by Lisa Jewell
‘He was on our trip. He came to Seville,’ Jenna said, knowing even as she said it that it was the wrong thing to say.
‘Tom Fitzwilliam?’
‘Yes. The Spanish teacher couldn’t come because his wife went into early labour. So Mr Fitzwilliam came instead.’
Her mum stopped massaging Jenna’s toes and stared up at her. ‘Was he staying at your hotel?’
‘Yes.’
‘And’ – her mother dropped her foot and placed her hand to her chest – ‘he was there, with you, all week?’
‘Uh-huh.’
‘God.’ Her mother cast her gaze to the floor as though she might find the correct response down there. She looked up again. ‘Are you OK?’
‘Of course I’m OK. He’s just a man.’
‘And did he … did he say anything about me? About us? About the Lakes?’
‘Of course he didn’t! Mum! I will grant you that he is the same man from the Lake District, you’re right about that. He was there, on the coach trip, something strange happened, we have no idea what it was, and it had nothing to do with us, and now he lives over the road from us and it’s all just a coincidence. That’s all it is.’
Her mum shook her head. ‘No,’ she said. ‘It absolutely is not a coincidence. And the fact that you can’t see it when it’s so incredibly clear scares me, Jenna. Promise me you’ll stay away from him. Please.’
Jenna sighed and got to her feet. ‘I’m going to unpack,’ she said.
‘Stay away from him,’ her mother called after her, ‘or I’m taking you out of that school.’
26
They ate pizzas in front of the TV. Dad was back in his usual spot next to Mum on the sofa, Freddie once again relegated to the armchair. He saw his mum turn her head a couple of degrees every now and then, almost as if she was checking that Dad was still there.
There was a charge in the room, as though everyone was nursing a secret too big to be entirely contained. Freddie stole a glance at his dad. When was it going to come? When was he going to take him aside and quietly inform him that he was the one who’d logged into Freddie’s secret account and seen his photos and that he knew exactly what he’d been doing and what he intended to do about it?
‘Good week?’ his dad asked him in a way that could have been loaded with hidden meaning (Has your week been unfavourably affected by the fact that I hacked into your files and discovered your reams of schoolgirl photos?) or nothing more than a casual enquiry after his week.
‘Not bad,’ Freddie replied. ‘Pretty boring. How was Spain?’
‘Well, thank you for asking.’ His dad gave him one of his dry smiles and a cocked eyebrow. ‘It was superb. Wonderful children, wonderful staff, lots of learning, lots of fun. Unforgettable, I think it wouldn’t be stretching things too far to say.’
Freddie’s mum threw his dad a look. ‘How’s the baby?’
‘The bab—? Oh, the baby? Doing very well apparently. They’re still in the special care unit. But it seems that they’re out of the woods.’
‘Is it a boy or a girl?’
‘It’s a girl, I believe. But please do not ask me her name or how much she weighs because I have absolutely no idea.’
His dad smiled and squeezed Mum’s knee. The gesture felt like an odd afterthought and for a moment Freddie felt that neither he nor his mother quite believed in the existence of this premature baby. For a moment the already charged air filled with small particles of yet another substance, a kind of nervous scepticism.
For over a year, since their arrival in Melville, things had stayed on an even keel. For over a year there had been no week-long silences, no strange noises from his parents’ room, no feeling that something was happening within their marriage that he was not privy to but that might tear a hole through his very existence. Melville had been a good move; things had been good in Melville.
After dinner he went back to his room. For a while he flicked through the photos of Romola Brook on his computer screen. He noticed things about her and collected them in the drawers of his mind like mementoes. The strand of her hair nearest her face that was two tones lighter than the rest. Her huge feet, surprisingly endearing. The odd earrings: a gold stud in her left ear, a diamond in the right. The streak of old black varnish on a bitten thumbnail. Something scribbled on the back of her hand that he couldn’t read even when he zoomed in to the nth degree.
In the photo of her leaning down to greet her tiny dog in her hallway, he zoomed in on her hand cupping the dog’s chin, her nose held close to dog’s snout, the tenderness of the moment. He zoomed in even closer to the background, trying to get a sense of her home, of how she lived, of who she might conceivably be.
