Between the Lies

by Michelle Adams

  It didn’t have to be like this, Chloe. We could have done this with a smile on our faces, with your hand in mine. We could have made plans, told your parents, watched the joy spread across your father’s face when you finally told him you’d left your waste-of-space husband.

  Instead, you’ve made it hard. I didn’t want that. I wanted you to be honest. I wanted you to walk away with your head held high. One little act of bravery that would lead to a lifetime together. Why couldn’t you do that? Why couldn’t you meet me that night and prove to the world how much you wanted me? Why couldn’t you prove it to me? Why, why, why, Chloe?

  You made me question us. You made me question you, and what kind of commitment you could make. I wasn’t just something to use for a while then throw away. Didn’t you realise that? I wasn’t yours to fuck in the back seat of my car or under the pier when you needed a change and then pretend I didn’t exist when it was time to go back to your life. He’s got problems, you told me. I can’t leave him, you said. Not yet. Not now. Well then, when, Chloe? Because here’s the thing. I don’t fucking care about him! What I care about is us!

  So no, I’m sorry, but I won’t let you hurt me like this. You don’t get that right. You are the only thing I have ever begged for. Don’t you see how special that makes you? But that’s not who I am, Chloe. I’m not a beggar.

  You have made me pathetic. But there is a difference between us that you don’t seem to appreciate: you deserve this. Yeah, that’s right. You deserve it. You deserve everything that’s gone wrong for you because you are weak. Too weak to claim what you want. What’s rightfully yours. So in all this mess that you helped create, I want you to hurt. I want to see your tears. I want you to question everything you think you used to know. And then finally you’ll hurt just as much as I do now.

  But once everything is done, Chloe, I promise I’ll be the one to make it all better again.

  THIRTY-SIX

  The taxi drives me away from New Hope rehab centre through narrow thread-like lanes. The animals in the surrounding farms have been shut up for the night. The houses lining the roads are concealed by thick hedges, red berries and ivy tangled up with thickets of holly. The glowing windows look warm and inviting. Protected. Safe.

  We pull up at a junction and I see an old-fashioned road sign, black and white with small peeling letters: Ditchling. We are heading onto Ditchling Road, where I crashed. I didn’t realise that it is so close to where Andrew is staying. Will I recognise the place? Will being there help me remember the painful memories of that night?

  We are going at speed and it’s difficult to see, only freckles of light sneaking through the trees. My eyes trawl the hedgerows for signs of damage. The winding road is slick with rain, glimmering and shiny in the glare of the headlights. We continue on, revving and slowing as the twists and turns close in. Then we slow almost to a stop as the road curves into a sharp one-eighty-degree chicane. I see the land fall away from the kerb as we approach, and there, flickering in the wind, is what remains of a white-and-blue police ticker tape.

  Beyond it the trees are broken, snapped both left and right. I turn back, stare from the rear window as we pass, the area behind me bathed in a light as red as blood. I know without doubt that this is the place where I crashed.

  ‘You heard about it too, then?’ the taxi driver asks. ‘Terrible shame, wasn’t it?’

  ‘You mean the crash that happened here?’ I ask as I pull the seat belt tight across me.

  ‘Yeah, it’s been all over the news, that poor little boy losing his life. People are demanding crash barriers, but you know what the council’s like.’ He touches his thumb to his fingers and makes the sign for money. ‘Not enough of this, is there?’

  When we pull up in Brighton, I get out of the car and hand over the notes that Andrew has given me. Ahead of me, underneath the two triangular peaked roofs of the ornate Victorian shelter, is the train station.

  If I had enough money, I would purchase a ticket to Maidstone to go looking for Damien Treadstone. But I don’t, so instead I plan to bring him to me. I see a phone box and start to cross the road towards it, jumping back in shock when I hear a horn blaring, a car skidding past only inches away. And as the wheels race by, forcing me out of the road, I think of the night of the accident. Memories seem to slot into place. I see myself in a park, sitting on a bench. Then running, almost getting hit by a car. Where was I? What was I doing there? Was I meeting Damien Treadstone? I check both ways for traffic, take a breath, run towards the station. I reach the phone box, pull the door open and step inside.

