I Know Who You Are: A Novel

In Essex in 1987, Maggie blindfolds Aimee and leads her into a decorated room for Christmas. When the power goes out, John feeds coins into the electricity meter. The presents under the tree, addressed to Aimee, are dusty. She spots a photograph of another girl who looks like her, but Maggie quickly hides it. While John takes Polaroids, Aimee opens her gifts, and at Maggie’s prompting, calls her “Mum.”

After the police leave, Jack invites Aimee out for a drink. Convinced that Ben is framing her, she joins Jack at the Pinewood Studios Club Bar. Aimee tells him that Ben is missing and that the police suspect her. Jack dismisses the idea and comforts her.

In 1988, Maggie assigns Aimee to mop the betting shop floors each night, promising a McDonald’s Happy Meal as a reward. Left alone, Aimee tells an elderly customer that her real name is Ciara. When Maggie returns, she hits Aimee for using the wrong name and for lying about cleaning the toilet. As punishment, Maggie throws the Happy Meal on the filthy floor and forces Aimee to eat it.

At the bar, Alicia White, Aimee’s old rival from school, arrives with her hair dyed to match Aimee’s. Alicia flirts with Jack, suggesting that they’re close, and belittles Aimee’s career, even hinting that their agent, Tony, plans to drop her. Jealous and worried, Aimee continues drinking. After Alicia leaves, Aimee finds herself attracted to Jack.

In 1988, John takes Aimee outside for the first time to use her as cover while depositing cash at a bank. He tells her that the girl in the photograph disappeared and that Aimee has taken her place. Outside, three masked men attack them for the money and grab Aimee. Maggie appears, holding a gun, and when she fires a warning shot, the attackers flee. Aimee hugs her for the first time.

Aimee has a dream that she recognizes as a memory. In it, Ben kicks open her bolted bedroom door, strangles and sexually assaults her, and then uses his belt to beat her. She knows that this has happened before and remembers vowing that the last time would be the final one.

Aimee wakes, accepting the dream as a memory of Ben assaulting her after she asked for a divorce. Hungover and unable to remember getting home, she hears footsteps downstairs and fears her stalker is in the house. She reaches for the gun she keeps under the bed, but it’s missing. As footsteps approach, the door opens, and she’s shocked to see who’s there.

In 1988, after the attempted robbery, Aimee hears Maggie and John arguing. John shouts that “Aimee is dead” (110), and something smashes. Terrified, Aimee hides. Maggie enters, gets into bed with her, and holds her, promising protection.

Jack stands in the doorway. He explains that Aimee got drunk, so he brought her home and slept on the floor. Aimee notices a text from Alicia on his phone. On her own phone, a viral article by Jennifer Jones displays photos of her and Jack looking intimate, implying an affair; one image was taken from inside her locked dressing room. She receives an urgent email from her agent, Tony, requesting a meeting.

Maggie takes the family to a pub, where Aimee meets a man who calls himself Uncle Michael and resembles Maggie. The adults discuss attacks on businesses that have Irish links. John gives Aimee coins for the Pac-Man arcade machine, and Michael remarks that Aimee has become a “daddy’s girl,” which displeases Maggie.

As Aimee prepares to meet her agent, she finds an unfamiliar red lipstick in her bag. Jack sees a childhood photo of Ben and says it looks nothing like the man Aimee married. Detective Croft arrives and shows Aimee CCTV footage of a woman resembling Aimee withdrawing her money, using her passport as ID. Croft says the threatening emails signed by “Maggie” came from Aimee’s laptop. When Croft asks to see her registered gun, Aimee refuses, insisting that she won’t allow a search without a warrant.

In 1988, Maggie gives Aimee elocution tapes to erase her Irish accent and promises that if she masters an English accent, she can start school. Maggie calls this skill a tool for survival and tells her never to show her true self to strangers.

At the agency, Tony shows Aimee an email from Ben claiming that she can’t handle work pressure. Instead of firing her, Tony says that a top director named Fincher wants to meet her for a new film. Tony also says that he has dropped Alicia as a client. Stunned, Aimee leaves, and Tony advises her to fight hardest when she expects to lose.

In April 1988, Aimee celebrates a new birthday and is told that she’s seven. John gives her a hamster, whom she names Cheeks, and Maggie gives her a Walkman for her elocution tapes. After Aimee blows out her candles, John takes a Polaroid and places it in the frame on the mantelpiece, over the photo of the other girl.

After she meets with Tony, Aimee returns home to find her street cordoned off by the police. Forensic officers carry a stretcher with a covered body out of her front door. Certain that they’ve found a body in her home, Aimee panics and flees.

John installs a “fruit machine” (a slot machine) and a Pac-Man game in the shop. One evening, Aimee ignores Maggie’s calls for dinner while playing. Enraged, Maggie leads Aimee to the deep fat fryer and forces her to watch as her pet hamster, Cheeks, dies in the hot oil.

Aimee wanders through London and ends up at the office where Ben claimed to work. The receptionist and another employee tell her that Ben was fired for “gross misconduct” more than two years ago and that the police have already asked about him.

In 1988, a man appears at the back window of the shop and asks to use the phone. He says his dog is lost, so Aimee unlocks the door to help him. The man pulls a knife, demanding to know where the safe is. When John appears, the intruder grabs Aimee and holds the knife to her throat. Maggie brings a bag of money and, as she hands it over, raises a gun and shoots the man in the face, killing him.