The Closer You Get

by Mary Torjussen

  I opened the door and let myself in. I leaned back against the front door and looked at my home. My home. I looked at the top of the stairs, where we’d had that fight, and then at the black-and-white tiles where traces of his blood still lay. I turned away and saw the mirror where I’d seen Emma’s face, then hastily looked away from that, too. The coat stand held only Tom’s coats. I took off my jacket and slung it on a hook, then stopped.

  Something in the air was different. When I breathed in I sensed the change. I could feel it on my skin, too. I rubbed my arms vigorously, but my skin prickled again immediately. I held my breath and stayed very still. I could see nothing wrong. I could hear nothing at all except the drumming of my own heart.

  But I knew. I just knew.

  Someone was here.

  CHAPTER 76

  Ruby

  Slowly I took my phone out of my bag and gripped it tightly. I picked up my car keys, too, so that I could get away if I needed to.

  I stepped into the kitchen and glanced around. There wasn’t anyone there. The back door was shut and everything looked the same as it had when I was here last. The coffee cups were still on the drainer and I knew Tom had touched them, had drunk from one of them. I closed my eyes. I’d have to get rid of them. I couldn’t cope with having them there as a reminder.

  Quietly, I turned to the adjacent dining room. Its door was open wide. I tried to think back to the last time I’d been here, the day Tom had died, but I couldn’t remember how I’d left it. The room was filled with sunlight, and dust motes hung in the air. The patio windows were tightly shut and I could see from the position of the handles that they were locked. Nobody was there.

  I craned my neck to look up the stairs. If someone was in one of the bedrooms, I didn’t want to be up there with them. I listened so hard I thought my eardrums would burst, but couldn’t hear anything at all.

  My mind raced as I tried to think why I had thought there was someone here. And then I realized there was a faint smell in the air. The roses that had been in the hallway that day were there still, their petals dry and brown at the edges, their leaves crisp. And nobody had emptied the kitchen bin or washed up the dishes in weeks. When I’d last been here, stunned after Tom had died, I hadn’t thought of clearing out the kitchen. It had been the last thing on my mind.

  I breathed a sigh of relief. That was the difference. I just needed to clean the house and open all the windows to let some fresh air in. Soon it would feel like mine again. I opened the living room door then stopped dead in my tracks.

  Josh was sitting on the sofa.

  * * *

  • • •

  Josh! You scared me!” I went over to him and kissed him. “What are you doing here?”

  He smiled at me. He was looking relaxed, sprawled out on the sofa, his phone, as usual, firmly clamped in his hand.

  “I wanted to see you,” he said. “I didn’t get the chance to talk to you at the funeral.” His eyes were red and I guessed that he had worried about breaking down if we’d spoken.

  “It wasn’t the place for a real conversation, was it?” I sat down on the other sofa. “I didn’t realize you had a key.”

  Either Tom or I would pick him up and take him home; there’d never been a need for him to have a key here. If he wanted a late night out with one of his friends he would stay over at their house.

  “Yeah, Dad gave me one to put on my car keys.”

  I grinned. I guessed every conversation would involve a mention of his driving. “I’d forgotten you were driving now. But how did you know I’d be here?”

  “I knew you’d come back,” he said. “This is your house now. I thought I’d wait for you. How’ve you been?”

  “I’m tired, but I’m fine. No need to worry. I’m glad you’re here. I wanted to talk to you.”

  Immediately he looked shifty. “What about?”

  “About your dad’s car.”

  He stood up and looked out of the window at Tom’s car on the driveway. “What about it?”

  “I thought you might like to have it,” I said. “I doubt you could drive it because the insurance would be sky high, but you could sell it if you wanted. Put the money toward university or a gap year, if you fancied that.”

  “Isn’t it yours, though?”

  “Technically, because our money was shared.” Well, my money was shared. “But I don’t want it. It’s too big for me to drive.” It wasn’t that, though. I knew at such close quarters I’d feel Tom’s presence and suffocate with the stress. “You should have it.”

  “Really?”

  I nodded. “And in his will, because we weren’t divorced, I’m left the house and savings, and his life insurance is split between you and me,” I said. “But I don’t think that’s fair.” He shot around to stare at me. “I’m going to split everything between the two of us. You still won’t be able to touch your share until you’re twenty-one, but you’ll get interest off the investment. Your mum will take care of that. And tell her that she’ll carry on getting child support payments until you leave university.”

  His voice was unsteady as he asked, “Are you sure?”

  “Of course. You’re his son.”

  He started to cry then. His back was still to me and I stood behind him and wrapped my arms around him. He felt unfamiliar in his suit; I was used to him in school uniform or jeans or a rugby kit covered in mud; despite his height he seemed like a boy wearing adult clothes.

  “It’ll be okay,” I said again and again. “Everything’s going to be all right.”

  Eventually he calmed down. His phone beeped with a message.

  “It’s Mum.” He rubbed his hands across his eyes. “I’d better go. I’ll talk to you later.” At the front door he stopped. “Oh, I nearly forgot.” He reached into his jacket pocket and brought out a candy-striped paper bag.

