‘Jeez, Heather, you look knackered.’
I look up to see Kwee looming above me, looking concerned. I’m sitting on the floor in the shop, rearranging some titles on the bottom rows, and I’m not entirely sure but I think I may actually have fallen asleep, just for a few seconds, with my head resting against the edge of the bookshelf. This is not good.
‘I am, a bit,’ I reply. ‘I didn’t get much sleep last night.’
‘Ohhh.’
Kwee’s expression changes, her brow puckering.
‘Gentleman Jack keeping you up with him, is he? An all-night session? You need to be careful, there, Heather.’
She’s looking at me strangely, and I feel a whisper of unease. Does she know more about Jack than she’s letting on? More than I’ve told her (which isn’t much)? But how could she? I’m being ridiculous, and I smile wearily.
‘Something like that, yes,’ I say. ‘Actually, do you mind if I go and get a quick coffee? I’m nearly finished here anyway.’
‘Of course. Go. I think I’ll cope without you for a few minutes. Take a break. It’s lovely outside. I’d have it out there if I were you.’
She nods at me and strides off. I watch her go, blinking to clear both my vision and my head of completely unfounded paranoid thoughts, then haul myself to my feet and head upstairs. When I’ve made my coffee – extra strong – I follow Kwee’s advice and take it out to the front of the shop. She’s recently put a couple of small tables and chairs out here as somewhere for people to sit and read the new books they’ve just bought. It is indeed a lovely day, the sun bright in a cloudless, duck-egg blue sky, and I slip my cardigan off my shoulders and enjoy the warmth on my bare skin as I sip my drink slowly. It’s Easter Monday, and also, as it’s the first of April, April Fool’s Day, although I feel so shattered that if anyone did attempt to play a prank on me, I’m not sure I’d even notice. I feel listless, lethargic, although the people walking past me down Chiswick High Road are moving more slowly than they would on a normal Monday too, mostly families and couples sauntering along, enjoying a day off, instead of the usual harassed-looking businessmen and women scurrying to appointments. Jack kept me up most of last night; after sleeping through the day on Sunday, he got up around 7pm and announced that, in honour of Easter, he was taking the ‘day’ off, and fancied a movie marathon and a takeaway.
‘We can take turns choosing the films. It’ll be awesome!’ he said, pulling me into an embrace, and his face looked so boyish and excited I almost softened, just for a moment. I hugged him back, but I hardened my heart.
‘I mean, that’s fine, and I can stay up until midnight or so,’ I said. ‘But I’ll have to go to bed at some point, Jack. I’m working tomorrow, remember!’
His expression darkened with disappointment and a hint of annoyance, and I immediately backtracked, telling him I’d stay up as late as I could, and who needed sleep anyway?
‘Exactly. You can sleep when you’re dead,’ he replied, and my stomach flipped.
It’s just an expression. Don’t overthink it, I thought at the time, but as the evening went on my anxiety began to spiral.
He’s doing it again.
Jack did this before, the first time we dated. Initially, he’d been happy to let me sleep at night, but after a few weeks he’d begun persuading me to stay up to match his hours, even though he knew I’d been awake all day. He did it repeatedly, feigning upset or offence when I tried to refuse, gaslighting me and making me feel I was the one being unreasonable; telling me he just wanted to spend more time with me and that if I cared about him I’d want that too. I’d tried to comply, but eventually I’d become so fatigued I couldn’t think properly, and even began to believe him when he told me I was being selfish, and that if I wanted our relationship to work I’d rearrange my hours to fit with his. It was yet another reason I eventually cracked, but this time, I have to play along. It’s not going to be easy, though. Last night, I fell asleep on the sofa twice, once just after 1am and again just before three. Both times, he poked me in the stomach until I woke and sat up again, groggy and grumpy, and when I finally insisted on going to bed at 4am, he rolled his eyes and said petulantly, ‘Fine. I’ll sit here by myself then. I’ll see you when I see you.’
