The Love of My Life(17)

She has fourteen tabs open, which is typical. The vast majority concern things like genetic population structure of weird-sounding decapod crustaceans, but there are three others: email, Facebook, and what appears to be a dispute with eBay about a parcel that never arrived.

I can’t quite bring myself to look at her email, not yet. That feels like the ultimate betrayal, beaten only by looking at her phone.

Facebook is open, at her fan page. She has more than three thousand likes. There’s nothing going on there, and I’m about to shut her laptop when a notification pops up with a message from someone called Iain Nott. Ive sent u 4 msgs and no reply so bored of woman on tv thinking there superior would it hve really cost you so much to reply?

Instantly angry, I open the message to compose a crushing response. But in doing so, I inadvertently open her inbox.

I nearly look away, for the same reason I didn’t want to open her email, but I can’t. It’s full of messages from men.

I can see the first line of each message.

Mikey Vaillant: watching you on the iPlayer, minxy. You’re

Erik Sueno: YOU LOOK NICE I WANT TO

Charlie Rod: Here’s my number, please call me, I’d really

Iqbal Al-Jasmi: Hey girl

Skinny McSkinnyface: slag

Robbie Rosen: Hey doll, been thinking about you,



I stare at the screen for a long time.

Firstly, I want to know if the Robbie in this inbox is the same Robbie that wrote the note. Must be, surely – ‘hey doll’ is hardly a stranger’s greeting. Who is he?

And I also want to know why she hasn’t told me about all these messages. When I asked her last week she said she’d had a couple in the last few days, but there are six here – six – and these are just from today. I’m torn between fury at these men, and shock that Emma hasn’t told me about this. Why would she keep it to herself? Why would she keep anything I’ve found this evening to herself?

I feel mildly dizzy. I delete all of today’s messages and block the senders, but for each one I delete, another appears in its place, from previous days. I stop, snap her laptop shut and march myself downstairs, where I pour a final whiskey.

My mind cycles through a thousand scenarios, jumping from the university photo to the perverted men to the passport, the hiding of the papers, the handwritten note from some bloke at the BBC. Like Emma’s Facebook messages, every time I feel I’ve ascribed an explanation to one discovery, there’s another to account for, and my brain can’t keep up.

I sit down and drink, until I hear a creak from Ruby’s room.

‘Daddy? Daddy . . .’





Chapter Nine


EMMA


I call Jill on the way home, to tell her I’ve just had dinner with her.

‘I see. And what did we eat?’ she asks. It sounds as if she has her mouth full. Jill has put on quite a lot of weight in the last few years. It worries me, but I could never bring it up – we both just pretend it’s not there.

‘Whatever you’re eating now,’ I tell her. ‘That’s what we ate.’

‘I’m gnawing at a leftover chicken bone, like a hound.’

‘Perfect.’ I pull my cardigan around myself. It’s cold for a June evening; an offensive wind swerves between the old houses of Hampstead Village, pushing down crooked alleyways. ‘Let’s say we went to that chicken place in King’s Cross.’

‘The waffle one?’

‘Yes, perfect.’

‘Might it be too much to ask that we actually go there together?’ she asks. ‘Soon? I haven’t seen you since the late medieval period.’

‘What? We had film night two weeks ago!’

‘Fine. Early Tudor period.’

‘Stuart period at minimum.’

Jill laughs. ‘You’re hard work, Emma.’

‘Not as hard as you.’

The 268 whines slowly down Heath Street, buffeted by the wind. I clutch my handbag to myself for warmth and make a mental note to organise a real dinner for next week.

‘How’s work?’ I ask. Jill now consults on deep sea fisheries and hates her boss.

There’s a pause, while she swallows her chicken. Someone in a grossly expensive sports car roars needlessly up the hill. Jill says, ‘I’m still planning to resign someday. But never mind that; are you OK?’

‘I’m . . . No. Not OK.’

‘I take it you went to see him?’

‘Yes.’

‘And?’

I hesitate. I don’t want to talk about it with anyone, even my oldest friend, but Jill’s had my back from the start. When we were just two students at St Andrews, heads full of foolish dreams, wallets empty of money, she saved me. Through the years that followed, she was there. And then, when I got myself into trouble during a trip to Northumberland four years ago, she not only covered for me with Leo but did a thirteen-hour round trip by car to rescue me. No matter what ditch I fall in, Jill has always been there to pull me out.

The least I can do is tell her about tonight.

‘As difficult as you’d expect,’ I say. ‘Worse, possibly. Some awkward small talk, followed by a very uncomfortable conversation about his wife.’

There’s an intake of breath down the line. ‘Really? What did he say about her?’