Your Truth or Mine?

by Trisha Sakhlecha

  I turn my gaze to the TV screen angled in the far corner of the bar and lose myself in the mind-numbing banality of watching a football match on mute.

  I’m on my third glass by the time the match ends and the barman starts flicking through the channels, running through old movies, more football and overtly cheerful commercials. It takes me a few seconds to register what I’m looking at when he finally settles on a scene at a beach.

  There’s tape everywhere and officers in high-visibility jackets are huddled around something in the background.

  I don’t need to read the text running across the bottom of the screen to know I’m looking at the beach in Littlehampton.

  A reporter is squinting into the camera, the wind whipping her hair into her eyes. She’s gesturing towards the drama unfolding behind her, one hand shielding her headset as she speaks into it.

  ‘Turn it up,’ I say to the barman.

  ‘I’m sorry, sir, we aren’t allowed—’

  ‘Turn it up,’ I yell. A few people turn to look at me. The barman does my bidding, then slithers off to the other end of the bar.

  ‘That’s correct, Martyn,’ the reporter is saying. ‘The police have now confirmed that the body of a young woman was found washed up on West Beach in Littlehampton early this morning. Littlehampton is, of course, just thirty miles from Seaford, where twenty-one-year-old Emily Barnett was last seen. I am being told that a formal identification is yet to take place, but the police are currently working on the belief that the body they’ve recovered is indeed that of Miss Barnett. We are yet to receive any confirmation on cause of death, but early investigations suggest Miss Barnett may—’

  The screen goes black, cutting her off mid-sentence, and before I know it I have a security officer speaking into my ear, telling me I need to leave, one hand crushing my elbow, the other pressed firmly into my back, forcing me out of the bar stool. I try to push back, but he’s too strong and I’m too drunk.

  ‘What is the matter with you?’ I slur. ‘I’m trying to watch the news. This is important. Let go of me. Let go of me! I have the right to be here,’ I scream, as he drags me out and deposits me in the lift.

  ‘Go to your room, Mr Kapoor,’ he says, pressing the button for floor twelve and handing me my room key.

  I fall back against the brightly lit walls as the doors slide shut, my head spinning.

  Even though I didn’t hear the reporter finish her statement, I know what happened. Emily is dead.

  She drowned.

  MIA

  Thursday, 17th December

  Addi answers the third time I call, full of apologies. She spent the day in hospital with Mum.

  ‘How is she feeling?’ I ask.

  ‘Weak. Nauseous. She’s sleeping now. This round has been harder on her than the first one. She could barely walk out of the hospital after the chemo.’

  I can feel a lump in my throat. I swallow it down. I can’t stand to think about it too specifically, to picture Mum hooked up to machines, the medicines snaking up her arm, making her sick before they can make her better.

  ‘Do they know if it’s helping yet?’ I ask. Something, anything to make the pain worthwhile.

  ‘They hope so. She’s got another round of tests to go through next week. Tomorrow . . .’ Addi’s voice catches. She takes a moment then carries on. ‘Tomorrow I’m taking Mum to see a wig guy in Gurgaon. He’s supposed to be the best, most lifelike.’

  The phone line crackles while I take this in. This silence is one too difficult to fill. I picture Mum with her waist-length hair. Hot oil every Friday night, followed by lime juice on Saturday morning and then herbal shikakai shampoo. Addi and I had scoffed at her when we were kids, turning up our noses at the stinky green paste, refusing to use anything but Pantene or L’Oréal. Whatever was being endorsed by the hottest new supermodel – because we were worth it, we’d claim, ponytails swinging. But Mum’s hair had always looked glossier than ours and we’d both switched to her routine by the time we were in our twenties. I touch my hair, and feel tears spring to my eyes. It’s silly. It’s just cosmetic. The important thing is that she gets better.

  ‘It’s just hair. It’ll grow back,’ I say. My words sound hollow, even to myself.

  ‘Oh yes, yes it will,’ Addi replies, a beat too soon.