Damn, I thought, and I swallowed my annoyance at his childish fractiousness and slipped an arm around him, whispering in his ear the things I’d do to him before I went to sleep, if he cared to join me in the bedroom. It worked, and half an hour later we were in bed and doing anything but sleeping. As a result, when my alarm went off at nine, I’d managed about two hours, and dragged myself back to Chiswick feeling very grateful for today’s bank holiday eleven o’clock opening time.
Now, I watch wearily as a golden Labradoodle with a curly coat and big brown eyes bounds eagerly past, a very petite woman clinging to its lead and shouting, ‘Jasper! Jasper, slow down!’ ineffectually at the dog who completely ignores her.
I can’t get those emails out of my mind. When I messaged Nathan and Felicity yesterday to tell them what I’d found and to share my photos, they were both thrilled. I deleted the messages immediately after I sent them, which is another thing we agreed in advance, but I suddenly remember now that I’ve forgotten to delete their replies. I pull my phone out of my pocket.
Bugger.
I really do need to stay on top of things like this, even though it’s my messages that would be the much more incriminating ones, should Jack ever happen to see them. Nathan had replied:
And Felicity had been just as excited.
I smiled when I first saw their comments, but now, maybe because I’m so tired and out of sorts, as I read them again I feel a faint sense of disquiet. They said they’d help as much as they could, but what have they done, really? It’s me that’s taking all the risks here, and yes, I agreed to do it, but sometimes…
I give myself a mental shake.
Stop it.
What can they do? Nathan’s over a thousand miles away, and it’s not as if Felicity can just walk into Jack’s house and help me look for stuff. Focus on how well it’s going, that’s what I need to do.
I haven’t told Amber yet, but I’m due to speak to her on Wednesday evening, so I’ll let her know then, I think, as I wipe the messages, wishing I had more good news to send. I spent yesterday searching two other areas of Jack’s house, taking advantage of Rhona not being around. In the morning, I managed to do the main kitchen, desperately hoping that my cunning plan to cover the camera embedded in the clock face would work. It did. I made another smoothie, using the blender on the worktop directly below the clock, and ‘forgot’ to click the lid properly into place. The result was instant and fairly epic carnage: a thick, gloopy, fruity mess all the way up the wall, all over the clock, and even on the ceiling. For Jack’s benefit, should he watch the footage back, I shrieked convincingly and did a lot of loud muttering and swearing about the massive clean-up job and my own stupidity. Then, after checking the clock face and being as certain as I could be that the camera location was well-covered with a thick, yoghurty coating, I searched the entire kitchen and the dining area on the lower level of the room at top speed, rummaging as quietly as I could through every well-organised drawer and cupboard, before actually having to get to work with cloths and hot water, not wanting to incur the wrath of Rhona when she came back to work. As predicted, I’d found absolutely nothing of interest, and the clean-up was a huge pain in the ass, but it was another area ticked off my list.
In the afternoon, the summer house. It was a nice enough day, a little blustery but with blasts of warm sunshine, and I couldn’t bear to spend the entire day in the curtained sealed-up tomb that is the house, too scared to let any light into a room in case Jack should get up unexpectedly and wander in. To be fair, he’s always told me to use the garden whenever I like, and so I took my book outside, and sat with a mug of tea on the little covered veranda. After half an hour or so, very aware that the courtyard is under CCTV surveillance, I casually stood up and wandered into the summer house, knowing there’s a little fridge in there where bottles of water are kept for the gardener. I took a bottle and then, sipping from it, did a quick, discreet scan of the place, but there was no sign of any cameras, and so I swiftly searched the only two possible hiding places in the small structure: the tool cupboard – nothing – and then the chest on the floor. It was still stuffed full of chair cushions, and although I gave each a good squeeze, wondering if anything might have been sewn inside, they all looked normal and unaltered to me. I headed back out to the veranda with my water, and then a few minutes later, nonchalantly drifted inside again, this time looking closely at the wooden floor.
