Down to Sleep

by M K Farrar

  She reached her car, unlocked the door, and climbed into the driver’s seat. She plugged the key into the ignition and turned it.

  Nothing happened.

  “You have got to be kidding me!”

  Had she done something wrong? She tried again, but still nothing happened. Not so much as the engine turning over.

  “For fuck’s sake!”

  It seemed nothing was going her way at the moment.

  She didn’t have any breakdown cover. She glanced down at her handbag on the passenger seat. Her phone was inside. Even though she’d insisted she was independent, now she was considering calling him to come and pick her up again. No, she couldn’t do that. Her pride wouldn’t allow it. She’d just have to get the bus back to his.

  Feeling stupid and useless, she climbed back out of the car.

  “Excuse me!” a female voice called out to her. “Hi! You’re the woman from twenty-six A, aren’t you?”

  Natalie’s heart sank, and she ignored the woman. She put her head down and started walking in the opposite direction.

  “You’re the one who found that poor couple.”

  Natalie called over her shoulder, “I’m sorry, I really don’t want to talk about it.”

  The woman picked up her pace, her footsteps tapping along the pavement. “Oh, I know. I completely understand. It must have been really awful for you. I can’t imagine walking into a scene like that. What made you go up to their flat at that time in the morning anyway?”

  Natalie whipped back around to face her. “I thought I just said I didn’t want to talk about it.”

  The woman—who Natalie vaguely recognised—widened her eyes in shock. “Wow. There’s no need to be rude about it.”

  “Rude? You think I’m the one who’s rude? You and everyone else”—she gestured towards all the twitching curtains of the others on the street—“have clearly been talking about what happened, and you’ve come out here hoping to get a nice bit of gossip to feed to everyone else. Well, you can fuck off, because I’m not going to give it to you.”

  She gripped the strap on her handbag tight against her shoulder and put her head down and kept going. Her heart was racing, and her mouth had run dry. She could hardly believe she’d spoken to the woman like that. But, mercifully, no more shouts followed her, and she thought the neighbour was most likely just standing in the street with her mouth hanging open in shock. Served her right. Mina’s and Sajad’s deaths weren’t some soap show for them all to gawp at.

  Natalie was still shaking when she reached the bus stop. She kept her chin tucked into her chest, allowing her curls to fall over her face, in the hope that no one else would recognise her. She didn’t think any of the newspapers had done anything more than mention that Mina and Sajad had been found by a downstairs neighbour, so it wasn’t as though her face was plastered around everywhere. It was only those who lived in the street who would recognise her.

  Thankfully, the bus came trundling up the road, and she was able to get on. She paid her fare and took a seat at the back.

  Her reaction had probably been a bit much. And if anything, she’d most likely only added more flames to the fire. They were all going to be talking about how aggressive she was now, and how she might have even been the one who’d killed Mina and Sajad.

  She imagined them all delighting in their theories that maybe she was having an affair with Sajad, or maybe even Mina, and when they’d said they weren’t interested anymore, she’d gone up and murdered them both.

  Chapter Sixteen

  An hour later, she arrived back at Kyle’s house.

  Thankfully, he was home, so she wouldn’t need to sit on the doorstep and wait for him. His Audi was parked in the driveway, and she walked past the vehicle and up to the front door and rang the bell.

  Kyle opened it. His hair was damp as though he’d recently got out of the shower.

  “Natalie. You don’t have to ring the doorbell. You’re living here—for the moment, anyway. You could just walk straight in. Where have you been?”

  “I went to get my car.”

  He frowned and looked past her, at the road behind. “Where is it?”

  Her cheeks burned at her admission. “It had broken down. It wasn’t going anywhere.”

  “Oh shit. Are you going to get it fixed?”

  She shrugged. “I have no idea what’s wrong with it, but it’s pretty old. I’m not sure it’s even worth the cost of me trying to repair it.”

  And I haven’t got any money to fix it anyway.

  Kyle frowned. “What about work? You can’t expect me to come and pick you up in the early hours every day. I have my own job to do.”

  His comment surprised her. “I don’t expect that! I never have. I’ve never expected for you to do anything for me.”

  “I think we both know that’s not true. It was my number you called when your neighbours were killed, wasn’t it?”

  Her mouth dropped open. “That’s not the same thing at all. It’s hardly something that’s going to happen every night. And I thought you didn’t mind!”

  “I didn’t. I’m just pointing out that you can’t expect me to run around after you at that time of night all the time.”

  She threw up her hands. “I don’t! I’ll catch the bus, or I’ll get a taxi. I’m not asking anything from you.”

  “You’re right, I’m sorry. Ignore me.” He dragged his hand through his hair. “It’s been a long day. I didn’t mean to take out my frustrations on you.”

  “Yeah, it’s not been such a great day for me either.” She wasn’t about to tell him about the woman on the street—the one she’d told to fuck off.

  “What we need is a good meal, a large glass of wine, and an evening watching something mindless on the television. What do you say?”

