RACHEL

TUESDAY, JULY 16, 2013
MORNING
I’m on the 8:04, but I’m not going into London. I’mgoing to Witney instead. I’m hoping that being therewill jog my memory, that I’ll get to the station andI’ll see everything clearly, I’ll know. I don’t hold outmuch hope, but there is nothing else I can do. Ican’t call Tom. I’m too ashamed, and in any case,he’s made it clear: he wants nothing more to dowith me.
Megan is still missing; she’s been gone more thansixty hours now, and the story is becoming nationalnews. It was on the BBC website and Daily Mailthis morning; there were a few snippets mentioning iton other sites, too.
I printed out both the BBC and Daily Mail stories;I have them with me. From them I have gleaned thefollowing:
Megan and Scott argued on Saturday evening. Aneighbour reported hearing raised voices. Scottadmitted that they’d argued and said that he believedhis wife had gone to spend the night with a friend,Tara Epstein, who lives in Corly.
Megan never got to Tara’s house. Tara says the lasttime she saw Megan was on Friday afternoon attheir Pilates class. (I knew Megan would do Pilates.)According to Ms. Epstein, “She seemed fine, normal.
She was in a good mood, she was talking aboutdoing something special for her thirtieth birthday nextmonth.”
Megan was seen by one witness walking towardsWitney train station at around seven fifteen onSaturday evening.
Megan has no family in the area. Both her parentsare deceased.
Megan is unemployed. She used to run a small artgallery in Witney, but it closed down in April lastyear. (I knew Megan would be arty.)Scott is a self-employed IT consultant. (I can’tbloody believe Scott is an IT consultant.)Megan and Scott have been married for threeyears; they have been living in the house onBlenheim Road since January 2012.
According to the Daily Mail, their house is worthfour hundred thousand pounds.
Reading this, I know that things look bad for Scott.
Not just because of the argument, either; it’s just theway things are: when something bad happens to awoman, the police look at the husband or theboyfriend first. However, in this case, the police don’thave all the facts. They’re only looking at thehusband, presumably because they don’t know aboutthe boyfriend.
It could be that I am the only person who knowsthat the boyfriend exists.
I scrabble around in my bag for a scrap of paper.
On the back of a card slip for two bottles of wine, Iwrite down a list of most likely possible explanationsfor the disappearance of Megan Hipwell:
She has run off with her boyfriend, who from hereon in, I will refer to as B.
B has harmed her.
Scott has harmed her.
She has simply left her husband and gone to liveelsewhere.
Someone other than B or Scott has harmed her.
I think the first possibility is most likely, and four isa strong contender, too, because Megan is anindependent, wilful woman, I’m sure of it. And if shewere having an affair, she might need to get away toclear her head, mightn’t she? Five does not seemespecially likely, since murder by a stranger isn’t allthat common.
The bump on my head is throbbing, and I can’tstop thinking about the argument I saw, or imagined,or dreamed about, on Saturday night. As we passMegan and Scott’s house, I look up. I can hear theblood pulsing in my head. I feel excited. I feel afraid.
The windows of number fifteen, reflecting morningsunshine, look like sightless eyes.
EVENING
I’m just settling into my seat when my phone rings.
It’s Cathy. I let it go to voice mail.
She leaves a message: “Hi, Rachel, just phoning tomake sure you’re OK.” She’s worried about me,because of the thing with the taxi. “I just wanted tosay that I’m sorry, you know, about the other day,what I said about moving out. I shouldn’t have. Ioverreacted. You can stay as long as you want to.”
There’s a long pause, and then she says, “Give me aring, OK? And come straight home, Rach, don’t goto the pub.”
I don’t intend to. I wanted a drink at lunchtime; Iwas desperate for one after what happened inWitney this morning. I didn’t have one, though,because I had to keep a clear head. It’s been a longtime since I’ve had anything worth keeping a clearhead for.
It was so strange, this morning, my trip to Witney. Ifelt as though I hadn’t been there in ages, althoughof course it’s only been a few days. It may as wellhave been a completely different place, though, adifferent station in a different town. I was a differentperson than the one who went there on Saturdaynight. Today I was stiff and sober, hyperaware of thenoise and the light and fear of discovery.
I was trespassing. That’s what it felt like thismorning, because it’s their territory now, it’s Tomand Anna’s and Scott and Megan’s. I’m the outsider,I don’t belong there, and yet everything is so familiarto me. Down the concrete steps at the station, rightpast the newspaper kiosk into Roseberry Avenue, halfa block to the end of the T-junction, to the right thearchway leading to a dank pedestrian underpassbeneath the track, and to the left Blenheim Road,narrow and tree-lined, flanked with its handsomeVictorian terraces. It feels like coming home—not justto any home, but a childhood home, a place leftbehind a lifetime ago; it’s the familiarity of walking upstairs and knowing exactly which one is going tocreak.
The familiarity isn’t just in my head, it’s in mybones; it’s muscle memory. This morning, as Iwalked past the blackened tunnel mouth, theentrance to the underpass, my pace quickened. Ididn’t have to think about it because I always walkeda little faster on that section. Every night, cominghome, especially in winter, I used to pick up thepace, glancing quickly to the right, just to make sure.
There was never anyone there—not on any of thosenights and not today—and yet I stopped dead as Ilooked into the darkness this morning, because Icould suddenly see myself. I could see myself a fewmetres in, slumped against the wall, my head in myhands, and both head and hands smeared withblood.
My heart thudding in my chest, I stood there,morning commuters stepping around me as theycontinued on their way to the station, one or twoturning to look at me as they passed, as I stoodstock-still. I didn’t know—don’t know—if it was real.
Why would I have gone into the underpass? Whatreason would I have had to go down there, whereit’s dark and damp and stinks of piss?
I turned around and headed back to the station. Ididn’t want to be there any longer; I didn’t want togo to Scott and Megan’s front door. I wanted to getaway from there. Something bad happened there, Iknow it did.
I paid for my ticket and walked quickly up thestation steps to the other side of the platform, and asI did it came to me again in a flash: not theunderpass this time, but the steps; stumbling on thesteps and a man taking my arm, helping me up. Theman from the train, with the reddish hair. I couldsee him, a vague picture but no dialogue. I couldremember laughing—at myself, or at something hesaid. He was nice to me, I’m sure of it. Almost sure.
