“Let’s take a break.”
“What? Why?”
“Because I’m thirsty. It’s all this talking. You’re all right, you’ve got your bottle of water, but I haven’t had anything to drink since I got here.”
“There’s a jug of tap water on the table beside you. The glasses are clean if that’s what you’re worried about.”
Adam wrinkles his nose. “I don’t drink water. Can never really see the point.” He gestures toward the door. “You must have a little kitchen area out back. Haven’t you got any, like, juice or something?”
“Juice?”
“Come on,” Adam says, standing. “You can show me around.”
“But . . .” Susanna is . . . disappointed? Really? She checks and finds that she is. She doesn’t want to be here, would give anything to be somewhere else, but she was enthralled by what Adam was telling her. She supposes it is just as Adam said. Stories like his are grist to her mill. And even though she has heard variations of the same tale before, each time it is totally unique.
“I would have thought you’d be dying to escape this room,” Adam says. “Aren’t you feeling a bit claustrophobic? A bit, you know. Trapped?”
Susanna stands, wobbling slightly as she does so. Adam uses the knife to gesture for her to lead the way.
Geraghty. Adam Geraghty. Catherine Geraghty. Stephen Geraghty. Geraghty. Geraghty.
The name means nothing to Susanna. She hasn’t spent a great deal of time dwelling on it until now, because she has been assuming it must have been made up. There is still a chance it could have been of course
(it was all a lie . . .)
but she has seen Adam’s driving license, his bank cards, and anyway there’s no telling what Adam meant. What was a lie? Which part? Not who his parents were, not the way he grew up. Susanna is convinced his story had the ring of truth. Besides which, she has seen his acting. And though he is better at it than he gave himself credit for, there are certain things, in therapy, that can’t be faked. Adam’s intensity once he started talking, for example. Susanna would have liked the opportunity to dig deeper, which is why she is so frustrated by this interruption. She is curious, yes, that’s part of it. But also she remains convinced that the sooner she understands Adam, the sooner her daughter will be safe.
“It’s just through here.” Susanna leads Adam along the landing. She can hear him behind her and she is trying not to think about the knife. It is leveled at her kidneys, she imagines, and if she were to abruptly stop moving, Adam would walk it straight through her.
She bears right and weaves past Alina’s desk. “This way.”
The kitchenette is opposite the staff toilet and isn’t actually much bigger. There are two cupboards and a sink, as well as a kettle, a mini fridge and, tucked in a corner on the counter, a tatty, soup-encrusted microwave. The soup is Ruth’s doing. Even though Ruth’s surgery is spotless, elsewhere in her life she is a self-confessed slob. “When it seizes up I’ll buy us all a new one,” she told Susanna when Susanna happened to mention the microwave’s condition. “Life’s too short to be scrubbing minestrone.”
“I’m fairly sure there isn’t any juice or anything,” Susanna says but when she looks across her shoulder she realizes Adam is no longer there.
“Just pick something for me,” he calls. From the sound of it he has continued along the landing into Ruth’s surgery. “Anything with flavor.”
Susanna is momentarily discombobulated. She is alone. How odd it feels to be standing here alone. Her heartbeat accelerates as once again she has the urge to run. Is Adam testing her? she wonders. Or is he taunting her, reminding her that she is tethered here no matter how much slack he gives the rope?
She opens a cupboard, retrieves the Nescafé from behind Ruth’s tin of biscuits. “You mean coffee or—”
“Not coffee.”
What is he doing? He sounds distracted, as though something has captured his attention.
Susanna turns to the mini fridge, which she insists they keep cleaner than the microwave. Even so, it emits the smell of something curdled, which may in fact be embedded in the fridge itself. They bought it off eBay, and it hasn’t worked properly since they plugged it in.
Inside are milk, an apple, a piece of cheese wrapped in cling film. Something pasta-y in Tupperware—Alina’s, almost certainly—and, behind that, a can of fizzy drink.
“There’s a Diet Coke in the fridge,” Susanna calls.
There is a pause. “Diet?” Adam responds.
Susanna waits.
“Fine,” says Adam at last, getting back to whatever it is he’s doing. “Just as long as it’s cold.”
Susanna presses her palm against the can. It’s not. It’s basically the same temperature as her hand. But it will do. Susanna may have no choice other than to play Adam’s games but she’ll be damned if she’s going to act like his waitress.
