Five Strangers Read online

  ‘Jen, you were right,’ I whisper. ‘It was him, Laurence. He was the jogger.’

  Life begins to stir in her eyes again. ‘What?’

  ‘I didn’t want to say anything in front of him, in case …’ I say. ‘I could see that he was angry, and I didn’t want to make it worse. I didn’t want him to become violent.’

  ‘Do you think he would have … hurt me?’

  ‘I don’t know what he’s capable of.’

  ‘But you … you believe me?’ She says the words as if I’m confirming a miracle.

  ‘Of course I believe you,’ I say.

  ‘Oh my God, for a while, I was convinced I was going mad again,’ she says. She tries to laugh, but instead of laughter tears stream down her face.

  ‘Don’t cry,’ I say. I pass her a tissue and wait for the crying to stop.

  ‘What should we do now?’

  ‘I suppose you should tell the police,’ I say.

  ‘The police?’ She pronounces the words as if they have the potential to do her real harm. ‘But won’t there be a risk that it will all come out – about what happened between me and Laurence? And then they’ll learn about my sacking, about …’ Her voice cracks and she can’t say any more.

  I look at her, the poor frightened girl. ‘Don’t worry – I’m sure we can work something out,’ I say.

  ‘I suppose you’re right, somehow we’ll have to tell the police.’ She sounds resigned to the pain that will cause her. ‘But what do you think he was doing up there, on the Heath? I mean, besides jogging.’

  ‘I don’t know,’ I say. ‘Maybe he’s got a perfectly innocent explanation.’

  ‘Such as what?’

  ‘That he was out running, he saw what was happening, and decided to flee the scene of the crime.’

  ‘Do you think he was following me?’ she asks. There is a note of hope in her voice, as if she wishes this could be true. It’s sad that she still loves him because it’s obvious to me that Laurence has moved on.

  ‘Maybe,’ I say.

  We sit in silence again and then I go into the kitchen to make her a cup of tea. As I wait for the kettle to boil I wonder what to do next. Perhaps there is another way.

  17

  JEN

  What would I do without Bex? I can’t believe that I doubted her belief in me. But when I was standing in Laurence’s kitchen and she told me that she didn’t think the mystery jogger was Laurence I felt like I was losing myself. It’s an odd sensation, almost as if everything is melting away, like being trapped in one of those surreal paintings by Salvador Dalí.

  At that moment I was back in Laurence’s kitchen’s again, but it was summer. The bi-fold doors were open to the garden, and a warm breeze drifted inside. Laurence had cooked something from Ottolenghi, laid the table, lit a candle, opened a bottle of rosé. It should have been the setting for a perfect romantic evening. But it was far from that. It was a Saturday, the day after I’d been sacked. I’d confessed everything to Bex, but had said nothing to Laurence.

  ‘Come and sit down,’ he said, as I stepped into the kitchen. ‘Supper’s nearly ready. I’ve got some wine, but you may not want any after last night.’

  ‘Or it might be just the thing I need to perk me up,’ I said, pouring myself a large glass and flashing him a false smile. ‘How was your lunch?’

  He talked about his friends from the practice – Chris, Peter, Zoe – and how they’d enjoyed the food at Trullo and then an exhibition about the Bauhaus. His mates were going to really miss him, he said, when he left to start up the new office. But Basel was only a hour or so away by plane, he’d be back and forth to London all the time. He had found us a nice Airbnb, but was looking forward to flat hunting with me.

  I didn’t really listen. I kept rehearsing how best to tell Laurence about my job. About what I had done. But I couldn’t form the words. I had managed, eventually, to confess to Bex. But what would Laurence think of me when I told him the truth?

  ‘How much did you drink last night?’ he said, as he forked a piece of black bream into his mouth.

  ‘Too much,’ I said, gulping down some more rosé.

  ‘Perhaps you should take it easy on the wine,’ he said. ‘Actually, I was thinking we should both probably go on a detox for a while. What do you think?’

