‘You’re the same person you were before, Chloe.’ He nods his head. ‘And did you find what you were looking for?’ He peers over at the screen. ‘Facebook? I didn’t even know you had a profile.’
‘Apparently I did. Chloe Jameson.’ He doesn’t react to that. ‘I don’t know the password, though, so I can’t really see what I used to put on there. I’m just looking at some of the pictures, seeing if there’s anything I can remember.’
‘And?’
‘Not much really.’
‘Well, take your time. We’ll get there.’
I look at the picture of me with Andrew, and then at my father. ‘I’m not sure that I’ll ever feel normal again. Normal for me was being married, being a mum. I can’t go back to doing either of those things. I don’t know what I’m supposed to be aiming for.’
‘Life, Chloe. Work. The same as we all do.’
Something about his response gives me a surge of bravery. ‘And what is my life like, Dad? Who are my friends? Why hasn’t anyone got in contact with me from my past? What job do I do? I can’t answer any of this, and you and Mum aren’t exactly forthcoming. Being here just makes me more and more confused.’ I can feel myself getting worked up. I know that somewhere in that Facebook profile there are answers, information that could fill in the blanks, yet it remains painfully out of reach.
‘I told you about your job.’ He pauses. ‘You worked for the charity Fresh Starts. After your experiences with Andrew, you wanted to do something constructive. It’s a rehabilitation charity. For alcoholics.’ He drains his cup, sets it on the tray. ‘But don’t put undue pressure on yourself. I remind you again, it’s all about time. In time I promise you’ll feel better. But it’s early for me. I think I’ll get a bit more rest before I start the day. Don’t tire yourself, eh?’ He stands up, kisses the top of my head. But then he notices the picture of me with Joshua on the screen. Wrinkles form around his eyes as he smiles. ‘What a lovely picture that is.’
I’m still smarting that as soon as I challenge him he makes to leave. But in this moment I can almost believe he is just a father trying to help a daughter he loves. ‘I don’t know where it was taken.’
‘Well I can help with that,’ he says cheerfully, as if this knowledge is such a simple thing. ‘It’s Brighton beach.’ He points to a structure in the background, black lines that criss-cross each other and appear to stick right out of the water. ‘That’s the West Pier, the one that burnt down. We’ve got a picture of it in the hallway. The place where you are sitting is probably only a few minutes from your house.’ He pats my arm and walks away.
A memory comes to me as I gaze at the photo. I see Joshua near the water’s edge, smiling, a front tooth missing. Look what I found, Mummy, he says. Next he’s in the sea, the gentle waves lapping at his ankles. He’s pointing to something, a starfish, the edges blurry as I peer into the water. I wait for the turn in events, for him to head into the sea, to start struggling in the waves like he does in my dreams. But it doesn’t come. This memory is just me with Joshua, something good. A happy memory.
‘Dad, before you go.’ He turns, one hand on the door frame. ‘Do you think it could have been Ben out there last night?’
‘Ben Riley, the man who works for me?’ I nod. ‘Chloe, I told you there was nobody there.’ I go to protest but he interrupts. ‘And anyway, what would he want with you?’
I’m not sure what to tell him. I certainly don’t want to tell him what Jess told me, and suggesting that Ben keeps staring at me, or perhaps even wanted to approach me in the house isn’t a possibility. ‘Well if not Ben, what about Damien? Do you think he knows where I am?’
My father edges forward. I see his jaw lock, his lips tighten, and he brings a hand up to stroke his beard. ‘Why would he possibly try to approach you?’
‘It’s just that last night, I was so sure somebody was in the graveyard.’ He starts to protest so I continue quickly. ‘They spoke to me, Dad. I keep thinking about it, and I’m sure I recognised the voice.’
‘And you thought it was Ben?’ Anger simmers.
‘No but … I’m not sure. But if it wasn’t him then maybe it was Damien Treadstone. Maybe he tried to help me on the night of the crash, and that’s why I knew the voice.’