As she turns to leave, her eyes catch on the draining board. She freezes. Her gaze flicks up, toward the empty doorway, and then back again. There, beside the washing-up sponge, is a little paring knife. It is curved and viciously sharp. Susanna knows because she has a scar on her left thumb from the last time she used it. The knife would look like a toy, Susanna suspects, set beside Adam’s but it would be just as effective against someone’s jugular and this one would fit up her sleeve. Susanna wouldn’t have imagined, even an hour ago, that she would seriously contemplate wielding a weapon but the longer this has gone on, the more she has come to realize how unlikely it is to end on her terms. She needs a backup plan. Huh. She needs a plan, is what she needs, but where is the harm in having a contingency?
Adam could see: there’s the harm. He could discover the knife and decide there and then that this game of his has gone on long enough.
More than the fear, though, the thing that makes Susanna hesitate is Adam’s story. It is ridiculous, she knows, but she cannot suppress her instinct for sympathy. It is ingrained in her the way that odor is ingrained in their little refrigerator. It permeates her very being, sits at the core of everything she does. It’s like the lying. Since Jake she has done everything in her power to resist the urge to cast blame. First, always, she endeavors to attempt to understand. It was something about herself—one of the only things—of which she was proud. It gave her strength, she thought, although in these circumstances, clearly, it is a weakness.
She straightens. Honestly, she chastises herself, what did you expect? Of course Adam has a past. Of course he wouldn’t have had a happy childhood. People who do the sort of thing he’s doing, don’t. It doesn’t give him an excuse. Plenty of people go through worse and come out of it only wanting to do good.
And Emily. Think of Emily. Who is more important to you, your daughter, or this stranger who is effectively holding his own knife against Emily’s throat?
Susanna checks the door again. She stretches out her hand. She feels dampness from the draining board as she clasps the knife and—
“Boo!”
Susanna spins and sees a monster at the door. It has goggling red eyes and a claw-shaped nose and teeth so prominent they could be tusks. She screams and falls backward against the sink. There is the sound of metal clattering on the parquet floor. It severs the cackle of Adam’s laughter.
“What was that?”
Adam removes the mask.
“What did you drop, Susanna?”
He looks and he sees.
“Oh no. No, no, no.”
He bends and he reaches, then stands up clutching what he has found. He looks furious, exactly like a spoiled child. “It’s going to be all fizzy,” he says. “If I open it now it’ll spill out everywhere.”
Adam examines the can in his hand. There is a dent in the rim where it landed.
Susanna attempts to shuffle sideways. The paring knife is pressed tight but visible against her wrist.
“Oh well. I suppose it was my fault as much as yours.” Adam looks at Susanna and grins. “Sorry,” he says, waving the mask. “I couldn’t resist. I saw this hanging in your friend’s office when I was here last time.”
“When . . . what?” Susanna endeavors to slip the knife into her sleeve. But it is awkward with her wrist bent backward and the blade feels hooked around a thread. If she isn’t careful she really will drop it.
“When I was here before,” Adam repeats. “Last month, this was. I booked myself a checkup with . . . Ruth, is it? I liked her, Susanna. She was very complimentary about my teeth.” Adam flashes her another grin. This time it looks as much a growl. “Although I admit that wasn’t the real reason I came,” he goes on. “I wanted a chance to look around. To get the lay of the land, sort of thing. But anyway, that’s when I noticed this mask. I’ve been dying to try it on ever since.”
The mask is Himalayan. Ruth went trekking there after her second divorce. It is a hideous thing, but Ruth insists on hanging it in her surgery. “If nothing else to set a good example,” she told Susanna as she ran a finger along the monstrously impressive teeth.
“What have you got there?”
All at once Adam is moving forward, the mask dropping to his side. The knife is pressed tight against Susanna’s arm. She is certain there’s no way he could see it.
“What? Nothing. Where?”
“There, Susanna.”
Adam is frowning again. His arm extends forward and grazes hers.
“Biscuits?”
He has picked up the tin that Susanna took out to reach the Nescafé.
“They’re Ruth’s,” Susanna stammers. It is the only thing she can think to say.
Adam tucks the biscuit tin under one arm. He slips the mask back on his head, so that he is wearing it this time like a cap.
“I like Ruth, Susanna. I really do.”
Susanna swallows. The knife, finally, slides up her sleeve.
“Now, let’s get back to it,” Adam says. “Shall we?”