It’s four p.m. and I’m on a Northern line Tube back to Hampstead, my mind replaying my conversation with Rick. The carriage is packed. So many faces of different colours, ages, genders, faiths. I view them all suspiciously, the way people tend to eye strangers on the Tube. Only in my case, it’s because I can’t help wondering if one of them might be the psychopath making my life a living hell.
I grasp one of the handholds tightly as the carriage careers from side to side, nearly missing my stop because all I can think about are Rick’s revelations about Ethan and Adriana and the fact that Ethan too received threatening emails. I’m annoyed with myself for still feeling jealous of their relationship. Can’t help wondering if this is some kind of fixation of Adriana’s – picking up younger men, making them her lodgers and sleeping with them. Is it a power thing? Does she get off on luring young, single men into her bed? Then again, I’m sure I wasn’t imagining the easy chemistry between us, or the warmth of her touch. It didn’t feel like she was just using me for sex. Our lovemaking had been tender, intimate. She had let me take control, not the other way around. And afterwards we had lain in each other’s arms, happy and content. Before I blew things.
I get off the carriage and battle my way through the crowds to the lifts which will take me up to the exit. As I stand impatiently with a load of other commuters waiting for one to arrive, I realise Rick is right. If I don’t watch out, I’ll end up like Ethan. He was warned not to go snooping, but he went and did it anyway and it cost him his life. I understand him being frustrated, desperate to know who was behind the emails, but I have to be craftier than him. That aside, I’m more convinced than ever that Ethan should have confided in Adriana. She saw his actions as disloyal, but she may have been more understanding had Ethan been truthful about what motivated him to read her journals.
For this reason, I make up my mind to tell Adriana about the email I received. Along with my suspicions that whoever wrote it may have killed both Ethan and Dr Adams. I hate the fact that I’m going to be laying more stress on her, but I don’t see that I have a choice. Hopefully, once I tell her, she’ll open up to me. Tell me about her childhood, her journals, who the person was she referred to as having hunted her down. And, crucially, what it is she wished she’d been honest with Charles about, having felt she had no choice but to keep it buried? I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t scared, but I’m also determined to find out who this monster is and bring them to justice, for Rick and his family’s sake, as well as my own. They cannot be allowed to get away with their crimes.
Obviously, I can’t talk to Adriana in the house, though. Somehow, I need to get her to meet me elsewhere. Somewhere neutral, preferably noisy, where there’s no chance of us being overheard. But how to engineer that now she’s made it clear we need to keep things platonic between us? It’s not like I can suggest dinner or drinks somewhere, which would smack of a date.
There’s nothing else for it. I need to be blunt. I’ll send her a text making it clear there’s something urgent I need to speak to her about, but that it’s too dangerous to discuss inside the house. I don’t want to frighten her, but neither can I see another way. Besides, I have my suspicions she knows more than she’s letting on.
Time is ticking, and I’ll be damned if I live my life to the tune of the arsehole who’s watching me a second longer.
Together, Adriana and I might just be able to nail the bastard.