Kitabı oku: «The Lie», sayfa 2
Chapter 3
It’s the next morning and I’ve only been at my desk for ten minutes when Geoff, my boss, wanders over. He lingers behind me, his hand on the back of my chair. I shuffle as far forward as I can so I end up perched right on the very edge of the seat.
“Late again, Emma.”
“Sorry.” I keep my gaze fixed on the spreadsheet in front of me. “Tube was delayed.”
It’s a lie. We didn’t get Al into bed until 2 a.m. and then I had to wait for a taxi to get me back to Wood Green. By the time I rolled into bed, it was after three.
“You’ll have to make up the time. I want you here until seven.”
“But I need to get to Clapham by then, my brother’s in a play.”
“You should have thought about that this morning and got up earlier. Now …” My chair creaks as he rests his full weight on it and leans around me so his mouth is inches from the side of my face. I can feel his breath, hot and sour in my ear. “I’m expecting that spreadsheet by lunchtime so I can look over it before I speak to the sales team this afternoon. Or should I expect that to be late, too?”
I want to tell him to stick his spreadsheet up his arse. Instead I curl my hands into fists and press my fingernails into the palms of my hands. “You’ll get it.”
I’ve been Geoff’s PA for three years. He’s Head of Sales here at United Internet Solutions, a software, hosting and search engine optimisation company. I was only supposed to be here for three months – it was meant to be just another of the countless temping jobs I took after university – but he extended my contract and then offered me a five-grand pay rise and a permanent position. Daisy told me back then to turn it down and do something else, but the only thing I’ve ever really wanted to do is be a vet, and you can’t do that with a business degree. And I couldn’t face temping again.
I wait until Stephen Jones, Geoff’s favourite salesman and self-proclaimed “top dog”, strolls past us and into his office, closing the door behind him, and then I head for the ladies’ loos, my mobile phone hidden up my sleeve. I check the stalls to make sure that neither of the other two women who work for UIS are about, then I dial Mum’s number. It’s Tuesday, which means she should be at home. She works in the GP surgery she and Dad set up when they were newly married and still childless, but she only does Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. The phone rings for several minutes before she finally picks up. She’s had her mobile for years but still hasn’t worked out how to set up voicemail.
“Shouldn’t you be at work?” That’s how she greets me. No “Hello, Emma,” no “Everything okay, darling?” just “Shouldn’t you be at work?”
“I am at work.”
“Should you be on the phone? You don’t want to upset your boss, not after your recent appraisal.”
“Mum, can you just … never mind. Look, I can’t make it to Henry’s show tonight.”
There’s an audible intake of breath followed by an exaggerated sigh. “Oh, Emma.”
There it is, her disappointed tone, the one perfectly pitched to make me feel like utter shit.
“I’m sorry, Mum. I really wanted to make it but—”
“Henry will be disappointed. You know how much work he’s put into his one-man show. Tonight’s the night he’s invited lots of agents along, and it’s so important that the audience is on his side and—”
“Mum, I know.”
“He wants to take it to Edinburgh, you know that, don’t you? We’re ever so proud.”
“Yes, I do know that, but Geoff—”
“Can’t you ask him nicely? I’m sure he’d understand if you explain why.”
“I have asked him. He said I have to work until seven because I was late this morning.”
“Oh, for God’s sake. So it’s your own fault you can’t come? Don’t tell me, you were out drinking until late with your friends again.”
“Yes. No. We had to help Al. I’ve told you how upset she’s been about Simone recently, and—”
“And that’s what I should tell Henry, is it? That your friends are more important to you than your family?”
“That’s not fair, Mum. I’ve been to all George’s matches, and I was there when Isabella opened her dance studio.”
I spent most of my childhood being dragged from one sibling event to another, a habit that has now become so ingrained that I start each day by checking the calendar in my kitchen to see who’s doing what. Isabella is my oldest sibling. She’s thirty-two, an ex-dancer, ridiculously beautiful and married with a son. George is my older brother. He’s twenty-eight and a golf pro. He lives in St Andrews and I rarely see him. Henry’s the youngest; he’s twenty-four and the next Jimmy Carr, if you believe my mother.
“Mum?”
There’s a pause, a pause that stretches for one, two, three, four seconds.
“Mum? Are you still there?”
She sighs again. “You should get back to work. It sounds like you’re in enough trouble as it is.”
I swipe at my eyes with the heel of my hand. “Could you wish Henry good luck from me?”
