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+“You can’t, all right? You can’t help me. No one can help me. My wife is dead, and the police think
+I killed her.” His voice is rising, spots of colour appear on his cheeks. “They think I killed her.”
+“But . . . Kamal Abdic . . .”
+The chair crashes against the kitchen wall with such force that one of the legs splinters away. I
+jump back in fright, but Scott has barely moved. His hands are back at his sides, balled into fists. I can
+see the veins under his skin.
+“Kamal Abdic,” he says, teeth gritted, “is no longer a suspect.” His tone is even, but he is
+struggling to restrain himself. I can feel the anger vibrating off him. I want to get to the front door,
+but he is in my way, blocking my path, blocking out what little light there was in the room.
+“Do you know what he’s been saying?” he asks, turning away from me to pick up the chair. Of
+course I don’t, I think, but I realize once again that he’s not really talking to me. “Kamal’s got all sorts
+of stories. Kamal says that Megan was unhappy, that I was a jealous, controlling husband, a—what
+was the word?—an emotional abuser.” He spits the words out in disgust. “Kamal says Megan was
+afraid of me.”
+“But he’s—”
+“He isn’t the only one. That friend of hers, Tara—she says that Megan asked her to cover for her
+sometimes, that Megan wanted her to lie to me about where she was, what she was doing.”
+He places the chair back at the table and it falls over. I take a step towards the hallway, and he looks
+at me then. “I am a guilty man,” he says, his face a twist of anguish. “I am as good as convicted.”
+He kicks the broken chair aside and sits down on one of the three remaining good ones. I hover,
+unsure. Stick or twist? He starts to talk again, his voice so soft I can barely hear him. “Her phone was
+in her pocket,” he says. I take a step closer to him. “There was a message on it from me. The last thing
+I ever said to her, the last words she ever read, were Go to hell you lying bitch.”
+His chin on his chest, his shoulders start to shake. I am close enough to touch him. I raise my hand
+and, trembling, put my fingers lightly on the back of his neck. He doesn’t shrug me away.
+“I’m sorry,” I say, and I mean it, because although I’m shocked to hear the words, to imagine that
+he could speak to her like that, I know what it is to love someone and to say the most terrible things to
+them, in anger or anguish. “A text message,” I say. “It’s not enough. If that’s all they have . . .”
+“It’s not, though, is it?” He straightens up then, shrugging my hand away from him. I walk back
+around the table and sit down opposite him. He doesn’t look up at me. “I have a motive. I didn’t
+behave . . . I didn’t react the right way when she walked out. I didn’t panic soon enough. I didn’t call
+her soon enough.” He gives a bitter laugh. “And there is a pattern of abusive behaviour, according to
+Kamal Abdic.” It’s then that he looks up at me, that he sees me, that a light comes on. Hope. “You . . .
+you can talk to the police. You can tell them that it’s a lie, that he’s lying. You can at least give another
+side of the story, tell them that I loved her, that we were happy.”
+I can feel panic rising in my chest. He thinks I can help him. He is pinning his hopes on me and all I
+have for him is a lie, a bloody lie.
+“They won’t believe me,” I say weakly. “They don’t believe me. I’m an unreliable witness.”
+The silence between us swells and fills the room; a fly buzzes angrily against the French doors.
+Scott picks at the dried blood on his cheek, I can hear his nails scraping against his skin. I push my
+chair back, the legs scraping on the tiles, and he looks up.
+“You were here,” he says, as though the piece of information I gave him fifteen minutes ago is
+only now sinking in. “You were in Witney the night Megan went missing?”
+I can barely hear him above the blood thudding in my ears. I nod.
+“Why didn’t you tell the police that?” he asks. I can see the muscle tic in his jaw.
+“I did. I did tell them that. But I didn’t have . . . I didn’t see anything. I don’t remember anything.”
+He gets to his feet, walks over to the French doors and pulls back the curtain. The sunshine is
+momentarily blinding. Scott stands with his back to me, his arms folded.
+“You were drunk,” he says matter-of-factly. “But you must remember something. You must—that’s
+why you keep coming back here, isn’t it?” He turns around to face me. “That’s it, isn’t it? Why you
+keep contacting me. You know something.” He’s saying this as though it’s fact: not a question, not an
+accusation, not a theory. “Did you see his car?” he asks. “Think. Blue Vauxhall Corsa. Did you see it?”
