Behind Closed Doors (Season One: Book 7) (Jessica Daniel) (29 page)

‘Jess . . .’

Jessica snapped, turning to face Adam. ‘What?’

‘He’s trying to help. He said there was a very small likelihood of things working. A small hope is better than no hope.’

Jessica waved a hand in his face, turning her attention to the map. ‘That’s utter bollocks. It’s the type of bullshit we come out with when someone’s gone missing.
It’s always: “We’re hopeful he’ll return”, “We’re following up a number of promising leads”, “We’re narrowing down the search
parameters”, and then two days later we find the poor fucker in a ditch where we knew he was going to be the whole time.’

She flashed a hand towards the doctor, not looking at him. ‘“Small likelihood”, you might as well just say, “You’ve got no fucking hope, love”, and show me
the door.’

The venom of her language silenced the room. Even the people in the waiting area outside seemed to have gone quiet, the birds that had been chirping outside scared away too.

‘I’m sorry, Miss . . . Jessica,’ the doctor said. ‘I know it’s hard for you. There is no easy way to say it. I am simply trying to lay out a few options for
you.’

Jessica didn’t reply. The fact he was still being polite after she had needlessly torn him off a strip annoyed her even more.

‘Perhaps it would be better if we took some information away,’ Adam said. ‘We can have a look through everything and then come back at another time.’

The doctor spun his chair around until he was facing the computer. He started typing and then a printer whirred to life at the back of the room.

Jessica continued staring at the map, thinking of how few places she had actually visited. Aside from a year backpacking around south-east Asia, something which opened her eyes to how big the
world was, she’d done nothing other than visit a couple of places in Europe and have a week in Las Vegas that left her with nothing but bad memories.

‘Seven billion people,’ she said.

The doctor spun back to face her. ‘Sorry?’

Jessica nodded towards the map. ‘Seven billion people live here. All different shapes, sizes and skin colours. Most nice, some not.’

She was waiting for Adam to correct her, to say there was only six point nine, or seven point one. Usually, he would be putting her straight before he’d even known he was doing it. This
time he stayed silent. The doctor clearly didn’t know what to say either. Across the room, the printer went quiet.

‘Seven billion people and I’ll never be able to add a one to the end of it.’

She wanted someone to say something, even if it was a lie. None of this ‘We’ve had a small degree of success in clinical testing’ nonsense, not a vague ‘You can keep
trying’. She wanted the doctor to tell her that her body wasn’t a complete mess, that he’d somehow mixed up her results with somebody else’s and that she could have children
after all.

He couldn’t even meet her eye.

Jessica didn’t wait for either him or Adam, opening the door and bounding through the hallways, ignoring the gum-chewing bored-looking receptionist and hurrying towards the exit. She
couldn’t bear to look at the clean walls or read the stupid slogans of the posters any longer.

Adam caught her as she pushed through the supposedly automatic door, which was taking its time to register she was actually there. She ignored the way it groaned as she shoved her way out,
striding to the edge of the car park.

‘Jess,’ Adam said.

‘What?’

‘Are we going to talk about this?’

‘What is there to talk about?’

She had no idea where they had parked, heading up a set of steps and emerging into a garden that she didn’t know existed. Not wanting to admit she had gone the wrong way, she went left,
cutting across a flower bed and stepping over a low wall into the actual car park, as if she had meant to go that way in the first place.

She still couldn’t remember where the car was, turning right and walking quickly past a row of vehicles before glancing up and seeing the ‘Staff Car Park’ sign. Adam was at the
top of a set of steps at the far end.

‘It’s this way,’ he called, one hand on his hip, waiting patiently.

The smug prick.

If there’s one thing she hated, it was people who were always right.

Jessica followed him, pretending that she wasn’t. When he cut in between two parked cars, she made sure she went between two different cars, just to make it clear she was finding her own
route and definitely not tracking him.

Regardless of how clever he was, she still had one up on him because she had the car keys. As he reached the vehicle, she slowed her pace, stopping to tie her shoes, taking a slightly longer way
around, making him wait.