“I will. I’ll speak to you soon. You’d better get back to it. Work hard and make us proud.”
The line goes dead before I can reply.
Chapter 4
Present Day
I’m sitting in the staffroom, the letter in my hand, my messenger bag at my feet. It’s been six hours since Sheila handed me the envelope, and I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve examined it. There’s my name, my assumed name, Jane Hughes, at the top then Green Fields Animal Sanctuary, Bude, Nr Aberdare, Wales. There’s a first-class stamp in the top right corner. It’s been stamped but it’s too smudged to make out the town or date. The letter itself is written in blue biro in cursive handwriting. The words aren’t large and bold and shouty. They’re neatly written, punctuated, spelled correctly.
“You haven’t stopped reading that since I gave it to you,” Sheila says, taking a step towards me, hand outstretched. “Can I see?”
“It’s nothing. Like I said, just a letter from Maisie’s owners. Nothing important.” I crumple the letter in my hand and throw it towards the bin before she can reach me. It hits the rim and bounces in.
Sheila stops short in the middle of the room. Her outstretched hand drops to her side and she makes a small “Oh” sound, but she doesn’t retrieve the letter from the bin. Instead she gives me a puzzled smile then heads for the coat stand in the corner of the room. She pulls on her waterproof jacket, grabs her oversized handbag from one of the chairs and hoists it over her shoulder.
“I’m off, then,” she says. “Are you in tomorrow?”
“Yeah.”
“Make sure all the gates are secured before you go. We don’t want Mr Four-by-Four and his mates attempting a dognap in the middle of the night, do we?”
“I will, don’t worry.”
“I won’t.” Her smile widens and she raises a hand in goodbye then heads for the door.
Thirty seconds later, the bell above the main doors tinkles as she leaves. I fish the letter out of the bin, tuck it back into its envelope, and put it in my back pocket. Then I pick up my messenger bag and take out my mobile.
There are two texts and one missed call.
17:55 – Text from Will:
You still on for dinner tonight? x
17:57 – Missed call, Will.
17:58 – Text from Will:
Sorry, just wanted to check. You do eat sea bass, don’t you? I know there’s one kind of fish you don’t like but couldn’t remember if it was sea bass or sea bream? Not too late to pop to Tesco if you don’t like it!
Shit, I forgot I was supposed to be going to Will’s for dinner.
The phone vibrates in my hand and a tinkling tune fills the air.
Will.
I’m tempted to swipe from right to left and pretend I’m working late, but he’ll only worry and ring back.
“Hello?” I press the phone to my ear.
“Jane!” He says my name jubilantly, his voice infused with warmth.
“Hi! Sorry I didn’t get back to you about dinner but I’ve only just finished my shift. One of the dogs developed explosive diarrhoea when I was doing final checks, so I had to strip his bed and get it in the washing machine.”
“Mmmm, explosive diarrhoea. I love it when you talk dirty to me.”
He laughs. I want to laugh too but I can’t.
“So, are you still on for tonight, then?” The smallest note of tension enters his voice. Ours is still a fledgling relationship in many ways. We’re still on best behaviour, still testing the waters, still figuring each other out. “Because I’ve got a bet with Chloe, you know.”
Chloe’s his daughter. She’s nine. Will’s not officially divorced from her mum yet, but they’ve been separated for eighteen months and, according to him, living separate lives a lot longer than that.
“What kind of bet?”
“She thinks you’ll be dead by morning.”
“You can’t be that bad a cook!”
“The first time we took her to bonfire night, she sniffed the air and said, ‘Smells like Daddy’s cooking.’”
This time I do laugh, and the tension evaporates.
“I’ll be round in half an hour,” I say. “I just need to lock up here and pop home for a shower first.”
“Do you have to?” Will says. “I was looking forward to a whiff of eau de diarrhoea.”
“You’re grim.”
“And yet you still like me, so what does that say about you?”
My grin disappears the second I leave the staffroom. I lock the doors to reception first then walk through the building so I’m outside the dog compound. The sound of frenzied barking greets me as soon as I step out into the dusk. I enter the building and double check that all the doors to the kennels are shut, the bedding and toys are clean and there’s water in the water bowls. I completed my checks before I finished my shift, but I have to reassure myself everything’s still in order before I leave for the night. As I round the building and approach the runs, the barking increases and cages rattle as Luca, Jasper, Milly and Tyson throw themselves at the fences. Only Jack stands motionless and silent, staring at me through his one good eye.
