The Girl Before

Thinking about DI Clarke, I realize I forgot to ask him if the police knew about Edward’s stalker. Jorgen something. I add another Post-it: MURDERED—EDWARD’S STALKER. Eight possibilities in all.

As I stare at the wall, it dawns on me that I’ve gotten precisely nowhere. As DI Clarke said, it’s one thing to theorize, quite another to find proof. All I have here is a list of suppositions. No wonder the coroner reached an open verdict.

The bright colors of the Post-its are like a jangling piece of modern art on One Folgate Street’s pristine stone. Sighing, I take them down and drop them in the garbage.

The recycling’s full now, so I carry it outside. One Folgate Street’s large recycle bins are down the side of the house, next to the boundary with Number Three. As I tip everything in, it all comes out in reverse order—the most recent first and then the older stuff. I see yesterday’s food packaging, a copy of last weekend’s Sunday Times magazine, an empty shampoo container from the week before. And a drawing.

I fish it out. It’s the sketch Edward did of me before he went away, the one he said was fine but didn’t want to keep. It’s as if he’s drawn me not once but twice. In the main drawing I have my head turned to the right. It’s so detailed, you can see the tautness of my neck muscles and the arch of my clavicle. But underneath or over that there’s a second drawing, barely more than a few jagged, suggestive lines, done with a surprising energy and violence: my head turned the other way, my mouth open in a kind of snarl. The two heads pointing in opposite directions give the drawing a disturbing sense of movement.

Which one’s the pentimento, and which the finished thing? And why did Edward say there was nothing wrong with it? Did he not want me to see this double image for some reason?

“Hello there.”

I jump. A woman of about forty with red curly hair is standing just across the boundary with Number Three, emptying her own rubbish. “Sorry, you startled me,” I say. “Hello.”

She gestures at One Folgate Street. “You’re the latest tenant, are you? I’m Maggie.”

I shake her hand over the fence. “Jane Cavendish.”

“Actually,” she confides, “you gave me a bit of a shock, too. At first I thought you were the other girl. Poor thing.”

I feel my spine tingle. “You knew Emma?”

“To talk to, nothing more. She was lovely, though. So sweet. She came around once with a stray kitten she’d found and we got to chatting.”

“When was this?”

Maggie makes a face. “Just a few weeks before she…you know.”

Maggie Evans…I remember now: She was quoted in the local paper after Emma died, saying how much the neighbors hated One Folgate Street.

“I felt so sorry for her,” Maggie’s saying. “She mentioned she was off because of cancer treatment. When they found her, I wondered if that was something to do with it—if the chemotherapy hadn’t worked and perhaps she’d taken her own life. Obviously she told me in confidence, but I felt I had a duty to mention it to the police. But then they said there’d been a full postmortem and she didn’t have cancer. I remember thinking, how awful to have beaten such a terrible illness and still die like that.”

“Yes,” I say, but I’m thinking, Cancer? I’m fairly sure it must be yet another lie, but why?

“Mind you,” she adds, “I told her to keep that kitten well hidden from the landlord. Anyone who can build a house like that…” She tries to leave the words hanging but anything more than a few moments’ silence is beyond her, and pretty soon she’s back on her favorite topic: One Folgate Street. Despite what she says, she clearly relishes living next to a building of such notoriety. “Well, must get on,” she says at last. “Got to get the kids’ teas.”

I wonder how I’m going to cope with that side of being a mum, putting my own life on hold to make kids’ teas and gossip with neighbors. There are worse things, I suppose.

I look down at the drawing in my hand. Another reference from art history days springs into my head. Janus, the two-headed god. God of Deception.

Is the second image even me? Or is it—I suddenly think—Emma Matthews? And if so, why was Edward so angry with her?

I wait until Maggie’s gone and then, discreetly, fish down through the layers of the recycling until I find the Post-its again. They’re all stuck together now, a mille-feuille of bright green and red and yellow sheets. I take them back into the house. I’m not done with them after all.

THEN: EMMA

I put off going in to work for as long as I can. But by Friday I know I need to get it over with. I leave Slob some cat food and a tray of litter and go.

At the office, I feel eyes following me as I make my way to my desk. The only person who speaks to me is Brian.

Oh, Emma, he goes, feeling better? That’s good. You can join us for the monthly catch-up at ten.