Chapter Twenty-seven
Annie
‘Tim,’ I muttered at the receptionist in the mental-health centre. ‘Tim Furniss, Tim, where is Tim …’
‘I’m sorry? How can I help you?’ The woman looked resigned behind her glass window.
‘Tim,’ I repeated, starting to cry.
‘Are you his patient?’ the woman asked. There was a sign by her desk, saying, A smile costs you nothing!
I tried to smile, but it was impossible. Stephen’s plane had landed and he was on his way to Hackney. I’m coming to find you, said a message he’d sent five minutes ago. Stop running away, Annie. You’re making things so much worse.
‘I’m not Tim’s patient, no. It’s a personal matter. I’m so sorry, I know you’re all very busy here. But please could you call him? And tell him Annie’s here and it’s urgent?’
The woman sighed. ‘Take a seat,’ she said. ‘I’ll see what I can do.’
It was here. The time I’d rehearsed mentally for as long as I could remember. The time when a man was chasing me.
At first, the calls that came thundering into my phone – relentlessly, repeatedly, like storm-boiled waves – were from America. Even when I’d landed at Heathrow at nine o’clock last night he was still calling me from the hotel on Broadway.
But by the time night had fallen over New York it must finally have dawned on him that I had left the country. The calls started coming only from his mobile. I’d imagined him speeding furiously through the Queens–Midtown Tunnel in a taxi, seething at having been outwitted.
For seven eerie hours the calls had stopped as Stephen had flown through the night, but they’d started again this morning. The first message had said, I’m at Heathrow and I’m coming to help you. We need to get you to a doctor and we need to do it quickly. I’m your best friend, Pumpkin. I want to look after you. I know you better than anyone else. Please trust me. xxx
I had almost laughed. I know you better than anyone else? If he thought that I would stay in the same town – the same continent – as a man who’d had me up against a wall and threatened me, he did not know me at all.
Stephen had had no idea how hyper-prepared I was, every moment of every day, to disappear without a moment’s notice. He had no idea that I’d spent my life working out what I’d do if something like this happened. Negative fantasy, my therapist called it, but I’d always thought that was unfair. It was self-preservation, and if recent events were anything to go by, it was entirely reasonable.
You can never truly know the person you love, someone had once said to me. How true! How dismally, horribly true. But I knew my boyfriend now. Thirty hours had passed since I’d left that hotel room, and in that time I’d learned a great deal about Stephen Flint. It was amazing what you could find out, when you knew where to look.
I’d spoken to Lizzy on my way over there. She was beside herself. ‘I thought he was lovely,’ she had wailed. ‘I just can’t believe it. Please, please, please come to mine as soon as you’re done with Timmy. Get him to bring you here. I’ll leave work as soon as you want me to.’
I pressed my hands down into my legs, as if perhaps that might stop them shaking. I had no idea how Tim was going to react to this mess. To me. If he appeared at all it would be a miracle, but I had to see him. I needed information and I needed it fast.
Oh, how I hated myself for having doubted Tim Furniss! For being so easily led! I still didn’t know what had actually gone on that day when I’d sprinted off down the street away from him, convinced he was going to assault me (or worse), but the more I had read about Stephen in the last thirty hours the more certain I was that Tim was not in love with me. Or darkly obsessed with me, or any of the other awful things Stephen had said. I was certain now that Tim had never turned up in the middle of the night, like Stephen had told me, and the terror I’d felt when he turned up at Stephen’s house that morning had been brilliantly orchestrated by none other than my loving boyfriend.
I’m so sorry, Tim, I thought, as my legs hammered uncontrollably up and down.
‘Annie?’
Tim looked solid and dependable, an NHS lanyard round his neck and his shirtsleeves rolled up.
The guilt steamrollered me.
‘Are you okay?’ he asked.
‘I’m so sorry,’ I whispered. Tim glanced at his watch, then held the door open for me, pointing me through with an armful of cardboard folders. Someone in a room to the left was shouting. There was a lot of swearing and mentions of someone called Chesney. Just for a moment, I smiled. That was a name. That really was a name.
