Monday
Wherever Alice goes in the store, and whatever she does, she can feel the weight of Lynne’s gaze resting on her shoulders.
It was Lynne she turned to on Saturday, after she said goodbye to Simon in the car park of the Red Lion. It was an awkward parting. A lot of the anger she’d felt earlier in the evening, when she’d had a go at him for not telling her about his stalker, had dissipated but she couldn’t bring herself to give him a hug. She had too much she needed to process. Instead, as they hovered outside the pub door, she raised a hand and pointed across the car park towards her VW Golf and said, ‘That’s my car. I’ll be in touch.’
As she sat in the car and watched Simon drive away she deliberated about who to ring. She didn’t want to worry Emily, not when she was on a night out with her friends trying to forget what a bastard Adam had been, and Lynne, being Lynne, was only too happy to chat. She drove to her house and they sat in the lounge, clutching mugs of tea, Lynne listening intently as Alice told her everything that had happened. When she got to the bit about the cinema Lynne clamped one hand to her mouth and stared at her with disbelieving eyes.
‘They didn’t … the stalker … they didn’t really sniff your hair?’
Alice shook her head. ‘There were a couple of young girls sitting behind us. We’re pretty sure it had nothing to do with them. But it freaked Simon out so much he thought we should leave.’
‘And that’s why he dumped you? Because he thought his stalker was going to hurt you?’
‘That’s what he said.’
‘Aren’t the police doing anything?’
‘He’s reported it but they haven’t got a clue who’s behind it. Whoever’s been stalking him has been careful to cover their tracks.’
‘Shit.’ Lynne put down her cup and rubbed at her arms, her gaze drifting towards the closed curtains at the windows. ‘That’s scary.’
‘I’ve freaked you out.’
‘No, it’s not that. It’s just … it’s one thing to be stalked by someone you know, but to have no idea at all … it could be anyone, anyone you meet on the street.’
‘Exactly. I think that was part of the reason he was so cagey with me when I asked him about his job. For all he knew the stalker could have been me.’
‘So what are you going to do?’
Alice gave her a long look. ‘I’m going to help him find out who’s doing this. We’re going to set a trap.’
Now, as she unpacks the new stock in the back room and hangs the dresses, shirts and jumpers on a rail, she mentally rehearses the plan to catch Simon’s stalker. When she left Lynne’s and arrived home a little after midnight Emily was curled up on the sofa under a blanket watching Gogglebox on demand.
She laughed as Alice walked in, then peeled back the blanket so she could sit down. ‘Dirty stop-out! I got home over an hour ago. What time do you call this?’
For the second time that evening Alice recounted her conversation with Simon, her daughter’s eyes growing bigger and bigger as she told her about the plan that they’d made.
‘I can’t believe he’s letting you go along with that. It could be dangerous, Mum.’
‘How is it dangerous? We’ll be in a public restaurant.’
‘What if the stalker’s got a knife? They could do way worse than sniff your hair.’
To be fair to Simon, he said no, straight away, when Alice suggested laying a trap. It was too dangerous, he said, and there was no way he was going to agree to her setting herself up as bait. She explained that it wasn’t just about him any more. Now she was going to be looking over her shoulder too, regardless of whether she saw him again. If either of them were ever going to move on with their lives they had to find out who the stalker was. Her plan was for Simon to reactivate his social media with a tweet saying he was taking his date to a certain restaurant in town. Alice would arrive early, sit at the back and take photos of everyone who walked in. When Simon arrived, she’d be able to show him the photos to see if he recognised anyone.
‘That’s a shit plan,’ Emily said. ‘Whoever spotted you going into the cinema and knew you were wearing a blue skirt, could have been anywhere. They could have been on a bench or in the car park, or they might have been in the lounge area of the cinema drinking coffee. Same when your car was scratched. They weren’t necessarily in the restaurant, were they? But they knew where you’d parked.’
‘Oh.’ Alice felt deflated. ‘Lynne thought it was a good plan.’
‘Lynne agrees with everything you say, Mum.’
‘So? What’s the alternative?’
‘Look, if you were right and someone was following us home from the pub the other night then he, or she, knows where we live. And that’s where we lure them. Simon should put a post on his Twitter account saying he’s looking forward to a romantic dinner at his girlfriend’s house. I’ll go and speak to Helen across the street, explain what’s going on, and ask if I can camp out in their front bedroom for the night. If anyone does hang around our house or park up their car I’ll take photos with my phone. Then we show them to Simon, and if he doesn’t recognise them, we take them to the police.’
‘What if the stalker tries to break in?’
‘Into our flat? Good luck with that on the second floor!’
‘Okay then, what if they don’t show up at all and just send another message?’
Emily grinned. ‘They’ll come, because Simon’s going to tweet something that will really wind them up.’
Now Alice glances at her watch. Seven hours until he comes to the shop to pick her up. She wonders if their hello will be as awkward as their goodbye was last night. She’s not angry with him any more, not like she was in the pub. She understands why he cut off all contact with her, but her feelings have definitely shifted. She wants to help him, not rip off his clothes and drag him to bed. As she hangs another pale pink jumper on the rack and pulls off the plastic dust jacket, she wonders what they’ll talk about in her house and whether it would be a better idea to put on a film instead.
Nothing violent, she thinks as she reaches into the cardboard box for another pink jumper. Something funny. Something that won’t make them jump out of their skins if they hear a noise.