_OceanofPDF.com_The_Girl_on_the_Train_-_Paula_Hawkins

I’m just settling into my seat when my phone rings. It’s Cathy. I let it go
to voice mail.
She leaves a message: “Hi, Rachel, just phoning to make sure you’re
OK.” She’s worried about me, because of the thing with the taxi. “I just
wanted to say that I’m sorry, you know, about the other day, what I said
about moving out. I shouldn’t have. I overreacted. You can stay as long
as you want to.” There’s a long pause, and then she says, “Give me a
ring, OK? And come straight home, Rach, don’t go to the pub.”
I don’t intend to. I wanted a drink at lunchtime; I was desperate for
one after what happened in Witney this morning. I didn’t have one,
though, because I had to keep a clear head. It’s been a long time since
I’ve had anything worth keeping a clear head for.
It was so strange, this morning, my trip to Witney. I felt as though I
hadn’t been there in ages, although of course it’s only been a few days. It
may as well have been a completely different place, though, a different
station in a different town. I was a different person than the one who
went there on Saturday night. Today I was stiff and sober, hyperaware of
the noise and the light and fear of discovery.
I was trespassing. That’s what it felt like this morning, because it’s
their territory now, it’s Tom and Anna’s and Scott and Megan’s. I’m the
outsider, I don’t belong there, and yet everything is so familiar to me.
Down the concrete steps at the station, right past the newspaper kiosk
into Roseberry Avenue, half a block to the end of the T-junction, to the
right the archway leading to a dank pedestrian underpass beneath the
track, and to the left Blenheim Road, narrow and tree-lined, flanked with
its handsome Victorian terraces. It feels like coming home—not just to
any home, but a childhood home, a place left behind a lifetime ago; it’s
the familiarity of walking up stairs and knowing exactly which one is
going to creak.
The familiarity isn’t just in my head, it’s in my bones; it’s muscle
memory. This morning, as I walked past the blackened tunnel mouth, the
entrance to the underpass, my pace quickened. I didn’t have to think
about it because I always walked a little faster on that section. Every
night, coming home, especially in winter, I used to pick up the pace,
glancing quickly to the right, just to make sure. There was never anyone
there—not on any of those nights and not today—and yet I stopped dead
as I looked into the darkness this morning, because I could suddenly see
myself. I could see myself a few metres in, slumped against the wall, my
head in my hands, and both head and hands smeared with blood.