Something bad happened, but I don’t think it hadanything to do with him.
I got on the train and went into London. I went tothe library and sat at a computer terminal, lookingfor stories about Megan. There was a short piece onthe Telegraph website that said that “a man in histhirties is helping police with their inquiries.” Scott,presumably. I can’t believe he would have hurt her. Iknow that he wouldn’t. I’ve seen them together; Iknow what they’re like together. They gave aCrimestoppers number, too, which you can ring ifyou have information. I’m going to call it on the wayhome, from a pay phone. I’m going to tell themabout B, about what I saw.
My phone rings just as we’re getting into Ashbury.
It’s Cathy again. Poor girl, she really is worried aboutme.
“Rach? Are you on the train? Are you on your wayhome?” She sounds anxious.
“Yes, I’m on my way,” I tell her. “I’ll be fifteenminutes.”
“The police are here, Rachel,” she says, and myentire body goes cold. “They want to talk to you.”
WEDNESDAY, JULY 17, 2013
MORNING
Megan is still missing, and I have lied—repeatedly—tothe police.
I was in a panic by the time I got back to the flatlast night. I tried to convince myself that they’d cometo see me about my accident with the taxi, but thatdidn’t make sense. I’d spoken to police at thescene—it was clearly my fault. It had to be somethingto do with Saturday night. I must have donesomething. I must have committed some terrible actand blacked it out.
I know it sounds unlikely. What could I have done?
Gone to Blenheim Road, attacked Megan Hipwell,disposed of her body somewhere and then forgottenall about it? It sounds ridiculous. It is ridiculous. ButI know something happened on Saturday. I knew itwhen I looked into that dark tunnel under therailway line, my blood turning to ice water in myveins.
Blackouts happen, and it isn’t just a matter of beinga bit hazy about getting home from the club orforgetting what it was that was so funny when youwere chatting in the pub. It’s different. Total black;hours lost, never to be retrieved.
Tom bought me a book about it. Not very romantic,but he was tired of listening to me tell him howsorry I was in the morning when I didn’t even knowwhat I was sorry for. I think he wanted me to seethe damage I was doing, the kind of things I mightbe capable of. It was written by a doctor, but I’ve noidea whether it was accurate: the author claimed thatblacking out wasn’t simply a matter of forgetting whathad happened, but having no memories to forget inthe first place. His theory was that you get into astate where your brain no longer makes short-termmemories. And while you’re there, in deepest black,you don’t behave as you usually would, becauseyou’re simply reacting to the very last thing that youthink happened, because—since you aren’t makingmemories—you might not actually know what the lastthing that happened really was. He had anecdotes,too, cautionary tales for the blacked-out drinker:
There was a guy in New Jersey who got drunk at afourth of July party. Afterwards, he got into his car,drove several miles in the wrong direction on themotorway and ploughed into a van carrying sevenpeople. The van burst into flames and six peopledied. The drunk guy was fine. They always are. Hehad no memory of getting into his car.
There was another man, in New York this time,who left a bar, drove to the house he’d grown upin, stabbed its occupants to death, took off all hisclothes, got back into his car, drove home and wentto bed. He got up the next morning feeling terrible,wondering where his clothes were and how he’d gothome, but it wasn’t until the police came to get himthat he discovered he had brutally slain two peoplefor no apparent reason whatsoever.
So it sound ridiculous, but it’s not impossible, andby the time I got home last night I had convincedmyself that I was in some way involved in Megan’sdisappearance.
The police officers were sitting on the sofa in theliving room, a fortysomething man in plain clothesand a younger one in uniform with acne on hisneck. Cathy was standing next to the window,wringing her hands. She looked terrified. Thepolicemen got up. The plainclothes one, very tall andslightly stooped, shook my hand and introducedhimself as Detective Inspector Gaskill. He told me theother officer’s name as well, but I don’t remember it.
I wasn’t concentrating. I was barely breathing.
“What’s this about?” I barked at them. “Hassomething happened? Is it my mother? Is it Tom?”
“Everyone’s all right, Ms. Watson, we just need totalk to you about what you did on Saturdayevening,” Gaskill said. It’s the sort of thing they sayon television; it didn’t seem real. They want to knowwhat I did on Saturday evening. What the fuck did Ido on Saturday evening?
“I need to sit down,” I said, and the detectivemotioned for me to take his place on the sofa, nextto Neck Acne. Cathy was shifting from one foot toanother, chewing on her lower lip. She looked frantic.
“Are you all right, Ms. Watson?” Gaskill asked me.
He motioned to the cut above my eye.
“I was knocked down by a taxi,” I said. “Yesterdayafternoon, in London. I went to the hospital. You cancheck.”
“OK,” he said, with a slight shake of his head. “So.
Saturday evening?”
“I went to Witney,” I said, trying to keep the waverout of my voice.
“To do what?”
Neck Acne had a notebook out, pencil raised.
“I wanted to see my husband,” I said.
“Oh, Rachel,” Cathy said.
The detective ignored her. “Your husband?” he said.
“You mean your ex-husband? Tom Watson?” Yes, Istill bear his name. It was just more convenient. Ididn’t have to change my credit cards, email address,get a new passport, things like that.
“That’s right. I wanted to see him, but then Idecided that it wasn’t a good idea, so I came home.”
“What time was this?” Gaskill’s voice was even, hisface completely blank. His lips barely moved when hespoke. I could hear the scratch of Neck Acne’s pencilon paper, I could hear the blood pounding in myears.
“It was?.?.?. um?.?.?. I think it was around six thirty. Imean, I think I got the train at around six o’clock.”
“And you came home?.?.?.??”
“Maybe seven thirty?” I glanced up and caughtCathy’s eye and I could see from the look on herface that she knew I was lying. “Maybe a bit laterthan that. Maybe it was closer to eight. Yes, actually,I remember now—I think I got home just aftereight.” I could feel the colour rising to my cheeks; ifthis man didn’t know I was lying then, he didn’tdeserve to be on the police force.
The detective turned around, grabbed one of thechairs pushed under the table in the corner andpulled it towards him in a swift, almost violentmovement. He placed it directly opposite me, acouple of feet away. He sat down, his hands on hisknees, head cocked to one side. “OK,” he said. “Soyou left at around six, meaning you’d be in Witneyby six thirty. And you were back here around eight,which means you must have left Witney at aroundseven thirty. Does that sound about right?”
