have to bring the baby. You can do a DNA test.”