_OceanofPDF.com_The_Girl_on_the_Train_-_Paula_Hawkins

“Mrs. Watson?”
“Yes. Mrs. Watson was on the sofa, sleeping. The baby was in the
carry-cot and was crying—screaming, actually, red in the face, she’d
obviously been crying for a while.” As I said those words it struck me
that I should have told them that I could hear the baby crying from the
street and that’s why I went round to the back of the house. That would
have made me sound less like a maniac.
“So the baby’s screaming and her mother’s right there, and she
doesn’t wake?” Riley asks me.
“Yes.” Her elbows are on the table, her hands in front of her mouth so
I can’t read her expression fully, but I know she thinks I’m lying. “I
picked her up to comfort her. That’s all. I picked her up to quieten her.”
“That’s not all, though, is it, because when Anna woke up you weren’t
there, were you? You were down by the fence, by the train tracks.”
“She didn’t stop crying right away,” I said. “I was bouncing her up
and down and she was still grizzling, so I walked outside with her.”
“Down to the train tracks?”
“Into the garden.”
“Did you intend to harm the Watsons’ child?”
I leaped to my feet then. Melodramatic, I know, but I wanted to make
them see—make Gaskill see—what an outrageous suggestion that was.
“I don’t have to listen to this! I came here to tell you about the man! I
came here to help you! And now . . . what exactly are you accusing me
of? What are you accusing me of?”
Gaskill remained impassive, unimpressed. He motioned at me to sit
down again. “Ms. Watson, the other . . . er, Mrs. Watson—Anna—
mentioned you to us during the course of our enquiries about Megan
Hipwell. She said that you had behaved erratically, in an unstable
manner, in the past. She mentioned this incident with the child. She said
that you have harassed both her and her husband, that you continue to
call the house repeatedly.” He looked down at his notes for a moment.
“Almost nightly, in fact. That you refuse to accept that your marriage is
over—”
“That is simply not true!” I insisted, and it wasn’t—yes, I called Tom
from time to time, but not every night, it was a total exaggeration. But I
was getting the feeling that Gaskill wasn’t on my side after all, and I was
starting to feel tearful again.
“Why haven’t you changed your name?” Riley asked me.
“Excuse me?”