“Yes, that seems right,” I said, that wobble back inmy voice, betraying me. In a second or two he wasgoing to ask me what I’d been doing for an hour,and I had no answer to give him.
“And you didn’t actually go to see your ex-husband.
So what did you do during that hour in Witney?”
“I walked around for a bit.”
He waited, to see if I was going to elaborate. Ithought about telling him I went to a pub, but thatwould be stupid—that’s verifiable. He’d ask me whichpub, he’d ask me whether I’d spoken to anyone. AsI was thinking about what I should tell him, I realizedthat I hadn’t actually thought to ask him to explainwhy he wanted to know where I was on Saturdayevening, and that that in itself must have seemedodd. That must have made me look guilty ofsomething.
“Did you speak to anyone?” he asked me, readingmy mind. “Go into any shops, bars?.?.?.??”
“I spoke to a man in the station!” I blurted this outloudly, triumphantly almost, as though it meantsomething. “Why do you need to know this? What isgoing on?”
Detective Inspector Gaskill leaned back in the chair.
“You may have heard that a woman from Witney—awoman who lives on Blenheim Road, just a fewdoors along from your ex-husband—is missing. Wehave been going door-to-door, asking people if theyremember seeing her that night, or if they rememberseeing or hearing anything unusual. And during thecourse of our enquiries, your name came up.” He fellsilent for a bit, letting this sink in. “You were seenon Blenheim Road that evening, around the time thatMrs. Hipwell, the missing woman, left her home. Mrs.
Anna Watson told us that she saw you in the street,near Mrs. Hipwell’s home, not very far from her ownproperty. She said that you were acting strangely,and that she was worried. So worried, in fact, thatshe considered calling the police.”
My heart was fluttering like a trapped bird. Icouldn’t speak, because all I could see at thatmoment was myself, slouched in the underpass, bloodon my hands. Blood on my hands. Mine, surely? Ithad to be mine. I looked up at Gaskill, saw his eyeson mine and knew that I had to say somethingquickly to stop him reading my mind. “I didn’t doanything.” I said. “I didn’t. I just?.?.?. I just wanted tosee my husband?.?.?.”
“Your ex-husband,” Gaskill corrected me again. Hepulled a photograph out of his jacket pocket andshowed it to me. It was a picture of Megan. “Didyou see this woman on Saturday night?” he asked. Istared at it for a long time. It felt so surreal havingher presented to me like that, the perfect blonde I’dwatched, whose life I’d constructed and deconstructedin my head. It was a close-up head shot, aprofessional job. Her features were a little heavierthan I’d imagined, not quite so fine as those of theJess in my head. “Ms. Watson? Did you see her?”
I didn’t know if I’d seen her. I honestly didn’tknow. I still don’t.
“I don’t think so,” I said.
“You don’t think so? So you might have seen her?”
“I?.?.?. I’m not sure.”
“Had you been drinking on Saturday evening?” heasked. “Before you went to Witney, had you beendrinking?”
The heat came rushing back to my face. “Yes,” Isaid.
“Mrs. Watson—Anna Watson—said that she thoughtyou were drunk when she saw you outside herhome. Were you drunk?”
“No,” I said, keeping my eyes firmly on the detectiveso that I didn’t catch Cathy’s eye. “I’d had a coupleof drinks in the afternoon, but I wasn’t drunk.”
Gaskill sighed. He seemed disappointed in me. Heglanced over at Neck Acne, then back at me. Slowly,deliberately, he got to his feet and pushed the chairback to its position under the table. “If youremember anything about Saturday night, anythingthat might be helpful to us, would you please callme?” he said, handing me a business card.
As Gaskill nodded sombrely at Cathy, preparing toleave, I slumped back into the sofa. I could feel myheart rate starting to slow, and then it raced again asI heard him ask me, “You work in public relations, isthat correct? Huntingdon Whitely?”
“That’s right,” I said. “Huntingdon Whitely.”
He is going to check, and he is going to know Ilied. I can’t let him find out for himself, I have to tellhim.
So that’s what I’m going to do this morning. I’mgoing to go round to the police station to comeclean. I’m going to tell him everything: that I lost myjob months ago, that I was very drunk on Saturdaynight and I have no idea what time I came home.
I’m going to say what I should have said last night:
that he’s looking in the wrong direction. I’m going totell him that I believe Megan Hipwell was having anaffair.
EVENINGThe police think I’m a rubbernecker. They think I’ma stalker, a nutcase, mentally unstable. I should neverhave gone to the police station. I’ve made my ownsituation worse and I don’t think I’ve helped Scott,which was the reason I went there in the first place.
He needs my help, because it’s obvious the police willsuspect that he’s done something to her, and I knowit isn’t true, because I know him. I really feel that,crazy as it sounds. I’ve seen the way he is with her.
He couldn’t hurt her.
OK, so helping Scott was not my sole reason forgoing to the police. There was the matter of the lie,which needed sorting out. The lie about my workingfor Huntingdon Whitely.
It took me ages to get up the courage to go intothe station. I was on the verge of turning back andgoing home a dozen times, but eventually I went in.
I asked the desk sergeant if I could speak toDetective Inspector Gaskill, and he showed me to astuffy waiting room, where I sat for over an houruntil someone came to get me. By that time I wassweating and trembling like a woman on her way tothe scaffold. I was shown into another room, smallerand stuffier still, windowless and airless. I was leftthere alone for a further ten minutes before Gaskilland a woman, also in plain clothes, turned up. Gaskillgreeted me politely; he didn’t seem surprised to seeme. He introduced his companion as DetectiveSergeant Riley. She is younger than I am, tall, slim,dark-haired, pretty in a sharp-featured, vulpine sort ofway. She did not return my smile.
We all sat down and nobody said anything; theyjust looked at me expectantly.
“I remembered the man,” I said. “I told you therewas a man at the station. I can describe him.” Rileyraised her eyebrows ever so slightly and shifted inher seat. “He was about medium height, mediumbuild, reddish hair. I slipped on the steps and hecaught my arm.” Gaskill leaned forward, his elbowson the table, hands clasped together in front of hismouth. “He was wearing?.?.?. I think he was wearinga blue shirt.”