We walked through benign corridors, peppered with euphemistic signs that reminded me of being a post-suicide-attempt teenager, and eventually arrived in a hot little administrative office with Tim’s name on the door. Tim pointed me towards a chair crammed into a corner and shut the door behind us. My phone was ringing again.
I crawled into the chair and started sobbing.
‘Oh, Annie.’ Tim handed me a box of tissues and waited for me to cry it out, a hand on my knee.
‘Are we safe?’
Tim smiled. ‘If Stephen comes here for you I’ll have him locked away before you can say, er, I dunno. Security.’
‘How did you know this was about Stephen?’
Tim politely declined to comment. ‘Do you need some chocolate?’ he asked instead. ‘Some ice cream? Some heroin?’
I couldn’t even smile. ‘Stephen’s after me. I found out that he’d been cheating on me, several times over, and when I tried to talk about it he rammed me up against the wall.’
Tim’s face fell. ‘Oh, God …’
‘He’s on his way to Hackney right now. From Heathrow. He said he’s coming to find me. I’ve had, what, a hundred calls? More? And probably just as many text messages. He’s crazy, Tim.’
‘Okay. Before we do anything else, we need to call the police.’ His phone was already in his hand.
‘No!’
‘Yes. I’m no lawyer, Annie, but it sounds like he pretty much assaulted you, and the calls and messages are harassment. As is his threat to “find” you. We need the police at your house if he’s heading there.’
You fool, I chastised myself. You idiot!
I had a plan. The plan was already in action. And it was a pretty good plan, all things considered, one that I’d spent years firming up, but it depended on the police not being involved.
‘Tim,’ I said, as steadily as I could, ‘we can and will call the police. But not yet. Please will you trust me?’
Tim sighed. ‘You’re asking a lot of me,’ he said quietly. ‘An awful lot, Annie, after the last few months.’
‘I know. But there are some things I need to work out before I get the law involved. Stephen’s clever. He could outwit me very easily if I don’t have my story firmed up.’
Tim nodded reluctantly. A few minutes.
I took a deep breath. ‘Tim, why haven’t we talked in nearly three months?’
He frowned. ‘What do you mean?’
‘I mean, why have we not talked in nearly three months?’
Tim was at a loss. ‘You know why we haven’t talked. You sent me a text message in October, saying that you were having a rough time and that you didn’t want to see me for a while.’
‘Really?’
‘Yes, really. Do you not remember?’ He was beginning to look at me as if I were his patient.
I ignored his expression. ‘Let me get this absolutely straight. You got a text message, from my phone number, saying, Hi Tim, I need some time off from our friendship for a while?’
Tim nodded. ‘Yes.’
‘And you just thought, Oh, okay, fine?’
‘No,’ Tim said firmly. ‘Of course not. I called you back straight away. And when you didn’t answer, I called you again, then again, and then again.’
Yes. The phone ringing on the chair while Stephen and I sat in the bath.
The dull weight of truth was now pressing hard upon me. ‘I didn�
�t send that text,’ I said. ‘It was Stephen.’
He was astonished. ‘What? Why?’
‘Let me tell you what I have spent the last three months believing,’ I said, feeling my colour rise. This was not going to be easy. ‘In my infinite wisdom, Timmy, I decided that you were talking about me that night in the tube station when you said you’d been in love with someone for years who didn’t feel the same.’
Tim looked slightly amazed. ‘Er, really?’
‘It was Stephen’s fault. He was convinced from the very beginning that you had feelings for me. He used to talk about it all the time, pointing out things you’d said and done. I ignored it for ages but in the end it got under my skin and I started to believe him. Sadly, as you know, it doesn’t take much for me to distrust men.’ I exhaled. ‘I’m still horribly ashamed that I doubted you. Of all people. That part makes me very sad.’ I looked at him, at his kind, trustworthy face.
‘I am really, truly not in love with you, Annie.’
‘No need to sound quite so disgusted.’
‘Oh, Annie, come on! It’d be like being in love with my sister!’ He began to blush. ‘I was talking about –’ He stopped. His cheeks were roasting red. ‘I was talking about Lizzy. Not you.’
