Chapter Eighteen
Eighteen
Skye lay on the futon mattress, her world muffled by darkness and muted by the earplugs loaned to her by Joy. Her friend had not been joking about the snoring, and even with a foam barrier in place, Skye could still hear her nasal growl, low and rhythmic, regular as a tide.
But it wasn’t the noise that was keeping her awake; it was the letter.
Andreas had read it so exquisitely that she’d begged to hear it a second time, and then a third, delighted by not only the language but the sentiment. The lonely K carved in her attic was gaining clarity—Kat now had a name, a story, a man who had loved her so intensely that he burned with it.
Martyn had written to Skye for the first few months after they’d met.
Postcards would turn up each week from wherever his work as a pilot had taken him, colorful images of Bali, Los Angeles, Morocco, and the Caribbean, each with a few cursory lines scribbled on the back.
Sometimes he would jot down a joke, occasionally there would be an observation, but most often, he asked her a question—the same one every time: When can I see you again?
Everyone, from Sal to her mum to the other teachers in the staff room, had thought the gesture was romantic and urged her to “put the poor man out of his misery” and agree to a date.
Skye had continued to hold back. Receiving postcards and exchanging the odd text message were all she’d felt able to offer.
She assumed Martyn would grow weary of asking, that her knockbacks would eat away at his ego until pride stepped in and called a halt to the whole charade.
But he never did, and eventually she had given in.
The thin sheet was suddenly too tight, her heart a trapped bird.
Skye got out of bed and slipped from the room, careful not to wake Joy.
Her friend was on her back, mouth wide open and russet curls askew, ushered into slumber by alcohol.
The party had continued until midnight, after which a yawning Mia had announced that it was way past Bruno’s bedtime, and Adam, whom Skye suspected had long been waiting for an excuse to politely depart, fireman lifted his comatose wife out of the house.
Andreas had left at the same time, taking the precious bundle of letters home with him.
“Are you sure you don’t want to keep hold of them?” he’d asked, but Skye had been adamant.
“My house is ninety-nine percent rubble,” she’d reminded him. “They’ll be safer with you.”
Watching him drive away, however, had been a wrench.
She closed Joy’s front door behind her, cringing at the clink of the latch, and made her way across the hillside, silent in rubber-soled sandals that she wore below pajama shorts, her bag clamped to her side.
Instead of heading toward her own house, Skye banked left, slowing as she approached Victoria and Adam’s front yard. Only then did she switch on her phone.
For the first few seconds, nothing happened, and then the handset began to buzz with activity, notifications falling across the screen like toppled dominoes.
Her email inbox was crammed, as were the two messaging apps she used most regularly.
There was a slew of news updates, social media prompts, and alerts from her banking app.
Skye had methodically changed every single one of her passwords in the days running up to her departure from London before turning off her location services.
It had been eye-opening to discover quite how many digital doors were propped open and how easy it would’ve been for Martyn to track her down had she not done her research.
There were no text or WhatsApp messages from either him or her mother, though that was no surprise, given that she’d blocked both numbers.
They had each attempted to contact her via email, and Martyn had also reached out on Instagram.
A few of her former colleagues had been in touch, asking how and where she was, and there was a flurry of voice notes from Sal.
Skye pictured her friend, with her wide smile and seal-bark laugh, nails always painted in different colors because “I get bored easily, you know that.” She missed her so very much.
Turning the volume on her phone to its lowest setting, Skye held it close to her ear and pressed play.
Hey, it’s me. Listen, your mum called again, cross-examined me on your whereabouts.
I didn’t tell her where you were, but I had to admit that I knew.
She sounded really worried—like, genuinely—and I can picture your face as I say that, but she really did.
I’ve been mulling it over, and I think you should tell her, not just about the move but everything.
What Martyn did…she needs to know so she can help protect you from him, don’t you think?
Sorry, I know this isn’t what you want to hear, but we promised we’d always tell each other the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but, didn’t we?
This is just me doing that, so please don’t be cross. Love you, Skittle. Message me back.
She checked the date on the voice note. Sal had sent it six days ago—not twelve hours after Skye had sat up by the ridge and contemplated throwing her phone into the sea.
No wonder her mum was worried. Skye had shut her out—blocked her own mother.
Self-loathing swirled, a pain growing hard in the back of her throat.
She coughed to clear it, raising her hand to mask the sound, and clicked on Sal’s next message.
This recording was short—less than fifteen seconds in length.
Pick up your phone, woman. Martyn has been in touch again—he’s bombarding me. He says he’s going to fly out here if I don’t tell him where you are. I’m freaking out here. Call me back.
Fly out to Australia? Skye felt a loosening in her bladder, the strong need to pee accompanied by a frantically racing heart.
She squatted and pressed a hand against the ground, steadying herself.
There were two more voice notes, both sent in the past few hours.
She didn’t want to listen to either, but hadn’t she come out here to do just that?
Not bury her trepidation in the dirt but confront it.
Her mind went to the man described in the letter.
Poor Michalis, with his teeth that rattled like pebbles in a jar, waiting on the front line of a war.
This was her war, and it was not fair of her to expect others to fight it for her.
She stood, took a deep breath, and pressed play for the third time.
He’s here. Martyn. In Sydney. He turned up at the school office about fifteen minutes ago, demanding to see me.
Thankfully, Brenda is the last woman who will ever be told what to do by a bloke, so she told him to sling it and tipped me off.
