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17. LATE SPRING 2013

It is not the “boy,” but his mother who Catherine speaks to. She is a more hesitant informant than the previous mother. It takes Catherine a little while to coax it out of her, but she opens her up in the end. Yes, it had been a very upsetting time. And for her son, Jamie, who is now thirty-seven, well, it had been frightening. Catherine is patient, understanding. She really doesn’t want to push her. They can easily speak another time. Perhaps she would prefer Catherine to come and see her? No, she’d rather do it now, over the phone.

Stephen Brigstocke had taught Jamie in his GCSE year and then taken him through his A levels. He was a good teacher and Jamie had liked him. He’d taken an interest in him, given him extra help if he needed it, and they had been grateful. If it wasn’t for Mr. Brigstocke he might not have done so well and he got a place at Bristol University. It was a big thing for all of them — Jamie was the first person in the family to go to university. She remembers driving him up there with his stuff and then leaving on the Sunday night. She’d cried, leaving her boy there. It was the first time he’d been away from home for more than one night, and her husband had told her she was being silly, that he’d be fine. They both thought university was the safest place for him to start living independently.

“Anyway, that first week Jamie saw Mr. Brigstocke on the campus. He was wandering around and Jamie thought it was just coincidence — that he had some work to do there or knew someone. Then he saw him again. He was outside one of his lecture halls, but when Jamie went up to talk to him he hurried off like he hadn’t seen him. Pretending he hadn’t seen him. He started following Jamie. He’d be in the pub, hanging around campus, outside his lectures, always keeping his distance, never talking to Jamie, never coming up to him, just watching him. And it really freaked Jamie out. He said it was like Mr. Brigstocke thought he couldn’t see him — like he thought he was invisible. We told Jamie to tell someone but he didn’t want to make a fuss. Then one day he went back to his room and Brigstocke was sitting there, on his bed. He’d told one of the other students he was his uncle. Jamie said he just kept repeating the same thing over and over — that he should make the most of university, he shouldn’t waste his time. Over and over. It scared Jamie. He was bonkers, off his head. In the end Jamie had to pretend he was meeting someone — that was the only way he could get rid of him. There were lots of things that we found out later, not from Jamie, from one of his friends. Jamie would never talk to us about it. The friend told us that Jamie suspected Brigstocke of going through his stuff when he’d been in his room. You know his personal stuff. That things had been moved about. We didn’t know about it ’til much later. If we had, well, my husband would have gone up there straightaway and sorted him out.”

“So what did you do?”

“Well, we wanted to call the police but Jamie wouldn’t let us. My husband spoke to the university and they said they’d keep an eye and then nothing happened for a little while. Then one night, Jamie was in bed, and Brigstocke turned up. Started banging on his door, wanting to be let in. Said he’d missed his last train back. He wanted to sleep on Jamie’s floor. I mean, he was a bloody nutcase. Another student, Jamie’s mate, helped get him out of there.”

“And did the police get involved that time?”

“No, no, Jamie wouldn’t call them and he wouldn’t let us when we found out. But his mate said that he’d sorted Brigstocke out. He didn’t come back after that. We went up there as soon as we could. Jamie’s friend told us Brigstocke had been sobbing at Jamie’s door, banging and banging for Jamie to let him in, and he’d had to drag him away. Jamie was too upset. It was his mate who got Brigstocke out of there. Bashed him about a bit — well, he had to. He said he was a nutter, crying like a baby. Jamie never told us any of that. Thing is, he’d really liked Mr. Brigstocke, looked up to him.”

“Thank you, Mrs. Rossi, thank you so much. Do you think Jamie would talk to me?”

“God no. He’d be furious if he knew I’d been talking to you. Even now. He completely clammed up about it — never talks about it. Sometimes I wonder whether, you know, anything had happened before he went up to uni. I mean, Brigstocke was obsessed with Jamie.”

“What do you mean? Did you ever suspect anything while Brigstocke was teaching Jamie?”

“I don’t know. I don’t know… No, no, not really. I’m not sure. Jamie trusted Mr. Brigstocke. It was Mr. Brigstocke got him through those exams. They spent a lot of time together.”

“Listen, let me leave you my number and if you think Jamie might want to talk, then please, give me a call. He might not be the only one Stephen Brigstocke took an interest in.”

It’s been a good day’s work. Productive. Catherine is building up a picture of Stephen Brigstocke, and it is not a pretty one. That makes her feel better, a little safer. She is not the only one who is hiding things. She is about to leave when Kim hands her a piece of paper with the address and phone number she’s been waiting for.

She is in no rush to get home. Robert had said he’d be late, so she takes her time, gets off at an earlier tube stop and decides to walk the rest of the way home. It’s a nice evening. She passes her local bookshop, stopping to look in the window. It is full of temptation — full of things to cleanse her palate. She is stepping over the threshold when she hears her name called from across the street. She wants to ignore it — she feels the bookshop sucking her in, dragging her to its shelves — but the voice calls again, closer now, at her shoulder.

“Catherine.”

She turns and is met with a wide smile from a friend she hasn’t seen for a while.

“How are you?”

“I’m fine, I’m fine, how are you?”

“Good. I’m good. What are you doing now?”

“Well, I was about to go and buy a book — need to find a birthday present.” Why is she lying?

“Oh, come and have a drink. Come on, a quick glass of wine.” The friend is beguiling. The sun is shining. Robert will be home late. They can sit outside, have a glass of wine, smoke a cigarette. She gives in, allows herself to be led away.

It is still light when she gets home, but even so, she pulls down the blinds and turns on the lights. Robert will be another hour. The silence in the house invites Stephen Brigstocke back into her head. He had been held at bay for a while: the company of her friend, a glass of wine, had helped push him away, but now he has slipped back in. The piece of paper with his telephone number is in her purse. She takes it out and looks at it then presses the number into her phone. Her finger hovers over the word Call. What will she say? Her mouth is dry. What if she makes it worse by phoning? She doesn’t know what to say. What does he want? Why hasn’t he called her? Maybe he hasn’t been back to that flat since she put her note through the letter box. Maybe he doesn’t have her number. Or maybe he does but is choosing not to use it. Perhaps he doesn’t want to speak to her. So then what does he want? He sent her the book — he wrote the book — so she would read it. And she has. She must let him know. But he sent it to Nicholas too. Was that to get at her? There was no note to Nicholas — a note could have made everything clear to him, but he didn’t do that. It was a warning to her, to let her know that he knows who her son is, where he is, a threat. He needs to know that she has read the book. She can do that. But does he want an apology too? For her to say she’s sorry? An admission of guilt? That is too much to ask. But she can give him something. She can put her hand out at least, if it means he will leave her alone. Yes, she is prepared to go some way to meet him. It would be better to write, not speak. She can’t trust herself on the phone. He wouldn’t believe her anyway — better to compose some words and send them to him. She deletes his number and puts the piece of paper back in her purse.

She opens her laptop and finds the site for The Perfect Stranger. She has lost count of the number of times she has studied that page. Nothing ever changes on it. She clicks Review. Careful now. Be very careful. His wife told her he was dead. His own wife denied his existence. She didn’t trust him. Catherine must be careful. He is sick, this man. He has shown how twisted his mind is. She tiptoes out the words: “There is a pain at the heart of this book which is undeniable. It is rare for a work of fiction to create such powerful feelings in its reader.” Should she give her name? No, too risky. No one must connect her to this book, and it could come up in the future if someone Googled her. Still, he needs to know that it is her, so she signs herself Charlotte, the name he has given her in the book, and then presses Submit.