But at least his departure gives me some space. And time. I need to get to the bottom of all of this. And first things first, I need to figure out just what this Bethany does all day.
The answer to the question falls into my lap half an hour later, just as I’m getting out of the shower. The woman on the other end of the phone has a voice like honey and sounds genuinely concerned about me.
‘How are you doing, darling? It must have been such an ordeal, you poor thing.’
My phone tells me this is Amina Samar. I make some noncommittal reply as I desperately try to pluck some information about her from my brain. But there’s nothing. I have no clue who she is or why she’s ringing.
‘Are you coming in today?’ Amina asks. ‘I know it must have been awful for you, but the other ladies would be thrilled to see you, even if you just pop in for a cup of tea.’
‘I … umm …’ I stammer as I put her on speakerphone and pull up my emails. There she is. Amina Samar, a volunteer at the Aster Trust, a charity dedicated to supporting refugee women as they settle into life in Surrey. From the sheervolume of emails we exchange, I must also be a volunteer. And a pretty prolific one at that. When the doctor said I had a heart attack at work, the Aster Trust must have been where he meant.
‘It will do you good to get out of the house,’ Amina tells me, a decidedly mumsy tone to her. ‘But don’t even think about driving. I’ll swing by and pick you up. Give me forty-five minutes.’
And before I can say no, she hangs up.
So, it turns out I’m not just a volunteer, I basically run the entire operation. I even have my own office, which feels suitably swish – I don’t even have my own office back home. The other volunteers, all women, crowd round me, desperate to know if I’m really okay. They are sweet and well meaning, offering me tea and cake ‘to help me get my strength back’. But it’s all a bit much, so I feign a funny spell and retire to my office, terrified I’ll get overwhelmed and just blurt out that I’m not really this Bethany and it’s all a big mistake and I don’t belong here and tomorrow the real Bethany they know will be back and everything will be all right.
The office feels a little more like me. A bit of a mess, a collection of different-sized Post-it notes, an array of colourful books not quite lined up on a shelf. Inside the bottom drawer of the filing cabinet I find a locked box, the kind my school used to use for the tuck shop. For a second I think of the way Nick has something similar, perhaps my source of inspiration.
I close my eyes and think about where I would hide a key. Somewhere I could reach from sitting down behind my desk. Somewhere a cleaner wouldn’t inadvertently find it. Somewhere not so weird that it would look suspicious if someone did find it. I mean, imagine how intriguing it wouldbe to find a key taped underneath the desk. You’d start instantly looking for what the key was for; it’s just human nature.
The key is inside a pencil case in the second drawer down, tucked into the bottom so it isn’t visible from a perfunctory glance. I check no one is watching, but it looks like the charity is pretty busy and everyone is occupied making calls and tapping efficiently at their keyboards. This Bethany runs a tight ship, the place operating smooth as clockwork.
Inside the box is a stack of notebooks in every colour of the rainbow. I open the top one.
And then I know.
I amnotthis Bethany.
But I’m also not going to skip again.
Chapter Fifty-One
At the bottom of the lock box is a pair of keys, labelled in that same scrappy writing as the notebook I found stuffed down the side of this Bethany’s bed. When I squint I can just make out three numbers: 458. Lucky for me the keychain was provided by the storage unit and so I know exactly what the keys are for.
I scoop up my bag and practically run out the door and across the office.
‘Bethany?’ Amina calls after me, her voice full of concern. ‘Bethany?’ Her tone pitches up an octave.
‘Sorry. I’m fine. I just remembered I need to be …’ I fumble for a suitable excuse. ‘Uh, hospital appointment. Follow-up. You know …’ I sound frantic to my own ears and I dread to think what I might look like. Manic, desperate, like a woman possessed.
I am all of those things. I have to get to the unit. I have to see it for myself.
It takes me less than five minutes to get to the small industrial estate, and another ten to find the actual unit. I don’t wantto ask anyone for help, terrified they will think I’m trying to break in. But then there it is.
Unit 458. The door is one of those roller ones, about the same size as a single garage, two large padlocks securing the entrance. I take out the keys and hold my breath as I slide one into the first padlock.
It doesn’t work.Shit shit shitscreams the voice in the back of my head. Did the lease run out? Were the contents of the locker sold to some bargain hunter who would’ve had no idea what they’d bought?
The second key fits the lock and there’s a satisfying clunk as the mechanism turns and the lock springs open. Relief floods me and I stagger slightly against the rush of it. I use the first key on the next padlock and then tuck them both into my handbag.
‘The moment of truth,’ I whisper under my breath as I roll the door upwards, keeping my eyes closed until the last moment like a child waiting for the big reveal on Christmas morning.
It’s almost disappointing.
I say ‘almost’ because although it looks like nothing much at all, I know exactly what it’s capable of. Just a chair and a bunch of wires and a bank of computers.
It’s beautiful and terrifying and I’m afraid to even touch it just in case. The machine this Bethany built inside a nondescript storage unit in Reigate has the potential to change the entire future of humanity.
