Having wasted a decent chunk of time, I get back to work. There’s been no enquiry from Declan, let alone an offer, so I send him the standard email asking if there’s anything else I can help with.
There’s still nothing from Luke, either. After getting me out to the hotel for no apparent reason, it seems pretty clear he, or I suppose she, never existed. It’s all a bit odd. I wonder if it was a rival from another company trying to waste my time – or, of course, a rival from the other side of the desk.
#cow
Other than that, things are picking up. One of my clients has renewed for a further two years and they seem happy to pay an increased fee. I’ve even received an email thanking me for providing such good assistance over the past twelve months.
I forward the invoice request onto Graham and there’s a moment where it feels as if the cloud is lifting. The memory of that field is fading, Tom Leonard is safe and well, Olivia and I are getting on, the separation is finally going to happen. As awful as it sounds, I always feel better in the days after the anniversary of Wayne’s death. After visiting his grave each year, it feels like a new start – even more so this year.
There is a worry about Jason, though. The fact he seems to be stalking the house is bad enough – but there was something about the way he said ‘people get what they deserve’ that left me cold. Was he talking about himself? Someone else?
Me?
He was released from prison a little over a week ago and it’s only since then that odd things have been happening. He could have got hold of the key for our house via Ellie and let himself in. Perhaps he smashed the window as a diversion in case someone noticed things had been moved around? Perhaps something is missing – but we haven’t noticed yet?
He might’ve found out I was staying in the hotel and then…
I remember his ankle tag. He has to stay at Ellie’s overnight and I presume there’s some sort of monitoring to make sure that happens.
It doesn’t make sense – but then little of what’s happened in the previous few days does. How did I end up in that field? Was I drunk? Did I drive drunk? I’ve never done that. Never, ever. I wouldn’t. Not after what happened to Wayne.
And then there’s Tyler, whom I keep forgetting. My daughter’s boyfriend who’s been missing for five days.
I spend the rest of the afternoon following up an overdue payment, chasing down a new lead and then arranging an appointment for next week. I also help Claire pick a hotel for a conference she’s attending next month.
It doesn’t sound like much – and I suppose it isn’t – but this is the reality of my day-to-day job. This normality feels good.
My journey home is mercifully uneventful. There is no blue car following and, even if there had have been, there’s a calmness that I’ve not felt for days. It feels like a different person who overreacted and raced along those country roads.
It’s when I park in the garage and the door closes behind me that the apprehension starts to creep into my stomach once more. When I get into the house, I call out Olivia’s name but there’s no reply. I even shout for Dan, despite knowing he has a parents’ evening. The house is empty but it’s hard to forget walking in through the double doors and sensing that something wasn’t quite right.
I check the back door but there’s no glass on the floor this time. After that, I make a point of putting my work pass, car keys and house keys in the drawer of miscellaneous things. After closing the drawer, I reopen it to double-check they’re still there.
All is well.
Then the doorbell sounds.
I’m nervous at first, assuming it’s Frank back to start shouting again. There’s no Dan this time, and I can’t be lucky enough to have Jason walking past a second time – unless he really is stalking the house.
I edge towards the hall, wondering if I could get away with pretending there’s nobody in. The garage doors shield my car and there’s no reason to assume the house is occupied. I slip along the hallway wall until I’m close enough to the peephole.
It’s not Frank – it’s Mr Rawley from across the road. Mr Curtain-Twitcher. I open the door but not too far. Don’t want him to think there’s an open invitation.
We exchange a few niceties – the weather’s getting cold, his grandkids are growing fast, the usual – and then it’s on to business.
‘I was just making sure everything was all right after…’
He tails away but I’m not letting him off that easily. Whatever I say will be halfway around the town before I’ve closed the front door.
‘After what…?’ I reply.
‘After, um…’ he swirls a hand. ‘After this morning.’
‘This morning…?’
Even if I do say so myself, I’m doing an amazing job of appearing clueless.
‘The, erm, incident on your driveway…’
‘Ohhhhh, right… I didn’t know you’d noticed anything.’
He squirms awkwardly on the spot, which is perhaps a little harsh. I’m bad enough at living through other people but he’s in his seventies. If it wasn’t for the neighbourhood watch programme and a bit of day-to-day gossip, he’d not have much going. This will be his highlight of the month.
‘It was a bit a loud,’ he replies. ‘I was about to call the police.’ He hesitates and then jumps back in: ‘On your behalf, of course. Didn’t want things getting out of hand.’
‘No, you’re right. Thanks for keeping an eye out. Good job it didn’t come to that.’
‘Your man seemed very angry.’
‘He’s not my man but, well… yes. Sorry about the noise. I hope it didn’t wake you. If it’s any consolation, he did wake me.’
Mr Rawley says he’s up at half past five every morning – ‘have been since 1973’, he adds, without specifying what happened in the year that made him start getting up so early.
I put a hand on the door, signalling that the conversation might be over, when Mr Rawley takes a half-step forward: ‘So, um… who was he?’