This is not actually true. I do remember a man,and I’m pretty sure he had reddish hair, and I thinkthat he smiled at me, or smirked at me, when I wason the train. I think that he got off at Witney, and Ithink he might have spoken to me. It’s possible Imight have slipped on the steps. I have a memory ofit, but I can’t tell whether the memory belongs toSaturday night or to another time. There have beenmany slips, on many staircases. I have no idea whathe was wearing.
The detectives were not impressed with my tale.
Riley gave an almost imperceptible shake of her head.
Gaskill unclasped his hands and spread them out,palms upwards, in front of him. “OK. Is that reallywhat you came here to tell me, Ms. Watson?” heasked. There was no anger in his tone, he soundedalmost encouraging. I wished that Riley would goaway. I could talk to him; I could trust him.
“I don’t work for Huntingdon Whitely any longer,” Isaid.
“Oh.” He leaned back in his seat, looking moreinterested.
“I left three months ago. My flatmate—well, she’s mylandlady, really—I haven’t told her. I’m trying to findanother job. I didn’t want her to know because Ithought she would worry about the rent. I havesome money. I can pay my rent, but?.?.?. Anyway, Ilied to you yesterday about my job and I apologizefor that.”
Riley leaned forward and gave me an insinceresmile. “I see. You no longer work for HuntingdonWhitely. You don’t work for anyone, is that right?
You’re unemployed?” I nodded. “OK. So?.?.?. you’renot registered to collect unemployment benefits,nothing like that?”
“No.”
“And?.?.?. your flatmate, she hasn’t noticed that youdon’t go to work every day?”
“I do. I mean, I don’t go to the office, but I go intoLondon, the way I used to, at the same time andeverything, so that she?.?.?. so that she won’t know.”
Riley glanced at Gaskill; he kept his eyes on my face,the hint of a frown between his eyes. “It sounds odd,I know?.?.?.” I said, and I tailed off then, because itdoesn’t just sound odd, it sounds insane when yousay it out loud.
“Right. So, you pretend to go to work every day?”
Riley asked me, her brow knitted, too, as though shewere concerned about me. As though she thought Iwas completely deranged. I didn’t speak or nod ordo anything, I kept silent. “Can I ask why you leftyour job, Ms. Watson?”
There was no point in lying. If they hadn’t intendedto check out my employment record before thisconversation, they bloody well would now. “I wasfired,” I said.
“You were dismissed,” Riley said, a note ofsatisfaction in her voice. It was obviously the answershe’d anticipated. “Why was that?”
I gave a little sigh and appealed to Gaskill. “Is thisreally important? Does it matter why I left my job?”
Gaskill didn’t say anything, he was consulting somenotes that Riley had pushed in front of him, but hedid give the slightest shake of his head. Rileychanged tack.
“Ms. Watson, I wanted to ask you about Saturdaynight.”
I glanced at Gaskill—we’ve already had thisconversation—but he wasn’t looking at me. “Allright,” I said. I kept raising my hand to my scalp,worrying at my injury. I couldn’t stop myself.
“Tell me why you went to Blenheim Road onSaturday night. Why did you want to speak to yourex-husband?”
“I don’t really think that’s any of your business,” Isaid, and then, quickly, before she had time to sayanything else, “Would it be possible to have a glassof water?”
Gaskill got to his feet and left the room, whichwasn’t really the outcome I was hoping for. Rileydidn’t say a word; she just kept looking at me, thetrace of a smile still on her lips. I couldn’t hold hergaze, I looked at the table, I let my eyes wanderaround the room. I knew this was a tactic: she wasremaining silent so that I would become souncomfortable that I had to say something, even if Ididn’t really want to. “I had some things I needed todiscuss with him,” I said. “Private matters.” I soundedpompous and ridiculous.
Riley sighed. I bit my lip, determined not to speakuntil Gaskill came back into the room. The momenthe returned, placing a glass of cloudy water in frontof me, Riley spoke.
“Private matters?” she prompted.
“That’s right.”
Riley and Gaskill exchanged a look, I wasn’t sure ifit was irritation or amusement. I could taste thesweat on my upper lip. I took a sip of water; ittasted stale. Gaskill shuffled the papers in front ofhim and then pushed them aside, as though he wasdone with them, or as though whatever was in themdidn’t interest him all that much.
“Ms. Watson, your?.?.?. er?.?.?. your ex-husband’scurrent wife, Mrs. Anna Watson, has raised concernsabout you. She told us that you have been botheringher, bothering her husband, that you have gone tothe house uninvited, that on one occasion?.?.?.” Gaskillglanced back at his notes, but Riley interrupted.
“On one occasion you broke into Mr. and Mrs.
Watson’s home and took their child, their newbornbaby.”
A black hole opened up in the centre of the roomand swallowed me. “That is not true!” I said. “Ididn’t take?.?.?. It didn’t happen like that, that’swrong. I didn’t?.?.?. I didn’t take her.”
I got very upset then, I started to shake and cry, Isaid I wanted to leave. Riley pushed her chair backand got to her feet, shrugged at Gaskill and left theroom. Gaskill handed me a Kleenex.
“You can leave any time you like, Ms. Watson. Youcame here to talk to us.” He smiled at me then, anapologetic sort of smile. I liked him in that moment, Iwanted to take his hand and squeeze it, but I didn’t,because that would have been weird. “I think youhave more to tell me,” he said, and I liked him evenmore for saying “tell me” rather than “tell us.”
“Perhaps,” he said, getting to his feet and usheringme towards the door, “you would like to take abreak, stretch your legs, get yourself something toeat. Then when you’re ready, come back, and youcan tell me everything.”
I was planning to just forget the whole thing and gohome. I was walking back towards the train station,ready to turn my back on the whole thing. Then Ithought about the train journey, about goingbackwards and forwards on that line, past thehouse—Megan and Scott’s house—every day. What ifthey never found her? I was going to wonderforever—and I understand that this is not very likely,but even so—whether my saying something mighthave helped her. What if Scott was accused ofharming her just because they never knew about B?
What if she was at B’s house right now, tied up inthe basement, hurt and bleeding, or buried in thegarden?
