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in my office; sometimes through the plastic windows of the tube, or on
02
the platform or in the next carriage. I saw women with cropped hair
03
everywhere, and I was always squinting to see a tattoo there in black at
04
the back of the neck.
05
I found myself replaying his death in my mind. I wasn’t lingering
06
on feelings— the adrenaline, the anticipation, the relief— but instead, 07
rather pragmatically, on the clues that she might someday find. There
08
were no fingerprints. There were no witnesses. There were no suspi-
09
cions from anywhere else. There wasn’t even a body anymore, just a
10
skeleton decomposing six feet beneath the earth.
11
I careered between absolute confidence— there was nothing to un-
12
cover; she’d give up eventually— and the most extraordinary panic. But
13
I should admit that my fear was escalating. I became convinced that
14
she’d find the one loose thread that would reveal my involvement.
15
I replied to her email at the end of the month. It was a Friday. I
16
should have been visiting Marnie, but she’d called me on the Monday
17
to say that she’d been invited to the launch of a new restaurant, and
18
could we please pause our plans for just one week. I stayed late at my
19
desk and when the work was finished— all of it; even the tasks that had
20
been on my to- do list for months— I responded to her email.
21
I’m sorry that it’s taken me so long to reply. But thank you for the
22
apology.
23
What do you think? Was it too sycophantic? I wanted her to like me.
24
I’m concerned that you’ve become obsessed with us, and really we’re
25
not worth your time.
26
It was obvious that her fascination was more than academic.
27
There’s nothing further to find. My husband died in a tragic accident.
28
The same is true of Charles, who— as you already know— was my best
29
friend’s husband. It’s devastating, and a horrible coincidence, but really 30
that’s all this is. I expect that this email is redundant by now.
31S
I didn’t.
32N
I’m sure your investigations have led you to this conclusion. So it’s
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probably not even worth me saying this, but I’d be really grateful if you 01
would stop investigating us, and stop writing about us, because we really 02
need to find a way to move on with our lives.
03
She replied seconds after I pressed send.
04
Let’s meet.
05
I replied: No, thank you.
06
She wrote I have something you’ll want to see.
07
I think that’s unlikely. I replied. But tell me what it is, and I’ll let you 08
know.
09
I looked around the empty office. It was nearly nine o’clock and ev-
10
eryone else had left hours earlier. I gave my phone a small shake, as
11
though that might knock loose the next message. But my inbox was still
12
empty. I ran my thumb down the screen of my phone, refreshing my
13
emails again and again. I kept it lit up on the office kitchen counter as I 14
washed my mug in the sink. I kept it in my hand as I switched off my
15
computer. I turned it off and on again after pulling on my coat, as
16
though something might have happened in my sleeve. I kept it held in
17
front of me as I walked out of the building and toward the station.
18
I lay in bed that night with it beside me on my pillow, the volume
19
turned right up. I was shocked by every single message: the automated
20
complaints update that arrived late in the evening, emails from retail-
21
ers that had gathered my details without my consent, a generic travel
22
update with information for the following day.
23
But there was nothing from Valerie.
24
I waited and waited but I must have fallen asleep eventually because
25
just moments later the alarm on my phone was ringing; it was time to
26
get up and visit my mother. I did as I always did: going into the bath-
27
room, having a shower, getting ready. Which, of course, was when the
28
message then arrived.
29
I found it when I returned to my bedroom ten minutes later, one
30
towel fastened around my chest and another like a bandage shrouding
S31
my hair. I tried to keep my head steady as I read.
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“Something happened the week before,” she had written. “I don’t
02
know what. But your neighbors (they seem like fun girls) were leaving
03
after midnight to go out and they saw you return. They said that you were 04
dripping wet and that it looked as though you were crying. It’s no secret 05
that you went to visit Marnie and Charles every Friday. They said you
06
normally returned around eleven. So what happened that week?”
07
“Nothing,” I said aloud. And then: “Shit.”
08
I knew that I had to reply, because my silence could be misinter-
09
preted. But I didn’t know what to write. Because I couldn’t confess the
10
argument without giving myself a motive. And it wasn’t just the con-
11
tent of her message that had startled me, but her means of acquiring
12
that information, her so- called evidence. She had been in my building.
13
She had been right outside my flat. She had been speaking to my
14
neighbors.
15
I sat on my bed and the towel wrapped around my head fell loose
16
and my hair dripped cold down my back.
17
Crying? No. But I was certainly drenched, so it might have looked that
18
way. I walked home from their flat that evening. Which is why I was so
19
much later and so much wetter than normal. But there’
s nothing more to
20
it than that.
21
I pressed send.
22
You shouldn’t stare, you know. It’s rude. And don’t you know that
23
some people really do enjoy walking in the rain? They find it refreshing.
24
It’s bracing, in a way, to be so close to nature.
25
She didn’t reply.
26
I reread her messages from the previous day and clicked the link in
27
the signature block at the bottom of one of them. It took me straight to
28
her website. And there— again, in red type and in block capitals— were
29
the following words:
30
31S
BE PATIENT. THERE’S MORE TO COME.
32N
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01
02
03
04
Chapter Twenty- Nine
05
k
06
07
08
09
10
F
11
ebruary came and went and I didn’t hear from Valerie again, and
12
there were no updates on her website. I was still working all the
13
sunlight hours and, even when the clocks shifted forward, I didn’t see
14
daytime. I saw nearly no one that month, other than Marnie. She
15
cooked for me, as she always had, and she talked about her pregnancy:
16
how it felt physically— the stretching and aching and straining— and
17
emotionally, too— the weight of being responsible for another life.
