The Girl Before You. Nicola Rayner

colleague on the next desk slathers her arms with moisturiser as she trills on the phone. The smell, rich and musky, seems stronger than usual – Alice finds it oddly repellent. Bile rises from her stomach and she swallows hard.

      She looks back at the screen. She had been thinking of Naomi, Ruth Walker’s sister, who had been in her year at St Anthony’s. She had been – still was – exceedingly pretty, with her huge dark eyes and olive skin. A history of art undergrad, she was gentler than her sister, less intimidating. Alice had liked her. They would bump into each other in the college bar and say, ‘We must have that coffee.’

      But Alice had become busy with the full-time job of being George’s girlfriend and Naomi had fallen in with a different group, so the moment had passed. And later their gossipy exchanges became greetings and then nods, a raised hand across the quad. Alice suddenly felt sad. Had she been right to put all her eggs in one basket from the beginning, not to strike out on her own, to make George’s life hers?

      A thought occurs to her. She logs into Facebook and types ‘Naomi Walker’ into the search engine. The right Naomi Walker appears straight away. She hasn’t changed her name. Alice can’t really remember Naomi with boyfriends at college. Maybe she’d just been picky. Facebook asks Alice if she wants to befriend Naomi and, before she has time to think about it, she puts the cursor over ‘Add Friend’ and clicks the mouse.

      ‘It’s the man of the moment.’ Alice is jolted back to the room.

      ‘I’m sorry?’ Alice definitely feels odd today.

      ‘Your hubby,’ says her colleague breathlessly.

      George sometimes had this effect. And there he is, pacing towards her, with a wide smile and brandishing a bunch of sunflowers.

      ‘George?’ says Alice sharply. ‘What on earth are you doing here?’

      ‘I thought we could go out for lunch,’ says George, striding over and giving her shoulder a squeeze and her colleague a conspiratorial wink. ‘Can’t a chap surprise his wife from time to time?’

      ‘Well, yes, he can. But I think this is the first time you’ve been here since the Christmas party. In 2010.’ She adds mentally: where you drank too much and flirted outrageously with one of the interns.

      ‘What’s this?’ George gestures at her computer screen with the sunflowers.

      ‘Oh, nothing.’ Alice hastily minimises Naomi’s beaming face. ‘Did you say you were going to take me out to lunch?’ Her voice sounds unnaturally bright. ‘What a treat! Where are we going?’

      The restaurant is packed. City workers flushed with lunchtime wine – sleeves pulled up, ties loosened – lean towards each other in privately bellowed conversations. It is too hot, too loud. By the time they’re seated, Alice has lost all enthusiasm for lunch; she doesn’t really want to be here at all.

      ‘Do you want wine, darling?’ George asks, reaching for the list.

      ‘Better not.’ Alice glances down at the menu. ‘I’m feeling a bit off today.’

      Behind George, she notices a mother trying to nurse her baby. Even with a discreet napkin over her shoulder it’s an incongruous place to breast-feed. The woman’s face has the distracted, half-there expression of new motherhood.

      ‘Maybe you’re right.’ George drops the wine list as quickly as he picked it up. ‘Are you OK, darling?’ He is being peculiar. Oddly attentive and fidgety.

      Alice frowns. ‘George, what’s going on?’

      He sighs, brushes a hand across his face. ‘Look, I’ve got something to tell you.’

      ‘Oh.’

      ‘That girl you mentioned the other night?’

      Before he says it, Alice has a sense of déjà vu: she knows, has always known, that this is the thing coming back for them.

      ‘I have a confession to make: I did know her. We had a sort of thing in my second year. Way before I met you.’

      ‘A thing?’ says Alice sharply.

      ‘Well, a fling thing. Yes.’

      ‘So you lied.’

      He shakes his head, adamant. ‘No, not a lie. It wasn’t a lie.’

      ‘Yes,’ she says. ‘You said you didn’t really know her.’ She looks at his face, right at him.

      George drops his gaze to the table. He picks up a knife and puts it down again.

      ‘It wasn’t important,’ he says quietly. ‘And I didn’t really know her.’

      He had made her look stupid again. And in front of their friends. Teddy would have known. Teddy and George knew all of each other’s secrets from college.

      ‘How long were you together?’ She sounds shrill. The woman breast-feeding looks up. Alice lowers her voice. ‘Were you in love with her?’

      George frowns. ‘A matter of weeks, really. No, it wasn’t serious. And it was a long time ago.’

      Alice closes her eyes. He’s right, in a way. Why is she so worked up? But she imagines the looks exchanged between George and Teddy, the undercurrent of understanding. The feeling is like running her finger along an old scar – sensitive but not painful exactly.

      ‘Why didn’t you tell me before?’

      ‘I was embarrassed. I didn’t treat her very well and we fell out. And then, of course, when what happened happened …’ He trails off.

      ‘And what, George? You didn’t want to be associated with a missing person? A possible suicide. Because what? It might reflect badly on you?’

      George looks at her. He is pulling his honest face, one he does particularly well for the television cameras.

      ‘Look – our fling was ancient history by then. It wasn’t relevant. It’s not relevant now. But I know you’ve got a bee in your bonnet about this girl. And once you’d done some digging, you might have found out.’

      ‘So you’re telling me because I might have found out.’ Alice’s fingers curl around the paper napkin on her lap, scrunching it into a tight ball. ‘Nice one, George. That’s brilliant.’ She is angry now. ‘Was she there?’ she demands. ‘On the night of the memorial ball? With you, I mean.’

      George looks completely baffled. ‘Darling, what on earth are you talking about?’

      ‘There’s red hair in the photograph.’ She hadn’t meant it to come out like this.

      ‘What?’ George rubs his forehead.

      ‘In that photo of you and Dan, on your desk, there’s a redhead on the edge of the photo. Was she there?’

      ‘No,’ says George adamantly. ‘No. God knows where she was that night. Not with us. She couldn’t stand me.’

      ‘Why couldn’t she stand you?’ Alice can feel the bile rising again. ‘Why?’ she demands again.

      There is no stopping it this time. Alice grabs her bag and coat and heads for the door. She makes it outside just in time to throw up in a window box.

      She is still holding the napkin as she walks away from the restaurant. Alice wipes her mouth and fishes around in her handbag for her mobile and a mint. She’d known, somehow, from the moment she’d seen the girl on the train that George had been involved with her. She pushes the mint to the side of her cheek with her tongue. What else had she missed? She tries to call Christie, but the answerphone picks up.

      ‘It’s me,’ Alice says. ‘Call me back. There’s something I need to talk to you about.’

      She thinks next of Teddy, whose hand occasionally strays to her thigh under the dinner table, giving it a ‘friendly’ squeeze. He owes her a favour.

      ‘Al!’