_OceanofPDF.com_The_Girl_on_the_Train_-_Paula_Hawkins

react the right way when she walked out. I didn’t panic soon enough. I
didn’t call her soon enough.” He gives a bitter laugh. “And there is a
pattern of abusive behaviour, according to Kamal Abdic.” It’s then that
he looks up at me, that he sees me, that a light comes on. Hope. “You . . .
you can talk to the police. You can tell them that it’s a lie, that he’s lying.
You can at least give another side of the story, tell them that I loved her,
that we were happy.”
I can feel panic rising in my chest. He thinks I can help him. He is
pinning his hopes on me and all I have for him is a lie, a bloody lie.
“They won’t believe me,” I say weakly. “They don’t believe me. I’m
an unreliable witness.”
The silence between us swells and fills the room; a fly buzzes angrily
against the French doors. Scott picks at the dried blood on his cheek, I
can hear his nails scraping against his skin. I push my chair back, the
legs scraping on the tiles, and he looks up.
“You were here,” he says, as though the piece of information I gave
him fifteen minutes ago is only now sinking in. “You were in Witney the
night Megan went missing?”
I can barely hear him above the blood thudding in my ears. I nod.
“Why didn’t you tell the police that?” he asks. I can see the muscle tic
in his jaw.
“I did. I did tell them that. But I didn’t have . . . I didn’t see anything.
I don’t remember anything.”
He gets to his feet, walks over to the French doors and pulls back the
curtain. The sunshine is momentarily blinding. Scott stands with his back
to me, his arms folded.
“You were drunk,” he says matter-of-factly. “But you must remember
something. You must—that’s why you keep coming back here, isn’t it?”
He turns around to face me. “That’s it, isn’t it? Why you keep contacting
me. You know something.” He’s saying this as though it’s fact: not a
question, not an accusation, not a theory. “Did you see his car?” he asks.
“Think. Blue Vauxhall Corsa. Did you see it?” I shake my head and he
throws his arms up in frustration. “Don’t just dismiss it. Really think.
What did you see? You saw Anna Watson, but that doesn’t mean
anything. You saw—come on! Who did you see?”
Blinking into the sunlight, I try desperately to piece together what I
saw, but nothing comes. Nothing real, nothing helpful. Nothing I could
say out loud. I was in an argument. Or perhaps I witnessed an argument.
I stumbled on the station steps, a man with red hair helped me up—I
think that he was kind to me, although now he makes me feel afraid. I