Could these boards have been lifted, and stuff hidden underneath?
The building is old, and the floorboards look worn and smooth, clearly showing their age but with no sign of having been ripped up and put back again. I studied every inch, then gave up. I still think it’s highly unlikely that Jack would stash anything important out there, especially as he doesn’t appear to have fitted a camera anywhere. So, for now, that’s another one off the list, leaving me with the lounge, dining room, snug, cellar, and attic.
I sigh and stand up. I’m about to push open the door of the shop when I hear the ping of an email and glance down at my phone. My eyes widen as I see the sender’s name.
Yiannis Pappas. Gosh. On a bank holiday.
Bingo. Perfect, I think, and briskly type a reply, agreeing to meet him there. I’m still working on my cover story, and now that’s something else I’ll have to apply my weary brain to this evening, but it’s more progress. Yiannis tomorrow, Jack’s house again tomorrow night for our Tuesday evening date, and Naomie on Wednesday. But now, back to work; I’ve already been out here too long. As I try to slip my phone back into my jeans pocket I fumble and almost drop it, my fingers sliding across the screen. I look down, and frown. The very last page of apps is visible – I download hundreds, most of which I never use; it’s a bad habit of mine – but one has just caught my eye. It’s a vaguely familiar icon I know I didn’t add myself. I tap on it, and stand very still, staring.
And there we are, I think. I’m surprised it’s taken him so long.
It’s a tracker app. One of those apps some parents install on their kids’ phones so they always know where they are, except I’m no kid and Jack Shannon definitely didn’t ask my permission to add it to my phone. Again. It’s illegal to do this, to put a tracker on someone’s phone without asking them, but he clearly doesn’t care about that. He did it to Amber too, as I learned when we had our chat in the prison visiting room. He must have done what he did last time – grabbed my phone when I’d just been using it before I nipped to the loo or something, before it had a chance to lock itself, and installing the app quickly before I returned. He wouldn’t have even needed to go to the App Store, which would require me to be there to use facial or fingerprint recognition. He’ll have simply downloaded the tracker to his own phone first and then ‘shared’ it with mine. Easy. I still remember how shocked and violated I felt when I discovered it the first time. I confronted him immediately, while I was still angry and upset, and he’d looked stricken, telling me it was for my own safety. He claimed he’d been desperately worried about me ‘gallivanting’ all over London on my own, going to book launches and author talks. He made me feel, once more, as if I was the one who was doing wrong, making him sick with worry.
‘I can’t focus on work when I know you’re out. I’m terrified of something happening to you. Once I know you’re back in your flat, I can relax. Surely you can see that? Why would you deny me that peace of mind?’ he’d said.
I’d been so confused and so worn out by his behaviour by then that I reluctantly acquiesced, but it had been one of the final nails in the coffin, and our relationship survived only a few more weeks. This time, though, I’ve been expecting it, and I’ll be reacting very differently. I’m going to pretend I haven’t even noticed. I’m not going to say a word, because this time I have a Plan B. I have a second phone, a ‘burner’ phone. A phone that’s already been purchased and the number of which Nathan and Felicity already have. I know Felicity has done the same; from the very start of all this, she’s been using a separate dedicated phone just for communicating with me and Nathan about our little scheme. From now on though, I’ll be juggling. When I’m at work, or at home, or at Jack’s, or going somewhere I’ve told him about, like a book event, I’ll use this phone. But when I’m out meeting Yiannis or Naomie or doing anything else I don’t want him to know about, it’ll be the burner. My new ‘safe’ phone with no tracker. I just have to remember, and not get them mixed up. Tomorrow, I’ll bring both to work. But when I go out to meet Yiannis at lunchtime, I’ll leave this one here in the shop and take the burner.
I head back inside with a satisfied smile.
You think you’ve got one up on me, Shannon, I think. You think you can control me again. But not this time. This time I’m one step ahead of you.
And you’re going down.