Where the Truth Lies

by Julie Corbin

  I can’t say that it has never before occurred to me that Julian might have an affair. It’s perfectly possible that he could be attracted to another woman – someone more like the woman I was – but I would never expect him to act on that attraction. I didn’t marry a man like my father – that was a very conscious choice. My father was a great socialiser. Always the last man to leave a party, he liked to have an audience, and as a talented storyteller, he kept his audience amused. If the opportunity for infidelity presented itself, he was hard pushed to say no.

  Julian is a quieter man, not boring, not introverted, but quieter, hardworking and very much a family man. Nothing like my father. But still . . . I feel concerned. When Julian and I both worked in London, we were together far more regularly than we are now. I saw him during the day two or three times a week, sometimes by design, but often we just bumped into each other. Now I only experience that world from a distance. And it worries me to recall seeing first hand how marriages are eroded when common ground is lost. My one-off with Mac is always there to remind me how easy it is for even the happily married to lose sight of what’s important.

  Ironically, the move to Brighton, me being free to be a wife and mother, was supposed to make our marriage stronger, but I know that not only does Julian miss the me who existed when we were pursuing parallel careers, but the last few years have been hard on us. First my father died, and now Lisa is sick.

  Finally Julian climbs the first step and Megan raises her head, says something that makes him laugh. The look that passes between them is one between good friends: frank, honest, uninhibited, not lustful or sexually knowing, but there is a sense of sharing and commonality between them that sets off alarm bells. It reminds me of myself and Mac, and I know that although they haven’t slept together yet, they may not be far off. She is Julian’s work companion. She knew about the emails from the start; she knew about his resignation. I’m sure she even knows where the witness is being kept. Julian has shared his concerns with her. Not me. I haven’t been his confidante, not for some time.

  The realisation is a painful one. I hold the wine glass tight in my hand, so tight that the stem snaps and I cry out as wine spills and mixes with the warm blood that trickles from my palm.

  10

  I go back into the kitchen and grab some paper towels to wrap round my hand. The girls and Jack have gone to their rooms. Sezen and Miss Percival are tidying up. They both hover around me as I apply pressure to the wound. It takes three minutes before it stops bleeding.

  ‘It looks deep,’ Miss Percival says, concerned. ‘Do you think you should visit the hospital? It might need stitching.’

  ‘It is quite deep,’ I acknowledge, frustrated that Julian hasn’t come inside yet. What can he and Megan possibly still have to say to one another? They spend hours together as it is. ‘But I don’t think it needs stitching. A tight dressing will be good enough.’

  I try to use my elbows to open a kitchen cupboard and Sezen steps forward to do it for me. She looks pale and her hands are shaking.

  ‘Are you OK?’ I ask.

  ‘I do not like the sight of blood,’ she says through gritted teeth.

  The paper towel is now sodden with blood, the white colour darkened to a deep scarlet.

  ‘Let me help,’ Miss Percival says. She puts a dressing and then a bandage over the cut, while Sezen stands back, her eyes averted.

  I look at them both. ‘I’m sorry about Charlie’s behaviour at the table. Life is complicated at the moment.’

  Miss Percival looks up briefly from the bandaging to murmur a reassuring ‘Think nothing of it.’

  Sezen gives me a quick, distracted smile.

  ‘Wendy’s very good with Charlie.’ Tears prick the back of my eyes and I’m glad I have the excuse of a painful cut.

  ‘I’m sure he’ll come round,’ Miss Percival says.

  I hear the click of the front door closing and Julian’s footsteps along the hallway. He comes straight into the kitchen and takes in the work surfaces laden with food. ‘Wow! There’s been some cooking going on in here today.’

  Sezen immediately steps forward to offer him something to eat, and Miss Percival finishes clearing the dirty dishes from the table. My hand is throbbing, so I don’t go to help. Instead I find myself watching her. She moves unobtrusively, but not in the graceful, natural way that Sezen does. Her movements are more stooped, her back rounded, like someone who’s trying to make herself insignificant, invisible even.

