Page 76 of The Friend Request

He hasn’t moved since the officers left – hasn’t spoken, hasn’t shifted his weight, hasn’t unclenched his jaw. He’s watching me with his hands braced on the worktop behind him, and his expression isn’t anger, not yet. It’s the thing that comes before anger in a man who keeps everything locked until the lock breaks.

I sit at the table with my coat still on, my muddy boots leaving marks on the tiles, and I wait.

‘A stranger in a bar,’ Alex says.

He’s too controlled, like he’s cross-examining someone in a meeting but already knows the answer. I’ve heard it through the study door a hundred times. I’ve never had it aimed at me like this.

‘Alex—’

‘You sat in front of two police officers and told them you’d snogged some random bloke. You told them I was confused. That I’d got the wrong end of the stick, that there’s no ex-boyfriend, no Ross, no threat – while our daughter is out there in the dark.’

‘I know what I said.’

‘Do you? Do you actually understand what you’ve done?’ He pushes off the worktop and takes a step towards the table. ‘You’ve sent them away without the one piece of information that might help them find Olivia, and you’ve made me look like a paranoid husband who can’t tell the difference between a one-off kiss and a stalker. In front of two officers. While our thirteen-year-old daughter⁠—’

He stops. Presses his knuckles against his forehead and holds them there.

The guilt is so sharp I can taste it. He’s right. I know he’s right. I sat in that chair and lied, and the shame of it is crawling through me. But there’s a reason.

‘You know why,’ I say.

‘I know what you told me on the phone, Kim. I know you screamed at me not to call the police and I know you said the note says⁠—’

‘It does say it. Look at it.’

I reach into my pocket and pull the note out. The paper is warm, creased, soft from being pressed to my thigh for hours. I unfold it on the table between us and smooth it flat with my palm. The block capitals stare up from the wood, black on white, neat and unhurried.

Alex stares at it. I watch his gaze move across the letters, and it’s different to hearing it on the phone – I can see that. Hearing the words relayed by your panicking wife on a crackling mobile is one thing. Seeing them written down in front of you, in someone else’s handwriting, on a piece of paper that was wrapped around a brick and thrown through your wife’s window – that’s something else.

His face changes.

The anger doesn’t leave, but it makes room for something underneath, something rawer. I see it arrive in his jaw first, then his eyes, then his hands, which go flat on the table either side of the note as if he’s trying to hold it still.

‘Your child’s life depends on it,’ he reads, quietly. Then again. ‘Your child’s life depends on it.’

‘That’s why I lied,’ I say. ‘That’s why I couldn’t give them his name. If he finds out I’ve gone to the police – if he’s watching us, if he knows⁠—’

‘But I’d already called them.’ His voice is tight. ‘They were already here, Kim. They were sitting in this kitchen before you walked through the door. So what difference does it make? He knows. If he’s watching the house, he already knows.’

My stomach drops. Because he’s right about that, too, and I’ve been running from it ever since I pulled up behind the patrol car. The police were here. They came in a marked car with a blue light on the roof and parked outside our house for over an hour. If Ross is watching – if anyone is watching – they already know.

So what was the point? What was the point of the lie, and the shame, and the look on Alex’s face when I said there’s no old boyfriend? What did I protect?

‘I panicked,’ I say. It sounds thin. ‘I thought – if they start looking for Ross, knocking on doors, making calls, pulling him in – they’ll leave a trail. And he’ll know we ignored the warning. I thought if I kept his name out of it, maybe there was still a chance⁠—’

‘A chance of what?’

I don’t answer. I don’t have one. The logic that felt so solid an hour ago, so urgent and clear, has come apart in my hands, and all I’m left with is a lie I told in front of my husband and two officers and a note on my kitchen table that says my daughter’s life depends on something I’ve already got wrong.

‘I should have told them,’ I say.

Alex pulls out the chair opposite me and sits. He doesn’t do it gently. The legs scrape across the tiles, and the sound goes through me. He picks up the note, holds it close, reads it one more time. His lips move over the words. His hand tightens on the paper, crinkling the edge.

‘Our old school,’ he says. ‘The school in Keynsham.’

‘Yes.’

‘His and yours.’