How I Lost You

by Jenny Blackhurst

  I know how. The wine. “I drank some of the wine. One bottle, not three.”

  “Well, that explains a bit more,” Nick snorts. “Like why on earth you left my front door unlocked while you went to sleep.”

  “I thought you’d locked it when you left! And I didn’t plan on sleeping, I only closed my eyes for a minute.”

  Nick lets out a breath and sits down heavily on the sofa. “For a second I thought you’d . . .” He lets the words trail off, but the end of the sentence is clear. He thought I’d overdosed on aspirin. He thought I’d killed myself.

  “That’s what they wanted you to think! That I’m a crazy drunk. Why else would they empty two bottles of wine and the aspirin? To make it look like I’m crazy. Do you think I should call the police?”

  “And tell them someone came into my house while you were asleep . . .”

  “Drank two bottles of wine, emptied out a packet of aspirin, and ripped up all this paper without me noticing,” I finish dully. “No, I don’t suppose I will. They’ll think the same as you did. But we’ve lost all our evidence, just when I thought we were getting somewhere.”

  “I wouldn’t worry about that,” Nick replies. “I made copies of all this stuff before I gave it to you. Except . . .”

  Except the DNA results, which I opened myself and had had on me ever since. Which had been on the table when I fell asleep.

  “They’re gone,” I confirm bleakly. “Gone. My only evidence . . .”

  “Don’t worry.” Nick pulls me close into a hug. “We can get copies from Tim at the lab. I’m just glad you’re okay.”

  “Am I? Are we safe here? Should we check into a hotel?” Now that the initial shock and the urgency of having to assure him I haven’t tried to top myself have worn off, I am feeling severely freaked out by the idea of someone being in the house again, this time while I’m asleep in it. I realize I’m pretty lucky it’s just the paper shredded all over the floor.

  “I don’t really want to spend more time in a hotel.” Nick looks as though he’s nervous enough to consider it, which freaks me out a bit more. “I think as long as we keep the door locked”—a pointed look at me—“and I stay by your side from now on, we should be okay.” He must see how much I disagree. “At the first sign of any more trouble, I promise we’ll ship out.”

  I do feel safe with him. Despite the fact that whoever wants me to leave the past alone has followed me here to scare the spit out of me, I feel safe with Nick.

  41

  Sundays have long been my favorite day of the week, even before the days of dreading the postman. Back when I was married, Mark never worked weekends, so we’d spend a lazy morning in bed before dragging ourselves outside to go for a leisurely walk or a drive in the countryside. I was particularly fond of car-boot sales and could spend hours just strolling around surrounded by other people’s junk. After we had Dylan, we’d often take him to the local park to feed what few ducks still found a home there. He was too young to appreciate it, but it cemented our belief in ourselves as a family, complete with family days out.

  At Oakdale, Sundays meant an extra hour in bed—a real treat in a place where simple pleasures were rare—and then on to the chapel for service. I’d never been particularly religious, but it seemed such an ordinary, normal thing to do on a Sunday that I relished every visit, clung on to them as proof that I was still a real person. And the idea that God might grant me forgiveness for what I’d done kept me going week after week. Since my release I’ve swapped Sunday service for volunteering at the shelter and I figure God will be okay with that.

  This Sunday the smell of breakfast pulls me downstairs. When Nick sees me standing in the doorway wearing his fluffy navy blue robe, he grins.

  “What?”

  “Nothing. I made you breakfast.”

  “Well, I was kind of hoping it wasn’t for the other woman you keep in the basement.” It’s meant to be a funny remark but Nick doesn’t smile; his eyes hit the floor and he quickly turns away. Something’s wrong. I don’t have the guts to ask what it is. I don’t want bad news, I don’t want to hear he’s having second thoughts or he wants me out. I’d rather not ask; if he’s going to say it, I’m not going to make it easy for him.

  But he doesn’t say anything.

