Look Behind You (21 page)

‘I’m going to send some emails while you’re doing that.’

I look over my shoulder at his retreating back and want more than anything to stab him in it.

~~~~

After dinner, I fake a headache and tell Liam I’m going to lie down. He’s gone back to the computer, and I’m itching to get my hands on my mobile phone and see what clues it can tell me. I scroll through the phone logs first and find a call from Jordan to me on the twenty-ninth of April, just as he said. It lasted a little over five minutes. A few minutes later, I called Sara’s number and spoke to her for sixty-five minutes. I picture myself telling her I’d found out about Liam’s affair. She would call him a wanker then offer for me to stay at her place before I even asked her if it was OK.

On the day Liam went to Scotland, there was a call from Sara to me that I didn’t answer. Was she seeing if I was still going to her place? Making sure I hadn’t changed my mind? Checking I hadn’t been murdered in my sleep by my psychopathic husband?

The last call is the one from yesterday, when I heard my phone ringing in the bin. It’s from the college number. Theresa didn’t mention phoning me to see if I was OK, and I wonder if it was from Jordan. There are no more calls, so I check my texts, expecting some between Sara and me, but there aren’t any. Odd. We usually texted a few times a week, more when she was away on her travels. Did I delete them so Liam wouldn’t find them? Or had I not texted her before I disappeared because I’d already spoken to her on the phone? There’s just one text from my email provider, sending a code for me to enter when I log back into my account.

I still can’t work out how my phone ended up in the rubbish bin. Had I left it in the house accidentally when I moved out? Had Liam found it and smashed it to pieces in anger when he discovered I’d gone? That seemed the most likely scenario. I would be in a blind panic and not thinking straight. Just taking a few clothes and escaping while he was firmly out of the way four hundred odd miles from here. I’d already been on the Internet looking up side effects of the antidepressants, so I would’ve discovered Liam’s company made them. I was probably already suspecting what I suspect now, that he was trying to make me go crazy. How easy it would be for him to get me out of the way. What could be better than having his wife sectioned in the loony bin?

A dead wife. That would be even better. No one could argue with that. He didn’t succeed in having me permanently locked up, so he goes to Plan B. Kidnap me and leave me for dead. I had no actual proof that Liam really did go to Scotland. I don’t know if DI Summers even checked that out. Probably not, if he believed what Liam told him.

I hear footsteps coming up the stairs and turn off the phone. My heart races as I slide it under the mattress again and close my eyes, forcing myself to breathe deeply so Liam thinks I’m fast asleep.

The night drags on forever. I toss and turn, unable to switch off, horrible thoughts swimming around in my head so fast I’m scared I might drown in them. I think about getting up in the early hours and making a cup of chamomile tea, but I don’t want to get out of bed. Can’t risk Liam finding the phone I’ve hidden. No, I have to guard it, although the idea that I’m guarding a mobile phone is so completely ridiculous it almost makes me laugh. Instead, I lie there thinking about death and dying, and wait for morning.

22

When Liam’s in the shower, I slide my hands under the mattress, retrieve the phone, and go downstairs, hiding it at the back of the cupboard under the sink. Then I make him tea and toast with marmalade and leave it on the kitchen table, ready and waiting for him like the good Stepford Wife I am. I can’t eat. My stomach is on an out of control rollercoaster ride, leaping and swirling all over the place.

‘Not hungry?’ Liam chews thoughtfully on a bite of toast.

Hungry?
I want to vomit. ‘Not at the moment.’ I cradle my mug of tea. ‘I’ll have something later.’

‘Maybe that’s a good thing. You must admit, you’ve been getting a bit chubby lately. You need to be careful.’ He grins playfully, but I know he didn’t mean it in jest.

When I was in my early teens and my body started filling out, some of the boys in the children’s home taunted me for being fat. It was a slippery slope from being completely self-conscious of what I ate and counting calories manically to binge eating. Stuffing down as much as I could to fill up the hunger that never disappeared then purging it by sticking my fingers down my throat. I told Liam about it one day at the beginning of our relationship, and in true Liam style, he likes to bring it up sometimes, using my insecurities against me.

