by Lauren North
“Jamie?” I call up the stairs.
“Yeah?” he calls back.
“Stay in your room, OK? Don’t come out until I tell you.”
I grab my phone from the side and press 999 on the keypad.
When I step back into the bright daylight, Richard is exactly where I left him on the grass. He has stopped crying and is staring into the distance.
I think about sitting down too, but think better of it and remain standing, just in case I need to run.
“Why have you been following me?”
He clears his throat. “It might be easier if I tell you about myself and then we’ll get to that. You see, I worked for the airline, in the human resources department. I was midlevel management, so I made some decisions myself, but not many. One of my jobs was to handle the paperwork and the interviews for employees when they returned from sick leave.” The words come out like a well-practiced speech, like I’m not the first person he’s said this to. “It was my job to talk to Philip Curtis—the pilot—”
“I know who he is.” I will never forget the name.
“You’ve probably heard on the news by now that Philip was signed off work for four weeks with stress and depression. The flight to Frankfurt was his first flight back. I was supposed to interview Philip the day before he returned to work. He came up to my office for the meeting at five p.m. . . .” Richard’s voice cracks and he shakes his head.
“We were supposed to talk for thirty minutes at least. We have an established protocol for supporting employees who are experiencing mental health issues. I had a checklist to go through. It had things like ‘Is the employee exhibiting signs he may not be ready to return to work?’”
The sun is pressing down on my head and I feel suddenly weak. I don’t know what this man wants, why he is here, but I don’t feel scared anymore. I feel sad. I drop to the grass and sit down.
“And I didn’t do it,” Richard says.
“What? Why not?”
He blows out a puff of air. “There is no reason. I just didn’t. I looked at Philip and he seemed fine to me. He was smiling, and we joked about the weather. So I patted him on the shoulder and said something along the lines of ‘We’re short-staffed for a flight tomorrow. It’s yours if you want it,’ and Philip looked at me. I’ll never forget that look. It was like I’d given him a gift, and I remember congratulating myself on how I’d handled it. Like he’d been dreading the interview and I’d just made it easy for him.
“I left the checklist on my desk and I was going to tick through it the next day. But—” Tears form in his eyes again, and when he speaks, his voice is squeaking with emotion. “I’d given him a gift, all right. I’d given him a way out, you see. I’ve thought about it a thousand times, and I think when I offered him the flight to Frankfurt he knew then what he was going to do and it’s my fault. I didn’t clear him properly and I gave him that flight.”
Cold runs over my skin. Oh, Mark. You really really shouldn’t have died.
“Why have you been following me?” I ask.
“I was fired, of course. There has been talk of criminal charges being brought. No less than I deserve. Philip sent me his suicide note, thanking me for my help. I’d gone by then so the letter sat unopened on my desk for a while. Before I left I stole a copy of the passenger manifest, and I’ve been visiting all the families and apologizing the best I can and owning up to my part in it. The crash was preventable. It should never have happened, and that’s something I will live with for the rest of my life.”
“But—”
“You were hardest, Mrs. Clarke,” Richard continues, preempting my question. “Every time I came to do it, well, I saw you and I . . . I couldn’t.”
I think of Jamie with his bright blue eyes and crazy blond hair. Our baby boy who will grow up without his father.
“The first time I came here, you were just pulling out of the drive and I followed you in my car to a town.”
“Manningtree.” I nod.
“I was going to talk to you, but then you ran away.”
“And you waited on the lane that day, when the cyclist knocked into you.”
“Yes,” Richard says.
I look past Richard to the garden and the trees. This is Denise all over again. The handing over of guilt, the confession. I can’t tell him it’s OK, because it’s not. And it never will be.
“Was it you in the garden that evening a few weeks ago?”
His face falls and I have my answer. “I . . . I was only there for a minute. I didn’t know you’d seen me. I wanted to see if you were in and I was going to knock on the door, but I chickened out and tried to call you instead. I really didn’t mean to scare you.”
