by Sibel Hodge
A warm feeling bursts into life deep inside my core, spreading to my extremities. My brain doesn’t remember him saying it, but my body seems to. ‘What else did I say?’
‘That was pretty much it. You’ve been through so much lately, and I respected what you said, so I didn’t call you again. I wanted to. God, did I want to, but I had to give you space to get over things. I was just hoping that when you were ready, we might…’ He trails off and gives me a self-conscious shrug. ‘You know, just that I’m still here for you as a friend, like always.’
I knew he liked me. Knew from the moment I started working with him. I’d catch him stealing looks at me in the staff room or at meetings when he thought I wasn’t looking. It made me uncomfortable, but not in a bad way. In a way that made me wonder what it would be like to run my fingers through his thick dark hair. What his lips would feel like on my skin. But he was seeing a long-term girlfriend at the time, and then Liam had come along and, well, whatever attraction there was between us was just bad timing.
‘I…I don’t know what to say. I…’
‘Then don’t say anything. But the offer still stands. I’m here for you as a friend if you need anything.’ He holds my gaze, and this time I can’t tear it away. ‘Maybe I can help you try and piece things together, and from what you’ve said, you could definitely do with someone on your side.’
‘Thank you. I might just have to take you up on that.’
‘I want you to, because this sounds like a very dangerous situation you’re in. I mean, do you think Liam really tampered with your drugs in the first place? It all seems like too much of a coincidence, doesn’t it? And trying to paint you as suicidal would be very convenient to get you out of the way.’
‘Very convenient, indeed. But I wasn’t suicidal. I know I wasn’t.’
‘When I spoke to you, you definitely weren’t thinking of harming yourself. You seemed really positive and determined to get away from him and start over again. You sounded stronger than I’d ever heard you.’
I breathe a sigh of relief, because hearing him say all this is the first actual proof I’ve had that Liam is trying to…trying to what? Manipulate me into believing I was falling apart? Convince me I was going mad? Get me sectioned again so he can carry on his affair? Prove I was suicidal so he could kill me and make it look like I’d done it to myself? All of the above? I shudder at the sudden chill clawing at my insides. ‘It’s obvious Liam has been up to something, but would he really kidnap me and leave me for dead? It just sounds too…too…’ I couldn’t think of a word for what it was.
‘Evil?’ Jordan’s eyes widen.
‘Yes, I suppose. And I know he’s not perfect, but surely that would mean he was mad, and I don’t think he is.’
‘Plenty of people who’ve killed lead normal lives. They have families, hold down good jobs, and function just like you or I. It doesn’t mean they’re mad.’
‘I need to know what happened after I took some of my clothes and left him. How did my phone end up in the bin? Surely, I wouldn’t have left it voluntarily. So did I actually get away, or did he stop me and throw me underground, waiting for me to die?’ I lean forward, arms across my stomach. ‘I just seem to be going round in circles. And I really need you to believe me, because no one else does.’ I struggle to stop the tears welling up.
‘Of course I believe you. Why wouldn’t I?’ He takes hold of my hand again and squeezes it gently.
And for once, I don’t see disbelief from someone. I see sadness and horror. ‘Because it sounds absolutely crazy, doesn’t it?’
‘You’re right. It is crazy. And improbable and horrific. But is it any crazier or more improbable than having two psychotic reactions to different drugs in less than a month?’ He doesn’t say anything for a while, just stares into the distance as if he’s lost in thought. Then he turns back to me. ‘Have you heard of Occam’s Razor?’
‘No.’
‘It’s a line of reasoning that detectives use to solve crimes. Doctors use it, too, to diagnose illnesses. It’s also used by computer programmers and scientists, even mathematicians. I’ll save you the big explanation behind it, but basically, it’s a theory that given two possible answers for the same thing, the simpler one is usually correct. Some people swear by it for working out a problem, but personally, I’m skeptical. For one thing, how do you determine whether something is simple or not? It’s all subjective. And for another, I don’t believe the idea that simplicity equals truth.’
