The Lies We Told

by Camilla Way

  The school tried its best to be understanding, Hannah’s young teacher earnestly offering us strategies and action points to help deal with our delinquent, troubled daughter, giving us leaflets to read, suggesting counseling—before quietly intimating that Hannah would eventually be asked to leave if her behavior continued, that they had the other children to consider, after all. “Does she have any friends?” I asked miserably.

  Miss Foxton sighed. “She tends to select a certain type of child with whom to attach herself: the more vulnerable and easily led types. Hannah can be very persuasive when she puts her mind to it. She’ll allow that child to be her ally for a time, and then she’ll grow bored and turn on them completely. It’s a pattern we’ve witnessed repeatedly.” Her eyes slid away to the pencil she was fiddling with. “Daisy Williams is one example, of course. But no, I’ve never seen her truly befriend anyone as such.”

  I nodded, remembering Daisy. Shy and eager to please, she was a very pale, thin child with white-blond hair and red-rimmed eyes who reminded me a little of a skinned rabbit. Hannah had homed in on her during the previous school term, enjoyed her new friend’s admiration and slavish devotion for a few weeks, before Daisy had been found, tied up with her own skipping rope and soaking wet, in the playground toilet block. Hannah, all wide-eyed innocence, had maintained that they’d merely been playing a game of cops and robbers, and Daisy had eagerly backed up this claim, but from then on, the school had done everything they could to keep the two girls apart—reinforced, I was sure, by Daisy’s mother, who glared at me with open hostility whenever we crossed paths on the playground.

  After our talk with Hannah’s form teacher, we walked back to the car in miserable silence. “Oh, Doug,” I said when I was sitting in the passenger seat.

  He looked at me then and sighed. “I know.” He reached over and took my hand, and for a second something of the old closeness between us flickered. He opened his mouth to speak, but at that moment Toby woke and began to cry.

  I glanced at Doug and began to open my door. “I better sit in the back with him,” I said. Doug nodded, putting the key into the ignition, and we drove home without another word.

  A few days after the school meeting we sat Hannah down and told her what her punishment would be. It was always hard to discipline her, because it was difficult to find anything—any treat or toy—that she was genuinely attached to: she literally didn’t care if I confiscated any of her belongings. The only thing she really liked to do was watch television. So on that occasion we told her that there’d be no TV for a week. I don’t think I’ll ever forget the look of fury, of pure venom, on her face when we gave her the news.

  I found the bruise on Toby’s arm the next day. Earlier in the morning, I’d left him sitting in his little bouncy chair while I got Hannah ready for school. It was as I was fetching her some clean socks from the tumble dryer that I heard his howl of pain. I raced back up the stairs and there he was, red-faced and hysterical, though moments before I’d left him cooing happily. When I went to find Hannah, she was sitting in exactly the same spot on her bedroom floor, placidly doing a jigsaw puzzle. She didn’t even look up when I came in. It wasn’t until later that I found the bruise: a small angry purple mark on Toby’s upper arm—as though, perhaps, he’d been pinched very hard. I couldn’t prove it was Hannah, but I knew that it was. Of course I did.

  SIX

  LONDON, 2017

  Shell-shocked, Clara and Mac walked back from the police station. When they’d arrived and told their story to the young officer at the front desk, he’d appeared unimpressed at first, listening with studied patience as Clara haltingly went through her story. His attitude had changed, however, when, putting Luke’s laptop on the desk in front of him, she described the hundreds of threatening e-mails, the break-in a few months before, the letter and the photographs stuffed through their door.

  “I see,” he’d said then. “If you’ll come with me, please.” She and Mac had been ushered through to a small windowless room and told to wait. They’d sat in nervous silence as they listened to footsteps come and go in the corridor beyond the closed door.

  When it finally opened, they were greeted by a slender black woman who introduced herself as Detective Constable Loretta Mansfield. Briskly she approached them and shook their hands with a firm, dry handshake, her eyes quickly searching theirs as she smiled, before sitting down and placing Luke’s laptop on the table between them. “Right, Clara,” she said, “I’ve had a chat with my colleague about Luke, and what we’re going to do next is fill in a missing person’s report.”

  Clara swallowed hard, her mouth dry with nerves as she went over again what she’d told the officer on the front desk, DC Mansfield’s calm, almond-shaped eyes flicking up to meet hers at various points in her story.

  “And there’d been no arguments between you recently,” she asked, “no indication that Luke might want out of the relationship?”

  “No! And as I said, he’s left his mobile and credit card, and he had an important interview at work he’d prepared hard for. We were . . . happy!” She heard her voice rising and felt Mac’s hand on her arm.

  Mansfield nodded, then opened the laptop and read through the e-mails. “I see.” When she finally looked up again, she cleared her throat decisively. “Okay, Clara, I’m going to hang on to this for now, and talk it over with my sergeant in CID. What I suggest you do now is go home and wait for us to get in touch, and in the meantime, if you hear from Luke, or if anything else suspicious happens, please call us straightaway.” She got up and, with another brief smile and a nod of her head, indicated for Clara and Mac to follow her.

