The Wrong Move

by Jennifer Savin

  ‘Okay, well, what if Matthew isn’t involved but the person who attacked me has done something to Magda?’ Jessie continued. ‘Christ, what if there’s a madman going around targeting young women? Only Magda hasn’t been so lucky? She’s still missing.’

  Jessie hugged a cushion to her chest and looked at Priya expectantly, chewing on her bottom lip.

  ‘I wouldn’t exactly say you were lucky, Jess, you have a skull fracture, for God’s sake. Maybe it’s the concussion making you feel like this, you’ve probably gone back to work far too soon.’

  The sound of a neighbour’s television blaring through the walls made them both jump.

  ‘For all we know, Jess, this Magda woman could be completely fine. You mentioned before that she’s got a history of leaving flats without paying her bills, so maybe she’s just getting settled in a new place before reaching out to people, especially if she owes money again,’ said Priya, as confidently as she could. ‘Everything is going to be fine, don’t let yourself get carried away.’

  Jessie’s eyes danced furiously across the ceiling, as if the answers might be hidden up there somewhere. Neither of them had touched their food.

  ‘This is horribly familiar, you acting like this. It’s exactly how you used to get at university,’ Priya continued, as delicately as she could. ‘You were constantly paranoid that Matthew was watching you or that he was engineering your life from afar, somehow. Don’t get me wrong, I know he was awful to you and it’s not easy to move on after being in a controlling relationship like that. But he’s not here now. He doesn’t exist in your life any more, other than in your head.’

  Jessie knew the way Matthew operated though. One of his favourite tricks was to leave her second-guessing herself. For years she’d constantly found herself apologising for things she had no business apologising for – like not washing a plate ‘correctly’ or supposedly looking at men in the street. Living in fear and believing that everything that went wrong was her fault, that she was the reason Matthew behaved the way he did, was an ideology so deeply ingrained it had practically been tattooed over every inch of her skin with invisible ink.

  ‘I need to speak to him, Priya,’ Jessie announced suddenly. ‘I have to know what it is he’s trying to do by sending me these messages. Why has he dragged up that video again? And that card over Christmas. Then the attack. What if this Magda woman is in danger because of—’

  Priya shushed her softly.

  ‘You know that responding to him is a bad idea. Promise me you’ll give it a few more days before making any decisions?’ Priya said, looking stern. ‘Promise me? Because you’re obviously still in shock.’

  Jessie shrugged defeatedly, looking dejected.

  ‘If you’re going to contact anybody, shouldn’t it be the police?’ she continued. ‘I could come with you, if you want to go and talk an officer in person?’

  Jessie wriggled uncomfortably in her seat, her cheeks flushing red.

  ‘It’s too late for that, isn’t it?’ Her voice trembled. ‘They’ll blame me for not coming in as soon as I saw the paper this morning.’

  They looked at one another in silence, before Jessie broke away to pour herself more wine. She needed the numbing agent and the flat was getting gloomier by the minute.

  ‘Is it all right if I crash on your sofa tonight? I don’t want to have to head home now it’s dark.’

  Jessie sucked at her bleeding thumbnail once more. She could barely feel it.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  By the time Friday came around, Jessie felt an overwhelming sense of relief that it was the end of the working week. Her body jolted forward as the bus groaned its way down the hill to Woodingdean, her eyes sore from staying up late. She’d spent the night switching between staring out of Priya’s living room window at the sea below and searching for Magda’s name online, hoping there’d be more news. She’d quickly read every report written about her disappearance. The latest update from police was that they’d stepped up the search and had officers all across Sussex on the case. Press outlets beyond Brighton were taking an interest too and the same photo of Magda in a café, which had been splashed across the front page of the Argus, had been joined by another which looked as though it had been taken on a night out. Magda had an arm slung casually around the waist of a friend who had been cropped out of the shot. Jessie had lost track of the amount of times she’d tried and failed to find Magda on Instagram, desperate to see more photos of her and get information about her life, which somehow seemed intertwined with her own. She’d even asked Priya to search Matthew’s friend list on Facebook to ensure they weren’t connected on there, then checked Sofie and Marcus’s too. Lauren had deleted her profile years ago, apparently.

