“What?”
He gives an insane smile. “You didn’t think we met by accident, did you?”
Forty-eight
Once again, Iam on the back foot. Unaware of where this story is going. And it is this—more than the knife, more than the blankness in Jack’s eyes—that makes me feel incredibly, horribly vulnerable. Jack is looking at me as though I have been very stupid indeed. As though I have missed some essential piece of the puzzle. A piece he is about to slot into place. I’ve lost control of this situation, and he knows it.
Jack smiles—a chilling baring of teeth that repulses me, fascinates me. “I really thought you’d got it all figured out. Clearly, I gave you too much credit.
“I came to the group because of you, Iris. Not because of some coincidence. Not because it was ordained. I knew you’d been going to the group before I decided to join, too.”
“What?” I hate the way my voice trembles. How frightened I sound.
“I followed you for weeks, Iris. This whole fucking mess has been created by you. Don’t you see that? I stood outside that stupid little café for weeks. I waited outside your flat.”
I hear his words, but they don’t make sense. “Why?”
“Because of Freddie,” he says simply. Dispassionately.
“What does Freddie have to do with anything?”
Jack exhales slowly, closes his eyes as though I’m a child testing his already limited patience. “He was fucking my wife, that’s what! Behind my back. They were going to run away together. She was going to leave me. She was going to go and live with him in his disgusting flat. Overthis.” He gestures to the room we are sitting in. “He’d proposed to her—I saw it in the messages. She couldn’t wear the ring, obviously. But they knew I wouldn’t make it easy for them. I wasn’t going to give her up—not the best thing that’s ever happened to me—without a fight. So she kept coming back to me. Every night, even though she was plotting her escape. Pretending everything was fine. Makes me sick.”
The air feels very, very thin.
“I’d been following him for a while. Trying to figure out what was so special about this man that had stolen my wife. Trying to see what qualities he had that I didn’t. He was so fucking disappointing, it was almost insulting. I saw him with you at the pub. I saw you letting yourself into his flat, and I thought that he was in a serious relationship. He was fucking my wife, but he also had this little bitch on the side. I think Alice suspected I knew something. She broke it off with him for a while, even told him she felt guilty. Not guilty enough not to go running back to him, though. That’s when I caught Freddie kissing you.
“When they got back together not long after that, my wife told him she’d leave me for him. I simply couldn’t let that happen.”
His tone is flat. Expressionless. “It’s my fault she died. She was scared of me. No wonder she felt she had to escape the way she did. I’d made her life miserable. I’ll have to live with that for the rest of my life, my punishment for the way I’d treated her. But when she died, I realized I was still angry. So fucking angry. I couldn’t let it go. If Freddiehadn’t come along, she would never have been walking back home—back to me—stinking of him. She wouldn’t have died. We’d have made it work, I know it.” His gaze snaps back to mine.
I’m not sure what frightens me more: the mad smile he gives me, or the fact that I am suddenly aware he is about to confess something terrible. Something that will make it impossible for him to let me go.
“Jack, I don’t need to know this,” I say, voice trembling again. I mean it. I don’t want to know whatever he is about to tell me. “I’ll go. I’ll leave the country. You haven’t told me anything yet.” When did I become soweak?
But Jack continues as though I haven’t spoken. He tightens his legs round mine. “The day after Alice died—well, I suppose it was the same day, given she died in the early hours of June sixth—I waited for Freddie outside his office. Your office, too.”
I want to stop him from speaking anymore. Every word feels like another nail in my coffin. I place my hand on the table while his eyes are still fixed to mine. As though I am leaning against it for support. And I begin to inch toward the knife.
“I followed him,” Jack continues. “I blamed him for everything: for Alice dying, for ruining my marriage, for taking what was mine by law. I saw you arguing in some disgusting alleyway, and I realized that he must not know yet that Alice had died. Who would think to tell him? He had no claim over her, nothing linking him to her. He was still planning to meet her that evening. I saw red. He left you in that alley, walked out onto the street, and stopped at a traffic light. I saw my opportunity, and I took it.”
My hand is mere inches from the knife now, but Jack leans forward and grasps my forearms with his hands. I pull back. Force myself to meet his eye. His breath—hot with whisky and rancor—heats my face, and I turn away from him, gritting my teeth.
“I pushed him. Straight into the middle of the road. And do youknow what? It was the easiest thing I’ve ever done. There was a lorry. And suddenly, my issue was just…gone.
“I thought I’d feel better after that. I’d rid myself of the problem. But I realized I was still coming home to an empty house, and it was all my fault. I realized I was still so angry. And I thought: Who’s the only other person who might understand even an iota of what I’m going through?”
He leans forward so that his face is now only a centimeter from mine. I push my hand forward again, so that I can feel—against the tips of my fingers—the handle. “You, Iris,” he whispers.
“I started following you then. I saw you were going to this stupid group, and I thought: Why not? It would be a good way of getting to know you. I originally planned to tell you the truth at the end of the first session. To tell you how the man you were so in love with was fucking you over—but then you threw a curveball. You told everyone he’d proposed. When he’d also proposed to mywife.” He shouts the word, and I jump.
I’m so close now. I inch my middle finger over the handle.
He pauses for a moment and cocks his head as though listening for something. I’ve been so focused on my task of inching closer to the knife that I didn’t hear anything, but now, a knock. Coming from the front door. There’s a pause, and then the bell goes, loud, long, insistent. A tiny spark of hope. If Jack goes to answer the door, I can grab the knife, hide, make a break for it when his back is turned. Ask whoever it is to run for help.
But Jack has other ideas. “Don’t fucking move,” he says quietly.
There’s a long, painful pause. They must have gone. It’s totally silent aside from Jack’s slightly labored breathing. And then he continues as though we weren’t just interrupted.