She wanted him to say something, even to tap his foot anxiously. Instead he did nothing.

In the car, he placed the pile of papers on the back seat, still not speaking as Jessica pulled away carefully.

She had only reached the end of the road when the rain began. At first it was a series of tip-taps on the roof but before long it was smashing down onto the metal. She put the windscreen wipers
on full, watching them crash the water away from her vision as she moved onto the main road.

Unsurprisingly, people were still driving like idiots, some tearing around as if it was a perfectly dry and sunny day, others creeping along fifteen miles under the speed limit and making things
worse. Jessica couldn’t be bothered to complain, tucking in behind someone going too slowly and following them.

Around her, the storm swirled, wind buffeting the car from side to side, rain hammering from the bonnet, the roof, the road, the pavement, everywhere.

In front, the driver of the car which had been going so slowly decided he didn’t want to sit at the traffic lights, speeding up unexpectedly and blazing through them just as they ticked
over to red.

Jessica pulled up the handbrake and waited, staring straight ahead as the windscreen wipers feebly tried to clear the glass.

Thump, thump, thump.

Someone pulled up in the lane next to her, revving their engine, waiting for the light to go green. Some dickhead who no doubt had a loud exhaust to make up for his minuscule genitals.

Thump, thump, thump.

A woman dashed across the pelican crossing, thrusting a pushchair out in front of her, as if it was a shield. She didn’t have an umbrella and was getting soaked. She probably had
half-a-dozen kids at home, each screaming louder than the last. She’d probably never worked a day in her life.

Thump, thump, thump.

A car flew across the four-way junction, brakes screeching, turning without indicating and making a cyclist swerve out of its way. Whoever was driving beeped his horn, as if the poor person on
the bicycle should have telepathically known he was going to turn. Some selfish idiot who thought they were always right, probably driving home to his children to eat pizza and crisps and sit in
front of the television all night watching utter shite.

Thump, thump, thump.

In the sky, a plane soared upwards, disappearing into the clouds, its red lights disappearing in a flash. Hundreds of people off to sit in the sun; to drink, to laugh, to do nothing for a
fortnight. Men, women, families, children.

Thump, thump, thump.

The orange traffic light came on and the car outside her screeched away, exhaust blurting a thick cloud into the air. The light turned green but she didn’t move, eyes fixed firmly ahead.
Car after car pulled past her. Behind, someone beeped their horn, then someone else.

‘Jess.’

Thump, thump, thump.

A man in the vehicle behind pulled around her, accelerating away with an angry pump of his horn. Three more cars did the same until the lights flickered back to red.

Thump, thump, thump.

Across the junction, someone on a moped tried to swerve around a car, misjudging the lights as they changed to green. The car pulled away at the same time, stalling as the moped moved in front
of him. More beeps, an angry gesture.

Thump.

Thump.

Thump.

Jessica unclipped her seatbelt and opened the door, stepping around the front of the car and walking straight ahead. Someone beeped their horn, possibly at her, but she wasn’t paying
attention enough to know where it came from.

In a matter of seconds, the rain had drenched Jessica, her clothes sticking to her, hair flailing in the wind, matting together from the spray. It felt like the best shower ever; as if God,
nature, or whatever else people chose to believe in was showing his displeasure.

Good.

Whoever was in charge should be angry because she was. All these people around her could go home and make babies and she couldn’t.

She walked into the middle of the junction, standing in the centre of the criss-crosses on the road, arms out, letting the rain pound her. Cars zipped past on either side, the drivers either
beeping their horns or staring in disbelief.

Jessica didn’t care. Let them look, let them drive into her for all she cared. More than any of that, let it rain.

She tilted her head back, staring into the silver skies, blinking the water away from her eyes, before closing them. ‘Come on,’ she yelled. ‘Come on!’

Thump, thump, thump.

‘Jess.’

‘Go away.’

‘Jess, we’re in the middle of a junction. It’s dangerous.’

‘Go back to the car then.’

She was shouting to make herself heard. All she wanted was to be on her own.

‘Jess.’

