“It’ll have to wait.”
“No!” he says. “We need to speak before you make the call.”
Her heart’s thumping but she leads him into the sitting room where she perches on the edge of a chair in a way that signals that she is not getting comfortable and he sits on the sofa opposite her. He looks even more agitated, and she feels intensely claustrophobic, as if someone has turned the heat up in the room.
“Why are you here?” she asks.
“I was meant to meet Paul yesterday,” he says, “but he didn’t turn up.”
“Paul was working. That’s why he didn’t come up north yesterday.”
“He wasn’t.”
She won’t have this, not another person claiming that Paul’s lied to her. “No,” she says.
“Paul and I had made a different arrangement,” Toby says.
She stares at him. “What arrangement?”
Toby looks past her, into the garden, avoiding her gaze. She notes how pale he is, how much he seems to be struggling to put what he wants to say into words. It scares the hell out of her. “Well, this is embarrassing, and it’s going to sound very odd, but I’m not at liberty to say. I’ve been asked to keep it a secret and I don’t knowhow much Paul told you but that’s something we take very seriously as a group of friends. We don’t betray each other.”
She couldn’t hate him more in that moment. Everything enrages her, his faux conversational tone, the embarrassment he’s affecting right now, as if they’re discussing some minor mishap. This fucking so-called loyalty. Her voice feels as if it rises up out of her from somewhere animal.
“Tell me right now what’s going on.”
“I can’t.”
“What does Ruth say about this?”
“I couldn’t tell her. Not in the state she’s in today. She needs rest. Frankly, she’s not been herself for a while now.”
“She’s a drunk.”
He doesn’t flinch. He knows. She wonders if he cares then decides she’s not interested in the state of their marriage. Paul is all she cares about.
“Toby,” she says. “You’re delusional about your friends. You only need to look at Edie’s horrible letter to know that. Tell me right now what’s going on because I’m telling you that Paul’s in danger.” Her voice rises until she’s shouting.
He puts up a hand, as if to instruct her to calm down. It enrages her more. She realizes she’s shaking, not obviously, not so he would notice, but beneath her skin, an unraveling is happening, as if she’s physically reached the limits of her patience.
“No,” he says. “You see, I don’t think he truly is. The letter’s a fraud. Edie would never do something like that. But I’m worried about him. Not that he’s dead, that would be ridiculous.” She notices that he’s begun to wring his hands, fingers, knuckles, and palms all in constant, nervous motion. “But I’m concerned because I thought I’d have heard from him by now, to say why he didn’t turn up to meet me yesterday.”
She stands. Her balance is precarious. She needs more painkillers. “I’m calling the police.”
“No. No, don’t. Please, don’t.”
She has to pass him to get out of the room, to reach the landline, which is in the hallway. His lips look bloodless. She limps a few steps. He stands. He’s very close to her. Within easy striking distance. The mood in the room has changed. She feels a rush of fear.
“Don’t be hasty,” he says.
“Get out of my way.”
She’s never felt as vulnerable as she does now. I don’t even know this man, she thinks. I don’t know who he is, really, or what he might do. In the world she grew up in, any man has the potential for violence.
She tries to straighten up, to present herself as strong, as not cowed by him. Pain shoots up her leg.
He doesn’t move.
“Toby,” she says. “You’re scaring me.”