I did as Gaskill said, I bought a ham and cheesesandwich and a bottle of water from a corner shopand took it to Witney’s only park, a rather sorry littlepatch of land surrounded by 1930s houses and givenover almost entirely to an asphalted playground. I saton a bench at the edge of this space, watchingmothers and childminders scolding their charges foreating sand out of the pit. I used to dream of this, afew years back. I dreamed of coming here—not toeat ham and cheese sandwiches in between policeinterviews, obviously. I dreamed of coming here withmy own baby. I thought about the buggy I wouldbuy, all the time I would spend in Trotters and atthe Early Learning Centre sizing up adorable outfitsand educational toys. I thought about how I would sithere, bouncing my own bundle of joy on my lap.
It didn’t happen. No doctor has been able toexplain to me why I can’t get pregnant. I’m youngenough, fit enough, I wasn’t drinking heavily whenwe were trying. My husband’s sperm was active andplentiful. It just didn’t happen. I didn’t suffer theagony of miscarriage, I just didn’t get pregnant. Wedid one round of IVF, which was all we could afford.
It was, as everyone had warned us it would be,unpleasant and unsuccessful. Nobody warned me itwould break us. But it did. Or rather, it broke me,and then I broke us.
The thing about being barren is that you’re notallowed to get away from it. Not when you’re in yourthirties. My friends were having children, friends offriends were having children, pregnancy and birthand first birthday parties were everywhere. I wasasked about it all the time. My mother, our friends,colleagues at work. When was it going to be myturn? At some point our childlessness became anacceptable topic of Sunday-lunch conversation, notjust between Tom and me, but more generally. Whatwe were trying, what we should be doing, do youreally think you should be having a second glass ofwine? I was still young, there was still plenty of time,but failure cloaked me like a mantle, it overwhelmedme, dragged me under, and I gave up hope. At thetime, I resented the fact that it was always seen asmy fault, that I was the one letting the side down.
But as the speed with which he managed toimpregnate Anna demonstrates, there was never anyproblem with Tom’s virility. I was wrong to suggestthat we should share the blame; it was all down tome.
Lara, my best friend since university, had twochildren in two years: a boy first and then a girl. Ididn’t like them. I didn’t want to hear anything aboutthem. I didn’t want to be near them. Lara stoppedspeaking to me after a while. There was a girl atwork who told me—casually, as though she weretalking about an appendectomy or a wisdom-toothextraction—that she’d recently had an abortion, amedical one, and it was so much less traumatic thanthe surgical one she’d had when she was atuniversity. I couldn’t speak to her after that, I couldbarely look at her. Things became awkward in theoffice; people noticed.
Tom didn’t feel the way I did. It wasn’t his failure,for starters, and in any case, he didn’t need a childlike I did. He wanted to be a dad, he really did—I’msure he daydreamed about kicking a football aroundin the garden with his son, or carrying his daughteron his shoulders in the park. But he thought ourlives could be great without children, too. “We’rehappy,” he used to say to me. “Why can’t we justgo on being happy?” He became frustrated with me.
He never understood that it’s possible to miss whatyou’ve never had, to mourn for it.
I felt isolated in my misery. I became lonely, so Idrank a bit, and then a bit more, and then Ibecame lonelier, because no one likes being around adrunk. I lost and I drank and I drank and I lost. Iliked my job, but I didn’t have a glittering career,and even if I had, let’s be honest: women are stillonly really valued for two things—their looks andtheir role as mothers. I’m not beautiful, and I can’thave kids, so what does that make me? Worthless.
I can’t blame all this for my drinking—I can’t blamemy parents or my childhood, an abusive uncle orsome terrible tragedy. It’s my fault. I was a drinkeranyway—I’ve always liked to drink. But I did becomesadder, and sadness gets boring after a while, for thesad person and for everyone around them. And thenI went from being a drinker to being a drunk, andthere’s nothing more boring than that.
I’m better now, about the children thing; I’ve gotbetter since I’ve been on my own. I’ve had to. I’veread books and articles, I’ve realized that I mustcome to terms with it. There are strategies, there ishope. If I straightened myself out and sobered up,there’s a possibility that I could adopt. And I’m notthirty-four yet—it isn’t over. I am better than I was afew years ago, when I used to abandon my trolleyand leave the supermarket if the place was packedwith mums and kids; I wouldn’t have been able tocome to a park like this, to sit near the playgroundand watch chubby toddlers rolling down the slide.
There were times, at my lowest, when the hungerwas at its worst, when I thought I was going to losemy mind.
Maybe I did, for a while. The day they asked meabout at the police station, I might have been madthen. Something Tom once said tipped me over, sentme sliding. Something he wrote, rather: I read it onFacebook that morning. It wasn’t a shock—I knewshe was having a baby, he’d told me, and I’d seenher, seen that pink blind in the nursery window. So Iknew what was coming. But I thought of the babyas her baby. Until the day I saw the picture of him,holding his newborn girl, looking down at her andsmiling, and beneath he’d written: So this is whatall the fuss is about! Never knew love like this!
Happiest day of my life! I thought about himwriting that—knowing that I would see it, that Iwould read those words and they would kill me, andwriting it anyway. He didn’t care. Parents don’t careabout anything but their children. They are thecentre of the universe; they are all that really counts.
Nobody else is important, no one else’s suffering orjoy matters, none of it is real.
I was angry. I was distraught. Maybe I wasvengeful. Maybe I thought I’d show them that mydistress was real. I don’t know. I did a stupid thing.
I went back to the police station after a couple ofhours. I asked if I could speak to Gaskill alone, buthe said that he wanted Riley to be present. I likedhim a little less after that.
“I didn’t break into their home,” I said. “I did gothere, I wanted to speak to Tom. No one answeredthe doorbell?.?.?.”
“So how did you get in?” Riley asked me.
“The door was open.”
“The front door was open?”
I sighed. “No, of course not. The sliding door at theback, the one leading into the garden.”
“And how did you get into the back garden?”
“I went over the fence, I knew the way in—”
“So you climbed over the fence to gain access toyour ex-husband’s house?”
“Yes. We used to?.?.?. There was always a spare keyat the back. We had a place we hid it, in case oneof us lost our keys or forgot them or something. ButI wasn’t breaking in—I didn’t. I just wanted to talk toTom. I thought maybe?.?.?. the bell wasn’t working orsomething.”
