Jessie bowed her head, hoping they wouldn’t notice her bloodshot eyes, and smoothed her fringe over the stitches.
‘Oh, definitely, I’m so much better today,’ she replied, with as much enthusiasm as she could muster. ‘Hopefully this is the worst of it, Juliette, and you’ll be on the mend soon too.’
Jessie took her seat and wished she’d applied more blusher and bronzer, to give herself a bit of a glow over the top of the heavy concealer she’d plastered on all the bruises. It had done the job but given her the pallor of a sickly Victorian child in the process. At least Pamela hadn’t noticed the marks though; the thought of being fussed over or having to explain how she got them terrified Jessie. What could she say? That she’d gotten so drunk she couldn’t remember how to walk home and had left herself vulnerable to an attack? Or that her ex-boyfriend was potentially roaming the city looking for her, and that in her paranoid state she feared he was somehow behind it? Then there was the third option, that Magda might somehow, in some way, be involved. It was all too confusing. Jessie looked out of the window and gave a deep sigh, then loaded up the computer as she had done countless times before. She unlocked her desk and retrieved the case notes she’d been inputting last, finding that the monotony of typing helped to distract her all the way through until lunchtime, then again until the end of the day.
Finishing work almost an hour and a half before she was due to meet Magda meant Jessie had time to kill. She exited the bus not far from the coffee shop that they’d agreed on and headed to a pub opposite for a small glass of red wine. The first drop of alcohol she’d drunk since the attack. She’d briefly considered going teetotal but couldn’t fight the lure of it, a glass of crisp Malbec offering to soothe her anxiety. A message appeared from Lauren.
How was today? My shoot should be finishing up around 8, then I can make us dinner? Let me know what you want x
Jessie slid her phone back in her pocket and tried to rehearse in her head what she wanted to say to Magda, but couldn’t settle on an opening line. There were too many questions to ask, ranging from how had she found living with Marcus, to why she had really left Maver Place. Then whether or not she knew anything about the attack.
Eventually she came to the conclusion that it’d be better to just wait and see what Magda had to say, having come to learn that people more often than not made an effort to fill silences if she let them. Trying to guess what Magda might want to tell her was pointless, but Jessie already knew if it involved a bad word against Lauren that she wouldn’t hear it. Lauren had been such a good friend to her from the moment they met, but especially so since Saturday night, barely leaving Jessie alone for more than hour, apart from when she had to work. She half-wished Lauren were here now or that she could at least call her and say where she was, who she was about to meet. Jessie pulled a small mirror out of her bag and dabbed more concealer under her black eyes and over her bruised chin, wincing as the scabs on her palm cracked slightly from the movement. She drank her wine slowly, trying to make it last as long as possible.
She walked to Starbucks, jumping when anybody in the street brushed too close, and after ordering a latte, took a seat at an empty table by the window. Best to sit somewhere obvious, in case Magda missed her and thought she’d bailed. Luckily, she was still ten minutes early. Jessie liked that. It made her feel as if she’d given herself some control over the situation. In reality, her mouth was dry despite the coffee – and, lately, nothing really seemed within her control.
She stared at the barista, then back out the window, continuing to people watch until her phone flicked from 6.29pm to 6.30pm, her heart slamming against her ribs the entire time. The urge to plunge her nails deep into the itchy stitches on her forehead was strong. Jessie tried to practise slow breathing, the way she’d been taught in therapy but whenever a blonde woman walked past the window, her body tensed in anticipation – should she stand up to greet her? – but none of them were Magda. By quarter to seven, Jessie had finished her latte. She pulled up her Facebook chat with Magda but there were no unread messages. Her legs juddered up and down underneath the table.
‘Another?’ the barista asked, collecting her empty mug.
Jessie shook her head. The minutes continued to crawl. Where was she?
Hi Magda, I’m in the Starbucks on Western Road sitting by the window. Are you still coming?