  She exhaled a breath and relaxed. “I say that sounds perfect.”

  THE FOLLOWING DAY, she caught the two different buses she needed to make it to her lunch shift on time.

  She walked into the pub and breathed a sigh of relief. This, at least, felt normal to her. The scent of the place, the low murmur of chatter, the crack of snooker balls as a couple of young men played a game at the table. She could at least be herself here and would have the work—no matter how simple—to occupy herself.

  Phil straightened from the bar and frowned as she approached. “Natalie? What are you doing here?” His gaze flicked up and down her body. “And what the hell are you wearing?”

  Her stomach plummeted. “Ignore the outfit. I didn’t want to go back into my flat to pick up my clothes yet. Please don’t tell me you switched my shift around? I literally had to catch two different buses to get here.”

  His frown deepened. “Errr...no, I didn’t change your shift. You quit, remember?”

  She jerked back. “Quit? What are you talking about?”

  “You sent me a text message telling me you didn’t need this job anymore and I was to find someone else. I replied to it telling you I’d put your final wages into your account by next week.”

  She shook her head in confusion. “No, I didn’t. None of that happened.”

  She hadn’t contacted him, had she? Could she have done it and forgotten about it? Maybe she’d been in shock or something and had blocked the memory of the text conversation out of her head. But she really didn’t think she’d been that badly affected by finding the bodies. It had been traumatic, and she’d be suffering even more nightmares for a long time to come, but she couldn’t have made a decision like that without remembering.

  Besides, it wasn’t something she even wanted to do. She’d been pretty insistent upon that with Kyle.

  Kyle.

  A possibility occurred to her. No, he wouldn’t do that, would he? He wouldn’t have contacted Phil on her behalf pretending to be her, and told him that she quit. He’d said that she didn’t need to be working, and that he thought the pub job was beneath her, but surely he wouldn’t step over those kinds of boundaries.

  Her stomac
h churned.

  She dug into her handbag and found her phone. She pulled up the messages she’d received and sent, but there was nothing like what Phil was saying on the phone.

  “Do you still have the message I was supposed to have sent you on your phone?”

  He nodded and delved into his back pocket to produce a phone similar to Kyle’s flip-top one. “Yeah, I don’t think I deleted it.”

  She hopped up onto the stool at the bar and leaned over so she could see. He scrolled to the message and showed it to her. Sure enough, it looked as though it was from her, and it definitely said she was quitting.

  Her hands were shaking. How could Kyle possibly not understand how out of order this was? It also meant that he’d taken her phone at some point, and had not only sent the message, but had also deleted it and deleted Phil’s response so she wouldn’t find out right away. Why would he do that? He must have known she was going to find out the moment she came into work.

  “I think there’s been some misunderstanding,” she told her now ex-boss. “My boyfriend must have got the wrong end of the stick and thought that I’d decided to quit, and thought he was helping me by messaging you. But the truth is that I never had any intention of quitting. I want this job.”

  Phil pulled a face. “The problem is, Natalie, I’ve already found your replacement.”

  “What? Already?”

  “Yeah, sorry. She came in looking for work the other day, and first you didn’t show up—”

  “I’d just found my neighbours murdered!” she interrupted. “I’d say that was a pretty good excuse for a no-show.”

  He ignored her outburst and continued, “And then I get that message from you saying you were quitting. What was I supposed to think? I couldn’t just keep the job open in the possibility that you might change your mind or that it was a mistake.”

  “Tell the new girl you made a mistake then,” she blurted. “I can still work.”

  He twisted his lips. “Sorry, Nat, but I’m not going to do that. She’s already done a shift, and I’m really pleased with her. You’ve been late quite a lot recently, and then there was that no-show. I didn’t get the feeling your heart was really in this position anyway.”

  She threw both her hands in the air. “It’s just a job in a pub. I didn’t realise my heart was supposed to be in it.”

  He arched an eyebrow. “So, I wasn’t wrong then?”

  “You can’t just fire me over that!”

  “I didn’t. You quit, remember.”

  “Aren’t I supposed to write a formal letter or something? I’m sure this breaks a whole heap of employment laws. I could probably take you to court for unfair dismissal.”

  He folded his arms across his barrel chest. “But you’re not going to, Nat, are you? Honestly, I suggest your biggest problem right now is with your boyfriend pretending to be you, so I think you should just go home and tackle that without trying to take your bad choice in men out on me. There are plenty of other bar jobs around. I’m happy to give you a reference.”

  She stared at him, trying to figure out if there was anything else she might say to get him to change his mind, and then she exhaled a growl of anger and frustration, and jumped off the barstool and snatched up her bag. She stalked out of the pub, shoving the door open as hard as she could, letting it slam into the wall behind.

  What the fuck?

  Her fingers itched to pick up her phone and call Kyle and demand to know what the hell he was playing at, but she wanted to ask him face to face. Besides, she also needed to calm down, and she was going to have another two bus rides before she got back that she could use to think this through.