I blink rapidly. ‘I’m lost. I mean, I understand the principle of the simplest explanation usually being the right one, but how does that relate to me?’
‘Well, the police and doctors don’t believe you, because the simplest answer for them is that since you were found with sleeping tablets in your system, you took them yourself and had a psychotic reaction, because that’s what happened before with the antidepressants.’
‘Yes.’
‘But that doesn’t mean it’s the right answer. So the other answer, the one that can prove what you’re saying is true, is to find out how the sleeping tablets really did get in your system in the first place. You said you wouldn’t have taken them because they made you feel bad before. You also wouldn’t have taken them because the doctors advised you not to, which means someone must’ve given them to you, and if you can prove that, they’ll have to believe you.’
‘How do I prove I didn’t take them myself? That I wasn’t trying to commit suicide?’
‘I don’t know yet.’
‘I didn’t find them at my house, which I thought was odd, but now I know I left and went to Sara’s, maybe I’ll find them there.’
‘And if they’re not there, then it would be very suspicious, wouldn’t it? Because if you took them to help you sleep or to commit suicide, like they all think, you’d do it at Sara’s house. That’s how you might be able to prove it.’
‘Dr Drew thinks they may have been in my bag when I wandered off in a supposedly psychotic state and they were lost when I was hallucinating.’
‘There’s only one way to check, and that’s get into Sara’s house and see if you left them there. And I’d say go there as soon as you can, because if Liam is involved, you’re not safe at home. If he’s not involved, maybe you’re still not safe since you don’t know where you encountered whoever abducted you. Do you want to stay at my place?’
I meet his gaze. It sounds like the perfect answer. I want to trust him. My body obviously does, and I get a safe feeling whenever I’m with him, but my mind…well, I don’t know for sure he’s not involved somehow. Jordan’s already admitted he likes me, cares about me. I don’t know whether to be flattered or scared to death. I’ve never seen a hint of anger in him. Never seen him get flustered or lose his temper, even when a bunch of sixteen-year-old boys are playing up. But maybe he was obsessed with me somehow. He could’ve stalked me, and when he couldn’t have me, maybe he decided to kidnap me. It sounds equally as farfetched as everything else does, but it could happen, couldn’t it?
‘Thank you, but I…I think I need to do this on my own.’
‘Yes, but that’s what you said last time, and look what happened.’
21
As Jordan walks me out of the coffee shop, I suddenly don’t want to go. I want to take him up on his offer. Want to feel safe, like no one is breathing down the back of my neck, waiting to harm me. Or kill me. I want to more than anything, but I don’t. I’m close to finding out the next piece of the puzzle, and I think my phone and Sara’s house might hold the key.
It’s getting on for five p.m. when I arrive home. The first thing I do is retrieve my list from behind the kitchen sink and write down everything else I’ve discovered. Then I check the mobile phone has charged and insert the SIM card from my old phone. Success. It’s working.
I unplug it from the charger, which I hide in an old shoebox at the back of my bedroom wardrobe. I’m sitting on the bed, scrolling back through the list of phone calls on it, when Lia
m’s voice shouts me from downstairs. He’s early, and I haven’t even heard the front door open.
‘Chloe? Where are you?’
I quickly turn off the phone and slide it underneath my side of the mattress. Standing up, I take a deep breath, plaster a smile on my face and head downstairs. Liam is peering into the fridge when I walk into the kitchen.
‘Hi,’ I say brightly.
Inside I’m thinking, You bastard. You bastard. You fucking bastard. What are you trying to do to me? It feels like I’m living right in the middle of that film Sleeping With the Enemy.
‘Hi, darling.’ He leans over with a bottle of wine in his hand and kisses my forehead. ‘How are you feeling?’
‘Good, thank you.’
He gives me a questioning look. ‘Are you sure?’
‘Yes. Positive. How was your day?’ Tried to kill anyone lately?
‘Very productive.’ He gives me a smug grin. ‘Dr Drew said he was going to check up on you today after I called and expressed my concern. Did he phone you?’