‘Just. Fuck. Off.’

‘Jess, don’t talk to me like that, please.’

Christ, he even said please.

‘Leave me alone then.’

The cars stopped and for a few seconds there was nothing but the sound of the rain, then they started again from the opposite direction. More beeps.

‘You know I’m not going to do that, Jess.’

‘Why?’

‘Because we’re in this together.’

Jessica opened her eyes, blinking away the stream of water. Still it rained. She could feel the drops pulsing against her skin. She turned to face Adam, knowing that on any other day she would
be grinning at how ridiculous he looked. His long hair had been blown in all directions, his skinny T-shirt now looked more like a wetsuit. His pasty arms looked so frail wrapped around
himself.

‘Why?’

‘Because I love you and you love me and we shouldn’t let this beat us.’

Jessica sighed, droplets of rain running from her top lip and then sliding into her nose as she breathed. ‘I’m sorry.’

He smiled. ‘No matter, we can always get dry at home.’

The cars stopped again, the lights temporarily all on red, as if everything in the world had halted except for the rain.

Thump, thump, thump.

‘Not for that,’ Jessica replied. ‘I’m sorry for being broken.’

FRIDAY

Jessica had towelled herself dry in the bathroom, telling Heather she was fine and ignoring anything she had to ask about how the evening had gone. She might not blame her
roommate for telling other people about her interest in what was going on around the house but she certainly wasn’t going to give her anything else to work with. Heather at least appeared to
know why Jessica was being short with her and stopped talking, getting changed for bed and clicking off her side lamp.

Jessica lay in bed wearing a fresh set of clothes, waiting, listening, just as she had on the night she made the first call to Charley. This time, the paranoia about not knowing the time got to
her and she slipped the phone out from underneath the mattress, turning it on to check and then returning it.

It was only half-past-one – too early – so Jessica continued to wait, counting to sixty over and over until ten minutes had passed and then giving up.

Even though everything except for her hair was dry, Jessica could still feel the clammy dampness on her skin. The rain had become the darkest of friends in recent times: with Adam in the centre
of the junction, outside this house, in the woods. It followed her, hunting her, waiting until she was at her most vulnerable and then soaked her. Each time it felt like a test and each time she
had come through it. This evening, more than any other point in the past six months, she wanted to see Adam, to talk to him. She had been the one to ask him for a break. She didn’t want to
break up, but she needed time to herself, not just away from him but away from everyone.

Someone he knew at the university had put him up for a while, then he had spent a week at his sister Georgia’s house down south. Jessica found it easier to communicate with him in text
messages than she did in person, or on the phone.

Each Friday, she would send him one word: ‘Sorry’, letting him know she wasn’t ready.

In under sixty seconds, her phone would beep with the response: ‘I’ll wait.’

Jessica lay staring at the ceiling wondering what she had done to deserve him. She wondered if he was still out there, waiting for her. She had messaged him to say she was off to do a job for
the force, returning to work as he kept telling her she should. She said they should talk afterwards but that she didn’t know how long it would take.

The reply came, the same as ever: ‘I’ll wait.’

She wished she had her own phone now so she could open her messages and stare at the long list of the ones she’d kept. Twenty-three consecutive weeks of identical ‘I’ll
wait’ messages that she wanted to look through, one after the other, each a tiny reminder that someone out there cared for her more than she cared for herself.

Jessica checked the time again, amazed that almost two hours had passed as she lay thinking about Adam and the baby they had lost.

She had lost.

Wondering what he would have looked like. Would he have had her hazel eyes, or Adam’s brown ones? Her lighter hair, or the darker, thicker strands that Adam had?

They had both joked – hoped – that their son was going to take after his father in the temper stakes. The last thing they needed was two of them throwing things, kicking things, and
generally getting annoyed when things didn’t go their way.

She had spent so many years telling herself she didn’t want children, that she wasn’t mature enough, that she wanted to do things with her life, but when it had simply happened, she
hadn’t felt any of that. Instead, things felt right, as if everything had been building up to the moment and that her life would be better, not worse, from now on.