The Girl on the Train: A Novel

FRIDAY, JULY 19, 2013

MORNING

The 8:04 is almost deserted. The windows are open and the air is cool after yesterday’s storm. Megan has been missing for around 133 hours, and I feel better than I have in months. When I looked at myself in the mirror this morning, I could see the difference in my face: my skin is clearer, my eyes brighter. I feel lighter. I’m sure I haven’t actually lost an ounce, but I don’t feel encumbered. I feel like myself—the myself I used to be.

There’s been no word from Scott. I scoured the Internet and there was no news of an arrest, either, so I imagine he just ignored my email. I’m disappointed, but I suppose it was to be expected. Gaskill rang this morning, just as I was leaving the house. He asked me whether I would be able to come by the station today. I was terrified for a moment, but then I heard him say in his quiet, mild tone that he just wanted me to look at a couple of pictures. I asked him whether Scott Hipwell had been arrested.

“No one has been arrested, Ms. Watson,” he said.

“But the man, the one who’s under caution . . . ?”

“I’m not at liberty to say.”

His manner of speaking is so calming, so reassuring, it makes me like him again.

I spent yesterday evening sitting on the sofa in jogging bottoms and a T-shirt, making lists of things to do, possible strategies. For example, I could hang around Witney station at rush hour, wait until I see the red-haired man from Saturday night again. I could invite him for a drink and see where it leads, whether he saw anything, what he knows about that night. The danger is that I might see Anna or Tom, they would report me and I would get into trouble (more trouble) with the police. The other danger is that I might make myself vulnerable. I still have the trace of an argument in my head—I may have physical evidence of it on my scalp and lip. What if this is the man who hurt me? The fact that he smiled and waved doesn’t mean anything, he could be a psychopath for all I know. But I can’t see him as a psychopath. I can’t explain it, but I warm to him.

I could contact Scott again. But I need to give him a reason to talk to me, and I’m worried that whatever I saw will make me look like a madwoman. He might even think I have something to do with Megan’s disappearance, he could report me to the police. I could end up in real trouble.

I could try hypnosis. I’m pretty sure it won’t help me remember anything, but I’m curious about it anyway. It can’t hurt, can it?

I was still sitting there making notes and going over the news stories I’d printed out when Cathy came home. She’d been to the cinema with Damien. She was obviously pleasantly surprised to find me sober, but she was wary, too, because we haven’t really spoken since the police came round on Tuesday. I told her that I hadn’t had a drink for three days, and she gave me a hug.

“I’m so glad you’re getting yourself back to normal!” she chirruped, as though she knows what my baseline is.

“That thing with the police,” I said, “it was a misunderstanding. There’s no problem with me and Tom, and I don’t know anything about that missing girl. You don’t have to worry about it.” She gave me another hug and made us both a cup of tea. I thought about taking advantage of the good will I’d engendered and telling her about the job situation, but I didn’t want to spoil her evening.

She was still in a good mood with me this morning. She hugged me again as I was getting ready to leave the house.

“I’m so pleased for you, Rach,” she said. “Getting yourself sorted. You’ve had me worried.” Then she told me that she was going to spend the weekend at Damien’s, and the first thing I thought was that I’m going to get home tonight and have a drink without anyone judging me.

EVENING

The bitter tang of quinine, that’s what I love about a cold gin and tonic. Tonic water should be by Schweppes and it should come out of a glass bottle, not a plastic one. These premixed things aren’t right at all, but needs must. I know I shouldn’t be doing this, but I’ve been building up to it all day. It’s not just the anticipation of solitude, though, it’s the excitement, the adrenaline. I’m buzzing, my skin is tingling. I’ve had a good day.

I spent an hour alone with Detective Inspector Gaskill this morning. I was taken in to see him straightaway when I arrived at the station. We sat in his office, not in the interview room this time. He offered me coffee, and when I accepted I was surprised to find that he got up and made it for me himself. He had a kettle and some Nescafé on top of a fridge in the corner of the office. He apologized for not having sugar.

I liked being in his company. I liked watching his hands move—he isn’t expressive, but he moves things around a lot. I hadn’t noticed this before because in the interview room there wasn’t much for him to move around. In his office he constantly altered the position of his coffee mug, his stapler, a jar of pens, he shuffled papers into neater piles. He has large hands and long fingers with neatly manicured nails. No rings.

