The Girl With No Past

THE GIRL WITH NO PAST

A GRIPPING PSYCHOLOGICAL THRILLER

KATHRYN CROFT

For Grace and Phillip

PROLOGUE

Everything is silent and for a second I think I must be dead. But then I hear a deafening screech and I don’t know who or where it’s come from, I only know I haven’t made the noise because somehow I am okay. I want to turn my head to check what’s left of the wreckage, but I can’t move because pain is shooting through my neck, warm blood trickling down my face.

There is a strange smell: burnt rubber mixed with petrol and something far, far worse. The scent of death. I don’t need to look around to know that I am the only person breathing in this car.

Panic sets in, crushing my chest, worse than the physical injuries I have sustained. This can’t be real.

Cracks spread across the windscreen like a gigantic spider’s web, and through the maze of lines I can see lights, still and flashing, blue and yellow and red, and faces peering in, their mouths forming circles, trying to make sense of what’s happened. The panicky yells and shouts are muffled to me, as if I’m in a bubble, catching only waves of sound. But I know that whoever is out there, they, like I, will remember this moment for the rest of their lives.

The steering wheel digs into my ribs but I can’t move. Or perhaps I don’t want to because it’s safer in here than out there, having to face whatever is next. I know already what I can expect: some sympathy because accidents happen, but mostly blame and hatred because I am the driver so I must take the responsibility for this.

Someone manages to haul my door open and strong, uniformed arms lift me out and place me onto what must be a stretcher. It’s thin and hard but at least I am flat now. I close my eyes and wonder how it’s possible I haven’t died.

ONE

Walking home that evening, something felt wrong. It was nothing I could identify, because everything appeared normal. I was just one of many people heading home from work, or heading somewhere at least. It was bitterly cold and I’d left my scarf hanging over my banister that morning, but the chill was nothing out of the ordinary. It was to be expected in November.

The feeling I couldn’t shake off could only be about tomorrow. I hadn’t forgotten what day it was. Perhaps the foreboding was anxiety manifesting as something else? But even that didn’t make sense because I had learnt to deal with it. As I did every year, I refused to think about it until the day arrived, descending on me like a hurricane. I had become skilled at closing that door.

Garratt Lane was busy as always, and I blended into the other pedestrians, a part of the London landscape. This was how I always felt walking home, as if I was nothing more than a puppet in a scene, being moved along by someone else. Perhaps I just felt strange because I was later than usual leaving work, and I wasn’t good with change to my routine. I needed order and structure, otherwise everything fell apart.

I was only late because I’d stayed to help Maria; I couldn’t leave her by herself to deal with the order of books that had come in, even if my day at the library had begun three hours before hers. Besides, what did I have to go home to?

I smiled, remembering Maria recounting details of a new man she’d met, while we unpacked and tagged the books. Maria had only been working at the library for a few months, but in that time I had got to know probably every detail of her life. She was my polar opposite: open and talkative, while I was reserved and kept as much of my life private as possible. I knew that she was single and often had dates, and liked hearing her stories. This new man’s name was Dan, and the whole time Maria talked, raving about the smallest thing he might have said, I allowed myself to get lost in her life. This was how it was with us; she talked and I listened. But every now and again I would catch her staring at me, giving me that look. The one that showed how badly she wanted me to let her into my life.

The library was only a short walk from my road so it didn’t take long to get home. My flat was small – no, not small: minuscule – the upstairs floor of a converted house, but it was affordable for London, and at least I had my own front door, even if the neighbours’ one was practically joined to mine. I also had my own staircase, making the place feel a bit more spacious.

But my decision to rent it was not made on practicalities like price or location. It was the name of the road that convinced me I had to live there. Allfarthing Road. It made me picture a time – way before I was born – that I could only imagine from what I’d read in books. A time when people greeted each other on the street and knew all the neighbours. I knew I was romanticising and I didn’t long for anything like that – it just wouldn’t suit how I needed to live – but it was comforting to think a time like that had existed once. That times that came before never truly disappeared.

I climbed the five steps leading up to my door and dug in my bag for my keys. It was a ridiculously tiny cross-body bag, but there wasn’t much I needed to haul around with me, so it was only a matter of seconds before I realised my keys weren’t in it. My purse, mobile phone, some hand sanitiser, but no keys.

Puzzled, I tried to stay calm and consider the possibilities. I definitely had them that morning because the front door needed to be double locked, and I never forgot to do that. I wouldn’t have needed them at the library so couldn’t recall noticing them, which could mean two things; I’d dropped them on the walk to work or they’d fallen out of my bag at the library and were at that moment gathering dust somewhere in the building.