“You’ll be okay, boy.” I speak softly, my eyes averted so we’re not making direct eye contact. “You’ll be okay.”
His tail wags from side to side but it’s a hesitant movement. He wants to trust me but he’s not sure whether he should. Unlike Luca, Jasper and Milly, Jack’s details won’t be entered on our website to advertise him as available for re-homing once his seven-day observation is over. Instead, like Tyson, we’ll look after him until his neglect case comes to court, whenever that might be. He could be here for months, but I’m not planning on going anywhere. Or rather, I wasn’t until the letter arrived earlier.
I check the other dog compound then cross the yard to check on the cattery. Two of the cats press their paws against the glass and mew plaintively, but the others ignore me.
I pass quickly through the small animals facility, checking doors are locked and windows are secured. It’s quieter in here and my reflection – pale and ghostly – follows me from window to window as I hurry down the corridor.
“Hello! Hello!”
The sound makes me jump as Freddy the parrot makes his way along the cage towards me.
He tilts his head to one side, his beady eyes fixed on me. “Hello! Hello!”
He used to belong to a retired army major called Alan, who taught him to swear at visitors, particularly unsuspecting Jehovah’s Witnesses and double-glazing salesmen. When Alan died, none of his relatives wanted anything to do with Freddy, so he ended up here. He’s an expensive breed of bird and I don’t imagine he’ll be here long, but we tend to rush any visitors of a sensitive disposition past him as quickly as we can.
“Bye, Freddy,” I call as I head towards the main doors. “See you tomorrow.”
“Bitch!” he calls after me. “Bye, bye bitch!”
Will has been talking for the last ten minutes but I haven’t the slightest clue what he’s on about. He started by telling me about something funny that happened at school this morning, some ten-year-old who confused tentacles with testicles in his lesson about octopuses, but the conversation has moved on since then and I can tell by the look on his face that smiling and nodding isn’t enough of a response.
The letter is burning a hole in my pocket. It has to be from a journalist, that’s the logical explanation. But why not sign it? Why not include a business card? Unless they’re deliberately trying to spook me into talking to them … It’s been five years since I returned to the UK, and four years since a journalist last tried to get me to sell my story, so why now? Unless that’s it – it’s the five-year anniversary of our trip to Nepal, and they want to dig it all up again.
“You lied, didn’t you?” Will says, and I look up.
“Sorry?”
“About the sea bass? It’s not the sea bream you don’t like; it’s the bass. That’s why you haven’t touched it.”
We both stare at the untouched fish on my plate, the dill and butter sauce congealed around it like a thick, yellow oil slick. “I’m sorry, I’ve just got a lot on my mind.”
“Spill …” He runs a hand through his dark hair then rests his chin on his hand, his eyes fixed on mine. “You know you can tell me anything.”
Can I, though? We’ve known each other for three months, been sleeping together for half that time, and yet I feel we barely know each other, not really. I know that his name is William Arthur Smart, he’s thirty-two, separated with a nine-year-old daughter called Chloe. He’s a primary school teacher, he likes folk music, his favourite films are the Star Wars trilogy, and he can’t stand the taste of coriander. Oh, and he’s got a sister called Rachel. What does he know about me? I’m called Jane Hughes, I’m thirty, childless and I work at Green Fields Animal Sanctuary. I like classical music, my favourite film is Little Miss Sunshine and I don’t like the texture of sea bream. I have two brothers and a sister – Henry, George and Isabella. It’s all true. Almost.
“What’s the worst lie you’ve ever told?” I ask.
He frowns momentarily then smiles. “I told my teacher my dad was Harrison Ford when I was ten. I said he might let me bring the Millennium Falcon in to school if I promised not to scratch it.”
His answer is so typically Will that I can’t help but smile. He’s a good person. Nothing he’s said or done in the last three months has given me reason to think otherwise, but I don’t trust my instincts. You can spend years of your life with someone and still not know them. So how can I trust someone I barely know?
“Hello?” He waves a hand in front of my face. “Anyone there?”
“Sorry?”
“I just asked why you asked that? About the lie?”
“No reason, just curious.”
He stares at me for several seconds then sighs softly and reaches for my plate. “I’ll get dessert. And if you don’t eat my world famous raspberry cheesecake, I’m taking you to a doctor to get your tastebuds checked.”
“Will,” I say as he disappears into the kitchen.
“Yes?” He pokes his head out the door, my plate still in his hand.
“Thank you.”
He looks confused. “But you didn’t like it.”
“I wasn’t talking about the fish.”
