The Girl Before(64)

One Folgate Street, though, is my haven, my cocoon. One reason I’m putting off telling Edward about this pregnancy, I’ve realized, is because a part of me is frightened Mia’s right and he’ll simply throw me out. I tell myself he’ll be different when it’s his own child, that our relationship is stronger than his precious rules, that he’ll be fine with baby monitors and buggies and nursery friezes and playmats and all the other messy paraphernalia of parenthood. I’ve even been checking developmental milestones online. Given his parents’ Type-A, disciplined personalities, our child could be sleeping through the night at three months, walking within a year, toilet-trained by eighteen months. Surely it’s not so very long to put up with a little chaos?

But somehow, I haven’t been so confident that I actually call him.



And, of course, however serene my surroundings, there are still my own terrors to be faced. Isabel was born silent and still. This baby—pray God—will be different. Over and over I imagine that moment: the waiting, the first snatch of breath, that exultant, mewling cry. What will I feel? Triumph? Or something more complicated? Sometimes I actually find myself apologizing to Isabel in my head. I promise I won’t forget you. I promise no one can take your place. You’ll always be my firstborn, my beloved, my precious girl. I will always grieve for you. But now there will be another to love, and can there really be such an inexhaustible store of love in me that my feelings for Isabel remain undimmed?

I try to focus on the immediate issue: Edward. The more I tell myself I have to speak to him, the more a little voice reminds me that I don’t really know this man, the father of my child, at all. All I know is that he’s remarkable, which is another way of saying he’s unusual and obsessive. I still don’t even know what really happened between him and Emma: what responsibility, moral or otherwise, he might bear for her death, or whether both Simon and Carol, in their different ways, are wrong about that.

I am as methodical and efficient as ever. I buy three packets of fluorescent Post-it notes in different colors and turn one of the refectory walls into a giant mind map. On one side I stick a Post-it labeled ACCIDENT, then in a row SUICIDE, MURDERED—SIMON WAKEFIELD, MURDERED—DEON NELSON, and MURDERED—PERSON UNKNOWN. Finally, and somewhat reluctantly, I add a Post-it labeled MURDERED—EDWARD MONKFORD. Underneath each one I put more Post-its for the evidence that supports it. Where I have no proof, I put question marks.

There are only a couple of notes, I’m pleased to see, underneath Edward’s name. Simon, too, has fewer than the others, although following my conversation with Saul I have to add one that says REVENGE FOR SEX WITH BEST FRIEND???

After some thought I add another to the row: MURDERED—DI CLARKE. Because even the policeman had a motive. Being made a fool of by Emma had effectively cost him his job. Of course, I don’t actually believe he did it, any more than I think Edward did. But he’d clearly been a little bit smitten with Emma, and I don’t want to rule out any possibilities prematurely.

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?”