  A putrid smell rises from the sticky floor underfoot. I pick up the handset, hold it to my ear, listening for the sound of the dialling tone. I punch in the number for the operator and wait.

  I give the woman Damien’s details, as much as I know at least, hoping that there aren’t any other Damien Treadstones in the directory. Will she be able to find him with just a name and town? I don’t have any money left, so I tell her I want to reverse the charges. I wait on the line, wondering whether he will accept the call. A moment later it sounds as if the line cuts out, but then I hear a click, followed by a voice.

  ‘Chloe?’ he asks. It’s a shock as he speaks, the soft tone gentle in pitch. ‘Chloe Daniels?’

  ‘Yes,’ I say, my fingers fiddling with the flex of the handset. Is this the voice of the man who killed my son? Who ran me off the road? The man with whom I was having an affair? What should I ask him first? There is so much I can’t put into words. ‘You’re Damien Treadstone, right?’

  ‘Yes.’ His voice is shaky. ‘You shouldn’t have called.’

  ‘I need to talk about that night. About what happened.’

  ‘We shouldn’t. They said not to contact you.’ His breathing is deep. ‘What we are doing now could destroy my case. But when the operator said it was you, I had to. I just had to.’ And then, after a moment of silence, he says, ‘Chloe, would you agree to meet me? You’re right that we have to talk about what happened that night. And if there’s any part of you that cares about what happens to me, before you take me to court, there is something you have to know.’

  THIRTY-SEVEN

  He won’t talk any more on the phone, but even though it’s late, he agrees to meet me tonight. In fact, it sounds as if he is desperate to see me, which stirs a degree of fear. I tell him I’m at Brighton train station, and suggest we meet there. But he refuses, saying that it’s too busy, too visible: he can’t be seen talking to me, or captured on CCTV. As we make the arrangements, I realise that part of his desperation is a lack of trust. He doesn’t want to meet me, but feels he must. He doesn’t trust me, just as I don’t trust him. No matter what has happened between us before, the last few weeks have changed everything. So he suggests somewhere outdoors, somewhere that benefits from the cover of darkness.

  ‘I’ll meet you in Preston Park, Chloe. I know you know where that is.’

  As soon as he says the name of that park, I realise it is the place I know from my dreams. My memory of meeting somebody now suddenly enriched by so many other details. I see myself with Joshua, there to ride his bike and visit the playground. Stopping at the café, the small building that resembles a Tudor boathouse, for ice cream with flakes and chocolate sauce. I see myself alone, sitting on a bench, waiting for a man. Time after time, waiting for a man.

  It takes me just over fifteen minutes to get to the entrance of Preston Park. A gentle mist clings to the ground. My feet are freezing, my toes numb. Still I walk on, determined. I see the rotunda café ahead, flanked by the skeletons of two trees stripped bare by the winter. The entrance to the rose garden opens up before me. I walk the paths, through the fragrant winter blooms, past a pond brimming from the recent rains. I have been here before. The smell of the roses. The smell of freshly cut grass. And I know now that it’s the same place I went that night, the place I went when I should have been meeting Andrew.

  As I reach the other end of the garden, the park opens out before me.
An expanse of dark green lawn stretches ahead, but I know that in the summer the wild-flower meadow will once again bloom full and fragrant. I know that kids will fill the nearby playground, and the sound of tennis balls being knocked back and forth will ring out all week long. Laughter and fun will fill this place.

  I see a path to the left and another to the right. I take the right-hand fork, following Damien’s instructions, walking until I see a bench partially shaded by evergreen bushes. A leafless sycamore tree stands tall beside it, and I think of Joshua, how we used to come here, collect the little seed pods and spin them through the air. Look, a helicopter, Mummy. Kicking leaves in autumn, making swords of broken branches in winter. I hear my mother’s voice: You’ll have someone’s eye out with that, advice we hear as children, and then pass on as adults. I have sat on this bench many times before. I was sitting here that night, not long before the crash that took Joshua from me.

