BEX
I’m sitting there in the flat when the door opens. A woman I don’t recognise stands before me. My instinct is to jump up and ask what the fuck this stranger is doing in my flat, before I realise it’s Jen. And she’s dressed in my clothes.
‘Oh my God, Jen, you gave me one hell of a fright,’ I say.
‘Sorry, I should have rung. But I …’
She can’t finish the sentence and, as I get up to go to her, I know there’s something wrong. She has a mad look in her eyes.
‘What’s happened?’
‘I don’t know what’s come over me. I followed him and …’
‘What are you talking about?’
‘Laurence.’
I have to keep my voice steady and pretend not to know what she’s talking about. ‘What about him?’
‘I went to his office. Sorry – I borrowed some of your clothes so he wouldn’t recognise me. To put him off the scent. With those messages, you see. He sent me more. I went to look for Steven. At the school. And he must have been watching me. I don’t know how or from where. But he was watching my every move. I felt like I was going mad.’
Tears come into her eyes as she collapses on the sofa.
‘Let me get you a drink.’ In the kitchen I take a couple of deep breaths and try to rearrange my features so I look surprised by what Jen might say. I return with two glasses of white wine. ‘Tell me what happened. Don’t worry, you know I won’t judge you. After all, Laurence deserves everything coming to him.’
She takes a gulp of wine and tells me more about how she followed him down to the Tube at King’s Cross.
‘I don’t know what I was thinking. It was like I was in some kind of trance. I wanted to give him a taste of his own medicine, I suppose. For the stalking. Those awful messages. The attack on me on the Heath.’ She looks at me, full of guilt. ‘But I’m not sure whether he even noticed he was being followed.’
I deliver the next comment as if it’s a joke. ‘You should have finished him off while you had the chance. You should have pushed the bastard under the train.’
She laughs, but as I stand up to fetch the bottle of wine I can tell that my words have resonated with her.
‘But the sick thing is that it would’ve been you who would’ve gone to prison,’ I say as I refill her glass. Now is the time for the next revelation. ‘Listen, there’s something you should know. Something I’ve just found out.’
‘What is it?’
I go and get my work bag from my bedroom and return with it to the sitting room.
‘I wasn’t sure whether to tell you. I wasn’t sure how you’d react.’
‘Just tell me, Bex. What is it?’
‘It’s about Laurence.’ I reach into my bag and pull out an A4 brown envelope. I hand it over to her. ‘I went back to his house and found this.’
Jen takes the envelope and, with shaking fingers, opens it. She pulls out the documents. I watch as her face creases in confusion.
‘What are they?’
‘I thought Laurence was hiding something, and I was right,’ I say.
‘But what was he doing with my parents’ death certificates?’
I wait for the inevitable realisation, which comes a second or so later.
‘Fuck. No. It was him? He was the one?’
‘It seems like it.’
‘He’s the one who wrote into the News? That I’d … lied about the car crash.’
‘Oh, Jen. I’m so sorry.’
‘And all that time he was planning on doing this? On exposing me? Getting me sacked?’
Tears start to well up in her eyes and fall down her face. She wants to continue talking, but she’s finding it difficult to breathe.
‘Why does he … hate me so much?’ she sobs. ‘I don’t understand what I did to him.’
‘I don’t know,’ I reply as I take her hands in mine.
Fat tears spill onto the death certificates, staining the green paper.
‘I didn’t know whether I should tell you. I knew that the truth would hurt you, but …’
‘No, you did the right thing. Don’t blame yourself, Bex.’
I stand up to get her a tissue and pass it to her. All the pain she’s stored up since the sacking, since the split from Laurence, since the cyber stalking, since her attack, comes to the surface. Her eyes, bright with tears, look like they are burning. She is on fire with anger.
‘You never told him the truth about your parents?’ I ask.
Jen shakes her head.
‘Then I suppose he must have found out somehow.’ I don’t tell her that it was me who provided him with the information. ‘Perhaps it was the fact that you kept that from him that made him do what he did. That you didn’t tell him the truth.’
‘That can’t be the reason. If he wanted to end it with me why couldn’t he have done it like a normal bloke? You know, the whole, “It’s not you, it’s me”, routine.’
The night I spent with Laurence comes back to me. I feel my face begin to sting.
‘He’s a shit,’ I say.
‘More like a bloody psycho,’ Jen replies. She wipes away her tears and blows her nose. ‘I can’t get it straight in my head. Okay, he hated me. Really hated me. Hated me in secret. But at the same time he was planning a move to Switzerland with me to start a new life.’
Just hearing the name of the country makes me feel sick.
‘But instead of just telling me he wanted to end it, he went out of his way to dig out some proof about how my parents really died, and then he sent the death certificates to my editor at the paper.’
‘I suppose he must be really fucking twisted.’
‘Understatement of the year,’ she says.
As she blinks I catch her looking at me like she’s seeing me for the first time. Like she’s stripped away the facade of my personality and is really glimpsing the truth of what I am. I begin to panic. Has she discovered something about me? What did she say about Penelope wanting to get in touch with her? Has the old bitch dug something up about me?
But then, a moment later, she’s back to her normal self. Crying. Questioning. Trusting me. Asking for my advice. What should she do? What should we do?