  Laurence was an exercise nut, which meant that although he enjoyed the odd glass of wine, he wasn’t in the habit of drinking to excess. He had to be up early to go to the gym or in shape to do his regular evening run on the Heath. Nothing could interfere with that. If we opened a bottle, he would have a glass, and I would finish off the rest. So what he was really saying here was you need to stop drinking for a while, not me. I’d written about my fondness for alcohol in ‘Being Jen Hunter’. And under normal circumstances, this little row we were about to have would have made the perfect material. But now I no longer had a column.

  ‘I hope now that we’re moving to Switzerland you’re not going to go dull on me,’ I said.

  Laurence didn’t respond, just cleared the plates. I hadn’t eaten much of the meal. The stuffing of paprika-flavoured pine nuts and rice that oozed out of the fish looked like something I’d seen splattered across the pavement outside our local lock-in. I reached for the bottle of rosé and emptied it into my glass. I knocked back the wine and went to the rack in the under-stairs cupboard.

  ‘What are you doing?’ he said, when he heard the rattle of the bottles.

  ‘Just opening a nice red,’ I said. ‘You said you’d bought some cheese, right?’

  He didn’t respond. He laid the cheese from Neal’s Yard and some charcoal biscuits on a wooden board. As I went to pour him some wine, he put his hand over the top of the glass. I don’t know what possessed me – perhaps it was his sanctimonious expression that annoyed me – but instead of stopping, I continued to pour. The red liquid covered the top of his hand and cascaded down the side of his glass onto the walnut table, a table I knew he had bought from Matthew Hilton.

  ‘What the fuck are you playing at, Jen?’ he said, pulling his hand away. He jumped up to fetch a cloth to wipe himself. I suppose he must have thought I’d done it by accident, but when he turned back to face me he realised that I was still pouring the wine. A red puddle sat on the table, working its way into the expensive wood and dripping down onto the floor.

  ‘Jen – have you gone insane?’

  He reached for my hand to stop me. But I managed to outmanoeuvre him and continued to pour from the bottle until every last drop had been emptied out.

  ‘What’s wrong with you?’ he shouted. ‘What the fuck is wrong with you?’

  ‘Have you thought whether I want to move to Switzerland?’ Despite writing in my column about my enthusiasm for a new life, I’d started to have some doubts about it.

  ‘I thought we’d talked about that,’ he said, as he began to mop up the red wine. ‘You said it would be good for your column. A change of scene. A new culture to write about and all that.’

  He studied me and the empty bottle of wine that I was holding forth like some kind of ersatz trophy, trying to make sense of what had just happened.

  ‘But if that’s the case, if you didn’t want to move to Basel, what’s all this about?’ he asked, squeezing the wine-saturated cloth over a bucket. His hands were stained red now. ‘Talk to me, for God’s sake. You’re supposed to be the queen of the confessional column. Nothing’s “off limits”. You go where “no columnist has ever dared go before”. And there you sit, so pissed you’re barely able to talk.’

  I knew that most of the time Laurence was an easygoing, good-natured man. But even he had his point of no return. And now he had reached it. I had pushed him towards it.

  ‘If we’re talking about feelings, have you ever given a moment’s thought to how I might feel?’ he continued. ‘After I’ve read about one of our conversations repeated verbatim in your column? Has that ever crossed your mind?’

  I reached out for my own glass of wine, unable to me
et his eye.

  ‘No, I guess it hasn’t, because you’re so self-involved, always on the lookout for a way to sell yourself and your life, always ready to betray a confidence for the sake of your tawdry column.’ The words came quickly and easily, as if he’d been waiting for an opportunity to express them. ‘No wonder you haven’t got any friends left. Well, let me tell you, if you carry on like this, you’ll find yourself without anyone at all.’

  I finally roused myself to speak. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Isn’t it obvious what I mean?’ he asked. ‘Do I really have to spell it out to you?’

