The Lies We Told(2)

It had been her first day at Brindle Press and, eager to make a good impression, she’d offered to make the first round of teas. Anxiously running through everyone’s names as she’d sloshed water on to teabags and stirred in milk and sugar, she’d piled too many mugs on the tray before she’d hurried out of the kitchen. The mess when it slipped from her hands and came crashing to the floor had been spectacular; scattered shards of broken crockery, rivers of brown steaming liquid, her carefully chosen ‘first-day’ dress soaked through.

Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck. It was only then that she’d looked up and seen him, the tall, good-looking man standing in the doorway, watching her with amusement. ‘Oops,’ he’d said, crouching down to help her.

‘Christ, I’m an idiot,’ she’d wailed.

He’d laughed. ‘Don’t worry about it,’ he said, then added, ‘I’m Luke.’

That evening, when her new team had taken her out for welcome drinks she’d spotted him at the bar, her heart quickening as she met his gaze, his dark eyes holding her there, as though he’d reached out his hand and touched her.

Now, as she approached her desk the phone rang, its tone signalling an internal line and she snatched it up eagerly. ‘Luke?’

But it was his deputy, Lauren. ‘Clara? Where the fuck is he?’

She felt herself flush. ‘I don’t know.’

There was a short, surprised silence. ‘Right. What, you don’t … you haven’t seen him this morning?’

‘He didn’t come home last night,’ she admitted.

There was another silence while Lauren digested this. ‘Huh.’ And then she heard her say loudly to whoever was listening nearby, ‘He didn’t come home last night!’ A chorus of male laughter, of leering comments she couldn’t quite catch, though the tone was clear: Naughty Luke. They were joking, she knew, and their laughter was comforting, in a way, signifying their lack of concern. Still, she clutched the receiver tightly until Lauren came back on the line. ‘Well, not to worry. Fucker’s probably dead in a ditch somewhere,’ she said cheerfully. ‘When you do speak to him, tell him Charlie’s raging, he’s missed the cover meeting now. Later, yeah?’ And then she hung up.

Maybe she should go through his contacts list, ring around his friends. But what if he did arrive soon? He’d be mortified she’d made such a fuss. And surely he was bound to turn up sooner or later – people always did, after all.

Suddenly his best friend Joe McKenzie’s face flashed into Clara’s mind and for the first time her spirits lifted. Mac. He’d know what to do. She grabbed her mobile and hurried out into the corridor to call him, feeling immediately comforted when she heard his familiar Glaswegian accent.

‘Clara? How’s it going?’

She pictured Mac’s pale, serious face, the small brown eyes that peered distractedly from beneath a mop of black hair.

‘Have you seen Luke?’ she asked.

‘Hang on.’ The White Stripes blared in the background while she waited impatiently, imagining him fighting his way through the chaos of his photographic studio before the noise was abruptly killed and Mac came back on the line. ‘Luke? No. Why? What’s— haven’t you?’

Quickly she explained, her words spilling out in a rush: Luke’s forgotten mobile, his email, his missed interview. ‘Yeah,’ Mac said when she’d finished. ‘That’s odd, right enough. He’d never miss that interview.’ He thought for a moment. ‘I’ll call around everyone. Ask if they’ve seen him. He’s probably been on a bender and overslept, you know what he’s like.’

But his text half an hour later said, No one’s heard from him. I’ll keep trying though, I’m sure he’ll turn up.

She couldn’t shake the feeling something was very wrong. Despite his colleagues’ laughter, she didn’t really think he’d been with another woman. Even if he had, a one-night stand didn’t take this long, surely? She made herself face the real reason for her anxiety: Luke’s ‘stalker’.

Putting the word in inverted commas, treating it all as a bit of a joke, was something Luke had done ever since it had begun nearly a year ago. He’d even christened whomever it was ‘Barry’ – a comical, harmless name to prove just how unthreatened he was by it all. ‘Barry strikes again!’ he’d say, after yet another vicious Facebook message, or silent phone call, or unwelcome ‘gift’ through the post.

But then things had got weirder. First an envelope stuffed with photographs had been pushed through their door. Each one was of Luke and showed him doing the most mundane of things – queuing at a café, or walking to the Tube, or getting into their car. Whoever had taken them had clearly been following him closely – with a wide-angled lens, Mac had said. It had made Clara’s skin crawl. The photos had been stuffed through their letterbox with arrogant nonchalance, as if to say, This is what I can do: look how easy it is. But though she’d been desperate to call the police, Luke wouldn’t hear of it. It was as if he was determined to pretend it wasn’t happening, that it was merely an annoyance that would soon go away. And no matter how much she begged, he wouldn’t budge.

And then, three months ago, they’d come home late from a party to find the door to their flat forced open. Clara would never forget the creepy chill she’d felt as they silently walked around their home, knowing some stranger had recently been there – going through their things, touching their belongings. But the strange thing was, everything had been left in perfect order: nothing had been stolen; nothing, as far as she could tell, had been moved. Only a handwritten message on a page torn from Clara’s notepad was sitting on the kitchen table: I’ll be seeing you, Luke.