The Lies We Told

by Camilla Way

  The traffic cleared and she saw, on the other side of the road, a familiar figure standing by his car, talking on his phone. Mac. He looked up and smiled, and she raised her hand and waved, stepping toward him, to where he was waiting for her, her heart lifting at the sight of her friend.

  THIRTY-FOUR

  LONDON, 2017

  As Clara began to cross the road toward him, Mac hastily hung up his phone, put it in his pocket, and, despite the deadweight of panic bearing down upon him, forced himself to smile. It was the fifth time Hannah had contacted him from her remand center, and every time she did so, his fear of her, of how she might punish him, deepened.

  When they’d met seven months before, it had been the start of a brief but intense affair, appearing as she had so out of the blue, a welcome distraction from the futile misery of his growing infatuation with Clara. It had been at the opening night of a friend’s photography exhibition, and the attraction he’d felt for the pretty brunette serving behind the bar had been instant and intoxicating.

  Soon they were meeting once a week. The sex had been, frankly, the best of his life, but he’d sensed with some relief that she didn’t want the relationship to develop into anything more. At first he’d been hesitant to confide in her about his misery over Clara, but she had been so sweetly sympathetic, so gently encouraging, that bit by bit he’d told her of the hopelessness of it all, including his anger at Luke’s one-night stand with Sadie. He’d quickly grown to rely on her steady support, her wise advice.

  He noticed that she didn’t like to talk about herself, the questions he asked of her when they first began to meet always gently batted away. She was older than he was and he sensed she had a complicated private life beyond their weekly meet-ups, so he got used to not prying. And anyway, she was such a good listener; there was so much he wanted to tell her about his own unhappiness. “Poor Mac,” she’d say, stroking his hair, kissing his face, pulling him into bed. “Poor lovely Mac.”

  And then, a revelation, a shock so great, so unexpected, it had knocked the breath from him. They’d been in bed, their naked limbs entwined, and he had just begun drifting into sleep. “I have something to tell you,” she had said. She sat up, her long brown hair spilling over her naked breasts, her lovely eyes fastened on his face, her shadow thrown huge across the wall behind her.

  “What?” he’d said sleepily, then smiled. “Sounds serious.”

  “It’s about your friend Luke.”

  “Luke?” A jolt of surprise. “What about him?” And he’d recall later how he’d felt the first stirrings of unease, like a gust of cold air ruffling his hair, making his scalp prickle.

  “He’s my half brother,” she said. “Oliver is my father too.”

  He’d given a short, startled bark of laughter. Because surely it had to be a joke. And then he’d looked into her eyes and realized that it wasn’t. His first thoughts, of course, were that she was quite mad, and he’d felt a pull of disappointment, that this lovely woman who’d seemed to understand him so well, who had been such a comfort, was in fact, after all, completely insane. And how was he going to disentangle himself from this now? What sort of scene would there be? “Erm, listen, Hannah, I . . .”

  “When I was seven years old,” she went on calmly, as though he hadn’t spoken, “I found out that Oliver Lawson was my real father, that he’d had an affair with my mother. She died when I was a few weeks old, and he gave me away to the people who I would grow up believing were my real parents.”

  He’d sat up. “What the fuck are you talking about? I’ve known Luke’s family for years. I would know, I would— Fuck, you’re not joking, are you?”

  “No,” she’d said. “No, I’m not.”

  “Christ! I don’t . . . Wait. You knew I was a friend of Luke’s when we met. . . . That’s why you approached me?”

  She leaned forward and took his hand, and he saw now that tears were spilling from her eyes. “Oh, Mac, I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry for lying to you. I never thought I’d grow to have such deep feelings for you, that I’d start to fall for you the way I have. I just wanted some help—I thought you could help me, and I understand that you might hate me now but . . .” Overcome, she’d buried her face in her hands, weeping quietly.

  He had stared at her in disbelief. “No,” he said, tentatively putting his hand on her shoulder. “No, shush now, I don’t hate you. . . . No, I— Okay, calm down, don’t cry. Just tell me from the beginning.”