“Well, you did. A lot.” My hand tightens on my phone. I want to call the police and get those two officers back here. I want to show them it was real, but what purpose would it serve? “How many times have you tried to call me?”
“A lot. I . . . I realized I couldn’t do it face-to-face, so I thought I’d phone you instead, but that didn’t work either. I heard your voice on the answerphone and you sounded so happy. I started phoning just to hear it. I think a part of me was trying to convince myself that you were still happy.”
I shake my head. “How can I be?”
“I’m sorry. I’m so so sorry.” Richard drops his head to his knees, the sobs shaking his body once again, but I feel no sympathy for him.
“I should call the police. You know that, don’t you? You’ve been following me, calling my house. You’ve trespassed on my property and scared me out of my wits.”
“I never meant to do that. I’m sorry.”
“Stop saying sorry. It’s meaningless.” I stand up and stare down at him, forcing myself to think back over the days and days since you died. All the things that have happened, the pages in my notebook. Finally I have answers. Some, at least.
“So you never spoke when you called me?” I ask. “You didn’t know my husband?”
Richard shakes his head and sniffs, and I believe him.
“What kind of car do you drive?”
“A blue Nissan.”
“Did you follow me in a car any other time after Manningtree?”
“No.”
Not all the answers, then. Just some. The hang-ups, the feeling of being watched. The man in the garden.
“Please leave now and don’t come back. I never want to see you again.”
Richard doesn’t move. Not at first. He just stares up at me with his pathetic, beady eyes. I unlock the screen of my phone and allow my finger to hover over the call button. It’s enough. Richard pushes himself up and walks quickly away.
Maybe one day I’ll feel sorry for Richard and the burden he will carry with him forever, but after everything he has put me through, I don’t think I will.
CHAPTER 52
The man in the black baseball cap—Richard—who I thought was trying to grab me in Manningtree, who stood in my garden in the dark and watched us, who called the house and hung up dozens of times, he is not the same person who called me Tessie.
The thought stuck in my mind as I washed up the cake tins. It was still there like a pin pricking my brain all the way through the evening. But it is only when Jamie is asleep and I’m sitting in bed with the notebook resting on my lap that something clicks.
There’s one line written on the second page: You didn’t have to go!
Denise’s name is written underneath it, and it’s only when I see it that I remember her parting question as I was trying to shut the door. “Has anyone called you?” she asked.
I picture her face and the dark pencil-drawn eyebrows. Her eyes were wide, her lips tight, as if she might’ve been scared. But of what?
I throw off the covers and pad barefoot down the stairs, holding your pj bottoms at the waist to stop them from falling down. I don’
t bother turning on the lights, and I use the torch on my phone to guide me.
I dig through the drawer with the take-out menus and phone chargers. I’m sure I put her card in here. I find it slipped between my address book and a Thai take-out menu and punch the number into my mobile.
The kitchen floor is freezing cold. It’s seeping through my feet and into my body, and I shiver.
Denise answers on the third ring. “Hello?” she says, her voice hesitant as if she hadn’t wanted to pick up at all.
“Denise, it’s Tess.”
“Oh, hi, Tess. Is everything all right?” There’s a shuffling in the background and I hear a door closing.
“Yes. Sorry. I was thinking about . . . er . . . Mark’s work stuff, and I wondered if you could help me with something.”
“Now?” She sounds surprised. No, it’s more than that; she sounds uncomfortable.
“I just have a few questions, and you did say I could call you anytime,” I add, pushing at her guilt.
“Yes, sorry, of course. What can I help you with?”
I pause, suddenly unsure how to word what I need to say. “Do you know if Mark was working on something secret?”
“What do you mean?” she asks.
“Something . . . something that might have got him in trouble. Something he wouldn’t have wanted people to know about.” Something that would make a man call in the middle of the night and threaten Mark, threaten us.
