_OceanofPDF.com_The_Girl_on_the_Train_-_Paula_Hawkins

Kamal’s expression doesn’t change. He isn’t shocked. He just nods.
“So, you know what happened, but you can’t quite feel it, is that right?
You want to be able to remember it for yourself, to see it and experience
it in your own memory, so that—how did you put it?—so that it belongs
to you? And that way, you’ll feel fully responsible?”
“Well.” I shrug. “Yes. I mean, that’s partly it. But there’s something
more. And it happened later, much later—weeks, maybe months
afterwards. I kept thinking about that night. Every time I passed that hole
in the wall I thought about it. Tom said he was going to patch it up, but
he didn’t, and I didn’t want to pester him about it. One day I was
standing there—it was evening and I was coming out of the bedroom and
I just stopped, because I remembered. I was on the floor, my back to the
wall, sobbing and sobbing, Tom standing over me, begging me to calm
down, the golf club on the carpet next to my feet, and I felt it, I felt it. I
was terrified. The memory doesn’t fit with the reality, because I don’t
remember anger, raging fury. I remember fear.”
EVENING
I’ve been thinking about what Kamal said, about returning to the scene
of the crime, so instead of going home I’ve come to Witney, and instead
of scurrying past the underpass, I walk slowly and deliberately right up
to its mouth. I place my hands against the cold, rough brick at the
entrance and close my eyes, running my fingers over it. Nothing comes. I
open my eyes and look around. The road is very quiet: just one woman
walking in my direction a few hundred yards off, no one else. No cars
driving past, no children shouting, only a very faint siren in the distance.
The sun slides behind a cloud and I feel cold, immobilized on the
threshold of the tunnel, unable to go any farther. I turn to leave.
The woman I saw walking towards me a moment ago is just turning
the corner; she’s wearing a deep-blue trench wrapped around her. She
glances up at me as she passes and it’s then that it comes to me. A
woman . . . blue . . . the quality of the light. I remember: Anna. She was
wearing a blue dress with a black belt and was walking away from me,
walking fast, almost like she did the other day, only this time she did
look back, she looked over her shoulder and then she stopped. A car
pulled up next to her on the pavement—a red car. Tom’s car. She leaned
down to speak to him through the window and then opened the door and
got in, and the car drove away.