The barista shot her surly glances, clearly irritated that she hadn’t ordered anything else. By quarter past seven, it was obvious that Magda wasn’t coming. She’d been stood up. Jessie pushed her chair back, gritting her teeth at the scraping sound it made, then called herself a taxi, too afraid to walk alone in the dark. She waited in the coffee shop until it arrived, just in case, then buckled her seatbelt feeling a sense of betrayal. Magda had let her down. Although she didn’t know her, in her head they’d made a pact and it had been broken. Another rejection to add to an ever-growing list. A total anti-climax.
The flat was empty, so Jessie decided to make the most of having a free kitchen by cooking a chilli; it would be nice to do something to repay Lauren a bit for all her support over the last few days. Giving her hands something to do would help with the anxiety too. Jessie felt restless and wanted another glass of wine to untangle her twisting insides. There was an open bottle of chardonnay in the fridge that she was pretty sure belonged to Lauren, who she very much doubted would mind her taking some. Another passive-aggressive note fluttered to the floor; this time Marcus was warning everyone to stop using his ketchup. Jessie stuck the note back on the bottle, rolling her eyes, and poured the wine into a glass, savouring the glugging sound it made. Life, in no uncertain terms, was shit. May as well get drunk.
She sipped at the wine and peeled open a can of kidney beans that had been in the cupboard since the day she’d moved in, adding them into a saucepan with some chopped tomatoes. The smell of garlic and onions frying quickly overtook the whole flat and would linger for at least a day, thanks to the poor ventilation. As Jessie put some rice on to boil, her phone sounded with a message. Presuming it was Lauren saying she was on her way home, she left the stove briefly to rummage through her bag on the sofa.
Remember, I know everything about you, from the old r&b songs you sing in the shower to the way you take your coffee. I know you, Jessie, and that means I know you’re afraid.
The message had been sent by an unsaved number, but the tone was familiar. Jessie stored it to her phone, stomach dropping, then checked WhatsApp to see if a profile picture came up. Nothing. She didn’t need visual confirmation anyway; she knew it was him. Everything fell silent for a moment. Then a creak came, like a foot hitting the bottom of the stairs. Jessie spun around and scanned the room, The hissing of the blue flames continued as the pan of rice on the stove bubbled over with foam. She couldn’t see anything; it had been a figment of her imagination.
‘Fuck off!’ she screamed at the phone, before smashing it face down onto the counter. ‘Just leave me alone!’
She switched off the heat in a daze, hands unsteady, no longer hungry. A burnt mess stuck to the base of the pan, the water all but evaporated. She’d spent her entire life trying to do the right thing and this was the culmination of her efforts. Paying an extortionate rent to live with three others, one of whom copied her every move, another who near enough ignored her, in a damp and rundown flat, all the while receiving relentless threatening messages. She was single and miserable, with one long-term disastrous relationship behind her, the world’s worst one-night stand, and a victim of a brutal assault. Even her best friend, Priya, had had enough, never mind Magda who hadn’t even bothered to show up to collect her necklace. Lauren’s friendship was the only constant, the one thing she could always rely on. But even she could be a little overbearing at times.
Jessie had never felt so alone, yet devoid of space. This was not at all how she’d envisioned her life would look at twenty-three. Her mum was already married by this age with a mortgage, car and lifelong plan, baby on the way. Wh
en she was a teenager and had heard about girls in her town having children at the age of eighteen, the grown-ups whispering about them, she couldn’t understand the fuss. Being eighteen sounded so old. Until she’d turned that age herself. It was as though any age she mentally underlined as being the one to signify ‘adulthood’, jumped a little higher as soon as she reached it. Maybe the idea of fleeing to Scotland to live as a semi-recluse wasn’t such a bad plan after all. It would just mean seriously saving for the next few months and hoping she could get her full deposit back from Happy Homes. But deep down, Jessie knew that no matter how far she ran from Matthew, her memories would always have to come along too. They were something she’d never be able to escape. Why was her life, and everybody in it, suddenly so ruthless? Unless she was drunk, her nerves were frayed.
