Melody pauses, runs her eyes back over the words and picks out the one that stings.
Recluse.
Is that what Patrick thinks she is? How could he have known? Hasn’t she kept it expertly disguised? Has she not fooled everyone around her that she leaves the house like a normal person every day?
Melody pushes the chair away from the table and moves across the kitchen to the huge glass doors. Her body is light, without substance to ground it. When she reaches the back of the room, she rests the tips of her fingers on the cold glass before peeling them off. If she looks closely, she can see the whorls and ridges of her fingerprints. A pattern of arches and loops that is unique to her. Her identity, all that is left of it.
If Patrick knew her secret, Sam did too. Who else? Her parents? Siobhan? Did they all know she was too scared to go out alone?
She balls her hand into a fist, pounds it against the glass. If she had the strength, she would smash it, watch it shatter into a million little pieces. Then she would let the shards splice into the soles of her feet, watch the blood trickle out. Only then would she be sure that what she was seeing was real.
She thought her act had convinced them. She believed she could present them with a shell of her former self and they wouldn’t know the difference.
She has been fooling herself.
They think she is paranoid. Delusional. Reclusive. A woman who sees danger where there isn’t any, threats where there are none.
Only she has ever heard the phone ring and stop and ring again and stop so many times she doesn’t know whether the ring is real or in her head. No one but her sees the shadows in their garden at night. At first she vowed she wouldn’t be beaten. She still had a job and a life. These things were imaginings, Sam told her, Patrick assured her. Dust yourself down, carry on. So she kept on getting up again, though each time it was a little harder, she was a bit more unsure of herself. Until she couldn’t do it any more.
It was November 2009, more than two years after the attack. They’d moved into the new house a few months earlier. She had arrived at the station from work to find there were no taxis. It was Friday, Sam was working a night shift. Patrick was coming round later for a drink. I’ll walk, she thought. The night air would clear her head of work, set her up for the weekend. What could go wrong? It was a main road, lit all the way and busy too, so she reckoned. It was important she started to set and achieve goals, build her confidence, establish her independence again; wasn’t that what her therapist was always telling her? So she walked up the hill to the junction where she turned right on the road that led to their house. She was a couple of hundred metres down when she realised that most of the traffic had carried straight on at the junction. She was alone. She started to count the seconds between cars: one … two … three … four … She needed her body to work with her, move fast, take her home to safety … five … six … car headlights behind her, casting a misty light on the path ahead. She breathed relief. There were other people around her. Safety in numbers. She waited for the car to flash past her, disappear into the road ahead. Instead its speed dipped to a crawl, lights switched to full beam. The brightness dazzled her. She was caught in the glare, unable to see the path ahead. A connection in her head fused, a million thoughts and images streamed through her mind at the same time. There wasn’t one David Alden. There were hundreds of him, thousands, wearing different masks and guises. She was going to die. She had cheated death before. And no one likes a cheat.
She closed her eyes and screamed, carried on screaming until she had no breath left. And when she opened her eyes again the car had gone, swallowed up by the night as if it had never existed at all. She scrambled for her phone, dialled the most recent number on her display. Patrick. He eventually found her huddled by the side of the road, shivering uncontrollably. He took her home, sat her down, shrouded her in a blanket and poured her a glass of wine.
‘You’re OK, Mel,’ he told her. ‘You are OK. You’re just shaken up, that’s all.’ He had his arm around her and pulled her in close. ‘You’re going to get a bit freaked out now and again after everything that’s happened.’
‘It was … there … it slowed down … on purpose.’ Patrick had put the fire on. She watched the flames curl around the logs, felt the heat from it filter out into the room, but her teeth wouldn’t stop chattering.
‘I’m sure there was a reason …’ Patrick started to say, but she tuned out. He hadn’t seen what she had seen, he didn’t believe her. If no one believed her, did that mean it wasn’t real? If no one saw her, would she not exist?
‘You need some sleep,’ Patrick said.