  On the short walk from the bus stop up to her office, Jessie texted Lauren to ask if she fancied catching up over dinner later that night in the flat, apologising for not making it home the night before. Lauren quickly replied saying she’d be back by seven and would grab a bottle of wine on her way. With Jessie having stayed at Priya’s, she still hadn’t asked the other Maver Place residents if they’d seen the news about Magda. Nobody had said anything in the group chat and she didn’t want to bring it up. The story was starting to garner more public attention and, more than anything, Jessie wished she had seen whoever it was who had hurt her. Who had left her bloodied and afraid on the hard ground. She tried willing herself to remember, but reliving the memory instantly made her head spin and her pulse speed up. Life still looked blurred around the edges, but who knew if that was because of the concussion and the medication – not helped, of course, by her drinking wine – or whether her biggest fear had finally been realised: she’d lost her mind for good.

  The day at work dragged slowly. Jessie tried to speed things along by regularly offering to make tea for Pamela and Juliette, and taking several lengthy trips to the bathroom, where she sat on the closed toilet lid and again searched for news online. A fresh quote appeared from a Sergeant Fiona Langley shortly after lunchtime, urging anybody who might have information to come forward. It gave Jessie a stomach ache, thinking about making a call to Sussex Police. Could she be withholding vital clues, without knowing it? When she returned to her desk, having spent her break walking aimlessly to the Co-op and back, Pamela and Juliette were waiting for her.

  ‘Just in time. We thought you’d forgotten about the staff meeting.’

  She had. Jessie followed them to a room in the doctors’ loft, where a round table of people sat waiting. Pamela took out a notepad and began to jot down scribbles in shorthand, as Dr Statham shuffled a pile of papers and spoke dryly about how further budget cuts would be impacting their day-to-day. It was an effort for Jessie to concentrate. She tried to think of an intelligent question to ask at the end, to show Pamela she was engaged, because with everything else going on, she couldn’t handle being in trouble at work too. Juliette and Cheryl looked worried as they listened.

  By the time the meeting wrapped, it was almost the end of the day. Jessie schlepped wordlessly back downstairs to her desk with the others, dying to check if there had been any further updates on Magda’s disappearance.

  ‘They may ask us to reinterview for our roles,’ said Pamela, once they were all safely back inside their area of the office. ‘This happened a few years ago too.’

  Juliette nervously drummed her fingers on the desk.

  ‘These cuts are relentless,’ she sighed. ‘The workload gets bigger and the resources just shrink and shrink. Same with the police force.’

  Jessie’s ears pricked at the word ‘police’. Her stomach somersaulted. The police had to find Magda and prove that she wasn’t hurt. They just had to. She needed to know there wasn’t still a monster out there, Matthew or otherwise, stalking the streets. Waiting for her in the shadows. Who had them both marked as targets.

  ‘Mmm, awful,’ Jessie mumbled, sensing that Pamela and Juliette were awaiting some kind of response from her.

  ‘Well, let’s try and enjo
y our weekends as best we can still,’ Juliette said resignedly, searching in her bag for car keys and heading towards the door.

  Once Pamela had wished her a pleasant evening too, Jessie drew her phone out and typed ‘Magda Nowak’ into Google for the tenth time that day. Nothing since Sergeant Langley’s statement.

  Back at Maver Place, Jessie could tell Marcus was home by his thumping music. She kicked off her shoes, adding them to an ever-growing pile in the hallway, then headed into the kitchen to begin cooking dinner for herself and Lauren. As she brushed past the table, she trod on something slippery. Slimy but firm. A teabag that had fallen out when someone was changing the bin? Jessie looked down, then recoiled. In the centre of one of the white checked floor tiles, lay a limp goldfish with silver flecks on its tail, its insides forced out from the pressure of her step. She felt her throat constrict as she stared, revolted by it. She looked around the room, not knowing what else to do. The poor fish couldn’t be left there, but the thought of having to scoop it up made her queasy. She retched.

