The Breakdown(30)

and I hang up abruptly. I check the answering machine,

wanting to know if any had come in while I was away

but there was only a call from the alarm company on

Thursday, confirming that they were coming to install

the alarm the next day and three on Friday, two from

Title: The Breakdown ARC, Format: 126x198, v1, Output date:08/11/16





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the alarm company asking me to call them urgently and

one from Connie.

I’d planned to start working on lesson plans for

September but I can’t focus. The phone rings again and

my heart immediately starts pounding. It’s all right, I tell myself, it’ll be Matthew, or Rachel, or another friend phoning for a chat. But when I check the number, it’s withheld.

I don’t know why I take the call. Maybe it’s because

I’ve already understood what is expected of me. I want

to say something, to ask him who he is but the chilling

silence freezes the words in my mouth so that I can only

listen. But again there is nothing and I slam the phone

down, my hands shaking. Suddenly, my house seems

like a prison. Hurrying upstairs, I fetch my mobile and

my bag from the bedroom, jump in the car and drive to

Castle Wells. On the way to a café, I stop to buy a card

to send to Jane’s husband, but at the till, it’s impossible to ignore the piles of newspapers stacked near the counter, or their headlines screaming that there have been new developments in the murder case. I don’t particularly

want to read about the murder but with the chance that

the police are closer to catching the murderer I buy one

anyway. In the café next door, I find a table in the corner and open the paper.

Until now, the police have believed Jane’s murder to

be a random attack but someone has come forward to

say that he passed what he believes was her car parked in roughly the same place the Friday before she was killed, The Breakdown





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at around eleven-thirty. It changes the whole direction


of the investigation as it suggests that Jane might have

known her killer and that on the night she died she





had gone to the lay-by to meet him and had done so the previous week as well. The press are all over her private life, suggesting that she had a secret lover, that her marriage was in trouble, and my heart goes out to her husband, although there’s also speculation that he’s responsible for his wife’s death. As the newspaper points out, his alibis – the two little daughters he said he was looking after at home – could easily have been left by themselves during the time it would have taken for him to commit the crime.

Next to the article there’s a photo of a knife similar to the one the police believe was used by the killer and as I stare at the black-handled kitchen knife with its finely serrated blade I feel sick to my stomach with fear.

Like a racing car leaving the starting line, my heart accelerates so quickly that I feel dizzy. I close my eyes but when I open them again the fear is still there, gathering momentum. Maybe the murderer was already lurking in the woods, about to commit his terrible crime, when I pulled into the lay-by. If he saw me, he might think that I saw him. Maybe he memorised my licence plate in case I became a threat to him. And in his eyes, I may have. He knows that someone went to the police, because they’ve made my call to them public, and maybe he’s guessed it was me. He doesn’t know that I didn’t tell them anything, that I had nothing to tell them. What





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matters is that he knows I exist. Has he found out who I am and making silent calls as a threat?

I look around desperately for something to ground me; my eyes fall on the café menu and I start counting the letters in the first item on there, one, two, three, four, five, six. It works: the even pacing of the numbers slows my heartbeat and soon I’m breathing normally again. But I feel shaky, and horribly alone.

I take out my mobile and phone Rachel, glad that her offices aren’t too far away from the town centre.

‘I’m in Castle Wells. I don’t suppose you can take a long lunch hour, can you?’ I ask.

‘Let me check my diary.’ Her voice is brisk which tells me she’s heard the desperation in mine. ‘Let’s see – I have a meeting at three so I’d have to be back for that, and if I juggle things around a bit I could be with you around one. Will that do?’

‘That would be great.’

‘Shall we meet in the Spotted Cow?’ she says.

‘Perfect.’

‘Is the town busy? Where did you park?’

‘I found a place in the little car park in Grainger Street but you might have to go to the multi-storey.’

‘All right. See you at one.’

*

‘What’s the matter, Cass?’

The Breakdown

111

I take a sip of wine, not quite sure what to tell her. ‘I just don’t feel safe in the house anymore.’

‘Why not?’

‘It’s since the murder. It said in the paper that Jane was probably killed by someone she knew, which means he must live locally.’