Chapter 29
Twenty-Nine
Sunday
EMILY
The next morning, my head feels thick and heavy, as if I’ve overdone it—even though I barely drank at the barbecue.
Oliver, on the other hand, who consumed too much beer, and wine, and finished on shots, groaned and turned over when I got up. Went back to sleep.
When I’m sure he’s comatose again, I lightly pick up his phone and take it into the en suite bathroom. I open up text messages and scroll. The threatening messages have been deleted and there are no new ones.
On my own phone I check the Orchard Lane WhatsApp. There is nothing new to see.
I find myself hoping whatever problem there was has been resolved, but it feels a bit na?ve to do so.
I replace the phone on Oliver’s charging pad, take a quick shower and get dressed.
My car went into a local garage for its MOT yesterday morning, so I order an Uber. I have to get out of the house quickly and put some distance between myself and Orchard Lane, find a stretch of time where I’m alone with my thoughts.
Mid-morning, Oliver’s still not awake, so about ten-thirty, I grab my bag, keys and phone and call ‘Back later,’ when I’m already halfway down the hall. ‘I’m just popping into town.’
At one time he’d have shouted down, asking if I was OK and offering to come with me, maybe grab some lunch while we’re out.
Just before I close the front door I hear a half-hearted croak from upstairs: ‘See you later.’
He’d usually want to know at least what time I’ll be back. He’s happiest with a schedule that keeps things neat, but I guess his hangover has overtaken all that.
I stand outside our gate and look around.
Orchard Lane looks as manicured as ever, although it’s a different story in our back garden.
with the detritus from last night’s barbecue.
Out here, everyone’s hedges are clipped, loose gravel is swept up, the faint smell of someone else’s washing on a line close by drifts on the air.
I check my watch. The cab is just a minute away.
Last night, when we crawled into bed, Oliver declared the barbecue to have been a roaring success.
‘You were nattering away with Vanessa whenever I looked over,’ I said. ‘What were you talking about?’
‘Give it a rest, Em,’ he snapped. ‘It’s a party. People chat.’
The message on the Orchard Lane WhatsApp group—i know what you did—had been a shock but was explained in the end, and that was good enough for him.
Apparently, someone had been added to the group earlier that evening after sending a friendly message to Lara out of the blue:
Hi, it’s Dan from up the road. I’ve been told you’re the person who can add me to the Orchard Lane WhatsApp group?
Busy helping me with preparations for the party, Lara said she’d done it without thinking, assuming it was just another neighbour who hadn’t bothered to join the group previously but had heard about the barbecue.
By the time anyone had realized the number wasn’t familiar, the message had already been posted. Lara had deleted the contact, removed the number from the group, and that was that.
According to Oliver, it was probably someone who didn’t get an invite to the party of the year. Everyone laughed, moved on, forgot about it. I assumed he’d reacted that way so as not to lose face.
‘Do you think that message was meant for us?’ I asked him.
‘From who? We’ve covered our tracks,’ he said, looking away. ‘Nobody knows where we are.’
I was surprised by his reaction, and not altogether convinced by it. But he made it clear he was tired and wanted to go to sleep.
But Lara and the other guests don’t know that the message might not have been random at all and someone was letting us know they’re on to us. The unpleasant thought crossed my mind that it might have been someone right there, at the party. Watching my discomfort in real time.
When the message arrived, the effect was immediate.
Phones buzzed almost in unison, an electronic chorus of beeps cutting through the garden chatter. Conversations stalled mid-sentence. Laughter faltered. I remember the way people glanced down at their screens, then up at one another, faces briefly unguarded.
I know what you did.
For a second, I felt sure it was me everyone was looking at. Heat rushed up my neck. I could feel my smile fixing itself in place, brittle, automatic. My mind scrambled—what exactly had they seen? How much did they know?
Then I realized something else.
No one looked at me for very long.
People were looking at themselves. At their partners.
Glancing at their phones again, scrolling back as if context might magically appear.
A woman near the drinks table laughed too loudly and said, ‘Looks like we’ve been found out,’ while clutching her glass a little tighter.
Someone else muttered, ‘That’s not funny,’ though it was impossible to tell whether they meant it was funny or wasn’t.
The unease was contagious. Everyone suddenly seemed to have something to hide.
It was Oliver who broke the spell. He gestured for Lara to turn down the music and, raising his voice just enough, said, ‘There’s that story about Arthur Conan Doyle.
Legend has it he sent a postcard to a load of his friends that just said: All is discovered.
Flee at once.’ He paused as they waited for the punch line.
‘Apparently half of them left the country.’
A few laughs. Nervous at first, but real enough.
‘Seriously?’ someone said.
‘Just an urban legend,’ Oliver replied easily. ‘But the point is, everyone assumes it’s about them.’
And that did it.
The tension cracked. Someone repeated the story to someone else. Another guest shook their head, grinning, and said, ‘Well, I’m not going anywhere until the drink runs out.’ Glasses clinked. The music was turned back up and the moment passed.
It became a joke. A curiosity. Something to roll their eyes and laugh over.
But I stood there, phone still warm in my hand, knowing the difference.
For everyone else, the message might mean anything.
For me, it meant exactly one thing.
‘Rubbish!’ Oliver laughed later when I told him my fears. ‘That’s you all over, Em. Adding together two plus two and getting five.’
The cab arrives and I stare out of the window without really seeing much. I do catch sight of the bakery I like. The café I’ve been to with Lara a few times. Couples sitting opposite each other, phones face down between them while they chat. Ordinary lives, people getting along.
My life—our new start—feels like it’s stalled before it’s even got properly started.
I keep thinking about the way Oliver flinches every time his phone buzzes the last few days. The threatening text message I’d seen, now deleted. The way he snapped at me for asking what he’d been talking to Vanessa about at the party.
Vanessa.
He says she’s needy. ‘She’s just lonely and bored, Em.’
He says it like it’s an explanation for him always popping next door, like that alone should satisfy my concerns.
I sit on a bench near the river and watch the Trent steadily flowing. Brown and predictable on this dull, warm day, carrying leaves and debris and the odd team of ducks. I envy the water. The way it just keeps moving. The way nothing can stop it.
My phone sits heavy in my hand.
I tell myself I’m overreacting. I tell myself this is just how Oliver is under pressure. But what’s the pressure? This is supposed to be our new start. We have money in the bank and nice new neighbours like Lara and Tim who are shaping up to be future friends.
And I’ve seen it before, his irritability. The way he’s constantly on edge and pushes away my efforts to connect.
But something feels different this time.
As though he’s waiting for a call. A message. A decision he can’t control.
While the river rolls on and a couple of moorhens in front of me forage for insects and algae, I scroll through my emails without really reading them. Bills. Spam. Newsletters I never open. My thumb hovers, then before I can stop it, it clicks on a button.
New message.
I stare at the blank screen for a moment longer than necessary.
I don’t do this. I don’t chase updates or poke sleeping dogs or open doors I’m not prepared to walk through. I pride myself on restraint. On knowing how to wait.
But the not-knowing and the silence are doing something to me. It’s wearing me down, thread by thread.
So I type quickly before I can change my mind.
Hi—just wondering if there’s a quick update?
No name, just a numerical email address. No context. Nothing that could be traced back to anything specific. Nothing that could be connected to me.
My heart is thudding by the time I hit send. A second later, I delete it from my sent folder.