  ‘Hey, Jess, is that you who’s just come in?’ Sofie’s voice came from the hallway.

  Jessie whipped round and waited for her to walk into the room, then had a flash of panic that it might look as though she were responsible for the death of the fish. She heard two sets of footsteps and Henry’s laugh. They both appeared in the doorway.

  ‘I just found it like this,’ Jessie stammered, pointing at the floor. ‘How could it have happened?’

  The couple looked at the dead thing by Jessie’s feet. Registering what it was, Sofie screwed up her face and buried it on Henry’s chest, refusing to look again.

  ‘Oh Jesus, that’s horrible.’

  ‘It must have jumped out,’ Henry said calmly, after a few moments.

  He began stroking Sofie’s hair, in an effort to comfort her.

  ‘Seriously?’

  Jessie looked at the bowl in the centre of the table. It had an open top but was placed about a metre in; the tiny fish would have had to be seriously powerful to reach this far. It couldn’t have jumped. Nor could it have landed there as a result of someone accidentally bumping the table. She just knew it had been done deliberately.

  ‘Henry, I really can’t see that being the case,’ she said, noticing that Sofie was wearing yet another dress similar to one she owned.

  ‘Sure you can,’ he smoothly replied, continuing to caress Sofie, who had turned her head slightly so that she could see Jessie with one eye.

  They all kept their gaze deliberately away from the floor.

  ‘This happened to my sister’s fishes a bunch of times when we were kids,’ Henry continued.

  ‘Which one is it, Jessie?’ asked Sofie, still not wanting to look herself.

  ‘It was mine, Sofe. The fish meant to represent me!’ Jessie could hear her voice getting increasingly higher.

  She knew she was starting to sound paranoid, unhinged even.

  ‘And now someone has killed it. Or so it seems.’

  Henry almost smirked.

  ‘It’s not like it’s a dog.’

  He walked towards the counter and tore off a few sheets of kitchen roll, then bent down to scoop up the remains of the fish. Jessie remained rooted to the floor as Henry crouched down by her knees then stood back up. There was still a red smear on the floor and gunk covering her foot. That had to go. Now. Jessie took a floor wipe out from under the sink and scrubbed at her sole, while balancing against the table. The other three fish swam on, oblivious to being one short. Her foot still didn’t feel clean.

  ‘Who did this?’ Jessie asked again, as Henry threw the bundle of paper towels in the bin.

  The lid clanged shut.

  ‘Did what?’

  Marcus had heard raised voices from his room and had come to investigate. He’d picked up a familiar unsettled feeling ever since Lauren had confessed to talking to Zach’s friends on her night out with Jessie and Sofie. He’d primed himself to be on red alert for any more trouble.

  ‘One of the fish went kamikaze and jumped out the bowl,’ Henry interjected before Jessie could speak, plonking himself down on the sofa. ‘And now the girls are all in a tizzy about it, acting like Freddy Krueger’s just burst through the door with a goldfish vendetta.’

  Sofie walked over to join him, deliberately avoiding the patch on the floor where the fish had just been, checking the bowl on her way to ensure the others were unharmed.

  ‘Henry, stop it. This isn’t funny. Jessie’s having a difficult enough time as it is.’

  Henry shrugged, but didn’t apologise.

  ‘Actually, I looked up about caring for them when Lauren brought them home – apparently they can jump out of their own accord,’ said Marcus with an unnecessary cough, ‘if they get scared by loud noises or have dirty water.’

  ‘Well, I’ve made sure the bowl is clean,’ Sofie shot back. ‘It’s you who always has the music blaring.’

  ‘I wasn’t being accusatory,’ Marcus deadpanned.

  They all stood awkwardly, nobody quite able to land upon the right words. Jessie pulled out another floor wipe and ran it over her foot, then the soiled tile. The bin lid sounded again. Even the fish version of herself had been scared, literally, to death.

  ‘It could’ve been any of ours, I guess, it’s just bad luck it was yours,’ Sofie eventually said. ‘We should get a fishbowl with a lid.’