  And so she had. How Oliver had taken advantage of one of his young students, how he’d got her pregnant, then abandoned her, wanting nothing to do with Hannah when she was born. “Rose found out,” she said. “She found out and she arranged to meet my mother near where they all lived, at Dunwich, you know the cliffs there?”

  “Yes,” Mac said, his unease deepening.

  “My mother met her up there. She had me in my buggy with her. Rose was the last person to see her alive.”

  “She . . . what? Hannah, what are you saying . . . ?”

  “The papers said it was suicide. But I . . . I don’t know—I don’t think . . .”

  “Oh, come on now! You can’t be serious. . . .”

  But Hannah continued to tell him her story, the long sad tale of her childhood, how she’d tracked down the Lawsons, spied on their wonderful life, watched as her father doted on her siblings without a second thought for her. “My father, Mac, the father who’d given me away like I was rubbish.” She’d wiped her tears. “Mac, even if you don’t believe that Rose killed my mother, then her death was still Oliver’s fault, because of the way he treated her, the way he threw her away, threw both of us away.”

  He’d stared at her. “So what do you want with me?” he asked at last. “Why am I here?” He was still trying to get his head around how completely he’d been duped, how entirely he’d believed their meeting had been mere chance.

  She’d leaned forward. “I want you to help me teach Oliver a lesson. I want to make him see that he can’t treat people like that, his own daughter, and get away with it.”

  Mac had begun to search around for his clothes then. “I’m sorry, but I think you better go now.”

  “I’m telling the truth!” she cried. “My mother was Nadia Freeman. Her body was found washed up in the sea at Dunwich in 1981. It would have been in all the local papers. Look it up if you don’t believe me. Nadia Freeman was my mother. And Oliver Lawson is my father.”

  He couldn’t look at her. “I don’t want any part of this. I don’t think we should see each other again.”

  * * *

  —

  He didn’t hear from her in the weeks that followed, but he thought about her often. Could her strange tale be true? He could go to the library in Suffolk, look Nadia Freeman up in the local papers archive, but even if someone had died with her name, it didn’t mean Oliver or Rose had anything to do with it. But something kept nagging at him. He had always thought Hannah seemed vaguely familiar, and as soon as she began telling him who she really was, he had realized why: she was the absolute spitting image of Luke and Oliver. He couldn’t believe he hadn’t seen it before, but now that he had, it was undeniable. Every day his unease grew. She’d been so convincing. She hadn’t seemed insane at all.

  At the end of the second week, he got a call from Luke. “All right, stranger? Where’ve you been hiding? What you up to this weekend?”

  “Oh, you know . . . work. Not really got any plans, why?”

  “It’s my dad’s birthday this weekend. Me and Clara are going up there for the party. You fancy it? I know you said you were planning on going up to see your mum soon anyway. Clara was only saying this morning that she misses you. Come, it’ll be fun.”

  * * *

  —

  He realized as soon as he got to the Willows and saw Clara that it had been a mistake to go there. She looked incredible. He wasn’t even sure what it was
about her that pulled her to him so. She was nowhere near as beautiful as Hannah, yet she was everything. When she saw him, she gave a cry of delight and went to hug him, her familiar scent filling his nostrils, the feel of her compact little body in his arms. It was agony. He’d hoped that the short time away from her would have helped, but he realized he just loved her more than ever.

  Toward the end of the evening he’d stood at the edges of the party, drinking solidly, morosely, by himself. When Luke bowled over to him, bright-eyed and flushed with drink, enthusiastically slapping him on the back, he had looked at him and said quietly, “What’s happening with that girl from work? Sadie? Did you really finish it with her?”

  Luke’s eyes had widened. “Yes! Of course I bloody did! Jesus, Mac, I told you that. It was one night, months ago, the worst mistake I’ve ever made. I just want to forget it ever happened.” He’d glanced around himself uneasily.

