The Liberation of Alice Love - Abby McDonald [131]
Parking on the next street, Alice emptied her purse and pockets of identifying documents and fastened her hair up under a baseball cap to disguise its length. She caught herself in the rearview window for a moment and paused, taking in the excitement in her eyes. She should be conflicted over this, she knew. Anyone else would feel guilty, even shameful, but instead, Alice felt only a thrill at how close she was to the truth. It would be simple, swift—and give her all the answers she needed. What was there to even think about?
Still, as she locked up the car and walked quickly toward their house, Alice felt her nerves flutter to life. The streets were quiet, but she kept her head down, almost flinching as a man ambled past with his golden retriever. Calm, she told herself, forcing deep breaths. Nothing to worry about.
Number fifteen was dark, and the driveway empty. Alice strolled up the front path, forcing herself not to rush. She was painfully aware of somebody in the front garden of the house opposite, an older woman watering the flower beds from an old-fashioned can. But this was London. She probably didn’t even know Carl’s name, let alone the fact that he was gone for the weekend.
Alice’s breath caught, just for a moment, when she fumbled under the plant’s pot, but then her fingertips found the key and just like that, she was closing the door safely behind her.
She was in.
Pulling on a pair of thin cotton gloves, Alice looked around. The house was clearly a male-only domain, with graying carpets, basic metal shelving, and computer magazines and gadgets strewn around, but Alice found it surprisingly neat and clean. Aside from a lone plant wilting in one corner, the living room was given over entirely to two hideous beige couches, a vast flat-screen TV, and a tangle of gaming equipment lined up in strict order across the floor. There were no signs of personal mementos or photographs of any kind, so Alice moved swiftly upstairs, trying each bedroom in turn until she found a pile of letters addressed to Carl Jackson on the desk in the corner room. Jackpot.
Alice began searching the room: quick, but methodical, ignoring the creeping sense that she didn’t belong there. Desk drawers held old issues of Wired and a range of office supplies arranged in careful rows according to color and type, but nothing useful. She checked under the bed, in the wardrobe—all the usual places, with a growing sense of urgency, but it wasn’t until she began rifling through the row of storage boxes in the bottom drawer of his dresser that Alice felt her certainty return. Like her, he kept his bank statements and important papers in one single file, but beneath them, buried even further, were handfuls of photographs, loose and crumpled at the edges.
Settling on the floor, Alice began to slowly flip through the strange record of another man’s life. Baby pictures and blurry university graduation shots; summer tourist snaps and back garden barbeques—they were clumped together in no particular order, and peering at each in turn, Alice felt a strange sense of intrusion, as if she were a voyeur lingering on the edge of every frame. There was a fascination too. His old friends, relationships, and random passing moments were laid out for her to see, and with the documents she had stacked neatly to one side, Alice realized that she held the narrative of his life, right there in front of her. It was almost like she owned him, in some strange way.
There was a sudden burst of noise.
Alice leaped to her feet, looking around frantically, until she realized it was just the sound of her phone ringtone. She pulled it out of her pocket and the new text. It was from Nathan: “I take it back, the Swiss are even less helpful than the Germans. See you soon. X”
Alice stared at the short message, feeling her discomfort creep in again. What would he say if he could see her then? But she had work to do. Tucking her phone