The Girl On The Train

On August 10, Rachel wakes up in Scott’s bed. She vaguely recalls them getting drunk and having sex the night before. Before she leaves, Rachel notices all of Megan’s things and pictures are gone. On the street in front of number 15, she dodges a photographer and almost runs into Anna. As Anna goes into her house, Rachel recalls her hurrying into it a few days after Rachel moved out and came back to get something.

On August 10, Anna goes to the gym, buys a dress, and comes home to see Rachel dodging the photographer. After talking to Tom, who says he’ll take care of it, Anna decides to talk to Detective Riley next time she sees Rachel.

This chapter covers August 12 and August 13 within a new structure. August 12 has a morning section, where Rachel talks to Tom in his car. They drive to Wilton Lake, and Tom tells Rachel to stay away from Scott and offers her money. She kisses Tom’s hand. On August 13, there is an early morning section, which is a dream. In it, Rachel sees a dress by the train tracks and the characters she created based on Megan and Scott (Jess and Jason) in number 15, drinking. Jason chokes Jess and grabs her hair, preparing to hit her head against a wall.

The morning section of August 13 is when Rachel wakes up. She recalls the dream while riding the train to see Kamal. At her appointment, Kamal does not recommend hypnosis to recover memories, but rather that she visit a location where something happened that she can’t remember. They talk about a time she doesn’t remember—when Tom said she tried to hit him with a golf club. However, when she talks about the incident with Kamal, she remembers feeling fear, not anger, that night.

During the evening of August 13, Rachel goes to the underpass and deliberately looks into it, rather than hurry past it. She remembers a woman in a blue dress—Anna—getting into Tom’s car. However, it doesn’t make sense, since the police told Rachel that Anna was at home at the time. Rachel looks at Tom’s house, but resists going in to talk to Tom about Megan and her memories.

This chapter includes August 13 and August 14, in morning and evening sections. Anna, frustrated with her baby, misses her old job as an estate agent and being a mistress. However, she feels happy when her baby smiles at her. The evening of August 13, Anna sees Rachel looking at the house and then walking away. Anna calls Detective Riley, reporting that she has been spending time with Scott.

The next day, Tom suggests a vacation, but Anna asks how they can spend money to travel but not move. She also tells Tom about seeing Rachel, and he admits to lying—that he met Rachel in person rather than talking to her on the phone. This causes Anna to wonder what else Tom is lying about, including his mother and if he’s having an affair with Rachel. Anna starts drinking and spends a long time trying to crack the password on Tom’s computer while he is supposedly out working.

This chapter covers August 15 through August 18, with varying sections. Cathy got Rachel a job interview, and Rachel intends to spend the day preparing for it. However, Scott calls Rachel and asks her to come over. On her way to his house, she notices that the newspapers are running a story about how the father of Megan’s dead child, Mac (Craig McKenzie), died in a drug overdose several years prior.

Scott drunkenly confronts Rachel about her lies—that she knew Megan. The police told him Rachel didn’t know Megan. Scott takes Rachel’s purse, sees a notification about her next appointment with Kamal, grabs her, and threatens to hit her. Then, he drags her upstairs and locks her in the spare room. Rachel cuts her hand on a photo of Megan while going through the contents of a box in the room. Scott’s violent actions remind her vaguely of Tom and repressed memories of him. After mocking her and threatening her, Scott eventually lets Rachel out of the house.

She tries to get help from Tom, but no one answers the door. Rachel leaves a note in the letter box and goes home. She drinks and calls the police, telling Riley that Scott bruised her. Riley tells her to stay away from Scott, and to make a statement at the station the next day.

The next day, August 16, Rachel makes a formal statement to a uniformed officer and goes to the job interview in Witney. Near the train station there, she runs into the red-haired man. They get drinks together, and she learns his name is Andy. Rachel asks Andy what happened the night of Megan’s disappearance. He says he helped her when she slipped on the steps at the station, and she said she was going to see her husband. About a half hour later, Andy saw her in the underpass, bleeding, and Tom getting into his car with another woman. Rachel rejected his offers of help, and he left her alone. Rachel realizes the woman probably wasn’t Anna, because she would have been with the baby, Evie.

On August 17, Rachel calls Tom and learns that Anna never gave Tom the note she left in the letter box. Tom says Anna was home with the baby the night that Megan disappeared and insults Rachel, telling her she was a horrible drunk that night. In the early morning of August 18, Rachel remembers Tom’s insults, “blind drunk. Filthy, stinking drunk” (260), not only from August 17, but from the worst times of their marriage. This causes her to recall Tom hitting her in the underpass the night of Megan’s disappearance.

On August 17, Anna recalls Rachel knocking on their door and calling out for Tom on August 15. Anna initially threw away Rachel’s note, but got it out of the trash and put it with other information about Rachel’s calls, visits, and emails. On August 17, after Rachel’s phone call, Tom confronts Anna about not giving him the note, comparing Anna with Rachel. After Anna cries in the bathroom for half an hour, Tom says he is going to the gym and leaves. Anna figures out Tom’s password, the name of the street they live on: Blenheim. There is no incriminating evidence on the laptop.

However, Tom left his gym bag behind, and Anna finds a cell phone in it. After charging its battery, Anna sees almost a year of messages about times and dates for meetings. She hides the phone before Tom comes home. He returns, drunk, saying he went to the pub after forgetting his gym bag, and convinces Anna to have sex.

Early in the morning of August 18, Anna takes the phone outside and listens to the outgoing voicemail greeting, which is the voice of a woman, only referred to as her (but is later revealed as Megan).