“This was the middle of the day, during the week,wasn’t it? Why did you think your husband would beat home? Had you called to find out?” Riley asked.
“Jesus! Will you just let me speak?” I shouted, andshe shook her head and gave me that smile again,as if she knew me, as if she could read me. “I wentover the fence,” I said, trying to control the volumeof my voice, “and knocked on the glass doors, whichwere partly open. There was no answer. I stuck myhead inside and called Tom’s name. Again, noanswer, but I could hear a baby crying. I went insideand saw that Anna—”
“Mrs. Watson?”
“Yes. Mrs. Watson was on the sofa, sleeping. Thebaby was in the carry-cot and was crying—screaming,actually, red in the face, she’d obviously been cryingfor a while.” As I said those words it struck me thatI should have told them that I could hear the babycrying from the street and that’s why I went roundto the back of the house. That would have made mesound less like a maniac.
“So the baby’s screaming and her mother’s rightthere, and she doesn’t wake?” Riley asks me.
“Yes.” Her elbows are on the table, her hands infront of her mouth so I can’t read her expressionfully, but I know she thinks I’m lying. “I picked herup to comfort her. That’s all. I picked her up toquieten her.”
“That’s not all, though, is it, because when Annawoke up you weren’t there, were you? You weredown by the fence, by the train tracks.”
“She didn’t stop crying right away,” I said. “I wasbouncing her up and down and she was stillgrizzling, so I walked outside with her.”
“Down to the train tracks?”
“Into the garden.”
“Did you intend to harm the Watsons’ child?”
I leaped to my feet then. Melodramatic, I know, butI wanted to make them see—make Gaskill see—whatan outrageous suggestion that was. “I don’t have tolisten to this! I came here to tell you about the man!
I came here to help you! And now?.?.?. what exactlyare you accusing me of? What are you accusing meof?”
Gaskill remained impassive, unimpressed. Hemotioned at me to sit down again. “Ms. Watson, theother?.?.?. er, Mrs. Watson—Anna—mentioned you tous during the course of our enquiries about MeganHipwell. She said that you had behaved erratically, inan unstable manner, in the past. She mentioned thisincident with the child. She said that you haveharassed both her and her husband, that youcontinue to call the house repeatedly.” He lookeddown at his notes for a moment. “Almost nightly, infact. That you refuse to accept that your marriage isover—”
“That is simply not true!” I insisted, and itwasn’t—yes, I called Tom from time to time, but notevery night, it was a total exaggeration. But I wasgetting the feeling that Gaskill wasn’t on my side afterall, and I was starting to feel tearful again.
“Why haven’t you changed your name?” Riley askedme.
“Excuse me?”
“You still use your husband’s name. Why is that? Ifa man left me for another woman, I think I’d wantto get rid of that name. I certainly wouldn’t want toshare my name with my replacement?.?.?.”
“Well, maybe I’m not that petty.” I am that petty. Ihate that she’s Anna Watson.
“Right. And the ring—the one on a chain aroundyour neck. Is that your wedding band?”
“No,” I lied. “It’s a?.?.?. it was my grandmother’s.”
“Is that right? OK. Well, I have to say that to me,your behaviour suggests that—as Mrs. Watson hasimplied—you are unwilling to move on, that yourefuse to accept that your ex has a new family.”
“I don’t see—”
“What this has to do with Megan Hipwell?” Rileyfinished my sentence. “Well. The night Megan wentmissing, we have reports that you—an unstablewoman who had been drinking heavily—were seenon the street where she lives. Bearing in mind thatthere are some physical similarities between Meganand Mrs. Watson—”
“They don’t look anything like each other!” I wasoutraged at the suggestion. Jess is nothing like Anna.
Megan is nothing like Anna.
“They’re both blond, slim, petite, pale-skinned?.?.?.”
“So I attacked Megan Hipwell thinking she wasAnna? That’s the most stupid thing I’ve ever heard,”
I said. But that lump on my head was throbbingagain, and everything from Saturday night was stilldeepest black.
“Did you know that Anna Watson knows MeganHipwell?” Gaskill asked me, and I felt my jaw drop.
“I?.?.?. what? No. No, they don’t know each other.”
Riley smiled for a moment, then straightened herface. “Yes they do. Megan did some childminding forthe Watsons?.?.?.” She glanced down at her notes.
“Back in August and September last year.”
I don’t know what to say. I can’t imagine it: Meganin my home, with her, with her baby.
“The cut on your lip, is that from when you gotknocked down the other day?” Gaskill asked me.
“Yes. I bit it when I fell, I think.”
“Where was it, this accident?”
“It was in London, Theobalds Road. Near Holborn.”
“And what were you doing there?”
“I’m sorry?”
“Why were you in central London?”
I shrugged. “I already told you,” I said coldly. “Myflatmate doesn’t know that I’ve lost my job. So I gointo London, as usual, and I go to libraries, to jobhunt, to work on my CV.”
Riley shook her head, in disbelief perhaps, orwonder. How does anyone get to that point?
I pushed my chair back, readying myself to leave.
I’d had enough of being talked down to, being madeto look like a fool, like a madwoman. Time to playthe trump card. “I don’t really know why we’retalking about this,” I said. “I would have thought thatyou would have better things to do, like investigatingMegan Hipwell’s disappearance, for example. I take ityou’ve spoken to her lover?” Neither of them saidanything, they just stared at me. They weren’texpecting that. They didn’t know about him. “Perhapsyou didn’t know. Megan Hipwell was having anaffair,” I said, and I started to walk to the door.
Gaskill stopped me; he moved quietly and surprisinglyquickly, and before I could put my hand on the doorhandle he was standing in front of me.
“I thought you didn’t know Megan Hipwell,” he said.
“I don’t,” I said, trying to get past him.
“Sit down,” he said, blocking my path.
I told them then about what I’d seen from thetrain, about how I often saw Megan sitting out onher terrace, sunbathing in the evenings or havingcoffee in the mornings. I told them about how lastweek I saw her with someone who clearly wasn’t herhusband, how I’d seen them kissing on the lawn.
