by Pip Drysdale
Maybe it was a relapse. They call it ‘addiction’ for a reason.
And that was when I heard the door handle turn.
‘Hey,’ I said, trying to be normal, as he walked in and past me. He was wearing a pair of black running pants and a grey T-shirt. There were dark patches of sweat under the arms and around the neck. Angus didn’t do come-downs, he sprinted it off.
‘Hey,’ he said, and wandered through to the bedroom, stripping off his T-shirt and throwing it on the chair in the corner.
I picked up my coffee and followed him through.
‘What do you want to do today?’ I asked, sitting on the edge of the bed, pretending to be perky. He’d been glued to my hip the whole weekend so far, and I needed time alone in his flat. I was on my side of the bed sipping coffee, and he was on his, standing by his bedside table and fiddling around on his phone. His earphones dangled by his knees.
He didn’t answer.
‘What do you want to do today?’ I repeated.
‘I have to work,’ he said, not looking at me. Staring at his phone.
‘On a Sunday?’ I said, trying to sound disappointed.
‘Yes,’ he said, his voice tense. He still hadn’t looked at me.
Something was wrong, I could feel it. He was acting strange. I needed to defuse any suspicion. Make him feel powerful. Do something to make him sure that I was still on his side. And there was only one way I could do that.
‘Are you okay?’ I asked as I put the coffee cup down and crawled across the bed. I dropped the dressing gown behind me and stripped off the T-shirt I’d slept in, then knelt there topless and freezing before him.
‘Baby?’ I said.
‘What?’ he asked, looking up from his phone.
I forced myself to reach for him, two arms outstretched before my nakedness, but his remained still. One holding his phone, the other by his side. His eyes stared straight through me, as though trying to make out the painting on the wall behind my head. Then he put down his phone, walked into the bathroom and slammed the door loudly behind him.
There are forty-five seconds between the moment when an iPhone is last touched, and the moment the screen locks: I’d Googled that months before, when I first suspected the affair with Kim and needed to check his messages. I got to his at about second twenty-five. I touched it and it sprung to life. Screen. Light. Action.
Maybe there’s someone else. He’s acting the same way he did when he was fucking Kim. Distant. Cold. There in body, but not in soul.
I had to know: if I could prove that there was someone else I could leave unhindered.
I scrolled through his call log. Nothing unusual there. Then I flipped to his messages. Only three – me, Harry and his mother. That in itself was suspicious. Who has three messages in their inbox? Clearly he had deleted some. Why delete them if they’re innocent?
The hot-water pipes were humming and I could hear that he was standing in the shower, the drumming of droplets on the tiled floor disrupted every time he moved under the faucet. I imagined his soap-sudded hair, his eyes closed as he rinsed the foam down the drain.
I navigated to his photo roll.
A few screenshots of a computer screen with numbers on it. A photograph of his mother. I scrolled up. Then up further: a dick pic.
A new one.
One I’d never seen.
And if he hadn’t taken it for me, who was it for? My mind reeled back to that petrol-station receipt for condoms, and the Facebook message from Kim. Was that what she wanted to tell me – that they were still seeing each other? And as I sat there on his bed, listening to him in the shower, our entire history – Eastbourne, the prostitutes, the ski trip, the sex tape, the violence, the lies, everything he’d put me through – came crashing over me like a tidal wave that had formed while I blinked. And it was all too much.
I needed an out.
And so I went into his messages, and I typed in a phone number: 0770 090 0007. Felicia, from next door. And then I sent her the new dick pic.
If I couldn’t leave as a result of a genuine affair, I’d leave as a result of a fabricated one.
Then I put his phone back beside the bed and covered myself with the duvet.
The door opened and he walked back into the bedroom. His hair was plastered to his head and his amber eyes gleamed from behind those waterlogged lashes. He picked up his phone and looked at it. But he could look as much as he fancied. The evidence had been deleted, his phone screen was locked again and I was back in bed. Silently watching him dress.
The room was silent, that noisy kind of silent that makes your ears swell. I could hear my pulse. My blood. The crinkling of his light blue shirt as he quickly did up the buttons. And then the sound of him walking out of the room, towards the door and slamming it behind him without a goodbye.
But the moment he was gone I sprang into action.
First I searched the bedside tables. There was nothing interesting in there – just some lubricant and a few loose sheets of pills. Paracetamol. Aspirin. And one of my old hair ties.
I picked it up and my heart flinched. There were three long dark hairs caught in the little metal fixture that connected one end to the other. I was dark blonde. Kim was bleached blonde. How many of us were there? I threw it back into the drawer and slammed it shut.
The wardrobe. One of the sliding doors was open just a crack and I could see the navy blue sleeve of one of his suit jackets poking out through it. I moved towards it and swiftly searched each of his pockets. Jackets. Hanging trousers. Shirts.
Nothing.
Just some crumpled, old, illegible receipts and a few rogue coins.
Ed watched me from his cage as I moved past him, past the balcony window and into Angus’s study. I worked my way through the drawers: methodically, strategically. I did not feel methodical.
