‘Sorry,’ I say, ‘it’s just … it doesn’t really make sense. There are antenatal classes all over London. If she lived in Hackney, and was pregnant, she would go to the classes there. She never mentioned Hackney, or Dalston. She never mentioned any flatmates. I thought she lived alone.’
‘She’d have been better off,’ he says darkly. He stands up, starts pacing again. ‘Ask her flatmates. If you can get a civil word out of them.’
I sit on the ball again and rock back and forth, trying to massage the pain out of my hips. I feel like screaming. None of what he is saying makes sense. Why didn’t she tell her dad she was pregnant? Why was she always here if she lived miles away? What was she doing in Greenwich all those times? And if she lied about that – what else had she lied about?
I think of all the times I’d seen Rachel in Greenwich, after I met her. Had it really been a coincidence, bumping into her all those times? Or had it been deliberate? Had she been following me? The thought makes the hairs on my arms stand on end. But why would she do that? Why?
‘John, Rachel told me she’d been signed off work with high blood pressure, because of her pregnancy. Do you know where she worked?’
‘A bar, or a club, maybe,’ he says. ‘I don’t remember the name. She never said anything to me about blood pressure. She just said she had something else she wanted to do. Some project. No point pressing her. She knows what she wants, Rachel. She does things her own way. Always has done.’
I grip the side of the sofa. The room feels as if it is tilting. I’ve told all this to the police. I think about what I said to them in that grey room that smelled of stale old papers. How I’d leaned into the tape recorder to make sure they got everything down. She was from somewhere in Greenwich, met the father through her work at a music venue. Heavily pregnant. Signed off with high blood pressure. And it was nonsense. All of it. They must think I am a complete idiot. Or worse. Maybe they think I am a liar.
John is still talking. ‘She wasn’t easy, you know. As a teenager. And then … after what happened to her … Well, she changed then. You couldn’t blame her. She was angry, very angry.’
He says this as if I must know what he is talking about. I blink, say nothing. He looks up at me, eyes glistening.
‘Didn’t she tell you?’ He drops his gaze, gives his head a little shake. ‘I expect she keeps it to herself,’ he mutters. ‘It’s just that I thought you two were so close.’
I clamp my mouth into a line. We weren’t close, I feel like screaming. We weren’t even friends. It’s nothing to do with me. She is nothing to do with me. I realise I want this man out of my house as soon as possible. But he is still talking. It is like he can’t stop.
‘She’d been calling me every week, until the day of your party,’ he is saying. ‘That was the last time I heard from her. I could tell she was looking forward to it. Said there was someone who was going to be at the party. Someone important to her.’
I feel the muscles in my shoulders tense. ‘Did she say who?’
He blows his nose on a hanky he has pulled from his cuff.
‘No, she didn’t. She said she’d call me soon. And then … nothing.’
He is sobbing now, big fat tears rolling down his cheeks. I go and fetch my hospital bag, sitting by the front door, and find the packet of tissues in the side pocket. He takes them, gratefully.
I have no idea what to do. I am not used to seeing a grown man cry. I lean over, awkwardly, placing a hand on his shoulder.
‘Listen,’ I say, ‘do you think it might be worth you talking to her mother, seeing as she said that’s where she was going?’ I pause. ‘I mean, I’m guessing you’re estranged, but perhaps …’
John stares at me, his eyes narrowing.
‘What do you mean?’ he snaps. ‘She never said she was going to her mother’s.’
‘She did. That’s what she told me, the day after the party. That’s what I was trying to say to you, before. She texted me, saying she was going to her mother’s for a while. Didn’t the police tell you that already?’
John stares at me as if I have gone mad. ‘She wouldn’t have said that,’ he repeats. There is a new edge in his voice.
‘She did. That’s where she told me she was going. That was why I didn’t worry.’
John’s hands have started trembling.
‘Her mother’s dead.’
It is my turn to stare.