Page 49 of The World Outside My Window

I felt myself stiffen. ‘Don’t.’

He pressed his hand against my thigh and I stared at the carpet. ‘I just worry about you, here all by yourself, drinking too much.’

I snapped my head round to look at him. ‘You disappeared, Jim,’ I said.

He nodded. ‘I know.’ He tucked a strand of hair behind my ear. ‘I just wish you wouldn’t drink so much.’ He smiled and reached out for the bottle. ‘Perhaps I should get rid of this.’ He began to stand.

‘No!’ I shouted, surprising even myself. Jim stood in front of me, vodka bottle in his hand. ‘Don’t. I won’t drink it,’ I said. ‘Not now you’re home.’

He studied me for a moment. ‘Okay,’ he relented. ‘But I am hiding it from you from now on.’

I felt my heart sink. If only he knew how much I relied on it to cope. But I didn’t dare let him know what a crutch it had become on the days when I was alone.

As he walked towards the kitchen, taking my lifeline with him, it occurred to me that he hadn’t really explained why he hadn’t called me himself to let me know what had happened. Something about his story felt off, and I couldn’t shake the feeling that there was something he wasn’t telling me.

17

NOW – 7 OCTOBER 1992

The afternoon stretches in front of Laura like a cat sleeping in the sun. Before Jim went missing she filled her days with a monotonous routine of daytime television, housework, drinking and sleeping: anything to make the time pass until Jim returned. She was always in a state of high alert, waiting for something to set her heart racing, and the only way she could calm that anxiety was with alcohol.

Now, she could kill for a glass of vodka, but she’s determined to hold off a bit longer, to wait until it’s at least vaguely evening. Somehow, since she’s started getting herself out of the house, opening up her world again, however little the steps, her normal routine just doesn’t seem enough.

Besides, she has so much to think about, she needs to keep a clear head. She pulls out the street map Debbie drew a couple of weeks ago, and studies the list she’s scribbled down the side. These are the clues she’s gathered so far, and the little snippets she’s picked up keep bouncing round her head like balls in a pinball machine as she struggles to make connections between them. What did Jim mean when he told Jane that Laura would be better off without him? And why did Jane think Jim had been married before?Washe simply being kind by helping her with her divorce papers, or is there something he hasn’t told Laura, as Debbie believes? What about the keyring with the mystery children on it?

She rubs her head. The tension is building and she feels as though her skull might just crack open if she doesn’t get some answers soon.

She stands suddenly. She needs something to keep her busy, and she knows just the thing. She’s going to take Jane’s advice and search through Jim’s stuff. She’s never felt the need before, and would have felt guilty doing it, but it’s becoming more and more obvious that Jim has been keeping things from her, and if she wants to stand any chance of seeing him ever again she really doesn’t have any choice.

She heads up the stairs and into their bedroom and pulls open the wardrobe door. An overwhelming scent of Jim hits her and she feels her legs buckle beneath her. She wasn’t prepared for that and she crouches for a moment, trying to steady herself. She inhales deeply and returns to the wardrobe. Where to start?

She pulls a jacket out and sticks her hands into the pockets. A memory of doing this before, when she thought she’d seen Jim slipping something into his pocket one evening, slides into her mind. She hasn’t thought about that day for ages, and feels sad at her old self, the more confident, self-assured Laura who could get on with life, could leave the house, go to work. Was she really as confident as she remembers, or has time simply blunted the memory of how things were back then?

The pocket is empty, so she moves on to the next jacket, and the next, but there’s nothing. Not an old tissue, or a receipt from a train journey. Damn Jim and his obsessive tidiness. Her pockets would be full of old boiled sweets covered with fluff, ancient cinema tickets, odd slips of paper, half-used lip balms. Not that they would be useful clues, but at least it would give some hint of the person she was.

She spends the next hour pulling out jackets, trousers, even rummaging through Jim’s sock drawer to see if there might be any clue whatsoever. She doesn’t know what she’s expecting to find – it’s not as though something is going to jump out at her and hit her between the eyes with a huge sign on it marked ‘clue’ – but she’s both hoping she will find something, and praying she won’t.

She pulls jumpers, T-shirts, socks and pants from drawers, runs her hand round the back of cupboards; she yanks boxes from under the bed and tips the contents onto the floor, sorting through piles of blankets, well-thumbed cookery books, an old fancy-dress costume, a spare set of chef’s whites, yellowed now and covered in dust – all her old stuff, from her old life, hidden away from sight.