And then, before he could ask himself what the hell he thought he was doing, he opened a browser, went on to the Forever 21 website and ordered the cinnamon suede skirt.
RECORDED INTERVIEW
Date: 25/03/2017
Location: Trinity Road Police Station, Bristol BS2 0NW
Conducted by: Officers from Somerset & Avon Police
POLICE: So, Ms Mullen. Moving on. We have spoken to your employer, a Miss Dawn Pettifer?
JM: Yes?
POLICE: She came here of her own volition this morning, to tell us that she recalls a recent conversation with you where you apparently told her that your obsession with Tom Fitzwilliam was driving you ‘insane’. Is that correct?
JM: No. No, that’s not true.
POLICE: So, Miss Pettifer was lying?
JM: No, not lying, exactly. I may have said I had a crush on him. I may have said I was preoccupied with him. But I never said I was insane.
POLICE: She claims you were ‘agitated’ when you left work last night.
JM: Well, yes, I probably was. I was about to meet a married man in a hotel room. I was nervous as hell.
POLICE: OK. Moving on. We wanted to talk to you about this object. For the sake of our records, we are referring to item number 4501. A red suede tassel. Do you recognise this tassel, Ms Mullen?
JM: Well, yes, sort of. I mean, it looks like the tassels on my boots. And one fell off.
POLICE: It fell off? When exactly?
JM: God. I don’t know. It was just there. And then it wasn’t. Could have been any time.
POLICE: Well, this was found, Ms Mullen, at the scene of the crime, very close to the victim’s body. Do you have a possible explanation for this?
JM: No. I mean, definitely not. It can’t be from my boot in that case. Because I wasn’t there. So it must be from someone else’s boot.
POLICE: Well, we’ve searched the victim’s house very thoroughly looking for items that this tassel might have dropped from, and there is absolutely nothing even vaguely similar. So, can you explain this being there, Ms Mullen, at the blood-soaked scene of a heinous crime?
JM: No! Of course I can’t. It’s just … well, it’s crazy. I mean, someone must have put it there.
POLICE: You think so? Like who, for example?
JM: Well, I don’t know. I don’t know who would put it there. But it wasn’t me.
II
27
7 March
Joey thought she would be safe down in the village in the middle of the day. She’d thought Tom Fitzwilliam would be at school. But there he was, striding towards her in a dark suit and leather shoes, his bag slung diagonally across his chest. If she moved now he wouldn’t see her. But she couldn’t move. She felt the blood rush from her heart to her neck and then to her face and for a moment her breath came fast and hard enough to make her dizzy.
She was outside the dry cleaner’s. She could go into the dry cleaner’s. But she had nothing to drop off and nothing to collect and the shop was empty and the man who worked in the dry cleaner’s was standing there looking bored. As she mulled this over she realised it was too late. Tom had seen her.
She watched his face switch from blank unawareness to uncomfortable awareness in the space of a split second. She tried to do things with her own fea
tures to make the situation better, but failed, utterly. And then something extraordinary happened: Tom Fitzwilliam smiled.
‘Josephine!’ he said, reminding Joey of her pathetic drunken attempts at sophistication. ‘How are you?’
It was said with the emphasis on the you, which suggested genuine interest in her well-being, not on the are, which would have suggested concern or sympathy: How are you after the last time I saw you when you grabbed my groin outside a pub and I had to take you home shit-faced in a taxi?
‘Oh, hi,’ she replied, managing to sound vaguely breezy. ‘I’m good, thank you. I’m good. And I’m … God. I am so sorry.’
He had a hand up before she’d even got to the second syllable of the word. ‘Please,’ he said. ‘We’ve all been there.’
‘Well, I don’t suppose you have.’
‘We’ve all been there,’ he repeated with a gentle smile.
‘Well, anyway, thank you so much for getting me home. I would have thanked you before, but I felt too embarrassed. I’ve actually considered leaving the country.’
