Alicia White.
Jennifer Jones.
John Sinclair.
Maggie O’Neil.
The names circle my mind because I’m certain the man I was married to didn’t do this to me all on his own. Sometimes I wish I could go back in time to the day I ran away from home in Ireland. I wonder where and who I’d be now if I had stayed. I wouldn’t have met any of these people, and my life might have turned out simpler, safer, more straightforward. I might have been happy.
I think about Detective Alex Croft. She was right, I have been keeping some things from her, I didn’t have a choice.
I look over at Jack, still asleep on the other side of the enormous bed, the sound of light snoring escaping from his mouth. I take in the shape of his shoulders, the line of his spine, the tiny blond hairs on his neck. His eyes are closed and his hand has formed a fist, as though he might be fighting with his dreams.
Perhaps we all are.
I remember everything that we did last night; it would be hard not to. It felt so good I only wish I hadn’t waited so long to give in to the attraction. I don’t know what happens next. Maybe now that he’s had all of me, his interest will fade away to nothing. I don’t know whether he wants more. I don’t know whether I do. I can’t help thinking it would be nice to stay like this: the pleasure of intimacy without the pain of a formal relationship. Everyone wants something from someone, that’s just how we are made. Most relationships, whatever their nature, are based on some kind of trade and compromise. I’m not naïve.
I climb out of the bed as quietly as I can. I want to be alone for a little while, make sure the thoughts inside my head are still my own. I want to get back to some vague kind of normal and do the things I used to do before this nightmare began. It feels like I need to do that, for me.
I want to run.
I look back at Jack before creeping out of the room, wondering if this might be the last time I see him like this; stripped back to being himself.
I run the short distance to my house. It’s still early, and when I’m sure no reporters or police are outside, I let myself in. I grab an old rucksack and fill it with a few essentials: makeup, some clean underwear, and my phone charger. Then I walk over to the wardrobe and bend down to remove one of the bottom panels of wood. Ben designed the whole house and garden, but clothes are very much my department, and I had the fitted wardrobes especially made after we moved in. When you have as many secrets as I do, you need places to hide them. I find the gun where I’d put it to keep it from my husband. Concealed out of fear one night, when I was a little too drunk to remember. Afraid of him, and what he might do if he found it. I put the gun in my bag, then I replace the panel in the wardrobe floor and leave.
I take exactly the same route I always have—running past the pub on the corner, past the fish-and-chips shop and through the graveyard, until I reach Portobello Road. Along the way I pick up a thought or two about what happens next, and carry them with me for a while. I decide that I don’t like them much, so put them back down and run on, without looking back, hoping they’ll stay where I left them. As I reach the start of a long line of antique shops, I slow down a little, allowing myself the pleasure of longingly staring at the window displays. Ben always knew that I preferred older furniture to modern pieces with no personality, but he didn’t listen to me, and I let myself be silenced. There were times I would have done almost anything to keep him happy, and try to convince him that we should have a child together, but I’ll never let anyone control and manipulate me like that again.
I come to a halt, my brain taking a little while to process what my eyes think they have just seen. I turn back, retracing my last few steps, to peer inside the shop window I just passed. I’m no longer in any doubt about what I am looking at.
It’s Ben. Or at least a photo of him as a child.
The black-and-white image I always hated.
The only picture of him I could find after he disappeared.
It doesn’t make any sense. What is it doing here? I haven’t touched any of his belongings yet, haven’t removed a thing from the house we shared, masquerading as husband and wife. The thought stings a little, and I feel the need to defend us from it. I’m sure ours wasn’t the only marriage that unraveled into separate lives, lived together out of habit or convenience. We each spin our own intricate web of lies, then get stuck and tangled inside them, unable to find a way out.
I bang on the shop door, but nobody answers.
It starts to rain, fast, fat drops falling from the sky without warning, soaking my clothes and skin, filling the network of veins on the paved street with dirty-looking water. I stare back at the picture, my vision a little blurred, but still sure of what I see.
I carry on down the road, retreating, as though a black-and-white photo of a child might come to life, smash through the glass of the shop window, and hurt me. I don’t get far. The window of the next antique shop contains a different frame, but it’s the same face staring out at me. I start to shiver. I walk to the next shop, and he is there again, malevolent eyes glaring in my direction.
I look up and down the street, suddenly in fear of being watched. But there is nobody there. All I see is an empty pink-and-white-striped paper bag—the kind I used to get sweets in when I was a little girl—blowing along the pavement in the wind. I can see lights on inside the final shop, but when I try the handle, the door is locked. I bang on the glass, and eventually an elderly man comes to open it.
“I’m so sorry to bother you, but I need to ask a question about a picture in your window.” I realize how crazy I must sound and feel a little surprised when he beckons me inside, my rain-soaked clothes dripping on the tiled floor.
The shop is overly warm and smells of toast and age. The man in front of me is at least eighty, perhaps older. His back is a little hunched and his clothes are too big for him, as though the years have caused him to shrink. It looks as if his smart tartan trousers might fall down altogether, without the help of the red braces holding them up, and the bow tie beneath his chin looks expertly hand-tied. His hair is white, but thick, and his eyes are smiling even though his mouth is not, as though glad of any form of company.
“You’ll have to speak up, dear.”
I walk to the window display and reach for the frame, careful not to knock anything over. “This picture, I wonder if you could tell me where you got it?”
He scratches his head. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen it before.” He looks almost as troubled by the sight of it as I feel.
“Is there someone else who might know?” I ask, trying not to sound impatient.
“No, it’s just me now. I had a delivery from a supplier yesterday. She helped me bring the bits I wanted in from the van. I don’t remember the frame, but it can only have come from her.”
“Who is she? Who did you buy it from?”
“It’s not stolen.” He takes a small step back.
“I didn’t say that it was. I just need to know how it got here.”
“It got here the same way most of these goods do … dead people.”
The hot room seems to cool a little. “What?”
“House clearance. People’s unwanted things after they’ve gone. You can’t take it with you.”
I think for a moment. “And this woman, she runs a house-clearance company?”