  Mac had nodded. “Yeah. Okay, I wanted to make sure.”

  But still, anger had burned inside him as he’d watched Luke wander off to where Clara was talking to his mother, draping his arm around his girlfriend’s shoulder with casual propriety. When an extremely drunk Oliver had approached Mac a few minutes later, wine bottle proffered to top up his glass, Mac had said, raising his voice over the music and other voices, “Oliver, do you know anyone named Nadia Freeman?”

  And the expression in Oliver’s eyes had told him all he needed to know. “What?” he said, the color instantly draining from his face. “What did you say?”

  “Natalia,” he had almost shouted. “Natalia Fellum. Just a girl I met in London the other day, said she used to live locally. Oliver? Are you okay?”

  “Yes, yes, sorry, I thought . . .” He took a large gulp of wine. “Um, Natalia? No, doesn’t ring a bell, I’m afraid,” and with that, he’d patted Mac on the shoulder, then staggered drunkenly off. But Mac had seen it: that initial reaction of pure, unbridled fear. He had seen it, and he had known.

  * * *

  —

  In the days that followed, his thoughts kept returning to Hannah. He was surprised how much he missed her; there had been a connection between them, a sympathy, a sense that she was as alone as he was in her own way, that they shared a singular misery, a longing to make peace with something impossible. Since the party he found himself brooding on Luke’s selfishness, his undeserved good fortune, more and more. Finally, late one night when he’d been drunk and wretched, he’d texted Hannah. What did you want me to help you with? he wrote.

  Her reply had been instant. Can we meet?

  * * *

  —

  At first the plan had sounded so outlandish that he’d refused point-blank. “Are you joking? No fucking way.”

  “Three days,” Hannah had said. “It’s only three days. Long enough to teach Oliver a lesson, that’s all, make him see that I haven’t gone away, that I’ll never go away.”

  “Hannah . . .”

  “He threw me away, Mac. Like rubbish. He threw me away and my mother too. She died because of him.”

  “Yes, but . . .”

  “Listen. You love Clara. Don’t you?”

  And he’d looked at her, the only person in the world he’d ever admitted that to. “Yes, yes I do.”

  “And Luke cheated on her, treated her like shit. The woman you love. Do you really want Clara to stay with him? With Luke out of the way, you could be alone with Clara, let her find out about Sadie, show her how much she means to you.” Tears had filled her eyes then. “Please, Mac, please. You’re my only hope. I feel as though I’ll never get closure on this if I don’t do something.”

  Mac had thought about the guilt that had been plain to see on Oliver’s face and put his arms around her. “It’s okay,” he said. “It’s okay. Take it easy.”

  “Look, I’m not going to hurt him. I only want Oliver to admit the truth, jolt him out of his smug little life, make him face up to what he did.”

  “How are you going to get Luke to your flat?”

  “You don’t need to worry about that,” she’d said. “I just need your help with a few things first.”

  And he hadn’t asked too much, because he hadn’t really wanted to know. The next night he’d gone round to Clara and Luke’s flat, and while Luke had cooked them dinner, he’d sat with Clara, listening as she talked about the holiday they were saving up for, how wonderful it was now that they were living together. The next morning he had phoned Hannah. “Okay,” he’d said. “I’m in.”

  It had begun to go horribly, terrifyingly wrong, very quickly. After Luke went missing, Hannah seemed to change overnight. Gone was the hurt and vulnerable woman he thought he knew, and in her place was someone very different. After the second day he had phoned her. “Is he okay? Are you going to let him go tomorrow like you said? Rose and Oliver are beside themselves, job done, so you can let him go now, right?”

  In a new, harsh voice completely unlike her usual one, she’d said, “No, don’t be stupid. I need you to do something for me. I need you to tell me everything you know about Rose and Oliver’s movements from now on.”

  “What? How am I supposed to do that?”

  “Find out. Ask Clara. Every time Clara speaks to Rose, every time Rose phones Clara, or the police speak to Rose, or Oliver and Rose come to London, or whatever, you tell me. Got that? Everything, every detail, you tell me.”