He laughed. ‘Oh no, please don’t do that! You only just got back.’
He remembered some of their conversation then. She smiled.
‘And it looks like you’ll have to stay in the country for at least a couple of weeks as your husband is about to start decorating our house, I believe?’
‘Oh, yes. He is. Next week, I think?’
‘So I’ve been told. My wife’s project.’
‘But your house?’ She gave him a humorous don’t-patronise-your-wife look.
He gave her a you-got-me look and said, ‘Yes. My house. Well, my rented house. My actual house is in Kent. But we don’t get to live there.’
‘Because of your career?’
‘Yes, because of my career.’
The conversation paused for a moment and Joey gazed at the pavement, waiting for Tom to tell her that he was on his way, in a hurry, better get on. Instead he said, ‘You know, I really enjoyed spending time with you at the gig. I don’t often have the chance to get to know my neighbours. We should do something again? Maybe you and your husband could come over for a meal one night? And your brother and his wife?’
‘Yes, yes, that would be lovely.’ She nodded, slightly too hard. ‘Maybe once Alfie’s finished decorating.’
‘Yes!’ he replied, apparently delighted. ‘Yes. Like a small housewarming. I’ll talk to Nicola. See what she thinks. She’s not much of a cook but …’
She gave him another warning look. ‘You can cook though, right?’
He winced, caught out again. ‘No. I’m not much of a cook either. Sorry,’ he continued. ‘I’m a bit of a muppet. Child of the seventies, still think radio alarm clocks are kind of amazing. Must try harder.’
Joey smiled. ‘Well,’ she said, ‘I guess I’ll see you around.’
‘Yes,’ he said, returning her smile. ‘I’d like that.’
‘And again,’ she said, ‘about the night at the pub. I am so sorry.’
He put his hands into his trouser pockets and rocked back lightly on his heels. He appraised her, sensitively. ‘Please do not apologise. You cannot begin to imagine how flattered I was. You cannot begin to imagine how much …’ He smiled regretfully. ‘Well. You just don’t need to apologise. Take care, Josephine, and see you soon, I hope.’
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘See you soon.’
She stood for a moment after he went. The lump of anxiety she’d been carrying around inside her had dissolved, turned into something warm and golden. Tom Fitzwilliam was flattered that she’d practically sexually assaulted him. Tom Fitzwilliam had enjoyed the time he’d spent with her. Tom Fitzwilliam liked her and wanted to get to know her better. She turned and caught the eye of the man behind the desk in the dry cleaner’s. He looked startled to have been caught staring at her.
She waved at him and he waved back, slowly, dazedly, delightedly.
28
8 March
Jenna was having lunch the following day when she saw Miss Farooqi approaching her across the classroom.
‘Jenna,’ she said, ‘when you’re done, Mr Fitzwilliam would like to see you in his office.’
As Miss Farooqi swept back through the classroom to the door there was a moment of weighted silence followed by a zoo-like cacophony of noises. Bess threw her a look, a mixture of awe and horror. ‘Oh my God,’ she whispered.
Jenna finished her Weight Watchers chocolate bar, disposed of the wrapper and the rest of her packed lunch in a bin and slowly made her way down the corridor towards the suite of rooms where Mr Fitzwilliam, his two deputies and their secretary worked.
It smelled different down here, away from the gravy tang of the dining hall and the pungent traces of unwashed PE kits. Down here it smelled of fresh flowers and dry paper. She peered round the door into Miss Farooqi’s office. She was peeling the film off a pre-prepared salad. ‘You can go straight in,’ she said, sliding the packaging off a plastic fork. ‘He’s waiting for you.’
Jenna nodded and turned the corner to the end office. Here was Mr Fitzwilliam’s perch: twice the width of the other offices, looking directly over the front entrance and the car park, long plate-glass windows the full width of the back wall. Mr Fitzwilliam sat not at his desk in the centre of the room, but at a small table to the left around which were clustered four squashy, dark red chairs. There was a heathery lambswool jumper over the back of his chair and his hair looked all messed up and staticky as though he had just that minute pulled it off.
