The Girl on the Train (8 page)

In any case, I forgot. And the next day, we got into a fight. One of the bruising ones. He wanted to know who Craig was, how long I’d been seeing him, where we met, what he did for me that Scott didn’t do. Stupidly, I told Scott that he was a friend from my past, which only made it worse. Kamal asked me if I was afraid of Scott, and I got really pissed off.

‘He’s my husband,’ I snapped. ‘Of course I’m not afraid of him.’

Kamal looked quite shocked. I actually shocked myself. I hadn’t anticipated the force of my anger, the depth of my protectiveness towards Scott. It was a surprise to me, too.

‘There are many women who are frightened of their husbands, I’m afraid, Megan.’ I tried to say something, but he held up his hand to silence me. ‘The behaviour you’re describing – reading your emails, going through your internet browser history – you describe all this as though it is commonplace, as though it is normal. It isn’t, Megan. It isn’t normal to invade someone’s privacy to that degree. It’s what is often seen as a form of emotional abuse.’

I laughed then, because it sounded so melodramatic. ‘It isn’t abuse,’ I told him. ‘Not if you don’t mind. And I don’t. I don’t mind.’

He smiled at me then, a rather sad smile. ‘Don’t you think you should?’ he asked.

I shrugged. ‘Perhaps I should, but the fact is, I don’t. He’s jealous, he’s possessive. That’s the way he is. It doesn’t stop me loving him, and some battles aren’t worth fighting. I’m careful – usually. I cover my tracks, so it isn’t usually an issue.’

He gave a little shake of the head, almost imperceptible.

‘I didn’t think you were here to judge me,’ I said.

When the session ended, I asked him if he wanted to have a drink with me. He said no, he couldn’t, it wouldn’t be appropriate. So I followed him home. He lives in a flat just down the road from the practice. I knocked on his door, and when he opened it, I asked, ‘Is this appropriate?’ I slipped my hand around the back of his neck, stood on tiptoe and kissed him on the mouth.

‘Megan,’ he said, voice like velvet. ‘Don’t. I can’t do this. Don’t.’

It was exquisite, that push and pull, desire and restraint. I didn’t want to let the feeling go, I wanted so badly to be able to hold on to it.

I got up in the early hours of the morning, head spinning, full of stories. I couldn’t just lie there, awake, alone, my mind ticking over all those opportunities which I could take or leave, so I got up and got dressed and started walking. Found myself here. I’ve been walking around and playing things back in my head – he said, she said, temptation, release; if only I could settle on something, choose to stick, not twist. What if the thing I’m looking for can never be found? What if it just isn’t possible?

The air is cold in my lungs, the tips of my fingers are turning blue. Part of me just wants to lie down here, among the leaves, let the cold take me. I can’t. It’s time to go.

It’s almost nine by the time I get back to Blenheim Road and as I turn the corner I see her, coming towards me, pushing the buggy in front of her. The child, for once, is silent. She looks at me and nods and gives me one of those weak smiles, which I don’t return. Usually, I would pretend to be nice, but this morning I feel real, like myself. I feel high, almost like I’m tripping, and I couldn’t fake nice if I tried.

I fell asleep in the afternoon. I woke feverish, panicky. Guilty. I do feel guilty. Just not guilty enough.

I thought about him leaving in the middle of the night, telling me, once again, that this was the last time, the very last time, we can’t do this again. He was getting dressed, pulling on his jeans. I was lying on the bed and I laughed, because that’s what he said last time, and the time before, and the time before that. He shot me a look. I don’t know how to describe it, it wasn’t anger, exactly, not contempt – it was a warning.

I feel uneasy. I walk around the house; I can’t settle, I feel as though someone else has been here while I was sleeping. There’s nothing out of place, but the house feels different, as though things have been touched, subtly shifted out of place, and as I walk around I feel as though there’s someone else here, always just out of my line of sight. I check the French doors to the garden three times, but they’re locked. I can’t wait for Scott to get home. I need him.

I’
M ON THE
8.04, but I’m not going into London. I’m going to Witney instead. I’m hoping that being there will jog my memory, that I’ll get to the station and I’ll see everything clearly, I’ll know. I don’t hold out much hope, but there is nothing else I can do. I can’t call Tom. I’m too ashamed, and in any case, he’s made it clear. He wants nothing more to do with me.