  Nick serves my breakfast and before I know it I’m tucking into the bacon like I haven’t eaten for weeks. I laugh when Nick teasingly offers me a tablespoon instead of my fork. I haven’t laughed properly in so long, the sound is alien to me.

  “I’ve been thinking.”

  Uh-oh. Here it comes. He doesn’t need me complicating his nice life, he has to get back to his job.

  “Have you thought any more about Mark’s involvement in all this?”

  Oh. Paranoia, you little devil. Relieved, I swallow my pride and answer truthfully. Of course I’ve thought about it—practically every minute. “I thought I knew everything about him. We talked about everything, not just at the start of the relationship either; sometimes when I was pregnant and I couldn’t sleep he’d sit up with me and rub my back and we’d just talk for hours.” Nick is listening intently. “He told me about his relationship with his father, which had always been strained, his childhood, and his fears that we’d never have a baby. He even told me how he thought God was punishing him for something he’d done in the past.”

  Nick looks up from his forkful of beans at this revelation. Quickly I realize how it sounds and begin to backtrack.

  “I don’t think he actually meant he’d done something awful,” I explain. “Just that all the bad things people do come back to haunt them.” I think of the girl in the photographs and the hidden money. “Then again, it might be that I never really knew my husband at all, mightn’t it?” The thought makes me sad, like everything we had together is spoiled with the bitter taste of lies.

  “I’ve been thinking a lot about the girl in the photos,” I admit after a long silence. “Who was she? Why didn’t Mark ever mention her to me?”

  “Maybe she didn’t mean anything, just a university fling. Maybe she wasn’t even worth mentioning.” It looks like the words leave an unwanted taste in his mouth.

  That certainly wasn’t the impression I had. Just the way they’d looked together, and the places they’d been. I’d heard millions of university stories but never met one of his university pals, or any of his friends from the past. It had never seemed strange before—they had probably all moved away to lead their grown-up lives—but now I desperately want to know what Mark’s life was like before me. Even if this girl has nothing to do with Dylan’s disappearance—and I don’t see why she would have—I know I won’t let this go until I find out why Mark “forgot” to mention her to me. I tell Nick all this and I’m surprised to see him nodding.

  “I expected you to want to find out who she is,” he admits. “I was a bit surprised when you dropped it so easily. If she knew Mark at university, maybe she knows something about the money he hid from you too.”

  “Shouldn’t I just ask Mark who she is?” I know he still cares about me, and there was a moment back at his house when I thought I might still be in love with him. If he isn’t involved in this, he deserves to know that Dylan is alive. Do I want to turn to him now?

  Nick looks skeptical. “He kicked you out of his home the first time you went there; I don’t think he’s going to welcome you back with open arms and answer all your questions about an ex-girlfriend from uni, do you?”

  “But he should know . . .”

  “Well, when we find out what happened, you can tell him everything. Going to him now would just put him on the defensive.”

  Okay. “So what do you suggest, Mr. Journalist? Any handy hints and tips on stalking the general public?”

  Nick grins. “I thought you’d never ask.”

  He stands up, goes to retrieve a laptop, and pops it on the table in front of him. He types in a few words and after a couple of minutes he turns the screen around. The Durham University alumni page is open
, plus another tab that links to Facebook.

  “For an IT guy, Mark’s a bit of a social network phobe,” he remarks. “I’ve found his LinkedIn profile and there are a couple of alumni on there but no one who looks remotely like the girl you described. He doesn’t have a Facebook profile.”

  That doesn’t surprise me. Mark always hated Facebook and used to rant on and on about how many lives it destroyed. It made me feel safe and secure that my husband didn’t need to use social media; he had no interest in chasing the past, or in “friending” or “poking” random women. I presumed it was just an age thing; Mark said Facebook and Twitter were for teenagers to be able to moan about school and gate-crash each other’s parties. Now I’m wondering if it’s odd that a man who went to one of the best universities in the country wouldn’t want to keep in touch with the people he shared the experience with.

  “So where do we go from here?” I wonder out loud. Nick smiles as though he’s happy I’ve asked.