  ‘Glad to be close to the end of another term, Miss Percival?’ Julian asks her.

  ‘Yes.’ She looks down at her hand as she draws together crumbs with a wet cloth.

  ‘Going anywhere for the summer?’

  ‘No, I . . . em . . .’ She finds my eyes. ‘I must be heading off. Thank you so much for tea.’

  ‘I’ll see you to the door,’ I say.

  She’s out of the kitchen before I’ve even finished replying. Julian raises his eyebrows at me as I walk past him and says quietly, ‘Was it something I said?’

  ‘I told you,’ I whisper. ‘She’s odd.’

  I find her at the front door taking her jacket off the peg. I decide to probe a bit to see whether I can find out anything more about her. ‘Do you live alone?’ I say.

  ‘Yes. I do. I am.’ She hurries into her jacket, her fingers shaking as she does up the buttons. ‘I have for some time now.’

  ‘Do you have family?’

  ‘Yes . . . well, no. Not really.’ She reaches for the door handle. ‘Thank you for inviting me in.’

  ‘Wait!’ I place my hand on her shoulder. ‘Bea will want to say goodbye to you.’ I call up the stairs. Lara comes to the top and looks down at me. ‘Is Bea up there?’

  She nods.

  I climb the stairs and call Bea’s name again.

  ‘I’m in here,’ she says, her voice coming from the bathroom.

  I try the door, but it’s locked. ‘Do you need any help?’ I say.

  ‘No, Mummy. I’m four now.’

  ‘OK.’ I smile at Lara, who’s waiting patiently outside the door. ‘You all right, Lara?’

  She nods and looks down shyly, her black curls falling over her cheeks.

  I bend down to her height and whisper, ‘Would you like to go and see the fish tomorrow? In the aquarium?’

  She smiles. ‘Bea likes fish.’ She takes a big breath. ‘She likes the Nemo fish.’

  ‘She does.’ I stand up and give her a quick hug. ‘You girls will have a great time together.’ I go back down the stairs and find Miss Percival still in the porch. ‘Bea is on the loo. She may be a while.’

  ‘He’s not a man to be messed with.’ She has a magazine in her hand and I look over her shoulder to see to whom she’s referring. I recognise the picture; I recognise the article. It’s one of the Sunday supplements from about a month ago. The story is about organised crime in Europe. The picture shows Georgiev and a couple of his heavies standing bare-chested, covered in tattoos. It was taken back in the 1980s, before he came to London and he was still peddling his criminality in Bulgaria.

  For a moment I don’t know what to say. My mouth is hanging open. I hear my father’s voice: You’ll catch flies standing like that. I snap my jaw shut.

  ‘A monster by all accounts,’ Miss Percival says.

  ‘What do you mean by that?’

  Her head jerks up from the page. ‘Nothing.’

  ‘Nothing?’

  She steps back towards the wall, startled at my tone. ‘I was just making conversation.’

  ‘So you don’t know this man?’

  ‘Of course not.’

  ‘Call me paranoid’ – I fold my arms – ‘but Pavel Georgiev features large in our lives at the moment and it seems an unlikely coincidence that you’ve brought this magazine to my house.’

  ‘I didn’t bring it in!’ She drops it down on the table. ‘It was lying here. Open at this page.’

  ‘No, it wasn’t.’ I shake my head. ‘There was some unopen
ed junk mail on this table and nothing else.’

  Colour spills across her cheeks like red wine across a tablecloth. ‘I assure you I did not bring this magazine into your home.’

  I stare her down. It doesn’t take much – just my eyes looking into hers and she capitulates almost at once, turns on her heel and is through the door before I can say anything more.

  I rejoin Julian, who is on his own in the kitchen, finishing off the rice. I show him the magazine. ‘Did you bring this home?’

  He glances at it and shakes his head.

  ‘It was on the hall table. I just accused Miss Percival of bringing it here, but she denied it. Went scuttling off.’ I open the fridge. ‘Glass of wine?’

