Anita poured water into the teapot. ‘You keep checking your phone. Is it something to do with Lucy?’
‘No, not really. It’s just . . .’ The urge to talk to someone was too strong to resist. ‘I’m back in touch with Kirsty.’
Her mouth fell open. ‘Oh, wow. That’s amazing.’
He couldn’t help but grin. ‘Yeah. Well, maybe . . . I’m going to meet her for a coffee when all this is over.’
‘Are you hoping to get back together?’
‘No. I mean . . . That’s not going to happen.’
‘But you’d like it to?’ She handed him a mug of tea.
‘I’m going to see what happens. It will be nice to see her, that’s all.’
He was starting to regret saying anything as Anita asked, ‘Is she with anyone?’
‘No, they split up.’
‘Really? And what’s she doing now? Is she still a paediatric nurse? Or did Brian Mortlake invent that? Kirsty was called Karen in his novel, wasn’t she? I wasn’t sure which details were invented and what was based on real life.’
Jamie frowned. ‘Most of it was real. And, yeah, Kirsty was, and is, a paediatric nurse. She still works in the same hospital.’
He sipped his tea and realised Anita was studying him.
‘What is it?’ he asked.
‘Nothing. Except . . . well, it seems Kirsty emerged from everything relatively unscathed. She went on to have a kid, didn’t she? And she’s still living in the same area, doing the same job. Whereas you fled to the other side of the earth.’
She touched Jamie’s forearm. If he hadn’t been holding the hot tea he would have pulled his arm away. ‘I guess you’re more sensitive than her. My mum always says boys are softer than girls.’
‘I don’t know if that’s true.’
Anita held his gaze. ‘I think it is. We’re the stronger sex.’
‘Deadlier than the male?’
She laughed and removed her hand from his arm. ‘Something like that.’
She exited the kitchen, leaving him bemused. What had she meant by all that? Again, he’d got the impression she was flirting with him. It was disconcerting that she knew so much about him and Kirsty, but then the whole ‘Magpies’ trial’, as the press had called it, was public knowledge, and Brian had made it worse with his novelisation of their lives. It wasn’t surprising Anita had read up on everything. And it didn’t matter if she was coming on to him. He didn’t fancy her, and he was only interested in one woman right now.
Well, two, he thought, eyes drifting to the wall that divided this maisonette from Lucy’s.
Darkness fell. Jamie waited until after midnight and crept out into the garden. All the lights on Lucy’s side of the house were out and what he assumed were her bedroom windows were closed.
With his heart thumping, glancing over his shoulder every few seconds to make sure he wasn’t being watched, Jamie set about digging up all the shrubs Lucy had planted so carefully earlier.
Belle, the cat, sat on the lawn and watched him, and he had the crazy notion she would run into Lucy’s house and tell her what was happening. But Belle did nothing but blink at him.
He left the plants scattered around the lawn and, dizzy with adrenaline, went back inside to wash the soil from his hands.
Anita, who had watched his act of horticultural vandalism through the window, waited in the living room with a bottle of red. A Lana Del Rey album played at low volume.
Jamie took the proffered glass of wine and downed it quickly, hoping it would calm his nerves. He sat on the sofa and Anita sat beside him.
‘What do you think she’ll do?’ she asked. ‘What am I going to say if she comes banging on the door tomorrow morning?’
‘Deny everything,’ he replied.
‘But—’
‘We’re playing her at her own game. What would she do if it were the other way round?’
Anita thought about it. ‘Either she wouldn’t open the door to me, or she’d say it must have been, I don’t know, a stray dog.’
‘Well, there you go.’
Anita leaned over to top up his glass. She was very close; he could feel the heat coming off her body. She smelled of lavender soap, and the scent threw him back into the past: Kirsty coming out of their bathroom in Mount Pleasant Street, wrapped in a towel which she dropped when she reached the bedroom and saw him waiting on the bed . . .
‘What’s the matter?’ Anita asked.
‘Huh?’ He realised, with horror, that he was visibly turned on. He lay an arm across his lap but was sure, from the look on her face, that Anita had noticed. He inched away from her.
Her smile slipped. ‘I’m worried, Jamie. I’m not very good at confrontation.’
He patted her hand. ‘It will be fine. I promise.’
‘Jamie . . .’
He hesitated. ‘Yes?’
He was sure she was going to ask him to kiss her. Instead, she exhaled and said, ‘Nothing. I need to go to bed.’
She vanished from the room like it was filled with a bad smell, leaving him confused, half-aroused and still wide awake.
He poured himself another glass of wine.
He woke up on the sofa, fully dressed, with Anita standing over him, saying his name. His mouth felt like something had crawled into it and died.
‘What time is it?’ he asked, squinting in the morning light.
‘Just gone nine. I overslept. You need to come and look at this.’
She led him to the study at the back of the maisonette, which looked out on to the garden. Jamie expected to see dirt and plants strewn across the lawn, churned earth in the flower beds.
But the mess had been cleaned up, the plants put back into the soil just as they were before. Or, more likely – because none of the plants showed signs of damage – it was as if they had been replaced with new, identical ones.
Six
‘Have you seen Belle?’
It was lunchtime but Jamie wasn’t hungry. His hangover had dragged on through the morning and, even now, it felt as if an icy hand was squeezing his brain. His vision was fuzzy too, a floater bobbing into view every time he blinked, hazy lines framing everything he looked at.
‘No, sorry. When did you last see her?’ he asked in response to Anita’s question. He’d heard her outside, calling Belle’s name and shaking a box of cat treats.
‘Not since last night.’
Jamie went to the window and looked out. It was drizzling, the sky bleached of colour. There had been no sign of Lucy all morning, and no sounds coming from next door.
Anita stood beside him, chewing the skin around her thumbnail. He put a hand on her shoulder and said, ‘I’m sure she’ll turn up soon.’
‘But what if . . .?’
‘Lucy? She would never hurt a cat. She loves them. Actually, I think she models herself on them. She likes to play with her prey, make them suffer, give them the idea they’re going to get away before—’
He snapped his jaw shut in imitation of a cat.
He wondered if Anita thought he was as crazy as the woman next door. Maybe he was. But he didn’t have time to worry about that, or what had happened to Belle, who was probably sitting over a mouse hole somewhere. He needed to figure out his next move. How were they going to provoke Lucy into losing her cool and doing something incriminating? And what, exactly, was he expecting her to do? Attempt murder? With a throbbing head and sinking heart, he was coming to the conclusion that his plan wasn’t very well thought through.