+I shake my head and he throws his arms up in frustration. “Don’t just dismiss it. Really think. What did
+you see? You saw Anna Watson, but that doesn’t mean anything. You saw—come on! Who did you
+see?”
+Blinking into the sunlight, I try desperately to piece together what I saw, but nothing comes.
+Nothing real, nothing helpful. Nothing I could say out loud. I was in an argument. Or perhaps I
+witnessed an argument. I stumbled on the station steps, a man with red hair helped me up—I think that
+he was kind to me, although now he makes me feel afraid. I know that I had a cut on my head, another
+on my lip, bruises on my arms. I think I remember being in the underpass. It was dark. I was
+frightened, confused. I heard voices. I heard someone call Megan’s name. No, that was a dream. That
+wasn’t real. I remember blood. Blood on my head, blood on my hands. I remember Anna. I don’t
+remember Tom. I don’t remember Kamal or Scott or Megan.
+He is watching me, waiting for me to say something, to offer him some crumb of comfort, but I
+have none.
+“That night,” he says, “that’s the key time.” He sits back down at the table, closer to me now, his
+back to the window. There is a sheen of sweat on his forehead and his upper lip, and he shivers as
+though with fever. “That’s when it happened. They think that’s when it happened. They can’t be
+sure . . .” He tails off. “They can’t be sure. Because of the condition . . . of the body.” He takes a deep
+breath. “But they think it was that night. Or soon after.” He’s back on autopilot, speaking to the room,
+not to me. I listen in silence as he tells the room that the cause of death was head trauma, her skull was
+fractured in several places. No sexual assault, or at least none that they could confirm, because of her
+condition. Her condition, which was ruined.
+When he comes back to himself, back to me, there is fear in his eyes, desperation.
+“If you remember anything,” he says, “you have to help me. Please, try to remember, Rachel.” The
+sound of my name on his lips makes my stomach flip, and I feel wretched.
+On the train, on the way home, I think about what he said, and I wonder if it’s true. Is the reason that
+I can’t let go of this trapped inside my head? Is there some knowledge I’m desperate to impart? I
+know that I feel something for him, something I can’t name and shouldn’t feel. But is it more than
+that? If there’s something in my head, then maybe someone can help me get it out. Someone like a
+psychiatrist. A therapist. Someone like Kamal Abdic.
+T UESDAY, AUGUST 6, 2013
+MORNING
+I’ve barely slept. All night, I lay awake thinking about it, turning it over and over in my mind. Is this
+stupid, reckless, pointless? Is it dangerous? I don’t know what I’m doing. I made an appointment
+yesterday morning to see Dr. Kamal Abdic. I rang his surgery and spoke to a receptionist, asked for
+him by name. I might have been imagining it, but I thought she sounded surprised. She said he could
+see me today at four thirty. So soon? My heart battering my ribs, my mouth dry, I said that would be
+fine. The session costs £75. That £300 from my mother is not going to last very long.
+Ever since I made the appointment, I haven’t been able to think of anything else. I’m afraid, but I’m
+excited, too. I can’t deny that there’s a part of me that finds the idea of meeting Kamal thrilling.
+Because all this started with him: a glimpse of him and my life changed course, veered off the tracks.
+The moment I saw him kiss Megan, everything changed.
+And I need to see him. I need to do something, because the police are only interested in Scott. They
+had him in for questioning again yesterday. They won’t confirm it, of course, but there’s footage on
+the Internet: Scott, walking into the police station, his mother at his side. His tie was too tight, he
+looked strangled.
+Everyone speculates. The newspapers say that the police are being more circumspect, that they
+cannot afford to make another hasty arrest. There is talk of a botched investigation, suggestions that a
+change in personnel may be required. On the Internet, the talk about Scott is horrible, the theories
+wild, disgusting. There are screen grabs of him giving his first tearful appeal for Megan’s return, and
+next to them are pictures of killers who had also appeared on television, sobbing, seemingly
+distraught at the fate of their loved ones. It’s horrific, inhuman. I can only pray that he never looks at
+this stuff. It would break his heart.