There’s silence on the line. I pull the phone from my ear to check that I’ve still got a signal.
“I can’t talk now.” Her voice is so low I barely hear. “I’m sorry. I need to call you back.”
“Why? What can’t you talk about?” I ask, but it’s too late; she’s gone.
What the hell, Mark?
I shiver again and stare at the blank screen of my mobile. Even in my panic I thought Denise would laugh off my question. I thought she’d reassure me there was nothing to worry about. Instead there is something, and she wouldn’t tell me, or couldn’t tell me. I think of her whispered response. She sounded scared.
I pull up my call log and try her number again. Denise might be scared, but so am I, and I have Jamie to think about.
It doesn’t ring this time. Instead an electronic voice asks me to leave a message. I don’t.
A sudden flash of light fills the kitchen. Headlights from a passing car. Except it doesn’t pass; it pulls onto the drive. I gasp and drop out of sight from the window, crouching to the cold tiles. My hands shake as I pull up the keypad, ready to dial 999.
A car door slams. Footsteps crunch on the gravel. I stare at the side door and bite down on my lip until warm, metallic blood trickles into my mouth.
Is it Richard back again? I told him to leave us alone, but maybe he didn’t listen.
The footsteps pass the window and reach the side porch. Knuckles rap against the wood.
Knock, knock.
I breathe shallow breaths, wobbling in my crouch and placing a hand to the tiles to steady myself.
Knock. Knock.
“Tess?” a voice calls through the door.
Knock. Knock.
It’s not Richard, it’s Ian. I reach a hand for the counter and I’m about to pull myself up and open the door when I hear the sound of keys—a jangle first as he finds the one he wants, then the click of metal on metal as he pushes it into the lock.
He thinks I’m out. He’s trying to let himself in. My eyes grow wide, the cold air stinging my pupils.
Ian leans against the door with a thud and wiggles the key. He doesn’t know I’ve changed the locks. He swears under his breath and tries again, and all the while I stay in my crouch less than three meters away from him. The muscles in my thighs burn, crying out for me to move. It was him who was in the house that day. I knew it, Mark.
The key clinks, then jangles again. He’s giving up.
Then the home phone rings again. When the answerphone beeps I think it’ll be Ian telling me to call him, but it’s not, it’s Shelley.
“Hi, Tess, it’s Shelley,” she says, her voice dancing through the house. “Just checking you’re still on for Saturday. I found out today that my pool is closed for repairs until eight, so I won’t be at yours until ten. Hope that’s OK. There’s a nice Italian next to the Buttermarket shopping center. I’ve booked us for a late lunch. We have to hit Debenhams first. They’re having a one-day half-price sale. Oh, and your mum phoned me again. She says she’s been leaving you messages too. Call me when you get this.”
She signs off with a cheery “Bye,” plunging the house into silence.
A moment later, Ian’s shoes crunch on the gravel and his car door bangs. The engine purrs, headlights fill the kitchen, and he’s gone.
I am alone once more.
I dash through the house and dive under the covers of our bed. With the light from my phone, I scribble the date and time in my notebook. Then I write: Ian tries to get in. It was him in the house last time!!! I still don’t know who is threatening us or what he wants??? Denise wouldn’t speak to me. Why not? Is she scared?
CHAPTER 53
Transcript BETWEEN ELLIOT SADLER (ES) AND TERESA CLARKE (TC) (INPATIENT AT OAKLANDS HOSPITAL, HARTFIELD WARD), WEDNESDAY, APRIL 11. SESSION 2 (Cont.)
TC: Richard Welkin was the man I saw in Manningtree who chased me. Shelley tried to convince me it was in my head, but it wasn’t. He’d been watching me for weeks and phoning the house and hanging up. I thought it was the same man who’s been calling me with threats, but it isn’t. Richard worked for the airline and wanted to tell me that he thought the crash was his fault. That’s why he was following me and hanging around the house. He said he was too scared to knock on the door.