  “This is the number of the Durham alumni division,” he explains, showing me the web page he’s navigated to. “If we’re going to find someone who went to the university, these are the people to help us.”

  “That’s assuming she went to Durham.”

  “We better hope she did, then.”

  Nick pulls out his mobile and dials the number. “Hi, my name’s Nick Whitely and I work for the Star in Bradford,” he tells the person on the other end. I’m a little surprised he’s using his real name, but I guess we’re not doing anything wrong, and the best lies are usually 90 percent truth anyway. I listen to him as he explains how he’s writing a story on social media and tracing long-lost friends and he’d like to compare the new technology to the old. He wants to know how he could find someone using only a photograph. He pauses to let the person on the end of the line speak, a woman I guess by the flirtatious tone his voice has taken on.

  “Erm, just a second.” He covers the mouthpiece and asks me, “When did Mark graduate?”

  Five years before me . . . “Nineteen ninety-three,” I reply.

  Nick repeats the information and waits for an answer.

  “Thank you, that’s incredibly helpful. And where would one find that information? Great, Meredith, was it? I’ll be sure to thank you in my story. . . . And you.”

  He puts his mobile down on the table and I make a face. “Meredith sounded helpful,” I remark.

  “Now, now.” Nick grins. “She was, as a matter of fact. Bill Bryson Library has yearbooks dating back to 1990 with matriculation photos from each college. And they’re open on Sundays.”

  “How long will it take us to get there?” I ask.

  “A couple of hours.” Nick hits the keys on his laptop and a picture of the Durham University library fills the screen. “We could be there by midday if you put some clothes on.”

  It’s hardly the occasion to pack a picnic, so we stop at a shop at the corner of the road appropriately named the Shop on the Corner and pick up a couple of chocolate bars and a bottle of Coke. The silence in the car is charged with anticipation, but it’s not uncomfortable.

  “Did you go to university?” Nick asks after ten minutes. The distraction from the route my thoughts are going down is welcome.

  “Yes, Nottingham,” I reply. “I met Mark through friends when we’d both finished our degrees.”

  “Did you keep in touch with any of your uni mates?”

  I shake my head. “Not really. I used to get the odd email telling me how they were getting on, but it became clear pretty quickly that they were all about careers in the city and my replies were all about wedding planning and house renovations. After the wedding, we pretty much lost touch completely.”

  “Did you have many friends before you went to Oakdale?” He’s trying to find out why I have no one in my life, why it’s just me and Cassie. I presumed the answer was obvious, but maybe not.

  “Most of our friends were mutual,” I tell him honestly. “After what happened, it was easier to let them go than to try and drag things out and make it difficult for them.” I have no idea if Mark still sees our friends anymore. I imagine him going to dinner parties at Fran and Chris’s without me, a conspicuous empty seat where I used to be. Or worse still, a seat filled with my replacement.

  “So Mark got the house, the car, the friends; what did you get?”

  “I got Cassie.” I smile, only half joking. “A couple of my girlfriends tried to keep in touch at first, but I did the same to them as I did to Dad. I had to approve all visits, but I just flushed away the orders. Cassie tried to sign one on my behalf but I tore that up too. At the time I told myself I was doing it for them, so they wouldn’t be tied to a murderer, but looking back I guess I was just being selfish. I couldn’t bear to hear how their lives were still carrying on when mine had been ripped apart. After Mark stopped coming, I convinced myself I didn’t care about any of them.”

  “Has anyone contacted you in the past month? Since you left Oakdale?”

  I shake my head. “It had been too long. I couldn’t bear the thought of them pitying me, the uncomfortable ‘how have you been’s and the apologies every time they mentioned babies or a murder came on the news. I decided the best way forward was to meet new people, ones who don’t know what’s gone on in my life and aren’t watching every word they say around me, or waiting for me to crack up again.”

  “And how’s that going for you?” he jokes. I let out a laugh.

