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She has. I’ve taken her before. And for a moment, I’m jealous that he gets to spend the morning with her and I don’t. But there’s an opportunity here, isn’t there?
‘Well, have a lovely time,’ I say. ‘Bring me back a doggie bag.’
Paul returns upstairs to change into his clothes, and soon after, when his van pulls off the drive and I’m alone, I get to work. Not cleaning, but snooping. His suitcases are stacked up in the corner of his room. I look inside but they’re all empty. Does he really needto hang everything up if he’s only staying for a fortnight like he claims? All he wears are shorts and T-shirts anyway. I move to his chest of drawers instead, but that’s empty too. It’s the same with the wardrobe. There is nothing inside the bathroom cabinet either. I’m confused. What game is he playing now?
It’s then when the nauseous feeling that so frequently appears when I think of him returns. I walk hesitantly towards her room and slide open the mirrored wardrobe doors. Three-quarters of her rails are filled withhisclothes. He’s also filled most of the drawers. Many of her clothes have been stuffed inside black bin bags in the corner of the room. Inside her en-suite, his electric razor and toothbrush are plugged in and charging. I look to the bed. It’s made, but both pillows have head indentations.
I need a timeout here to unpack what I’m seeing. This can’t mean what I think it means, can it? I want to come up with other explanations, but there is only one. They are sleeping together. An eighty-two-year-old woman and a conman half her age. Oh dear God.
My legs threaten to buckle beneath me so I sit on the side of the bed.
There’s a brand-new Samsung mobile phone on her side. It’s the first time I’ve seen it and I assume it’s the one he gave her. I switch it on. He hasn’t put a code on it, probably because she’s unlikely to remember it. I scroll through it. They have been texting one another: dozens and dozens of messages, beginning on the day they returned from Clacton-on-Sea. Paul tells her what a wonderful time he had, how he wishes they could have stayed away for longer and how he’ll never forget their first kiss by the beach.
I realise now that even though he wasn’t physically here for almost a week, they were still in regular contact. She texted him the moment I left the house for my osteopath appointment, to ask him over.
I read on. Paul confesses to how deeply he is falling for her, how special she is to him, how much he misses her. While herreplies are less frequent and littered with spelling errors and very few spaces, I get the gist. She feels the same as him.
I’m just as shocked at this clandestine relationship as I am that she knows how to send a message until I see his handwritten instructions written in marker pen on the back of the phone. There have been many long calls between them too, all incoming and some lasting way into the night. She must have been talking to him while I thought she was asleep. She can’t have been swallowing the sleeping tablets I was giving her.
It’s like a car crash that I can’t take my eyes off. My heart sinks when I read her telling him that she loves him too. He begs her to keep their relationship a secret from me, explaining that I can never understand what they have together and that I will try to keep them apart. He reminds her I’ve already tried to do it once by calling the police during their trip to Clacton-on-Sea, and he fears that I’ll put her in a home if I find out about them. She agrees not to say anything.
When there are no more messages left to read, I return to his bedside cabinet – I hate the fact I’m even calling ithis– but there’s nothing personal here, no wallet, no credit cards, no bills, no receipts, nothing. I search the clothes in his wardrobe but he’s been careful not to leave anything in the pockets. It’s as if he only exists on his own terms.
And then I’m struck by something. Despite what his messages say about wanting to keep their relationship a secret, he’s done little to hide this evidence. And I realise Paul has left all this for me to find on purpose. If he hadn’t, his clothes would be kept in the spare room and her phone hidden. He wants me to know they’re together. He is taunting me because he believes there’s not a damn thing I can do to stop him.
He doesn’t know me very well. Because I won’t give in just like that.
CHAPTER 20
SARAH COGGINS, SOCIAL WORKER
I assume the woman poking her head around the café door is Connie. I sense her anxiety from all the way across the room. Her head slowly swivels, trying to locate someone she has only ever spoken to by phone. I wave my hand and she makes her way towards me.
‘Hi, I’m Sarah,’ I begin, rising from my seat and offering my hand to shake hers.
‘It’s nice to meet you,’ she replies, and hangs her handbag over the back of the other chair. I have a pot of tea and two cups waiting for us and I begin to pour. I unapologetically drop three sugar cubes into mine. Our days are long, our weeks endless and our staff is short. I need a sugar rush whenever the opportunity arises.
I feel her gaze boring through my skull, trying to pre-empt what I’m going to tell her. There are some parts of my job that I enjoy, and some, like this afternoon, that I’m not so keen on. Meeting the needs of everyone in this job is impossible. So I’ve become used to being let down and letting other people down.
I recall my conversation with Connie eight days ago, when she first called the office in a highly emotional state. Safeguarding vulnerable people in the community is one of my many roles and her elderly mother’s dementia potentially fell into that category. I made notes as she recalled how a stranger had befriended Gwen and, in a very short space of time, had insinuated himself into her everyday life. Connie was also convinced they were in a sexual relationship.
‘I’m really worried about her,’ she wept. ‘I am sure that he’s manipulating her, coercing her to lie to me and trying to come between us. The police can’t do anything because he hasn’t broken the law, and when I went to see her doctor to tell him I thought Mum was becoming a danger to herself, he told me she’d withdrawn her consent for him to talk to me and replaced me with Paul. However, he said he’d already contacted social services as a potential safeguarding issue.’
I’ve been trained to be non-judgemental when a case like this first comes to my attention. It’s not my job to form an opinion until I meet everyone involved, and only then will I achieve an informed view. At least that’s what I’m supposed to do, in theory. Because in practice, it can be easier said than done. I’m human, after all. If someone tells me a forty-two-year-old man is sleeping with someone almost double his age and with dementia, then of course I’m going to question his motives.
Today, I place my notebook on the table and flick through it until I find the right pages.
‘As you’re aware, earlier this week I visited Gwen’s house unannounced and I had a long conversation with her on her own, away from Paul Michael,’ I begin. ‘I asked some quite personal questions that she was willing to answer.’ I remember getting the impression she was keen to share her relationship with someone, as she couldn’t stop smiling. ‘She admitted that she and Paul were “courting” butapparently they chose not to tell you because they didn’t think you’d approve.’
‘Of course I wouldn’t!’ says Connie. ‘Would you?’
I recall how Gwen’s face lit up every time she spoke of Paul, how she explained that he made her feel like a young woman again and not ‘old and worthless’.
‘Who did you say sent you to check up on me?’ Gwen asked me.
‘I can only tell you it was someone who was concerned for your welfare.’
‘But I’m perfectly fine, apart from the obvious. And now, when the bad days appear, Paul helps to make them go away.’