+So, stupid and reckless I may be, but I am going to see Kamal Abdic, because unlike all the
+speculators, I have seen Scott. I’ve been close enough to touch him, I know what he is, and he isn’t a
+murderer.
+EVENING
+My legs are still trembling as I climb the steps to Corly station. I’ve been shaking like this for hours,
+it must be the adrenaline, my heart just won’t slow down. The train is packed—no chance of a seat
+here, it’s not like getting on at Euston, so I have to stand, midway through a carriage. It’s like a
+sweatbox. I’m trying to breathe slowly, my eyes cast down to my feet. I’m just trying to get a handle
+on what I’m feeling.
+Exultation, fear, confusion and guilt. Mostly guilt.
+It wasn’t what I expected.
+By the time I got to the practice, I’d worked myself up into a state of complete and utter terror: I
+was convinced that he was going to look at me and somehow know that I knew, that he was going to
+view me as a threat. I was afraid that I would say the wrong thing, that somehow I wouldn’t be able to
+stop myself from saying Megan’s name. Then I walked into a doctor ’s waiting room, boring and
+bland, and spoke to a middle-aged receptionist, who took my details without really looking at me. I
+sat down and picked up a copy of Vogue and flicked through it with trembling fingers, trying to focus
+my mind on the task ahead while at the same time attempting to look unremarkably bored, just like
+any other patient.
+There were two others in there: a twentysomething man reading something on his phone and an
+older woman who stared glumly at her feet, not once looking up, even when her name was called by
+the receptionist. She just got up and shuffled off, she knew where she was going. I waited there for
+five minutes, ten. I could feel my breathing getting shallow. The waiting room was warm and airless,
+and I felt as though I couldn’t get enough oxygen into my lungs. I worried that I might faint.
+Then a door flew open and a man came out, and before I’d even had time to see him properly, I
+knew that it was him. I knew the way I knew that he wasn’t Scott the first time I saw him, when he was
+nothing but a shadow moving towards her—just an impression of tallness, of loose, languid
+movement. He held out his hand to me.
+“Ms. Watson?”
+I raised my eyes to meet his and felt a jolt of electricity all the way down my spine. I put my hand
+into his. It was warm and dry and huge, enveloping the whole of mine.
+“Please,” he said, indicating for me to follow him into his office, and I did, feeling sick, dizzy all
+the way. I was walking in her footsteps. She did all this. She sat opposite him in the chair he told me to
+sit in, he probably folded his hands just below his chin the way he did this afternoon, he probably
+nodded at her in the same way, saying, “OK, what would you like to talk to me about today?”
+Everything about him was warm: his hand, when I shook it; his eyes; the tone of his voice. I
+searched his face for clues, for signs of the vicious brute who smashed Megan’s head open, for a
+glimpse of the traumatized refugee who had lost his family. I couldn’t see any. And for a while, I
+forgot myself. I forgot to be afraid of him. I was sitting there and I wasn’t panicking any longer. I
+swallowed hard and tried to remember what I had to say, and I said it. I told him that for four years I’d
+had problems with alcohol, that my drinking had cost me my marriage and my job, it was costing me
+my health, obviously, and I feared it might cost me my sanity, too.
+“I don’t remember things,” I said. “I black out and I can’t remember where I’ve been or what I’ve
+done. Sometimes I wonder if I’ve done or said terrible things, and I can’t remember. And if . . . if
+someone tells me something I’ve done, it doesn’t even feel like me. It doesn’t feel like it was me who
+was doing that thing. And it’s so hard to feel responsible for something you don’t remember. So I
+never feel bad enough. I feel bad, but the thing that I’ve done—it’s removed from me. It’s like it
+doesn’t belong to me.”
+All this came out, all this truth, I just spilled it in front of him in the first few minutes of being in
+his presence. I was so ready to say it, I’d been waiting to say it to someone. But it shouldn’t have been
+him. He listened, his clear amber eyes on mine, his hands folded, motionless. He didn’t look around
+the room or make notes. He listened. And eventually he nodded slightly and said, “You want to take
+responsibility for what you have done, and you find it difficult to do that, to feel fully accountable if
+you cannot remember it?”
