I’m normally the first one up, but this morning at five o’clock there are no other contenders. I’ve barely slept and my eyes feel gritty. Reaching in the dark for my dressing gown, I sneak as quietly as I can into the hallway and down the stairs. When the girls were babies, I had to retreat silently after night feeds without their hearing me or they would cry out, knowing I had left them. I know every creaking floorboard in our house and can navigate my way like a criminal.
Familiarity makes crime easier to commit. I read once that 90 percent of victims knew their rapist prior to the offense. Does that mean that Max knew Nicola Waite?
It’s the question I’ve been asking myself all night, so much so that I was worried I’d say it out loud.
In the kitchen, I shut the door and then, as an extra precaution, push a chair in front of it.
I start the laptop to give it time to warm up and make a coffee while I wait, taking the letter from my bag and reading it through again, this time my eye lingering not on Max’s name but on pregnant and father.
I raise the window blind. The garden is glowing as the sun rises, berry-purple clouds above the chimney tops. Autumn’s my favorite season, but I’ve a feeling I’m not going to enjoy this one.
I search for Priyanka Lawley first, the laptop whirring wearily. You’d think it would be easy to find people these days, what with privacy being dead, but that’s not the case. The only people who are easy to find are those who want to be found.
The laptop’s still whirring, waking up. I sip my coffee, nibble my fingernails.
So, does Max know Nicola Waite? If I said her name, would he panic, drop whatever he was holding, the blood draining from his face?
If he knows her, then he must know who Holly is, or was. What if he changed his mind about helping Nicola with the pregnancy and decided to be involved, maybe behind the scenes—checks in the post, that sort of thing? He’s a nice guy, isn’t he? If something went horribly wrong that night at the Montague Club, perhaps because of a misinterpretation or accident of some kind, he’d have tried his best to make it good...wouldn’t he?
The search results appear. Priyanka Lawley isn’t an easy find. There are several LinkedIn entries, which I can’t get into, and a YouTube page for someone in North Carolina. I doubt that’s her.
I try Stephanie Brooke instead.
There’s so many of them, she could be anyone. I explore the top entries, but none of them are Bath-based.
I tap my teeth together, thinking. And then I type: Nicola Waite, Bath, UK.
Her name’s popular, especially on Facebook. I check out a few of the searches but they’re too young for it to be the Nicola Waite from the letter, who must have been at least in her forties when she died.
I delete the history, close the laptop, hide the letter in my bag again and sit all hunched, taut, just the way you’re not supposed to sit if you don’t want to become a stiff old lady.
There’s not much to go on. The only thing I can really do is show up at the addresses given in the letter. Do I have the guts to do that? There’s only one way to find out.
When Max gets up, I’ll ask him to drop the girls to school. I’ll make up something about being needed at work extra early. He’s good like that—always willing to put himself out to give a helping hand.
Ironically, it’s exactly this kind of supportiveness I’ll be counting on to help me determine whether he’s a rapist with a skill for concealment that enabled him to keep his past hidden for the past sixteen years of our otherwise happy marriage.
It’s a nice house, I’ll give them that. Priyanka Lawley. 32 Walden Way, High Lane, Bath.
The letter is in my coat. I know where it is at all times. Not like my car keys or phone or specs. This letter is like carrying a burning coal in my pocket. You’ll never forget it’s there.
I think about memory a lot, since my mum became ill. Just seeing her, so vague and lost, makes me wonder whether it matters who or what we remember. Living in the now is supposed to be more important, although Mum doesn’t really have that going for her either.
Turning off the car engine, I swivel in my seat to look at 32 Walden Way.
It’s a typical Victorian row house, with no front garden to speak of, nor back. I know so because Poppy’s friend lives on the parallel road. The street is steep and narrow, with cars parked on both sides. Once you get started on that uphill run, you have to really put your foot down to avoid meeting another car. The place must be full of speeders, like balls on a bowling alley.
There’s bunting in the garden and those solar light bulb fairy lights that everyone has, plus a blanket box with a puddle on top and a silver birch tree with jam jars hanging from it.
And then I spot the straw yule goat in the window. It’s unmistakable, even though it’s a mess of straw and red ribbon. Eva and Poppy made the same mess, except that theirs didn’t stand the test of time. Maybe this one won’t either. Maybe it’s not even a year old, made only last Christmas by someone small.
Something about that makes me very sad. It’s not just the fact that there’s a child indoors, maybe more than one. It’s the fact that our children have passed the same way before. And now because of the letter in my pocket, our lives are crossing again.
Suddenly, the front door opens and I slope down in my seat. Someone’s coming out: a woman and child. I sink lower.
They’re getting into the car outside the house. Out of the corner of my eye, I watch as the woman bends to fasten the child’s seat belt, her back to me. I take in the green parka coat, the pink hair, the Doc Marten boots, and then she’s facing my way and fear squeezes my chest.
They take off down the hill. I follow them, allowing a car to come between us. I don’t need to tailgate them. I know where they’re going.
