I take the keys from the hook next to the phones, then push my chair up against the back door, unlocking one bolt at a time, from top to bottom, before turning the key.
The door pushes open a bit from the other side, and I can see the man’s boot. “You forgot the chain.”
I unhook it and he comes in, smiling and closing the door.
“Good girl,” he whispers. “Now, where’s the safe?”
“I don’t think your dog is in there.”
He laughs, then pushes me out of the way. I hear the race start in the shop and it’s so loud. I think I might have made a mistake.
“Who the fuck are you?” asks John, standing in the doorway behind us.
The man grabs me and I see the knife in his hand. He points it at my neck and lifts me off the floor so that my legs are dangling.
“Put her down,” John says in his normal voice, as though he isn’t scared at all. But I am scared and I wet myself, my pee running down my legs, stopping at my socks, then dripping down onto the stone floor.
“I want the contents of the safe, right now, or I’ll slit her fuckin’ throat.”
I start to cry. I can hear the race still going on out front. The voice of the man on the TV seems to get louder and louder inside my ears: “Rhyme ’n’ Reason is still in the lead, closely followed by Little Prayer on the inside, Dark Knight bringing up the rear…”
Maggie appears behind John. She looks at my face, then at the man who is holding me. Her face doesn’t change, but her eyes do.
“You can have the money, I don’t care about that, we have insurance. Just don’t hurt our little girl,” says John.
“Don’t play games with me,” says the bad man, I know that’s what he is now. I feel him press the tip of the knife against my neck.
“Aimee, don’t be scared, sweetheart,” says John. “We’re going to give the man what he wants and nobody is going to get hurt, I promise.”
“You shouldn’t make promises you can’t keep.” The man’s breath smells like the pub on Sundays.
“Maggie, go and fill a plastic bag with whatever is in the safe, and give the man what he’s asking for.” John’s eyes seem to have forgotten how to blink, and they look different somehow, darker.
Maggie disappears. I hear the sound of the safe opening, then her high heels on the tiled floor as she comes back again, holding a plastic bag full of bundles of notes. She hands it to the man with one hand, and when he reaches to take it, her other hand comes out of her pocket holding a gun. She shoots, and this time, she doesn’t miss. I fall to the floor, and when I look over at the bad man, half his face is missing.
Thirty-eight
London, 2017
Ben was fired two years ago.
That’s the last thing I hear before standing up and walking out of the reception of the building he used to work in. The boy who broke the news is still speaking to me, but I can’t hear him anymore, the voices inside my head are far too loud, drowning everyone and everything else out. The questions they keep asking terrify me, because I’m no longer sure I know the answers. How can my husband have lost his job two years ago and I didn’t even know? It must have been just after we met. What has he been doing all this time? Where has he been going when he was pretending to go to work? Where was he getting money from?
I should have asked what Ben did wrong. What constitutes gross misconduct?
I’m starting to think that I don’t know the man I am married to at all.
Maybe I don’t know myself as well as I think I do either.
Did I kill my husband?
Did I take the gun from under the bed and shoot him?
Did I drive to a petrol station and buy lighter gel to try to hide the evidence of what I’d done? Why was it in the bin, and why is there CCTV of someone who looks like me buying it?
I don’t remember doing those things, but I’m no longer sure that is sufficient proof that I didn’t. I feel more lost and lonely than ever before. Who can I trust if I can no longer trust myself? When life holds up its final mirror, I hope I’ll still be able to look.
My phone beeps and I stare down at it. Jack’s name is on the screen.
What time are you getting to the wrap party tonight? I’m missing you already! X
I had forgotten about the party.
I can’t possibly go to that now, I can’t go anywhere.
I grasp the truth of that, realizing I can’t go home now with police swarming about the place. If they have found … something, then what if they arrest me? It doesn’t matter that I haven’t done anything wrong, it matters how it will look to others. Unpleasant rumors are like leeches: they stick. I swing awkwardly between the options like a broken hinge and conclude that I only have two. I can run and hide, proving to myself and everyone else that I am guilty of something I cannot remember. Or I carry on as though none of this is happening. If I don’t go to the wrap party, I’ll be missed. Not in a sentimental way, but there will be repercussions. Bad things have happened to me before, and I’ve always found a way to get through them.
I just have to act normal.
Faced with the option to sink or swim, I choose survival. Every. Single. Time. I’ll teach myself to breathe underwater if I have to.
I did not kill my husband.
I tell myself that as I walk into the department store and as I ride the escalator to women’s fashion. I tell myself again as I select a size-ten black dress from the rack and take it to the fitting rooms. And again, when I ask the shop assistant to remove the tags because I want to wear the dress now. I ignore the puzzled look on her face when, after paying for my purchase, I pass her the clothes I had been wearing before and ask her to put them in the bin.
I am not crazy.
When you plait truth and lies together, they can begin to look and feel the same.
Back on the ground floor of the department store, I stop at my favorite cosmetics counter and pay for a makeover.
“Look up for me,” says the woman applying black liner to my eyes. “Do you know you look just like that girl in that TV show … anyone ever tell you that?”
“All the time.” I tell my face to smile. “Wish I was!”
“Don’t we all. Look down.”
I stare at my feet and notice my trainers. They don’t go with the rest of my look, so once my face is taken care of, I hurry to the shoe department. I start to feel a little paranoid that other people might recognize me now that I’m all dressed up like the on-screen version of myself. I stare at the endless rows of footwear and spot some red shoes on the shelf, outshining everything around them. They remind me of a pair I wore in a school play once. I’m fairly sure they don’t go with the black dress, but I try on the display shoe anyway, standing like a flamingo in front of the mirror. It’s perfect.
While I wait for the assistant to bring me my new shoes, I observe the hordes of shoppers, all hoping to score their next consumer high. I feel sure that people are staring at me now. Who knows how many of them might have read Jennifer Jones’s online article or, even worse, whether the news has leaked about Ben and what he accused me of. When the assistant finally returns, a queue of people are waiting, accompanied by a chorus of tutting and synchronized rolling of eyes. She apologizes for the delay and retreats back to the stockroom before I’ve even taken the lid off the box.