The Girl on the Train

‘Hello.’

I look round and recognize the man with the red hair, the one from the station, from that Saturday. He’s smiling at me, offering his hand to shake. I’m so surprised that I take it. His palm feels hard and calloused.

‘You remember me?’

‘Yes,’ I say, shaking my head as I’m saying it. ‘Yes, a few weeks ago, at the station.’

He’s nodding and smiling. ‘I was a bit wasted,’ he says, then laughs. ‘Think you were, too, weren’t you, love?’

He’s younger than I’d realized, maybe late twenties. He has a nice face, not good looking, just nice. Open, a wide smile. His accent’s cockney, or Estuary, something like that. He’s looking at me as though he knows something about me, as though he’s teasing me, as though we have an in joke. We don’t. I look away from him. I ought to say something, ask him, What did you see?

‘You doing OK?’ he asks.

‘Yes, I’m fine.’ I’m looking out of the window again, but I can feel his eyes on me and I have the oddest urge to turn towards him, to smell the smoke on his clothes and his breath. I like the smell of cigarette smoke. Tom smoked when we first met. I used to have the odd one with him, when we were out drinking or after sex. It’s erotic to me, that smell; it reminds me of being happy. I graze my teeth over my lower lip, wondering for a moment what he would do if I turned to face him and kissed his mouth. I feel his body move. He’s leaning forward, bending down, he picks up the newspaper at my feet.

‘Awful, innit? Poor girl. It’s weird, ’cos we were there that night. It was that night, wasn’t it? That she went missing.’

It’s like he’s read my mind, and it stuns me. I whip round to look at him. I want to see the expression in his eyes. ‘I’m sorry?’

‘That night when I met you on the train. That was the night that girl went missing, the one they just found. And they’re saying the last time anyone saw her was outside the station. I keep thinking, you know, that I might’ve seen her. Don’t remember, though. I was wasted.’ He shrugs. ‘You don’t remember anything, do you?’

It’s strange, the way I feel when he says this. I can’t remember ever feeling like this before. I can’t reply because my mind has gone somewhere else entirely, and it’s not the words he’s saying, it’s the aftershave. Under the smoke, that scent – fresh, lemony, aromatic – evokes a memory of sitting on the train next to him, just like I am now, only we’re going the other way and someone is laughing really loudly. He’s got his hand on my arm, he’s asking if I want to go for a drink, but suddenly something is wrong. I feel frightened, confused. Someone is trying to hit me. I can see the fist coming and I duck down, my hands up to protect my head. I’m not on the train any longer, I’m in the street. I can hear laughter again, or shouting. I’m on the steps, I’m on the pavement, it’s so confusing, my heart is racing. I don’t want to be anywhere near this man. I want to get away from him.

I scramble to my feet, saying ‘Excuse me’ loudly so the other people in the carriage will hear, but there’s hardly anyone in here and no one looks around. The man looks up at me, surprised, and moves his legs to one side to let me past.

‘Sorry, love,’ he says. ‘Didn’t mean to upset you.’

I walk away from him as fast as I can, but the train jolts and sways and I almost lose my balance. I grab on to a seat back to stop myself from falling. People are staring at me. I hurry through to the next carriage and all the way through to the one after that; I just keep going until I get to the end of the train. I feel breathless and afraid. I can’t explain it, I can’t remember what happened, but I can feel it, the fear and confusion. I sit down, facing in the direction I have just come from so that I’ll be able to see him if he comes after me.

Pressing my palms into my eye sockets, I concentrate. I’m trying to get it back, to see what I just saw. I curse myself for drinking. If only my head was straight … but there it is. It’s dark, and there’s a man walking away from me. A woman walking away from me? A woman, wearing a blue dress. It’s Anna.

Blood is throbbing in my head, my heart pounding. I don’t know whether what I’m seeing, feeling, is real or not, imagination or memory. I squeeze my eyes tightly shut and try to feel it again, to see it again, but it’s gone.

ANNA

Saturday, 3 August 2013

Evening

Tom is meeting some of his army buddies for a drink and Evie’s down for her nap. I’m sitting in the kitchen, doors and windows closed despite the heat. The rain of the past week has stopped at last; now it’s stiflingly close.

I’m bored. I can’t think of anything to do. I fancy going shopping, spending a bit of money on myself, but it’s hopeless with Evie. She gets irritable and I get stressed. So I’m just hanging round the house. I can’t watch television or look at a newspaper. I don’t want to read about it, I don’t want to see Megan’s face, I don’t want to think about it.

How can I not think about it when we’re here, just four doors away?

I rang around to see if anyone was up for a playdate, but everyone’s got plans. I even called my sister, but of course you’ve got to book her at least a week in advance. In any case, she said she was too hungover to spend time with Evie. I felt a horrible pang of envy then, a longing for Saturdays spent lying on the sofa with the newspapers and a hazy memory of leaving the club the night before.

Stupid, really, because what I’ve got now is a million times better, and I made sacrifices to secure it. Now I just need to protect it. So here I sit in my sweltering house, trying not to think about Megan. I try not to think about her and I jump every time I hear a noise, I flinch when a shadow passes the window. It’s intolerable.

What I can’t stop thinking about is the fact that Rachel was here the night Megan went missing, stumbling around, totally pissed, and then she just disappeared. Tom looked for her for ages, but he couldn’t find her. I can’t stop wondering what she was doing.

There is no connection between Rachel and Megan Hipwell. I spoke to the police officer, Detective Sergeant Riley, about it after we saw Rachel at the Hipwells’ house, and she said it was nothing to worry about. ‘She’s a rubbernecker,’ she said. ‘Lonely, a bit desperate. She just wants to be involved in something.’