Time to block yet another number. Or better still, in the morning have her own number changed, so that Matthew could never get to her again. She should have done that months ago. Jessie picked up her phone and hit the ‘block’ option, finding that she was then automatically shown a list of other banished contacts. She looked at the list twice. Strangely, alongside Matthew’s original number that she’d already barred, was another number ending in ‘813’, which she recognised. She couldn’t remember having ever blocked anybody else on this particular phone. Then it hit her. That was Priya’s number.
Quickly, she checked the digits she had saved under ‘Priya Chandra’ in her phonebook and saw they were entirely different. Could it be a glitch? Or had Rob somehow messed with her phone when he’d snuck out in the early hours of the morning? She couldn’t understand why he’d do that but not steal it. But who else could have taken it? Jessie helped herself to more of Lauren’s wine, unblocked Priya’s real number and rang her to explain what had happened. As she hung up, a voice came from the hallway.
‘I’m back!’ Lauren called. ‘Where are you?’
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
The following morning, Jessie woke with a cloudy head. Although she’d been asleep for a decent amount of time, a tiredness ran through her body. She was relieved not to bump into Marcus on her way to the shower. Afterwards, she sat on the edge of the bed wrapped in a towel and stared at the wall, wishing she could call in sick again. All she wanted to do was hibernate under the covers and shut out the world, maybe swallow down some more of the medication she was already doubling up on, wash it down with wine. Instead, she put on an old gym playlist and tried to summon the energy to get dressed, throwing on an old pair of high-waisted olive trousers and a white shirt. The pointed black court shoes she’d worn for her interview would go well enough with the outfit. She tied her hair back into a low ponytail and sighed; even using a hairbrush seemed to take extreme effort, but Jessie knew she couldn’t let her façade slip. Inside, she was falling apart, a sea of turmoil, but on the surface, the water had to stay looking calm.
On her way to the bus stop, Jessie dropped into the local corner shop to treat herself to an iced coffee for the journey. It was the same shop she and Rob had been to. The front page of the Argus, a local paper, caught her eye, its main headline totally arresting: Brighton Woman Vanishes. She picked up a copy and scanned the page, taking in the accompanying photo. Her heart skipped a beat. In it, the missing woman was sitting in a café, smiling and looking directly at the camera, the top of a milkshake just seen on the table in front of her. She had bleached blonde hair and dark eyebrows and her face, a face Jessie had seen before, was round, warm and approachable. At first glance the missing woman could be mistaken for Lauren. No, surely, it couldn’t be …? Hurriedly, she scanned the page again, searching for a name, desperate for confirmation. The article said the woman was a Polish student midwife, who volunteered at animal shelters and who had last been seen on Monday evening, four days ago, before she’d gone out running along the seafront. Nobody had been able to get hold of her since, which, apparently, was very out of character. Then Jessie’s eyes settled on what she’d been searching for. A name. There it was, written in black and white: Magda Nowak. Her blood ran cold. That’s why Magda hadn’t shown up. An appeal from her friend and flatmate had been included too, begging Magda or anybody with information to get in touch. ‘She is the type of person who’d do anything for anyone, we’re all incredibly worried about her.’ The man behind the counter heard Jessie gasp. He recognised her because she came in often although today she looked different. Her knuckles had turned white.
The police were also calling for anyone with information to come forward. Should she contact them? Maybe it would be helpful for them to know that Magda had a history of running away. Although that might mean having to come clean to the girls about messaging and planning to meet Magda in the first place. It wouldn’t look good to confess she’d been sneaking around, trying to meet up with a former flatmate who owed them money. She also still didn’t want to answer any of their questions about her own attack. Jessie pushed the thought of contacting the police out of her mind – the last thing she needed on top of everything else was to get tied into another criminal investigation or have any tension in the flat to worry about. She carried the newspaper over to the till.
‘Just this, thank you.’
As she put a £2 coin down on the counter, the shop owner noticed Jessie’s hand was trembling.
‘Awful what’s happened, isn’t it?’ he said, bouncing his eyes from Jessie’s face to the newspaper, then back again.
