TOYL

walked back through the door tomorrow, I think it would probably be too late.’
    ‘She told me he called her a few weeks ago,’ Emma said.
    ‘She said that?’ Peter Myers was clearly shocked, and for a second it took his attention away from the road.
    ‘Yes, she definitely said he had called her.’
    He shook his head. ‘I really need to call that nurse and tell her that something needs sorting out.’
    ‘You don’t think he did call her?’
    ‘No,’ he said, turning right and then taking a sharp left into a country lane.
    They continued, in silence, down the lane for a few hundred yards before pulling to a stop against the side of a dry-stone wall.
    ‘We’re here.’ Peter undid his seatbelt and got out of the car. Emma and Lizzy followed him as he moved towards the wall. As Emma looked over the wall she saw that they had parked next to a cemetery; she gazed across at the hundreds of gravestones that ran off downhill into the distance.
    ‘Follow me,’ he said, climbing over the wall and heading off, weaving through the gravestones. Emma and Lizzy followed, not speaking. Just a few metres from where the car was parked Mr Myers stopped and waited.
    When they caught up to him he simply pointed at Stephen Myers’ headstone.



PART TWO

23

    ‘I can’t believe it’s been four years,’ Peter Myers said, staring at the headstone. ‘The time has gone so quickly, but so many things have changed.’
    Emma didn’t know what to say.
    ‘I’m really sorry, Mr Myers,’ she said, feeling like a complete fraud for standing in front of this man’s grave and uttering words of condolence. But even though she had feared Stephen, and learned to hate his puppy-dog-like attention, there was always a part of her that had still felt compassion for him. He was certainly a sad, pitiful figure – the sort of person who seemed destined never to be truly happy. She wondered whether destiny was set in stone in that way.
    ‘I always thought it could end up like this,’ said Peter, as if reading Emma’s thoughts, ‘even from when Stephen was a young child. There was always something different about him, something I couldn’t quite put my finger on. He was so intense, in everything he did. Obsessive really – like he was with you.’ He turned to Emma, who smiled weakly back. ‘I’m just so sorry for all he put you through.’
    ‘That was a long time ago.’
    ‘Still, you don’t forget those kinds of things in a hurry, do you?’
    Emma shook her head.
    ‘As soon as I found out what he was doing to you, I tried my best to reason with him, but he really believed that you were in love. I know it seems hard to understand, but he’d create alternative realities, and for him they were the truth. We took him to see specialists, psychiatrists, but it didn’t really make any difference.’
    ‘Like I said, that was a long time ago.’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘How did Stephen die?’ asked Emma, wanting and not wanting to know in almost equal amounts.
    ‘He committed suicide.’
    A sickening stab hit Emma right in the stomach. He’d killed himself, and it was around the time of the restraining order, when reality had probably finally hit home that she didn’t want to be with him.
    ‘The few weeks before he died,’ Peter said, ‘Stephen had been acting stranger than usual. I should have realised something was about to happen. He’d disappear for days at a time, and then just walk back in the house as if nothing had happened, like some kind of tomcat. Margaret was going out of her mind with worry, and he wouldn’t even explain where he’d been. I got used to it, I suppose. I think I just tried not to think about it. But then one time he didn’t come home for days. The police found him in a canal about three miles from here. He’d used a knife to cut himself and then jumped or fell into the water. Some people on a narrow boat found him, hidden in some rushes.’
    ‘Do you think it was because of me,’ Emma said, ‘because of the restraining order?’
    ‘You’re not to blame. If it hadn’t been you, it would have been someone else.’
    ‘Did Stephen ever come to London to find me?’
    ‘He may have done,’ admitted Peter. ‘But I doubt it. He didn’t really like being in unfamiliar places. That’s why he always hung around outside those damn television studios – we used to take him there when he was younger, hoping to bump into some TV stars.’
    ‘It’s just that I found a photo in his bedroom, and it