  ‘Love one.’

  I pour us both some wine and sit down opposite him. ‘So who left it there, do you think?’

  ‘Parting shot from Amy?’ he says.

  ‘She’s been gone for twenty-four hours. I would have noticed if it had been there that long.’ I think. ‘Could Charlie have put it there to wind me up?’

  ‘Would he do something like that?’

  ‘Well, who else could it have been? He really is in a mood with me.’

  ‘Is he upstairs?’

  ‘Wendy’s talking to him. He caused a bit of a scene while we were all eating. I really think we should tell him properly about the threat before Monday. He’s very het up about Amy having to go.’

  Julian weighs this up, his head tilting from one side to the other.

  ‘We don’t want him just disappearing off to be with Amy,’ I say, leaning in closer to Julian. ‘If the blackmailer can’t get to Bea, do you think there’s a risk that one of the boys might be taken?’

  ‘It’s much harder to kidnap someone adult-sized, and anyway’ – he takes a sip of wine – ‘after Monday’s pre-trial hearing we’ll be moving to a safe house.’ He pauses. ‘Won’t we?’

  ‘I hope not.’ I clear away his empty plate. I’m not discussing this again. It’s as if both Mac and Julian have accepted that we won’t find the blackmailer and we’re on an inevitable trajectory towards a safe house. I rinse the plate, being careful not to wet the bandage, then turn back to Julian. ‘No more emails today?’

  ‘Not so far.’ He spots the bandage. ‘What happened to your hand?’

  ‘I broke a wine glass.’ When I was watching you and Megan. ‘Silly, really. And poor Sezen. She hates the sight of blood. She went really pale. Looked like she was about to pass out.’

  He holds my fingers, turns the palm up. ‘The blood’s beginning to soak through. Are you sure you don’t need it checked?’

  ‘No. I can’t face hanging around in casualty. I spend enough time in that hospital as it is.’

  He looks at his watch. ‘Why don’t I get out of my suit and take you? We can spend a few extra minutes with Lisa before visiting time ends and then you can have your hand seen to.’

  I shake my head. ‘Lisa’s coming back here tomorrow. If my hand’s still bleeding, I can have it checked when I go to collect her.’ I remember the way Megan was looking at him. And he at her. ‘I think it’s more important that we talk.’

  ‘OK.’ He finishes the last of his wine and stands up. ‘I haven’t seen Jack since I came home from Sofia. Shall I speak to him while you put Bea to bed?’

  We agree on the way forward for Jack, and I go to persuade Bea into bed. Sezen is already organising Lara, so she comes willingly enough, after extracting a promise from Julian that he will take her to the Sealife Centre so Lara can see the Nemo fish. Fortunately, she’s so tired that before I’ve even finished Charlie and Lola – ‘Mummy, why didn’t you call me Lola?’ – she has fallen asleep, her thumb in her mouth, Bertie lodged by her side. When I’ve settled Bea, I come out to find a note from Wendy saying that Charlie’s accompanying her round to her house to help her move some furniture and that he’ll be back later this evening. I smile. Good for Wendy. Keeping Charlie gainfully employed and no doubt slipping him a much-needed twenty-pound note in the process.

  I find Julian in Jack’s room, just as Jack is agreeing to write a letter of apology to Mr Schreiber and to the French teacher. What’s more, he promises to begin sixth form with a better attitude.

  ‘Does that mean I’m not grounded?’

  ‘In a week you can go back to school and finish your GCSEs. After that you can meet up with your friends. Until then you can study and make yourself useful here.’

  He thinks about this, less inclined to argue with Julian than with me. ‘OK, then.’ He throws himself back on to his bed. ‘Could be worse, I suppose.’ He sighs. ‘But don’t blame me if I die from boredom.’

  ‘We could always confiscate your mobile phone,’ Julian says, standing up to join me by the door. ‘And the computer. A week without Internet games and Facebook – how does that grab you?’

