The Breakdown. B A Paris

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СКАЧАТЬ to Matthew. ‘Don’t you think it strange that nobody has?’

      ‘Maybe, but I don’t suppose many people take that road late at night,’ Matthew says. ‘Especially when there’s a storm going on.’

      ‘If I’m coming back from Castle Wells, I take it all the time,’ says Andy cheerfully. ‘Day or night, storm or no storm.’

      ‘So where were you last Friday night?’ Matthew asks and, when they all start laughing, I want to scream at them to stop.

      Matthew catches sight of my face. ‘Sorry,’ he says quietly. He turns to Hannah and Andy. ‘Did Cass tell you she knew her?’

      They stare at me.

      ‘Not very well,’ I say quickly, cursing Matthew for mentioning it. ‘We had lunch together once, that’s all.’ I close my mind to the image of Jane shaking her head reproachfully at my quick dismissal of our friendship.

      ‘I’m so sorry, Cass, you must feel terrible,’ Hannah says.

      ‘Yes, I do.’ There’s a short silence where nobody seems to know quite what to say.

      ‘Well, I’m sure they’ll catch whoever’s responsible soon,’ Andy says. ‘Somebody somewhere must know something.’

      I manage to get through the rest of the afternoon but as soon as they’ve gone I wish they’d come back. Their constant stream of chatter may have been exhausting but it’s preferable to the silence that leaves me too much time to think about the things tumbling around in my mind.

      I clear the table and carry the plates into the kitchen and, as I walk in through the door, I stop in my tracks, staring at the window I hadn’t remembered closing yesterday, before I’d gone up for my bath. Because now, when I think about it, when I’d been making the curry, the back door had been open – but not the window.

MONDAY, JULY 27TH

      After Matthew leaves for the rig, I’m unnerved by the sense of abandonment I feel, but I can finally make the phone call I’ve been dreading. I find the piece of paper where I jotted the number down and, as I’m looking for my bag, the phone starts ringing.

      ‘Hello?’

      There’s no reply so I presume whoever it is has lost their signal. I hold on for another ten seconds, then hang up. If it’s Matthew, I know he’ll phone again if he needs to.

      I run upstairs to fetch my purse, push my feet into some shoes and leave the house. I had thought about driving into Browbury or Castle Wells and using one of the payphones there but it seems a bit extreme when there’s one five minutes up the road, near the bus shelter.

      As I approach the payphone, I feel as if someone is watching me. I look to the right and left, then turn and look surreptitiously behind me. But there’s no one around, just a cat sunning itself on a low stone wall. A car drives past; lost in her own thoughts, the woman driver doesn’t even look my way.

      In front of the phone, I read the instructions – because it’s years since I used one – fish for a coin in my purse and with shaking fingers push a pound into the slot. I take out the piece of paper where I jotted down the number to call and punch it into the phone, my heart racing, wondering if I’m doing the right thing. But before I can change my mind, my call is answered.

      ‘It’s about Jane Walters,’ I say breathlessly. ‘I passed her car in Blackwater Lane at eleven-thirty and she was still alive.’

      ‘Thank you for coming forward.’ The woman’s voice is calm. ‘Could I—’ But I’ve already put the phone down.

      I leave quickly, hurrying down the road towards the house, the same uneasy feeling that I’m being watched following me as I go. Once inside, I make myself calm down. There wasn’t anybody watching me, it was only my guilty conscience at doing something secretive that made me think that there was. And because I’ve done what I should have done at the beginning, I begin to feel better about everything.

      After all my hard work on Saturday, there’s nothing left to do in the garden but there’s plenty of housework waiting. With the radio on for company, I drag the hoover upstairs and, armed with polish and cleaning materials, I make a start on the bedrooms. I work methodically, focusing on the task in hand, steering my mind away from Jane. And it works – until the news bulletin comes on at midday:

      ‘Police are appealing to the person who contacted them earlier today with information relating to the murder of Jane Walters to get back in contact with them. Jane Walters was found murdered in her car in the early hours of the eighteenth of July and…’

      I don’t hear any more over the hammering of my heart. It reverberates in my eardrums, making me deaf. I sit down on the bed and take deep, shaky breaths. Why do the police want to speak to me again? I had told them everything I know. I try to squash down the panic rising inside me but it just keeps on coming. Even though nobody knows it was me who made that phone call, the fact the police have made it public means I no longer feel anonymous. Instead, I feel horribly exposed. The police had said something about the person who called them having information in relation to Jane’s murder. It makes it sound as if I told them something important, something vital. If Jane’s killer was listening to the news, he’s bound to feel threatened by my existence. What if he thinks I saw him lurking around Jane’s car that night?

      Horribly agitated, I get to my feet and pace the bedroom, wondering what I should do. As I pass in front of the window, I glance distractedly outside and find myself freezing. There’s a man, a man I haven’t seen before, walking away from our house. Nothing to worry about, except that he must have come from the woods. Nothing to worry about, except that it’s rare to see anybody walking past our house. Driving, yes, walking, no. To go for a walk in the woods, no one would go down Blackwater Lane on foot, not unless they wanted to get run over. The path that leads to the woods starts in the field opposite our house and is well signposted. I watch him until he’s out of sight. He doesn’t hurry, he doesn’t turn around but it does nothing to calm my heart’s furious racing.

      *

      ‘Is Rachel staying with you tonight?’ Matthew asks when he phones me later from the rig. Before leaving this morning, he had suggested I invite her over. I haven’t told him about the man I saw earlier because there’s nothing really to say. Besides, he might call the police, and what would I tell them?

      ‘I saw a man walking away from our house.’

      ‘What did he look like?’

      ‘Average height, average build. I only saw him from behind.’

      ‘Where were you?’

      ‘In the bedroom.’

      ‘What did he do?’

      ‘Nothing.’

      ‘So you didn’t see him do anything suspicious?’

      ‘No. But I think he might have been looking up at the house.’

      ‘You think?’

      ‘Yes.’

      ‘So СКАЧАТЬ