“What for, then?”
I want to thank him for not pushing me to talk about my past and for just accepting me at face value, but the words tie themselves in knots on my tongue.
“For this.” I wave a hand towards the bottle of wine and the flickering candles on the table. “It’s just what I needed.”
He pauses, as though trying to work out if I’m being sarcastic or not, then grins broadly. “If flattering me is your subtle ruse to try and get out of tasting my cheesecake, I’m not falling for it. You know that, don’t you?”
Chapter 5
Five Years Earlier
“So did you sleep with the bouncer, then?”
Daisy smirks from behind her mug of tea. “Someone had to distract him from throwing Al out.”
Leanne looks up from her mobile. “That’s a yes, then.”
It’s been a week since we manhandled Al out of the nightclub, and the three of us are gathered in Leanne’s tiny studio flat in Plaistow, East London, to talk about how best to help her. Daisy and Leanne are sitting cross-legged on her single bed, the crocheted bed cover pooling on the threadbare beige carpet, while I’m perched on the only chair in the room, a hard-backed pine affair by the window. There’s a basic kitchen on the other side of the room – sink, microwave, fridge and a two-ring portable electric hob – and a clothes rail along the wall opposite the bed, and a small chest of drawers with a 14-inch flat-screen TV on the top. Leanne’s tried to cheer up the room with a print of a sunny poppy-filled field, a small porcelain Buddha, a plaque that says, “Only Truth Will Set You Free” on the windowsill, and a spider plant next to the cooker, but it’s still undeniably bleak. In the two years that Leanne’s lived here, it’s only the second time she’s invited me round. Correction: Daisy invited me round. Leanne texted her to suggest they get together to talk about how best to help Al; Daisy suggested I come, too.
“Right.” Leanne sits up a little straighter and presses her glasses into her nose. She’s been unusually chirpy ever since we turned up, which is slightly weird considering she told Daisy on the phone that Al was sacked from her job three days ago and she was worried she might be a suicide risk. “I’ve been thinking about how best to help Al and I’ve come up with an idea.”
Daisy puts her mug down on the chest of drawers. “Go on.”
“There are three main issues here.” Leanne pauses, relishing the fact that she’s got a rapt audience, then holds up her index finger. “One: Al is physically stalking Simone and Gem. She sat outside Gem’s house all night last night – literally on the front doorstep – waiting for Gem to come out. Simone called the police.”
“Shit.”
Leanne raises her eyebrows. “I know. Apparently they just had a ‘friendly word’ and told her to move on, but if she does it again … Anyway.” She raises a second finger. “Two: Al is stalking Simone on the internet. Now she’s lost her job, she’s spending every bloody second on her laptop. I was round there yesterday and when she went to the loo, I took a quick look at the screen. She was on some kind of forum about hacking Hotmail accounts. And three,” she adds before I can interrupt again, “well, it kind of ties in with one and two. She’s spending too much time on her own. We need to keep an eye on her, but none of us can do that twenty-four seven, unless …” She pauses dramatically. “… we take her on holiday.”
“Yes!” Daisy’s silver bracelets rattle as she punches the air. “Let’s go to Ibiza. I love it there. I know a guy who used to work for Manumission who could get us free tickets.”
“Did you shag him?”
She gives me the middle finger.
“That’s a yes, then,” I say, and she laughs.
“So? Ibiza, then? Ian will give me the time off, and I’ve got a month until my next runner job. Whoop, whoop! Ibiza, here we come.” The bed squeaks in protest as Daisy bounces up and down.
“How long for?” I ask. “I’ve got three weeks’ holiday left but I was hoping to save one of those weeks for Christmas.”
“Quit. Honestly, Emma. It’ll be the best decision you ever make. Go to Ibiza and get another job when you come back. You can afford it. You’ve got three months’ emergency money saved up, you said as much last week.”
“Actually …” Leanne tentatively raises a hand but Daisy ignores her.
“Go on, Emma, it’s for Al. She’d love a couple of weeks in Ibiza. She went last year, didn’t she?”
“Didn’t she go with Simone?”
“How’s that a problem? She won’t be there this time. Will she?”
“I don’t know, but she’ll have lots of memories of going there with Simone, and—”
“Emma!” Leanne snaps. “Can I get a word in, please?”
“Why are you having a go at me? I wasn’t the only one talking.”
“As I was saying” – she peers over her specs at Daisy – “I think we should go on holiday, but we should go to a place where, a) she’s a long way from Simone, and b) she hasn’t got access to the internet, and c) she get can her head together.”
