Watching You by Michael Robotham Page A

rising toward the windowsill as though searching for the light.
    Daniel’s desk is nearest the window. Marnie notices the dirty coffee cup and a photograph of a different family. Someone else has been using it.
    “Can I help you?”
    A man is standing in the doorway. Marnie vaguely recognizes him from somewhere. Perhaps Daniel introduced them.
    “I’m Marnie Logan,” she says. “Daniel’s wife.”
    “Of course you are,” he replies, not giving his name. “I didn’t realize you were coming.” He is still in the doorway. “Is everything all right? Have you heard any news?”
    “No news.”
    “Oh.”
    “I’m here to pick up Daniel’s things.”
    “Right. Well. Don’t let me stop you.”
    He has a narrow face and thick eyebrows that look glued on rather than natural. He’s holding his cigarettes and is redolent with the after-effects of a visit to the pavement or the roof.
    “I never got a chance to say how much we miss Daniel,” he says. “I wanted to call. I didn’t know what to say.”
    “That’s OK.”
    “Must be hard—not knowing.”
    “Yes.”
    “Am I talking too much? You’re probably sick of people asking you questions.”
    “You’re fine. About Daniel’s things…?”
    “They’ve been moved.”
    “His locker?”
    “I cleared that out too,” he says. “The department needed the space. I put them in a box. They’re in the storeroom.”
    Typical, thought Marnie. The university had refused her access on privacy grounds and then dumped her husband’s things in a storeroom.
    “I was wondering when someone would call you,” he says, opening his desk drawer and rummaging inside. “You have children, don’t you?”
    “A boy and a girl.”
    Another nod.
    “I’m sorry, I don’t remember your name,” says Marnie.
    The man blinks at her and frowns as though searching for his name. “Jeremy,” he says eventually, adding his surname as an afterthought. “Holland.”
    He holds the set of keys aloft, surprised at having found them.
    “The storeroom is just down the corridor.”
    Marnie follows him, answering his questions with nods and murmurs rather than risk telling an outright lie. He unlocks the door. Triggers the light. There are metal shelves on three walls rising to the ceiling. A cleaner’s trolley is parked in the center, sprouting brooms and mops.
    “I’m sure I put it somewhere back here.”
    Squeezing between the shelves and the trolley, he begins moving cartons and equipment aside.
    “Ah, here it is.”
    He lifts a box free and carries it into the corridor.
    “Do you have a car?”
    “I came by train.”
    “How are you going to get this home?”
    “I’ll manage.”
    Marnie holds out her arms and takes the box, staggering slightly under the weight.
    “Maybe I’ll sort through it here,” she says.
    “Of course, you can use the office.”
    Back at Daniel’s old desk, she slices open the packing tape and folds back the cardboard flaps. Jeremy sits at his desk, pretending to mark papers, but sneaking glances at Marnie, looking at her legs. He mumbles something that Marnie can’t quite hear.
    “Pardon?” she asks.
    “What?”
    “You said something.”
    “No, I mean, I don’t think I did. I’m sorry.” Jeremy fumbles in his drawer for his cigarettes. “I’m just going to pop outside. Won’t be long.”
    Marnie continues sorting through the contents, putting the personal items into a pile, including a framed photograph of the children that Zoe gave Daniel for Father’s Day. There is a desk calendar, a diary and notebooks. A piece of fabric is tucked into the corner of the box. She pulls it free—a pair of women’s underwear. Lacy. Black. Not hers. Marnie feels her throat constrict.
    There are innocent explanations: a joke, a secret admirer, a souvenir confiscated from a male student, but Marnie has been here before. Zoe’s father was a serial offender. Unfaithful. Unreliable. Dishonest. Daniel was different, she tells herself, holding the panties