when you split.’
Again, Helen shook her head, and rolled her eyes. ‘No, the house wasn’t ours, it belongs to my friend from uni. She had this great job working abroad and let me rent it from her while she was away, but then I left Alex, and she allowed him to continue to rent it on his own. She didn’t want the hassle of re-letting, especially to someone she didn’t know. Besides, he was the perfect tenant. She knew he wouldn’t trash the place; quite the opposite, he was a neat freak. So while she was away he was the perfect tenant – all her stuff was in that house, you see. Her crockery, photos – even her books – we were just staying there, really. We didn’t buy a stick of furniture. Probably as well, because when we split up there was nothing to share, no mine and yours and messy money matters, just the divorce.
Anyway, my friend’s job ended at the start of November, and she moved back to the UK and wanted to move back in, but he’d refused. So I arranged to meet Alex that day to tell him he had to move out – it was all rather embarrassing, her being my friend and all. Thing is, she’d already been round a few times, and he wouldn’t even open the door. He’d not only changed the locks, he’d put double locks on everything, even the garage. My friend knows some dodgy people who’d have made mincemeat of Alex, but despite several threats he just refused to move out. But when I saw him, he said you loved the house and he wanted to stay there for you. I had a feeling he might have told you it was his, which is why I hoped that, if I could catch you in Worcester that day, I could ask you to get involved, make him move out. But typical Alex wanted to make everything perfect even if it was all a façade – he was desperate to make a nest, even if it wasn’t his nest to make.’
I was shocked at the revelation. I realise now that the phone calls, the notes, were all Alex trying to scare me off contacting Helen. Perhaps even the earlier incidents before I knew of her existence, the smell of perfume in my car and the roses, were him preparing the ground, planning to set her up as the jealous ex.
This also explained why he always double-locked the front door when we were home, why he was looking through the glass that first night I went for dinner. Later I’d assumed it was because he was worried Helen ‘our stalker’ might turn up on the doorstep. But I believe Helen, and looks like he was scared the house owner would send someone to evict him, or hurt him even.
‘We should have talked sooner Helen.’
‘He wouldn’t have allowed that.’ She smiled. ‘It seems like every moment was meticulously planned in his relationships with both of us.
‘Even after I’d left he still couldn’t let you go,’ I said, knowing if he’d lived he wouldn’t have given up on me easily. I told her about him using a phone app to know where we both were at all times, and how he’d listened to my list of likes and used them on our first date.
‘Yeah, that’s Alex.’ She nodded. ‘Creepy that he knew where we were, but he had to keep us apart, he was living so many lies. He was like a blank canvas, and it may sound harsh but when I was with him, he never seemed to have his own thoughts, opinions, just seemed to echo mine. He even started drinking gin because that’s what I drank, he said it was “our” drink, but I once overheard him telling a friend that he loathed gin.’
I thought about ‘our’ drink, the bottles of Merlot we shared and he professed to love, and wondered again if anything about Alex was real.
‘He seemed like the perfect partner at first.’ She sighed. ‘We had some good times, but looking back, from early on I felt like he was testing my feelings for him.’
I thought for a moment and realised what she meant. ‘Yeah, our first date was wonderful, but he made me wait before he asked me on a second date, not long, just enough to introduce some doubt,’ I said as a memory came flooding back. ‘And he was late for our second date,