Things are awkward now. I don’t particularly want everyone on the street gossiping about me and, more importantly, about Olivia. But I also don’t want to fall out with the bloke across the road. He’s a nice man, even if his life is a little empty.
Whenever I’m asked that clichéd survey question, ‘What’s your greatest fear?’ I always reply ‘spiders’, simply because it sounds good. In truth, I don’t particularly mind spiders, nor any creepy-crawlies. My greatest fear is what’s in front of me right now. It’s growing old and lonely. It’s being ill and having no one who cares. It’s waking up in the morning and not knowing what to do with myself.
‘My daughter’s boyfriend is missing,’ I reply. ‘That was his father. He’s upset about his son, obviously – and he was wondering if we knew anything.’
‘Oh… well that’s a turn-up.’
At first I think he says ‘turnip’ and it takes me a second or two to figure it out.
He continues: ‘Is there anything I can do?’
‘Probably not. Her boyfriend’s name is Tyler. The last place he was seen was on our road on Saturday night. Sometime around nine o’clock. He’s got longish black hair and is usually wearing a leather jacket.’
‘Oh… him. I’ve seen him around a few times with your Olivia.’
‘Did you see anything on Saturday?’
Mr Rawley pouts out a bottom lip and glances upwards. ‘I don’t think so… I can ask around some of the neighbours if you want. Perhaps help put up a few posters…?’
I wonder why I never thought of that. Olivia’s grown up in the digital age. Her first thought is always going to be social media and the internet – but knocking on a few doors on the street should have been the first thing to do.
‘That’s really kind of you,’ I say. ‘I think I’ll do that with Olivia, though.’
‘Of course. Is there anything else I can do?’
I’m about to say ‘no’ when another thing that should have been obvious occurs to me
.
‘Someone broke a window at the back of our house on Tuesday,’ I reply. ‘It might have been nothing but I was wondering if you saw anyone hanging around…?’
Mr Rawley scratches his head, as if the movement of his fingers might nudge the grey cells along. ‘Tuesday,’ he mutters to himself. ‘Tuesday… Tuesday…’
‘It would have been between about midday and six.’
I’m half expecting him to bring up Jason – the bloke in the military jacket – but he starts to shake his head.
‘Tuesday’s the day that I’m at bridge in the afternoon.’
‘Right.’
‘I did see your Dan on the way out, though.’
I’ve almost started to close the door when this stops me still. ‘You saw Dan on Tuesday?’
‘Right. I was getting into my car to head to bridge club. I waved but I don’t think he saw me.’
‘This was in the morning…?’
A shake of the head: ‘Lunchtime.’ He clearly sees the confusion in my face, adding: ‘Everything’s all right, isn’t it?’
‘Of course, yes.’
‘He was doing his running – with all the tight clothes and that. I don’t know how he does it.’
‘He’s marathon training,’ I reply.
Mr Rawley starts to back away as he looks at his watch. He mentions something about ‘having to get back’ and then we go through the motions of saying goodbye. It’s never simple. I tell him to say hi to his children for me; he says he’ll ask around about Tyler ‘just in case’. We each hope the other has a good evening. He reminds me it’s supposed to be cold tomorrow – and finally, mercifully, that’s that.
I close the door and then press back against it, trying to remember precisely what happened on Tuesday. It takes a moment for the memory to come – but I know I’m right. After he’d noticed the broken glass on the floor, I asked Dan if he’d been home for lunch. He specifically said he didn’t leave school until after five.
Why would he lie?
Chapter Twenty-Five
The more I think over things, the more something about my husband doesn’t seem quite right. When I awoke in my car in that field in the early hours of Tuesday, his text was already waiting for me. He told me to call anytime. I went along with that because I was confused – but, in retrospect, it was an odd thing to do. He had to be up early for school and, though he’d texted primarily about Olivia not coming home, when we spoke, it never felt as if he was overly concerned for her. I wasn’t, either. I assumed she was staying over with a friend, or Tyler. Not only that, when I called at three in the morning, he answered straight away. If he’d been sleeping, it would have taken a few rings. He’d have sounded disorientated.
It was almost as if he’d been waiting for my call.
When the police came around, they found blood on the garage floor – except I’m certain I cleaned everything away. I washed what was on the car, letting it all run into the drain, and then checked the surrounding area and the ground in case I’d missed anything. I even scrubbed a few extra spots around the garage that were likely oil. It was about as clean as it’s ever been. I’ve been doubting myself in recent days but how could I have overlooked something so obvious?
Then there are the smaller things – my missing work pass that magically reappeared where I’d left it; my car keys turning up in the fridge; the £50 that might or might not have vanished. I know I’m not the person I was when I was half my age. Remembering a name is occasionally a challenge. I make lists of things I have to do because, if I don’t, there’s a pretty good chance something will slip my mind. I know there’s a chance I might have put my keys in the fridge for some reason. Perhaps I’d gone to put them away and then wanted a drink and got mixed up. Things like that do happen – but with everything else going on, it’s one more odd occurrence.
