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Almost one o’clock in the morning and the police pull back up at Merseyside station, where Jen is waiting. And so, too, is Kelly. Just as Jen hoped.
The moon is out, the sky high and clear, and Jen is almost gone. She knows it.
Kelly and Leo get out of an unmarked car. Leo goes immediately to his own car, but Kelly loiters. He walks slowly towards the station, his breath puffing out into the cold winter air. He pulls a mobile phone out, presumably to call a taxi home.
She gets out of her car before he can dial. They only met once, earlier today, and uncertainty crosses his features. Confusion blended with amusement: he is all Todd.
‘Hi. We met earlier,’ Jen says, hurrying over to her husband of twenty years.
‘All right,’ Kelly says, his frown deepening. ‘You okay?’
‘Yes,’ she says breathlessly. She’s so far back now, an arrow aimed at the future: the slightest, slightest tweak, and she will miss. ‘I just wanted to know – the burglars – my tip-off – you got them?’
‘We did,’ he says carefully. He puts his phone back in his pocket but turns his slim body away from her.
The remoteness stops her in her tracks, there in the January drizzle, almost identical to the October mist. He doesn’t know, she thinks, looking at him. This man she’s loved and laughed with, got pregnant by, said vows to, shared a bed with. He doesn’t know. He doesn’t know her. She is seeing wary Kelly, the way he greets strangers. He has nothing to be wary of, now, in the past, but he still is. He is still him. She was right. He is still himself. The man she loves.
‘I’m so glad you got them.’
Curiosity gets the better of him. ‘How did you know?’
‘I can never reveal my sources,’ she says, the exact kind of banter he likes.
His face eases into a grin. ‘You asked for me. You said you wanted to speak to Ryan or Kelly.’
‘Yeah. I know.’
‘Nobody is supposed to know the connection between those two names. I mean – I barely knew that …’
Jen shrugs, holding her hands out by their sides. ‘Like I said. No sources.’ She’s getting wet, out here in the cold mizzle.
‘Ha, well. You know, we intervened so early. The main guy got away, we think. Our arrest of his foot soldiers tipped him off.’
Joseph. Joseph got away. Jen shivers with something more than the cold. Shouldn’t she be wary of one thing: unintended consequences? But didn’t she do the right thing, whenever she could? She didn’t play the lottery. She didn’t even save her father, not this time, though she had the opportunity. She let those things go. She draws her coat further around herself and moves closer to Kelly, hoping it’ll be okay.
‘I think you did the right thing,’ she says softly, sadly, thinking of baby Eve. Thinking about how we never see the near-misses that slide past us, just missing us, arrows just grazing our skin.
He hasn’t called the taxi yet. His gaze lights on hers. And she knows, she knows, she knows that look.
He raises an eyebrow. And then he says it, the sentence which changes everything: ‘I know this is a fucking cliché, but: do I know you? From before today?’
Jen can’t help but laugh. ‘Not yet,’ she says, the banter with her husband flowing as easily as ever.
She meets his eyes in the car park. He fell in love with her so deeply that he gave up his life for her. His name. His mother. His identity. She doesn’t think he has been pretending all of their marriage. She thinks he was trying not to.
‘I’m Ryan, anyway. You?’
‘I’m Jen.’
And this is the moment. Jen knows. She’s ready. She closes her eyes, as if falling asleep. And she’s gone. And everything that has been is wiped, just as she suspected.
Day Zero
01:59 becomes 01:00. Jen Hiles is on the landing.
The pumpkin is there. Everything is there. On her skin, she can still feel the phantom mist of the January night, still feel her husband’s eyes on hers.
Her husband emerges from the bedroom. ‘All right?’ he says.
