they are, they will come to an end if you just let them come, and let them go.”
His voice was calm and curiously soothing. I tried to think of Stuart in here, running a clinic, listening to people telling him about their misery, about grief, loneliness, about not understanding the world anymore, about wanting it all to end.
Then I went home to try to digest it all.
As would be the case with any other addiction, on the nights when I was home alone, it would have been very easy to get away with indulging in my vice without Stuart or anyone else knowing. But checking didn’t give me any actual pleasure, it never had; it was more of a relief—a temporary absence of terror. Alistair gave me a number of things to try to reduce the stress caused by not checking properly, including the deep breathing, rationalizing my fears, renaming them so that they become not real, normal fears but just a manifestation of my OCD. They’re not good fears, they are part of my condition—why would I want to keep them?
Earlier this evening, just after I got home from work, I had a phone call. My first thought was that it was Stuart, but it turned out to be DS Hollands. That sudden racing heartbeat—would it ever get any better? I thought she was going to tell me that Lee was missing, Lee had told someone he was coming to get me, one of the other officers had been tricked into telling him my home address.
“I just wanted to let you know—I spoke to my colleague at Lancaster police station DA unit.”
“Yes?”
“They sent someone to check up on Mr. Brightman on the morning after you called me. Can’t guarantee he hadn’t been to see you, but it’s very unlikely. He was in bed having been working the night before. He’s working at a nightclub in the town. The officers checked it out and he was definitely at work the night you called. So although it’s not impossible that he made a trip to London, it’s pretty unlikely. Do you have any other reasons for thinking he might know where you are?”
I sighed. “Not really. Just that I know what he’s like. Isn’t he supposed to have some sort of license, if he’s working as a doorman?”
“He’s not a doorman; apparently he’s just a glass collector. Lancaster is going to check it out, though, don’t worry. Even though he doesn’t have any conditions attached to his release, I get the impression they’re keeping a close eye on him.”
Can’t be close enough, I thought to myself.
“I think you can relax a bit, Cathy. If he was going to come looking for you, I think he would have done it by now. And you’ve got my numbers, right?”
“Yes, thanks, I have.”
“And if you think there might be someone in your flat, just dial 999 immediately. All right?”
“Yes.”
I wish I could shake off this feeling. It’s not a fear that one day he might come for me, it’s more certain than that. It’s not if he finds out where I am, it’s when. The only reason he has not put in an appearance yet, assuming of course that I did leave my own curtains open and I did somehow absentmindedly pick up a red satin-covered button from somewhere, is that he doesn’t know where I am.
But when he does, he will come for me.
Saturday 12 June 2004
The first thing I noticed was the light—bright light, into my eyes, which were closed.
My mouth was dry; I couldn’t open it at first.
Had I been asleep?
For a moment I couldn’t feel my arms, then I realized they were tied behind me, tightly. Everything from my shoulders to my fingertips ached, suddenly and powerfully.
Handcuffs.
I forced my eyes open, panicking now, to see that I was lying on my side, the side of my face pressed into the carpet. Gray carpet, familiar. At home, then, in the spare bedroom.
I twisted my face around as far as possible, but I couldn’t see much. It took a few moments for me to remember where I’d been going, and what happened, and when I remembered it, it came like a crushing, weighty blow. I’d been going to escape. I had been . . . so . . . close . . .
There was no sign of him in here, at least, but I knew he couldn’t be far away. I had no idea how long I had before he came back,