Page 66 of The World Outside My Window

She scurries back through to the living room where Marjorie is munching on yet another biscuit. ‘Mum, stop eating biscuits before dinner!’

‘Well, you put them there,’ she says, popping the rest in her mouth and giving a satisfied smack of her lips.

‘For our guests.’

‘Humph. Well, anyway. They both seemed lovely, didn’t they?’

‘Yeah.’

Marjorie looks at her. ‘Oh, Faye, what’s wrong? You never seem to like anyone.’

Faye shrugs. ‘I do. I like lots of people. I just – I don’t know. They made me feel uncomfortable.’

‘Well, I thought they were nice. And I thought the reading went pretty well, didn’t you?’

Faye shrugs again. ‘Yes, Mum.’ She clears the cups from the table and walks towards the kitchen. ‘Anyway, I’m going to the shop now. I’ll see you later.’

And before her mother can object, she closes the door behind her, ignoring the muffled cries for her not to leave her on her own.

* * *

It takes at least ten minutes for Laura to feel like speaking once she gets back to the safety of her own home. Debbie plonks a mug of over-strong tea in front of her and sits opposite her at the kitchen table.

‘What do you make of all that, then?’ Debbie says, slurping her tea noisily.

Laura rubs her eye and cups her hands round her mug. ‘I—’ She swallows. ‘Honestly, I have no idea. I mean, Jim had atarotreading? Twice? I can’t…’ She stops, lost for words.

Debbie nods. ‘That’s exactly what I thought too. It doesn’t strike me as a very Jim thing to do.’

‘It isn’t. I’ve never known him to take any interest in things like that. Not ever. It’s – it’s really odd.’

‘Maybe he was desperate.’

Laura flinches. ‘Desperate? What about?’

Debbie pulls the sheet of paper with the map and the notes they’ve made on it and taps it gently. ‘So far, the picture we’re building up of Jim’s state of mind isn’t looking too promising, is it?’ She jabs the biro onto next door. ‘Let’s assume for a minute, for the sake of argument, that everything each person on this street has told you is fact.’

Laura nods weakly.

‘Well, in that case, Jim has a keyring with photos of some mystery children. A keyring that you’ve never seen, by the way.’ She takes a sip of tea and moves the pen on. ‘He referred to you by the wrong name when he was drunk.’ She jabs the next house. ‘Jane seemed to think he’d been married before, he’s been spotted in London and pretended not to know Sonja, and he’s been to Marjorie’s to ask for a tarot reading on more than one occasion. Not to mention the birthday card from the dad you were told was dead…’ She looks up at Laura’s face. ‘If we assume that all of these things are fact – which, of course, they might not be – then it seems as though Jim almost definitely had something to hide.’

Laura buries her face in her hands. Debbie’s right. Of course she is. She’s been so desperate to believe that Jim would never lie to her, or hurt her, that she’s ignored all these alarm bells. But she can see by looking at it now, objectively, that even the way their marriage worked before Jim went missing was unconventional. How many couples have no contact with other people apart from work colleagues? How many wives know literally nothing about their husband’s jobs – and have never thought to push for answers? Has she really been in denial for all these years?

‘You’re right,’ she says. ‘But what the hell do I do about it?’

‘Well, we definitely can’t give up now. It feels as though we’re about to have a breakthrough.’

‘Do you think? I don’t see how.’

‘We’ve still got to find out from Sonja whether she managed to find Jim again – or the man she believes to be Jim.’ She looks up at her friend, and reaches for her hands across the table. ‘We could tell the police what we’ve found?’

Laura shrugs. ‘I doubt they’d take much notice. They haven’t so far.’

Debbie shakes her head. ‘You’re probably right.’

Laura feels her heart dropping, her head filling with cotton wool. There’s so much to take in. What has happened to the man she thought she knew – and if he isn’t the person she married, whoishe?

22

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