Elle （Past）
ELLE
PAST
I woke up feeling more depressed than ever. It was the May bank holiday weekend. Jaz had gone away with our group of friends so I was alone in the flat.
Jaz hadn’t asked me to go with him and if he had, I wouldn’t have gone.
My obsession with Brett Parker had finally cost me my relationship with Jaz.
We were no longer lovers, we weren’t even friends, just two people who shared an apartment because it was convenient for us to do so.
Or rather, convenient for me to do so. It was Jaz’s flat, I just paid him rent.
If anyone was leaving, it would have to be me.
Jaz had already told me that if I wanted to move out, he had a work colleague looking for a room to rent.
I hadn’t asked him if the colleague was male or female.
In my heart, I knew that moving out was the right thing to do.
It was eleven months since Bryony Sanders had been murdered, six months since I’d first gone to the house in St. John’s Wood and I was no longer fun to be around.
I couldn’t stand the thought of another day with nothing to do so I forced myself to get up, get dressed, and headed outside for some fresh air.
Maybe it was because Brett Parker was on my mind that I found myself walking to Southwark underground station, then taking the tube to St. John’s Wood.
I barely realized what I was doing; I felt I was being propelled there by an unseen force, and excitement tugged at me at the thought that Fate was taking a hand.
And it seemed I was right because as I exited the tube station, I saw Brett Parker on the other side of the street, pushing an elderly man in a wheelchair.
I stepped quickly to the right, out of his eye line, worried he would turn his head toward where I was standing.
But he was deep in conversation with his son, who walked alongside him.
His wife was also there, as well as an older couple, and from her resemblance to them, I guessed they were her parents.
Keeping to my side of the street, I began to follow them, intrigued as to where they were going.
At one moment, the son jostled his dad playfully and I laughed along with them, then felt guilty.
The son was taller than I remembered, and heavier too, as if he was a regular at a gym.
They were all smartly dressed; Brett Parker was wearing his navy overcoat, his wife wore a beige trench with brown kitten-heel shoes, and the son had exchanged his hoodie for a jacket.
I thought they might be on their way to church but after a few minutes, they stopped in front of a smart restaurant.
Through another break in the traffic, because we were on opposite sides of the main thoroughfare, I watched Brett Parker’s son hold the door open for his family.
His mum disappeared inside, followed by her parents, then Brett Parker pushed the wheelchair forward and when he bumped it against the door, the elderly man made a play of almost falling out, making everyone laugh.
I laughed too, then caught myself. Brett Parker was the enemy.
“Thanks, Damon!” the elderly man called, as he was wheeled through the door.
His voice carried across the street to me.
So Brett Parker’s son was called Damon. His door-holding duties over, he followed the rest of his family into the restaurant.
I could no longer see them and I resigned myself to having to kill time while they had their lunch.
I couldn’t go home; I was convinced that Fate had lured me there and if Fate had lured me there, it was because I was about to discover something about Brett Parker that would help me prove his connection to Bryony Sanders.
I was about to find somewhere to have a coffee when there was a flurry of movement from inside the restaurant.
My view was broken for a few seconds by a stream of traffic but when it cleared, I saw Brett Parker and his family taking seats at a table in the window, with a view onto the street.
Someone—a waiter—appeared at their table carrying a huge bottle of what looked like champagne.
More cars passed and when I looked again, everyone was raising their glasses to the son.
When he raised his glass in response, I understood that it was some kind of celebration for him.
Maybe he had passed his driving test, or an exam.
It was only when his mum slid a present across the table to him that I guessed it was his birthday—possibly his eighteenth, if he was drinking champagne.
The family scene mesmerized me. They looked so happy as they laughed together and whatever the gift was obviously pleased their son because he turned to each of his parents, sitting on either side of him, and gave them a hug.
Fascinated, all thoughts of a coffee forgotten, I stepped into a doorway and watched through breaks in the traffic as they bent their heads over tall menus brought to them by the waiter.
There were fewer cars around now; it was one o’clock, and most people were at home having Sunday lunch with their families.
A wave of loneliness washed over me and I had to fight the urge to cross over the road, go into the restaurant and ask Brett Parker if I could join him and his family for lunch.
I let my imagination run; Brett Parker would say “of course” and the waiter would bring a chair for me and I would sit down at the end of the table, flanked by Brett Parker and the man in the wheelchair, and they would ask me about myself and I’d tell them that I’d been brought up in care and had never had a proper family and they would explain that it was Damon’s eighteenth birthday and that they were happy for me to join them and—
Feeling eyes on me, I snapped out of my trance.
As the restaurant across the street came into focus, I saw that the son was leaning back in his chair, staring at me through the window.
I shrank farther back into the doorway, my heart pounding, hoping he hadn’t recognized me.
His mum, sitting nearest the window, also had her head turned toward me and, fighting down a surge of panic, I scanned the seat on the other side of the son, expecting to see Brett Parker looking at me too.
But his seat was empty, and I grabbed onto the possibility that he had gone to the bathroom.
If he had, I’d have time to make my escape before his son and wife told him I was there.
I was about to leave when the door of the restaurant flew open and Brett Parker stormed onto the pavement.
The fury on his face as he looked across the street at me galvanized me and I began to run.
I heard him shout “You!” then, seconds later, a sound that would haunt me for the rest of my life—a screeching of tires, followed by an almighty thud and a piercing scream that came from a lady coming toward me, her eyes wide with horror as she looked into the road.
“Oh my God, oh my God.” The woman looked as if she was about to pass out. “That poor man, oh my God.”
Above the buzzing that had begun in my ears, I was aware of a clamor of voices as people spilled onto the street from surrounding restaurants and cafés.
I could hear a woman wailing and people shouting for a doctor.
Car doors slammed as people left their vehicles and ran to help.
I didn’t want to turn and look but I needed to be sure that it was a stranger who’d been hit by a car, not Brett Parker.
It couldn’t be Brett Parker, he would have stopped when he saw me moving away and would be calling DC Moss at this very minute and soon my phone would ring and it would be DC Moss telling me that I was going to be charged with harassment.
I willed for it to happen, I wanted it to happen and while I waited for it to happen, I turned slowly, knowing that the terrible fear permeating every pore of my body would evaporate the minute I saw Brett Parker where I’d last seen him, standing outside the restaurant on the other side of the road. But he wasn’t there.
My eyes scanned the crowd of people that had gathered on the pavement but he wasn’t there either.
A siren sounded, getting steadily louder, and as drivers got back into their abandoned cars and moved them out of the way, I saw Brett Parker’s wife on her knees in the road, sobbing next to her husband’s prone body.
As I stood rooted to the spot, he momentarily lifted his head, then lay it back on the ground. A terrible fear gripped me.
“It was her!” I swung my head toward the voice and saw Damon Parker pointing at me from the other side of the street, his face contorted by grief and anger. “It’s her fault! She’s been following my dad!”
And as the people gathered there began to turn toward me, I ran.