Page 83 of The Perfect Son

“Well, you did. A lot.” My hand tightens on my phone. I want to call the police and get those two officers back here. I want to show them it was real, but what purpose would it serve? “How many times have you tried to call me?”

“A lot. I... I realized I couldn’t do it face-to-face, so I thought I’d phone you instead, but that didn’t work either. I heard your voice on the answerphone and you sounded so happy. I started phoning just to hear it. I think a part of me was trying to convince myself that you were still happy.”

I shake my head. “How can I be?”

“I’m sorry. I’m so so sorry.” Richard drops his head to his knees, the sobs shaking his body once again, but I feel no sympathy for him.

“I should call the police. You know that, don’t you? You’ve been following me, calling my house. You’ve trespassed on my property and scared me out of my wits.”

“I never meant to do that. I’m sorry.”

“Stop saying sorry. It’s meaningless.” I stand up and stare down at him, forcing myself to think back over the days and days since you died. All the things that have happened, the pages in my notebook. Finally I have answers. Some, at least.

“So you never spoke when you called me?” I ask. “You didn’t know my husband?”

Richard shakes his head and sniffs, and I believe him.

“What kind of car do you drive?”

“A blue Nissan.”

“Did you follow me in a car any other time after Manningtree?”

“No.”

Not all the answers, then. Just some. The hang-ups, the feeling of being watched. The man in the garden.

“Please leave now and don’t come back. I never want to see you again.”

Richard doesn’t move. Not at first. He just stares up at me with his pathetic, beady eyes. I unlock the screen of my phone and allow my finger to hover over the call button. It’s enough. Richard pushes himself up and walks quickly away.

Maybe one day I’ll feel sorry for Richard and the burden he will carry with him forever, but after everything he has put me through, I don’t think I will.

CHAPTER 52

The man in the black baseball cap—Richard—who I thought was trying to grab me in Manningtree, who stood in my garden in the dark and watched us, who called the house and hung up dozens of times, he is not the same person who called me Tessie.

The thought stuck in my mind as I washed up the cake tins. It was still there like a pin pricking my brain all the way through the evening. But it is only when Jamie is asleep and I’m sitting in bed with the notebook resting on my lap that something clicks.

There’s one line written on the second page:You didn’t have to go!

Denise’s name is written underneath it, and it’s only when I see it that I remember her parting question as I was trying to shut the door.“Has anyone called you?”she asked.

I picture her face and the dark pencil-drawn eyebrows. Her eyes were wide, her lips tight, as if she might’ve been scared. But of what?

I throw off the covers and pad barefoot down the stairs, holding your pj bottoms at the waist to stop them from falling down. I don’t bother turning on the lights, and I use the torch on my phone to guide me.

I dig through the drawer with the take-out menus and phone chargers. I’m sure I put her card in here. I find it slipped between myaddress book and a Thai take-out menu and punch the number into my mobile.

The kitchen floor is freezing cold. It’s seeping through my feet and into my body, and I shiver.

Denise answers on the third ring. “Hello?” she says, her voice hesitant as if she hadn’t wanted to pick up at all.

“Denise, it’s Tess.”

“Oh, hi, Tess. Is everything all right?” There’s a shuffling in the background and I hear a door closing.

“Yes. Sorry. I was thinking about... er... Mark’s work stuff, and I wondered if you could help me with something.”