Page 23 of The Last One to See Him

‘Nothing. I’ll go and make sure Thomas is getting ready.’

‘It’s still strange coming in here when I don’t live here any more,’ Ellis says. ‘And I’m worried about you. You don’t seem okay.’

Kate turns back, opening her mouth to tell him what’s been going on, but she thinks better of it. Like Rowan, he will tell her to go to the police. ‘I’m fine,’ she says, disappearing upstairs before he can question her further.

At the door, Kate hugs Thomas, clutching him tighter than usual, reluctant to let go. ‘Good luck today,’ she says, as Thomas pulls away.

Ellis pauses and looks back at her. Whatever it is he wants to say, he changes his mind and ushers Thomas outside.

Once they’ve gone, Kate grabs her laptop and sits on the sofa, googling locksmiths. She manages to get someone to come in the afternoon, but the promise of new locks does little to ease her anxiety.

Before shutting down her laptop, Kate googles Jamie Archer again, as she’s done countless times over the last week. There’s still barely any mention of him, and the police haven’t made any arrests. And there’s no mention of him having a wife or son, which leads Kate to believe Jamie when he said he and Harper were separated. Kate’s a good judge of character – she didn’t detect at all that Jamie was lying. In contrast to this, everything Harper says feels laced with lies. And there’s still no trace of Harper online.

Who would want Jamie dead? A disgruntled ex-wife? Kate might have been able to accept and move on from her husband’s affair with dignity, but not everyone can do that.

Kate’s walks to the kitchen to stretch her legs. Standing by the kitchen doors, watching the pattering of rain on the patio, she pulls her phone from her pocket and makes a call she never thought she’d make. A call she doesn’t want to make.

There’s no answer, only a computerised voice telling her the person she’s calling isn’t available. Kate takes a deep breath. ‘It’s me. We need to talk.’

Her heart pounds in her chest as she ends the call. Has she just made a huge mistake?

Just before lunch, Aleena messages, asking if they can meet this afternoon, telling Kate she won’t take no for an answer. Kate politely fobs her off, telling her friend that it’s her weekend with Thomas, and there’s no reply – there is a limit to what Aleena will put up with.

The locksmith arrives and Kate watches him as he works. She feels safer being in the presence of this stranger, someone who has nothing to do with Jamie, or Kate’s past. But while he makes small talk, asking her how she came to lose her keys, she silently urges him to hurry up and finish.

Once he’s handed her two sets of new keys and she shuts the door behind him, relief floods over her. Whoever was in her house last night won’t be able to get in again. She needs to get a burglar alarm. And a doorbell camera. Whatever it takes to protect her home, and her son.

In the kitchen, Kate glances at the calendar to check the week ahead. Her blood runs cold at the sight of the unfamiliar entry marked on Monday’s date:

Jamie’s 36th birthday.

ELEVEN

2013

It’s past one a.m. and Jamie hasn’t come home. Harper paces their tiny flat, listening for the sound of his key in the door. Her swollen stomach feels heavy and tight, ready to thrust her baby out any day now. Her due date is a month away but the baby will never hold on until then, she’s sure of it. And she’d told Jamie that morning that she felt the baby might come any day; he’d hardly paid attention, consumed with something else that’s been clouding his mind for months now.

Rubbing her stomach, she grabs her phone and calls Jamie again. Straight away she gets his voicemail:Hi, this is Jamie. Leave a message and I promise I’ll get back to you.

With a sickening lurch in her stomach, Harper ends the call, immediately texting him again.Where are you? Getting worried. The baby feels weird.

He’d said he was going for drinks after work with a few colleagues, but even if he stayed until closing, he should have been back by now. And Jamie never turns off his phone. The baby kicks so forcefully that Harper has to sit. ‘You’re sensing my anxiety, aren’t you?’ she says aloud, rubbing her stomach again as the baby thrashes beneath her hand. She’s read every book she could find about what to expect during pregnancy, and how to nurture and care for her unborn child, so she knows she needs to get a grip on her fear. ‘I am calm,’ she says, taking a deep breath. ‘I am calm.’ But the bubbles in her stomach are still there, ignoring the messages her mind is attempting to send.

She flicks through her phone until she finds Sam’s number. She’s not sure if he’ll know anything about Jamie’s whereabouts, but he’s the only one of his friends whose number she knows.

‘Hello?’ Sam’s voice is heavy with sleep.

‘Jamie hasn’t come home,’ she says without preamble.

‘Oh.’ There’s a brief pause. ‘Jamie?’

‘Yes. Jamie. This is Harper. He went out with friends after work and he hasn’t come home. I’m worried – he’s never done this before.’

‘Oh, look, um, I don’t know what to tell you.’ Sam’s voice fades, as if he’s holding the phone away from his ear.

‘Have you heard from him today?’ Harper asks. ‘I know how close you are. Did he mention anything?’ Harper’s words are gushing out of her; she’s not convinced she’s making sense. And all the while her stomach stretches and throbs.

Silence again, so intense that Harper is sure she can hear her own heartbeat.

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