+“Yes, that’s it, that’s exactly it.”
+“So, how do we take responsibility? You can apologize—and even if you cannot remember
+committing your transgression, that doesn’t mean that your apology, and the sentiment behind your
+apology, is not sincere.”
+“But I want to feel it. I want to feel . . . worse.”
+It’s an odd thing to say, but I think this all the time. I don’t feel bad enough. I know what I’m
+responsible for, I know all the terrible things I’ve done, even if I don’t remember the details—but I
+feel distanced from those actions. I feel them at one remove.
+“You think that you should feel worse than you do? That you don’t feel bad enough for your
+mistakes?”
+“Yes.”
+Kamal shook his head. “Rachel, you have told me that you lost your marriage, you lost your job—
+do you not think this is punishment enough?”
+I shook my head.
+He leaned back a little in his chair. “I think perhaps you are being rather hard on yourself.”
+“I’m not.”
+“All right. OK. Can we go back a bit? To when the problem started. You said it was . . . four years
+ago? Can you tell me about that time?”
+I resisted. I wasn’t completely lulled by the warmth of his voice, by the softness of his eyes. I
+wasn’t completely hopeless. I wasn’t going to start telling him the whole truth. I wasn’t going to tell
+him how I longed for a baby. I told him that my marriage broke down, that I was depressed, and that
+I’d always been a drinker, but that things just got out of hand.
+“Your marriage broke down, so . . . you left your husband, or he left you, or . . . you left each
+other?”
+“He had an affair,” I said. “He met another woman and fell in love with her.” He nodded, waiting
+for me to go on. “It wasn’t his fault, though. It was my fault.”
+“Why do you say that?”
+“Well, the drinking started before . . .”
+“So your husband’s affair was not the trigger?”
+“No, I’d already started, my drinking drove him away, it was why he stopped . . .”
+Kamal waited, he didn’t prompt me to go on, he just let me sit there, waiting for me to say the
+words out loud.
+“Why he stopped loving me,” I said.
+I hate myself for crying in front of him. I don’t understand why I couldn’t keep my guard up. I
+shouldn’t have talked about real things, I should have gone in there with some totally made-up
+problems, some imaginary persona. I should have been better prepared.
+I hate myself for looking at him and believing, for a moment, that he felt for me. Because he
+looked at me as though he did, not as though he pitied me, but as though he understood me, as though
+I was someone he wanted to help.
+“So then, Rachel, the drinking started before the breakdown of your marriage. Do you think you
+can point to an underlying cause? I mean, not everyone can. For some people, there is just a general
+slide into a depressive or an addicted state. Was there something specific for you? A bereavement,
+some other loss?”
+I shook my head, shrugged. I wasn’t going to tell him that. I will not tell him that.
+He waited for a few moments and then glanced quickly at the clock on his desk.
+“We will pick up next time, perhaps?” he said, and then he smiled and I went cold.
+Everything about him is warm—his hands, his eyes, his voice—everything but the smile. You can
+see the killer in him when he shows his teeth. My stomach a hard ball, my pulse skyrocketing again, I
+left his office without shaking his outstretched hand. I couldn’t stand to touch him.
+I understand, I do. I can see what Megan saw in him, and it’s not just that he’s arrestingly handsome.
+He’s also calm and reassuring, he exudes a patient kindness. Someone innocent or trusting or simply
+troubled might not see through all that, might not see that under all that calm he’s a wolf. I understand
+that. For almost an hour, I was drawn in. I let myself open up to him. I forgot who he was. I betrayed
+Scott, and I betrayed Megan, and I feel guilty about that.
+But most of all, I feel guilty because I want to go back.
+WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 7, 2013
+MORNING
+I had it again, the dream where I’ve done something wrong, where everyone is against me, sides with
+Tom. Where I can’t explain, or even apologize, because I don’t know what the thing is. In the space
+between dreaming and wakefulness, I think of a real argument, long ago—four years ago—after our
+first and only round of IVF failed, when I wanted to try again. Tom told me we didn’t have the money,
+and I didn’t question that. I knew we didn’t—we’d taken on a big mortgage, he had some debts left
+over from a bad business deal his father had coaxed him into pursuing—I just had to deal with it. I just
+had to hope that one day we would have the money, and in the meantime I had to bite back the tears
+that came, hot and fast, every time I saw a stranger with a bump, every time I heard someone else’s
+happy news.
