Page 24 of Don't Let Him In

She sees him twitch. “What?”

“What was it called?”

He gives her the name of one of the hotels she googled earlier. It’s one of the two that doesn’t have a gym.

She picks up her phone and googles it again. He stares at her questioningly. “There,” she says, pointing at the section at the bottom of the page where it saysOther amenities.“No gym.”

“When did I say the gym was in the hotel?”

“When you told me about it. When I asked how come you’d had time to go to the gym. You said it was on-site.”

He shakes his head slightly. “No,” he says. “I didn’t say that. Why would I say that?”

“I don’t know, Al. But you did.”

“But I didn’t. Of course I didn’t. I used the gym in the shopping center over the road.”

“You definitely said it was in the hotel. That was the whole point of the conversation. Why would I misremember it when you said something so specific?”

“I have no idea. Genuinely. But…” He puts his hand into his jacket pocket and pulls something out. “Ta-da.” He uncurls his fingers. And there inside his hand is his wedding ring.

“Where did you find it?”

“In the car.”

“In the—?”

“Yes. Weird. I know.”

“But you said—”

“Yes. I know. And maybe that was just wishful thinking, because, really, and if I’m being totally honest with you, I wasn’t sure I’d left it at the gym in Glasgow. And the manager said it wasn’t there. So I did a sweep of the car, and there it was, just wedged inside the gearbox.”

Martha shakes her head and sighs. She doesn’t know what to say, how to react. Her head spins.

“It’s good, isn’t it? I thought you’d be happy…”

“Yes. I am happy. I mean, I’m happy it’s not lost. But I don’t know, there’s so much that doesn’t make sense, and I can’t have someone in my life who I can’t trust. I just can’t.”

He flinches and his blue eyes shimmer with hurt. “You don’t trust me?”

“I don’t know, Al. But the way you’ve been recently, the last few weeks, it’s been weird. That’s all.”

She feels herself run out of steam. She feels the promise of the sofa, of wine, of softness and fun and love, begin to overwhelm her. She wants to park her suspicions for now. It’s the ADHD, she tells herself. It’s his stupid job. It’s all the emotional baggage, the death of his fiancée, the death of his mother, the estranged, narcissistic father. He carries a lot of burdens. He’s unusual. She has to look at him as a whole, not just as fragments of behavior. He’s better than any other man she knows.

She needs to give him another chance.

TWENTY-THREEFOUR YEARS EARLIER

This isn’t meant to be happening. Not yet. If Tara makes me leave now, I will have nothing. I will have nowhere. I will be on the streets. I’ve been careless—it’s Martha, she’s got under my skin, made me rush things, made me move too fast, and I thought there’d be time to get more out of this marriage before I abandoned it. But as it is, I have nothing: an overdraft, credit card debts, a stupid £25,000 car.

“I can’t leave, darling,” I say. “Where would I go?”

“That’s not my problem, Jonathan. You came into my life from nowhere, I suppose you’ll just return to nowhere.”

I swallow down the panic. I don’t like the way it makes my voice sound. I have to regain the upper hand here.

“Darling,” I say, softly, lovingly, “I think I understand what’s happening here. I think I know what’s going on. And I can fix it. OK?”

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