‘I don’t think I can …’
‘Fine,’ he said, ‘We’ll stay up until you fall asleep. Just like old times only with better wine.’
‘And no burnt toast.’
‘Deal.’
In the end she was asleep on the sofa within half an hour, but it had helped just knowing he was there.
When she next saw Patrick, they didn’t mention the incident. Melody could trust him to keep quiet. He knew instinctively she wouldn’t want Sam to hear about it. What Mel didn’t tell Patrick was that she hadn’t set foot across the door for the whole weekend after he had left. Nor was she inclined to admit that on the following Monday she had called in sick to work and had followed the same pattern again on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. On Friday she rang her boss to resign. ‘Time for a new challenge,’ she said nebulously. It took her two weeks before she could pluck up the courage to share her news with Sam. ‘I needed a change,’ she’d explained, expertly ducking the questions as to what that change might involve.
Yet still the phone rang with phantom callers and the shadows stalked her. Once she heard someone knocking at the door. Sam found her curled into a ball crying and shaking. ‘Make it go away,’ she told him.
He called the police but there were no signs anyone had been on their property.
So Sam built the huge perimeter fence, installed the electronic security gates to make her feel safe. To reassure her. He did all this for her but he could not bring himself to believe her fears had a physical foundation.
Melody walks back across the kitchen, the concrete cold on her bare feet. The room is dark, save from the glow of the laptop. She sits back down at the table, types the name EVE ELLIOT into the search box and sees her face appear on the screen before her.
Her hand reaches out to touch it, follow the contours of Eve’s face. She wishes she could breathe life back into her, draw her out from the screen so Eve could sit next to her and guide her through the mess of her life, help her make sense of it. She would recount to Eve everything that has happened to her, all the things that no one else believes to be real. And Eve would smile and hold her hand and tell her it is real because it happened to her too.
What else would she tell me, Melody wonders.
Sam.
If Eve has spoken to Patrick, wouldn’t she have contacted Sam as well?
Melody does a word search for his name in Eve’s file. In a matter of seconds Sam’s interview appears on the screen before her.
Chapter Ten
Eve
MELODY HAD AGREED to marry him, a fact I had gleaned from his repeated use of the word ‘fiancée’. It had always struck me as an antiquated term, like ‘courting’ or ‘betrothed’.
Sam Chapman used the term possessively. It set my teeth on edge. ‘My fiancée has had a terrible time …’ he said in his public school estuary mash-up of an accent that posh boys favour.
‘Melody, you mean?’ I itched to correct him.
I couldn’t help but wonder: what was she doing with him?
It was the middle of June. We were in the Harris + Hoole coffee shop not far from the hospital – his suggestion not mine, being unfamiliar with Guildford as I was. It was mid afternoon, post-lunchtime rush, and the selection of sandwiches on display had dwindled to a handful of mozzarella and tomato baguettes and a few cheese and pickle subs. I had arrive
d intentionally early in order to secure a table, disappointed to find no quiet corner but rather a stretch of tables running the length of the back wall of the café. The side nearest to the wall was fitted out with orange leather banquettes. I sat down there to allow myself a view of the door and the counter, pulling up his photograph from the hospital website on my phone so I would be sure to recognise him. He was clean-cut, like a model in a John Lewis catalogue. Someone your mum might choose for you. Too overtly handsome to be my type (no man can be too handsome, my friend Kira would have said), but I could appreciate that some women would have found him devastatingly attractive.
By 2.40 p.m. I had begun to doubt he was coming at all when I saw a head of blond hair breeze through the door with another woman. They stopped at the counter, engrossed in conversation. Now and again he’d touch her arm lightly or nod in agreement with whatever she was saying. She had his full attention; not once did he turn around to see if I was waiting for him. He smiled a lot, I noted, appeared genuinely interested in what his companion – a striking woman with long dark hair, tight red trousers and gold ballet pumps – was saying. The scene was completely at odds with the impression I had garnered of him during repeated and terse email exchanges. I thought he would be arrogant, cold, difficult to handle. Basically a bit of a wanker. I felt my shoulders loosen as I heard the woman, who was now clutching one of the remaining mozzarella and tomato baguettes, say goodbye.
