Page 13 of Insomnia

So much for NightNight.

I check the back door handle, rattling it once again to make sure it’s locked. I’ve checked the children, both sleeping. Robert,of course,sleeping. The spare room’s empty. Only me awake.

My reflection glares at me from the window, my face half-obscured by my long hair. I look tired. Desperate. I was determined to leave the lights on this time, to fight the ridiculous feeling that someone is watching me—who would be out in the garden at one in the morning?—but I can’t, and I rush to the light switch and turn it off, squeezing my eyes tight against the suffocating darkness until it fades.

Suffocating.

I go back to the window, my reflection there now barely a ghost, and peer out. I can’t see any lights outside and the clouds are thick and low-lying, making the night a mystery. There is no one there, I tell myself, as my brain simultaneously whispers that there could be anyone there. Although probably not Phoebe. She wouldn’t even come to the front door. What was she doing here earlier? Was she trying to say she was sorry but couldn’t bring herself to? It didn’t look that way. But maybe. Maybe that’s why I can’t sleep.

Why didn’t the NightNight work? Why can’t I sleep?

Very nearly forty. How longbeforedid she stop sleeping?

I put the kettle on and make a chamomile tea. Maybe I should put vodka in it, like Michelle suggested. I stare at the booze cupboard for a moment too long, more tempted than I should be, before turning away.

Shedrank when she didn’t sleep.

The kettle clicks off and I pour and then glance at the back door once more as the tea steeps. It is locked, isn’t it? Yes. Yes. I check again. This is ridiculous. This is—I stop myself before the wordcrazy.This is not crazy. This is a blip. Too much on my mind. Maybe it’s even hormonal. The start of the run-up tothe change. I roll my head around on my shoulders and then sip the hot drink. I look at the clock. Five past two. Creeping closer to Monday morning already.

In the hallway, I pause again by the under-stairs cupboard and crouch, staring at the door.Here there be tygers,I think, although I’m not even sure what that means. I put the mug—still hot against my palm—down, unlock the bolt, and open the door.

Nothing. Just the usual junk. Wellies. A couple of old golf clubs that Robert borrowed from someone and never gave back. Henry hoover shoved in at an awkward angle. I reach in and tidy him away, but then the space I’ve created makes me uncomfortable. It looks like a void that could suck you in and never let you go. It looks likethatcupboard. I go to close the door but pause and my fingers run lightly down the wood on the inside. Rough but undamaged. Nothing scratched into it. A relief.

This is not then. I am not her.

It’s a second relief that when I stand up my drink is still hot. I haven’t crouched there forever this time. I go to my study and close the blinds—nothing to see here—before putting the desk light on. I quickly type Phoebe a text saying sorry for our harsh words and press send on the olive branch before I can change my mind, thenopen my bag and get out my notes, my laptop, and my Dictaphone. I’ve got some letters that need sending out, so I may as well dictate them now and get ahead of myself for tomorrow.

Work is my anchor and within half an hour I’m much calmer, all thoughts ofherif not entirely out of mind, then pushed back into a dusty corner. I lose myself in the minutiae of case notes and then quietly dictate the letters I need Rosemary to send. When I’m done, it’s nearly four and my eyes are burning. I was sure it was only three a few moments ago. Time flies when you’re ending marriages.

I wash my mug and check that I’ve left everything as it was when we went to bed—no one needs to know—and then head quietly upstairs as the birds start singing in the nearly dawn blue sky. I slide in quietly next to Robert and pray for at least an hour’s rest. I close my eyes and sink into oblivion.

12.

EIGHT DAYS UNTIL MY BIRTHDAY

I spot the flat tire as I open the driver’s door, no longer obscured by overgrowing roses. Robert’s not best pleased about coming outside at six to help fit the inflatable spare, but he does, and I watch and pretend to be learning how to do it myself, although I know that everything mechanical-related will forever leave me baffled and a disgrace to the feminist cause.

“Someone’s done that on purpose,” he says. “Look.” I see the cut. He’s right. It’s too clean.

“But why? Who would do that?”

“I bet it’s those kids always hanging around at the cricket pitch. Michelle says most of them have antisocial behavior orders. At least it went flat while you were here. No real harm done.”

No real harm done.He’s not the one who was going to be driving it. “I thought you were going to sort security cameras for outside the house?”

“I will.” He dusts down his hands. “I just haven’t got around to it.”

“Like everything else,” I mutter before I can stop myself. It seems this Monday is not getting off to the best start in our domestic world.Thank god for work,I think as I get in the car, neitherof us giving the other more than a cursory goodbye.Thank god for that.

As I drive, taking it slowly, I wonder if the kids from the supermarket could have done it. When I slept in the car? Or in the night. My address was in my wallet. Did they come back and want to screw me over one more time? That in turn makes me think of the nurse who brought my wallet back. Her face keeps coming back to me. She looked as tired and fed up as I do. A kindred spirit. Maybe lonely too. I cringe at the memory of how rude I was to her. That’s probably the last good deed she’ll do for a while.

The road bumps a little under the inflatable and I slow down even more, my thoughts once again on the vandalized tire. Another thought strikes me. Could it have been Miranda Stockwell? I’m pretty sure she scratched my car and left the note under the windshield. Does she know where I live? She isn’t stable, that’s clear in all the incidents Parker logged and we presented in court. Hundreds of phone calls, abusive messages, telling the police her children had been abducted, breaking into her husband’s house and wrecking it. Has she turned her anger on me now? How far is she capable of going? I need to find out.

Alison is already in, her door left open to make sure I can see she’s working, but I smile and say good morning as I pass and then put my Dictaphone on Rosemary’s desk, and leave a note for her to call someone to come and put a new tire on my car, before grabbing a coffee. I leave the cake in the kitchen with a note for people to help themselves, and then go into my office and slump into my chair, wishing every bone in my body didn’t ache so much.

Resigned, I do what needs to be done and call Parker Stockwell. It’s only seven thirty, but I know his routines. Up at four thirty latest, as a mark of honor, then straight into the gym, and thenworking by seven. So he was probably waking up when I was crawling, exhausted, into bed for my pitiful hour.

“Emma, hello. This is a pleasant way to start a Monday.” He’s smooth in my ear.

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