  ‘You said you didn’t mind me writing about you.’

  ‘I didn’t, to begin with,’ he said. ‘In fact, I found it flattering at first. But then, it became embarrassing.’

  ‘But I changed your name.’

  ‘All my friends and colleagues knew James was me,’ he said. ‘Why else do you think I put myself forward to lead the Basel office?’

  I felt sick in my stomach.

  ‘I became a laughing stock in London,’ he continued. ‘A fucking joke. And all thanks to you and that stupid fucking column of yours, which was supposed to give readers a sense of the real you. Well, if this is what “Being Jen Hunter” looks like, I think I’ll take a pass, if it’s all very well with you.’

  ‘Laurence, don’t talk like that, you don’t mean that.’

  ‘Like what? You’re the one who has just ruined a table that cost the best part of four grand.’

  ‘So it’s about money, is that it? You could never deal with the fact that I’ve always earned just a tiny bit more than you.’ I still couldn’t bring myself to tell him that my only source of income had disappeared.

  ‘Jesus Christ, can’t you hear yourself?’ he said.

  We fell silent, the air poisonous with rage, as Laurence continued to clean up my mess. After mopping up the wine, he started to try to get the stain out of the table, but as he did so some of the red liquid splattered onto his crisp white shirt.

  ‘For fuck’s sake!’ he shouted. He threw the cloth down onto the table and faced me, his eyes full of anger. ‘And don’t even think about writing about this. Don’t you fucking dare.’ He started to run through some of the things I had described in my column. ‘That time we had a row in an Italian restaurant because I accused you of flirting with the waiter. Oh yes, that was just great, to read about myself being portrayed as some kind of Neanderthal. I also really appreciated the one in which you talked about the feelings I had towards my mother and how I never forgave her for leaving my father. Yes, I know both my parents were dead at that point, but there was still a lot of explaining to do when it came to my two sisters. But my favourite – the column where you really excelled yourself – was when you described, in minute detail, my penis. Yes, that was a real classic. All my friends loved that one. And real, groundbreaking journalism, I must say.’ His voice was rich with sarcasm. ‘You must be very proud of yourself.’

  It was this last line that broke me.

  18

  BEX

  Jen’s eyes light up when I tell her about how I’m going to deal with Laurence.

  ‘Would you really do that for me?’ she asks.

  ‘Of course I would,’ I say. ‘Laurence knows not to mess with me. I’ll tell him that I know all about his dirty little secret. I’ll threaten to expose him as the sender of those weird Twitter messages. I will say that if he doesn’t go to the police himself and confess that he was the jogger, then someone might just tip them off. By the way, will you send me the video that Alex took? It might prove useful.’

  ‘I’ll do it now,’ she says, taking out her phone.

  A moment or so later I hear the familiar ping of the WhatsApp message.

  ‘After all, the police won’t realise that you had a relationship as you gave him a false name in your column. And if he so much as breathes a word about what happened, how you were sacked, then I will make his life hell.’

  She looks at me with admiration. ‘I’d never want to cross you,’ she says.

  ‘Well, make sure you never do,’ I say, holding up a finger and wagging it at her.

  The comment lightens the mood and we both laugh. She tells me again how she can’t imagine life without me. Apart from the year when I was away travelling the world, she’s been by my side. We talk again about that first day we met, back in university, and how we’ve changed over time. She wonders about what will happen during the next twenty-odd years.

  ‘Perhaps we’ll end up as old spinsters, living in the same old people’s home,’ she says. ‘I can really imagine that. Just like going back to how it all started, living in rooms next to one another. Wouldn’t that be hilarious?’

  ‘I can think of worse ways to end up,’ I say.

  She begins to talk about Laurence again. She looks out of the window, over the rooftops of Kentish Town, and gazes northwards, towards Tufnell Park.

  ‘I know it sounds mad, but … but do you think it’s too late for us – Laurence and me?’