A couple of bills with the date of payment written on the corner, two stamps, some envelopes, a spare pad of post-it notes, and the little green thumb drive. But I already knew what was on that. I placed each item back, exactly where I had found them.
On his desk lay a thin pile of papers.
A couple of work emails with some handwritten notes at the bottom. And a bank statement. My eyes scanned it quickly, searching for something, anything I could use: restaurant charges, Waitrose shopping trips, a couple from Peter Jones and a few other miscellaneous charges I didn’t understand. But it didn’t matter how thoroughly I searched, there was nothing there. Either he was too good at hiding things, or I was too bad at finding them.
I put down the statement and moved to the next piece of paper. It was a letter from the tenants’ board. They were following up a complaint from Angus’s downstairs neighbour, Mrs Clifton. It was regarding the leak. Damages. And suspected drug use. Something that had fallen onto her balcony. I felt my throat swell: why didn’t he mention the letter?
I read further. It was a letter of warning. Further complaints may lead to eviction.
My mind flew back to the dick pic I had just sent his neighbour, Felicia.
Perfect.
My eyes stared at his computer screen. What was hidden in that computer of his? What would I discover if I opened Pandora’s box? I turned it on.
Emails. There was nothing on his phone, but maybe he hadn’t been as meticulous about cleaning out his emails. Maybe I could find an e-trail to prove he leaked that information to the Guardian.
I opened a private-browser window and logged into his email address: [email protected].
My eyes scanned the list: Amazon. Viagra. Harry. And then something from a man named Cameron. No last name. Email address: [email protected]. The subject read: Sophie Reed.
It had arrived early that morning and had already been read. I clicked on it.
Two words: Sophie Reed. Pick up your fucking phone or I will call the other number.
I’d never heard Angus mention a man named Cameron, or Caz. Nor had I heard the name Sophie Reed. I scrolled down. The email trail
had begun just four days before:
15 February, 10.16am
Caz: Angus, I’ve just read the papers. How could you leak that information? Do you have any idea what kind of danger you’ve put me in? Put my sources in? They’ll trace it back to me. You said it was due diligence!?! And the rest of the money hasn’t come in yet. Call me.
15 February, 9.22pm
Angus: It wasn’t me. Who else did you give that information to? You will get your money. But it takes time.
16 February, 11.05am
Caz: You are the only person I gave those files to. I know it was you. We need to talk. I’m trying to call you, pick up your phone.
17 February, 9.42am
Caz: Angus, I mean it. Call me.
18 February, 10.04pm
Angus: I need you to find out whatever you can about a man named David Turner.
18 February, 10.09pm
Caz: I want my cash. I’m not going to be as patient as last time. Just remember, Stepanovich is not the only person I have dirt on. So pick up your fucking phone.
19 February, 1.01am
Angus: Don’t threaten me.
Hence Caz’s most recent email that came in at five past six that morning.
Thoughts crashed into one another as my mind tried to process what was going on. Who the fuck is Sophie Reed? What is ‘the other number’? And why would Angus be looking for information on David?
I scrolled back through the emails and looked at the timestamp: he’d asked for information on David just two hours after picking up his call to me. Fuck. If he did anything to harm David it would be my fault.
Then I opened another tab and typed ‘Sophie Reed’ into the search field. There were four pages of results, but nothing of interest: Sophie Reed was living happily in Surrey with her husband and golden retriever, working as a yoga instructor.
I clicked on the second page. Still nothing. A couple of comments on a blog about Spain by a girl who went by that name, but nothing suspicious. And then I clicked on the third page. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing.
It was only at the very bottom of that third page that I found a news article. It was dated December 2006.
And there was a third Sophie Reed.
She was dead.
I stared at the article, trying to make sense of it, trying to join the dots: she died in an attempted robbery in her hotel room, blunt trauma to the head, while on holiday in Cape Town.
With her boyfriend – an unnamed London banker.
Ice filled my lungs and my blood stuck to my veins.
No.
My breath was loud.
I swallowed hard as I remembered Angus’s hands tight around my throat, his thumbs pushing into my windpipe, my head slamming against the wall by the bed, his pupils small, the blurry vision, sharp pain being replaced by a dull throb, and then the tide of heartfelt apologies.
I’ll never do that again.
It’s just because I love you so much.
Nobody else can affect me like you can.
My throat burned with the memory.
I sat staring at the screen, my eyes hot and a dark certainty pulsing through me. My ears roared as I stared at her picture. She looked a lot like me: same dark blonde hair, same physique, and from what I could make out from the picture, the same hopeful eyes. She was laughing, small creases around her eyes and her mouth just a little open.
Then I remembered the box. The shoebox with the photographs of Kim. The place Angus kept his secrets. There’d be something in there to tell me if I was right – something to confirm I wasn’t making it all up in my head. I stood up from the computer and ran through to the bedroom. Opened the closet. And, kneeling on the carpet, burning my knees, I reached for the box.
I lifted the lid and pulled out a handful of photographs.
There were a lot of girls in there. All of them pretty. Brunettes. Blondes. Smiles. Angus looking cheerful. Sexy. Tanned.
And then there, towards the bottom, lay the proof.