It felt different this morning. I didn’t feel like a suspect, someone he was trying to catch out. I felt useful. I felt most useful when he took one of his folders and laid it in front of me, showing me a series of photographs. Scott Hipwell, three men I’d never seen before, and then B.

I wasn’t sure at first. I stared at the picture, trying to conjure up the image of the man I saw with her that day, his head bent as he stooped to embrace her.

“That’s him,” I said. “I think that’s him.”

“You’re not sure?”

“I think that’s him.”

He withdrew the picture and scrutinized it himself for a moment. “You saw them kissing, that’s what you said? Last Friday, was it? A week ago?”

“Yes, that’s right. Friday morning. They were outside, in the garden.”

“And there’s no way you could have misinterpreted what you saw? It wasn’t a hug, say, or a . . . a platonic kind of kiss?”

“No, it wasn’t. It was a proper kiss. It was . . . romantic.”

I thought I saw his lips flicker then, as though he were about to smile.

“Who is he?” I asked Gaskill. “Is he . . . Do you think she’s with him?” He didn’t reply, just shook his head a little. “Is this . . . Have I helped? Have I been helpful at all?”

“Yes, Ms. Watson. You’ve been helpful. Thank you for coming in.”

We shook hands, and for a second he placed his left hand on my right shoulder lightly, and I wanted to turn and kiss it. It’s been a while since anyone touched me with anything approaching tenderness. Well, apart from Cathy.

Gaskill ushered me out of the door and into the main, open-plan part of the office. There were perhaps a dozen police officers in there. One or two shot me sideways glances, there might have been a flicker of interest or disdain, I couldn’t be sure. We walked through the office and into the corridor and then I saw him walking towards me, with Riley at his side: Scott Hipwell. He was coming through the main entrance. His head was down, but I knew right away that it was him. He looked up and nodded an acknowledgment to Gaskill, then he glanced at me. For just a second our eyes met and I could swear that he recognized me. I thought of that morning when I saw him on the terrace, when he was looking down at the track, when I could feel him looking at me. We passed each other in the corridor. He was so close to me I could have touched him—he was beautiful in the flesh, hollowed out and coiled like a spring, nervous energy radiating off him. As I got to the main hallway I turned to look at him, sure I could feel his eyes on me, but when I looked back it was Riley who was watching me.

I took the train into London and went to the library. I read every article I could find about the case, but learned nothing more. I looked for hypnotherapists in Ashbury, but didn’t take it any further—it’s expensive and it’s unclear whether it actually helps with memory recovery. But reading the stories of those who claimed that they had recovered memories through hypnotherapy, I realized that I was more afraid of success than failure. I’m afraid not just of what I might learn about that Saturday night, but so much more. I’m not sure I could bear to relive the stupid, awful things I’ve done, to hear the words I said in spite, to remember the look on Tom’s face as I said them. I’m too afraid to venture into that darkness.

I thought about sending Scott another email, but there’s really no need. The morning’s meeting with Detective Gaskill proved to me that the police are taking me seriously. I have no further role to play, I have to accept that now. And I can feel at least that I may have helped, because I cannot believe it could be a coincidence that Megan disappeared the day after I saw her with that man.

With a joyful click, fizz, I open the second can of G&T and realize, with a rush, that I haven’t thought about Tom all day. Until now, anyway. I’ve been thinking about Scott, about Gaskill, about B, about the man on the train. Tom has been relegated to fifth place. I sip my drink and feel that at last I have something to celebrate. I know that I’m going to be better, that I’m going to be happy. It won’t be long.

SATURDAY, JULY 20, 2013

MORNING

I never learn. I wake with a crushing sensation of wrongness, of shame, and I know immediately that I’ve done something stupid. I go through my awful, achingly familiar ritual of trying to remember exactly what I did. I sent an email. That’s what it was.

At some point last night, Tom got promoted back up the list of men I think about, and I sent him an email. My laptop is on the floor next to my bed; it sits there, a squat, accusatory presence. I step over it as I get up to go to the bathroom. I drink water directly from the tap, giving myself a cursory glance in the mirror.

I don’t look well. Still, three days off isn’t bad, and I’ll start again today. I stand in the shower for ages, gradually reducing the water temperature, making it cooler and cooler until it’s properly cold. You can’t step directly into a cold stream of water, it’s too shocking, too brutal, but if you get there gradually, you hardly notice it; it’s like boiling a frog in reverse. The cool water soothes my skin; it dulls the burning pain of the cuts on my head and above my eye.

