His & Hers(35)

“I hope you’re all very happy together.”

My words sound insincere, even though I meant them.

“Why do you always do that? You talk about Zoe as though she’s some woman I left you for. She’s my sister, Anna.”

“She’s a selfish, lazy, manipulative bitch, who caused nothing but problems before, during, and after our marriage.”

I’m as surprised by my outburst as he looks.

“You haven’t changed at all, despite everything, have you?” he says. “You can’t keep blaming everyone else for what happened to us. Maybe if you’d ever worried about us, as much as you worry about what other people think, your work and all this, things wouldn’t have turned out the way they did—”

I lift my hands, as though to cover my ears before he can say our daughter’s name, but he grabs my wrist and stares at it.

“What is that?”

I look at the twisted plait of red and white. I’ve been so busy I forgot I was wearing the friendship bracelet I found earlier. I try to shrug him off but he tightens his grip.

“Where did you get this from?” he asks, his voice no longer hushed.

“What is it to you?”

He lets go and takes a small step back before asking his next question.

“When did you last see Rachel?”

“Why? Am I a suspect again?”

He doesn’t answer and I dislike the way he is looking at me now even more than before.

“I haven’t seen Rachel Hopkins since I left school,” I tell him.

But it’s a lie. I saw her much more recently than that. I watched her get off a train less than twenty-four hours ago.





Him



Tuesday 14:30



I know that Anna is lying.

The drive back to the station is a blur, trying to piece together the parts of the puzzle that don’t fit. I still haven’t eaten anything today. The fingernails inside the Tic Tac box, along with the visit to the mortuary, have successfully put me off food for the foreseeable future. I’m already halfway through my packet of cigarettes, and while they help calm my nerves, they do nothing to ease my guilt.

I can’t stop thinking about the friendship bracelet on Anna’s wrist, the look on her face when I asked her about it, or the way she refused to explain where it had come from. It was exactly the same as the one tied around Rachel’s tongue.

Anna is lying about something, I can tell. But then so am I.

Her cameraman resurfaced before we had a proper chance to talk. I can’t put my finger on it, but there’s something a tad off about him, too. I don’t like the way he looks at her, not that I’ve got any right to feel that way anymore. It’s easy to recognize people with bad intentions when you know what it is like to be one.

My afternoon mostly consists of dealing with media inquiries and false leads, instead of being allowed to get on with my job. The press has been harassing almost every member of the team. It reminds me of being back in London, and the first time Anna shoved a microphone in my face. That’s how we met: she was covering a case that I was working on. It was hate at first sight but that changed. She didn’t remember me from her school days, but I always remembered her.

I work until late and feel mildly irritated, if not at all surprised, when Priya decides to stay too, even though I told her not to. When the rest of the team have left the office, she orders us a pizza. I listen to her on the phone as she chooses my favorite toppings and sides, wondering how she knows what they are. Whenever she looks in my direction I stare at my computer screen. The rest of the time, I watch her.

I notice that she has taken off her jacket, and appears to have undone the top three buttons of her shirt; her collarbone and a hint of her breasts are now visible. Not that I care. Her hair is down, released from what I thought was a permanent ponytail. She looks quite different like this. Less … irritating.

We eat in silence. Priya barely touches the pizza, and I can’t help thinking she only ordered it for me. She fetches us both a drink from the watercooler—without asking if I want one—then stands a little too close to my desk when she puts it down. I can smell her unfamiliar perfume as she rests her little hand on my shoulder.

“Are you okay, Jack?” she asks, dropping her usual “sir” or “boss.”

If her body language means what I think it might then I’m flattered, but am not remotely interested in a junior colleague with daddy issues or whatever this is. Besides, all I can seem to think about right now is Anna, and how good our life together used to be before it got broken. I don’t want to stay here. I don’t particularly want to go home either, to face all the questions I know I won’t want to answer. But, as it is approaching midnight, I figure this is probably a good time to leave work.

“I’m tired, you must be too,” I say, standing rather awkwardly.

I never had much luck with the opposite sex as a boy or as a young man. It’s only in the last few years that women seem to find me attractive. I’m middle-aged with gray hair and more baggage than Heathrow Airport; I don’t understand it. Although I do like the idea—who wouldn’t—when I think a woman is flirting with me, I still revert to being an awkward teenage version of myself. The one who doesn’t know how to talk to girls.

“I’m going to head off. So should you. Separately,” I add, to avoid any confusion.