Megan is still missing; she’s been gone more than sixty hours now and the story is becoming national news. It was on the BBC website and MailOnline this morning; there were a few snippets mentioning it on other sites, too.

I printed out both the BBC and
Mail
stories; I have them with me. From them I have gleaned the following:

Megan and Scott argued on Saturday evening. A neighbour reported hearing raised voices. Scott admitted that they argued, and said that he believed his wife had gone to spend the night with a friend, Tara Epstein, who lives in Corly.

Megan never got to Tara’s house. Tara says the last time she saw Megan was on Friday afternoon at their pilates class. (I knew Megan would do pilates.) According to Ms Epstein, ‘She seemed fine, normal. She was in a good mood, she was talking about doing something special for her thirtieth birthday next month.’

Megan was seen by one witness walking towards Witney train station at around seven fifteen on Saturday evening.

Megan has no family in the area. Both her parents are deceased.

Megan is unemployed. She used to run a small art gallery in Witney, but it closed down in April last year. (I knew Megan would be arty.)

Scott is a self-employed IT consultant. (I can’t bloody believe Scott is an IT consultant.)

Megan and Scott have been married for three years; they have been living in the house on Blenheim Road since January 2012.

According to the
Daily Mail
, their house is worth £400,000.

Reading this, I know that things look bad for Scott. Not just because of the argument, either; it’s just the way things are: when something bad happens to a woman, the police look at the husband or the boyfriend first. However, in this case, the police don’t have all the facts. They’re only looking at the husband, presumably because they don’t know about the boyfriend.

It could be that I am the only person who knows that the boyfriend exists.

I scrabble around in my bag for a scrap of paper. On the back of a card slip for two bottles of wine, I write down a list of most likely possible explanations for the disappearance of Megan Hipwell:

1. She has run off with her boyfriend, who from here on in I will refer to as B.

2. B has harmed her.

3. Scott has harmed her.

4. She has simply left her husband and gone to live elsewhere.

5. Someone other than B or Scott has harmed her.

I think the first possibility is most likely, and four is a strong contender, too, because Megan is an independent, wilful woman, I’m sure of it. And if she were having an affair, she might need to get away to clear her head, mightn’t she? Five does not seem especially likely, since murder by a stranger isn’t all that common.

The bump on my head is throbbing, and I can’t stop thinking about the argument I saw, or imagined, or dreamed about, on Saturday night. As we pass Megan and Scott’s house, I look up. I can hear the blood pulsing in my head. I feel excited. I feel afraid. The windows of number fifteen, reflecting morning sunshine, look like sightless eyes.

I’m just settling into my seat when my phone rings. It’s Cathy. I let it go to voicemail.

She leaves a message: ‘Hi Rachel, just phoning to make sure you’re OK.’ She’s worried about me, because of the thing with the taxi. ‘I just wanted to say that I’m sorry, you know, about the other day, what I said about moving out. I shouldn’t have. I overreacted. You can stay as long as you want to.’ There’s a long pause and then she says, ‘Give me a ring, OK? And come straight home, Rach, don’t go to the pub.’

I don’t intend to. I wanted a drink at lunchtime; I was desperate for one after what happened in Witney this morning. I didn’t have one though, because I had to keep a clear head. It’s been a long time since I’ve had anything worth keeping a clear head for.

It was so strange, this morning, my trip to Witney. I felt as though I hadn’t been there in ages, although of course it’s only been a few days. It may as well have been a completely different place, though, a different station in a different town. I was a different person to the one who went there on Saturday night. Today I was stiff and sober, hyper-aware of the noise and the light and fear of discovery.

I was trespassing. That’s what it felt like this morning, because it’s their territory now, it’s Tom and Anna’s and Scott and Megan’s. I’m the outsider, I don’t belong there, and yet everything is so familiar to me. Down the concrete steps at the station, right past the newspaper kiosk into Roseberry Avenue, half a block to the end of the T-junction, to the right the archway leading to a dank pedestrian underpass beneath the track, and to the left Blenheim Road, narrow and tree-lined, flanked with its handsome Victorian terraces. It feels like coming home: not just any home but a childhood home, a place left behind a lifetime ago; it’s the familiarity of walking up stairs and knowing exactly which one is going to creak.