I almost cry out at the sight of Tadpoles, an old church turned community center at the end of a road I have no need to go to anymore, but that was part of my life for six years. The car park’s always full of leaves and acorns, squirrels bounding along the walls. I pull in tentatively, hoping no one recognizes me; or worse, doesn’t. I don’t want anyone to ask me what I’m doing hanging around here. I’m not sure I can answer that myself.
The woman in the parka with the pink hair is over by the wooden fence, saying goodbye to her little boy. She squats down to talk to him—unconcerned about her coat getting wet or dirty—and hugs him, his face disappearing. Then she jumps up, ruffles his hair, and off he goes. She’s chatting to someone much taller than her. And then she’s laughing with another mum. I don’t remember it being that sociable here, or my being sociable, for that matter.
She doesn’t hang around. She’s already on her way back to the car, checking her phone, waving her keys, still laughing about something.
She doesn’t look like someone who got the same letter as me. I can’t laugh like that since reading it. I think my face would crack.
Do I have the wrong person?
I wait for another car to pull away and then I jump out, following her across the car park to the Audi by the wall. The roof is already covered in leaves and she’s only been there five minutes.
“Excuse me,” I call out.
She’s opening the car door, but turns, smile at the ready. Her hair is short, tucked behind her ear on one side and longer on the other. Dusky pink, her roots are black and gray. “All right, me duck?”
The Midlands accent throws me, and the overfamiliarity. I could be anyone.
I can’t think straight. I’m distracted by her eyes; they’re indigo. “Hi. I...”
“Sorry. Gotta shoot or I’ll be late. Catch you later.” She’s turning away, getting into her car. There’s a heap of exercise books on the passenger seat. Teacher.
I knock on the window, wait for her to lower it. “Are you Priyanka Lawley?”
“Yep, that’s right.” The gears crunch as she finds reverse. She has a butterfly tattoo on her wrist and a nose stud that gleams as the light hits it.
I don’t know what I’m doing—what to say. My phone’s ringing in my bag. I should answer, but I can’t let her go. That’s all I know.
“I need to talk to you.” I glance over my shoulder as a dad comes up behind me, getting into the next car. I lower my voice. “It’s important.”
Her expression darkens. “What do you want?” she says, turning off the ignition.
My heart’s pounding so hard, so fast. My phone stops ringing. For a moment, everything’s silent. No cars moving. No parents hurrying. Just us.
I force myself to focus. “I’m Jess Jackson. I got a letter about my husband. I think you got one too.” This sounds like a question, but it isn’t. I know she got the letter because she can’t even look at me. She’s clamping her hands between her knees, staring ahead. She’s wearing a flowery dress and leggings. The laces in her boots are neon. All around her, on the seats, the floor, the side pockets, are sweet wrappers, coffee cartons, plastic toys. The detritus of an ordinary life with ordinary concerns—like I used to have.
“I need to go,” she says quickly and starts the engine again, the cluster of key charms jangling in her haste.
“Please. Wait!” I call after her, but she’s pulling away.
As she leaves, I feel something troubling shifting inside me, slowly surfacing, a buried relic rising. It was so deep, I didn’t even know it was there.
I don’t know what it means. I’m too busy watching her car turning the corner. I remember then that I’m on my way to meet with a new investor. I have to get going too.
Following in her wake, I’m clamping my teeth so hard as I drive, my jaw aches.
The traffic’s heavy through town, and the sun is harsh on the fancy golden tarmac as I pull into Moon & Co.’s courtyard car park. Going into the office, I take off my puffer jacket, wondering what Priyanka Lawley must have thought of me in my boyish clothes, stalking her. She didn’t ask me how I knew she’d be there. That would have been the first thing I’d have wanted to know, especially outside a day care.
It doesn’t really matter what she thinks. The most important thing is finding out what Max did or didn’t do. If she wants to pretend nothing’s wrong or has changed, that’s her choice. Everyone’s going to respond differently, in their own way. I appreciate that. But she’s lucky I didn’t break the door down at her house and push the letter into her husband’s face and ask him about it right there and then.
Max is lucky I haven’t done that to him too. I’d do it, you know. The way I feel right now, I’m capable of that and more.
Sitting down at my desk, I glare at the picture of Max and our girls. I’ve not even thought about that—about his relationship with them, about what that means. How can I think about that yet?
Oh, perfect. My colleague—bland, kind old Mary—is on her way over. She’s going to ask me if I’m okay, and I’m going to have to lie and fake it because that’s what civilized people do at work.
Max has done this. He’s put me in this awful situation... But Mary doesn’t say that at all. She’s going to the potted rubber plant in the corner to water it.
I click through my emails. They’re a blur. I can’t concentrate with the family photo beside me. Checking that no one’s watching, I open my top drawer and slide the picture inside, facedown.
I don’t want to look at him until I know how I’m supposed to feel, and the truth is the only thing that’s going to help me decide that. Seems clear to me what I have to do, then: find it.