‘Yes. He said I was fine. I wish you’d just believe me.’
‘Well, that’s pretty hard to do, isn’t it, after everything that’s happened.’ He grabs a wine glass from the cupboard and pours himself a hefty measure of Pinot Grigio. Leaning his hip against the worktop, he crosses one ankle casually over the other and takes a sip while watching me closely.
‘But Dr Drew agrees I’m OK, so please, can we just—’
‘What? Can we just what?’ His eyes flash with cold challenge.
Don’t push it. The last thing you need is him getting angry. I can be compliant, spineless Chloe if that’s what it takes. After all, I have been for long enough. I don’t have to act that hard. ‘Nothing. I’m sorry.’
‘Good girl,’ he says, and it makes me want to scream.
I’m not a girl, I’m a woman! A woman with choices. A woman who’s not bloody crazy!
‘Haven’t you started on dinner yet? What have you been doing all day?’ There’s a hint of accusation in his tone, but he says it with a bright smile.
‘I’ve just been taking it easy.’
‘Really? Then why didn’t you answer the phone when I called you earlier?’
I want to slap myself then. I really must start checking caller ID if I go out. ‘Oh, I went for a walk. I wanted to get some fresh air.’
‘A walk?’ He says it as if I’ve just suggested I took a walk in the Alps.
‘Mmm, a walk,’ I say evenly.
‘Where?’
‘Just for a walk. Nowhere special.’ I wave my hand casually.
‘You know I get worried if I can’t get hold of you.’ He puts his glass of wine on the worktop and pulls me towards him, wrapping his arms round me. It takes all my strength not to push him away. ‘You need to have a new mobile phone.’
‘Pardon?’ My heart starts to race. Does he know something about how my phone ended up broken in the rubbish bin?
‘You can’t find yours, can you? You must’ve lost it when you had the episode with the sleeping tablets and wandered off. I’ll get you a new one at the weekend,’ he murmurs into my hair. ‘So I can make sure you’re safe when you’re not with me.’
‘Good idea,’ I agree, even though he’s not worried about my safety. It’s so he can keep tabs on me and find out where I am, what I’m doing, who I’m talking to, when I’ll be home.
‘I’m full of them.’ He pulls back, cups my cheeks in his hands, and stares into my eyes. I don’t like what I see there. ‘You know how much I love you, don’t you?’
Not trusting myself to speak, I just nod and give him the smile I’ve practised perfectly over the years.
He kisses me hard on the lips before releasing me and picking up his wine glass. ‘Now, what are you going to do for dinner?’
‘I’ll make an omelette.’ I grab some mushrooms and peppers from the fridge and start chopping them.
‘I’m going to send some emails while you’re doing that.’
I look over my shoulder at his retreating back and want more than anything to stab him in it.
~~~~
After dinner, I fake a headache and tell Liam I’m going to lie down. He’s gone back to the computer, and I’m itching to get my hands on my mobile phone and see what clues it can tell me. I scroll through the phone logs first and find a call from Jordan to me on the twenty-ninth of April, just as he said. It lasted a little over five minutes. A few minutes later, I called Sara’s number and spoke to her for sixty-five minutes. I picture myself telling her I’d found out about Liam’s affair. She would call him a wanker then offer for me to stay at her place before I even asked her if it was OK.
On the day Liam went to Scotland, there was a call from Sara to me that I didn’t answer. Was she seeing if I was still going to her place? Making sure I hadn’t changed my mind? Checking I hadn’t been murdered in my sleep by my psychopathic husband?
The last call is the one from yesterday, when I heard my phone ringing in the bin. It’s from the college number. Theresa didn’t mention phoning me to see if I was OK, and I wonder if it was from Jordan. There are no more calls, so I check my texts, expecting some between Sara and me, but there aren’t any. Odd. We usually texted a few times a week, more when she was away on her travels. Did I delete them so Liam wouldn’t find them? Or had I not texted her before I disappeared because I’d already spoken to her on the phone? There’s just one text from my email provider, sending a code for me to enter when I log back into my account.
