The Girl I Used to Be(50)

I really didn’t want to go into how I’d been in the past. As David said, there was no point in thinking about that now. So I shifted the attention back to her.

“That’s a lovely ring,” I said. “What’s your wedding ring like?”

She curled up next to me and I was treated to a long, long description of her shopping trip with her fiancé for wedding rings. When she’d finished she squeezed my arm and said, “It’ll be your turn soon. Maybe that guy you were calling just now?” She winked at me. “Don’t think I didn’t notice.”

I laughed. “Maybe.”

I’d never told her or my other friends about David. None of my friends knew anything about him and none of his knew about me.

“We’re the world’s best-kept secret,” he’d say.

He was right; it was much more romantic that way.





THIRTY-SEVEN


    GEMMA


I STAYED ON the staircase for a moment after David went into Rachel’s apartment. I didn’t know what to do. The late-afternoon sun shone through the hallway window upstairs and I stood, my face and body hot and sweating, as I strained to hear him in the apartment below. If I leaned over the banisters, I could hear the deep rumble of his voice as he talked on the phone.

Silently I tiptoed into Zoe’s apartment. I hesitated in the doorway, wondering whether to shut the door so that she’d have to use her key, but I worried that she’d forget I was meant to be there and be startled by me. Instead I left the door ajar and moved as quietly as I could through the living room and into the kitchen. I stood to one side of the kitchen window and looked out into the yard below. It had been a hot day; I saw that the back door to Rachel’s apartment was opened out onto her patio, and thought, So he must be staying a while, then.

I looked at my watch. It was five twenty. He’d said he was going to Liverpool for a night out with his friend. It would take him an hour or so to get there. I guessed he’d be having a shower before he went, but couldn’t be sure. I was terrified of bumping into him as I left the house; just the thought of that was enough to make my heart race. And then I remembered that the bathroom in this apartment was above Rachel’s; each apartment was identical to the others in the block. I went into Zoe’s bathroom and opened the window as wide as I could. Down in the yard below I could see steam coming from the drain there. He was running the shower.

I grabbed the clipboard and my bag and left the apartment, locking the door quietly behind me. I crept downstairs as fast as I could, then left the building, making sure that I went up the road away from Rachel’s living room window, just in case he was looking out. At the end of the road I stopped and sent Zoe a quick text saying I’d been called on an emergency but that everything looked fine. I’d get Brian to do the inventory. I had no intention of setting foot in that place again.

As I walked down the side street to get to my car, I tried to process what I’d seen. So Rachel was seeing David. When did that start? I knew she was single when she started work for me six months ago; we’d talked then about Liverpool and what it was like now, and she’d told me about being a caregiver for her mum and how it had been hard for her to go out at night. It sounded as though she hadn’t had much of a life, and I’d felt really sorry for her. She’d said she was looking for somewhere to live and I’d asked her whether she had a partner; she’d said no, she hadn’t, and she was quite happy that way. I hadn’t thought anything of it; hadn’t given it a second thought. I knew she’d made a few friends in the area and went to the same gym that Sophie went to, but I’d never heard her talk about a boyfriend.

Of course I’d never told them anything about what had happened to me in London two months before or anything that had happened since. She’d been in the office when he came in that day and definitely didn’t seem to know him then. I remember her giggling with Sophie because he was a good-looking guy.

I frowned. We didn’t have a rule about dating clients; there had never seemed the need, but we did have a rule about acting professionally around clients. He was single and she was single. She wasn’t dealing with his house purchase; she wasn’t in a position to negotiate on his behalf.

Did he call her? How would he have known her name? Maybe he’d called in when I wasn’t there, but why wouldn’t she say something? Or maybe they’d met on a night out. There wasn’t really a reason why she couldn’t date him—surely she would have told Sophie, at least? I thought about that. Sophie couldn’t have known anything about it, either. She would never have been able to keep that to herself. And yet Rachel and Sophie were good friends. Why would she keep quiet about seeing a new man?

I felt responsible for Rachel, in a way. She had no family to talk to and she’d never mentioned any friends. I’d been surprised when she went on the hen weekend; she’d been so excited about that trip. I did remember that when she first started work she was always on her phone; I’d had to talk to her about that and she’d said it was just her university friends wondering how she was getting on.

I thought of the policewoman, Stella, then. I should tell her, I knew that, but I wanted to ask Rachel myself, speak to her face-to-face and give her the chance to tell me what she knew. And then I would call the police. I owed it to her to give her fair warning, though. I needed to tell her what her boyfriend had done to me.