Mr. Nobody(82)

I slow the car to a crawl, the lane ahead and behind empty. I don’t know if anyone is living there now and the last thing I want to do is drive up to their house and disturb them—there’s every chance they’ll recognize me from the news. I don’t know why I didn’t think about this before.

But as I roll toward the turning, I see scaffolding wrapping around the whole upper corner of the house and a large property developer’s sign. It’s been renovated, perfect. I see the edge of a construction dumpster in the driveway and make my decision instantly. I pull off the road and up onto the slope of the driveway.

I park in front of the stable block. The same peeling green paint, the same sloped concrete and guttering. Not yet renovated. I wonder how much of the rest of the house is still as it was.

I shake off the thought and kill the engine. Silence fills the car.

I look up at the house through the windshield. No builders. It doesn’t seem like anyone is working here today, perhaps it’s too cold for building work.

I make my way past the rubble-filled dumpster and through the walled arch that leads to the front of the house. I search the corners of the walls for security cameras but then I remember we’re not in London. Not every building here has cameras outside it. There’s nothing. I won’t show up snooping around on any grainy CCTV footage.

    I won’t be here long. I don’t know what I’m looking for exactly, but if there’s something or someone here, I’m sure I’ll find them.

I make my way toward the little diamond of glass above the front door knocker. I raise my hand to shade my view and peer into the darkness. The same tiles, on the floor. The sight of them takes my breath away for a second. The rich red terra-cotta of them, as if not an hour has passed since we left. I pull away, trembling. I take a breath in and depress the handle. Locked.

I look back inside, past the vestibule, to where the tiles end in a step up and Georgian floorboards take over. The walls are white now. Everything white, fresh and new, light bouncing through a hallway that used to be so dark and cozy. There’s nobody there. I tap gently on the glass and wait. The house inside remains still. I can see the edge of the first step on the staircase and no farther.

I pull away and follow the exterior wall of the house around to the living room window. It’s so different inside, with state-of-the-art bifold doors that let the garden light pour in, the woodstove long gone and a fireplace with a decorative display of stacked wood in its place. But nobody in sight.

I move around the building again to the dining room window, see a bright clean empty space inside. The kitchen next door is a box-fresh copper-and-slate dream, but my scouring eyes find no answers.

I follow the wall on, then hesitate before the next window. The bare tangled branches of the trellised wisteria are still oddly intact and dusted with snow around the window latticing. I know what this room is. This is his study. An image of him burns through my mind, the way he was before, hunched over his keyboard hard at work, his papers spread around him. Him looking up at me in the doorway and smiling, nearly finished work, nearly done.

Why did he do what he did? The thought comes piercing and strong until I cut it dead. Right now, that’s not important, what’s important is what’s in that room at the moment. I brace myself, for what I don’t know. For the face of an old man looking back at me, for the face of the man who let me down as much as another human can—and yet I want to see that face.

    I take a strong galvanizing breath and look inside. Eyes stare back at me. I gasp, then realize it’s my own reflection in the glass, my eyes looking back at me, and the room beyond takes shape in the dim light. My heart sinks. He’s not here.

My eyes search for something, something to wedge my memories into, some kind of clue, but this room is just a room. He is not there. There are no clues, no messages, I’ve misread this whole situation. He has gone—he died fourteen years ago and now the only place he lives is in my head. He is just a figment of my imagination.

I pull back, emotions so raw and near to the surface I can’t tell if I’m going to laugh or cry. I brace myself against the snowy wisteria branches, letting out a jagged breath I didn’t even know I was holding. I laugh, tears dribbling down my face. I turned the lights on and there was nothing there. No ghosts. He’s not real.

My heart breaks and yet…I’m glad.

There are no clues here. Matthew is not a messenger. He has nothing to do with my past, he’s just another patient, with problems all his own. I pull myself from the wall, brushing the stray snow from my coat with trembling hands.

And when I look up I see them.

My eyes land directly on them, nestled around the back of the house, as real and as solid and immutable as the building and the trees and the sky. Gates. A brand-new entranceway in from the road, sealed with wrought-iron electric gates.

The ground seems to pull away beneath me like a wave beneath a ship.





40


DR. EMMA LEWIS


DAY 13—ENEMY AT THE GATES

I try to call the hospital on the way, one hand on the wheel, one on the phone, but the signal is patchy and the automated hospital phone system transfers me from one departmental hold tone to the next.

I try to stay calm, I try to think of a logical explanation as to why and how Matthew could have known about those gates. How could he have known unless he had been there? When had he been there? Had he been there before his accident? Or had he somehow managed to leave the hospital since? Was the sleeping bag I found in the woods this morning his? Has he been leaving the hospital at night? But that’s not possible, surely. How could he have left the hospital without anyone noticing. I think of the crowds outside, the security guards, the press. Rhoda. He’d have to be some kind of genius to get past all of that.