“When was this?” Gaskill snapped. He seemedannoyed with me, perhaps because I should havetold them this straightaway, instead of wasting all daytalking about myself.
“Friday. It was Friday morning.”
“So the day before she went missing, you saw herwith another man?” Riley asked me with a sigh ofexasperation. She closed the file in front of her.
Gaskill leaned back in his seat, studying my face. Sheclearly thought I was making it up; he wasn’t sosure.
“Can you describe him?” Gaskill asked.
“Tall, dark—”
“Handsome?” Riley interrupted.
I puffed my cheeks out. “Taller than Scott Hipwell. Iknow, because I’ve seen them together—Jessand—sorry, Megan and Scott Hipwell—and this manwas different. Slighter, thinner, darker-skinned.
Possibly an Asian man,” I said.
“You could determine his ethnic group from thetrain?” Riley said. “Impressive. Who is Jess, by theway?”
“I’m sorry?”
“You mentioned Jess a moment ago.”
I could feel my face flushing again. I shook myhead, “No, I didn’t,” I said.
Gaskill got to his feet and held out his hand for meto shake. “I think that’s enough.” I shook his hand,ignored Riley and turned to go. “Don’t go anywherenear Blenheim Road, Ms. Watson,” Gaskill said.
“Don’t contact your ex-husband unless it’s important,and don’t go anywhere near Anna Watson or herchild.”
On the train on the way home, as I dissect all theways that today went wrong, I’m surprised by thefact that I don’t feel as awful as I might do. Thinkingabout it, I know why that is: I didn’t have a drinklast night, and I have no desire to have one now. Iam interested, for the first time in ages, in somethingother than my own misery. I have purpose. Or atleast, I have a distraction.
THURSDAY, JULY 18, 2013
MORNING
I bought three newspapers before getting onto thetrain this morning: Megan has been missing for fourdays and five nights, and the story is getting plentyof coverage. The Daily Mail, predictably, hasmanaged to find pictures of Megan in her bikini, butthey’ve also done the most detailed profile I’ve seenof her so far.
Born Megan Mills in Rochester in 1983, she movedwith her parents to King’s Lynn in Norfolk when shewas ten. She was a bright child, very outgoing, atalented artist and singer. A quote from a schoolfriend says she was “a good laugh, very pretty andquite wild.” Her wildness seems to have beenexacerbated by the death of her brother, Ben, towhom she was very close. He was killed in amotorcycle accident when he was nineteen and shefifteen. She ran away from home three days after hisfuneral. She was arrested twice—once for theft andonce for soliciting. Her relationship with her parents,the Mail informs me, broke down completely. Bothher parents died a few years ago, without ever beingreconciled with their daughter. (Reading this, I feeldesperately sad for Megan. I realize that perhaps,after all, she isn’t so different from me. She’s isolatedand lonely, too.)When she was sixteen, she moved in with aboyfriend who had a house near the village ofHolkham in north Norfolk. The school friend says,“He was an older guy, a musician or something. Hewas into drugs. We didn’t see Megan much afterthey got together.” The boyfriend’s name is not given,so presumably they haven’t found him. He might noteven exist. The school friend might be making thisstuff up just to get her name into the papers.
They skip forward several years after that: suddenlyMegan is twenty-four, living in London, working as awaitress in a North London restaurant. There shemeets Scott Hipwell, an independent IT contractorwho is friendly with the restaurant manager, and thetwo of them hit it off. After an “intense courtship,”
Megan and Scott marry, when she is twenty-six andhe is thirty.
There are a few other quotes, including one fromTara Epstein, the friend with whom Megan wassupposed to stay on the night she disappeared. Shesays that Megan is “a lovely, carefree girl” and thatshe seemed “very happy.” “Scott would not havehurt her,” Tara says. “He loves her very much.”
There isn’t a thing Tara says that isn’t a cliché. Thequote that interests me is from one of the artistswho exhibited his work in the gallery Megan used tomanage, one Rajesh Gujral, who says that Megan is“a wonderful woman, sharp, funny and beautiful, anintensely private person with a warm heart.” Soundsto me like Rajesh has got a crush. The only otherquote comes from a man called David Clark, “aformer colleague” of Scott’s, who says, “Megs andScott are a great couple. They’re very happytogether, very much in love.”
There are some news pieces about the investigation,too, but the statements from the police amount toless than nothing: they have spoken to “a number ofwitnesses,” they are “pursuing several lines ofenquiry.” The only interesting comment comes fromDetective Inspector Gaskill, who confirms that twomen are helping the police with their enquiries. I’mpretty sure that means they’re both suspects. Onewill be Scott. Could the other be B? Could B beRajesh?
I’ve been so engrossed in the newspapers that Ihaven’t been paying my usual attention to thejourney; it seems as though I’ve only just sat downwhen the train grinds to its customary halt oppositethe red signal. There are people in Scott’sgarden—there are two uniformed police just outsidethe back door. My head swims. Have they foundsomething? Have they found her? Is there a bodyburied in the garden or shoved under thefloorboards? I can’t stop thinking of the clothes onthe side of the railway line, which is stupid, because Isaw those there before Megan went missing. And inany case, if harm has been done to her, it wasn’t byScott, it can’t have been. He’s madly in love with her,everyone says so. The light is bad today, theweather’s turned, the sky leaden, threatening. I can’tsee into the house, I can’t see what’s going on. I feelquite desperate. I cannot stand being on theoutside—for better or worse, I am a part of this now.
I need to know what’s going on.
At least I have a plan. First, I need to find out ifthere’s any way that I can be made to rememberwhat happened on Saturday night. When I get to thelibrary, I plan to do some research and find outwhether hypnotherapy could make me remember,whether it is in fact possible to recover that lost time.
Second—and I believe this is important, because Idon’t think the police believed me when I told themabout Megan’s lover—I need to get in touch withScott Hipwell. I need to tell him. He deserves toknow.
EVENING
The train is full of rain-soaked people, steam risingoff their clothes and condensing on the windows. Thefug of body odour, perfume and laundry soap hangsoppressively above bowed, damp heads. The cloudsthat menaced this morning did so all day, growingheavier and blacker until they burst, monsoon-like,this evening, just as office workers stepped outsideand the rush hour began in earnest, leaving theroads gridlocked and tube station entrances chokedwith people opening and closing umbrellas.