The familiarity isn’t just in my head, it’s in my bones; it’s muscle memory. This morning, as I walked past the blackened tunnel mouth, the entrance to the underpass, my pace quickened. I didn’t have to think about it because I always walk a little faster on that section. Every night, coming home, especially in winter, I used to pick up the pace, glancing quickly to the right, just to make sure. There was never anyone there – not on any of those nights and not today – and yet I stopped dead as I looked into the darkness this morning, because I could suddenly see myself. I could see myself a few metres in, slumped against the wall, my head in my hands, and both head and hands smeared with blood.

My heart thudding in my chest, I stood there, morning commuters stepping around me as they continued on their way to the station, one or two turning to look at me as they passed, as I stood stock still. I didn’t know – don’t know – if it was real. Why would I have gone into the underpass? What reason would I have had to go down there, where it’s dark and damp and stinks of piss?

I turned around and headed back to the station. I didn’t want to be there any longer; I didn’t want to go to Scott and Megan’s front door. I wanted to get away from there. Something bad happened there, I know it did.

I paid for my ticket and walked quickly up the station steps to the other side of the platform, and as I did it came to me again in a flash: not the underpass this time, but the steps; stumbling on the steps and a man taking my arm, helping me up. The man from the train, with the reddish hair. I could see him, a vague picture but no dialogue. I could remember laughing – at myself, or at something he said. He was nice to me, I’m sure of it. Almost sure. Something bad happened, but I don’t think it had anything to do with him.

I got on the train and went into London. I went to the library and sat at a computer terminal, looking for stories about Megan. There was a short piece on the
Telegraph
website which said that ‘a man in his thirties is helping police with their enquiries’. Scott, presumably. I can’t believe he would have hurt her. I
know
that he wouldn’t. I’ve seen them together; I know what they’re like together. They gave a Crimestoppers number too, which you can ring if you have information. I’m going to call it on the way home, from a pay phone. I’m going to tell them about B, about what I saw.

My phone rings just as we’re getting into Ashbury. It’s Cathy again. Poor girl, she really is worried about me.

‘Rach? Are you on the train? Are you on your way home?’ She sounds anxious.

‘Yes, I’m on my way,’ I tell her. ‘I’ll be fifteen minutes.’

‘The police are here, Rachel,’ she says, and my entire body goes cold. ‘They want to talk to you.’

Megan is still missing, and I have lied – repeatedly – to the police.

I was in a panic by the time I got back to the flat last night. I tried to convince myself that they’d come to see me about my accident with the taxi, but that didn’t make sense. I’d spoken to police at the scene – it was clearly my fault. It had to be something to do with Saturday night. I must have done something. I must have committed some terrible act and blacked it out.

I know it sounds unlikely. What could I have done? Gone to Blenheim Road, attacked Megan Hipwell, disposed of her body somewhere and then forgotten all about it? It sounds ridiculous. It
is
ridiculous. But I know something happened on Saturday. I knew it when I looked into that dark tunnel under the railway line, my blood turning to ice water in my veins.

Blackouts happen, and it isn’t just a matter of being a bit hazy about getting home from the club or forgetting what it was that was so funny when you were chatting in the pub. It’s different. Total black; hours lost, never to be retrieved.

Tom bought me a book about it. Not very romantic, but he was tired of listening to me tell him how sorry I was in the morning when I didn’t even know what I was sorry for. I think he wanted me to see the damage I was doing, the kind of things I might be capable of. It was written by a doctor, but I’ve no idea whether it was accurate: the author claimed that blacking out wasn’t simply a matter of forgetting what had happened, but having no memories to forget in the first place. His theory was that you get into a state where your brain no longer makes short-term memories. And while you’re there, in deepest black, you don’t behave as you usually would, because you’re simply reacting to the very last thing that you
think
happened, because – since you aren’t making memories – you might not actually know what the last thing that happened really was. He had anecdotes, too, cautionary tales for the blacked-out drinker: there was a guy in New Jersey who got drunk at a fourth of July party. Afterwards, he got into his car, drove several miles in the wrong direction on the motorway and ploughed into a van carrying seven people. The van burst into flames and six people died. The drunk guy was fine. They always are. He had no memory of getting into his car.