watch. It was seven forty-five. For a moment I felt like jumping in the car and going to The Crown just to see whom he was meeting.
“I’d better go,” he said. “Come along if you like. It would be great to see you.” He smiled at me. “I miss you, Ruby.” Suddenly it was as though the years between the time we met and now had shrunk. Disappeared. This was the man I’d fallen for. I looked at him and in that moment I couldn’t remember why I had left him. For a split second I thought I could get ready and be there by nine. We could have a couple of drinks, talk about things.
Of course I didn’t do that, but the memory of his smile, the words he’d spoken, stayed with me. They comforted me. Confused me.
CHAPTER 53
Ruby
The night I spoke to Tom I went to bed early. There was too much to think about. Did he really want us to get back together? I’d given up on ever seeing Harry again, but in my heart he was the one I wanted. I couldn’t just go back to Tom as though nothing had happened. At least he knew nothing of Harry. I knew his reaction would have been very different if he had. I started to think that maybe it would be possible to go back to Tom, if he could always be the way he was now.
I went to sleep pretty quickly but just before two o’clock I jolted awake. I’d heard a noise.
I sat up straight and strained to listen. I thought the sound was from outside the flat. Was it just a cat down in the alleyway? Then there was a bang; not a loud one, not enough to waken the street. I gripped my phone and slid out of bed. The flat was dark and quiet. Using the light on my phone to guide me, I tiptoed into the living room and edged my way to the window, where I moved the curtain slightly to one side and peered out onto the street. There was no one in sight. Nothing moved. My car was exactly where I’d left it. It didn’t look like it had been disturbed. I stood for a few minutes looking out into the desolate street. It was a windy night and a plastic bag blew up and down, knocking into parked cars, then lurching away as the wind changed.
I stood at the window for a long time. I heard the soft roar of a car in the distance and the wind as it rattled the panes, but there was no other sound. There were no lights on in the houses and flats nearby. All was quiet.
Chilled and nervous, I went back toward my bedroom. To reach it I had to walk past the stairs down to the little hallway and automatically I glanced down, flashing the torch on my phone. When I saw the white envelope lying on the mat just inside the front door, I froze.
Stealthily I crept down the stairs and picked up the envelope then ran back upstairs as though someone was after me. My heart pounding, I switched on the lamp in my bedroom and opened the envelope.
Inside was another card, the same size as the first. It was a photo of me sitting at my window at night. The curtains were drawn back, the window open, and I could be clearly seen at my table, typing something on my laptop. It looked as though the room was lit by candlelight. There was no date stamp on the photo. I tried to think when it was taken, but I couldn’t see what I was wearing. It could have been any night. Slowly I turned over the card and read the message.
Still thinking of you.
I hardly slept for the rest of that night. My mind was racing with all the things that had happened. Who had invited me to the interview? That was obviously a hoax, but why would anyone do that? They had nothing to gain from it. That escort site had terrified me and now photos had been put through my front door in the middle of the night. It was horrible to think of myself sitting