  “Here,” he said. “This is for you.”

  I reached inside the bag and pulled out my scarf, my blue and pink scarf with its wild abstract patterns and its soft, tender touch. The one Harry had bought me because he loved me. The scarf Tom had taken from me in the middle of the night because I loved Harry.

  I could barely speak, my mouth was so dry. “Where did you get that?”

  “Dad gave it to me,” he said. “I told him I’d been to your flat and he asked me to give it to you the next time I saw you. You forgot to take it when you left home; he knew you loved it.”

  I breathed out. I knew I hadn’t left it here. Tom had known that, too.

  CHAPTER 77

  Ruby

  Oliver came out of his house as Josh was leaving. He gave the boy a hug and they stood talking for a moment. I didn’t go out there to join them; I worried that Josh would get upset again.

  I went upstairs to the study and stood to the side of the window, so that I could look down at them unnoticed. Oliver said something and Josh laughed. I held my scarf to my face and breathed in. I could smell the perfume I’d worn in Paris, the weekend Harry and I decided to be together.

  Oliver and Josh talked for a while, then Josh pointed toward the road. Together they walked down the drive and I guessed they were going to look at Josh’s car.

  As they walked I noticed that from behind Josh looked just like Tom. He walked like him. They were the same height now, the same build, though Tom had filled out a bit over the years. But now, looking at Josh as he walked away I saw how alike they were. It was odd I hadn’t noticed it before. I wondered which was his car; I hadn’t seen it when he came to my flat. I would have thought he’d have parked on our driveway, enjoying showing me how he’d managed to reverse in without bashing the fender on the low brick wall.

  They crossed the road. Just beyond Oliver’s house, on the bend of the road, was a car. Josh held out his key fob and the lights on the car flashed.

  I held my breath. I’d seen that car before. It look
ed like the one that had driven past me that night when I was walking home from the wine bar, the night when I was sure I was being followed. It had stopped just in front of me, on the darkest part of the road, and I’d been terrified. I’d known that something bad would happen if the driver got out.

  I had to be sure. I searched frantically through Tom’s desk until I found his binoculars. I’d bought them for him one Christmas when I was stuck for something to buy. He’d brought it up every Christmas afterward, as a sign I didn’t know him. He was right. I didn’t, and now I never would.

  I dragged a chair over to the window and, balancing precariously on it, I focused the lens on the back of the silver car.

  Slowly the registration plate came into focus and I saw the letters MW. I held my breath and moved the binoculars down a little. There it was, the dual exhaust.

  It was as though my brain couldn’t compute what my eyes had seen. I stood staring for a few minutes, watched as Oliver clapped Josh on the back and turned to come back to his own house. I watched as Josh started his car and drove off carefully. Once Oliver was in his own house I went downstairs and into the garden and put the scarf into the bin outside. I didn’t want to see it again. I’d thought it was bought with love—well, look how that turned out. And it was touched, taken, by someone who hated me.

  When I came back into the house I was cold and shivering, though the day was still warm. I sat in the kitchen, the only room I’d really felt at home in, my arms around my chest, and thought about the car. Had Tom borrowed it from Josh, or had it been Josh who’d followed me that night? And then I thought: Who had been in my house? Had Tom really given Josh my scarf to give to me, or had Josh taken it from me in the middle of the night?

  How could I know? I could never ask Josh without sounding as though I was crazy, and in any case I knew I would never completely trust his answer.

  Tom would love that. He could rest in peace; I couldn’t.

  CHAPTER 78

  Ruby

  It took almost a week to get the house sorted out, and while I scrubbed floors and paintwork and deep-cleaned carpets and curtains, all I could do was think about Tom and how he’d gotten hold of a key to my flat and how he’d tormented me there, and Josh and his car.

  When everything was sorted I sent Josh a message, asking him to come and take whatever he wanted. He’d already taken his dad’s car; I came home from the shops the day after I’d said he could have it to find it gone. He’d left a note saying he was going to sell it and use the money for a gap year. In my message I said it might be a good idea to get his stepdad, Martin, to come with him in case there was anything heavy to lift. I didn’t want to be alone with Josh. I had never considered before now that even a fraction of doubt in someone means you can never really trust them.

  Martin arrived first, parking his huge Land Rover behind my car. I went out to greet him and he kissed me on the cheek, something he’d never done before.

  “How are you coping?” he asked, a sympathetic look on his face.

  Now, that was a hard question to answer truthfully.

  “Oh, you know.” I shrugged. “Is Josh coming?”

  “Yes, I thought he’d be here by now,” he said. “There won’t be room for him on the drive, though. He’ll have to park on the street.”

  I wondered whether that was deliberate, whether he’d chosen to arrive later so that he wouldn’t have to park near the house. In case I looked closely at his car. In case I challenged him. But when Josh came bounding up the driveway, tanned after a few days in Brighton with his friends, that thought seemed impossible.

  “I stopped off to get these,” he said, thrusting some flowers into my hand. He leaned down to kiss me. I stood very still, unable to put my arms around him as I usually would.

  “Thanks.” I had no intention of keeping those flowers in my home. “I’ll find a vase.”