+It was a couple of months after we’d found out that the IVF had failed that he told me about the trip.
+Vegas, for four nights, to watch the big fight and let off some steam. Just him and a couple of his
+mates from the old days, people I had never met. It cost a fortune, I know, because I saw the booking
+receipt for the flight and the room in his email inbox. I’ve no idea what the boxing tickets cost, but I
+can’t imagine they were cheap. It wasn’t enough to pay for a round of IVF, but it would have been a
+start. We had a horrible fight about it. I don’t remember the details because I’d been drinking all
+afternoon, working myself up to confront him about it, so when I did it was in the worst possible way.
+I remember his coldness the next day, his refusal to speak about it. I remember him telling me, in flat
+disappointed tones, what I’d done and said, how I’d smashed our framed wedding photograph, how
+I’d screamed at him for being so selfish, how I’d called him a useless husband, a failure. I remember
+how much I hated myself that day.
+I was wrong, of course I was, to say those things to him, but what comes to me now is that I wasn’t
+unreasonable to be angry. I had every right to be angry, didn’t I? We were trying to have a baby—
+shouldn’t we have been prepared to make sacrifices? I would have cut off a limb if it meant I could
+have had a child. Couldn’t he have forgone a weekend in Vegas?
+I lie in bed for a bit, thinking about that, and then I get up and decide to go for a walk, because if I
+don’t do something I’m going to want to go round to the corner shop. I haven’t had a drink since
+Sunday and I can feel the fight going on within me, the longing for a little buzz, the urge to get out of
+my head, smashing up against the vague feeling that something has been accomplished and that it
+would be a shame to throw it away now.
+Ashbury isn’t really a good place to walk, it’s just shops and suburbs, there isn’t even a decent
+park. I head off through the middle of town, which isn’t so bad when there’s no one else around. The
+trick is to fool yourself into thinking that you’re headed somewhere: just pick a spot and set off
+towards it. I chose the church at the top of Pleasance Road, which is about two miles from Cathy’s flat.
+I’ve been to an AA meeting there. I didn’t go to the local one because I didn’t want to bump into
+anyone I might see on the street, in the supermarket, on the train.
+When I get to the church, I turn around and walk back, striding purposefully towards home, a
+woman with things to do, somewhere to go. Normal. I watch the people I pass—the two men running,
+backpacks on, training for the marathon, the young woman in a black skirt and white trainers, heels in
+her bag, on her way to work—and I wonder what they’re hiding. Are they moving to stop drinking,
+running to stand still? Are they thinking about the killer they met yesterday, the one they’re planning
+to see again?
+I’m not normal.
+I’m almost home when I see it. I’ve been lost in thought, thinking about what these sessions with
+Kamal are actually supposed to achieve: am I really planning to rifle through his desk drawers if he
+happens to leave the room? To try to trap him into saying something revealing, to lead him into
+dangerous territory? Chances are he’s a lot cleverer than I am; chances are he’ll see me coming. After
+all, he knows his name has been in the papers—he must be alert to the possibility of people trying to
+get stories on him or information from him.
+This is what I’m thinking about, head down, eyes on the pavement, as I pass the little Londis shop
+on the right and try not to look at it because it raises possibilities, but out of the corner of my eye I see
+her name. I look up and it’s there, in huge letters on the front of a tabloid newspaper: WAS MEGAN A
+CHILD KILLER?
+ANNA
+• • •
+WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 7, 2013
+MORNING
+I was with the National Childbirth Trust girls at Starbucks when it happened. We were sitting in our
+usual spot by the window, the kids were spreading Lego all over the floor, Beth was trying (yet again)
+to persuade me to join her book club, and then Diane showed up. She had this look on her face, the
+self-importance of someone who is about to deliver a piece of particularly juicy gossip. She could
+barely contain herself as she struggled to get her double buggy through the door.
+“Anna,” she said, her face grave, “have you seen this?” She held up a newspaper with the headline
+WAS MEGAN A CHILD KILLER? I was speechless. I just stared at it and, ridiculously, burst into tears. Evie
+was horrified. She howled. It was awful.
