I Know Who You Are(33)

I hear something again, footsteps in the distance, the sound pulling me back into the present. I try to sit up, but the pain in my head disables me. I open my eyes a fraction, just enough to establish where and when I am, but the light is too bright, so I close them again.

I do not feel good.

I remember being in the bar at Pinewood with Jack. I remember Alicia White joining us. I vaguely remember a third bottle of wine and then my memory of the evening stops.

Where am I?

I force my eyes to open and relax a little when I see the familiar sight of my own bedroom. So, I made it home, that’s something at least. My throat hurts and I notice the foul taste inside my mouth; I’ve been sick. I’m such an idiot, I know I can’t drink that much on an empty stomach. I don’t know what I was thinking. I guess I wasn’t. I hope I didn’t embarrass myself before I left, and I hope I got a taxi, there’s no way I would have been able to drive.

I can’t remember what happened.

I try so hard to fill in the gaps, but there’s nothing there. The detective’s suggestion—that I have a condition which makes me forget traumatic experiences—comes back to haunt me. If I can’t remember last night, what if I can’t remember what really happened to Ben too? But I dismiss that thought; this has nothing to do with amnesia, just alcohol.

How did I get home?

I hear something again, and this time I pay attention.

There is someone downstairs.

My first instinct is that it must be Ben, but then the rest of my memories start to slot into place and I remember what has happened. I remember the photo Detective Croft showed me yesterday of Ben’s face bloodied and bruised, and I remember that she accused me of being responsible.

I hear another sound down below. Quiet footsteps.

Either my missing husband has returned, or someone else is creeping around downstairs, someone who shouldn’t be.

The penny doesn’t just drop, it nose-dives, and I’m convinced it’s her, the stalker.

Having a stalker is neither glamorous nor exciting; it can be horrific.

When the postcards started being hand-delivered to our home, that fear became a living thing that followed me around during the day, and when Ben said he started seeing a woman hanging around outside the house, I stopped being able to sleep during the night. When I saw her myself, I thought I’d seen a ghost.

I know who you are.

The message was always the same, and so was the signature: Maggie.

Ben and I hadn’t been together long when it started. A few profile pieces about me had appeared in the papers for the first time, with my picture, and previews about the film I had been cast in, so I guess you could describe her as a fan. Nothing like that had ever happened to me before. The police didn’t take it seriously, but I did. When Ben called me in L.A. to say someone had broken into our old home, I knew it was her and decided to do something about it.

I agreed to move to a house I had never seen, and I bought a gun.

Guns don’t frighten me, people do.

I didn’t tell Ben about it because I know his opinions on firearms, but Ben and I had very different lives growing up. He thinks he knows the world, but he hasn’t seen what I’ve seen. I know what bad people are capable of. Besides, I’m good at shooting, I enjoy it, it’s something I’ve done for years to help me relax. I was still a child when I held my first gun. There’s nothing illegal about it: I have a license and I belong to a club in the countryside. Not that I get much time to practice now.

I feel beneath the bed, where I normally keep it.

It isn’t there.

The thoughts and fears colliding inside my throbbing head stop when I hear the sound of footsteps coming up the stairs towards the bedroom. I reach down again, my fingers desperately feeling beneath the wooden bed frame for my gun, but it’s gone.

Someone is right outside the door.

I try to scream, but when I open my mouth, no sound comes out.

I see the door handle start to slowly twist and experience a sickening sense of déjà vu.

I could hide, but I’m too scared to move.

The door opens and I’m completely shocked by what I see.





Twenty-seven


Essex, 1988

I’ve tried to go to sleep, like Maggie told me to, but every time I close my eyes I can see the three bad men with woolly masks and shouty voices outside the shop.

I didn’t know Maggie had a gun.

I thought only bad people had things like that.

My ears still feel funny, as though tiny bell ringers have moved inside my head. I’ve thought about it, a lot, and I’m sure she missed the bad man on purpose, that she just wanted to warn him or something. I pull the duvet up over my head; it feels safer under here. It’s warm too, but I still can’t stop shivering.

Maggie and John have been arguing a lot tonight, even more than normal. They are still at it now, but they’re doing the quiet kind of shouting that they think I can’t hear, their words hissing like snakes. I need the toilet, but I’m too scared to walk past their bedroom to get there. I’m also scared of wetting the bed if I don’t go. I get up and creep over to my bedroom door, the pink carpet soft beneath my toes. I put my ear right up against the bare wood, to see if I can hear what they are saying.

“I told you we should have found a shop further out,” Maggie says.