  ‘Anyway –’

  ‘Anyway –’ We both speak at the same time. I have a vision of playing jinx when we were growing up. Poking and prodding Addi, tugging at her skirt, even pulling her hair to get her to say my name but to no avail. Addi was much better at it; she would just sit and wait till I slipped up. She always had a knack for keeping things quiet. I suppose it’s my turn now.

  ‘Applied for holidays yet? Do you think you and Roy will be here for Christmas?’ Addi is saying.

  ‘Yes, all signed off. We’ll book our flights this week.’

  ‘Okay, good. Check in with James every once in a while, will you? He worries about you.’ She hesitates. ‘Are you okay, Mia? If any of this starts to feel overwhelming . . .’

  ‘I’m fine, Addi. Stop worrying.’

  ‘I miss you,’ she says, a thousand emotions tied up in that simple statement.

  Guilt fingers me. Addi sounds tired and lonely. She’s the only one who might be able to explain the deed I found yesterday but I can’t bring myself to ask her. I’ve been selfish enough already.

  Come on, don’t you want answers?

  Not now. Not like this.

  ‘I miss you, too. And Mum. Call me when she’s strong enough to talk, will you?’

  I chase sleep for a few hours. My thoughts circle back to Roy. I remember being scared. Thinking no one was allowed to be this happy. That something must be wrong. Then cursing myself for thinking it. Forcing myself to be happy. Feel happy. Act happy. Was I role-playing again? I’ve spent the past few weeks hoping and wishing I could go back in time, fix everything that went wrong, but now I find myself wishing it had never happened. The first date. The wedding. The marriage. Everything. I just want to hit undo. I want to unmeet, unkiss, unlove.

  Undo.

  It’s pitch black. I twist and thrash, swallowing gulps of liquid darkness every time I resurface. It tastes salty. I adjust my eyes to the darkness. They sting. I look around; I’m in an ocean. The icy waves crash into me from all directions. The rocks move closer, sharp edges turned towards me. I try to swim but I can’t. I’m clutching something; it’s small, defenseless. I must protect it. I hold on tighter. I still can’t find Roy but this time I know he isn’t coming. There is no escape.

  ROY

  Friday, 18th December

  It’s barely morning, but when the knock comes, we are all expecting it. My father gets up to open the door and steps to one side to let the officers in. The arrest itself is swift, lacking in the commotion that I’ve come to expect from watching too many detective dramas. My father rings Alistair, and then stands in the corner, refusing to react. My mother sits on the sofa, hands folded neatly in her lap, a lone tear working its way down her cheek.

  The drive to the station goes by in a blur. It may have taken twenty minutes or three hours, I can’t be sure. Robins opens the door for me when we arrive and I step out into the near darkness. It is raining and as the icy water drips down my face, I feel a familiar sense of dread envelop me. Her face flashes in front of me. The sound of her screams sickens me. I don’t know if I can escape this anymore. My brain runs through the possibilities, but there is only one that seems plausible: prison. It feels ironic and fitting at the same time. I have spent my whole life seeking freedom, my travels and my career just a statement to that effect, yet here I am, handcuffed and under arrest. Do I deserve it, my love? Is it karma? I don’t know. What I do know is that I cannot bear to be without you and that I must hold my ground, if for no other reason than to see you again.

  As soon as we are inside, I am handed over to the custody sergeant. Over the next fifteen minutes, I am stripped of all my belongings, and with every article that’
s labelled and bagged, I feel the elaborate persona I have spent years constructing being chipped away, until all that is left is the crude teenager that has been lurking beneath the polished exterior.

  I am photographed. I am fingerprinted. I am swabbed for DNA samples. Then I am taken into an interview room and told my solicitor will be with me shortly. This room is different to the one I was interviewed in the last time, I notice. It’s bigger yet somehow feels more stifling. I shift in my chair. I wait. My brain whisks me back to that night. I think about the way she fought, all arms and legs, and then afterwards, her body just a mangled mess. I shake the image away. Stay calm, I tell myself, what’s done is done. Focus on the future.

  Something my fiction writing tutor used to say springs to mind: the only way to have a reader truly buy into your story is to believe it yourself, to talk to the characters and live and breathe the plot as if everything in the story is real, even if none of it happened. I try to remember this while I wait.

