Greenwich Park(37)

I wrinkle my nose. A stale duvet, unwashed clothes all over the floor. I step over a gold sequinned skirt, some black tights all twisted up with a pair of dirty red knickers. I unscrew the sash window, throw it up, breathe in the cold fresh air. The sky is white and overcast, flat as a bedsheet. I can see Monty skulking along the garden fence like a tightrope walker, stalking a wood pigeon.

I collect the mugs from the chest of drawers, pinching one between each of my fingers, and balance the plates on my arm. As I lean over for the final mug, my bump almost throwing me off balance, I see her battered suitcase. I had only noticed that later, the fact she’d brought a suitcase. After I’d said she could stay, I spotted it, sitting there in the hallway. She’d had it the whole time.

I consider the suitcase, clothes trailing out of it from all directions, as if a bomb has gone off inside. Underneath a crumple of leopard-print fabric, a smooth silver rectangle poking out of the top catches in my eye, a white plug and wire wrapped around it. It looks exactly like Daniel’s laptop. The one that’s gone missing.

I try to remember when it disappeared. A sick feeling gathers in my stomach. Surely not.

I set the mugs carefully back down on the chest of drawers, the plates beside them. With an effort, I lower myself down to the floor, first one knee, then the other. I extract the laptop from the suitcase, unwrap the wire from around it, and switch it on. It blinks into life, a generic loading screen. A scratch on the keypad that I’m sure I recognise.

The little blue bar is inching across the screen. It’s taking ages. She’s probably only gone out for cigarettes. She could be home any moment. I look around the room, in an effort not to focus on it, as if that might make it go faster.

But then I hear a key in the door.

‘Helen? It’s me!’

Rachel. I slam the laptop down, wrap the wire round again, shove it back in her suitcase. It’ll have to wait. But as I stuff it back in, something else falls out. Something red.

‘Helen, are you upstairs?’

I can hear Rachel’s footsteps on the stairs – she never, ever takes her shoes off. I grab the thing that fell out, snatch it up quickly. As I turn it over, my breath catches in my chest.



A small, crimson envelope, with nothing inside it. Just like the one I found at Rory and Serena’s. But this cannot be the one that went missing from my book. Because this one doesn’t have Rory’s initials on the envelope. This one bears just a single initial on the front.

W.





HELEN





‘Just tidying,’ I say, as she reaches the landing. My arms are full of mugs. We eye each other for a moment. I try to disguise my breathlessness.

‘Oh yeah,’ she says. ‘Sorry. There’s some plates in there, too.’ She pauses. ‘I’ll get them.’

I step to the side to let her pass, our eyes still locked. She walks past me, slowly, into her room, looking back at me as she closes the door in my face. The envelope feels hot in my pocket.

In the kitchen afterwards, I put the mugs in the sink, run the tap on hot, my heart still pounding. I try to explain it another way in my mind. But I can’t. The envelope was exactly the same size and colour, as the one I found in Rory and Serena’s bathroom. But if she is the other person – if she is W – then she knows Rory. She knows my brother. But how? What is she up to?

I pray that Daniel will be home early, that I’ll be able to talk to him about it. But he messages to say he will be late, again. I am stuck with her. Should I confront Rachel? Something tells me I shouldn’t. Not while I am on my own with her.

I hope she will stay upstairs, but as soon as she hears me cooking, she appears in the kitchen, wearing her pink velour jogging bottoms and a pair of Daniel’s old socks.

‘Are you doing carbonara? My favourite! Thanks! Shall I put that film on?’



We end up watching the whole of Sliding Doors together, even though it is on ITV so there are adverts to sit through and it doesn’t finish until late. I watch her, her black hair all wet from another bath, as she coils long, sticky threads of my spaghetti around her fork and shoves them into her mouth, eyes glued to the television. As soon as she sets her bowl aside – onto the sofa, nearly tipping grease all over the cushions – Monty leaps into her lap. She tickles him and he bats at her hand occasionally, but he doesn’t let his claws come out. For some reason, he seems to love her.

‘Cats,’ she yawns, turning to look at me. ‘They don’t give a fuck, do they?’ There are little smudges of pasta sauce at the corners of her mouth. She reaches for my hand, squeezes it.

‘This is so nice, Helen,’ she says. ‘Thanks so much. You’re a good friend.’

For a moment, I feel genuinely touched. I think how nice it is, not to be alone. To be watching something I would actually choose, instead of another of Daniel’s police dramas. But then I remember. The note. And the laptop. I’ve just caught her stealing from us, for God’s sake! Passing love notes to my married brother! Any normal person would have thrown her out. Yet here I am, playing best friends with her.

The envelope – the W – it can’t just be a coincidence. But why would she be exchanging notes with Rory, unless … unless something was going on between them? I glance down at the bump in her lap. I feel my stomach churn, like when I was first pregnant. The feeling of seasickness, except you’re on dry land, and nothing will make it stop. Who is she, this girl, curled up on the sofa with my cat? What has she done?