Paula Hawkins - The Girl on the Train

The sun is gone, the room is dark. It’s quiet, save for the sound of Tom’s breathing, ragged and shallow. There’s no street noise. I can’t remember the last time I heard a train.

“I put her in the boot of the car,” he says. “I drove a bit farther into the wood, off the road. There was no one around. I had to dig . . .” His breathing is shallower still, quickening. “I had to dig with my bare hands. I was afraid.” He looks up at me, his pupils huge. “Afraid that someone would come. And it was painful, my fingernails ripped in the soil. It took a long time. I had to stop to phone Anna, to tell her I was out looking for you.”

He clears his throat. “The ground was actually quite soft, but I still couldn’t go down as deep as I wanted. I was so afraid that someone would come. I thought there would be a chance to go back, later on, when things had all died down. I thought I would be able to move her, put her somewhere . . . better. But then it started raining and I never got the chance.”

He looks up at me with a frown. “I was almost sure that the police would go for Scott. She told me how paranoid he was about her screwing around, that he used to read her emails, check up on her. I thought . . . well, I was planning to put her phone in his house at some point. I don’t know. I thought I might go round there for a beer or something, a friendly neighbour kind of thing. I don’t know. I didn’t have a plan. I hadn’t thought it all through. It wasn’t like a premeditated thing. It was just a terrible accident.”

But then his demeanour changes again. It’s like clouds scudding across the sky, now dark, now light. He gets to his feet and walks slowly over to the kitchen, where Anna is now sitting at the table, feeding Evie. He kisses her on the top of the head, then lifts his daughter out of the chair.

“Tom . . .” Anna starts to protest.

“It’s OK.” He smiles at his wife. “I just want a cuddle. Don’t I, darling?” He goes over to the fridge with his daughter in his arms and pulls out a beer. He looks over at me. “You want one?”

I shake my head.

“No, best not, I suppose.”

I hardly hear him. I’m calculating whether I can reach the front door from here before he can get hold of me. If it’s just on the latch, I reckon I could make it. If he’s locked it, then I’d be in trouble. I pitch myself forward and run. I get into the hallway—my hand is almost on the door handle—when I feel the bottle hit the back of my skull. There’s an explosion of pain, white before my eyes, and I crumple to my knees. His fingers twist into my hair as he grabs a fistful and pulls, dragging me back into the living room, where he lets go. He stands above me, straddling me, one foot on either side of my hips. His daughter is still in his arms, but Anna is at his side, tugging at her.

“Give her to me, Tom, please. You’re going to hurt her. Please, give her to me.”

He hands the wailing Evie over to Anna.

I can hear Tom talking, but it seems like he’s a long way away, or as though I’m hearing him through water. I can make out the words but they somehow don’t seem to apply to me, to what’s happening to me. Everything is happening at one remove.

“Go upstairs,” he says. “Go into the bedroom and shut the door. You mustn’t call anyone, OK? I mean it, Anna. You don’t want to call anyone. Not with Evie here. We don’t want things to turn nasty.” Anna doesn’t look down at me. She clutches the child to her chest, steps over me and hurries away.

Tom bends down, slips his hands into the waistband of my jeans, grabs hold of them and drags me along the floor into the kitchen. I’m kicking out with my legs, trying to get a hold of something, but I can’t. I can’t see properly—tears are stinging my eyes, everything is a blur. The pain in my head is excruciating as I bump along the floor, and I feel a wave of nausea come over me. There’s hot, white pain as something connects with my temple. Then nothing.

ANNA

• • •

SUNDAY, AUGUST 18, 2013

EVENING

She’s on the floor in the kitchen. She’s bleeding, but I don’t think it’s serious. He hasn’t finished it. I’m not really sure what he’s waiting for. I suppose it’s not easy for him. He did love her, once.

I was upstairs, putting Evie down, and I was thinking that this is what I wanted, isn’t it? Rachel will be gone at last, once and for all, never to return. This is what I dreamed about happening. Well, not exactly this, obviously. But I did want her gone. I dreamed of a life without Rachel, and now I could have one. It would be just the three of us, me and Tom and Evie, like it should be.

For just a moment, I let myself enjoy the fantasy, but then I looked down at my sleeping daughter and I knew that was all it was. A fantasy. I kissed my finger and touched it to her perfect lips and I knew that we would never be safe. I would never be safe, because I know, and he won’t be able to trust me. And who’s to say another Megan won’t come along? Or—worse—another Anna, another me?

I went back downstairs and he was sitting at the kitchen table, drinking a beer. I couldn’t see her at first, but then I noticed her feet, and I thought at first that it was done, but he said she was all right.

“Just a little knock,” he said. He won’t be able to call this one an accident.

So we waited. I got myself a beer, too, and we drank them together. He told me he was really sorry about Megan, about the affair. He kissed me, he told me he’d make it up to me, that we’d be OK, that everything would be all right.

“We’ll move away from here, just like you’ve always wanted. We’ll go anywhere you want. Anywhere.” He asked me if I could forgive him, and I said that I could, given time, and he believed me. I think he believed me.

The storm has started, just like they said it would. The rumble of thunder wakes her, brings her to. She starts to make a noise, to move around on the floor.

“You should go,” he says to me. “Go back upstairs.”

I kiss him on the lips and I leave him, but I don’t go back upstairs. Instead I pick up the phone in the hallway, sit on the bottom stair and listen, the handset in my hand, waiting for the right moment.

I can hear him talking to her, soft and low, and then I hear her. I think she’s crying.

RACHEL

• • •

SUNDAY, AUGUST 18, 2013

EVENING

I can hear something, a hissing sound. There’s a flash of light and I realize it’s the rain, pouring down. It’s dark outside, there’s a storm. Lightning. I don’t remember when it got dark. The pain in my head brings me back to myself, my heart crawls into my throat. I’m on the floor. In the kitchen. With difficulty, I manage to lift my head and raise myself onto one elbow. He’s sitting at the kitchen table, looking out at the storm, a beer bottle between his hands.

“What am I going to do, Rach?” he asks when he sees me raise my head. “I’ve been sitting here for . . . almost half an hour now, just asking myself that question. What am I supposed to do with you? What choice are you giving me?” He takes a long draught of beer and regards me thoughtfully. I pull myself up to a sitting position, my back to the kitchen cupboards. My head swims, my mouth floods with saliva. I feel as though I’m going to throw up. I bite my lip and dig my fingernails into my palms. I need to bring myself out of this stupor, I can’t afford to be weak. I can’t rely on anyone else. I know that. Anna isn’t going to call the police. She isn’t going to risk her daughter’s safety for me.

“You have to admit it,” Tom is saying. “You’ve brought this upon yourself. Think about it: if you’d just left us alone, you’d never be in this situation. I wouldn’t be in this situation. None of us would. If you hadn’t been there that night, if Anna hadn’t come running back here after she saw you at the station, then I’d probably have just been able to sort things out with Megan. I wouldn’t have been so . . . riled up. I wouldn’t have lost my temper. I wouldn’t have hurt her. None of this would have happened.”