She nodded, unable to find the right words.
‘Keep the change.’
He watched her walk out the door, head bent, reading the story again. From his counter, he observed Jessie take up her usual spot on the bus stop bench. She had pulled out her phone and appeared to be speaking urgently to whoever was on the other end.
It had been impossible to concentrate on much else, besides Magda going missing, for most of the day. The news had unsettled Jessie, and even Juliette had picked up on her nervy energy from across their shared desk, sending an email to ask if everything was okay. Jessie appreciated her concern but found it difficult to answer. In the end, she’d fobbed Juliette off by blaming her jitters on having drunk too much coffee to overcompensate for a bad night’s sleep. Half true, at least. The second the clock hit five, Jessie sped towards the door and caught the first bus to Priya’s – Priya, whom she’d called after seeing the news about Magda. She buzzed at the intercom impatiently.
‘I’m so happy to see you,’ she said, falling into the hallway the moment Priya opened the door. ‘I’ve really started to freak out about everything, I can’t get my thoughts in order properly. First my attack and now this? I kept expecting the police to come bursting into my office today, asking questions I can’t answer.’
Priya and Zoe’s flat smelled of home cooking; a Jamie Oliver recipe book lay open on the kitchen counter, their cat snoozed under the coffee table.
‘Hey, hey, steady now,’ Priya soothed, rubbing Jessie’s back. ‘One thing at a time.’
Priya could tell that Jessie had lost weight since she’d last seen her on New Year’s Eve; her collarbone was poking out precariously.
‘You look really gaunt, Jess. I’m worried about you. Take a seat, make yourself comfortable,’ Priya said, pointing at the sofa. ‘Zoe’s not in. I’ll dish up some dinner and we can talk about everything properly,’
Her home had a kitchen and lounge combo too, like Maver Place, only it was even smaller, meaning there was no room for a dining table. Priya and Zoe either ate their meals sitting on the sofa or curled up in bed. There was no separation between where they ate, slept and wound down.
Priya handed Jessie a plate to balance on her knees and noticed she was eyeing up a bottle of wine on the kitchen counter.
‘Fancy a glass?’
‘Yes please.’
Jessie gulped a mouthful down immediately. It was becoming a habit now, whenever she felt stressed or afraid, which at the moment was constantly, to reach for a bottle. Anything to soften the sharp edges.
‘I
just can’t believe it. What do you think has happened to Magda? Do you think the police will be able to find her?’ Jessie babbled, not paying attention to the wine she was sloshing over the sofa. ‘I hope she’s okay.’
Priya gently pushed the wineglass upright again.
‘Forget Magda for a moment. Are you okay? You’ve been through hell, Jessie, you can’t keep everything bottled up. Talk to me.’
After draining the wine in just a few mouthfuls, Jessie banged the glass on the coffee table, startling the cat.
‘Please, talk to me,’ Priya tried again. ‘What are you most upset and worried about?’
Jessie began to bite frantically at the side of her thumbnail.
‘What if our attacks are linked, somehow? What if it was Matthew who hurt Magda? Could he somehow have known we were planning to meet?’
It was a suggestion that caught Priya off guard. She stayed silent for a moment, mulling the idea over.
‘What makes you say that? He doesn’t even know Magda for starters and he has no reason to want to hurt her.’
That much was true, but still, Matthew had managed to unearth that Jessie had moved to Brighton without her being able to figure out how. He’d made it very clear that if she ever left him only bad things would happen. His resurfacing last night only confirmed those threats and that he wasn’t going to let her move on without a fight. Matthew was like a worm buried deep inside her brain, wriggling through all of her jumbled thoughts and turning them rotten.
‘No, but he knows me. When he sets his mind to terrorising me …’ Jessie trailed off. ‘Well, he does a pretty good job at that.’
Her thumb was beginning to bleed from all the gnawing. Priya tenderly pulled it away from her friend’s mouth. This was a version of Jessie she hadn’t seen in a long while. One who was a single pulled thread away from completely unravelling.
The Wrong Move Page 16