I take my laptop downstairs and make a cup of tea. There’s a chance, a faint one, that I wrote an email to Tom and didn’t send it. I take a deep breath and open my Gmail account. I’m relieved to see I have no messages. But when I click on the Sent folder, there it is: I have written to him, he just hasn’t replied. Yet. The email was sent just after eleven last night; I’d been drinking for a good few hours by then. That adrenaline and booze buzz I had earlier on would have been long gone. I click on the message.

Could you please tell your wife to stop lying to the police about me? Pretty low, don’t you think, trying to get me into trouble? Telling police I’m obsessed with her and her ugly brat? She needs to get over herself. Tell her to leave me the fuck alone.

I close my eyes and snap the laptop shut. I am cringing, literally, my entire body folding into itself. I want to be smaller; I want to disappear. I’m frightened, too, because if Tom decides to show this to the police, I could be in real trouble. If Anna is collecting evidence that I am vindictive and obsessive, this could be a key piece in her dossier. And why did I mention the little girl? What sort of person does that? What sort of person thinks like that? I don’t bear her any ill will—I couldn’t think badly of a child, any child, and especially not Tom’s child. I don’t understand myself; I don’t understand the person I’ve become. God, he must hate me. I hate me—that version of me, anyway, the version who wrote that email last night. She doesn’t even feel like me, because I am not like that. I am not hateful.

Am I? I try not to think of the worst days, but the memories crowd into my head at times like this. Another fight, towards the end: waking, post-party, post-blackout, Tom telling me how I’d been the night before, embarrassing him again, insulting the wife of a colleague of his, shouting at her for flirting with my husband. “I don’t want to go anywhere with you anymore,” he told me. “You ask me why I never invite friends round, why I don’t like going to the pub with you anymore. You honestly want to know why? It’s because of you. Because I’m ashamed of you.”

I pick up my handbag and my keys. I’m going to the Londis down the road. I don’t care that it’s not yet nine o’clock in the morning, I’m frightened and I don’t want to have to think. If I take some painkillers and have a drink now, I can put myself out, I can sleep all day. I’ll face it later. I get to the front door, my hand poised above the handle, then I stop.

I could apologize. If I apologize right now, I might be able to salvage something. I might be able to persuade him not to show the message to Anna or to the police. It wouldn’t be the first time he’d protected me from her.

That day last summer, when I went to Tom and Anna’s, it didn’t happen exactly the way I told the police it had. I didn’t ring the doorbell, for starters. I wasn’t sure what I wanted—I’m still not sure what I intended. I did go down the pathway and over the fence. It was quiet, I couldn’t hear anything. I went up to the sliding doors and looked in. It’s true that Anna was sleeping on the sofa. I didn’t call out, to her or to Tom. I didn’t want to wake her. The baby wasn’t crying, she was fast asleep in her carry-cot at her mother’s side. I picked her up and took her outside as quickly as I could. I remember running with her towards the fence, the baby starting to wake and to grizzle a little. I don’t know what I thought I was doing. I wasn’t going to hurt her. I got to the fence, holding her tightly against my chest. She was crying properly now, starting to scream. I was bouncing her and shushing her and then I heard another noise, a train coming, and I turned my back to the fence and I saw her—Anna—hurtling towards me, her mouth open like a gaping wound, her lips moving, but I couldn’t hear what she was saying.

She took the child from me and I tried to run away, but I tripped and fell. She was standing over me, screaming at me, she told me to stay put or she’d call the police. She rang Tom and he came home and sat with her in the living room. She was crying hysterically, she still wanted to phone the police, she wanted to have me arrested for kidnapping. Tom calmed her down, he begged her to let it go, to let me go. He saved me from her. Afterwards he drove me home, and when he dropped me off he took my hand. I thought it was a gesture of kindness, of reassurance, but he squeezed tighter and tighter and tighter until I cried out, and his face was red when he told me that he would kill me if I ever did anything to harm his daughter.

I don’t know what I intended to do that day. I still don’t. At the door, I hesitate, my fingers grasped around the handle. I bite down hard on my lip. I know that if I start drinking now, I will feel better for an hour or two and worse for six or seven. I let go of the handle and walk back into the living room, and I open my laptop again. I have to apologize, I have to beg forgiveness. I log back in to my email account and see that I have one new message. It isn’t from Tom. It’s from Scott Hipwell.

Dear Rachel,

Thank you for contacting me. I don’t remember Megan mentioning you to me, but she had a lot of gallery regulars—I’m not very good with names. I would like to talk to you about what you know. Please telephone me on 07583 123657 as soon as possible.