He takes a shaky breath. I am making him nervous. ‘If he’d tried to help you, Chloe, he would have called the police. You were found in the driver’s seat of your car. You were unconscious, probably from the very moment of impact. I told you, what happened last night was almost certainly part of a hallucination.’
‘Then why did it feel so real?’ But it isn’t just the voice. It’s the dreams too, the sensation of being outside in the woods, my certainty that at some point I wasn’t in my car on the night I crashed. Last night I dreamed of a car crumpled against a tree, me running through the forest looking for Joshua. It all felt so real, so much more than a dream; it felt like a memory.
‘OK, let’s assume you’re correct. Tell me why on earth he would come here looking for you.’
‘Maybe he wants to convince me that he wasn’t there at the time of the crash. That’s what he told the police, isn’t it?’
He shakes his head, looks away from me towards the window and the dark mist of the lingering night. ‘Don’t you remember that Dr Gleeson told us to expect hallucinations like these?’ I can’t remember any such discussion. ‘There was nobody there in the graveyard. Don’t you think I or your mother would have heard something if there was?’ His voice softens. ‘You wouldn’t be the first person to see something that wasn’t there after a bleed in the brain.’
‘But I didn’t just see him. I heard his voice.’
‘Well, I’m no neurosurgeon, but if you can experience visual hallucinations, why not auditory?’ He approaches, tapping the edge of the desk with his finger. ‘Time, Chloe. Like I said. And plenty of sleep. You have to take things easy.’
I nod to reassure him. He gives me an appreciative smile and slips from the room. I watch as he ascends the stairs, his head low and shoulders curved in on themselves. He looks a hundred years old, the way he walks away from me.
After I hear his bedroom door close I turn to the keyboard, tap the name into the search box. There are plenty of Damien Treadstones in the search results, but the second image to be displayed is of a scared-looking man, no doubt the same police mug shot that DC Barclay showed me. I click on the link, wait for it to load.
The image comes into view: a brush of stubble, deep shadow rising into the pits of his cheeks, heavy eyebrows, dark circles under his eyes. His hair is a mess. I imagine him being dragged from bed as an officer reads him his rights, another cuffing his wrists. This time something about him seems familiar, although I’m not sure what.
But Treadstone didn’t make it to bed that night. I read how he was picked up in Brighton city centre a couple of hours after the crash, mud on his trousers, his car and keys lost. He had been drinking, was over the limit. He had no alibi that could prove his innocence. I continue to read, steel myself for the details: how I was found unconscious, how it was a race to get me to hospital, drifting in and out of life, how my son was found …
But I can’t do it. I’m not ready for a retelling. I don’t want the gory details, or to face the reality of being truly alone just yet. I shut down the computer and stand up to leave. Then, as I push back the chair I knock into a pile of magazines, sending them tumbling to the floor. I lean down to pick them up, shuffling them back into order.
And there on the desk, hidden beneath periodicals and printed articles, I see an envelope sticking out. It is addressed to me, a house in Brighton, the letter torn open and crumpled and without doubt already read. I pull it out, see the details emerging before me, feel my breath as it catches in my chest.
It is a summons to appear in court. It is from Damien Treadstone’s lawyer. They are calling me as a witness for his defence.
TWELVE
I toss and turn after that, my feet agitated and trapped in
the sheets. At some point I must doze off because I wake to the sound of the front door closing a little before 8.30. I glance at the picture of me with Andrew and Joshua that I have propped up on the bedside table. I cross to the window and look down, see my mother heading to the car, calling to Jess. Again, I wonder where they are going.
A pale light bleeds through the windows and into the hallway as I walk downstairs. I can hear the crinkle of newspaper in the living room, the snap of a young fire, of splitting wood, the fizz of moisture. I’m not sure it will take. My father must hear the shuffle of my feet, because when I arrive in the doorway he is already folding up a copy of The Times. Outside, an echo of thunder rumbles through a ceiling of low grey cloud.
‘You’re still here?’ I ask, the smell of burning wood rich in the cool air. ‘I thought you’d have gone to work by now.’ I sit down on the chair closest to the fireplace, the heat of the fire sharp against my bare feet.
