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Chapter 1
‘I know you’re in there, Abigail. We’re all worried about you …’
Abigail was furiously polishing the clock that her husband had bought her the previous Christmas. It was a black glass clock with stainless steel hands, and it had a special significance because it had marked their first decade together as a married couple.
‘I’m coming back later – don’t think that I won’t!’
Abigail heard the letterbox bang shut. She rolled her eyes and stopped what she was doing for a moment, listening for the sound of footsteps in the street. It was a work day, and her friend Charlotte from work must have popped round on her lunch break. Abigail had refused to answer the door, despite the insistent bell-ringing. She stayed put in the basement kitchen and looked towards the window, waiting for Charlotte to give up and make her way back to work.
A moment later, a pair of black stilettos and slim thirty-something tanned legs appeared at the basement window. They lingered. Abigail imagined Charlotte was checking her watch, wondering if she had time to ring the doorbell again. She’d made yet another unwanted house call, one of several over the last fortnight.
Abigail breathed a sigh when the sound of Charlotte’s footsteps receded into the distance. She knew what would happen next. Her house phone on the kitchen counter bleeped with another message. Abigail had put the phone on mute so she wouldn’t have to listen to it ringing or another cringeworthy message of condolence. Her mobile was switched off and would remain so.
She picked up the clock from the kitchen counter. She had cleaned it thoroughly and had even found an old toothbrush to carefully clear the dust from the inside of the battery compartment. Satisfied with her efforts, she was just stretching up to hang it in place, on the hook on the kitchen wall, when she heard footsteps again as someone hurried past her window. The sound of the letterbox banging shut upstairs made her jump.
The clock started slipping out of her hands. She made a grab for it, fumbled, and as if in slow motion, the clock fell towards the tiled floor. She winced when it landed, smashing into fragments, the broken glass littering the floor. She stood there staring at the broken clock, the soft muslin cloth she was using still in her hand.
Abigail didn’t know how long she’d been standing there before she dropped the cloth and ran from the room, up the stairs, to the front door. She already had her shoes on; she had never liked the cold tiled floor in the basement kitchen of their rented London home. She grabbed her coat from the coat stand by the door.
The coat stand reminded her of the argument they’d had when he’d brought it home from work one day. There had been a car boot sale on a playing field opposite the hospital where he’d worked, and he’d gone for a meander one day before coming home. He’d paid twenty pounds for it. It had cheesed Abigail off that he’d spent the money on what she’d considered an unnecessary purchase when they were meant to be saving every penny they had for a deposit for their own home. In their mid-thirties, they’d realised they’d be renting forever if they didn’t try to save money.
Abigail frowned. It had been her fault that they’d been unable to afford a place of their own. Two rounds of IVF had cost them both dearly, and they had still been childless.
As she slipped off her flat shoes and put on her heels, she stared at the horrible, old-fashioned wooden coat and umbrella stand. It didn’t suit their bland flat, where all the period features of the Georgian five-storey residence had been stripped out when it was converted. She remembered what he’d said: he’d bought it for when they eventually purchased their own home and moved out of the rental flat. He’d wanted a house that had retained its period features. He’d said it was his first investment in their future. She had always joked that with his unusual tastes, it was as though he rather fancied himself as the Lord of the Manor, living in a large, sprawling property.
Abigail glanced at the heavy oak sideboard in the hall that they’d had to squeeze around in order to get to the front door. She hadn’t found it funny when he’d brought that home, either.
Before she slipped on her coat, she lifted the blue jacket off the peg, folded it neatly, and placed it in one of the black sacks of clothing by the door. She slipped her coat on over her tailored suit jacket. She hoped it wasn’t too chilly to wear a skirt.
She was about to open the door when she noticed a small brown envelope on the floor. She recognised Charlotte’s handwriting. So that was why she’d heard the letterbox bang shut again. Rolling her eyes, Abigail knelt down and picked up the envelope.
‘Thanks for that,’ she said through gritted teeth. ‘You cost me the clock.’ She slipped the envelope in her coat pocket without bothering to open it and stepped outside, pulling the door shut behind her. She stood on the doorstep and decided that although it was breezy, she didn’t need to go back inside and change. She wasn’t sure why she’d dressed in her work clothes. Perhaps it was to blend in and look like other people; the ones who were having a normal lunch break from the office, like on any other day. She wanted there to be nothing to suggest that she had anything else on her mind other than buying a sandwich before eating it in one of the parks around central London, close to the office where she worked.
Except she didn’t work there, not right now. Her boss had decided she needed compassionate leave. Abigail was making use of the time. She wasn’t moping around the flat or sitting slumped on the sofa, eating takeaway, watching too much TV and letting herself, the flat, and her life spiral out of control.
Abigail shook her head. A wisp of hair escaped from her single French plait that she had plaited that morning. She’d bought some new makeup during the week and had spent some of her free time on YouTube, watching videos, learning how to apply the makeup so she could look her very best for her big day – the day they would meet again.
She walked down the steps of the Georgian building where she lived and turned left on Grange Road to start the twenty-minute walk through Southwark to Tower Bridge. It was the familiar route she took every morning on her way to work in the city.
She smiled as she walked down the street, catching a couple of guys in their twenties, younger than her, throwing her appreciative glances. That only confirmed she’d done her best. The flat was all spick and span. She was all spick and span. The clock was a bit of a bummer, but if she’d stopped to clear it up, she might have had second thoughts, and that wouldn’t do at all. Besides, perhaps the clock smashing on the floor was kind of apt.Time is my enemy,thought Abigail.Too much time to spend inside my head thinking about him; that won’t do at all.
Abigail felt the afternoon sunshine on her face and smiled as she continued walking towards Tower Bridge. It was time.
