I find myself reading a letter from the Naval Archdeaconry to Emma’s father, telling him it was his last chance to write to them before they would have to start the process of dismissal.
I read it a couple of times but this makes no more sense than the letters from her university. Emma’s father died in Zaire before this letter was even written.
Upstairs I hear what sounds like a child’s foot on a grouchy floorboard, so I push the papers back into the M&S bag. But as I do, a smaller piece of paper – a compliment slip, bearing the BBC logo – pirouettes to the floor. On it, a handwritten note: Hey doll, I’m sorry I missed you this morning. Call me. I don’t want this to be goodbye . . . Robbie x
I slide it back into the bag, and put the bag back where I found it.
In the kitchen, I drink another whiskey. All seems quiet now in Ruby’s room, but my thoughts are layering too fast; I can’t pause any of them long enough to interrogate them, let alone make sense of what I’ve just seen.
Without any real attempt to stop myself, I tiptoe into our bedroom and open Emma’s laptop. We use each others’ laptops all the time, but have never, would never – until now – do so for the purpose of spying. I don’t even know what I’m looking for. Just that I want to find something that will halt this creeping anxiety.
She has fourteen tabs open, which is typical. The vast majority concern things like genetic population structure of weird-sounding decapod crustaceans, but there are three others: email, Facebook, and what appears to be a dispute with eBay about a parcel that never arrived.
I can’t quite bring myself to look at her email, not yet. That feels like the ultimate betrayal, beaten only by looking at her phone.
Facebook is open, at her fan page. She has more than three thousand likes. There’s nothing going on there, and I’m about to shut her laptop when a notification pops up with a message from someone called Iain Nott. Ive sent u 4 msgs and no reply so bored of woman on tv thinking there superior would it hve really cost you so much to reply?
Instantly angry, I open the message to compose a crushing response. But in doing so, I inadvertently open her inbox.
I nearly look away, for the same reason I didn’t want to open her email, but I can’t. It’s full of messages from men.
I can see the first line of each message.
Mikey Vaillant: watching you on the iPlayer, minxy. You’re
Erik Sueno: YOU LOOK NICE I WANT TO
Charlie Rod: Here’s my number, please call me, I’d really
Iqbal Al-Jasmi: Hey girl
Skinny McSkinnyface: slag
Robbie Rosen: Hey doll, been thinking about you,
I stare at the screen for a long time.
Firstly, I want to know if the Robbie in this inbox is the same Robbie that wrote the note. Must be, surely – ‘hey doll’ is hardly a stranger’s greeting. Who is he?
And I also want to know why she hasn’t told me about all these messages. When I asked her last week she said she’d had a couple in the last few days, but there are six here – six – and these are just from today. I’m torn between fury at these men, and shock that Emma hasn’t told me about this. Why would she keep it to herself? Why would she keep anything I’ve found this evening to herself?
I feel mildly dizzy. I delete all of today’s messages and block the senders, but for each one I delete, another appears in its place, from previous days. I stop, snap her laptop shut and march myself downstairs, where I pour a final whiskey.
My mind cycles through a thousand scenarios, jumping from the university photo to the perverted men to the passport, the hiding of the papers, the handwritten note from some bloke at the BBC. Like Emma’s Facebook messages, every time I feel I’ve ascribed an explanation to one discovery, there’s another to account for, and my brain can’t keep up.