Wrong Number

by Carys Jones

  Amanda tugged at the label on her half-empty beer bottle. She knew that the rat had been lucky that she lived with Shane and not Will back then. Will would have surely killed it. He’d have been swift and efficient, but he wouldn’t have let the rat live to see another day. He was brave like that. Heroic.

  Amanda completely pulled the label off her bottle and dropped it down on the table. Or was Will ruthless with the way he handled things?

  ‘You still thinking about him?’ Shane noted the distant look in her eyes.

  ‘How can I not?’ Amanda put down her bottle, suddenly losing her desire to drink.

  ‘I mean, we’ve been through everything,’ Shane pushed his hand through his hair, leaving it sexily dishevelled. Amanda forced herself not to notice. ‘He left first thing in the morning while you slept. You guys hadn’t argued or anything.’

  There he was, listing events on his long fingers. If Amanda closed her eyes she could almost smell the oaky burn of their beach fire, could feel its heat pressing against her face.

  ‘There was nothing else out of the ordinary, nothing you’ve not previously reported to the police?’

  Amanda straightened in her chair. There was something. She suddenly realized there was. It was like seeing a familiar actor on TV but struggling to pinpoint how you know them. The information was in her mind, she’d just not accessed it before. She’d been so consumed with worry, with shock. Maybe it didn’t even matter. Maybe it was nothing.

  ‘Amanda?’

  Her heart almost broke upon hearing the tenderness in Shane’s voice. She remembered how he’d softly say her name in the dead of night when she’d been lost to yet another nightmare. He’d pull her back from the swirling waves and the jagged rocks with the strength of his voice. Then he’d wrap her in his arms and kiss her so deeply that she forgot all about what was haunting her.

  ‘Amanda, what is it?’

  ‘It’s probably nothing.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I’m pretty sure it’s nothing.’

  ‘Let me decide that.’

  She reached for her bottle and beer and drained the last of its contents.

  ‘Tell me,’ Shane urged, using the voice he usually reserved for when he was trying to pry a secret out of her.

  ‘There was a wrong number.’ Amanda hated how lame she must sound. She was really grasping at straws now.

  ‘A wrong number?’

  ‘Yeah,’ Amanda raked a hand through her hair, trying to focus on the memory which, thanks to the alcohol in her system, felt hazy. ‘The night before Will disappeared, this guy called the house phone. He asked for someone and when I said they didn’t live here he got weird.’

  ‘Weird how?’

  ‘Like insistent. Almost threatening.’

  Despite the warmth of the evening the memory of the guy’s tone left Amanda cold. She shivered and tucked her legs up beneath her, drawing her cardigan in tightly around her.

  ‘Who was he asking for?’

  ‘I…’ Amanda groaned. ‘I can’t quite remember. And then later, when I told Will about it, he…’ she smoothed her hands across her knees. ‘I thought he’d find it funny. But he didn’t. He actually seemed kind of spooked. He went to bed early and we didn’t discuss it again. We didn’t discuss anything.’

  ‘And you don’t remember the name the guy was asking for?’ Shane pressed, leaning forwards.

  ‘He had a Scottish accent. Kind of like Will’s. But the name…’ she rummaged around in the depths of her mind, searching for the answer.

  ‘Like you say, it’s probably nothing,’ Shane was leaning back against his chair, drinking from his beer.

  ‘Jake Burton.’ Amanda blurted, smiling triumphantly. ‘He was asking for Jake Burton.’

  ‘Are you sure?’ An edge had suddenly crept into Shane’s voice.

  ‘Yes,’ Amanda scowled at him. ‘I’m sure. The weirdo wrong number guy asked for Jake Burton. Told me that he must live here.’

  ‘And what did you say?’

  ‘What do you think I said, I told him he was wrong.’

  ‘And you’d never heard that name before?’

  ‘No,’ Amanda was shaking her head. ‘Why? Does it even matter? It was just some wrong number.’

  ‘I need to go,’ Shane was on his feet and straightening his tie.

  ‘What, now?’

  ‘Yes, I’ve just remembered that I left something back at the station.’ He was powering back through her house, towards the hallway. Amanda had to run to keep up with him.

