Free Look Behind You by Sibel Hodge Page B

for the phone provider to give us information as to whose number this was, but now you’ve just confirmed it for us.’
    At least I’d done something helpful.
    ‘On the twenty-ninth of April, you called Sara’s number and spoke for over an hour. There was also a missed call from her to you on the sixth of May but nothing after that.’
    Maybe I had told Sara a vital clue. If I’d phoned her, maybe she could tell me how I came to be in that place. A spark of hope lights up inside.
    ‘You received a call on your mobile phone on the twenty-ninth of April from the college as well.’
    ‘Maybe it was Theresa, asking how I was doing and when I’d be back to work.’
    ‘She didn’t mention it.’
    It could’ve been Jordan who called from work, then.
    ‘There’s something else.’ Summers nods to Flynn, who starts the engine. ‘Liam said he called your mobile when he got to Scotland to let you know he’d arrived, but there’s no record of that call anywhere.’
    The breath evaporates from my lungs. Why would he lie to the police? ‘Did you ask him about it when you spoke to him this morning?’
    ‘Yes. He said he didn’t want to mention it last night in front of us because of your fragile state, but—’
    ‘Fragile state?’ I splutter. ‘Anyone would be fragile who’d been through what I went through.’
    ‘Those were his words, not mine,’ he carries on calmly.
    I fight to keep my breathing in check. In. Out. Keep calm. Do not flip out and give them any excuse to believe you’re crazy.
    ‘He told us that before he left to go to Scotland, you and he had an argument. You weren’t speaking to him, so he decided it would be best not to call you. He said he wanted to give you time to calm down while he was away.’
    ‘An argument?’ I stare at him wide-eyed. ‘What was it about?’
    Summers clears his throat. ‘Er…plates.’
    ‘Excuse me?’ I shake my head slightly, wondering if I’d heard him right.
    ‘Liam said he brought you breakfast in bed before he left, and you accused him of using the wrong plate.’
    I open my mouth. Close it. It doesn’t make any sense. I wouldn’t care what plate he put my breakfast on. It’s something Liam would care about, not me. I scroll back through the memories I do know, searching for something that might explain what Liam said.
    I can see it clearly. It’s just after we got married. Everything was perfect. I was in our kitchen, humming to myself, dishing up a Thai curry for Liam, one of his favourite dishes that I’d been slaving over for hours. And then he started shouting at me, annoyed because the sauce spilt over the lip of the plate when he picked it up. It slopped down the front of his best work trousers, causing a stain that even the dry cleaner couldn’t get out. Incensed with anger, he threw the plate across the room at the wall before storming out and heading for the pub. It took me ages to clean up the mess, and when he returned three hours later, he was full of apologies, smelling of alcohol and carrying a bunch of wilted flowers he’d bought at the all-night garage down the road.
    I made sure I never gave him that plate again, but it didn’t take long before he found something else to get angry about.
    ‘He said you threw the plate at him and told him to get out.’ Summers’ voice brings me back to the present.
    ‘I wouldn’t argue about a plate,’ I say with a forced steadiness. That’s just not me. I don’t like confrontation. I don’t like having a bad atmosphere in the house. I’m not a violent person. ‘And I would never throw something at him.’
    I wouldn’t. And if I didn’t, that meant Liam was lying. If I did, it meant…what? That I was acting out of character? Having some kind of break down or episode again? Hallucinating?
    Oh, God.
    Despite the stiflingly hot car, I shiver and wrap my arms around me.

10
     
    ‘I thought I was going to die down there.’ I wonder briefly who would care if I had. Sara would. I’m not