  The wooden slats of the bench are rotten in places, scratched with obscenities. I notice the glow of a cigarette in a nearby copse of trees. A man dressed in a long trench coat lingers on the other side of the park, near the road I know is called The Ride. Is one of them Damien, hanging back, observing me? I realise how isolated and vulnerable I am, here in the dark, waiting for a man I might or might not know.

  Moments later, I hear footsteps behind me. I turn, watch a shadowy figure as it approaches. I sit still, frozen, unable to move, breathe or run. Because as the gap between us narrows, I realise that the face I see before me is a face I recognise. It’s Damien Treadstone. Right there, only a short distance away. And I know that he was here in this park on the night of the crash.

  THIRTY-EIGHT

  His pace slows as he steps under the semi-shelter of the naked tree. He peels back his hood. ‘I wasn’t sure you’d be here,’ he says. ‘To be honest, I wasn’t even sure if it was really you on the phone.’ He’s shaking his head. ‘This totally breaches my conditions of bail.’

  I take a few shallow breaths. ‘I had to talk to you. I need you to tell me what happened that night, and why you were chasing me in your car.’

  He nibbles on his lip. I can see his fists twisting and turning in his pockets, his anger like a bolt of lightning in search of ground. He pushes his hands deeper, takes a step closer. ‘I can’t believe you’re still accusing me. I thought that if you wanted to talk, maybe you had finally come to your senses.’

  His words give me the strength to push on. How can he still deny it? I remember him being here. I remember seeing him that night. I stand up, close the gap between us. ‘It doesn’t matter what you say. I know you were there.’ I feel myself getting angry, my voice becoming tight and shrill. I look over to the distant trees. No light from a cigarette shines now, no man on the other side of the park. We’re alone. How easy it would be for him to hit me, kill me, do anything to me in the dark silence of the park. Nobody would know. Nobody would hear me. ‘You ran me off the road.’

  ‘I didn’t run anybody off the road.’

  ‘But your car was there. You don’t have an alibi.’ I try to imagine that I know him, to recall a time we might have been here together. Did we share a kiss behind one of these trees, or make love in a car in the nearby woods? I stop for a second: is that a memory? Making love in a car, pushed up against the glass with the door handle pressing in my back? I know it is. But when I look up at Damien’s face, though it seems familiar, I don’t know how it feels. Not his touch. Surely there would be something about him that made sense to me if we had been together like that?

  ‘Damien, I need to ask you something.’ I try to swallow, find my throat dry, no moisture on my lips. ‘Are you lying to me because we were having an affair?’

  ‘What?’ He steps past me, sits down on the bench. I realise there is a look of utter bewilderment on his face. He rests his head in his palms. At last he turns, his eyes meeting mine. ‘How many more things are you going to accuse me of?’

  ‘But we must have been,’ I persist, despite my reservations. ‘Why else would I have been meeting you here?’

  ‘For a start, Chloe, you weren’t meeting me here. And I can assure you we most certainly were not having an affair.’ He regards me with disgust, as if the very idea of it makes him sick. ‘I had no idea who you were until my lawyer got hold of some photos of the crash and the victims. You didn’t even get your picture in the paper thanks to victim confidentiality. Not like me.’ I see his fists clenching before he stretches his fingers out, straight as knives. ‘Everybody knows who I am now, thinks they know what I’ve done. Do you know how people look at me? Like I’m a killer.’

  His anger stirs something inside me. How dare he worry what people think of him when the death of my son should be on his conscience? ‘They look at you like that because you killed my son,’ I spit.

  ‘No I didn’t. Aren’t you listening to me, Chloe? I wasn’t there at the time of the accident.’

  ‘But your car was there with the keys in it. You had mud on your trousers. Paint from your car was found on mine. You had to have been there.’ The taste of sick swells and recedes. ‘If I’m so wrong, tell me what you think happened.’