‘Yes, maybe you’re right,’ I agree, because it’s just easier to go along with him.

‘I usually am.’ He pats my hand and takes his plate to the dishwasher. ‘Right, I’m off. I’ll probably be late tonight.’

‘OK,’ I say, even though I don’t care in the least. I’m not going to be here.

When he leaves, I quickly check my emails, but there are no recent ones except some spam trying to sell me a penis extension. I pack a small suitcase with some essential clothes, underwear, and toiletries. In a short while, I’m going to be free of Liam, but I wonder what else I am walking into. I don’t know which the lesser of two evils are. What if Liam is only guilty of having an affair? What if he genuinely is concerned about me being mentally unstable again and is trying to protect me? What if he didn’t tamper with the drugs and it’s all my ridiculous imagination? What if he didn’t try to kill me?

What if, what if?

I don’t know for certain. Maybe I’ll never know, and the thought fills me with such dread I have to push it away before I unravel into a gibbering wreck cowering in the corner of the room. All I know is I can’t stay here any longer. For my sanity and my safety, I have to leave. The only problem is my new bankcards still haven’t arrived, so I have no money. Maybe I’ll call Jordan and see if can lend me some. Just until I get sorted out.

I see Jordan’s face in my head, and it makes me smile. At some point in the future, in my heart I see something happening between us. Maybe it’s because I need some hope. Some light at the end of the tunnel. The idea that I
will
have a future after all this. That I will still be alive. Or maybe it’s more than that.

I can’t afford to think about any of that now, though. At this moment, I can only think of survival. All I have to do is stay alive long enough to fight back.

I sit at the office desk, pull out a sheet of printer paper from the drawer, and grab a pen to write my second letter to Liam telling him I’m leaving.

Tapping the end of the pen against my teeth, I stare at the page, which is as blank as my mind. What do you write in these kinds of circumstances?

God knows.

I put the pen to the paper. Stop. Lift it up again. Stop. I don’t have a clue how to sum up my life and how I came to be here like this right now. I think about the letter I wrote the last time:
I can’t go on like this anymore. I need to end it all. I’m sorry.
Even though it was so ambiguous it could be used against me, I can’t think of anything truer. But this time I’ll make sure no one can misinterpret it.

Liam,

Our relationship is over.

I don’t want to see you or talk to you. You won’t be able to change my mind.

Please stay away from me.

Chloe

There. I can’t make it much clearer than that. Short and to the point. Some things just can’t be put into words.

I leave it propped up in front of the kettle and put on my sunglasses. I exit the house and head towards Sara’s as I wheel the suitcase behind me. It would be easier to catch a cab, but it could be what I did last time. You hear about dodgy cab drivers preying on women sometimes and I can’t take the risk, so I ignore my aching arm and carry on.

The spare key I kept for Sara in case of emergencies wasn’t in the drawer at home and must’ve been lost along with my other house keys, but I know there’s one hidden in her garden. Hopefully, it’s still there. I don’t fancy the thought of having to break a window to get in.

There’s a rockery at the front of her house. I say rockery, but there are no plants in it. Since Sara is away a lot, she’s made the garden as maintenance-free as possible. This rockery just consists of different sizes, colours, and texture of stone. The big granite lump is the one I want. I bend down, lift it up, and there’s the key.

As I open her front door, the first thing I notice is the smell. Stale, musty, and unlived in. The next thing I notice are my black wedged boots and ballet flats by the radiator in the hall. I close the door and lean against it, shutting my eyes for a moment to let things sink in.

So I did make it here. I really did leave Liam. I’ve followed my footsteps to the next place I went, but I don’t know what else I’m going to discover. I already feel a heightened sense of freedom, as if I’ve shed a dirty skin that’s been suffocating me. Finally, I’ve taken back control of my life. Not sure how long I’ll have a life, though, if my abductor finds me again, but at least for this precious moment it’s all mine.