  ‘What the hell is going on?’ she shouted.

  As Shane paused to turn and look at her, she wedged herself between him and the front door. She raised her chin and stared defiantly into his eyes. She used to love how in a certain light the green looked to be flecked with soft shades of blue.

  ‘You’re not leaving here until you tell me what’s going on.’

  ‘Nothing, I just need to go,’ Shane took a step forward and reached around her, grasping the door handle. They were standing so close their chests were almost touching. Amanda could feel her breaths becoming laboured, her skin tingling in anticipation.

  She remembered what it felt like to be kissed by Shane, to have his hands run down her body, exploring every burgeoning curve.

  ‘Who is Jake Burton?’ she asked breathlessly.

  Shane was looking to her eyes, his lips parting and his head lowering.

  ‘Who is he?’ Amanda repeated stubbornly.

  Clearing his throat, Shane straightened and eased back from her. ‘I’ll come by and check on you tomorrow. Until then keep everywhere locked up tight and secure.’

  ‘Why?’

  Shane opened the front door but Amanda hauled him back into the hallway by his shoulder.

  ‘What aren’t you telling me?’

  Shane had never been good at keeping secrets. John and Amanda used to joke that he had the worst poker face. His lips would pull up in delight if he had a good hand or twitch down if he knew he was on to a loser.

  ‘You can’t lie to me,’ Amanda warned.

  ‘I know,’ Shane smiled sadly at her, letting one hand rest on her shoulder. ‘That’s why I’m leaving.’ He leaned in close to plant a solitary kiss upon her cheek.

  ‘Who is Jake Burton?’ Amanda demanded again.

  ‘Do me a favour?’ Shane was stepping out the door, preparing to leave. ‘Stay off your computer. Don’t go running any searches, don’t go resurrecting Lambchop. You can’t be involved in any of that shit right now, do you understand?’

  ‘Then just tell me.’

  ‘Let me go into the station, iron out some of the facts and then come and check in on you tomorrow, okay?’

  ‘Shane, tell me,’ Amanda was on the verge of tears. She wanted to scream ‘who the hell is Jake Burton’ until her lungs bled. She’d thought the wrong number was nothing, just a weird event, but what if it was the key to everything? What if she’d been looking for Will in all the wrong places?

  ‘I can’t tell you, not until I’m certain.’ Shane was on the driveway, disappearing into the lengthening shadows of the night.

  ‘Why not?’

  There was a time when Shane would tell her anything regardless of his levels of certainty. His heart was as open to Amanda as it was to himself. During their years apart, how many secrets had they stored up from one another? How much had their hearts changed?

  ‘I can’t tell you,’ Shane was raising his phone to his ear either to call a taxi, or worse, Jayne, for a lift to the station.

  ‘Dammit, Shane, just tell me!’

  Shane was turning away from her, leaning into his call. ‘Some things once known can never be unlearned.’

  ‘Shane!’

  ‘I won’t be the one to break you on this,’ he was jogging away from her house, towards the pavement. ‘Not until I’m certain.’

  11

  It was two days before Shane returned to Amanda’s house. Two days of him ignoring her calls, two days when Wil
l continued to fail to come home.

  Sleep had become a foreign concept to Amanda. At night her house creaked and groaned so loudly that she feared that there was some dark entity lurking in the wall cavities. How had she never noticed these sounds before?

  ‘Just come and stay at mine,’ her mother urged. ‘It’s still your home, you know.’

  But Amanda couldn’t do that. She still had a job to do, bills that needed to be paid.

  It was noon and she was still in her pyjamas. She’d been staring at her laptop’s screen for the better part of twenty minutes. The glossy Diowater website was open in her main tab. It still needed a few tweaks until it was complete, but Amanda was struggling to summon up the energy to do even the smallest task.

  She’d put her current client off for as long as she could. A bout of summer flu she’d said, coughing and spluttering into the phone. It was too painful to tell them the truth. She didn’t need their pity, or worse, their alienation. She just needed their work.

  The doorbell rang. It no longer held the hope for Amanda that it once had. Slowly she unfurled her legs and stood up, ambling out of the study. She didn’t care that she was still in her pyjamas, didn’t care that whoever was on her doorstep was being forced to wait as she made her languished procession through the house.

