Why is Mark blacked out in every photo in the album? Who did that? And why hide it at the bottom of the charity box? It doesn’t make any sense.
Pain rips through the side of my head and I screw my eyes tightly shut to block it out.
Did Billy do it? But why? What could Mark possibly have done to make him that angry?
CLAIRE!
I jolt at the sound of my name and smack my knee against the driving column but there is no one sitting next to me in the car. The windows are still wound tightly shut. No one is knocking on the glass. No one is outside the car looking in. The street is still quiet. And the keys swing back and forth in the ignition. Back and forth. Back and forth.
Did Mark come back from the pub early, drunk and angry? Did Billy say something awful? Something so awful that Mark lashed out? Is that why Billy defaced his photos? Because his dad hit him? But why would he hide the album in the garage? Why not destroy it?
The pain spreads across my forehead and I clutch my hands to my head. My brain is in a vise that’s being wound tighter and tighter and tighter. I can hear it. The vise. It makes a high-pitched squeal, like metal on metal. I plug my fingers into my ears but the sound gets louder.
“CLAIRE! I AM CLAIRE!” The voice cuts through the metallic screech but I keep my eyes closed. I need to think. If I could just think clearly I could work out what this means.
Did Mark threaten to hit him again? Is that why Billy fled? Is that why he didn’t take anything with him? He was afraid and he ran. Or was he taken? Did Mark hit him too hard? Did he panic? Did he try and get him to a hospital and then . . .
“Mum? Help me, Mum!”
The scream goes through me, cutting through the whine and whirr of the vise. Brakes squeal. Something flies through the air, hurtling toward the car, and I bury my face in my arms. There is a thump as something hits the hood and the whole car shakes. A loud crack follows and I am showered with glass.
And then silence.
A silence that seems to last forever.
Whatever just happened was so terrible, so traumatic, I know that there is no way I can have survived it.
Silence.
The traffic doesn’t roar. The road doesn’t shake. The birds don’t sing and no one speaks.
I peel myself from the steering wheel and raise my head.
A body lies slumped across the hood, one arm twisted behind its back, the other reaching for me. I can’t see a face, just the back of a head, the dark hair slick with blood. The face is angled away from me, toward the doors of the doctor’s surgery.
My hands shake as I fumble with the seat belt. Glass shards fall from my thighs and tumble into the foot well as I grip the steering wheel and ease myself up.
“Billy? Billy is that—”
I clutch my hands to my head as a pain unlike anything I have ever known tears through my brain. And then everything goes black.
There is something hard and leathery under my fingertips. Curved, solid. I grip on to it as my vision zooms in, zooms out, zooms in, zooms out. Focused, blurred, focused, blurred. The windscreen—clean apart from a dribble of bird shit—a street, a building, a road, the windscreen. Why do I keep looking at the windscreen? An image flashes through my mind, of Billy’s lifeless body on the dashboard. I thought I’d run him over but I can’t have. There’s no glass, no blood and the windscreen is still intact. A wave of nausea courses through me. It’s so powerful, so sudden, that I vomit over the dashboard, the steering wheel and my hands. The world spins and I squeeze my eyes tightly shut as the car fills with the stench of puke.
A voice whispers, “It was another blackout. Oh God. Not again.”
My voice.
My name is . . .
I search for a name, for something solid to hang my identity on, but my mind is so muddled, so gray. There is nothing behind my eyes but inky darkness.
Who am I?
My chest tightens and I gulp air into my lungs. Breathe slower.
Claire!
I open my eyes.
Claire. My name is Claire Wilkinson. There is a gold band and a sparkling engagement ring on the third finger of my left hand, smeared with bile. I am married to Mark. I have two sons. Jake and Billy. Billy!
I undo the seat belt and open the driver’s-side door. There is a flash of color, a squeal of brakes and someone swears loudly.