  ‘I can’t. I can’t tell you because I don’t know. I wish I did, but I have absolutely no idea what happened to you or your child.’

  Although he is full of rage, I don’t fear him in that moment. And I think it’s because he seems so genuinely bewildered. If he was lying to me, surely he’d offer me another version of events. Surely he would have a story prepared. His uncertainty makes me want to hear him out. I realise that he seems more desperate than anything else, hopeful that I might believe him. In that instant, I think that just maybe I do.

  ‘I don’t understand, Damien.’

  He wipes his eyes, sits back on the bench. ‘Neither do I, but I promise you, Chloe, I have no idea what happened that night. That’s why I called you as a witness. I hoped that when you saw me in court you would realise that it wasn’t me driving the other car. I assumed you wouldn’t want to see an innocent man go to prison for such a horrible crime.’ He pulls a tissue from his pocket, blows his nose. ‘I have a son too. Jonathon. I would do anything for him. But now I realise you don’t have a clue what happened either, so I’m fucked.’

  He breaks down, hangs his head in his hands. I see a couple on the other side of the park, their eyes on us. My sympathy for him suddenly outweighs my anger. He is as broken as I am. I reach out, rest my hand on his shoulder. After a moment he straightens up, composes himself.

  ‘Why would you think we were having an affair, Chloe? We don’t even know each other.’

  I feel so ashamed to tell him, but I have no other choice. I can feel myself getting hot, flushed, guilt oozing out of me. But if I can admit it to Andrew, I can admit it to this man. ‘I was having an affair with somebody. I came here to this park to meet him, I think. When you suggested meeting here, I assumed it was connected. When you gave an alibi that nobody could corroborate, I thought you were trying to protect yourself.’

  ‘I gave the only alibi that I could, Chloe. You’re right about me wanting to protect myself, even right that I’m guilty, but not in the way you think. We were both in this park on the night of the accident but we weren’t together. My car was stolen.’ He points across to the road. ‘I was parked just over there, on The Ride. I shouldn’t have been here, but I’d been working in Brighton that day.’ He takes a deep breath, stands up. For a second I think he’s about to leave. ‘Ah, fuck it. I might as well tell you. Being honest is my only hope now. I was here to meet somebody. A man.’

  ‘What man?’

  ‘I don’t know, Chloe. Anybody. Casual sex. People come to this park for that. I couldn’t tell the truth about being here because I’m married with a kid and I was out here looking for sex.’ He wipes his eyes on his sleeve. ‘Afterwards, my car was taken, I wasn’t thinking straight and ended up going for a drink in town with the man I met here. When they arrested me a few hours later I was drunk and I panicke
d, so I lied about where I’d been.’

  ‘Why didn’t you call the police when you realised your car was gone?’

  ‘A mistake,’ he says, hanging his head. ‘If I had I wouldn’t be in this mess. But I called you as a witness in the hope that your inability to confirm my presence that night might be enough to get me off. My lawyer is pushing me to tell the truth, but I’m trying to protect my wife and son. If she finds out she’ll take my son away from me. So when you called me tonight I suggested we meet here thinking that maybe it would jog your memory as to what you were really doing here. That you would remember who was really in the second car and make things easier for me. I was walking away along The Ride, towards those bushes.’ He points across the grass. ‘Somebody called out to me but I didn’t want to be seen here, so I started to run. The person who called out was you.’

  ‘Me?’

  ‘Yes. I must’ve dropped my car keys. I heard you shouting, saw you waving at me. I thought you were somebody I knew and I didn’t want to be seen, so I hurried away, headed into the bushes. About five minutes later, I heard a woman screaming. I came out to see if somebody needed help, and I saw a car racing away up The Ride. It was a black sedan. A Volkswagen.’

  ‘That’s my car.’

  ‘I looked down the road and the lights of my car were on. I reached into my pocket for my keys, only to find they weren’t there. Then my car came screeching past, chasing after the Volkswagen.’

  ‘Well who was driving it? If you saw who was driving it, then we can go to the police together, explain things.’