18
“It’s so strange to be here without him,” she said every time we saw
19
each other. “I can feel him in this building. I can smell him sometimes:
20
his aftershave, and a very masculine, slightly musky smell that always
21
makes me think of him.”
22
“But it’s important,” she would say, “to focus on the future.” She
23
would tell me about new opportunities: she’d been sent baby bowls
24
with suction bases that stuck to tables and was considering dedicating
25
a space on her website to recipes for children. “I can’t simply marinate
26
in my grief,” she said more than once. “I have to build a life for me and 27
for the baby.”
28
She often talked about the years ahead, and what came next, and
29
how her life might look without him in it. And sometimes it seemed
30
that she forgot to mention me. I felt as though it was my responsibility
S31
to reinsert myself into the story.
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“I could come and live here for a little bit,” I said.
02
“Oh, that’s kind,” she replied. “But I don’t think it’ll be necessary.”
03
“I can come around all the time,” I said. “I’ll help however I can.”
04
“Absolutely,” she said. “Although I reckon we might need peace and
05
quiet in the first few weeks.”
06
I felt sure that she’d change her mind. I had once looked ahead to a
07
life with children and I had known that she would still be central in
08
every single way. I saw us together in coffee shops, and on walks in the
09
park with a pram, and passing a baby between us. I felt sure that she
10
would need me. Because everyone says how exhausting it can be, caring
11
for a newborn, and that it takes a village, and how essential it is to have 12
friends and family nearby.
13
It didn’t occur to me that I might not be the right sort of friend for
14
this next stage of her life.
15
16
17
I was busy at work. I recruited five new people, two women and three 18
men. The business was growing exponentially— more and more orders
19
each week, new retailers adopting our platform, a permanent sense of
20
panic as our systems, our staff, our setup all proved too immature to
21
handle such a step up.
22
I sat at the head of a table in the Customer Services Unit. My table
23
was called “Zadie.” Apparently, women’s names made people more
24
comfortable, more at ease, and so every workstation in the building—
25
from the loading bays to the offices on the eighth floor— shared equally 26
ladylike titles. Curiously, there was no Jane. I think the CEO preferred
27
girly, feminine options, names that ended in “- y” or “- ie.”
28
My new employees sat on the benches either side of Zadie. The two
29
women were in their fifties, both recently divorced and desperately in
30
need of a regular wage. There were two young men, new graduates
31S
hoping to earn a quick income to bolster their wallets so that they
32N
might travel the world: surfing and diving and skiing and seducing
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naive eighteen- year- olds on gap years. The oldest man was in his early 01
forties. His name was Peter. He’d worked in a bank for over a decade,
02
receiving a six- figure salary and a matching bonus. Until two years be-
03
fore. He had been sitting at his desk in a spacious corner office in a
04
redbrick building in the city when his heart began to accelerate faster
05
and faster, until he felt like it would explode within his chest. He
06
had felt his lungs fill with water, his heart pulsing and pounding and
07
thundering against his ribs, his eyes swelling in their sockets. He had
08
clutched at his chest and his breathing had grown shallower and shal-
09
lower until eventually he’d lost consciousness.
10
After a series of tests and checks and scans, he was told that he was
11
fine, nothing medically wrong, all good on all counts. He went back to
12
work the following day and, that afternoon, his heart exploded again.
13
And then the next day, the same thing happened. And then the day
14
after that. Until eventually Peter stopped going to work and simply
15
stayed at home. His doctor diagnosed stress— “as though it were an ill-
16
ness,” he said
in his interview, “as well as a state of mind”— and signed 17
him off. Which put an end to the panic attacks. But contributed to the
18
onset of a deep and sticky depression.
19
He was so honest. He said that the months had stretched into a year,
20
until he’d finally found the courage to attend twelve sessions of coun-
21
seling in a poky room in a small terraced house in the suburbs. He’d
22
tried to focus on the garish wallpaper and the hand- drawn bluebirds
23
frozen in a moment, or the squelch of the leather chair beneath him, or
24
the thin gray hairs on his therapist’s upper lip, her dangling earrings
25
that skimmed the tops of her shoulders. But she’d outsmarted him and,
26
somewhat unwillingly, he’d found himself revealing his truth: the se-
27
crets he’d tucked deep within himself decades ago and the way he re-
28
ally felt about things and people and life (even when his thoughts
29
weren’t thoughts one ought to have about things and people and life).
30
I was drawn to him immediately, instinctively. He had all the right
S31
skills— talking to customers and inputting data— and he said he wanted
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to start at the bottom rung again, to work his way up the corporate lad-
02
der in a more measured way. He owned his every failing in a way that
03
felt completely alien. And not only was he honest with himself, but he
04
was also honest with me, a stranger, yes, but his interviewer, too. I
05
found it so impossible to comprehend. Why would he choose to tell the
06
truth?
07
Back then, I couldn’t have predicted this moment: me telling my
08
truth, recounting my lies.
09
Peter was my favorite of the five new employees. He was also the
10
most competent. He was a natural problem solver. The customers
11
seemed to like him. And the computers liked him, too, which was often
12
the most challenging part of the job. When he was around, I was hap-
13
pier, better at my job, more efficient and driven and confident. I was glad 14
that I’d hired him.
15
On the last day of March— just six weeks after my new recruits had
16
started— I arrived in the office just after eight o’clock and opened my
17
inbox to find an email from my boss, sent at half past seven, asking me
Seven Lies (ARC) Page 32