I walk back to Euston checking my phone, hoping for messages from him, but there are none.
There’s one from Frankie saying he’ll see me later. Something good, at least.
I catch the train.
* * *
7 p.m.
* * *
It is even worse than I expected.
Apparently Matthew had only just pulled into the drive when Sylvia Jones accosted him.
I wasn’t back. My own train had been delayed, thanks to emergency engineering works, and I’d missed the connecting bus between stations – by which time I was freezing. I rang Frankie for a lift and took him for coffee and a chat on the high street.
If only I’d gone straight home, I’d have been able to defend myself immediately, before the thought was planted in Matthew’s head – but I was listening to Frankie rabbit on about Jenna, watching him discover love for the first time with some wonderment. I felt really happy for him, but I was conscious I still hadn’t heard from Matthew since those strange texts first thing.
The phone finally rang as Frank drove us home.
‘Hi, darlin’.’ I felt a flood of relief when I saw Matthew’s name. ‘Are you back? I’m looking—’
‘Yes, I’m at Malum.’ Matthew was curt. ‘Where are you?’
‘We’re just round the corner.’
His tone wasn’t right.
‘Well get a move on.’ He hung up.
‘What?’ Frankie clocked my face. ‘More trouble?’
‘I’m not sure.’ I stared at the road before us.
Oh God, I prayed not.
When Frank pulled up outside the house, I couldn’t bear to look at him.
‘Give us a minute, would you, lovey? I just – I need to talk to him…’
‘Really?’
‘Yeah – and I don’t want you to worry, so just let me do it on my own.’
‘Fine.’ He shrugged. ‘I’ll go round to George’s.’
‘You don’t need to go…’
But he said he’d prefer to.
Thank God Frankie’s made friends quicker than I have, I thought, watching his tail lights disappear round the corner.
As quickly, apparently, as I had made enemies.
I didn’t bother with any ‘Hi, honey, I’m home’ jokes. I was the joke now I feared. ‘Matt?’ I called gingerly.
‘In here.’
How much had changed in four months. Ruefully I followed the voice.
‘Have you been going through my emails?’ Matthew asked as soon as I walked into the kitchen. No ‘hello’, no greeting at all – he barely even looked up.
‘Oh!’ Should I lie? But what was the point? I’d left the laptop in the kitchen, where it glared balefully from the table, its owner looking no less malevolent. ‘Well not going through them exactly – I just…’
‘What?’
‘I just wanted to know who sent you that – thing – about me.’ I moved towards Matthew hopefully.
He was unshaven, in jeans and a T-shirt, not quite as svelte as when we’d married, his stubble blue-black, his face dark with anger. ‘Not going through them?’
‘I just wanted to see if I recognised the email address.’
‘But I told you that I didn’t.’
‘I just thought that I might though. I am sorry – but that’s all it was really.’
‘All?’ He put great weight on the word. ‘That’s all?’
‘Yes. I mean I didn’t look at anything else…’ But that was a lie. ‘Why are you so angry? What’s happened now?’
‘Apart from you snooping in my private affairs?’ He looked at me. My first thought was how sickeningly handsome he was, despite his scowl; my second was a rare flash of anger.
‘I wasn’t snooping!’ I was vehement. ‘It was just the one email, and it was about me – and…’ I had to bite the bullet again. ‘And you’ve not been honest yourself.’
‘What? Why?’
‘Who did you take with you? To Brussels. Did… did Kaye go?’
‘Kaye?’ He looked at me like I was totally mad. ‘Don’t be so fucking stupid.’
‘I’m not. I saw another passport number…’
‘Yes. Yours.’
‘What?’
‘Yours, I said.’
‘I-It’s not mine,’ I stammered.
He shoved the laptop towards me. ‘Why don’t you check?’
‘I did. Mine ends with a twenty-six, not…’
He opened his briefcase and threw four passports across the table at me. ‘Check it then.’
I picked them up. One of them was mine, it seemed.
‘When I booked it, I booked it for all four of us. But it’s all been so fucking awful, I just couldn’t take you too. You knew that.’
‘Sorry,’ I whispered.
‘You should have believed me.’ He slammed the laptop lid.
I didn’t know what to say, but I saw the bottle of whisky and box of Belgian chocolates on the side, very fancy, wrapped in gold ribbons, and I contemplated a joke about my chocolate addiction – anything to ease the tension. Only the look on Matthew’s face suggested jokes would be unwise.
‘Matthew, please. Try and understand. I had to look on your computer. I wouldn’t normally have, but I needed to know,’ I pleaded. ‘I feel like someone’s trying to…’
‘Trying to what?’