Forget Her Name(34)

‘So why am I here?’

She looks annoyed by the question, as if I’m straying from the script in her head. Picking up some papers, she shuffles them, glancing at one or two, then hands them to me.

‘You recognise these?’

I study the first few sheets. It’s paperwork I sorted out for her in the weeks before my wedding. Simple accounting for the food bank. Part of her job as manager here – but knowing I have an affinity with numbers, Sharon often gives me the forms to fill out while she mans my workstation.

A quid pro quo arrangement that suits us both.

There has never been a problem before.

I nod, still mystified, and offer her the papers back again.

‘No, keep them for now.’ Sharon sits back. Her face is troubled. ‘I didn’t notice the issue until last week, when I had to provide our monthly figures to the charity.’

‘Issue? What issue?’

Her mouth tightens. My tone obviously irritates her.

‘You have no idea what this is about, Catherine?’

I don’t like the way she emphasises my name.

Now I’m irritated, too.

‘None whatsoever, sorry. Should I?’

I flick through the loose sheets again, checking the details on each. Some people I recall perfectly. The ones with the worst stories. Others are harder to place. A few were dealt with by different volunteers, or they came to the food bank outside my shift times.

There’s nothing here that strikes me as wrong.

Sharon taps the desktop with one painted fingernail, studying me through narrowed eyes. ‘Okay, let’s do this properly. You know how you have to input the details on the computer, then print out two copies for the files?’

‘Of course.’

‘And each printout has to be signed at the bottom, in the box that says “Handling Officer”?’

‘Yes.’

‘And you’re supposed to leave that part blank so that I can add my signature later?’

A cold feeling creeps over me. Did I sign the printed forms by mistake? Guiltily, my hand clenches the sheets, staring back at her.

I did rush through some of those forms in the weeks before the wedding, my head full of flower arrangements and invitations and packing up our stuff for the post-wedding move to my parents’ house. Plus, of course, the horror of the snow globe’s arrival.

‘Look at the signature on each sheet.’

I look down at the first sheet, expecting to see my own name in the box left blank for the Handling Officer’s signature.

My heart stutters.

There’s a name written in the signature box. Signed in bold, black ink. The scrawl is not quite legible, almost underdeveloped. As though the writer hasn’t fully decided yet how to sign their name.

A familiar, sloping signature, all the same.

Just one word.

The sheets in my hand begin to tremble.

This is fear. Sudden, primal, brain-numbing fear.

When I don’t say anything, Sharon clears her throat. Her look is cold, brittle. She doesn’t understand, and who can blame her?

‘Well?’ she says. ‘Do you have an explanation for me? Any explanation at all?’

I shake my head, my heart thumping. I don’t know what to say. Or if I can even speak. My tongue feels as if it’s stuck to the roof of my mouth. I’m in hell, I think. A nightmare, only it’s for real.

Sharon glares at me. ‘Who the hell is Rachel?’





Chapter Twenty

I meet Louise for lunch at La Giravolta, the Italian bistro on the corner. It’s her day off on the new shift rota, but she looks tired, like she ought to be in bed. She’s pale, her black hair limp on her shoulders, and there are shadows under her eyes which a few dabs of concealer have not managed to erase. It must be all the night shifts she’s been doing, I decide. Dominic is exactly the same after a long stint on nights. He keeps me up too, as I find it so hard to sleep when he’s not in the bed with me. It’s even harder now that we’ve moved in with my parents.

‘How are you?’ Louise asks, standing up to kiss me on the cheek. She sits down again, her hand going automatically to her wine glass, and I realise she has started drinking without me. ‘Dominic said you had a wonderful time on honeymoon. Slept late nearly every day. God, what I wouldn’t do for a whole week of lie-ins.’

‘So book some holiday leave,’ I say lightly as I take my seat. I nod to her glass. ‘Is that a dry white?’

‘House Chardonnay.’

I turn to call the cheerful waitress, Bianca, who knows me well. ‘Two lunch menus, please. And a bottle of Chardonnay.’

‘Pronto.’

Bianca disappears into the kitchen, singing softly under her breath in Italian.

‘Oh, you know me.’ Louise shrugs. ‘I get so bored on holiday.’

‘Same here,’ I say, though it’s not entirely true.

‘Not on your honeymoon though.’ She winks at me and drains her wine. ‘Sounds like you two spent most of your time in bed.’

I blush, and glance about the restaurant. ‘Shush.’

‘Prude.’

‘Lush.’ I nod at her empty wine glass. ‘I didn’t think I was that late. How long have you been here?’

‘I only had a glass while I was waiting. And not long. Fifteen minutes?’ She looks at me with suddenly intent eyes. ‘So come on, spill. What was so urgent you had to speak to me today?’