Something in the Water(71)

He catches my tone but doesn’t seem offended. If anything, he’s apologetic. “Ah, I see. Right, that’ll be it. My office has been having some issues with visitor log-ins, but that’s by the by. I’m so sorry, Miss Roberts. I’ll make sure we’re all on the same page for next week. What day did you say it was?” He squints at me in the cold September light.

“It’s tomorrow. Not next week. Saturday, the twenty-fourth. Eddie Bishop.” I say it slowly and clearly.

Patrick smiles and nods. “Perfect. I guess we’ll see you then. Sorry about the confusion, Erin.” He shakes my hand again and heads back toward the prison.

I turn and start to walk away. Should I send a confirmation email to him once I get home? Just in case. That way I’m definitely covered, right? There’ll be a paper trail. And then I realize I don’t know his surname. I turn to catch him but he’s no longer there, disappeared back into the bowels of Pentonville. Damn.

Patrick what? I run the conversation through in my mind. He didn’t mention his surname, did he?

And then a doubt suddenly flickers across my mind. I remember how cold his hand was in mine. His cold hand in my hot one. He didn’t come out of the prison, did he? If he had, then his hands would have been warm like mine.

But why would he pretend to be coming out of the prison? And then it hits me. He knows my name and what I do and where I’ll be tomorrow. Who the hell was he?

I head back to the prison gates and buzz in. A voice comes loud over the intercom.

“Hello.”

“Hi there. Did Patrick just come back in?”

“Who?”

“Patrick?”

“Patrick who?”

“Er, I don’t know, Patrick…er…I don’t know his last name,” I stammer. Better to be honest.

“Um, right. Sorry, who is this?”

“It’s Erin Roberts. I was just here?” I try not to sound too desperate but I’m keenly aware I sound fully deranged about now.

“Oh yeah, you just signed out. Sorry. What’s the problem?” The guard sounds cheerier now. He remembers me and I didn’t look crazy a minute ago.

“Um, no, no, there’s no problem. It’s just…Has anyone come through since I left?”

There’s a second’s silence. I suppose he’s weighing up whether I am crazy after all. Either that or he’s thinking about lying? “No, ma’am, just you. Should I get someone to come out to help you?” he asks tentatively. He’s popped out a “ma’am” now, shit. I’m being handled. I need to go before this escalates.

“No, no, I’m fine. Thank you.” I leave it at that.

Patrick doesn’t work for the prison. And if Patrick doesn’t work for the prison, who the hell does Patrick work for? He wanted my name and he wanted to find out why I was here. A cold nasty thought forms in my head: does Patrick want his bag back?



* * *



—

When I get home something is not quite right. The house is empty and when I walk into the kitchen an icy breeze is blowing in through the slightly ajar back door. It’s open. Mark would never leave the back door open. Someone else has left the back door open. Someone else has been in here. And might still be in here.

I stand there for a second frozen in disbelief, unwilling to accept the implications of what this means. I sense something shifting in the corner of the room behind me. I spin around but, of course, there is no one there, just the fridge clicking on in my silent empty house.

Room by room I check. I nudge open doors, bursting in, Mark’s cricket bat in hand, for all the good a cricket bat will do me. My adrenaline is off the charts as it pounds through my system. Room by room I search for someone, or something, evidence that someone was here. I scan for anything missing, anything disturbed, but nothing obvious stands out.

Finally, once I’ve checked the whole house is empty, I make my way to the landing and pull down the attic ladder. I need to check under the insulation. As I ascend, a simple sentence repeats over and over in my head. Please don’t be gone. Please don’t be gone. But as I approach the loose section where the diamonds are hidden, the mantra shifts, without a second thought, to: Please be gone. Please be gone. Because if the diamonds are gone, then whoever came in through our back door has no reason to come back again. Unless, that is, they want their money back too.

Under the dry insulation everything remains as it was. The diamonds sit sparkling in their warm pouch, the phone and the USB still safely tucked in its casing. We weren’t robbed. Whoever broke in was checking up on us, not stealing.

But the seed of doubt is now firmly planted in my mind. Perhaps I’m missing something. I search the whole house again, every room. I look harder this time, searching for any signs of interference, any possible clue as to who has been here. And then I see it.

In our bedroom, on the mantelpiece of our Georgian fireplace, next to our concert tickets and our antique clock, there is an empty space. An empty rectangular shape left in the mantel dust. Our photo. Gone. A photo taken the day of our engagement, us smiling into the camera, Mark and me. Someone has stolen a photo of Mark and me. And that is all they took.

Down in the living room the answerphone’s red message light is flashing. Five messages. I sit in silence and listen.

The most recent is from Alexa. She’s been given the go-ahead for IUI. It’s good news. Her appointment is next week.