  ‘Fine.’ He kicks off his shoes. ‘I get the message.’

  ‘And show me the letters before you seal the envelopes,’ Julian says. ‘No half-hearted attempts. You need to mean it.’

  ‘Yeah, yeah. Pile on the pain, why don’t you.’

  We close the door on his grumblings and go upstairs to our room. Julian is about to put the main light on when he notices that Bea is in our bed, the muted light from the bedside lamp casting a golden glow over her sleeping form. ‘Wouldn’t she settle in her own bed?’

  ‘I think she should sleep with us now. Just in case.’ I bend down and kiss the top of her head. ‘If she stays close to one of us, she’ll be safe.’

  He stands beside me and puts one hand on Bea’s head and the other round my waist. ‘No one will take her, Claire. I would never let that happen.’

  He holds my eyes. I watch his thoughts as he watches mine. He takes my hand and leads me into the en suite bathroom. He puts on the light and closes the door behind us. ‘I mean it. We can do this. No one will take her.’

  He leans against me and I feel some of the weight he’s been carrying seep into my bones. ‘We need to check for another email.’ I stroke his hair off his forehead. ‘I’ll go.’

  Sezen is reading in the sitting room. She doesn’t look up as I pass. I log on to my own laptop this time and feel my blood freeze when I see the now familiar address in my inbox. I connect my laptop to the printer and print it off without reading it.

  Back in the en suite, Julian is now undressed and in the shower. There’s another door from the en suite that leads into our carpeted walk-in wardrobe. I put the light on and sit down with my back against the wall. I take a deep breath, then read the latest email.

  Let me tell you what you’re thinking. You’re thinking that everything will be fine when you move to the safe house.

  Wrong.

  You’re thinking that even the worst sort of criminals don’t kill children.

  Wrong again.

  And, Claire, it took a while for him to tell you, didn’t it? And yet you think you can leave all this to the police and to Julian to fix.

  Think again.

  There’s not much time left. I’m ready. Are you?

  I put the sheet of paper down on the carpet. So now she’s in the business of telling us what we think. I’m interested, almost heartened, to see that she’s got me completely wrong. I don’t think the safe house is a good option. I know there are people out there who kill children. And there’s no way I would ever leave Mac and Julian to decide what happens next.

  Julian comes through and stands behind me, drying himself. ‘Another one came?’

  I nod.

  ‘What does it say?’

  I read it out to him while he gets dressed. He sits down on the floor beside me. ‘So what do you think?’ I say.

  ‘I think he—’

  ‘Or she.’ Mac hasn’t got back to me yet on the profilers’ opinion regarding the sex of the emailer, but my intuition tells me I’m right on this.

  ‘Or she,’ Julian acknowledges, ‘is trying to influence your thinking. He wants you to lose confidence in the plans we’re makin
g.’ He shrugs. ‘He wants you to lose confidence in me.’

  ‘What gets me is the information she has.’ I sit forward. ‘For example, how did she know that you didn’t tell me about the emails straight away?’

  ‘Because it would have affected your behaviour. It was only yesterday that you kept Bea home from nursery.’

  ‘And how did she know about the safe house?’

  ‘Standard police procedure,’ he says. ‘It’s pretty obvious, isn’t it?’

  A beeping sound starts up in Julian’s trouser pocket. His clothes are in a pile not far from my right hand and I reach forward to bring his BlackBerry out. As I pass it to him, I see Megan’s name flashing on the screen. He presses the ‘silence’ button.

  ‘Don’t you want to take it?’ I say.

  ‘She’ll leave a message.’

  ‘A message about what?’

  He gives me a look that says he’s registered my curt tone but has no idea what I mean by it. ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Don’t you want to listen to it?’

  He puts the phone down on the floor beside his leg. ‘It can wait.’

  It’s not entirely rational, but I feel like he’s being evasive and a swell of irritation rises in my chest. ‘So who else knows about the emails?’

  ‘Only those who need to.’