  “What if I don’t?”

  She’d sighed irritably. “Look, I’m pretty close to stabbing this whining prick in the face anyway. Jesus Christ but he never lets up. You give me the slightest reason to lose my temper, and I’ll do it. If you want to see him again, I suggest you do what you’re told.”

  He’d had no choice. “Okay, okay, relax. I’ll do it.”

  “Good. Does Luke have any photos of his sister Emily in his flat?”

  “Emily? What’s she got to do with this?”

  “Just answer the question.”

  “Erm, yeah, he mentioned them to me once when he was drunk, said he keeps them in his office at home, but I’ve never seen them. He told me he never looks at them, still too cut up about it, I guess.”

  “Okay. You need to go round there and take them.”

  “What? Why?”

  “Just do it. I’ll give you Luke’s keys.”

  When he’d tried and failed to find them, her fury had been terrifying. “Christ, you’re useless,” she’d spat. “I’ll find them myself. By the way, are you any good at doctoring photos? Photoshop, that sort of thing. I have some old pictures Emily gave me years ago of her with her family. I want you to replace her face with mine.”

  “Emily?” he’d said, his unease deepening. “You didn’t say you’d met Emily. . . . When? I don’t understand.”

  “Can you do it?”

  “Well, yes, but . . .”

  “Good. Then I’ve got another job for you.”

  And things had gone from bad to worse, as he’d realized that what Hannah had passed off as a little trick to scare Oliver, to make her presence known, was far more twisted and sadistic. When she started to meet Clara, he’d almost lost his mind. “You need to stop—now,” he said. “You need to stop or I’ll go to the police.”

  “Why? I need to keep up with what the police are doing, and anyway, it’s fun hearing about what a mess my father’s in.”

  His threats were useless. Every one he made countered by her promise that Luke would die if he didn’t keep quiet. He believed her. Even worse, she might hurt Clara. He was trapped.

  In desperation, he’d followed Hannah from her meeting with Clara and taken the photograph of her. It was the only thing he could think of to hold as currency over her, a way of warning her, if he needed to, that he could go to the Lawsons and the police whenever he wanted. She’d looked up at the last moment and seen him. He’d run then, jumping onto a train just before it lef
t the station. Back at his flat, he’d downloaded the photograph to his laptop for safekeeping, then dropped it in to Mehmet in the kebab shop below. “Can you hold on to this for me?” he’d asked.

  “Not a problem, my friend.”

  He had been right to fear that Hannah would come looking for it, and though she’d taken his camera with the photo on it, she hadn’t, of course, been able to find its copy on the laptop. He knew he had to tell Clara the truth, yet every time he opened his mouth, he couldn’t find the words, terrified that she would hate him for what he’d done. It had been a desperate, spur-of-the-moment decision to show her and Tom the picture, leading them to finally work out the truth without him having to implicate himself.

  * * *

  —

  But it would never be over; he knew that now. He had expected Hannah to expose him during her trial, had been terrified that she would reveal the part he’d played in it all. But to his surprise, she’d kept quiet. For weeks now, hope had flickered in his heart. It looked, for a time, as though he might get away with it. But then the phone calls had started. She seemed to have become even crazier while on remand, more vengeful and hate fueled than ever, and he realized now why she hadn’t implicated him in court; it was to have something to hold over him. She told him she’d thought of new ways to punish the Lawsons, and that it was down to him to help her. “You know what’ll happen if you don’t,” she’d said, moments before he’d cut her off. “I’ll make sure Clara knows you were in on it from the start.”

  * * *

  —

  He looked up now as Clara walked toward him, and as he watched her, a warmth of emotion came to him. The love he felt for her was the one certainty in all of this; despite all that had happened, all the wrong he had done, it was still the single undeniable truth: Clara belonged to him. Over the past four months as they’d waited for the case to go to trial, he’d fallen more deeply in love with her than he’d ever thought possible.