‘Well,’ said Emily. ‘I think that you should go and show her what a wonderful man you’ve turned into.’

I kissed her. Having her beside me, I felt a lot braver. And maybe this will sound weird, but she makes me feel more normal. For years I’ve worried that I’m some kind of freak, that I was never going to fit in and be like other people. I felt like an alien. I suppose I took a perverse pride in it – I liked to think of myself as extraordinary. Now I know I’m not extraordinary – but Emily is.

What will I do if she changes her mind about me, realises that I’m not normal, or if she finds out about the things I’ve done in the past? She’ll leave me – and I don’t know if I could bear to lose her. Not now, when I’m just starting to feel better.

Chapter 21

Siobhan

Monday

I’m looking at what happened this morning as material for the novel. I certainly don’t see it as spying… although I hadn’t intended to follow her like that.

I just went back to Alex’s house again, that was all. Seeing as I chickened out of asking for my money last time. And now it’s definitely been over a month since we agreed he’d pay me back. My credit card bill needs to be paid. I think I’m going to have to ask him for the interest on the payment too. I’m so not stumping up for it myself.

It was fun at first, actually. I wore shades and a scarf around my head, a la Thelma and Louise, even though it was a tad grey and parky to be out in sunglasses. I thought I’d drive over there, phone to see if he was in, then if either of them answered, hang up and wait like I did last time until he came out. I’d changed my mind about ringing the doorbell and confronting him directly in his house. I don’t know – seeing him acting so normal with that woman made me think that perhaps he’s more schizophrenic than I’d previously thought. (Or maybe it’s just me who brings out the psycho in him?) Anyway, I decided that it would be best to wait till he went out, then follow him and make it seem as if we’d just bumped into one another by chance. I don’t want to make him angry.

But I didn’t even need to phone – I was just parking the car when the front door opened and he came out, with that girl again. He didn’t look quite as happy as he had the other day, though. He had a furrowed brow and a kind of nervous, peaky look about him. Ha. Perhaps his new relationship’s on the rocks already, I thought – until they put their arms around each other and walked off down the street like they were practising for a three-legged race.

The girl was dressed in a knee-length grey skirt, boots, and a short cream jacket – smart clothes, but they looked terrible on her. The skirt was too tight, and showed her bulgy ass, and the jacket was clearly undone not out of choice, but because there was no way that it was going to stretch across those great melons of hers. The boots made her knees look fat. She was carrying an overnight bag, and I felt a stab of somewhat irrational fury at the thought that she must have stayed at Alex’s over the weekend. Her hair was tied back in one of those big Johnny Loves Rosie silk flower hair clips, and she looked as if she’d just got out of the shower, shiny and overripe, like a past-it plum.

She looked innocent, too. I wondered if I should warn her – surely that would be the sisterly thing to do. She’d be horrified if she knew that only a month ago Alex had been stalking me. I disliked her on sight, but that didn’t mean I wanted to see her get hurt. Alex was a dangerous man.

Once they were at a safe distance, I got out of the car and followed them. They took a left into Arcadia Road, and I realized that they were probably heading for the tube, so I sped up. I was intrigued. She was dressed for work and he was out of work, so where were they going on a Monday morning? It would be quite a challenge following them into the Underground without being spotted.

When I reached the Tube, I lurked in the entrance until they’d safely gone through the turnstiles, into the corridor which led to the escalator. I bought a Zone 1-6 return ticket and dashed after them. By the time I got to the top of the escalator, they’d reached the bottom and were turning left into the southbound platform. I heard the sound of an approaching train, but couldn’t tell which tunnel it was coming from, so I galloped down the escalator stairs, two at a time, barging past a group of Japanese tourists and a couple of skateboarders.

I charged onto the platform just as the train pulled in. Glancing frantically around, I saw Alex and the girl preparing to get on, one carriage down. That was OK – I could keep an eye on them from inside the train.

Then disaster struck. The doors opened, and in my dishevelled and panicked state, I propelled myself forwards too quickly into the carriage, feeling myself tilt towards the dirty corrugated iron floor of the train. Trying to regain my balance, I overcompensated and lurched back – right out of the train again! I landed on my ass back on the platform, with the faces of the other passengers gazing out at me in utter amazement. I felt myself begin to blush, but worse was to come – when I looked to my left, I saw that Alex and the girl still hadn’t got into their carriage, and had witnessed the whole undignified scene! Thank God I was in disguise.

I was so embarrassed that I once more launched myself into the train, where I finally landed unceremoniously on my hands and knees – on the same dirty floor I’d only just prevented myself falling onto before. Bloody great private detective I’d make! I couldn’t have drawn more attention to myself if I’d taken off all my clothes and run up and down the platform screaming, ‘look at my knockers, Alex!’

‘Are you OK?’ asked a bemused Indian woman, offering me her hand. I took it and struggled to my feet, although her hand felt so soft, and she was so small and light, that I nearly pulled her down with me first. Someone else handed me my shades, which had fallen off.

‘Fine, thanks,’ I eventually replied, mortified, regarding my ripped jeans and straightening my skewed headscarf. My right knee was bleeding, and my palm grazed – but my pride had taken the severest battering of all. All around me, passengers’ lips were twitching and sniggers being suppressed. And then – then! – I looked through the glass window in the doors dividing my carriage from Alex’s and saw both him and his fat girlfriend peering through at me, laughing hysterically!

I wanted to cry. How utterly, utterly humiliating. And what if Alex had recognised me? If he’d looked through two minutes earlier, he’d have seen me without the sunglasses.

I’m such a sodding failure.

At the next station, I got off the train – carefully – and walked past Alex’s carriage as if heading for the exit. He and the girl were sitting near the door dividing their carriage from the one I’d just left, and they had their heads together. He definitely didn’t see me, so I ducked back into the next carriage down, where I positioned myself with a clear view of them through the other door. Morning rush hour was well and truly over, so I had no problem getting the seat I wanted.

Seeing them together made me feel sick, and I realized I was shaking. Partly from the shock of my fall(s), but mostly I think with sheer anger, that I was reduced to following this little geek and his fat girlfriend around London, making a fool of myself in the process, chasing after money that he owed me. I wish I was a bloke. It would be so much simpler – I’d just kick his head in until he paid me back.

They got off at Kings Cross, and Alex didn’t once look around as I followed them through the tunnels and up to the main line station. It was much easier to slip along behind them in the wide crowded concourse – lots of bagel stands and coffee bars to lurk behind. People were looking oddly at me again, but compared to the humiliation in the tube train, it was nothing. Alex bought a ticket, and they walked slowly to a gate which said ‘Milton Keynes’ on the screen next to it.