  Alistair comes in after a few minutes. He sits down across from me and starts briefing me on the next steps. For the most part, I nod along while he explains the process. He tells me I have the right to silence but he recommends I don’t use it. We have already prepared for this interview and he feels it would be best to get my new, corrected story on tape. He tells me he’s gone through disclosure with DI Robins. They must be holding back for the interview but he reckons anything else they have on me will be circumstantial or they would have charged me straightaway. He thinks they’ll interview me then bail me out in a few hours.

  ‘Okay, you ready then?’

  Alistair is already at the door, waiting.

  I hesitate. They’ve found the body, they might already know.

  You’ve got to tell me everything, Roy, however bad it may seem. That’s the only way I can help you, Alistair had said in our first meeting.

  In that moment, I can’t fathom why I left it so late; why I gave him a new version of the same half-baked story I gave the detectives.

  Perhaps I believed they’d never find her.

  Or perhaps I thought I could get away with everything.

  Whatever I thought, I was wrong.

  ‘Roy?’

  I take a deep breath and look Alistair in the eye. It’s time.

  ‘Sit down, Alistair, there’s something I need to tell you.’

  MIA

  Friday, 18th December

  I wake up with a start and go down to the kitchen. It’s past seven o’clock but the sun isn’t out yet. There’s a strange milky quality to the light. I put the kettle on and notice my phone sitting on the counter. I must have forgotten it downstairs last night. I pick it up and turn it on, the white light illuminating the room. Twelve missed calls. I scroll through until I see a number I recognize and press dial.

  ‘Switch on the news. I’m on my way,’ George says, his voice far too alert for this early in the morning.

  Emily’s face fills my living room. They’ve found her. Washed up on the West Sussex coast. They’re running a special, all kinds of experts debating why it took so long for the body to wash up and why it ended up all the way in Littlehampton.

  Perhaps that’s where she was dumped, you idiots. They repeatedly flash to an old clip of Emily’s mother weeping. The presenter keeps calling it tragic. It’s infuriating.

  The presenter interrupts herself and cuts to a reporter in Seaford. She’s standing in front of the cliffs, where they found Emily’s car a couple of days ago.

  I turn up the volume.

  ‘It has just been confirmed that a thirty-one-year-old man has been arrested on suspicion of the murder of Emily Barnett. This follows after the body that washed up in the early hours yesterday was identified as Miss Barnett. A post-mortem was conducted last night. Cause of death has not yet been released but the police have confirmed that this is now a murder investigation. Additionally, we are able to confirm that Emily was pregnant at the time of her death. It is a tragic . . .’

  I collapse on the sofa. All I can hear is the blood pumping in my ears.

  A baby.

  The one thing he never wanted.

  The one thing he would have done anything to avoid.

  I can’t hide from the truth anymore. I take a deep breath and let the words dance around in my brain until they align themselves in the only logical order.

  My husband killed Emily.

  ROY

  Friday, 18th December

  ‘Emily rang me a few times after I broke up with her. I didn’t know how to respond and let it go to voicemail. I figured she would stop calling eventually and she did. I didn’t hear from her again until about a month ago. She sounded panicked. She said she had to see me right away, that there was something we needed to discuss. So we agreed to meet at the pub in Archway.’

  ‘This was on Wednesday the second?’ Alistair asks.

  I nod. ‘When I got there, she was already waiting at the booth. She started crying when I sat down. She told me she was pregnant.’

  ‘How many weeks?’

  ‘She wasn’t sure. She said seven, maybe eight.’

  ‘I told her we could take care of it quietly. She wouldn’t have to go to the NHS or anything if she didn’t want to. I even offered to book her an appointment at a private clinic and pay for the whole thing. But she wasn’t sure she could do it.’

  ‘Have an abortion, you mean?’

  ‘Yes. We spoke about what her life would be like if she had the baby. You have to understand, Emily, she was very ambitious. She had that job in Australia lined up. She used to speak about travelling the world. She wouldn’t be able to do any of that with a child. And I . . . I told her I couldn’t be involved. I told her . . . I wouldn’t acknowledge her or the baby so she would be totally alone. I was just trying to convince her.’

