_OceanofPDF.com_The_Girl_on_the_Train_-_Paula_Hawkins

He examines my head for a good few seconds and then says, “Is that
so?” He stands back and looks me in the eye. “It doesn’t look like it. It
looks more like someone’s hit you with something,” he says, and I go
cold. I have a memory of ducking down to avoid a blow, raising my
hands. Is that a real memory? The doctor approaches again and peers
more closely at the wound. “Something sharp, serrated maybe . . .”
“No,” I say. “It was a car. I bumped it getting into a car.” I’m trying to
convince myself as much as him.
“OK.” He smiles at me then and steps back again, crouching down a
little so that our eyes are level. “Are you all right . . .” He consults his
notes. “Rachel?”
“Yes.”
He looks at me for a long time; he doesn’t believe me. He’s
concerned. Perhaps he thinks I’m a battered wife. “Right. I’m going to
clean this up for you, because it looks a bit nasty. Is there someone I can
call for you? Your husband?”
“I’m divorced,” I tell him.
“Someone else, then?” He doesn’t care that I’m divorced.
“My friend, please, she’ll be worried about me.” I give him Cathy’s
name and number. Cathy won’t be worried at all—I’m not even late
home yet—but I’m hoping that the news that I’ve been hit by a taxi
might make her take pity on me and forgive me for what happened
yesterday. She’ll probably think the reason I got knocked down is
because I was drunk. I wonder if I can ask the doctor to do a blood test or
something so that I can provide her with proof of my sobriety. I smile up
at him, but he isn’t looking at me, he’s making notes. It’s a ridiculous
idea anyway.
It was my fault, the taxi driver wasn’t to blame. I stepped right out—
ran right out, actually—in front of the cab. I don’t know where I thought
I was running to. I wasn’t thinking at all, I suppose, at least not about
myself. I was thinking about Jess. Who isn’t Jess, she’s Megan Hipwell,
and she’s missing.
I’d been in the library on Theobalds Road. I’d just emailed my mother
(I didn’t tell her anything of significance, it was a sort of test-the-waters
email, to gauge how maternal she’s feeling towards me at the moment)
via my Yahoo account. On Yahoo’s front page there are news stories,
tailored to your postcode or whatever—God only knows how they know
my postcode, but they do. And there was a picture of her, Jess, my Jess,
the perfect blonde, next to a headline that read CONCERN FOR MISSING
WITNEY WOMAN.