“Like where?”
“Nepal,” Leanne says.
“Where?”
“Nepal! It’s in Asia, near Tibet.”
Daisy wrinkles her nose. “Why would we want to go there?”
“There’s an amazing retreat in the mountains called Ekanta Yatra. My yoga teacher told me about it. Look!” She flashes her mobile at Daisy then taps the screen. “Amazing fresh, home-cooked food, yoga, a river you can swim in, a waterfall, massages, facials. We could spend a day in Kathmandu then do two weeks at the retreat, then we could fly to a place called Chitwan and go on a jungle safari. It would be the adventure of a lifetime.”
Leanne’s face is aglow. I’ve never seen her look so energised; she normally looks so wan and tired. She’s desperately thin, and Daisy and I have speculated several times about whether or not she might have an eating disorder.
“Could I see that?” I reach out a hand for her mobile. She presses it into my palm without saying a word.
I scroll through the website. It would seem Ekanta Yatra’s run by a group of Westerners who met when they were travelling through Asia and decided to start a “retreat from the world” nestled in the Annapurna mountain range, an area popular with hikers. It’s beautiful, and the idea of spending a couple of weeks being pampered, reading novels and swimming in a crystal-clear river appeals, but …
“There’s no Wi-Fi,” I say.
“Is that a problem?”
“Well, yeah. I’ve started applying for new jobs and I won’t be able to check my email.”
Leanne slips off the bed and takes five steps across the room to the kettle. She picks it up and refills it from the tap. “You don’t have to come, Emma. No one’s forcing you.”
It’s not that Leanne and I actively dislike each other; we are friends but only when we’re with Daisy or Al. We don’t go for drinks together or have text message marathons. We’ll laugh at each other’s jokes and buy each other birthday presents, but we’ve never developed any kind of closeness or warmth. I don’t know why that is. Maybe it’s because I didn’t like the way she looked me up and down the first time we met. Maybe it’s because I forgot to get her a drink when I went to the bar to get a round. Or maybe it’s because, sometimes, when you meet someone, you get a vibe that they just don’t like you, and that vibe never quite disappears.
“I’ll bloody force her,” Daisy says, jumping off the bed and onto my lap. “You’ll come, won’t you, Emma?” She cups her hands around my face and nods it up and down. “See, look, she’s saying yes, she says she’ll come.”
“It sounds expensive.”
“No more expensive than a couple of weeks in Ibiza,” Leanne says as she pours boiling hot water into three mugs.
“Al’s lost her job,” I say. “How’s she going to afford to go?”
“I’ll pay for her,” Daisy says. “Or, rather, Dad will.” She jumps off me and back onto the bed, but I catch her smile slip. I don’t think she’s ever forgiven her dad for sending her away to prep school when she needed him most. She was only six years old, and her little sister had died tragically a year earlier. Shortly after her baby sister’s death, unable to cope with the grief, her mum killed herself. Daisy’s dad, a City trader, justified the decision to send her to boarding school by saying it would give her life some stability, plus a mother figure in the shape of a house mistress, but, to Daisy, it was like being abandoned all over again. It’s why she’s so ruthless when it comes to ending friendships and relationships. It’s better to leave than be left, no matter how painful the separation might be.
“Well? Are you up for it or not?” Leanne turns to face us, a steaming mug in each hand. She’s smiling again but it doesn’t quite reach her eyes. She squeezes past me to reach the chest of drawers. Tea slops onto the pine top as she sets the mugs down. “I thought we could go next month.”
“Next month?” I catch Daisy’s eye but she shrugs. She’s got Ian, her boss, wrapped around her little finger. He lets her work in The King’s Arms whenever she’s in between runner jobs, so he won’t bat an eyelid if she suddenly announces she’s off on holiday for three weeks. And Leanne’s an aromatherapy massage therapist who rents a room in a beauty salon, so she can take off whatever time she likes. Geoff won’t make escaping to Nepal for three weeks so easy for me.
“You are entitled to time off,” Daisy says, as though she’s just read my mind. “Or you could just quit.”
“Daisy …”
“Fine, fine.” She holds out her hands as though in surrender. “But if you don’t come, I’ll never talk to you again.”
“Is that a promise?”
“Ha, ha.”
“Is that a yes, then?” Leanne twists her hands in front of her. “Are we going to Nepal?”
“Only if we can convince Al.”
Daisy grins. “Leave that to me.”
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