  But Clara remained seated, staring up at her in alarm. “CID? So you agree those e-mails could be linked to his disappearance?” She had half hoped to be fobbed off, to be told she was overreacting, that there was clearly an innocent explanation for it all. The seriousness with which Mansfield was taking her concerns caused little darts of panic to shoot through her.

  “It’s possible,” the DC said. “There could be any number of reasons why he’s taken off for a bit. He might have gone out and had a few drinks and not made his way home yet—that happens. Hopefully there’s nothing to worry about. But as I said, just go home, and someone will be round to see you as soon as possible. We have your address.” She went to the door and held it open, and reluctantly Clara got to her feet.

  “Are you all right?” Mac asked as they trudged back down Kingsland Road toward home.

  “I don’t know. It all feels so strange. You see on the news and stuff about people disappearing, you see those Facebook appeals, and I can’t believe he’s one of them—it’s too surreal. Half the time I’m telling myself there’s some rational explanation and I should chill out. The other half I feel guilty because I’m not tearing through the streets searching for him. I just don’t know what to do.”

  He nodded gloomily. “He’ll turn up. It’s going to be okay. They’ll find him.” But she could hear the worry in his voice. As they walked, she thought about Mac and Luke, and the friendship they’d had for so many years. Of the two of them, Luke had always had the louder personality, Mac with his quiet dry wit the straight man to Luke’s clown. And if Luke’s love of the limelight meant he sometimes didn’t know when to quit, ensuring he was always one of the last to leave any party, Mac was invariably there to keep his friend out of trouble, bundling him into a cab when he’d had too much to drink, ensuring that he eventually made it home in one piece. Instinctively now she reached out and linked her arm through his, more grateful than she could say for his calm, steady presence. He glanced down at her and smiled, and together they walked on in silence.

  She felt desolate when they returned to the empty flat. There was Luke’s leather jacket hanging on its peg; on the table by the window was a half-completed Scrabble game they’d abandoned two nights before. The last record they’d been listening to sat silent and still on t
he turntable. It was as though he’d stepped out only moments before, as though he might reappear at any moment with a bottle of wine tucked under his arm, smiling his smile and calling her name. He hadn’t taken anything with him—not one single thing a person who was intending to leave home might take.

  Mac came and stood beside her. “Would you like me to stay over?” he asked. “I could sleep on the sofa.”

  She smiled gratefully, suddenly realizing how much she’d been dreading another night alone. “Thanks, Mac,” she said.

  * * *

  —

  She was awoken by the sound of her intercom buzzing. Groggily she sat up, looking about herself in confusion, surprised to see that she was still wearing her clothes. Suddenly the fact of Luke’s disappearance hit her like a train and she gasped in distress. She remembered she’d gone to lie down while waiting for the police to come, had put her head on Luke’s pillow, breathing in the scent of his hair and skin, and a feeling of utter hopelessness had filled her, nervous exhaustion rolling over her in heavy waves. She must have fallen asleep.

  Dazedly she stumbled to her feet and, going into the living room, saw Mac blinking awake on the sofa. She glanced at the clock: eight a.m. Again the intercom buzzed loudly and she hurried over to answer it. “Hello?”

  “Miss Haynes? DS Anderson from CID. Can I come up?”

  * * *

  —

  He was a large man, Detective Sergeant Martin Anderson. Mid-thirties, a slight paunch, small blue-gray eyes that regarded her from the depths of a ruddy face. A proper grown-up, with a proper grown-up job: even though he was less than a decade older than Clara and Mac, he might as well have belonged to an entirely different generation. She clocked his wedding ring and pictured a couple of kids at home who idolized him. A very different sort of life from the ones led by her and Mac and their friends, with their media jobs, their parties and endless hangovers. He was accompanied by DC Mansfield, who nodded at her and flashed her a brief, impassive smile.

  “This is Mac, Luke’s best friend,” Clara explained nervously as the four of them sat down in the living room. The flat felt very crowded suddenly, a dark cloak of authority and gravity descending upon her home that gave her worst fears credence and made fresh anxiety twist in her belly. Outside on the street someone gave a long, low whistle; a car engine stuttered into life; the world continued as usual, oblivious to the tense, waiting silence of this room.

  “I’ve been passed on the information you gave DC Mansfield yesterday,” Anderson began in a voice that was deep and measured, a faint accent curling around its vowels that Clara’s London ears identified vaguely as Midlands.

  “I take it you’ve had no contact from Luke since then?”

  Clara shook her head. “No.”

  He nodded. “In most cases the missing person turns up within forty-eight hours. But due to the harassment Luke’s been receiving, we need to make sure there’s nothing more to this. I understand there’d been a letter . . . some photographs, as well as the break-in a few months ago? Do you have them here with you?”

  For the next ten minutes Clara went about the flat, gathering the various items that DS Anderson requested—Luke’s bank details, the names and numbers of his friends and family and place of work, a recent photograph, his passport, and so on. She moved as if in a dream, stepping around DC Mansfield, who glanced at her apologetically as she conducted her own search, opening various cupboards and drawers. “What are you looking for?” Clara asked when she found her scrutinizing the bathroom cabinet.

