The Girl on the Train: A Novel

MONDAY, JULY 22, 2013

EVENING

And now I wait. It’s agonizing, the not knowing, the slowness with which everything is bound to move. But there’s nothing more to do.

I was right, this morning, when I felt that dread. I just didn’t know what I had to be afraid of.

Not Scott. When he pulled me inside he must have seen the terror in my eyes, because almost immediately he let go of me. Wild-eyed and dishevelled, he seemed to shrink back from the light, and closed the door behind us. “What are you doing here? There are photographers, journalists everywhere. I can’t have people coming to the door. Hanging around. They’ll say things . . . They’ll try . . . they’ll try anything, to get pictures, to get—”

“There’s no one out there,” I said, though to be honest I hadn’t really looked. There might have been people sitting in cars, waiting for something to happen.

“What are you doing here?” he demanded again.

“I heard . . . it was on the news. I just wanted . . . is it him? Have they arrested him?”

He nodded. “Yes, early this morning. The family liaison person was here. She came to tell me. But she couldn’t . . . they won’t tell me why. They must have found something, but they won’t tell me what. It’s not her, though. I know that they haven’t found her.”

He sits down on the stairs and wraps his arms around himself. His whole body is trembling.

“I can’t stand it. I can’t stand waiting for the phone to ring. When the phone rings, what will it be? Will it be the worst news? Will it be . . .” He tails off, then looks up as though he’s seeing me for the first time. “Why did you come?”

“I wanted . . . I thought you wouldn’t want to be alone.”

He looked at me as though I was insane. “I’m not alone,” he said. He got up and pushed past me into the living room. For a moment, I just stood there. I didn’t know whether to follow him or to leave, but then he called out, “Do you want a coffee?”

There was a woman outside on the lawn, smoking. Tall, with salt-and-pepper hair, she was smartly dressed in black trousers and white blouse done up to the throat. She was pacing up and down the patio, but as soon as she caught sight of me, she stopped, flicked her cigarette onto the paving stones and crushed it beneath her toe.

“Police?” she asked me doubtfully as she entered the kitchen.

“No, I’m—”

“This is Rachel Watson, Mum,” Scott said. “The woman who contacted me about Abdic.”

She nodded slowly, as though Scott’s explanation didn’t really help her; she took me in, her gaze sweeping rapidly over me from head to toe and back again. “Oh.”

“I just, er . . .” I didn’t have a justifiable reason for being there. I couldn’t say, could I, I just wanted to know. I wanted to see.

“Well, Scott is very grateful to you for coming forward. We’re obviously waiting now to find out what exactly is going on.” She stepped towards me, took me by the elbow and turned me gently towards the front door. I glanced at Scott, but he wasn’t looking at me; his gaze was fixed somewhere out of the window, across the tracks.

“Thank you for stopping by, Ms. Watson. We really are very grateful to you.”

I found myself on the doorstep, the front door closed firmly behind me, and when I looked up I saw them: Tom, pushing a buggy, and Anna at his side. They stopped dead when they saw me. Anna raised her hand to her mouth and swooped down to grab her child. The lioness protecting her cub. I wanted to laugh at her, to tell her, I’m not here for you, I couldn’t be less interested in your daughter.

I’m cast out. Scott’s mother made that clear. I’m cast out and I’m disappointed, but it shouldn’t matter, because they have Kamal Abdic. They’ve got him, and I helped. I did something right. They’ve got him, and it can’t be long now before they find Megan and bring her home.