I step over a pile of post that’s been pushed through the letterbox, put my suitcase next to my boots, and head into her small lounge. It’s stuffed with books and colourful throws in bright oranges, reds, and yellows. Turkish rugs, African wooden carvings, shells, a didgeridoo painted with bright tribal markings, Chinese scriptures. Things she’s brought back over the years from her travels. It radiates warmth and happiness, like a proper home should. Somewhere the owner has left the mark of her existence, instead of the soulless shell of bricks and mortar I shared with Liam.

The red light on her answerphone blinks wildly at me, so I listen to the messages. ‘Hi, it’s me.’ Sara’s voice. ‘Hope you’re settling in OK. I lost my bloody phone in a market this morning and had to get another one, so I’ve got a new number now.’ She rattles off the number. So that’s why I haven’t been able to get hold of her. ‘Call me on this one and let me know you’re all right. Forgot to tell you the instructions on how to get the boiler working. It can be a bit temperamental sometimes, especially if it’s been turned off. Help yourself to whatever. Just treat the place like home. I’m so glad you woke up and got away from that controlling wanker.’

She left the message on the sixth of May, the day Liam went to Scotland. The day I would’ve left him.

The machine bleeps and starts the next message. Sara again. ‘Hey, where are you? Out having fun for a change, I bloody hope! I’m going to be on a yoga retreat for the next ten days so you won’t be able to get hold of me. No modern technology allowed here!’ She laughs. ‘Give me a ring when I get out. Ha, ha, that sounds like I’m going to prison, doesn’t it? Anyway, hope you managed to work the boiler. Speak soon. Hugs.’

The date on the second message is the eighth of May. Today is the fifteenth, so she won’t be back from her retreat yet. I’ll have to wait a bit longer to see if she can fill in anymore missing pieces of my life.

I go upstairs and open her bedroom door. No sheets are on the bed, and the room has an abandoned feel. In the spare bedroom, I find evidence of my existence. The duvet is turned back and the sheets in disarray, hanging half off the bed, as if I slept fitfully and got up in a hurry. My polka dot bra, leather jacket, and brown V-neck jumper hang over a director’s chair by the window. I don’t see any sleeping tablets on the small bedside table, just a red biro and a glass of water with dust floating on the surface. A plastic carrier bag sits by the side of the bed with some of my knickers inside it. Maybe I used it to transport my clothes here before.

There’s one toothbrush in the bathroom with a new tube of toothpaste I must’ve bought. Above the sink is a wooden cabinet with a mirror. I open the door and look through. Inside, I find a box of paracetamol, a bottle of cough medicine, a plastic container of cotton buds, an unopened tube of toothpaste, some Vick’s VapoRub, and a mostly empty box of Tampax.

I head downstairs and check all the windows and the back door that leads from the kitchen out into the postage-stamp sized garden. There’s no sign of forced entry or a struggle anywhere in the house.

I peer into the fridge to see if Sara’s left any bottled or tinned food that’s still edible. I don’t feel much like going food shopping at the moment, but I’m going to have to eat. I find a carton of semi-skimmed milk, a block of cheddar, six eggs, a packet of rocket, a few tomatoes, an onion, a bottle of sparkling white wine, butter, and a sliced loaf of wholemeal bread. They’re all in date, so I must’ve been shopping after I arrived the last time.

I’m just reaching for a glass from the cupboard above the cooker to get a drink of water when I spy my handbag on top of the microwave in the corner of the room. I put the glass down and rummage around inside it. My purse is there, complete with the bankcards Liam has now cancelled. The good news is I have two hundred and thirty-three pounds and fifty-four pence to my name now. That will keep me going for a bit.

The only other things in my bag are a packet of tissues, a biro, a broken toothpick, a can of deodorant, and a lot of fluff. The sleeping tablets aren’t inside, which doesn’t make sense. If they’re nowhere to be found, I couldn’t possibly have taken them. Yes, I could’ve lost them if I was having some kind of weird reaction, but if I didn’t have my bag with me, where would I put them? When I escaped from that place, all I had on was a thin red dress with no pockets. It’s unlikely I would’ve just had them in my hand. My keys aren’t there, either, and it gets me thinking. If my bag is here but the keys aren’t, I must’ve gone out somewhere. Somewhere close by I could walk to. Somewhere I didn’t think I’d need any money. But where?