She was smiling too. Just like the rest of them. Wearing a long dress that brushed the lawn on which she stood. And she was holding Angus’s hand. He was in a tuxedo. They were going somewhere special. The sun was setting behind them, and so the picture had the telltale yellow glow of 35mm film.
I dropped the photograph back into the box. I was shaking and my breath was fast.
The danger bore down on me. And then I felt it: a movement of the air. Before I heard the door. But then the front door was opening. And someone was entering.
And Angus was calling out: ‘Darling?’
I dropped the rest of the photographs back inside, put the cardboard top back on, replaced it behind his shoes and ran to the doorway. He was just coming inside. I needed to get back to the computer.
‘Hi honey,’ I said as I moved quickly by him.
I sat at his computer and scrambled for the mouse. I was trembling. I didn’t have time to close the browser but I quickly pulled up another tab.
‘What are you doing?’ came Angus’s voice.
I could hear him closing the door and his footsteps moving towards me. I typed into the search bar: ‘destination weddings Fiji’.
‘There you are,’ he said as he moved into the room towards me. ‘Are you okay?’
‘Hey,’ I said as he kissed the top of my head. Pictures of white sand and blue water sat before me. I turned around to smile at him. ‘Just looking at options.’
He looked at the screen: ‘Nice.’
‘I thought you had to work, honey?’ I asked, looking up at him so he’d have to hold my gaze.
‘No, made some phone calls, all done.’
‘Oh,’ I said. ‘Great, then we can spend the day together.’ I was holding his hands.
He smiled at me then said, ‘What about Bali?’ and walked out of the room.
‘I’ll look,’ I called after him and turned back to the screen.
My stomach had turned to oil and my head was full of fog. But I reached for the mouse, closed the windows and cleared the browser history. Then I sat for a long while staring at the empty screen.
I could hear him in the other room. In the distance. Talking to Ed. And, finally, I realised: he was the same man he’d always been. It was me who’d changed.
I was chopping carrots. Shaping them with a knife into pretty little orange stars in the same way I always did – anything to make him think things were the same – and he was out on the balcony, drinking his Scotch and looking out over London’s twinkling skyline like he owned it.
I looked at the time: 5.57pm. Charlotte would be landing soon. But what could I tell her anyway? And how was I going to go back into work the next day and pretend everything was fine? How could I call my mother back now, knowing what I knew? She’d hear it in my voice and she’d worry. A thousand thoughts tangled themselves throughout my mind like kites on a winter tree.
Angus killed Sophie Reed.
Cameron, whoever he is, has evidence of that.
He keeps calling Angus’s other phone.
Angus’s other phone.
The one I heard ringing.
And then one of those kites unravelled and revealed itself to me: What if that phone isn’t for NA at all? What if he’s not even in NA and that was just the one story he knew I’d buy? The one excuse he’d never used. The dagger up his sleeve.
So, yes, he had a second phone and it was somewhere in the flat, but it wasn’t for his sponsor. It was for people like Caz. And Kim. And the owner of the dark hair in my hair tie. The calls he couldn’t have coming in and puncturing the sheen of his daily life.
I needed to find that phone and whatever was on it. Use it to blackmail him into leaving me alone – or maybe use it to send him to prison – and I needed to do it before I got hurt.
monday
Master Sun said: ‘But throw them where there is no escape, and they will fight with the courage of the heroes Shu and Gui.’
20 FEBRUARY
It was lying at the bottom of
my handbag: a little plastic zip-lock baggie. Full of pot. The one Charlotte had left in our fridge. But it had been left unsealed and so the leaves were everywhere: in the crevices of my mobile phone, stuck to my lipstick and gathering in the folds of the lining.
I knew what had happened the moment the smell – all sweetness and pastures – hit me: Angus had planted drugs in my bag, kissed me on the forehead and sent me off to work.
I’d been at my desk at the time, and had just opened my handbag in search of a Band-Aid for a paper cut incurred while trying to print an email. But now I was in the bathroom. It had been empty when I got there and I’d locked myself in the stall farthest from the door. The one with a small window.
I looked around me: loo roll, a tampon disposal unit and the toilet bowl. Reaching into my bag, I pulled out the baggie and what was left inside.
Then I looked up at the window: somebody might find it if I threw it outside. Worse yet, somebody might see it fall. The risk seemed too great, so I emptied it instead into the loo. A thick layer of brown-green leaves floated on the water, a few stuck to the white porcelain. Flush.
I crammed the little plastic bag in the tampon disposal unit and my eyes landed back on the bowl.
Fuck.
Leaves were still floating there. Not all of them. But some.
The muscles in my back ached.
I piled in more paper and waited for the water tank to refill. It took forever.
Angus is responsible.
Footsteps.
Someone was entering the bathroom. I heard them open a cubicle door and lock it, then a zip being unfastened and urine trickling into the water.
My head was light and I steadied myself against the side of the cubicle. I needed to be quiet. I needed to muffle my breath.
The girl in the other stall was reaching for the loo roll. I could hear it squeak as it unravelled. Then came a flush. The zipper. The cubicle door unlocking and opening. The water as she washed her hands. The hand dryer. And finally, the heavy door to the bathroom shutting again.