He sets the paper down on the settee and flashes me a smile. His cuff links catch in the overhead light, the ones with rubies that he wore when the police came. ‘I have the day off. Your mother and Jess had some errands to run, so I thought it would be nice for us to spend the day together.’
‘Where have they gone?’
‘Brighton.’ Thoughts of my house come to mind, the imageless place I once called home. Do my mother and sister go there? I try to visualise the seafront, the broken mental snapshots I took on the way back from the hospital when my father drove us along the promenade to breathe in the clean sea air. ‘Jessica needed some books for next term.’ He shakes his head, as if he is confused. ‘How she can find chemistry such an interesting subject I’ll never know. I absolutely hated it.’
I pull my robe across my knees. ‘It would have been nice to go with them. All of us together.’
He peers at me over his glasses, a crease forming between his eyes. ‘I don’t think you are ready to go to Brighton, Chloe. It’s not a safe place for you at the moment.’
I snort. I’m feeling brave today. Like I’ve nothing left to lose. ‘What, and here is?’
For a moment he is silent, shocked. He rubs his right hand over the knuckles of his left. ‘You don’t feel safe?’
I have been thinking about that a lot since I saw Damien Treadstone’s picture earlier this morning, the summons to take me to court. And my conclusion is that no, I don’t feel safe. But not because he was here, or because he wants my help with his case when it goes to court. Rather why he was there on the night of the crash in the first place? Why were either of us there? And perhaps even more than that, why the hell didn’t he help me? I know my father wants to explain what I heard in the graveyard as a hallucinatory moment of confusion, but after seeing Damien Treadstone on the screen, knowing he has been released on bail, I don’t think I am wrong. He was here, wanted to talk to me, and I’m starting to doubt that it was a coincidence he was on Ditchling Road the night of the crash. I have to find out what he was doing there.
‘No, Dad, I don’t. I wasn’t hallucinating the other night. Someone was in the graveyard, I’m sure of it.’
My father smiles, shakes his head. He moves over to the fireplace, grabs a poker to give a large glowing log a nudge. Flames flare red and bright, wood burns orange. I look up, notice my wedding band still sitting where he left it. Should I be wearing it?
‘There was nobody outside, Chloe.’ He leans one arm against the mantelpiece, sure of himself. ‘I don’t know why you are so convinced that—’
‘Because I heard him, Dad.’ I can’t let him finish. How can he be so certain? ‘And I saw him too. I wasn’t hallucinating.’
He sets the poker down and sits. He sets his hand on my knee. I feel the scar on my right leg pull painfully tight, and in that moment, in that close proximity, some of my courage fails me.
‘Chloe, he is not legally able to approach you. He is awaiting trial. It wouldn’t be in his best interests.’
I reach into the pocket of my mother’s robe, pull out the letter that I took from the study. I hold it out and he takes it from me. He unfolds the wrinkled sheet of paper and takes a cursory glance at it before hanging his head, resting it against one of his hands. He doesn’t need to read the letter in order to know what it says.
‘Where did you find this?’
‘Does it matter? They are calling me as a witness. Why didn’t you tell me?’
‘We didn’t want to worry you.’
‘Worry me? Dad, are you kidding?’ I am shouting, almost in a panic. I can’t understand him. I don’t remember much about being a lawyer, but I know you can’t just decide to skip court when you are supposed to be giving evidence. ‘What were you going to do when the trial started? Not tell me? I don’t have a choice whether I go or not. It’s not an invitation I can choose to decline.’
‘I know.’ He shakes his head and lets the letter drop to the floor. It flutters in the waves of heat radiating from the fire. ‘I’m sorry.’
But his answer isn’t good enough, and that knowledge makes me feel unstoppable. ‘Damien Treadstone knows I can’t remember what happened that night, and his lawyers think that if they can break me in court, the case will fall apart.’ He doesn’t say anything and I know he is thinking the same thing, which is probably why he chose to keep quiet. ‘They’ll ask me if I can remember him being there, and if I am telling the truth I will have to say that I can’t.’
‘We don’t know what they are planning yet.’