+I went to the loos to clean myself (and Evie) up, and when I got back they were all speaking in
+hushed tones. Diane glanced slyly up at me and asked, “Are you all right, sweetie?” She was enjoying
+it, I could tell.
+I had to leave then, I couldn’t stay. They were all being terribly concerned, saying how awful it
+must be for me, but I could see it on their faces: thinly disguised disapproval. How could you entrust
+your child to that monster? You must be the worst mother in the world.
+I tried to call Tom on the way home, but his phone just went straight to voice mail. I left him a
+message to ring me back as soon as possible—I tried to keep my voice light and even, but I was
+trembling and my legs felt shaky, unsteady.
+I didn’t buy the paper, but I couldn’t resist reading the story online. It all sounds rather vague.
+“Sources close to the Hipwell investigation” claim an allegation has been made that Megan “may have
+been involved in the unlawful killing of her own child” ten years ago. The “sources” also speculate
+that this could be a motive for her murder. The detective in charge of the whole investigation—
+Gaskill, the one who came to speak to us after she went missing—made no comment.
+Tom rang me back—he was in between meetings, he couldn’t come home. He tried to placate me,
+he made all the right noises, he told me it was probably a load of rubbish anyway. “You know you
+can’t believe half the stuff they print in the newspapers.” I didn’t make too much of a fuss, because he
+was the one who suggested she come and help out with Evie in the first place. He must be feeling
+horrible.
+And he’s right. It may not even be true. But who would come up with a story like that? Why would
+you make up a thing like that? And I can’t help thinking, I knew. I always knew there was something
+off about that woman. At first I just thought she was a bit immature, but it was more than that, she was
+sort of absent. Self-involved. I’m not going to lie—I’m glad she’s gone. Good riddance.
+EVENING
+I’m upstairs, in the bedroom. Tom’s watching TV with Evie. We’re not talking. It’s my fault. He
+walked in the door and I just went for him.
+I was building up to it all day. I couldn’t help it, couldn’t hide from it, she was everywhere I looked.
+Here, in my house, holding my child, feeding her, changing her, playing with her while I was taking a
+nap. I kept thinking of all the times I left Evie alone with her, and it made me sick.
+And then the paranoia came, that feeling I’ve had almost all the time I’ve lived in this house, of
+being watched. At first, I used to put it down to the trains. All those faceless bodies staring out of the
+windows, staring right across at us, it gave me the creeps. It was one of the many reasons why I didn’t
+want to move in here in the first place, but Tom wouldn’t leave. He said we’d lose money on the sale.
+At first the trains, and then Rachel. Rachel watching us, turning up on the street, calling us up all the
+time. And then even Megan, when she was here with Evie: I always felt she had half an eye on me, as
+though she were assessing me, assessing my parenting, judging me for not being able to cope on my
+own. Ridiculous, I know. Then I think about that day when Rachel came to the house and took Evie,
+and my whole body goes cold and I think, I’m not being ridiculous at all.
+So by the time Tom came home, I was spoiling for a fight. I issued an ultimatum: we have to leave,
+there’s no way I can stay in this house, on this road, knowing everything that has gone on here.
+Everywhere I look now I have to see not only Rachel, but Megan, too. I have to think about everything
+she touched. It’s too much. I said I didn’t care whether we got a good price for the house or not.
+“You will care when we’re forced to live in a much worse place, when we can’t make our
+mortgage payments,” he said, perfectly reasonably. I asked whether he couldn’t ask his parents to help
+out—they have plenty of money—but he said he wouldn’t ask them, that he’d never ask them for
+anything again, and he got angry then, said he didn’t want to talk about it anymore. It’s because of
+how his parents treated him when he left Rachel for me. I shouldn’t even have mentioned them, it
+always pisses him off.
+But I can’t help it. I feel desperate, because now every time I close my eyes I see her, sitting there at
+the kitchen table with Evie on her lap. She’d be playing with her and smiling and chattering, but it
+never seemed real, it never seemed as if she really wanted to be there. She always seemed so happy to
+be handing Evie back to me when it was time for her to go. It was almost as though she didn’t like the
+feel of a child in her arms.