Читать книгу 11 Missed Calls: A gripping psychological thriller that will have you on the edge of your seat - Elisabeth Carpenter, Elisabeth Carpenter, Libby Carpenter - Страница 18

Anna

I wait until Sophie has gone to bed before I mention Debbie. I didn’t want to confuse her by talking about another grandmother – who she thinks has passed away. How am I going to explain to her that Debbie is alive after all?

‘Don’t get your hopes up,’ says Jack − words I have heard many times − while he pours himself a glass of white wine.

‘I’m not,’ I say. ‘But the woman behind the counter said photos usually come out well, even after all that time.’

I grab my laptop and take it into the living room. I still don’t know what to say in my reply to Debbie. It is too important to just fire off a few words when I have a whole lifetime to write about. She won’t be expecting a message from me, but I doubt Monica or Dad have replied yet. They would have told me if they had, though I’m not sure of anything these days.

‘Just ask to meet,’ says Jack, reading my mind. ‘You don’t have to write an essay. If she is who she says she is, then you’ll find out soon enough.’

Perhaps it is as simple as that. There is a tiny part of me – self-preservation, again – that tells me not to give too much away in an email. She must earn the right to hear my news. The least she could do is meet me.

I click on the email forwarded by Dad. I already know her words off by heart, but I still read it. ‘The memories of shells and sweet things …’ No one else could know about that.

I type out the reply before I can think about it, and press send.

I look up and flinch. Jack is standing just centimetres away from me.

He laughs.

‘You were off in dreamland then.’ He hands me a piece of paper. ‘These are a few of the private investigators we use at work. The other partners hire them to find people for court summonses. One of them might be able to help if you don’t get a reply. Tell them to charge it to my account.’

‘What makes you think she won’t reply?’ I say. He shrugs. I look at the list. ‘So, are these PIs like Magnum?’

‘Er, no. Unfortunately not. They’re more likely to drive a Volvo estate than a Ferrari.’ He laughs at his own joke.

I settle back into the sofa. Some names to research; it makes me feel useful. I’ve never spoken to a private investigator before; they must lead such exciting lives.

‘They’ll probably jump at the chance of this job,’ says Jack. ‘They’re usually sitting in a car for eight hours at a time, pissing into a coke bottle.’

‘Oh.’

‘I’m just nipping down to the shop for more wine. Tough case at the moment.’

‘But it’s Friday night.’

‘If I can get this done, I can relax for the rest of the weekend.’

‘You can’t drive – you’ve already had a glass.’

He tuts. ‘I’m walking to the offy on the corner.’

It’s what I hoped he’d say.

As soon as I hear the front door shut, I race up the two flights of stairs to Jack’s office in the loft. Tough case, my arse. He’s a conveyancing solicitor, not a human rights lawyer.

There’s no door to open – the whole of the loft is his work space. Three walls are hidden by bookcases filled with leather-bound books I’m certain he’s never read, and sports trophies from his university days. There’s a sofa bed to the left and a large mahogany desk under the roof window. The blue screen of his laptop is reflected in the skylight. If I’m quick enough, the screensaver won’t have kicked in yet. He’s protective over his passwords.

I slide onto his chair. His Facebook account is open. I click on the messages tab, but there are none. Not even the link to our old house for sale that I sent him last week. I check the archive folder. Still nothing. I must have at least fifty messages archived in mine. He must have deleted every one. Who does that? Especially someone who professes to hardly ever use Facebook.

Francesca was the name of the woman who signed her name at the bottom of the letter. I go to his friends list, my hands shaking. Jack might only be minutes from walking through the door.

He only has fifty-nine friends. She’s not hard to find. I could have looked on his friends list from my account. Francesca King. Even her name sounds glamorous. She has long chestnut-coloured hair and her photo looks professionally taken. I click on her profile, and jot down everything I can see in her About section. Partner at Gerald & Co, Winckley Square, Preston. She works across town from Jack. I want to look through her posts and photos, but I don’t have time.

I tear off my notes from Jack’s pad, scrunching the paper into my jeans pocket. I click back to his news feed. As I put both my hands on the chair arms to get up, a red notification appears over the message icon. He has it on silent … of course he does.

I should leave it. If I read it, he will know – there’s no way of marking them as unread.

But I can’t stop myself.

A sharp intake of breath as I read the words.

Have you told her yet?

I look to the sender. It’s not Francesca King, but a name that is vaguely familiar: Simon Howarth. Where do I know it from? I thought I had met all of Jack’s colleagues, but they aren’t the most interesting of people – I can’t remember all of their names. It can’t be a relative of Jack’s; he’s an only child, as are both of his parents.

The front door clicks shut. I race down the loft stairs and go straight into the bathroom. I stand behind the closed door. The kitchen is directly below me; I bet he’s pouring another glass of wine. I hear him put the bottle noisily into the fridge.

If he sees my face, he’ll know what I’ve been doing. I flush the toilet and run the taps, waiting until I hear him tread the stairs.

I have a lot of research to do.

The information I found about Francesca King was the same limited details from her Facebook account. On her firm’s website – no win, no fee ambulance chasers – was a notice for a drop-in consultancy clinic on Monday nights. I wouldn’t have the bottle to face her – what if she’d seen the picture of Sophie and me on Jack’s desk at work?

After firing a quick email to several of the private investigators, I slam my laptop shut.

Jack probably won’t come down for the rest of the evening – too busy in the company of wine and Facebook. It’s ridiculous really. Why aren’t I saying anything to him?

Because of what I did six years ago.

He had to get me out of the mess I’d got myself into. It wasn’t about him cheating, it was about me, chasing ghosts. It happened before, when I was at college, but Jack doesn’t know about that. It’s not like that now: this isn’t stalking, per se. Everyone looks at what their husbands and partners are up to online, don’t they?

Anyway, I have proof. I took a picture of the letter on my phone. Jack would be the first to say it: you can’t argue with evidence.

I look in on Sophie before I go to bed, as I do every night. She looks so angelic when she’s asleep; I imagine all children do. Debbie would have seen me sleeping as a baby. Did she think I was an angel, or an inconvenience? Before now, she was a ghost – I had idolised her, exalted her – thought she disappeared through no fault of her own. I believed it must have been something really awful for her to have left us. But if this email is from her, then I should accept that she chose to leave us.

If I found her after all this time, I’m not sure I’d even like her.