ES: Do you think it was Richard’s fault?
TC: Yes. I think it’s a bit Denise’s fault too. That’s Mark’s personal assistant. Have I mentioned her? She messed up Mark’s flights.
ES: Why do you think Richard was scared to knock? Was he following all the families of the victims from the crash?
TC: I wondered the same thing. He said I was the hardest person to talk to.
ES: Why?
TC: I don’t know. I guess he must’ve seen me and realized how much of a mess I was.
CHAPTER 54
Saturday, April 7
1 DAY TO JAMIE’S BIRTHDAY
The high street is busy; heaving, in fact. Solo shoppers, groups of teenagers, couples holding hands, children, parents, and pushchairs all weaving in and out of each other. There’s a sense of desperation in the air, like it’s one hour before closing time on Christmas Eve. The noise, the sheer chaos of it, is a jackhammer next to my head. I thought I wanted to get away from the stillness of the house and the village, but now I crave that silence.
We pass a busker—a teenage girl with a guitar and a nose ring. Her blond hair is dreadlocked and streaked with purple and blue. I expect something grungy when she opens her mouth but her voice as she launches into a Robbie Williams song is soft and angelic.
Jamie’s feet slow as he stands to listen, transfixed by the girl.
I stop too. Her voice isn’t just in my ears, it’s permeating my body, like she’s injecting her words, her thoughts, right into us.
My hand nudges Jamie’s back, urging him on and catching up with Shelley two paces ahead of us.
We reach the sandy-bricked town hall, standing grand among the discount shops. I jump at the sound of a voice shouting and spin toward the noise. It’s just a man with a stall of dried fruits heckling passersby.
In the pedestrianized square outside the town hall a group of older teenagers are sitting on the back of a bench with their feet resting on the seat. One of the boys has short, spiky hair and a tattoo of a gun on his neck. It’s an old-style pistol like something from the Wild West. I stare at the detail of the ink on his skin and fe
el an undiluted fear that threatens to cripple me.
I want to take Jamie home now before the boy with the tattoo pulls out a real gun and kills us, before a car turns into the pedestrian zone and mows us all down, before the wall of a shop front gives way and covers us in bricks. Or a bomb. A terrorist attack. A madman wielding a container of battery acid.
Shelley moves beside me and squeezes my arm as if she senses my discomfort. I need to get a grip. I’m being paranoid and jittery. It’s Ipswich high street, for God’s sake, not a war zone. Yet I can’t shake the vulnerability—an itchy wool jumper—covering my skin. I can’t shake the feeling that Jamie and I are in danger here, that something terrible is about to happen, and I need to take Jamie’s hand tight in my grasp and run far away from Shelley and all these people.
I’m sure Jamie feels it too. He didn’t say a single word on the drive into town. Just stared out of the window from the back of Shelley’s Mini and watched the world pass him by. He’ll be eight tomorrow, Mark. Our baby boy is turning eight. It doesn’t seem possible. He’s so grown-up now, and at the same time he’s so young.
Thoughts of Richard are still weighing on my mind and I’m desperate to tell Shelley about his confession, but Jamie hasn’t left my side since she arrived this morning and I don’t want him to hear.
“Mel,” Shelley shouts, releasing my arm and standing on her tiptoes. She waves across the shoppers.
A woman with shiny black hair dashes over to us, with a girl trailing behind.
“Hey.” Mel throws her arms around Shelley. “It’s been too long.”
Mel is wearing a white linen jacket and a pair of black skinny jeans that cling to her stick-thin legs. There’s a glamour to both her and Shelley. It’s in the heel of their boots and the cut of their jackets and the way their hair is sleek, their makeup subtle but there nonetheless. Suddenly I feel too hot and frumpy in my winter coat and foolish for blow-drying my curls and digging out a skirt and a pair of tights that didn’t have runs.
