The Woman At The Door, Daniel Hurst [world best books to read TXT] 📗

and for what? What could she have possibly hoped to achieve by spreading a lie into my home? I bet she never thought that someone might die, but that’s what has almost happened, and now it’s gone too far.

That’s why I have to do this.

I have to find this woman.

And I have to do it now.

Without any expertise in this area, I am taking to opening up a search engine on my computer screen and typing in the words ‘private investigator’. I don’t know if a PI is really what I need, but I’ll do some reading and find out. What I do need is somebody who has the means of doing a little digging and uncovering the truth. It might not be cheap, and it might not end up being entirely legal, but right now, I don’t care about cheap and legal. I just care about my wife, and I care about finding the woman who put my wife into such a spin that she almost ended up being run over by a machine.

The search results bring up a few websites, and I do a little exploring, clicking on a few of the links and seeing where they take me. I see numerous sites set up for PI’s, all of whom are offering their services on all manner of things.

Monitor a cheating spouse. Track down a long-lost relative. Verify information.

There’s no mention of identifying a stranger, but all these types of services essentially aim to do the same thing, which is uncover the truth, and that is all I’m looking to do.

I just want the truth.

The truth is a concept that the woman at the door clearly has no regard for. But the truth means a lot to me, and I know it means a lot to my wife too. That is why I am going to do everything I can to reveal it.

After ten minutes of browsing various sites belonging to various private investigators, I realise that I’m just going to have to pick one and go with it. There is very little to help me make that choice because this isn’t like shopping for a product. There aren’t any reviews, and there aren’t any prices. It’s all very secretive and murky.

In the end, I pick one website and scroll down to the bottom where I click on the button that says “Contact me for a quote today.”

It opens up a small box in which I have to input my email address and mobile number as well as a short message about what it is that I am hoping to achieve with the help of a PI. I add my contact information in the boxes before typing out the job that I require. I’m not really sure what to put, so I just write from the heart.

Hi. My wife and I were visited by a female stranger a couple of nights ago, and she told a very damaging lie. I would like to find out who this woman was and why she did that. I have camera footage of the woman that I can send, but that’s all I have to go on. Can you help find this person? Regards. Sam.

I re-read the message quickly to check for typos before clicking the send button. The confirmation message on screen tells me that my submission was successful and that I will be contacted shortly. I guess all I can do now is wait.

I’m just about to close down the laptop when I remember about that work email that I was supposed to look at tonight. It’s still relatively early in the evening, so I log onto my company intranet and access my emails. Finding the one from Maria, I open it up and start reading, feeling the life drain out of me as I do. Maria was right. There is a problem with one of the terms, and it’s going to take another long meeting to sort it out.

Tomorrow is going to be fun. Not.

I hit ‘Reply’ on the email and type out a quick message to my colleague telling her that she is right and that she has done well to spot the problem. Then I conclude with a sarcastic joke, saying that I can’t wait for tomorrow and that it promises to be one of the most exciting days in our careers. But just before I send it, I have a moment of doubt. What if Maria doesn’t get the sarcasm and thinks I’m being serious. Or worse, what if she doesn’t find it funny and thinks I’m weird? I know she speaks English, but she might not get the English humour over email, so that’s why I decide to delete it and just keep it simple. Then I press send, and the message whizzes away into the ether.

But as I close my laptop down, I’m struck by a thought. Why did I care so much if Maria got my joke or not? It hardly matters. Yet I did care. I cared enough to change my entire message. I’m not sure why I did that. It’s not as if I’m trying to impress her. Not like all the other guys in the office. But maybe I am. I must be if I was worried about what she would think of me.

Never mind. It’s not important. What is important is finding that mystery woman. But that won’t happen until the private investigator messages me back, so all I can do until then is go upstairs and be with my wife.

It’s been a long day.

And it’s only Monday.

Give me strength.

15

THE WOMAN

I’m one of those lucky people who enjoy what they do for a living, so I don’t need to concern myself with what day of the week it is and how long is left until the weekend. I can’t wait to go to work every day.

The only problem I have is that there just isn’t enough work around.

What I do is quite specialist. I’m not sure