  There was time for the doorbell again as she shuffled into the hallway. Amanda cursed the uninvited caller under her breath. She’d already accepted that she wasn’t about to find Will standing in the doorway. Each time the doorbell rang it was for a delivery, or on one occasion for a uniformed guy wanting to read her gas meter.

  Throwing open the door, Amanda greeted her caller with a thunderous look.

  ‘Hey,’ Shane was there where her husband should have been. Only he wasn’t in a suit. He wore dark denim skinny jeans and a yellow polo shirt. He’d managed to straddle the line between smart and casual, something Amanda knew he’d never have been able to accomplish without Jayne’s intervention.

  Both Shane and Amanda used to live in oversized hoodies and baggy jeans. They baulked at the idea of wearing something more smart, more fitted. Yet now Shane looked like he’d waltzed out of the pages of an Abercrombie and Fitch catalogue. Even his hair was stylishly gelled and pushed forward in a slight peak.

  ‘Sorry, did I wake you?’

  Amanda looked down at her own dishevelled appearance. Her cotton striped pyjama bottoms were crumpled, the vest top she was wearing had a huge coffee stain on it and she’d not brushed her hair since the previous morning. It sat matted upon her head like a most unsightly bird’s nest. She stepped backward, feeling ashamed. Shane shouldn’t see her like this. No one should. She was a mess in every conceivable way.

  ‘I was up,’ Amanda tried to run her fingers through her hair, but it was useless. She needed to do battle against it with her tangle tamer in order to look halfway decent.

  ‘Oh,’ Shane eyed her pyjamas.

  ‘All right judgement,’ Amanda snapped, feeling hostile. She knew how terrible she looked, she didn’t need to see it reflected in Shane’s eyes. ‘Where’s the slick suit today?’

  ‘It’s my day off,’ Shane peered beyond her, looking inside, angling for an invitation.

  ‘Come in,’ Amanda stepped aside and let him breeze past her. She almost choked on his aftershave when he was close to her. Instead of a delicate spray that morning it smelt like he’d bathed in the stuff.

  ‘So to what do I owe the pleasure?’ she remained in the hallway, in no mood to entertain a visitor.

  ‘Firstly, I owe you an apology,’ Shane looked down at his hands. ‘I shouldn’t have run out on you the other day.’

  ‘True.’

  ‘Secondly I came here to tell you something. But you have to understand that it’s strictly off the record. I’m not here in a professional capacity.’

  Amanda cocked her head at him, her interest levels rising.

  ‘Is this about Will?’ she pressed.

  Shane nodded stiffly.

  ‘About the wrong number?’

  He nodded again, though more reluctantly.

  ‘What the hell is it?’

  ‘Can we…’ Shane gestured towards the kitchen. ‘I’d rather we were sitting when we go over this.’

  ‘Okay…’Amanda didn’t like how Shane was behaving. He was stalling and she could see that his palms were slick with sweat. Why was he so nervous?

  As she strode into the kitchen and turned on the percolator a fearful thought cut through her like a knife, causing her to double over.

  Clutching at her sides, Amanda pondered the awful truth; what if Will was dead? What if that was why Shane was at her house, to deliver the terrible news to her in person?

  ‘Have you found him?’ she spun around to face Shane who was climbing onto one of the stools by the counter. Her eyes were wide and desperate.

  ‘No,’ Shane lifted a hand towards her and shook his head. ‘It’s not that, don’t worry.’

  The flames of panic within her cooled as the percolator shook and produced a fresh batch of coffee. Handing Shane a mug, she sat down beside him.

  ‘Then what is it, Shane? Why are you here? Who is Jake Burton?’

  ‘Woah, that’s a lot of questions.’

  Amanda frowned. Of course it was a lot of questions. She’d been left alone for two days to do nothing but stew on what little she knew about her husband’s disappearance. She’d had to basically sit on her hands to stop herself from searching for Jake Burton, whoever the hell he was. But she wanted to heed Shane’s warning, to hang back from the darknet and her contacts there, at least until she knew more. The last thing she wanted to do was invite danger to her doorstep.