  Jessie nodded but didn’t really care. Whether or not she owned a goldfish was hardly of pressing importance right now, but she was still unnerved thinking that somebody could have done it deliberately. Or was her mind just going into overdrive? It was difficult not to read malice into it all, searching for clues, given that nothing much seemed to make sense lately: her phone temporarily disappearing; Priya’s number being blocked; the messages from Matthew; the attack; Magda going missing – and now this. In lieu of a better idea, she boiled the kettle and poured some penne into a saucepan.

  ‘What are you making, Jess?’ asked Sofie.

  ‘Just dinner for me and Lauren.’

  ‘Would it be okay if we join you? I can do a side salad. Henry’s cleaner is over at the moment, so we figured we’d kill time here for a bit.’

  As much as she wanted to, Jessie could hardly say no.

  ‘Of course.’

  Marcus sat at the table, wary of being in such close proximity to Henry, waiting for Jessie to finish cooking so he could make a start on his own food. He looked intently at the remaining fish. Interesting creatures. He envied their supposedly shoddy memories.

  ‘Any idea where Lauren is?’ Jessie asked Sofie a short time later. ‘The food is almost ready.’ Sofie shook her head.

  It had gone seven o’clock so Jessie tried calling and got Lauren’s voicemail.

  ‘We could always leave some in the pan for her to reheat later?’ Sofie suggested.

  After Jessie had served dinner, Marcus put a cottage pie in the microwave and watched as the others started eating their pasta. Apparently, Henry couldn’t even keep his mouth closed then. When Marcus’s food was cooked, he joined them, eating the pie from the black plastic container with a layer of mayonnaise on top. Jessie frowned, looking at it. Despite having lived with Marcus for months, she still found that bizarre. She waited for somebody to mention Magda. Surely they must have seen the news? It was all over social media.

  ‘Has anyone seen the news recently? About that local girl going missing. Apparently she lived in Brighton,’ Jessie asked, trying to sound casual.

  Marcus looked up. Henry shook his head.

  ‘Who even reads the news these days?’ laughed Sofie, as she helped herself to more salad. ‘It’s all so depressing, I just avoid it now.’

  Her reply surprised Jessie.

  ‘She’s around our age and her name is Magda. It’s all over Twitter.’

  She could’ve sworn Marcus choked a little.

  ‘That’s sad, hope she turns up,’ Sofie said disinterestedly. ‘Is anyone going to use the washing machine aft
er this or am I okay to put a load through?’

  ‘Magda who?’ asked Marcus.

  Lauren walked into the kitchen, arms folded across her chest.

  ‘It’s Magda Nowak,’

  She looked worried. Jessie put a forkful of pasta in her mouth but found she was unable to swallow.

  ‘Remember? She used to live here.’

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  ‘It’s definitely her.’ Henry shook his head in disbelief and turned his phone around to show the table the photo of Magda sitting in the café.

  Marcus squinted and looked at Lauren, who had turned white, waiting for her reaction.

  ‘What does it say?’ Sofie stammered. ‘Let me see.’

  ‘Not much, just that she was last seen by a friend on Monday and that police are urgently appealing for her return. Nobody has heard from her since.’

  Sofie’s mouth dropped open.

  ‘That’s familiar,’ she said, exhaling forcefully. ‘So, she’s been in Brighton this whole time? I presumed she’d gone back to Poland or something after she ran off and left us saddled with all her bills.’

  Henry passed his phone to her.

  ‘Looks that way.’

  Jessie studied them all intently, quietly trying to draw clues from any flicker of movement on their faces.

  ‘It’s all over the news. There’s a big search happening,’ Lauren said, sounding upset. ‘What if it’s something bad this time and she hasn’t just run away?’

  Lauren was always on her wavelength, Jessie thought, nodding. Marcus stayed still and quiet, not taking his eyes from Lauren. It annoyed Jessie that he seemed so obsessed with her. In all her time at Maver Place, it was only ever Lauren that he bothered making an ounce of effort for.

  ‘Are you all right?’ he asked.

  Lauren made a face that indicated she wasn’t.

  ‘Should we call the police?’ she asked, looking at them all in turn.