  “Are you sure you don’t want the electronics?” asked Josh.

  “I don’t want anything,” I said. “Take whatever you want. Anything that’s left is going to charity.”

  He looked confused.

  “I’m having a fresh start,” I said.

  He nodded slowly, then went into the living room.

  Martin and I stood in the hallway for a couple of moments. “I know what he was like,” he said gently. “Tom, I mean. Belinda told me all about him. She said she felt claustrophobic at the end of their marriage, as though she was locked in a very small room.”

  I shuddered. I’d felt the same way at times.

  “And I saw the way you were when he was there. At Josh’s birthday parties and at drop-offs. You were so different when we saw you on your own. You never seemed relaxed when you were together. Or not for the last few years, anyway. Belinda saw it as well. She was worried about you, and when you left him, well, we weren’t surprised.”

  Tears swelled in my throat. “Can I speak to you?” I whispered. The door between the hallway and the living room was ajar and I couldn’t risk Josh overhearing.

  Martin glanced at the door, then back at me. “Mind if I look around the garden?” he asked. “I might take some of those plants on the patio back with me if you don’t want them.”

  We went outside and shut the kitchen door behind us. We sat on the bench on the patio, safe from anyone overhearing us.

  “What is it?” he asked.

  I gripped my hands tightly. I couldn’t tell him what had happened, how I felt responsible for Tom’s death but didn’t regret what I’d done. What did that make me?

  Instead, I said, “It was nice of Tom to buy Josh a car. I hadn’t realized he’d passed his test until he came to see me at my flat.”

  Martin looked confused. “Yes, he’s really enjoyed the freedom of being able to go wherever he wants.”

  “I bet he never lets it out of his sight, does he?”

  Martin laughed then. “He spends most of his spare time in it. Either driving around or polishing it.”

  “I don’t suppose . . .” I grimaced. This was going to sound so odd. “I don’t suppose Tom ever borrowed it, did he?”

  “Tom? Why would he borrow Josh’s car?”

  I shook my head. “I just need to know whether he did.”

  “Can’t you ask Josh?”

  “No. I don’t want to do that.”

  He looked surprised. “I’ll ask Belinda. She might know.” He pulled his phone from his pocket and moved a few yards away to speak to her. I heard him say, “I don’t know” a couple of times and then he looked at me and nodded. When the call ended he said, “I’d forgotten about that. Josh was away in London for a few days and Tom took it to the garage for a service. I was really busy with end-of-term stuff and hardly noticed Josh was away.”

  “Do you remember exactly when he took it?”

  “It was about a month ago. The middle of July. My school finished on the twentieth and it was before then. Josh’s school finished about ten days before.”

  I breathed a huge sigh of relief. I’d been followed home on the twelfth. That must have been when Tom had the car. Suddenly I felt guilty that I’d suspected Josh.

  “So it was Tom,” I said. “That car followed me home one night.” I saw Martin’s confusion. “Josh’s car, I mean.”

  “What? And you think it was Tom?” Then it dawned on him. “Oh no, you thought it might be Josh? He wouldn’t do that. He loves you.”

  “I know.” And I did know Josh loved me. I’d always known. “I recognized the car, though, and couldn’t work out why Josh would’ve done that.”

  “You must have been terrified.”

  “I was so frightened.”

  “That bastard,” he said. “Belinda said he was really insistent he had the car; she thought Josh should have taken it for a service himself so that he could find out what was involved.”

  There was a moment then whe
n I think Martin realized that the man whom I’d left, the man who’d followed me at night, frightening me, was also the man who’d died when I was in the house. There was a split second where I saw him abandon that idea.

  “Come on,” he said. “Let’s get this house emptied and you can start again. You deserve that.”

  “You won’t say anything to Josh, will you?”

  “No. I won’t say anything to anyone. Tom’s dead now. There’s no point raking over the past. Josh loved his dad; let’s just leave him with good memories of him.” He stood up. “Now, what do you want me to do? Josh is taking his dad’s cameras and electronics. What were you going to do with his clothes?”

  I shuddered. I couldn’t bear to think of seeing them again.

  “Why don’t I take them to a charity shop?” he asked. “I can do that now, if you like. What will you do with everything else?”

  “I’ve contacted a women’s refuge and they said they’d take everything I didn’t want. The furniture. All the kitchen stuff. They can sell what they don’t need. They’re sending a couple of guys over first thing tomorrow with a removal van.”

  “You’re not keeping anything at all?”

  I shook my head. “No. I don’t want any reminders.”

  “I don’t blame you,” he said briskly. “And that’s a great idea, to give everything to a refuge. They need all the help they can get. I’ll get those clothes sorted, then.”

  I stayed in the kitchen, packing everything into the boxes I’d brought with me. After an hour, Josh came into the room.

  “I’m off now,” he said. “Thanks for letting me take those things.”

  I found it hard to look at him. I felt ashamed that I’d doubted him. I went over to him and gave him a hug. “Don’t be silly. They’re yours. It’s what your dad would have wanted.”

  “And for the money.”

  “It’s yours,” I said again.