And that had been fine until last night, because there was no way to rationalise that behaviour. Nothing had scared her that much since the time, soon after moving to London, she’d left a club on her own at 3am and had stupidly taken a shortcut through an industrial estate. A man had been walking behind her, his footsteps getting quicker and louder, until Sinead bolted, fleeing the scene before anything bad could happen. She ran fast back then, but now she was a sitting duck.
None of it made sense. Why was he so angry about Gwen having his phone number? Fair enough; he had asked her not to give it out, but still – talk about a massive overreaction. He was acting like a jilted lover – only now Sinead couldn’t imagine him ever having been in a relationship with anyone. And where the fuck was this wife of his? So many questions were still unanswered.
A full bladder compelled her to get to the toilet. Sinead budged the chair away from the door and opened it fractionally, gripping the handle tight, ready to slam it shut. She put her ear to the gap between door and frame. The bungalow was quiet. Too quiet maybe? She opened the door enough so that she could ease herself into the hall. She froze, looking over at Elliot’s half-open bedroom door. That was unusual for a start; he always left it closed. Sinead creaked along the hall until she was outside his room. She looked back the way she came, expecting him to pop out from the living room, but she heard nothing and so lifted her right stick and prodded the bedroom door. Nobody was there. She went back along the hall to the living room and peered round the corner, through the open entrance into the kitchen.
‘Elliot?’ she called out. She anxiously bit her lower lip and counted to ten in her head. Satisfied that she was alone, Sinead hurried to the bathroom.
Afterwards, she hobbled down to the front window and peeked out onto the driveway. The car was gone. She stood there a moment, deep in thought. Looking at the bookcase.
Where was that book Gwen had given her?
Sinead stood in front of the huge collection. She attempted to recall the novel’s title. Her finger trailed along the book spines. She pulled one out: Moby Dick. No, not that one. The one she was looking for was old, but not that old. She started up again, finger running along the shelf, picking out books: A Game of Thrones was too thick; the one she wanted was definitely thinner. She remembered it didn’t feel heavy. She picked out another, but I Am Legend was too slim and the artwork didn’t match her faded memory.
What the fuck was it called? Hundreds of paperbacks lined those eight floor-to-ceiling shelves, and they were in no kind of order. For some reason she thought of Matt Damon, but didn’t know how that helped. More books were yanked out, checked and slammed back into place: Trainspotting, The Catcher in the Rye, The Longest Fight, The Spy Who Came in from the Cold, a biography of John Lennon. The search continued. Pulling out books, checking the jackets and slamming them back in the shelves.
Come on. Think, Sinead, think! What was it called? Matt Damon. The Something Mr Damon. Why did she think it was something to do with him? She stopped pulling out books, stepped back and read the spines. Heidi would know the title – she’d studied English Literature. Great idea. D’you want to phone a friend, Sinead?
And then suddenly there it was right in front of her: The Talented Mr Ripley. The title chimed with her memory. Sinead snatched it out from the shelf. This was it. The Matt Damon film had been on telly late one night, but she had conked out early on and woken up as the end credits played. She skim-read the blurb on the back cover. It was a story about a sociopathic murderer. Brilliant – just what she wanted to read about.
Sinead flicked through the pages. In the middle of the book, secured into the spine, was a photograph, printed onto a postcard. She plucked it out. The photo showed a small group of three women and two men, crammed onto a sofa. She looked across the room and did a double take: the people were sitting on that very same sofa in this very same living room.
Elliot was at the edge of frame, perched on the armrest, nearly cropped out of the picture. Gwen sat centrally, next to a nerdy-looking man with a moustache. He wore a fisherman’s jumper and corduroy trousers. The other two women were on either side of them; a horsey-faced blonde with glasses and someone wearing a purple bandana and big hoop earrings. Sinead checked Elliot again; as always his face was completely inscrutable. Everyone else was smiling.
Sinead flipped the photo over. A couple of lines were written in blue biro ink:
Happy memories – You’d just grown that moustache for Movember! Miss you Elliot, hope you’re well – Gwen x
She read the lines again.
Moustache…? What. The. Actual. Fuck.
She scrutinised the photo once more, trying to make sense of the note. Elliot didn’t have a moustache – not then and not now. The man next to Gwen had the moustache. The man in the fisherman’s jumper and corduroy trousers…
Sinead flung open the wardrobe doors. She searched through the hangars, yanking them along the rail, but there was no fisherman’s jumper and no corduroys. She looked down at the shoes: no size 11 hiking boots either. They had definitely been there; she had seen them with her own eyes. Her mind wasn’t playing tricks. And Elliot – the Elliot she knew – was clean-shaven in the photograph. She slammed the wardrobe doors shut with such force that they bounced open again.
Blood rushed to her head. She was trembling; she felt detached from her own body. Dozens of confusing memories flooded her mind. All the little details about Elliot she had ignored, denied, dismissed. Overloaded with conflicting information, her brain flipped. Her vision started blurring. Sinead was spinning out of control. She was tightening her grip on the crutch handles, steadying herself against the wardrobe, trying to catch her breath, hyperventilating.
Sinead tried to run from the room, but her legs buckled. She fell down, landing hard on her side. She groaned and rolled onto her front. Slowly, she dragged herself out into the hall. She lay there thinking she was going to die.
31
The appointment was scheduled for three fifty, but Sinead had arrived much earlier. It was now half four and she was still waiting to be seen. It was a standard NHS delay, but Sinead had no awareness of time. The shock hadn’t worn off yet and it probably never would. She sat on a green plastic chair, chewing her fingernails and staring off into the middle distance. Next to her on a small table were three dog-eared magazines that she hadn’t even picked up. The panic attack in the bungalow had lasted twenty agonising minutes before she’d managed to get up from the floor. She had got dressed, quickly packed some things in her backpack and left the house, spending the next few hours in a coffee shop, wondering what the hell she was supposed to do.
A Google search for Elliot Sheeny had yielded nothing useful. Several men of that name existed in the US, Australia, Canada, Ireland, South Africa and elsewhere, but none of those with online photos looked like the man with the moustache. Sinead had trawled public profiles on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and LinkedIn; again with no luck. The only viable lead she’d found was a South London-based proofreader advertising his services on a community forum three years ago. There was a link to his website, but when she clicked through, the page was a 404 error: no longer available. On Facebook she found a Gwen Francombe, but the account was private and the profile picture was of a cat. Sinead had sent a friend request with a message asking if she was the woman she’d met at the bungalow. So far there had been no reply.