I still can’t work out how my phone ended up in the rubbish bin. Had I left it in the house accidentally when I moved out? Had Liam found it and smashed it to pieces in anger when he discovered I’d gone? That seemed the most likely scenario. I would be in a blind panic and not thinking straight. Just taking a few clothes and escaping while he was firmly out of the way four hundred odd miles from here. I’d already been on the Internet looking up side effects of the antidepressants, so I would’ve discovered Liam’s company made them. I was probably already suspecting what I suspect now, that he was trying to make me go crazy. How easy it would be for him to get me out of the way. What could be better than having his wife sectioned in the loony bin?
A dead wife. That would be even better. No one could argue with that. He didn’t succeed in having me permanently locked up, so he goes to Plan B. Kidnap me and leave me for dead. I had no actual proof that Liam really did go to Scotland. I don’t know if DI Summers even checked that out. Probably not, if he believed what Liam told him.
I hear footsteps coming up the stairs and turn off the phone. My heart races as I slide it under the mattress again and close my eyes, forcing myself to breathe deeply so Liam thinks I’m fast asleep.
The night drags on forever. I toss and turn, unable to switch off, horrible thoughts swimming around in my head so fast I’m scared I might drown in them. I think about getting up in the early hours and making a cup of chamomile tea, but I don’t want to get out of bed. Can’t risk Liam finding the phone I’ve hidden. No, I have to guard it, although the idea that I’m guarding a mobile phone is so completely ridiculous it almost makes me laugh. Instead, I lie there thinking about death and dying, and wait for morning.
22
When Liam’s in the shower, I slide my hands under the mattress, retrieve the phone, and go downstairs, hiding it at the back of the cupboard under the sink. Then I make him tea and toast with marmalade and leave it on the kitchen table, ready and waiting for him like the good Stepford Wife I am. I can’t eat. My stomach is on an out of control rollercoaster ride, leaping and swirling all over the place.
‘Not hungry?’ Liam chews thoughtfully on a bite of toast.
Hungry? I want to vomit. ‘Not at the moment.’ I cradle my mug of tea. ‘I’ll have something later.’
‘Maybe that’s a good thing. You must admit, you’ve been getting a bit chubby lately. You need to be careful.’ He grins playfully, but I know he didn’t mean it in jest.
When I
was in my early teens and my body started filling out, some of the boys in the children’s home taunted me for being fat. It was a slippery slope from being completely self-conscious of what I ate and counting calories manically to binge eating. Stuffing down as much as I could to fill up the hunger that never disappeared then purging it by sticking my fingers down my throat. I told Liam about it one day at the beginning of our relationship, and in true Liam style, he likes to bring it up sometimes, using my insecurities against me.
‘Yes, maybe you’re right,’ I agree, because it’s just easier to go along with him.
‘I usually am.’ He pats my hand and takes his plate to the dishwasher. ‘Right, I’m off. I’ll probably be late tonight.’
‘OK,’ I say, even though I don’t care in the least. I’m not going to be here.
When he leaves, I quickly check my emails, but there are no recent ones except some spam trying to sell me a penis extension. I pack a small suitcase with some essential clothes, underwear, and toiletries. In a short while, I’m going to be free of Liam, but I wonder what else I am walking into. I don’t know which the lesser of two evils are. What if Liam is only guilty of having an affair? What if he genuinely is concerned about me being mentally unstable again and is trying to protect me? What if he didn’t tamper with the drugs and it’s all my ridiculous imagination? What if he didn’t try to kill me?
What if, what if?
I don’t know for certain. Maybe I’ll never know, and the thought fills me with such dread I have to push it away before I unravel into a gibbering wreck cowering in the corner of the room. All I know is I can’t stay here any longer. For my sanity and my safety, I have to leave. The only problem is my new bankcards still haven’t arrived, so I have no money. Maybe I’ll call Jordan and see if can lend me some. Just until I get sorted out.