She lay with her eyes closed for several long minutes before she remembered the business card in the shoebox. She sat upright and leaned over to lift the box from the floor. The card was lodged in amongst all the pens and pencils. When finally she retrieved it, she flipped it over to look again at the two words which implored, Call me. Okay, she thought, I will.
She grabbed her mobile from the bedside table, pausing only briefly to glance again at the photograph of herself with the blue dress and straw hat, before focusing on dialling the mobile phone number on the back of the card.
She listened to it ring several times, certain that it was about to go to voicemail, when suddenly it was answered by a sleepy, gruff, male voice that barked out across the ether. ‘Hello?’
She blinked, and glanced at her digital bedside clock, realising with a start that it was almost one in the morning. She very nearly hung up, but forced herself to stay calm. ‘Is this Richard Deloit?’
There was a pause at the other end. ‘Who wants to know?’
‘My name is Karen Fleming. I’m Tom Fleming’s daughter.’ She had no idea what reaction to expect, if Deloit would even know or remember who Tom Fleming was. This time the pause was even longer. But when finally the man responded, his voice was low and threatening, and very much awake.
‘Do not ever call me again, do you understand? Never.’ And he hung up.
The mornings were darker now, and there was only the faintest of grey light in the sky when Karen stepped silently from her bedroom, a small backpack dangling from one hand. She closed the door silently behind her and tiptoed down the stairs. Avoiding the third step from the bottom, which always creaked, like standing on wet snow.
In the downstairs hall, she waited for several long minutes, listening for any sign that either Derek or her mother were awake and might have heard her. But the silence in the house was thick, almost palpable. Yellow light from the street lamps outside fell in through glass in the front door and lay on the hall carpet in long, subdivided rectangles. She moved through it like a ghost, into the living room. Derek’s jacket still hung over the back of the chair where she had seen it the previous evening.
In an inside pocket, she found his wallet. There were two credit cards and a bank card visible when she opened it up. Those he used most often, she suspected. She unclipped an internal flap and turned it over. There were three more cards. One was the membership of a gym. One was his driving licence. And the third, another credit card. The one he was least likely to miss immediately. She slipped it out of its sleeve and checked the expiry date. It was valid until the end of the year. But there was still the problem of the PIN number. When people had several cards, she knew, they would write their PIN numbers down somewhere. Everyone lived in an age now where too much was expected to be committed to memory. PIN numbers, passwords, user names. Impossible to carry it all in your head.
She searched through the rest of the wallet, more in hope than expectation. It would be foolish to keep the numbers with the cards. But you’d want them with you. She thought for a moment. His phone!
She found his iPhone 6 in another pocket, and was relieved to discover that he hadn’t PIN-protected it. Idiot! She went straight to his address book and tapped in his name. In the notes field, below phone numbers and address, were all his PINs, along with several passwords and user names. Nothing if not predictable. Karen found the PIN she wanted and closed her eyes for a moment, committing it to memory. Five was the key, then two. Five, plus two, minus two, plus two. 5735. She returned phone and wallet to his pockets, then opened up her mother’s handbag, which lay on the table. She took £25 from her purse. Some cash to get her on the road. Then moved silently back out to the hall.
She laid her backpack on the floor, lifted her hoodie from the hall stand and pulled it on. Then she slipped her arms in turn through the straps of her bag and swung it on to her back.
The front door opened without a sound, and she immediately felt the damp of an autumn mist in her face. She paused to zip up her hoodie and flip the hood over her head. Then she double-checked her pockets, just to be sure. Phone and charger. Headset and change of underwear in her bag. No need for keys. She wasn’t coming back.
Very gently, she pulled the door shut behind her, stood for a moment on the top step to draw a long breath, then hurried down the steps to the path and the front gate, before turning into the street. There were haloes of mist around all the street lamps, and she had gone no more than fifty yards when she looked back to see that her home was already lost from sight. Vanished like the past she had no intention of ever revisiting.
Chapter eighteen
I have no idea what time of day it is. Early afternoon, maybe? I am hungry and tired, and still far from convinced that I have done the right thing. Because now, I know, I am in more trouble than I ever thought possible.
It feels like hours since the interview concluded. A difficult interview that increased the intensity of my headache with every unanswered question. I suppose it must have begun somewhere around mid-morning.
I spent the night at Dune Cottage. Alone. In turmoil. Before he left, Gunn warned me that under no circumstances was I to drive my car, since I was unable to produce a valid licence. And I was absolutely forbidden to leave the island. An unnecessary additional stricture, it seemed to me, since I could not achieve the latter without doing the former.
When it got dark, I could see lights on in the Harrison house up the road, but they didn’t come visiting, or bring my dog back. The cottage seemed so very empty and lifeless without Bran. The only visitor I had was Mrs Macdonald from across the road. She was so very pleasant and helpful to me that first day we met on the road, but last night her face might have been chiselled from ice as she told me that I was to quit the cottage by the end of the week, and I realised it was she who had been renting it to me. She would refund the last few weeks of my let, she said, but could not tolerate the idea of my staying there for another four weeks after the shame I had brought on her and her family. I am still not sure how anything I say or do reflects well or badly on her family in any way. But she was not to be argued with.
The police sealed up the shed again so that I would have no further access to it. What I find so extraordinary is how familiar its contents seemed to me. All that equipment. I knew and understood what almost every piece of it was for. But why it was there, and the use it was being put to, is still a mystery to me. That I must have equipped the shed myself seems undeniable. I must have had a reason for it, but what it might be I can’t think.
I barely slept all through what felt like an interminably long night. At first I was tense, listening for Sally. I was sure she would come. But she didn’t. By 2 a.m. I came to realise that she wasn’t going to. It’s hard to describe how lonely it seemed in that place where I had spent the last eighteen months of my life. Perhaps lonely is the wrong word. It doesn’t really convey how utterly alone I felt. Abandoned. Hopeless. And still do.
I suppose I must have drifted off sometime shortly before dawn, because I was awakened by a knocking at the door. I had not undressed the night before, but simply lain on the bed, still with my shoes on. And it wasn’t until I opened the door to the uniformed officer who stood on the step that I realised how I must look. Unshaven, hair a mess, clothes dishevelled and creased. I recognised him as one of the policemen who had been searching my house the day before. He was young — ten years or more younger than me — and was trying to appear professionally impassive, but I could see the eager curiosity in his eyes. This was a story he would tell to gatherings of friends in pubs and at parties for years to come.