Just for a second, I forgot that a man with a severe personality disorder was on his way to my house. ‘Lizzy?’
‘Lizzy. I’m sorry, I can imagine that might be slightly weird for you to hear. If not abhorrent.’ His voice had dipped almost to a whisper.
I tried to take this in. Tim was in love with my sister? He what?
I could remember, clear as day, the first time I’d introduced him to Lizzy back in the nineties. He was wearing an Ocean Colour Scene T-shirt and he had curtain hair and big Vans trainers. Lizzy was listening to Soul II Soul and wearing cropped jumpers and lipstick called Heatherberry. She’d barely acknowledged him, and when he and I had sat out in the garden, drinking ginger beer and talking about bereavement, Tim asked me if Lizzy had a boyfriend and went crimson for two hours. I’d ignored it, because everyone fancied my big sister, and he’d never mentioned her again. All those years, all those girlfriends. Poor Tim!
‘I know it’s hopeless, and that I’d never stand a chance with her. So you needn’t say anything. And, anyway, this isn’t the time to talk about it.’ His voice was all cracked and wonky.
I just stared at him. ‘Why did you never say anything?’
Tim was crimson. ‘What would have been the point? You’d have been grossed out – you’d have told her and she’d have rejected me.’
‘No, Timmy! Lizzy adores you, she –’
‘Lizzy adores me in the same way that you do, Annie. I went a bit mad for twenty-four hours, decided I was going to tell you – that’s why I asked if we could meet to talk. I couldn’t bear it any longer. But for obvious reasons that didn’t happen. Look, can we drop this, please? We’ve got more important things to talk about.’
My phone rang, as if to prove his point. Stephen. For the millionth time, my insides spasmed with fear. I cancelled the call and almost as soon as I did it rang again. Lizzy this time. ‘I’m with Tim,’ I said. ‘I’ll be on my way soon.’
‘Thank God.’ She sighed. ‘If anyone’s able to make sense of this mess, it’s Timmy.’
Tim could clearly hear her voice. He blushed, and I wondered how I could possibly have failed to notice this before.
‘Come on, Pumpkin,’ he said. ‘Carry on with the story.’
I shuddered.
‘Annie?’
‘He calls me Pumpkin too. Has done for ages. I think it was some weird brainwashy thing, deliberately planting you in my mind all the time. He …’ my voice quaked but I forged on ‘… he got me a little silver P on a chain for Christmas, and said it was P for Pumpkin. Only I’ve since realized that he messed up and gave me the wrong necklace. My P was almost certainly for Petra, that girl in the restaurant in the summer – he’s been fucking her all along.’
Tim just stared at me. ‘Petra his niece?’
‘No, nice, trusting Tim. Nice, trusting Annie bought that nonsense too. In reality she was just some girl off the internet. I want to call her a slag but I’m sure she’s perfectly nice. Although theirs seems to be quite a sex-based relationship, from the few emails I’ve seen.’
‘Wow.’ Tim rubbed his face. ‘Wow, Annie. I’m so sorry. You poor, poor thing.’
I shook my head. There was no time for betrayals and broken hearts. Stephen could arrive at my house in as little as ten minutes now.
‘How strange that Stephen felt the need to come between us,’ he mused, ‘when all along he was being unfaithful. I wonder what his motives were.’
‘I have no idea,’ I lied. ‘Let’s get back to that day, just for now. Stephen called you and said I had food poisoning. I was running a bath. I could hear him talking to you, so I guess he must have been talking to the dialling tone. His only real communication with you was a message that he sent from my phone to yours, saying I didn’t want to see you.’
‘Bloody hell.’
‘Indeed. So, you called me as soon as you got the text message. You called three times, then Stephen answered. What did he say? He didn’t tell you I had food poisoning?’
Tim rolled his eyes to the ceiling, trying to remember the details.
‘Nope. He echoed what you’d said in the text message, really – that you were really upset about some stuff, and that you were finding it particularly hard to be around men at the moment. Except him. He …’ Tim scratched his head, looking baffled. ‘He was actually really nice. He talked about your mum, said he thought this was happening because you’d agreed to move in with him, and that that had probably triggered old feelings.’ A pause. ‘It was really quite plausible. Very sociopathic behaviour.’