‘Yes we do, Dad. It’s obvious. He’s insistent that he didn’t do it, and if I can’t prove otherwise he’ll get away with it, won’t he?’
My father is breathing deeply; he seems irritated. Those moments of fear that I have felt in his presence have left me. But my certainty doesn’t come without a stark reminder that there is a strong possibility I am to blame for all of this. That it was my choice to crash. My intention.
‘And you know what I keep thinking? Why shouldn’t he be cleared? Neither of us really knows what happened that night, so why should he pay for a crime if it wasn’t his fault? You said yourself the police wondered whether I crashed on purpose. If I had intended to commit suicide, it would be unthinkable for Damien Treadstone to be held responsible, don’t you think? I wish I had just died that night and got it over with, whether it was my intention to or not.’
He falls to his knees in front of me. His grip is so tight I flinch. His flailing foot knocks the letter dangerously close to the fire. ‘Don’t you ever say that. I won’t allow it. It’s a miracle you survived.’ He pulls insistently at my arms. ‘You have been given another chance, Chloe. Don’t throw that away.’
‘A chance without my husband and son,’ I remind him.
‘I’ve told you before, it wasn’t all roses before the accident.’ He lets me go. Just the mention of my husband is enough. Did he hate him that much? His breathing has quickened too, his voice raised. He stands upright, hands on hips. ‘You don’t remember, but it’s been me covering your mortgage for the last eight months. We’ve been scrimping and saving to make sure you didn’t lose your home, Chloe. Andrew skittered from job to job, leaving you to try and hold things together. He hadn’t worked for the best part of a year, and you couldn’t do it any more. Everything about your marriage was a disaster. You’re better off without him.’
He sets his hands on the mantelpiece, braces himself against the edge. He has worked himself into a frenzy, years of accumulated rage. His shoulders are crumpled, his breaths staccato and quick.
He speaks slowly, yet still his words are tinged with anger. ‘I know you think you must have loved him, Chloe, but Andrew was a drunk. He couldn’t be trusted. I will not let you sit here wallowing in misery over a man who treated you so badly.’
‘Are you forgetting that he also gave me Joshua? Didn’t you love your grandson?’
He closes his eyes. When he speaks his voice is quiet, subdued, but somehow that unnerves me more than if he was angry. ‘Of course we loved Joshua.’
‘Then you should be grateful to Andrew, not happy that I can’t remember him.’
Still he can’t look at me. ‘Chloe, please try to understand.’
‘No, I won’t.’ I’m shaking, my voice trembling. ‘I must have loved my husband.’
‘No you didn’t!’ he shouts. He sweeps his hands along the mantelpiece. Two candlesticks and a vase of flowers crash to the floor, glass and porcelain smashing into pieces.
I am overcome with an urge to run down to the garden, to the old mill. It’s instinct, muscle memory; that’s where I used to go, I realise, when I couldn’t be here in this house, when my parents used to argue. His burst of anger has brought the memory of fleeing to the surface. But this time I go nowhere. I stay, stare at my panting father, his eyes rage-wide and pupils tight.
‘You didn’t love him, Chloe,’ he says. ‘You wanted to get away from him, but you failed, and now look where we’ve ended up. I don’t want you to suffer this tragedy for the rest of your life. Let Treadstone pay so that people don’t see the real reason why Joshua is gone.’
‘What do you mean, the real reason?’ He turns away. Again there’s the implication that I’m to blame. Mistake upon mistake resulting in my child’s death. ‘We don’t know what happened that night. How can you insinuate that we should let him take the blame, as if I’m the one who caused Joshua’s death and he’s just a scapegoat? Nobody knows what happened. How could you make out it was my fault?’
He looks at the floor. Then he looks back to me, his face unflinching as he speaks. ‘Because it’s the truth, Chloe. Your poor choices are what led us here. If you had left Andrew the first time round, Joshua might still be alive.’
He takes a step towards me and I lean away from him in fear. His face is bright red, his jaw tight and set. In that moment I am sure he is going to hit me. But at the last moment he shakes his head and storms from the room, leaving me shaking and alone next to a dying fire.
Between the Lies Page 8