Apparently, he’s sitting in a hire car opposite the front gates—just sitting there.
Jesus. The guy is a proper psycho. I don’t know what to do, Skits.
I can get out the back way, but he knows where I live.
I’m thinking maybe it’s better if I go out there now and just speak to him.
He can’t do much to me in the schoolyard, not with five hundred–odd students liable to be peering out through the windows.
That’s a lot of smartphones right there, and he’s too smart to do anything stupid, isn’t he? Fuck. I wish you’d pick up.
A loud bell began to ring in the background of the recording, and the voice note ended abruptly. Skye glanced at her phone. The final message had been sent only moments later and lasted just three seconds.
Screw this. I’m going out there.
No. Skye stared at the phone, wide-eyed with horror, her legs beginning to shake.
Sal had sent the message two hours ago, and since then, there had been nothing.
Images began to assault her, a macabre slideshow of what might be.
Had Martyn threatened her, hurt her, coerced or tricked her?
Why hadn’t Sal updated her? Was her friend locked in his car, unable to call for help?
Each scenario landed hard against her chest. Skye checked the time—it was almost four a.m., which made it lunchtime in Sydney.
She knew what she had to do, though her fingers shook as she scrolled to Sal’s number.
It rang, and she waited, holding her breath, knuckles white as she gripped the phone.
Then, at last, her friend’s voice was on the other line.
“Skittle?”
“Oh, thank God,” Skye said, letting out a shaky laugh. “You’re OK.”
“Well, I’m a bit freaked out, but yeah, I’m still in one piece.”
“I’m so sorry,” Skye wailed. “I only just listened to your voice notes. What happened?”
“What happened is I told him.”
Black spots began to swarm. Skye shook her head.
“Told him?” she said faintly. “Told him what? Not where I am?”
“Of course not that,” Sal replied. “I told him you were done, that you weren’t coming back, that he should stop trying to find you.”
“I’m guessing he didn’t like that much.”
Her friend sighed.
“Not much, no. He did a good job of pretending he wasn’t angry, but I could see it—hell, I could feel it. The guy was redder in the face than a barbecued lobster.”
“I’m so sorry,” Skye said again. “I can’t believe he flew all the way out there.”
“Well, he did. Told me he happened to be in the neighborhood, but there’s about as much truth to that as there is to the conspiracy theories about Nicolas Cage being a time traveler.”
“That he’s what?”
“Never mind,” she said, her voice stony. “How are you, anyway? How is island life?”
“You’re angry with me,” Skye said.
“No. Well, yes, maybe a little. I’m angriest with Martyn for creating this situation. If he wasn’t such a grade-A narcissist…”
“I never wanted any of this to rebound on you,” Skye said. “I knew he’d be apoplectic with rage once he realized that I wasn’t coming back, but I didn’t expect him to go this far.”
“He thinks of you as one of his possessions,” Sal intoned. “As if you’re a set of cuff links or one of those awful Mr. T–style watches he likes to wear.”
Skye had begun to rock backward and forward.
“What else did he say?” she asked.
“That he was worried about you, that he loved you and couldn’t understand why you’d left, blah, blah.
That he knew he could make you see sense if only you’d talk to him.
He was giving it the hard sell, basically, but he could tell I wasn’t impressed.
Then he stepped it up a notch, started ranting on about how you’d stolen from him and how he’d have no choice but to report it to the police.
I laughed at that, told him he was talking out of his—well, you know. ”
The police.
Skye’s ribs felt too tight, her stomach hollow.
“How can he accuse you of stealing when you’ve left him the house and everything in it?” Sal went on. “The bloke’s a fantasist.”
“How did you leave things?” Skye’s voice was barely a rasp.
“I told him that if he didn’t back off, then it would be me calling the police, reporting him for harassment. He took that pretty well, considering. Just sort of smiled and said, ‘You’re a good friend to her, Salima,’ in this really condescending way. Gave me the creeps.”
“And then he, what, just drove off?”
“Not quite.”
Sal said nothing for a few beats. Skye could hear the sounds of a busy school in the background, chattering voices, the bang of a door—echoes of her past, a time when happiness had been more than a glimpse on some far-off horizon.
“He did say one other thing,” Sal said.
Skye went very still.
“What?”
“He said, ‘Tell your friend’—not ‘Skye,’ he didn’t use your name, but ‘your friend’—‘that I know what she did and that time is ticking.’ Then he tapped his finger on his wrist. Honestly, it was a bit sinister. I laughed it off to his face, but afterward, I couldn’t stop shaking, not for ages.”
“I’m sorry,” said Skye, her words redundant, useless, flat.
“I’m the one who should be sorry,” Sal argued. “I let him sit with us that first night at the opera house bar, I encouraged you to trust him, talk to him, let him into your life.”
“It’s not your fault.”
“No, but I—”
“Sal, please. This isn’t on you, and it’s not on me, either—it’s on him.”
The dawn was beginning to show itself, casting the village in an uncertain bruised light, smoldering below the mountains. From somewhere down the hill came the soft, sorrowful bleat of a goat, a sound that seemed to echo the weight in Skye’s chest.
“I have to go,” Sal said. “Will you be OK?”
“Of course.” Skye forced the words out, shaping them into a smile, willing them to be true. But deep in her gut, colder and heavier than fear, two other words had settled.
He knows.