I don’t have an umbrella and am soaked through; Ifeel as though someone has thrown a bucket ofwater over me. My cotton trousers cling to my thighsand my faded blue shirt has become embarrassinglytransparent. I ran all the way from the library to thetube station with my handbag clutched against mychest to hide what I could. For some reason I foundthis funny—there is something ridiculous about beingcaught in the rain—and I was laughing so hard bythe time I got to the top of Gray’s Inn Road, I couldbarely breathe. I can’t remember the last time Ilaughed like that.
I’m not laughing now. As soon as I got myself aseat, I checked the latest on Megan’s case on myphone, and it’s the news I’ve been dreading. “Athirty-four-year-old man is being questioned undercaution at Witney police station regarding thedisappearance of Megan Hipwell, missing from herhome since Saturday evening.” That’s Scott, I’m sureof it. I can only hope that he read my email beforethey picked him up, because questioning undercaution is serious—it means they think he did it.
Although, of course, it is yet to be defined. It maynot have happened at all. Megan might be fine.
Every now and again it does strike me that she’salive and well and sitting on a hotel balcony with aview of the sea, her feet up on the railings, a colddrink at her elbow.
The thought of her there both thrills anddisappoints me, and then I feel sick for feelingdisappointed. I don’t wish her ill, no matter howangry I was with her for cheating on Scott, forshattering my illusions about my perfect couple. No,it’s because I feel like I’m part of this mystery, I’mconnected. I am no longer just a girl on the train,going back and forth without point or purpose. Iwant Megan to turn up safe and sound. I do. Justnot quite yet.
I sent Scott an email this morning. His address waseasy to find—I Googled him and foundwww.shipwellconsulting.co.uk, the site where headvertises “a range of consultancy, cloud- andweb-based services for business and nonprofitorganizations.” I knew it was him, because hisbusiness address is also his home address.
I sent a short message to the contact address givenon the site:
Dear Scott,My name is Rachel Watson. Youdon’t know me. I would like to talkto you about your wife. I do nothave any information on herwhereabouts, I don’t know what hashappened to her. But I believe I haveinformation that could help you.
You may not want to talk to me, Iwould understand that, but if you do,email me on this address.
Yours sincerely,RachelI don’t know if he would have contacted meanyway—I doubt that I would, if I were in his shoes.
Like the police, he’d probably just think I’m a nutter,some weirdo who’s read about the case in thenewspaper. Now I’ll never know—if he’s beenarrested, he may never get a chance to see themessage. If he’s been arrested, the only people whosee it may be the police, which won’t be good newsfor me. But I had to try.
And now I feel desperate, thwarted. I can’t seethrough the mob of people in the carriage across totheir side of the tracks—my side—and even if I could,with the rain still pouring down I wouldn’t be able tosee beyond the railway fence. I wonder whetherevidence is being washed away, whether right at thismoment vital clues are disappearing forever: smearsof blood, footprints, DNA-loaded cigarette butts. Iwant a drink so badly, I can almost taste the wineon my tongue. I can imagine exactly what it will feellike for the alcohol to hit my bloodstream and makemy head rush.
I want a drink and I don’t want one, because if Idon’t have a drink today then it’ll be three days, andI can’t remember the last time I stayed off for threedays in a row. There’s a taste of something else inmy mouth, too, an old stubbornness. There was atime when I had willpower, when I could run 10kbefore breakfast and subsist for weeks on thirteenhundred calories a day. It was one of the thingsTom loved about me, he said: my stubbornness, mystrength. I remember an argument, right at the end,when things were about as bad as they could be; helost his temper with me. “What happened to you,Rachel?” he asked me. “When did you become soweak?”
I don’t know. I don’t know where that strengthwent, I don’t remember losing it. I think that overtime it got chipped away, bit by bit, by life, by theliving of it.
The train comes to an abrupt halt, brakesscreeching alarmingly, at the signal on the Londonside of Witney. The carriage is filled with murmuredapologies as standing passengers stumble, bumpinginto one another, stepping on one another’s feet. Ilook up and find myself looking right into the eyes ofthe man from Saturday night—the ginger one, theone who helped me up. He’s staring right at me, hisstartlingly blue eyes locked on mine, and I get such afright, I drop my phone. I retrieve it from the floorand look up again, tentatively this time, not directly athim. I scan the carriage, I wipe the steamy windowwith my elbow and stare out, and then eventually Ilook back over at him and he smiles at me, his headcocked a little to one side.
I can feel my face burning. I don’t know how toreact to his smile, because I don’t know what itmeans. Is it Oh, hello, I remember you from theother night, or is it Ah, it’s that pissed girl whofell down the stairs and talked shit at me theother night, or is it something else? I don’t know,but thinking about it now, I believe I have a snatchof sound track to go with the picture of me slippingon the steps: him saying, “You all right, love?” I turnaway and look out of the window again. I can feelhis eyes on me; I just want to hide, to disappear.
The train judders off, and in seconds we’re pullinginto Witney station and people start jostling oneanother for position, folding newspapers and packingaway tablets and e-readers as they prepare todisembark. I look up again and am flooded withrelief—he’s turned away from me, he’s getting off thetrain.
It strikes me then that I’m being an idiot. I shouldget up and follow him, talk to him. He can tell mewhat happened, or what didn’t happen; he might beable to fill in some of the blanks at least. I get to myfeet. I hesitate—I know it’s already too late, the doorsare about to close, I’m in the middle of the carriage,I won’t be able to push my way through the crowdin time. The doors beep and close. Still standing, Iturn and look out of the window as the train pullsaway. He’s standing on the edge of the platform inthe rain, the man from Saturday night, watching meas I go past.
The closer I get to home, the more irritated withmyself I feel. I’m almost tempted to change trains atNorthcote, go back to Witney and look for him. Aridiculous idea, obviously, and stupidly risky given thatGaskill warned me to stay away from the area onlyyesterday. But I’m feeling dispirited about everrecalling what happened on Saturday. A few hours of(admittedly hardly exhaustive) Internet research thisafternoon confirmed what I suspected: hypnosis isnot generally useful in retrieving hours lost toblackout because, as my previous reading suggested,we do not make memories during blackout. There isnothing to remember. It is, will always be, a blackhole in my timeline.