AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Twenty
‘I don’t like leaving you.’ Peter is standing on the doorstep, his case next to his tan Church’s brogues. It is a week later, Tuesday morning.
‘The world is full of terrorists and gun-wielding madmen,’ Samantha says. ‘You can’t let terrorists stop you from going on holiday and you can’t let a few silly poems stop you going to an academic conference or me going to work.’
He grins at her. ‘You’re amazing.’
‘Only because I have you. And the police know now. I’ll speak to Harry today and make sure I lock the house. Honestly, I’m not scared.’ It is almost true.
He sighs. ‘Are you sure you’ll be all right? I could stay a few hours longer; that way I can drive you in.’
‘I’m not a child, Peter. If I see Sean today, I’ll have a word with him, and then if anything happens later, I’ll call the police straight away.’
‘And me. You’ll call me, won’t you?’
‘Of course. Now go, go on.’ She leans out and kisses him on the mouth. ‘Go on, f— buzz off!’ She congratulates herself. She caught the swear word just in time.
The house to herself, she goes into every room and checks the locks on all the windows. She checks Peter’s bedside table too, and the medicine cabinet, but there’s no sign of any pills. Suspicion is exhausting, relentless. Her eyes sting, her shoulders ache. For the last week, countless theories have revolved in her head. Aisha, Jenny, Sean, Lana. Aisha, Sean, Jenny, Aisha. Twice she has lain on her bed in the middle of the day, reading the villanelle over and over for clues; pored over the original Dylan Thomas poem on her phone screen, as if some literary close reading could possibly help. Three or four times she has dreamt of the entire class closing in on her, Peter herding them like sheep, goading them to kill her with sharp flashing knives. She has woken up sweating, only to find Peter beside her, as handsome in sleep as he is awake. She’s sick of searching for evidence of his drug-taking, sick of thinking evil thoughts about him, sick of herself.
Harry Boyd is in the foyer of the business unit, talking to Gabby, who teaches English as a foreign language.
‘Harry.’ Samantha waves to him; this is opportune.
‘Samantha.’ He claps Gabby on the arm and walks towards her. ‘Everything all right? How’s the teaching going?’
‘Fine – but actually, would you have five minutes?’
He checks his watch. ‘I’ve got fifteen. Any good?’
‘Brilliant. I’ll drop Emily off and come and find you.’
‘Great. I’ll be in the manager’s office.’
She heads for the crèche. Suzanne is there again, chatting to the nursery nurse, whose name Samantha has forgotten. Suzanne smiles and jumps up.
‘Hello again,’ she says. ‘You look stressed; do you want me to take her?’ She holds out her arms, and for a moment Samantha feels a flash of anxiety. Could Suzanne have written that villanelle? No, she doesn’t think so. No, impossible.
The nursery assistant is right there, smiling over at her. Samantha knows she is not reacting normally. Everything is getting to her, more than she thinks, even the prospect of her first night without Peter. But if she starts living in fear, then whoever it is has won.
‘That’d be great, thanks,’ she says simply, letting Suzanne take the pram.
Suzanne wheels Emily into the nursery. Samantha waves before dashing to the old building and up the two flights of stairs. The manager’s office is actually a classroom packed with desks, desks piled with paper stacks, the evidence of costs cut, of people finding themselves doing the work of three for the pay of one.
‘Harry.’
‘Samantha.’ He moves a pile of paper from a plastic chair and gestures for her to sit down. He asks after Peter and the baby, but when Samantha answers only briefly and glances at the clock, he appears to realise she doesn’t have time for small talk and asks how he can help.
Samantha pulls her folder from her satchel and hands Harry the offending pieces of writing, in chronological order. There are only three.
‘The last one’s at home, sorry.’ A bookmark, folded on page eighty-six of her Rebus, under the bed. It doesn’t matter; there’s enough here for Harry to get the gist. She waits while his eyes flick over the work.
‘The first one came at the end of my first lesson and I didn’t think too much of it. I know it’s not horrific or openly threatening, but it’s a bit, well, dodgy. But when no one claimed it, I did feel a bit uneasy. Peter said to ignore it, said it was probably someone having a misguided joke. But then the next one came the following week, and the last two I found in our house, but that’s not to say—’
‘Someone put them in your house? Did they break in?’
‘That’s the thing. It’s possible someone might have put them into the folder after class when I wasn’t looking, or maybe I didn’t see them when I checked.’
His expression shifts – it is almost nothing – eyebrows raised a fraction, his mouth flattening.