Regards,

Scott Hipwell

For an instant, I imagine that he’s sent the email to the wrong address. This message is intended for someone else. It’s just the briefest of moments, and then I remember. I remember. Sitting on the sofa, halfway through the second bottle, I realized that I didn’t want my part to be over. I wanted to be at the heart of it.

So I wrote to him.

I scroll down from his email to mine.

Dear Scott,

Sorry for contacting you again, but I feel it’s important that we talk. I’m not sure if Megan ever mentioned me to you—I’m a friend from the gallery—I used to live in Witney. I think I have information that would interest you. Please email me back on this address.

Rachel Watson

I can feel the heat come to my face, my stomach a pit of acid. Yesterday—sensible, clearheaded, right-thinking—I decided I must accept that my part in this story was over. But my better angels lost again, defeated by drink, by the person I am when I drink. Drunk Rachel sees no consequences, she is either excessively expansive and optimistic or wrapped up in hate. She has no past, no future. She exists purely in the moment. Drunk Rachel—wanting to be part of the story, needing a way to persuade Scott to talk to her—she lied. I lied.

I want to drag knives over my skin, just so that I can feel something other than shame, but I’m not even brave enough to do that. I start writing to Tom, writing and deleting, writing and deleting, trying to find ways to ask forgiveness for the things I said last night. If I had to write down every transgression for which I should apologize to Tom, I could fill a book.

EVENING

A week ago, almost exactly a week ago, Megan Hipwell walked out of number fifteen Blenheim Road and disappeared. No one has seen her since. Neither her phone nor her bank cards have been used since Saturday, either. When I read that in a news story earlier today, I started to cry. I am ashamed now of the secret thoughts I had. Megan is not a mystery to be solved, she is not a figure who wanders into the tracking shot at the beginning of a film, beautiful, ethereal, insubstantial. She is not a cipher. She is real.

I am on the train, and I’m going to her home. I’m going to meet her husband.

I had to phone him. The damage was done. I couldn’t just ignore the email—he would tell the police. Wouldn’t he? I would, in his position, if a stranger contacted me, claiming to have information, and then disappeared. He might have called the police already; they might be waiting for me when I get there.

Sitting here, in my usual seat, though not on my usual day, I feel as though I am driving off a cliff. It felt the same this morning when I dialled his number, like falling through the dark, not knowing when you’re going to hit the ground. He spoke to me in a low voice, as though there were someone else in the room, someone he didn’t want to overhear.

“Can we talk in person?” he asked.

“I . . . no. I don’t think so . . .”

“Please?”

I hesitated just for a moment, and then I agreed.

“Could you come to the house? Not now, my . . . there are people here. This evening?” He gave me the address, which I pretended to note down.

“Thank you for contacting me,” he said, and he hung up.

I knew as I was agreeing that it wasn’t a good idea. What I know about Scott, from the papers, is almost nothing. What I know from my own observations, I don’t really know. I don’t know anything about Scott. I know things about Jason—who, I have to keep reminding myself, doesn’t exist. All I know for sure—for absolutely certain—is that Scott’s wife has been missing for a week. I know that he is probably a suspect. And I know, because I saw that kiss, that he has a motive to kill her. Of course, he might not know that he has a motive, but . . . Oh, I’ve tied myself up in knots thinking about it, but how could I pass up the opportunity to approach that house, the one I’ve observed a hundred times from the trackside, from the street? To walk up to his front door, to go inside, to sit in his kitchen, on his terrace, where they sat, where I watched them?

It was too tempting. Now I sit on the train, my arms wrapped around myself, hands jammed against my sides to stop them from trembling, like an excited child caught up in an adventure. I was so glad to have a purpose that I stopped thinking about the reality. I stopped thinking about Megan.

I’m thinking about her now. I have to convince Scott that I knew her—a little, not a lot. That way, he’ll believe me when I tell him that I saw her with another man. If I admit to lying right away, he’ll never trust me. So I try to imagine what it would have been like to drop by the gallery, chat with her over a coffee. Does she drink coffee? We would talk about art, perhaps, or yoga, or our husbands. I don’t know anything about art, I’ve never done yoga. I don’t have a husband. And she betrayed hers.

I think of the things her real friends said about her: wonderful, funny, beautiful, warmhearted. Loved. She made a mistake. It happens. We are none of us perfect.