  “So far not so good. There are the people at the shelter, but I’ve kept my distance even from them. It’s hard keeping a secret this big, you know?”

  Nick’s eyes are fixed firmly on the road when he replies a little too emphatically, “Yeah, I know.”

  I’m about to ask him what he means by that when a black sedan swings out of the junction ahead onto our side of the road and plows straight towards us.

  I scream, Nick slams his foot on the brake, but it’s no good, the car is still on the wrong side of the road and it isn’t slowing down. Just as it’s about to hit us, Nick jerks the wheel sideways and sends us screeching onto the pavement. We slam to a stop a meter short of a bus stop. I look up to see the black sedan straighten up onto its own side of the road and speed away.

  42

  Nick looks across at me. Shock has drained the color from his face but he looks otherwise unharmed. There are six or seven people standing around the front of the car, peering in through the front windshield. One of them, an elderly woman, raps on the window.

  “Are you all right in there, missy? Should someone get an ambulance?”

  I look at Nick, who shakes his head. “No, no, thank you, we’re fine. We’ll be fine.” She nods her head and steps back slightly, but none of them turn to leave.

  “Are you okay?” I ask Nick, and he slams his fist against the steering wheel in anger.

  “He tried to kill us,” I state eventually, unable to think of anything else useful to say.

  “Yes, he did.”

  “Actually dead.”

  “Yes, Susan, actually really dead.”

  When I look at him again, he’s shaking, and automatically I reach out to put my hand on his shoulder. He pulls me into his arms and we sit for a minute, stunned and scared, holding on to each other for dear life.

  “Do you need to go to the hospital?” Nick asks eventually, holding me at arm’s length to check my face. “Is your neck okay? Can you move it?”

  I check for signs of whiplash, rolling my head forward and to the side. “No, I think I’m fine.”

  Nick reaches into the back of the car and pulls out the bottle of Coke. “Here, have some of this, the sugar will help with the shock.”

  “And the chocolate,” I reply. “Chocolate helps with shock.”

  Despite the seriousness of the situation, Nick laughs. “Where did you hear that?”

  I think for a moment and smile when I realize the answer. Dropping my eyes to the floor, I mumble, “Harry Potter.”

  Nick laughs as though this
is the funniest thing he’s heard in months, and I find myself joining in, the initial shock of what has happened beginning to dissipate.

  “Are you ready to carry on before these people make our choice for us and someone calls the police?”

  And that’s it. No question of giving up on our journey or giving up altogether, like I know so many other people would have done. This is my fight and he doesn’t have to accept the attack on his life so readily, but he has. Eventually he turns the key in the ignition and I let out a sigh of relief as the car starts up immediately. He pips his horn to move the crowd of people still gawking at us, and when they still don’t move he rolls it towards them and they scatter.

  “Should we call the police?”

  Nick shakes his head. “No. I mean we should, it’s attempted murder, but the guy who did it will be long gone by now. And think of all the awkward questions we’d have to answer.”

  “Nick, someone just tried to kill us. How often does that happen to you? And you think we should just let them get away with it to try again tomorrow? Or the next day?”

  “It never happens to me, Susan. I’m a journalist, not a member of the CIA, or have you forgotten? I just thought you wanted to get to the bottom of what was going on here, not spend the rest of the day in a police station waiting room. And if it makes the papers, what of your new life then?”

  “You’re right.” God, I hadn’t even thought of the newspapers. Lucky I’m traveling with a journalist. “It just seems so surreal. Someone tries to kill us and we carry on as though it never happened.”

  “You wanted proof you weren’t going crazy—there it is. If whoever is following us realized it’s Durham we’re headed for, they took a big risk to try and stop us. Maybe that means we’re on the right track.”

  Obviously I’m scared, I don’t take attempted murder lightly, but I know now that we’re going to find out what happened to my son, and I can’t help but be excited by that. Either we find him, or I’ll die trying. And although that’s now a very real possibility, I don’t care. I’m willing to die for my son. And if it’s me or them, I’m willing to kill for him too.