‘Jenna,’ he said pleasantly, ‘so sorry to drag you away from your lunch break. I won’t keep you long, I promise. Here – take a seat.’ He pulled one of the squashy red chairs away from the table and she sat down.
‘How are you today?’ He said this in that fly-buzzy, mindless way that adults sometimes did when they talked to children. Not looking for real answers. Just saying words.
‘Good,’ she said. Then she cleared her throat.
‘Nothing to be nervous about,’ he said, leaning towards her marginally and ramping up his eye contact. ‘Just a … well. Something that’s playing on my mind a bit. And I wanted to run it by you. Before I take things any further.’
Jenna’s heart rate doubled.
‘You live in the village, don’t you? Just by the hotel?’
She nodded.
‘With your mum?’
She nodded again.
Mr Fitzwilliam sighed and steepled his fingers. He looked down and then up at Jenna and she felt a shiver go across the full surface of her skin. She saw it there, in his steady gaze, a hint of something as cold and dazzling as sunbeams ricocheting off ice. Her eyes fell to the red and yellow canvas strap of his watch.
‘And your brother lives with your dad? Down by the coast?’
‘Yes.’ She tried to raise her eyes to meet his but felt them being dragged downwards by her discomfort. She stared at her fingernails in her lap, at the pale salmon polish she’d painted on them two nights ago.
She heard Mr Fitzwilliam draw in his breath and felt him lean a little closer towards her. ‘My wife seems to think that your mother is stalking us.’
She stole a glance at him and saw the beginnings of a wry smile. ‘Oh,’ she said. ‘Right.’
‘Now, it could be that my wife is mad. She has been known to be a little eccentric. But generally speaking she does not make things up. So I thought, possibly misguidedly, that I might just run it by you, see if you had any insight? Any background?’
‘What did she say?’ she asked, quietly. ‘Your wife?’
‘She said …’ He paused, allowing the enormity of what he was about to say a moment to coalesce. ‘That she has seen your mum outside our house taking photos and that your mother often follows her around the village. And once ran a few feet behind her while she was out jogging. While wearing her slippers. It’s all a bit …’ He paused again. ‘Unsettling.’
Jenna hooked her hands into the sleeves of her jumper and then unhooked the
m again. She had no idea how to react.
‘Is there anything going on at home, Jenna? Anything that it might be helpful for us to know about? Anything that might be impeding your learning?’
She shook her head. She did not want to be taken to live with her father. She did not want to go to a new school. She wanted to stay here until she’d done her GCSEs. She had only two terms left. She needed everything to stay on an even keel until then.
‘She just …’ she began. ‘She thinks she knows you. That’s all. I’m sure she hasn’t been following you about on purpose. Just, you know, trying to work out if you’re who she thinks you are.’
The sound of excitable girls’ screams rose from behind the school like distant ghouls. Mr Fitzwilliam narrowed his eyes at Jenna and then readjusted his sitting position, his hand clasped to his tie. ‘Right,’ he said, ‘well, that might make sense. Any idea where she thinks she knows us from?’
She shrugged. ‘A holiday, I think.’
‘Oh,’ he said. ‘Any idea whereabouts?’
She shrugged again. ‘Don’t really know,’ she said. ‘It was a few years back.’
‘And does she often recognise people? When you’re out?’
‘Not really,’ she said. ‘No.’
‘Because’ – Mr Fitzwilliam adjusted his seating position yet again so that he was bent at the middle, his face not much more than a foot from hers – ‘interesting fact, but thinking you recognise people a lot can sometimes be a symptom of some mental health issues. Schizophrenia, for example?’
Jenna nodded. She could smell something sweet on his breath, something sugary and malty. ‘I don’t think she’s got that,’ she said.
He pulled away and smiled. Jenna allowed herself a deep breath.
‘No.’ He pushed his tie back into place. ‘No. I don’t suppose she has. But could it be something else? Maybe? Because most people if they thought they recognised someone from a holiday would probably say something? Not’ – he expelled a hunk of wry laughter – ‘follow them about?’