‘So, the café? The bakery? When you turned up later?’
‘Oh, God!’ Tim said, realizing he’d been had again. ‘God, he’s good!’
I nodded, impatient for him to continue.
‘I was early for work,’ Tim said, ‘And I thought I’d check on you, because if you were in a traumatized state I thought you might need proper help.’
Lovely Tim.
‘I was heading to your house when Stephen came out of the bakery. I hadn’t seen you two in there so I was taken by surprise. Stephen got quite shirty, asking why I couldn’t respect your wishes. I said I was very familiar with your past and felt that you might need some specialized support. Then he got all personal and insulting. I lost my rag a bit, because I was stressed, and he loved that. I actually shouted at him! That’s when you appeared. And then I saw you sprint off and …’ Tim’s voice caught. ‘Poor Annie,’ he said softly. ‘I thought you were having an episode. Maybe you were. To run that fast from me …’
My phone started ringing.
Stephen again. Was he outside my house?
‘Go on,’ I begged Tim. I had to know.
‘I saw you run and in that moment I completely believed what Stephen had told me.’ Tim’s eyes became watery, and for a brief, bittersweet moment he became sixteen-year-old Tim again. So young and bruised, yet so determined not to cry, rolling his tatty copy of On the Road round and round in his hands, nails bitten down to sore crescents. ‘Just so you know, Annie, I did send you a final email, the next day. Said I wouldn’t be in contact unless you wanted it but that I was there for you any time. I got a reply saying could I please not email again.’
I put my head into my hands and slowly folded down into my lap. ‘Oh, God. He’s been accessing my emails. Oh, God, Tim.’
‘Whoa,’ Tim whispered, visibly shocked. ‘What a mess. I had an awful feeling something like this could be happening, but I’ve been in my own shit about Lizzy and failing to get over it and I guess I just … I guess I just chose to believe you. I should have fought harder, though. Carried on contacting you, irrespective of what you said.’
He rubbed his hands over his face. He looked awful. ‘I’ve let you down,’ he said sad
ly. ‘I should have trusted my gut.’
No, I thought. I’ve let you down. And I’m going to do it again. You’ll never know how much I hate myself for this.
‘I think Stephen’s been using my phone to read my messages and emails constantly,’ I said flatly. ‘He’s always known so much, Tim. Things that he claimed I’d told him, but I was sure I hadn’t.’ My mouth made a sound distantly related to a laugh. ‘He’d say, “God, you forget everything, don’t you?”’
Tim shook his head. ‘This is bloody awful.’
‘It’s not the best. I’m pretty sure I missed out on some Le Cloob meetings because he simply read and deleted the texts. I’m convinced I wasn’t that useless.’
‘Bloody hell.’
‘He’s so good, though, Tim. He accused me several times of stalking him and I ended up really paranoid that he was right! That I was, like, some shady stalker who should feel ashamed of herself!’
‘I don’t understand.’
‘Well, for example, one day he found a photo on my phone of him that I’d Google-imaged at the beginning of our relationship and he was all, like, “Ha-ha! My little stalker!” He said it more than once. I died of shame every time. And all the time there he was, poking around in my phone, my email, my life.’
Tim, who was looking increasingly pale, checked his watch. ‘Look, I’ve got an admin afternoon so I can spare a few hours if I make it up tonight. I suggest we go to your house now and pack some stuff so you can come and stay with me. Or Lizzy. Or Claudine, if you’re feeling brave.’
I couldn’t smile.
‘And I think we should call the police.’
‘Not yet.’
‘Why?’
‘Because I don’t want to, Tim. I don’t think you understand how clever Stephen is, how easily he can talk his way out of trouble. He’s got the very best lawyers, and the very best brain. Unless I have an overwhelming body of evidence against him, he’ll be out of the police station and at my front door within the hour. I need a couple more days to put it together. Will you give me that?’
The Day We Disappeared Page 28