The first possibility filled me with panic, and after a quick scout of the steps and concrete garden area, I grabbed my mobile and dialled work. Pressing my phone against my ear to try and drown out the hum of traffic, I could only just make out the ring tone. It seemed to purr in my ear forever until Maria finally picked up, trying to get her words out between heavy rasps of breath.

‘Maria, it’s Leah.’

She seemed relieved I wasn’t a customer after some help, and I gave her time to gather her breath. But with every passing second my panic was rising. I was already late home and now I couldn’t even get inside. My whole evening was being disrupted by something I had no control over.

‘No problem,’ Maria said, once I explained my keys were missing. ‘I’ll go and have a look. Call you back.’ And she hung up, eager to get off the phone and help me. All I could do then was wait, with the icy November air biting my skin, desperate to be in my only slightly warmer flat, shutting the door on another day of existing.

It was too cold to stand still so I paced up and down the steps, ignoring the bemused looks I received from a couple of passersby. Minutes ticked by and nearly half an hour passed before Maria finally called back. I held my breath and waited for her to tell me she couldn’t find them.

‘I’ve got them,’ she said, jingling them to prove it.

Relief flooded through me. ‘Where were they?’ I should have thanked her first, but I needed to know where they’d been.

‘Um, a customer must have handed them in and Sam put them in the office. I just checked in there in case—’

‘Okay.’ I tried to make sense of this. I was always so careful so couldn’t see how they had fallen out of my bag.

‘Anyway, I’m about to leave so I’ll bring them to you now. You live off Garratt Lane, don’t you? I can be there in ten minutes, just—–’

‘No! I mean, don’t put yourself out. I’ll walk back to the library. Meet you there?’ I had never invited Maria to my flat and recently she had started to drop hints about coming over, but each time I’d managed to avoid it actually happening.

She fell silent for a moment. ‘Right. Fine. But I’ll meet you at the coffee shop. I have to lock up now and it’s too cold to stand around outside.’ And right then I made a silent promise to myself to make it up to her.

Thanking her, I wrapped my thick wool coat tighter around me and began to trace my steps back towards work. I walked fast, even though I knew Maria would take a while doing all the checks before she closed up. I just wanted my keys back in my hands. I didn’t expect her, or anyone else, to understand it but any disruption to my routine left me vulnerable. I needed order. Everything to be exactly as it should be, no deviations. And tonight could so easily have become one. As it was, I was still thrown off my routine; I should have been inside by now, cooking dinner before logging on to the website and living my vicarious life once more.

When I reached the coffee shop, I peered through the window to see if Maria was there but there was no sign of her. The after-work crowd had claimed every seat, chatting away to each other, in no rush to be at home. Unlike me. I felt a pang of envy, but I knew I could never be like them.

Although I was thirsty, I decided against going inside. As much as I enjoyed her company, if Maria and I sat down together the evening would be gone and I needed to get online. So continuing to brave the cold, fiercer now than it had been just moments ago, I faced towards the library, anxious to spot her the minute she became visible so I could grab my keys and get home.

It was twenty minutes before I saw her, walking as if she was taking a stroll on a beach, in no rush to get my keys back to me. ‘Oh, you’re out here,’ she said, when she reached me. ‘I thought we could get a coffee.’

‘I’m really sorry, but I need to get home. So tired. But we could go for one next week?’ I considered faking a yawn but didn’t think I’d be able to pull it off.

Her smile disappeared. ‘Okay. But next time, right?’ With a gloved hand, she pulled my keys from her pocket and handed them to me. ‘Be more careful next time,’ she said.

As I walked home, I wondered how much of her comment was made in jest.

It always felt comforting to close the front door and stand for a minute in my hallway; like stepping into a bubble, knowing the world had been shut out. That I was safe. This was my space and I rarely had visitors. It was easier that way.

Of course there were rare occasions when I invited Mum over, but those times were always fraught with tension. Her complaints of London being too dreadful a place for words, and her insistence that I’d be more comfortable at home, were things I had to spend weeks psyching myself up for. She could never concede that my small flat in Wandsworth
was
my home now. There was no other.

A pile of letters sat on the threadbare doormat and scooping them up, I rushed up the creaky stairs, eager to get my evening back on track. Normally I opened my mail before I did anything else, but my growling stomach warned me to fill it up with food, and quickly. So for the first time, I left the envelopes on the kitchen worktop. No letter I ever got was so important that it couldn’t wait until later.

Even though I was existing rather than living, I filled every moment of time with something. Idle time was a toxin for me; it meant my thoughts could get the better of me and I’d spent too long letting that happen. Keeping them at bay was my goal now.