Once he had watched her go, he took his coffee from the woman serving and proceeded to quibble over the change. ‘I gave you ten, not five,’ he said. I watched her blush, check the till before apologising and giving him the correct change. He took it from her with a shake of his head. Only then did he turn and scan the room. I lifted a hand to wave and smiled, waiting for him to feed one back to me. But the warmth of a moment ago had disappeared from his face as if someone had flicked the off switch.
‘Eve Elliot,’ I said. We shook hands, or rather he shook mine, for too long, too hard, an orthopaedic surgeon trying to crush my bones in a handshake.
‘I don’t have long,’ he said before he had even sat down. ‘I have to be back in surgery in an hour.’
He looked irked, drummed his fingers on the table impatiently. ‘I have no idea what you think you are going to achieve with this,’ he said.
‘I appreciate that you’re short of time, so I won’t mess around. I have been gathering new evidence and testing the credibility of the original evidence in David Alden’s case. It’s my opinion that he was wrongly convicted.’
‘Is that so?’ He pushed back his chair, crossed his arms. ‘You are aware that he is already out of prison, aren’t you? Aren’t you a few years too late with this one? I thought the point was to overturn a conviction while someone was actually serving a sentence. Although from my point of view I’m very glad you didn’t.’
Words flashed up in my head. Pompous. Twat.
‘How important is your reputation to you, Mr Chapman?’
‘He wasn’t a doctor.’
‘No, you’re right, he was a DJ, but even so, no one wants to be convicted of trying to kill a woman if they didn’t do it. It doesn’t do much for your prospects.’
‘If you’re expecting me to feel sorry for him, I should tell you it ain’t gonna work.’ His accent slipped into estuary again to emphasise his point.
‘I have no intention of trying to make you feel sorry for him. I simply want to go over your statement, what you were doing on the night it happened. What your relationship with Melody was.’
‘It’s all there in the original statement.’
‘I have it here. Do you mind if I go through it?’ I took it from a plastic file on the table and started reading.
‘“I live with my fiancée Honor Flannigan at 31 Cowper Road, Acton. I am a doctor at University College Hospital, London, specialising in orthopaedics. Melody Pieterson is a childhood friend of my fiancée. That is how I met her. I have known her for four years. The last time I saw her was Saturday 9 August 2007 at a barbecue in our garden …”
‘That’s all correct?’
‘You expect me to say it isn’t?’
I ignored his question. ‘Forgive me,’ I said. ‘Can I ask if you are still with your fiancée, Honor Flannigan. I’ve traced her to a surgery in Dorset.’
He shifted in his chair, ran his hands through his hair and glanced down at his watch, a Rolex if I wasn’t mistaken. ‘We’re not together any more. I don’t see why that comes into any of this.’
‘Do you still see Melody?’
His cheeks coloured and he drained his cup of coffee before fixing me with the first smile I’d seen from him during our conversation. It made me long for his scowl again. ‘I live with her. She is my fiancée now,’ he said, like a threat.
I ignored his tone. ‘Oh. I’m sorry … I wasn’t aware … no reason why I should be – congratulations. Have you set the date yet?’ As I’d hoped, my feigned interest wrong-footed him. Even Sam Chapman struggled to be rude in the face of such aggressive enthusiasm.
‘December this year,’ he said.
‘I think I’m in the wedding phase right now; you know, the time of life when you get about five invitations a year. I need a separate salary just to support my wedding attendances. Then again, at least you get to see all your old friends. When else do you have the chance to get everyone together?’
Boredom crept over his face. In general men have a tolerance of about thirty seconds for wedding talk. I had exhausted Sam’s.
‘Is yours going to be a big affair?’
‘Relatively.’ He raised his wrist to look at his watch again. I knew my time was almost up. Time to throw in the grenade.
