to do the work that I’d pretended I had to finish. I forgot all about the broken glass, and the sawdust on the floor, and the draft of cold that blew around my ankles. I forgot about everything except him, Stuart, and the warmth of his hands on my skin.
Wednesday 7 May 2008
For another two weeks, everything was fine. The new warehouse had its official opening ceremony and all the supervisors and warehouse staff we’d recruited were busy finding their feet and doing really well. The CEO sent a letter thanking us for all our hard work.
I had weekly therapy with Alistair and worked on getting the checking down to nothing. I’d managed it a few times. When I did check, it was for the things that might have been moved in the flat. But after that night we’d found Mrs. Mackenzie’s door open, there had been nothing. No noises in the night, no evidence that he or anyone else had been in the flat. Nothing at all.
Stuart had been busy completing his research project and had been working late on it before getting home. I’d been sleeping in my flat so that he could sleep undisturbed when he got in. As a result, I’d hardly seen him all week.
Caroline and I were enjoying a cup of tea and a chat, something we hadn’t had much time to do in the last few weeks. She was asking me about Stuart when I got a text:
C—Forgotten what home looks like. Trying to get weekend off. Love you. S x
A few minutes after that, my work phone rang. I half expected it to be Stuart, but it wasn’t. To my surprise, it was Sylvia.
“Hi,” she said. “Sorry to call you at work, but I don’t know your home number.” Her voice sounded strange, an echo to it, and I could hear traffic in the background.
“That’s okay. How are you?”
“I’m fine,” she said, “I’ve only got a minute. Would you meet me for lunch? Today?”
“I’m a bit busy, Sylvia.”
“Please. I wouldn’t ask if it wasn’t important.”
I glanced at my desk calendar—a meeting at 2 p.m., but I should be back well before then. “All right, then. Where do you want to meet?”
“John Lewis, Oxford Street—the coffee shop on the fourth floor. Know it?”
It wasn’t the typical place you’d expect to see Sylvia, but her tone was so familiar—she expected everyone to move at her pace, meet her in her world, as if the planet revolved too slowly around her. “I’ll find it.”
“Twelve?”
“I’ll do my best.”
“See you then. And Catherine—thank you.”
Breathless at the end, still sounding as if she was in a cavern somewhere, she hung up.
I thought about it all morning. It felt like a trap, but a clever one. I shouldn’t be afraid of meeting someone in a place like that—very public, busy, lots of entrances and exits, no way Lee could take me, difficult for him to follow me in and out. Unless she helped him. If she’d invited me around to her flat again, I would have refused.
I thought back to the sunny Sunday morning all those weeks ago, when I’d caught her by surprise, and probably him, too. I didn’t see where he could have been hiding, in that flat, but there was something about the way she’d looked into the dark cool interior that had made me certain that he was listening, that he was there.
In any case, whether it was a trap or not, I was going to go.
Out of the air-conditioned office, it was surprisingly warm. The sun was shining and the streets were full of office workers heading to the parks and green spaces to get some sun. I walked three streets, crossing the street a couple of times, and then on a whim grabbed a solitary taxi. I don’t know why; if Sylvia wanted to meet me, then it was clear he would know where I was going, if he was watching me. In all probability he was already at John Lewis, waiting for me. Maybe this meeting was going to be her way of getting us together for some sort of civilized chat on neutral territory. I wasn’t afraid, but I did feel more than a little bit queasy—unsettled, as though I was heading for something terrible and unpredictable.
I sat enjoying the breeze through the open window as the taxi stopped and started its way through the streets. Ten minutes later, I was in a side street, outside one of the back entrances