  “It’s just standard procedure,” she said, not really answering her question. “I’m going to need something with Luke’s DNA, by the way. Did he take his toothbrush with him?”

  Clara shook her head. “He didn’t take anything with him.” She handed over Luke’s green toothbrush, leaving her own red one alone in its cup, and tried to fight the tears that sprang to her eyes.

  When she returned to the living room, she gave DS Anderson everything she’d collected, and he nodded his thanks. “Luke left his mobile behind too,” she said, handing it to him. “The code’s sixteen-zero-nine.” The sixteenth of September. Her birthday. She remembered how he’d smiled and said, “That way I’ll never forget.” She watched as that, too, was efficiently deposited into a clear plastic evidence bag.

  Anderson turned his attention to Mac. “And how about you, Mac? How long have you and Luke been friends?”

  “Eighteen years. Since we were eleven.” Clara almost smiled at the way this giant Glaswegian was suddenly sitting up straighter, his knees pressed neatly together, meek as a kid in front of his headmaster.

  “And there was nothing about his behavior recently that struck you as unusual at all?”

  “No . . . I don’t think so, no.”

  Clara glanced at him. Was there something strange about the way Mac said that? The slight hesitation before he spoke, something a little off about his tone? She couldn’t quite put her finger on it.

  Finally, twenty-five minutes after they arrived, the two officers got up to leave. “I think I have all I need for now,” Anderson told them. “I’m going to talk to Luke’s parents and his employers next.” He paused, consulting his notes. “Brindle Press? Is that right?” When Clara nodded, he went on. “We’ll also look at any relevant CCTV footage, to see if we can trace his movements after he left work yesterday.” He glanced at Mac. “And if you could both think of anything that might have happened in the last few weeks that could be relevant—any unusual phone calls, anything out of character that he might have said to either of you, or any change in his usual behavior . . .”

  “Yes, yes of course,” Mac and Clara said together.

  He nodded. “We’ll be in touch.”

  After they left, Clara sank onto the sofa. “Jesus,” she murmured. She put her head in her hands. “At least they’re taking it seriously, I suppose.” When Mac didn’t reply, she turned to find him standing with his back to her, gazing out the window. “Are you okay?” she asked.

  He was silent for a while, and then she heard him mutter something to himself. She stared at him in bewilderment. “Mac? What’s the matter? What is it?”

  He turned to face her. “Jesus, Clara, I’m so sorry.”

  “Sorry? What on earth for?”

  He raked his fingers through his hair in agitation. “I really didn’t want you to find out like this. But it’s all going to come out now—the police are going to talk to everyone—his work, his friends, everyone—and I don’t want you to hear about it that way.”

  “For God’s sake, Mac! Hear about what?”

  Mac closed his eyes for a moment. “Luke’s affair.”

  * * *

  —

  The shock was like a body blow, knocking the air from her lungs and leaving her reeling. And when she was finally able to speak, her voice was barely more than a whisper. “Affair? Who with?”

  “A girl from work. Her name’s Sadie. I think she’s . . .”

  On the ads team. Blond hair, legs to her armpits. Barely twenty. “Yeah, I know who she is.” She felt strangely incapable of reaction, as if the information wouldn’t quite penetrate her brain. “How long?”

  “A few weeks, I think, maybe a couple of months. But it finished ages ago. Listen, Clara—”

  She cut across him, “A couple of months? And is he . . . does he love her?”

  His reply was emphatic. “God, no! No, of course not. He loves you, Clara. I know he does.”

  She gave a weak laugh. “Clearly.”

  “It was just . . . oh God, Clara, I’m so sorry.”

  She stared at him. “But he asked me to move in with him! Why? Why do that if you’re shagging someone else?”

  “He knew Sadie was a huge mistake. He realized it was you he wanted.”

  She nodded. “Great. Lucky me.”

  A silence.
<
br />   “Why the fuck didn’t you tell me, Mac?” she asked him quietly. She realized she felt almost as betrayed by him as she did by Luke, almost as hurt by her friend’s deceit as by the man who was supposed to be in love with her. She thought of all the times she, Luke, and Mac had spent together, when she’d been oblivious to the secret they shared, and her cheeks burned with anger and embarrassment.

  “I—”

  She glanced at him, her voice suddenly hard. “Don’t tell me. Because you’re his best friend. Lads sticking together, right? Some stupid fucking boy code?”

  His face was a picture of misery. “Clara, listen to me. . . .”

  She waved his words away. “Does everyone know?” She thought of Luke’s large circle of friends—people they socialized with together, met up with at the pub, invited round for dinner—and her humiliation deepened. “All of you, all his mates?”

  “No! God, I don’t know. He felt awful about it. He didn’t know what to do—he was in absolute bits. . . .”

  It was then she remembered something. “That’s what you meant about him going away to clear his head,” she said, and the flicker in Mac’s eyes confirmed it.

  “At first I thought maybe he was with her. But I called her and he wasn’t. Then I thought that maybe he did go away somewhere to try to sort himself out, get his head straight, but . . . I don’t think so. It doesn’t add up—not telling work, his parents, me, not taking any of his stuff . . . and the thing with Sadie ended ages ago.”