“Fuck’s sake!” A face in a bicycle helmet looms toward me, a man’s face, his eyes wide with anger, his lips twisted into a snarl. He waves in front of my face, slicing his hand through the air. “Watch what you’re fucking doing. You nearly had me off my bike.”
I am so shocked, so terrified, I swing a leg out of the car and kick out at him. My shoe connects with his knee and he jumps back, doubling over, one hand pressed to his knee, the other wrapped around the handlebar of his bike.
I slam the door shut before he can recover and turn the key in the ignition. I press my foot to the accelerator and the car lurches forward. Somewhere behind me someone presses their horn. The sound reverberates in my head as I speed away, the cyclist shaking his fist at me in my rearview mirror. There’s a woman standing beside him, a white Vauxhall Astra pulled up behind her. She’s got her phone in her hand.
I drive down street after street. I don’t know where I am or where I’m going. There are no thoughts in my mind, just an angry buzzing as though my head is a hive, crammed with bees.
There’s a light, blinking red on the dashboard. I’m running out of petrol. I need to stop. I need to find a garage. The buzzing in my head dims as I pull into a large Tesco but, instead of parking by one of the petrol pumps at the service station, I drive into the car park and turn off the engine. I pull a packet of wet wipes out of the glovebox and wipe my hands, the steering wheel and my jeans. I work methodically; wiping, then dropping the used wipes into an empty plastic bag until I am clean. Then I reach for my bag. It’s on the passenger seat. Underneath it is a photo album and an A4 diary, opened to this week.
Mark’s appointment book.
Why have I got Mark’s appointment book? He normally keeps it on his desk in the corner of the living room. Did I take it? He’s methodical about diary-keeping, entering everything into this book as well as his phone, just in case his phone dies or is stolen. I open it and run a finger down the appointments he’s got listed for today:
9:45 a.m.—Fallodon Way Medical Center, 3 Fallodon Way, BS9 4HT
10:45 a.m.—Nevil Road Surgery, 43 Nevil Road, BS7 9EG
11:45 a.m.—Horfield Health Center, Lockleaze Road, BS7 9RR
2 p.m.—Gloucester Road Medical Center, BS7 8SA
Where am I? I open my handbag and take out my phone. It’s 2:30 p.m., Friday, August 14th. Five hours have passed since I went into the garage to look for the screwdriver set and . . .
I see an image in my mind of a photo album, the photos defaced and scrawled on, but that’s it. That’s all there is.
I must have gone back into the house and picked up Mark’s diary but I don’t remember doing that. Or getting into my car and driving. Oh my God. I could have killed myself. Or someone else.
I look back at the phone and open Google Maps. The red location dot blinks several times, then the map comes into focus. Tesco Lime Trees Road. So I am still in Bristol. I enter one of the postcodes from Mark’s diary into the app and a tiny red line appears, connecting my location with the address I’ve just entered. It’s three minutes’ drive away. I zoom in on the location and turn on street view. That’s where I was just parked, outside Gloucester Road Medical Center. Did Mark ring me and ask me to bring his diary to him? It’s the only logical explanation but it only takes twenty-five minutes to drive from Knowle to Gloucester Road. What else have I been doing in the last five hours?
I exit the Google Maps app and I’m just about to ring Mark when I spot the WhatsApp icon at the top of the screen. Someone’s sent me a message in the last five hours. I tap on the icon and Liz’s name appears on the top of the list. Three new messages:
Where is that?
She’s replied to a photo of a row of houses I must have sent her. One of them has a sign outside that says Fallodon Way Medical Center.
Why have you sent me a picture of a doctor’s surgery? Do you need me to pick you up or something?
Then there’s another image. One I must have sent. It says Nevil Road Surgery above the door.
Claire? Is that Mark? Who is he with?
I look closer at the photo. Yes, it is Mark and he’s standing outside Nevil Road Surgery with a willowy blonde. His hand is on her arm. I zoom in on the image. It takes me several seconds to work out who she is. It’s Edie Christian, Billy’s form tutor. And she looks worried.