Then there’s the fact that, assuming Mr Rawley is correct about his days, Dan was home when he told me he wasn’t – on the very day that the glass in the back door was smashed. When I thought someone might have broken in. What reason could Dan have for not admitting he’d popped home at lunch? It might have helped narrow down a time for whatever happened with the glass. Unless, for some reason, he was the person who broke it.
As ever, the internet gives me an answer quickly enough. I can barely remember what life was like without it.
It’s called gaslighting and I find myself scrolling with increasing horror through the stories of various women. For whatever reason – and I could be looking in the wrong place – it always seems to be women who are the victims. That’s not to say the other party is always a husband or boyfriend; there are a terrifying number of accounts where a parent is the manipulator.
Gaslighting is making someone think they’re going mad. It’s moving someone else’s things and then denying it, making them question where they left it. It’s saying something and then claiming it never happened. It’s doing something like leaving a light on and then asking the other person why they left the light on. It’s a collection of small things that grow and grow until the victim is convinced they’re losing their mind.
I continue to look through the sites and eventually stumble across one with a checklist that would indicate possible gaslighting.
Q1: Are you constantly second-guessing yourself?
It feels like a light bulb going off, because the obvious answer is yes. Everything in the past few days feels exactly like that.
Q2: Do you frequently ask yourself if you’re overly sensitive?
This is more complicated but I could say yes. There’s the incident in which I was certain I was being followed by a car, for instance.
Q3: Do you find yourself withholding information from friends and family?
This is unquestionably true – but is that somebody else’s fault? I’ve not told anyone about waking up in that field because I’m afraid of the trouble it might put me in.
I keep reading through the list but each corresponding question leaves me less sure. I definitely don’t ‘make excuses for a partner’s behaviour to friends and family’ because there’s no need.
It also says that this type of behaviour would have likely been going on over a lengthy period of time but I can’t with any conscience claim that’s the case. Dan and I have had our problems but it was never about these sorts of things. At its core, it was a lack of compatibility.
That first question still feels as if it’s been written for me, however.
On another website, there’s an article that says gaslighting is often down to clingy husbands or wives; boyfriends or girlfriends, who are desperate to make their partner remain with them.
That doesn’t ring true, either. Dan and I are separating. We’ve spoken about it for a while and now it’s happening. Why would he want to convince me that I’m having some sort of breakdown?
And then it dawns on me.
It’s about this. The house, the road on which we live, the handful of mutual friends we have, the social standing of him being a deputy headteacher.
When we get divorced, there’s a stigma. It’s not what it might have been in decades gone by – but society is obsessed by winners and losers. If I remain in the house with Olivia, then, to an outsider, it looks like I win. If he can convince me I’m losing the plot, then perhaps I’d concede I’m not able to look after a house of this size. I wouldn’t be able to manage the bills, the maintenance and so on. Perhaps it’d be better if I moved out.
Could it be that?
I put the laptop down, telling myself it’s ridiculous. I’ve known him half my life. We’ve been married most of that time; we have an adult daughter. But then I realise I’m second-guessing myself once more. It’s question one all over again.
I don’t know details of things like how Dan could’ve arranged for me to wake up in that field, but perhaps the method can be figured out when I discover if it is something to do with Dan.
The drawers on Dan’s side of the bed feel like a good place t
o start. At first I decide I’m looking for other things of mine he might have hidden, though I have no real idea what I’m expecting to find. It quickly becomes apparent that there’s nothing other than socks, underwear, our passports, his birth certificate, some old photographs of Olivia, deodorant, ties… boring, usual things.
I check under the mattress and the bed itself. I look in the wardrobe where he keeps his suits and the drawers where his other clothes are stored.
Nothing unusual.
Our downstairs is a cluttered mess of a design. The kitchen and the living room are more or less the same room – but there’s a separate area that was billed as a ‘guest room’ back when we bought it. We’ve turned it into a junk room, containing everything from Olivia’s old toys to a bike I never ride to various electrical items we never use. There are old TVs, an outdated stereo, a DVD player, and so on. The only reason I ever go in there is to get the vacuum, which is too big to store anywhere else.
This time when I enter, I move the vacuum to one side and take in everything else. It would be an easy room in which to hide something, largely because it would be in plain sight. I’d never go out of my way to come in here.
I still can’t find anything incriminating, though. There are all sorts of old letters, bills and bank statements in a box and I stop to read some of the correspondence. There are some of Olivia’s old school reports and I suppose the signs were always there. ‘Knows her own mind’, ‘impressive creativity but often unwilling to listen to others’ ideas’, ‘frequently reluctant to put her hand up, even when she knows the answer’ – and so on. It was Olivia then and it’s still her now.
More than an hour has passed when I realise I’ve achieved nothing other than feeling a little silly.
Except, if this is something to do with Dan – and I’m not convinced it is – why would he keep any evidence at home? He could keep anything at work, though he shares an office with another deputy head, so perhaps that’s unlikely. The other option is much more of a possibility.
Last Night Page 15
