Elle （Past）
ELLE
PAST
I hurried into the supermarket a few doors down from La Salsa, hoping Brett Parker hadn’t seen me at the window. I bought a carton of milk I didn’t need and a loaf of bread I needed even less and swung by the flat to drop them off before heading back to work.
My phone rang as I was putting the milk in the fridge. It was DC Moss. I hesitated a moment, then took the call.
“Elle,” she said. “Where are you?”
“At home,” I told her. “It’s my lunch break. Why?”
“I’ve just had a call from Brett Parker. Apparently, he saw you standing outside the restaurant where he was having lunch.”
“When?” I asked, my mind racing.
“About ten minutes ago.”
“He couldn’t have,” I said. “Ten minutes ago I was in a supermarket doing some shopping.”
“Where were you doing your shopping?”
“On The Cut. There’s a supermarket there, my local.”
“I see.”
“So I couldn’t have been standing outside the restaurant where Brett Parker was having lunch.
” I paused. “Unless he was in one of the restaurants on The Cut. And even then, he couldn’t have seen me standing outside.
He might have seen me walking past but that’s all.
” I paused again. “But if he was in a restaurant on The Cut, wouldn’t that be a bit strange?
I mean, strange that he was in the area where Bryony worked? Unless he works in the area too?”
“Don’t be smart.” The detective’s voice was weary. “You’ve been seen following him to work.”
“If he does work somewhere nearby,” I went on, ignoring what DC Moss had just said, “wouldn’t there be the possibility that his and Bryony’s paths might have crossed at one time or another?”
“Mr. Parker wants me to charge you with harassment.” The detective’s voice was steely. “So I’m going to give you a final warning. If you don’t want to find yourself in court, stay away from him.”
DC Moss hung up, leaving me reeling from the telling off I’d just had. A noise behind me made me spin around. Jaz was standing in the doorway.
“What are you doing here?” I said, leaping straight into attack mode. Things weren’t going well between us. Every loving word, every kind gesture, increased the guilt I felt about lying to him. It was easier to put a barrier between us, a barrier of my own making.
“I took a day off,” he said.
“You didn’t tell me.” I heard the accusatory tone in my voice and cringed inwardly.
“We need to talk.”
He raised his arm and put it across the doorway, effectively blocking my way out. It was a subconscious gesture but it spoke volumes; I was going to have to stay and listen to what he had to say.
“I presume that was DC Moss on the phone.” I didn’t say anything. “I know what you’ve been doing, Elle. I know you’ve been hanging round the tube station in the mornings so that you can follow Brett Parker to the office, I know you’ve been following him during your lunch breaks.”
“How do you know?” I demanded.
“I wanted to know what you were up to so I took a week off work.”
I looked at him incredulously. “You’ve been spying on me?”
He gave a dry laugh. “I’m not the only one who’s been following you.
There’s a young guy, he was with Brett Parker earlier today, he must be one of his colleagues.
He was outside the coffee shop this morning, watching you watching his boss.
He’s probably been onto you for quite a while.
I don’t know why it took Brett Parker so long to call DC Moss.
” He shook his head. “I don’t know who you are anymore.
” The sadness in his voice pierced my heart.
“Are you breaking up with me?” I couldn’t hide the wobble in my voice.
“You’re such a child, Elle.” He moved from the doorway. “I’m going out.”
Instead of heading back to the office, I slumped despondently on the sofa.
The whole world seemed to be against me—Jaz, DC Moss, our friends, my work colleagues.
I couldn’t remember the last time I’d gone out with our group of friends.
My obsession with Brett Parker meant that I was often distracted, barely joining in the conversation because my mind was elsewhere.
It was uncomfortable for them and uncomfortable for me, so I now left Jaz to go on his own.
Work wasn’t much better. I’d already been asked by my boss to explain my erratic working schedule due to following Brett Parker during his lunch breaks.
My colleagues knew I’d been badly affected by Bryony’s murder and had been indulgent when I’d first started going AWOL during working hours, wrongly presuming I was having counseling.
But they were becoming less tolerant and after DC Moss’s latest warning, I accepted that I needed to stop trailing Brett Parker.
I comforted myself with what I’d managed to find out about him.
I knew his name, his address, the office building where he worked.
I knew where he bought his coffee each morning, I knew that he had a sandwich most days for lunch, except on Fridays, when he went for something to eat with his colleagues in a restaurant local to where he worked.
There were still gaps in my knowledge; I still didn’t know who he worked for, I didn’t know what he did in his spare time, I didn’t know what his relationship with his wife was like, or with his son.
I didn’t know how long he’d lived in the UK, if he was here forever or if he’d be going back to the US one day.
And that made me consider something I hadn’t considered before.
If he was guilty of murdering Bryony Sanders, wouldn’t he have gone straight back to the US once her body was discovered?
If he was guilty, would he really have risked staying in the UK and being recognized by someone who’d seen him with Bryony?
For the first time, a seed of doubt planted itself in my brain and I had to remind myself that I didn’t know that he had killed Bryony, only that he’d picked her up outside Jaz’s flat on the day she’d been murdered.
And that was all I wanted him to admit to, because once he had, the police would ask him what happened after he had picked her up and even if he only admitted to dropping her off somewhere, it would be a step further toward finding her killer.
A sudden fury at Brett Parker came over me. His refusal to admit the part he’d played in Bryony’s disappearance was ruining my life. Everyone thought I’d made a mistake in identifying him as the driver of the car that Bryony had climbed into and I was determined to prove them wrong.