  ‘You are kidding?’ I say. ‘After all that’s happened?’

  ‘I know it sounds strange, but hear me out.’

  I guess my shocked expression must be obvious because Jen adds, ‘And don’t look at me like that. Let me explain.’

  I sigh and cross my arms. ‘Go on then,’ I say. ‘God knows what case you can make for you two getting back together. But I’m listening.’

  She takes a deep breath. ‘What if Laurence was up there on the Heath, jogging, that day. Put yourself in his shoes.’

  ‘Okay,’ I say sceptically.

  ‘Just as Daniel starts to attack Victoria, Laurence sees me standing there. He panics. He runs. He can’t bring himself to come forward and make himself known to the police in case it looks as though he was following me.’

  ‘Maybe, but then why would he then start to send you creepy messages?’

  ‘How do we know those tweets are from him?’ she asks.

  ‘Who else could they be from?’

  ‘I don’t know, but—’

  ‘Don’t you think it’s too much of a coincidence that you got those tweets just after you witnessed that murder–suicide? And that a man who fled the scene of the crime turned out to be your ex-boyfriend?’

  ‘Let’s suppose you’re right and that those tweets did come from Laurence. What if he didn’t send them to frighten me … but to get my attention?’

  ‘What are you trying to say?’

  ‘Ignore me, I’m just thinking out loud.’

  ‘No, spit it out.’

  As she continues to gaze out of the window her eyes take on a dreamy quality. ‘What if Laurence … What if he still has feelings for me?’

  ‘Please – you can’t be serious. You saw how angry he was back there, in his house. When I arrived it looked as though he wanted to hit you.’

  ‘But you can be angry with someone and still love them, right?’

  I pause for dramatic effect. ‘You know what?’ I say. ‘I think you’re the most fucked-up person I’ve ever met.’

  19

  JEN

  How could I even think that Laurence wants anything more to do with me? As soon as I say it out loud, I realise how ridiculous it sounds.

  Although Bex is joking, I know that I am fucked-up. No wonder men don’t want anything to do with me. First Chris, who jilted me if not at the altar then as near as dammit. After that I thought I was washed up, that I’d never find another man again. I couldn’t believe it when Laurence had come along, someone I thought I’d be with for ever. And so when he told me that he never wanted to see me again after I poured that bottle of wine over his precious kitchen table and … I hate to admit what I did. But my therapist tells me that admitting to my behaviour is the first step on the road to recovery.

  My mind goes back to that night again. I’ve poured the wine on the table. I’ve sat and listened to Laurence’s big speech. About how he felt he had to leave London and make plans to open t
he Basel office because of the embarrassment my column has caused him. But then he said that sarcastic comment about my ‘groundbreaking’ journalism, and how I must be so proud of myself.

  I felt something snap, like a broken muscle or tendon, only it was in my head. My therapist says I probably did what I did because I felt I couldn’t tell Laurence the truth.

  The voices telling me that I would never amount to anything, that I would be a failure, that I should never try to get above my station, crowded in my mind. Everything had been leading up to this moment, I thought. And Laurence was just telling me what I already knew. What the editor of the News had told me. What Janice, the managing editor, had told me. I was a disgrace. Worthless. A little piece of nothing.

  Laurence was saying something, but I couldn’t make out what. I felt deaf to the outside world. An image of Mum’s face came to me. She was on her deathbed. Cancer had left her looking like a skeleton. She opened her mouth to say something – that she loved me, despite everything. But then another memory – no, it wasn’t a memory – came to me. Mum at the wheel of a car. Her head smashed into the steering wheel. With Dad by her side, his skull cracked open.

  ‘No, it’s not true,’ I said.

  ‘What – that your “work” doesn’t make you proud?’ asked Laurence. ‘That’s something, I suppose. You’ve finally got a bit of self-awareness.’

  ‘I’m sorry, Mum, I didn’t mean to lie,’ I said.