  Chapter Seventeen

  By the time she caught two different buses and then walked the rest of the way, her fury had simmered to a rolling rage. She was angry about what Kyle had done, but she was also anxious about where this conversation was going to lead. Was she going to have to leave? Would that be for the best? She really didn’t want to have to go back to her flat, but she couldn’t have someone overstepping their mark like that. It simply wasn’t on.

  He’d told her not to ring the doorbell and to treat this like her home, so she did, trying the front door. It wasn’t locked at all this time, and she marched straight through into the entrance hall.

  “Kyle?” she called.

  His voice came from his office. “In here.”

  He sounded so normal, so natural—not as though he’d been expecting an argument at all, though he must have known what he’d done.

  “Guess where I’ve just been?” She folded her arms across her chest, her jaw set, her eyes hard.

  He swivelled in his office chair. “I have no idea.”

  “I’ve been into work. Or at least it was my work, up until a day ago when someone text my boss to say that I’d quit.”

  He frowned. “Yeah, I did that for you. I thought that was what we agreed.”

  She jolted back, his response startling her. “What?”

  “I thought we’d talked about it and agreed that with your car no longer on the road, it wasn’t practical for you to go there anymore. It was going to be dangerous for you coming all that way home late at night, and we both agreed that I couldn’t be expected to pick you up at that time.”

  Her chin dropped. “We had that conversation, but that wasn’t the outcome. I said I’d figure it out.”

  “I thought you said you wanted me to sort it out?” His lips pressed together in concern.

  Did he really think that?

  “Well, I certainly never asked you to use my phone and message my boss pretending to be me!”

  “I know you didn’t ask me, but I thought I was helping. You’ve been really anxious lately, which is completely understandable after everything you’ve been through. I thought I was helping to take some of the pressure off.”

  Her mind raced. She was unsure what to think. Had he really been trying to help her? If so, did she have any right to be angry with him? Yes, she did. He’d still stepped out of line. She would never dream of taking his phone and messaging people she’d never even met, pretending to be him, interfering in his business.

  She thought of something else. “So why did you delete the messages? Phil said he replied, but there was no sign of it on my phone.”

  “I thought his response was pretty rude, actually, Nat. I was trying to protect you from it. You’ve been through a lot, and I thought having to deal with him was one step too much.”

  “So, you didn’t think you’d mention it to me?”

  “Like I said, I thought it was already what we’d agreed. I didn’t know there was anything to mention.”

  “You let me just go into work like an idiot, knowing I’d be told that I didn’t work there anymore.

  “If I’d known you were going into work, I’d have said something, but I wasn’t here when you left.”

  “Where else would I have been going?”

  “I don’t know. Into the city, shopping, or to meet a friend? I’m not your keeper. I don’t expect to have to keep tabs on you.”

  “No, but you think it’s okay to use my phone and pretend to be me.”

  “I’m sorry. I honestly thought I was doing a good thing. Can’t you just explain to your boss that it was a mistake and get your job back?”

  “I tried that already. He’s already filled my position.”

  Kyle sucked air in over his teeth in disapproval. “Honestly, Natalie, if he’s going to replace you as quickly as that anyway, maybe you are better off out of it.”

  “But that wasn’t your decision to make.” Her frustration was building again.

  “I know that. I thought it was a decision we’d made together. I’m so sorry if I messed up. It wasn’t my intention to upset you at all. I thought I was helping.”

  He looked so crestfallen, she couldn’t help her anger melting.

  “Okay, I suppose it was just a misunderstanding. But please don’t go on my phone again, Kyle, okay?”

&nb
sp; She suspected he was going to argue that he’d thought she’d given him permission—though how he could have thought that, she had no idea—but instead, he put his arms out to her.

  “Absolutely. Can we be friends? I hate us fighting.”

  A smile tweaked the corner of her lips, and she found herself nodding and stepping into his embrace. “I hate us fighting, too,” she admitted.

  He hugged her tight and kissed the top of her head, and she inhaled the growingly familiar scent of him.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Natalie woke late the following morning to discover she had the house to herself. Kyle had more work stuff to attend to. For someone who worked from home, he had a lot of meetings.

  She didn’t mind entertaining herself, though it felt strange not to have any direction in her life now she was no longer working herself. Even though she hadn’t had anything steady, or what others might consider to be professional, she’d never been without work. She’d always had something to break her days up, only now it seemed she just had hours and days stretching ahead with nothing to do.

  She took a quick shower and dressed in the old-fashioned clothes he’d bought her. She was really going to have to brave her flat sometime soon and collect some of her belongings. These outfits did nothing for her—she felt old and frumpy. She’d always struggled with her sense of style, and these clothes didn’t help. She was tempted just to wash the clothes she’d brought from the flat and wear those instead, but then she’d be in the awkward position of having to explain to him that she hadn’t liked what he’d bought after all. She really didn’t want to cause another argument.

  He thought he was doing something good by buying them for you.

  She grimaced. That seemed to be a talent of Kyle’s—just like with her job.