  ‘I’ve spent the last two days working the case,’ Shane explained, tightly clutching his mug.

  ‘And?’

  ‘And I did some digging about this Jake Burton you mentioned. It’s a pretty generic name, but I remember something coming up when I originally searched for missing persons cases in Scotland, trying to find a link.’

  ‘Jake Burton is a missing person?’ Amanda felt herself become stiff with fear.

  ‘He was,’ Shane stared into his drink, looking distressed. ‘And then it was reported that he was dead.’

  ‘Dead?’ Amanda pressed, her voice rising. She felt like things had just got serious. Worryingly serious. ‘Why the hell would someone call me asking for a dead person? It must be a different Jake Burton. It’s a common enough name and—’

  ‘Amanda,’ Shane sighed as he said her name. ‘What I’m about to tell you can’t go beyond this room, do you understand?’

  Amanda could only nod numbly. Shane looked so serious. And so scared. His fear was rubbing off on her. She nervously glanced around the room, half expecting to find someone pressed against the French doors trying to eavesdrop on them.

  ‘And I’m here as a friend,’ Shane stressed. ‘Because you’re not supposed to know any of this. Not yet. No one is.’

  ‘Then why are you telling me?’ Was Shane putting his job in jeopardy by telling her such secrets?

  ‘I’m telling you—’ Shane sucked in a long breath and then lifted his gaze to look directly at her. In his eyes he was the boy from the starlit beach, the boy she’d make pillow forts with, the first boy she gave her heart to. ‘I’m telling you because I care about you. Because even though I should be professional in this, and detached, when it comes to you I just can’t.’

  Amanda didn’t know what to say. Was Shane admitting that he still had feelings for her?

  ‘Jake Burton,’ he continued, ‘and Will Thorn.’

  It felt strange to hear Shane say Will’s name, like hearing a child speak the name of a long-dead relative unprompted.

  ‘What about them?’

  ‘They’re the same person.’

  For a second Amanda was certain she’d just misheard him. ‘Sorry, what?’

  ‘Will Thorn is Jake Burton. Or at least he was. I found an old photograph of Jake Burton online from when
he’d been arrested for a previous conviction. They’re the same person, there’s no doubt about it.’

  ‘What?’ Amanda felt like she was going to choke on her surprise. Her entire mouth felt arid and dry as if she’d just spent a month travelling through a desert.

  ‘When you said about the wrong number, and the name, something clicked. I remembered seeing the name during my initial searches. So I went back, I delved deeper, made some calls and accessed Jake Burton’s criminal record.’

  ‘I don’t understand.’ Amanda was wilting against the counter, crumbling in on herself like an old abandoned house whose foundations had finally rotted away enough for it to collapse in a dramatic display of rubble and dust.

  ‘Jake Burton was a man with questionable connections.’

  ‘Connections to what?’

  ‘To people who I hope you never have to deal with.’

  In movies depicting war Amanda remembered seeing soldiers get caught up near a blast. After being sprayed with shrapnel and debris the world suddenly went silent for them as they’d briefly lost their hearing. Whilst everything around them exploded, they were cocooned in their surreal cone of silence. That’s how Amanda suddenly felt. Shane was still talking, she could see his mouth moving, but she couldn’t hear what he was saying. She was still recovering from the explosion of learning that Will truly did have another life. And probably another family.

  Shane had left his stool, was standing directly beside her and smoothing her hair out of her eyes. Slowly Amanda’s hearing was returning to normal. ‘Apparently Jake Burton did time in jail up in Scotland and was reported missing just under six years ago. Shortly after he was reported missing, he was reported dead.’

  ‘So he might have another family? A wife? Children?’ Amanda could barely breathe. She glanced around her kitchen suddenly distrusting every appliance, every unit. Will had been deceiving her all along. How was that even possible?

  ‘I’m afraid we fear it may be more serious than that,’ Shane dropped his hands to her shoulders and gently squeezed them.

  ‘More serious than leading a double life?’ Amanda could taste the tears which had fallen down her cheeks. She could feel her body trying to shake, to give into the shock of it all.