She haphazardly shoves it all back under the bed and stands, brushing dust from her trousers, and casts her gaze around the room. Where should she look next? Where is Jim most likely to have left something useful, something that might lead her to him?

She heads out of the bedroom and turns towards the front of the house, and the smallest of the three bedrooms that Jim quickly commandeered for his own when they moved in. She’s hardly been in here, never really felt the need, but it strikes her now that this would have been the most obvious place to start, and that by not doing so she has been trying to pretend that she isn’t really snooping at all.

All pretence now dropped, she pushes open the bedroom door and steps inside. Unlike the rooms she uses, this one is as neat as a pin, not a thing out of place. Even the pen pot and the telephone on the desk in the corner are lined up perfectly, although covered in a thin, two-week-old layer of dust. It’s almost as though this room is never actually used, but that someone just comes in and cleans it every now and then, like a shrine. She stands in the middle of the carpet and looks round, wondering where to start.

There’s a small desk in the corner, and a filing cabinet behind it. She heads towards it and tests one of the drawers. It’s locked. She frowns. Why would Jim feel the need to lock things away in his own home? She searches the desk to see if she can find a key, pulling open the drawers and peering into pen pots, but there’s nothing. There’s barely anything at all in these drawers bar a calculator, a small, blank notebook, and a new packet of pens. She closes them again and spins round, trying to think where he might keep a key. Perhaps he keeps it on his keyring. In fact, the more she thinks about it, the more likely that seems. If he’s going to lock a cabinet, he must have something to hide, and he knows she’s unlikely to notice an extra key on his keyring.

Just in case, she searches the bookshelves, looking in between books, running her fingers along the top and bottom of them just to make sure there’s nothing hidden anywhere. She checks behind the curtains, along the skirting board and under the chair. Finally, satisfied there’s no filing-cabinet key hidden in here, she slumps onto the leather-backed chair and closes her eyes, trying to decide what to do next. Even though she began this search half-heartedly, feeling guilty that she was even contemplating snooping on her husband, now she’s found the locked filing cabinet she feels determined to get into it, even if only to prove that there’s nothing significant to find.

That’s when it hits her – Jim’s things reveal absolutely nothing about him whatsoever. His suits hanging in the wardrobe, his neat sock drawer, his half-empty drawers, his tidy lines of books on the shelves. Nothing in this room or anywhere else in the house would give you a clue about Jim’s personality – about his love of black and white horror films, or his short-lived career as a rower, or his love of good red wine and eating out in fancy restaurants. It’s as though it’s her home that Jim simply stays in from time to time, leaving a few essential items while the rest of his life is elsewhere. She can’t believe she’s never noticed it before. What does it mean? Is it just the way he is – neat, precise, minimalist – or is there something more to it?

Suddenly galvanised into action, she hurries downstairs and finds a toolbox balanced on a high shelf in the garage. She takes it back upstairs, takes out a screwdriver and a hammer and begins to tap around the filing-cabinet lock. Nothing happens, so she tries sticking a small screwdriver into the lock, but it stops halfway. Rummaging through the toolbox, she tries to think what else might work, but the truth is what does she know about picking locks? Maybe she should speak to Debbie, see if she has any bright ideas.

She sits at Jim’s desk and picks up the phone and dials Debbie’s number. As it rings she studies the framed photo on the desk. It’s of her and Jim from a few years ago, before the attack. She looks happy, relaxed, although she can remember that day, when they went to the Isle of Wight for a long weekend, one of the only holidays they’ve ever had together, and she remembers feeling on edge all weekend because Jim seemed distant, distracted, and disappeared several times to make calls to the office from the phone box round the corner.

There’s no answer, and Laura hangs up despondently. Who else can she ask for help with this? Arthur next door might know how to break a lock, but she doesn’t feel comfortable asking him. She’s fairly certain Jane would be willing to help, given it was her idea, but she doesn’t know her well enough yet to ask. Which leaves only one other person who might help her. She runs downstairs to grab the piece of paper with everyone’s details on, and rings the number printed neatly in the corner. Her heart hammers as it rings; she’s half-hoping there won’t be any answer…

‘Hello?’ Ben is out of breath and she imagines him just back from a run, his skin glistening.

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