‘Will Honor be there? Does she still keep in touch with Melody or is it a bit awkward? These things can be, can’t they?’ I held my smile in place, gave nothing away. His features reset into a frown.
‘Look,’ he said, leaning across the table. ‘Since you didn’t seem to get the message in my emails, I agreed to meet you to make my position clear. They got the right man. Have you, in all your investigations, found a reason why her hair was on his jacket? Huh?’ His raised eyebrows demanded an answer. ‘No, I thought as much. This might be a little diversion for you, but it’s someone’s life you are playing with. Have you considered what effect this would have on Mel?’
‘I think she is entitled to the truth.’
‘The truth?’ he shouted too loudly, immediately dipping his voice to a hiss to compensate. ‘You don’t know the truth. You’re just sniffing around to see if you can make something of it. What are your credentials anyway? What gives you the right, what makes you …’ he stabbed the air with his index finger, ‘think you are better qualified than the police to uncover the truth?’
‘I do have experience in this field.’
‘Do you? Oh yes, on APPEAL, of course, a programme that was pulled a year ago.’ He glared at me. ‘Don’t look so surprised, you’re not the only one who does their research, you know.’
He puffed air out through his teeth, making a pfft sound. ‘The thing is, I don’t really care what you do, or what you did. But if you go anywhere near my fiancée, let me tell you … I … Let’s just say she is still very fragile. She can’t even go out on her own. I don’t want anything to happen to upset her. Now I really do have to go.’
He got up and, without saying goodbye, marched to the door. I watched him leave, his gelled hair lifting like a flap as the wind caught it outside.
In many respects Sam was like his house, good-looking on the outside, toxic inside. Sure, he could turn on the charm, channel it at the people who had something he wanted. Like the woman in the red trousers. They would get the full dazzle of his smile. But the rest – the barista, an irritating patient, a woman asking questions about an attack six years ago – they were just shit on his shoes. What did Melody see in him? Fragile, he’d called her. Did he stay with her out of love, or sympathy, or something else entirely? I feared for Melody because
I knew that if I was fragile I wouldn’t want to be anywhere near him. I’d worry that his ego would destroy me altogether.
Chapter Eleven
Melody
HER EYES ARE fixed on one word.
Fragile.
Her head provides her with an accurate definition: easily broken or damaged, flimsy, weak.
This is how Sam sees her.
She can’t even go out on her own.
It takes a minute to climb the stairs, less time to switch on the light and jump on to the bed. She cannot bear to be under the same roof as him for a moment more without having her questions answered.
‘How long have you known?’
He blinks, repeatedly, eyes adjusting to the brightness.
‘What’s going on? What time is it …?’ He glances at the bedside clock. ‘Jesus, Mel, what the hell are you doing?’
‘Just tell me how long you’ve known.’
The answer comes ten minutes later, after an initial attempt to feign ignorance and then another one suggesting they talk about it in the morning.
‘It is the morning,’ Melody says.
‘It’s three o’clock in the morning.’
‘So let’s talk.’
‘A few years,’ he says eventually. ‘It was something Siobhan said about you always inviting her here and never going out that got me thinking. And then … it just fell into place. You had given up work but you didn’t seem keen on finding anything else. You only ever shop online.’
‘Why the hell didn’t you say anything?’ She spits the words out.
‘Me? I’m not the only one who was holding things back here.’
They’re sitting opposite each other on the bed. His face is so close to hers she has no choice but to stare at it. She sees him almost every day, has done for the past four years. She can feel the texture of his hair without touching it: thick, wiry, rendered dry, like straw, from the time he spends in the sea. Its colour changes with the seasons: white blond in the summer, darker roots emerging over the winter months. His frown creates furrows, two lines down between his eyebrows, and the wrinkles around his eyes are now more pronounced, carved into his skin. On the bridge of his nose there’s a bump where it was broken once in a rugby game, at school or university, she can’t remember which. All those hours spent chasing waves have left his skin leathery, weather-beaten. She can see the landscape of it, every freckle and mark, without looking. She is fighting the urge to slap it.
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