Then I don’t know what happened, but suddenly I felt strange. My skin prickled and my ears strained to pick up cues. I straightened my back and walked a bit faster, while I tried to work out what was happening. And then I realized. I felt someone was there.
The road was quiet and then I heard the soft clink of a car door closing. I turned quickly, but couldn’t see anyone. I stood still for a second, focusing on the road behind me, and saw in the distance the guy in the light jacket who’d said hello. He was nearly over the bridge now. I turned and hurried on, but still I felt uneasy pinpricks on the back of my neck.
Cars and vans were parked along the side of the road and the sidewalk was quite narrow. For a moment I thought of walking in the middle of the road, but then a car drove past and I stayed on the relative safety of the sidewalk. The car slowed down and took a left turn farther up the road and for a few minutes everything was quiet again. The turning for my road was several hundred yards ahead. Then there was the sound of another car coming up the road behind me.
It was only after it went past that I realized it was the same car that had gone past me just minutes earlier. It was silver, quite big, but I couldn’t tell the make or model. I could see it was a five-door and had a dual exhaust. When I saw it drive past the second time I saw the number plate started with MW. Once again, it took a left turn farther up the street.
I frowned. Why would the same car come past twice? And then I felt panic rising in my chest. I was walking down this road on my own. There had been no other cars, just this one.
It was as though all my senses were heightened. The sky looked darker; any stars had disappeared. The lights from the shops seemed more sinister, as they cast shadows on the sidewalks. And my hearing was sharpened: I could hear the sound of the breeze in the trees and the thrum of distant cars. Just then I heard the sound of a car coming up the road again.
And suddenly I was terrified. I couldn’t look behind; I didn’t want to draw attention to myself. My eyes flickered from right to left and ahead again. There was nobody else around.
I slid my phone out of my bag and held it tightly. When the car went past for the third time I registered the color: silver, the exhaust: double. The number plate starting with MW. And then it slowed down ahead of me. My eyes nearly popped out of my head as I saw it stop in the middle of the narrow road. Its hazard lights started to blink.
I stopped dead in my tracks. There was no way I was going to walk past that car. Both of us were still, like adversaries waiting to see who made the first move. Then the driver’s door opened.
I took a huge breath, turned on my heels, and ran back the way I’d come. There was a side street on my left and I raced around the corner and along the quiet street and then turned into a road that was parallel to the one I’d walked down before.
All was quiet. I couldn’t hear any car engines or footsteps; nobody was on the streets. Some of the houses had lights on in either the living room or bedrooms at the fronts of the houses and as I ran I made a mental note as to where I could bang on the door.
It was still more than a mile to my house, through all the back streets. I went a zigzag route, always choosing the street with the most lights on downstairs. By the time I reached my street all I could hear was the blood pumping through my veins, the pulse in my ears, my heart beating like a drum.
Holding my keys in position, I raced to my front door. My fingers slipped over the key as I tried to insert it. As the lock turned I thrust the door open and slammed it behind me.
When I was safely upstairs I stood in the hallway, panting. The light from a nearby lamppost shone in through the window. In my bedroom I stood at the edge of the window and looked up and down the yards and the backs of houses on the road parallel to mine. All was still. Slowly I drew the curtains, but I didn’t put a lamp on.
The kitchen looked out onto houses on the side street. That, too, was silent, though enough lights were lit to reassure me. Quickly I pulled down the blind. Again I didn’t switch the light on in case my shadow could be seen.
In the living room I relied on the hallway light to guide me to the window. I flattened myself against the wall and looked out onto the street.
And then I saw a silver car crawl down the road. There was no reason for it to move that slowly; there was no other traffic about. The driver was on the other side of the road to my house and I couldn’t see them at all. At first I thought of using my phone to film it, but I couldn’t risk its light being seen. I grabbed a pen and paper to write down the number plate but the street was dark and I couldn’t make it out. I stayed hidden and watched as the car turned down the side road, just past my house. A few minutes later it was back.
Someone was watching me.
CHAPTER 46
Emma
It was so odd living with Harry in those early days of my pregnancy. We both had such huge secrets. He knew nothing about mine and didn’t have a clue that I knew his. Whenever I looked at him I would wonder whether he was still involved with Ruby or whether everything had changed for them. He certainly wasn’t giving any of the usual signals. He was absolutely present in our marriage and never seemed preoccupied or sad. He was the happiest I’d ever seen him.
And I was happy, too. Of course I was. I was pregnant after thinking it would never happen. But I was furious, too. Harry had caused all this. If he hadn’t been having a fling with Ruby, then I wouldn’t have gone to Tom’s house. I wouldn’t have slept with him, I wouldn’t have gotten pregnant, and I certainly wouldn’t have to put up with Tom bullying me now.
Even though I hadn’t seen Tom again, the threat was still there. Every time Harry was about to leave for work, I ran to the window to check that Tom wasn’t waiting for him, ready to spill the beans. Even though the landline was unlisted, whenever it rang I froze in terror and made sure I grabbed it before Harry could reach it. In the end I turned the sound off; Harry wouldn’t notice as he rarely used it, but it saved me worrying about him picking it up when I was out. And then I went one step further and canceled the landline itself, telling Harry we so rarely used it, it was a waste of money. He’d laughed at this unexpected thriftiness and arranged for that money to go into the baby’s savings plan. In the evening I’d be back at the window again when he was due home, so that I could be there to divert him if I saw Tom. When I’d hear Harry’s car turn into the driveway, I’d check his face, to see whether he looked furious or puzzled or frantic with worry. It was exhausting having to anticipate Tom.
But Harry was always happy now. News of the baby had given him a new lease on life. He’d bound out of bed as soon as the alarm rang every morning, starting the day with a huge smile on his face. He’d kiss me good-bye at the door, holding me tightly and whispering he loved me. It was just like the old days. And at night he’d leap out of his car and run up to the house to find me.
“Hey,” he’d say, wrapping me in his arms. “How are you, sweetheart? Feeling okay?”