  ‘What happened next?’

  ‘She realized how stupid she was being. She agreed to have an abortion, told me she would ring the clinic the next day. She asked me to accompany her but I told her I was away. We went to the cash machine and I gave her some money. I thought that was that till she called me on Friday afternoon.’

  I press my fingers into my temples, that phone call still fresh in my mind.

  I was on the motorway when the phone rang. I turned down the music and answered. I could hear Emily howling on the other end.

  ‘Ems? Are you okay?’

  ‘I can’t do it,’ she stuttered.

  ‘Oh . . . why?’

  ‘I don’t know. I just . . . this is all happening too quickly . . . I need to think about it. I can’t just get an abortion because you want me to.’

  ‘We spoke about this. There’s no other option. What are you going to do? Raise it on your own?’

  ‘I don’t know . . . maybe.’

  ‘Don’t you want a life? A career? I’ve already told you, I can’t be involved in this.’

  ‘Well, guess what, that’s your baby growing in me. You don’t have a choice. What kind of a man are you?’ she screamed down the phone.

  ‘Come on, Emily. Calm down.’

  ‘You can’t just leave me in the lurch like this. I’ll tell everyone.’

  ‘You’re right, I’m sorry. I overreacted. I’ll stand by you whatever you decide, okay?’

  ‘It is yours, Roy,’ she whispered. I could hear the tears in her voice.

  ‘I know . . . I know. Have you been to see a doctor yet? Your GP?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Have you spoken to a friend?’

  ‘No, but why—’

  ‘Listen, we can’t do this over the phone. Let’s meet and discuss this properly. Monday?’

  ‘I’m at my parents’ next week,’ she said between sobs. ‘We can meet tonight.’

  ‘I’m on a press trip,’ I lied.

  ‘Cancel it.’

  I hesitated. Letting Emily sit on this was risky. ‘Let me call you back,’ I said.

  I called Emily back after a few minutes.

  ‘Listen, can
you come down to Seaford? It’s only an hour from your parents’ so you can go there directly tomorrow morning. Ems?’

  ‘I don’t know. Why do I have to come all the way there?’ she moaned.

  I sighed audibly. ‘I can’t cancel last minute, Emily. I’m already halfway there. Look, I don’t want this hanging over your head all week. I want you to enjoy your time at home. Please just come, okay?’

  I could hear her breathing but she didn’t say a word.

  ‘Emily? Please?’

  ‘Fine.’

  ‘Okay, good. There’s a train leaving Victoria at five twenty-five. You’ll need to change at Lewes. Write that down. L-E-W-E-S. You can stay at the Seaford Head Hotel.’

  ‘Seaford Head . . . we’ve been there before—’

  ‘Yes, I know. Have you got it?’

  ‘Yes, but why—’

  ‘I’ll meet you outside the Co-op on the High Street at seven. We can talk once you get there.’

  I picked her up and we drove to the beach. It was cold, so we stayed inside the car, rehashing the same conversation we’d had at the pub. I reminded her of all the reasons to abort and she found ways to shoot them down. I didn’t know what to do. She could be so challenging.

  ‘You said you would stand by me, whatever I decide.’

  ‘It’s not that simple, Emily. I have a wife.’

  ‘Leave her.’

  ‘No,’ I scoffed. ‘I’m not going to let you dictate my life. Get rid of it.’

  It had started to drizzle. Emily was staring outside the window.

  ‘Emily?’

  ‘It’s not your decision to make. This is a baby we’re talking about, Roy.’

  ‘A fetus.’

  ‘I won’t do it,’ she said, turning to face me. ‘You can’t make me.’

  ‘Fine. Keep it. But don’t think you or your kid will ever see me again.’

  ‘You can’t just walk away unscathed,’ she said, tears coursing down her cheeks.

  ‘Watch me.’

  ‘I’ll tell . . . Mia. I’ll ring her . . . right now and tell her everything,’ she howled. She picked up my phone from the dashboard.