Where the Truth Lies

by Julie Corbin

  He nods. ‘They had their throats cut.’

  ‘Jesus.’ I briefly drop my head, then look back at Mac. ‘I hope I got to Julian in time. Lisa’s gone to the hospital with him.’ I say this quite calmly, as if it isn’t a matter of life and death to me. I don’t know where I’m finding the strength. ‘I’ve sent the blackmailer an email telling her I have the information she wants.’ I take the parking ticket from Charlie’s hand as he comes inside. ‘Here.’ I give it to Mac and tell him what it is. ‘It must have been her in the car, leaving as I arrived home, otherwise Julian would have been . . . gone.’ I take a steadying breath. ‘He must have let her in. He had to have put the alarm off. Apart from me, he was the only person who knew the code.’ I think. ‘Maybe she was holding a knife to the policeman’s throat.’

  Mac shakes his head. ‘Julian wouldn’t have opened the door.’

  ‘So he must have known her.’

  We both stare at each other, thinking. Sezen? Jem? In the park, pretending they were being attacked? Would he open the door if a woman were screaming for help?

  ‘We’ll find out. The CCTV at your front door is being checked,’ Mac says. Then, ‘Is that Julian’s phone?’

  I follow his eyes. Julian’s BlackBerry is lying under the table in the hallway. I pick it up.

  ‘See who called him last.’

  I scroll through and find the name. ‘Megan,’ I say. ‘At half past midnight.’

  Mac’s eyes narrow. He takes the phone from me and calls her. It goes straight to the answering service.

  ‘Megan?’ My mind tries to engage. ‘Has someone taken her too?’ A dizzy blindness settles behind my eyes. ‘My God! Do you think she was forced to help the blackmailer?’ My ears are ringing. ‘Julian would open the door to Megan. He trusts her.’ The hallway slumps to one side and I slump with it. Mac catches me before I hit the floor. He leans me up against the wall.

  ‘Do you need to sit down?’

  ‘No.’ I hold myself as straight as I can. ‘I’m just trying to keep up.’ My brain is spooling through a scenario – Megan waking up to find someone in her bedroom, one of Georgiev’s heavies holding a gun to her head so that she is forced to ring Julian. Then she’s dragged out in the middle of the night. Julian opens the door, and the heavies push in behind her. Bea is taken.

  I give a convulsive shiver. ‘This just gets worse and worse.’

  ‘I have the tape.’ A policeman comes into the hallway. He’s carrying the tape from the CCTV camera. ‘We have clear views of the three people who came to the door.’

  We watch it in Julian’s study. At five minutes before one, the policeman on duty goes down the steps. Thirty seconds later Megan comes to the front door. The front door opens. I’m unable to see Julian’s face as he is below the camera, but Megan’s is in clear view. It’s her. And she doesn’t look as if she’s been coerced. In fact she seems as relaxed and confident as ever. And then, as she comes inside, two men dressed in black take the steps two at a time and push their way into the house behind her. Two minutes pass and then all three come out. Megan is carrying a sleepy Bea, whose head is draped over her shoulder. I let out a cry and Mac throws me a worried glance. Another minute goes by and then I appear on the steps, looking first bewildered and then afraid.

  ‘I need to go to the bathroom,’ I say. I leave Julian’s study and go back upstairs. I lock myself in the toilet. I start to shake. It begins in my hands and feet, and spreads up my limbs and into my torso. My legs buckle and I slide down the back of the door on to the floor tiles. I don’t know how long I lie there, my limbs shaking as if in the throes of some dreadful neurological sickness, but when it finally subsides, I crawl on my hands and knees to the toilet and hang my head over it. I empty out the contents of my stomach, retching and retching until there’s nothing left except a solid nugget of anger. I stand up and rinse my mouth out with water, then look at myself in the mirror. My face looks different from before. I still look pale, but I no longer look startled. I look determined.

  Megan Jennings is more English than Julian. She outclassed several other ambitious solicitors to become part of his team. She has spent long days working for the Crown, for Queen and country.

  Megan Jennings has sat at my dinner table and eaten my food.

  And now it appears that Megan Jennings is the blackmailer. She was present while two policemen were murdered. She watched as Julian had his throat cut and was left for dead.

  Megan Jennings has kidnapped my daughter.

  19

  Lisa calls me from the hospital. ‘Julian’s just gone into surgery. He’s holding on, Claire. He’s holding on.’

  Thank God.

  ‘Any word of Bea?’

  Her voice wavers, tremulous as an old lady’s. It prompts a strangling feeling in my throat and I pull my sweater away from round my neck. It doesn’t help me breathe any easier. ‘Nothing yet,’ I say. ‘I’m coming to the hospital. I’ll be there within the hour.’

  Mac has persuaded me that there’s nothing I can do here. He promises to keep me updated. The boys are still in the living room. I suggest that they watch a video or play games, anything to help take their mind away from what’s happening.

  ‘I just want to do something, Mum,’ Charlie says, still pacing. ‘I just want to help. Anything. It doesn’t matter how small.’

  I understand. I feel the same way. I ask Mac whether he has anything for Charlie to do. He tells him to go through Julian’s emails and papers to see if there’s a clue to suggest where Megan has alternative accommodation. The police have been to her flat round the corner and it’s empty – completely empty. It looks like she knew her cover would be blown after tonight and has taken all her possessions. And up in Hertfordshire, her parents have been pulled from their beds and brought in for questioning.

  Every couple of minutes my hand strays to my back pocket to feel for my phone. It’s still there. No call yet. And in my other pocket is Julian’s BlackBerry. I’ll be able to check for emails on that. But will she even read, never mind reply to, the one I’ve sent her? I’m not sure. So I leave her a phone message as well. Let her know that I have the witness’s identity and whereabouts. Although Mac’s already established she’s not answering it, she might be picking up messages. I can only hope. I can only hope that she’ll try to negotiate her way out of this. She wants the details. I want my daughter. Straight swap.

  Each second is a battle. The effort required to stop my mind tormenting me with thoughts of Bea being harmed is colossal. Sometimes I’m caught off guard and a split second later I slide into the reality of the fact that she has been taken. The map of my life has Bea at its centre. She is my daughter, my baby girl, and she’s in extreme and mortal danger. My stomach shrinks and tightens into a fist, a hard knot that makes each breath a hardship, as I pull against the pain that’s dragging me down to the floor. Deep, heavy, hell, embedded in my stomach like concrete, like stone, like headstones, like graves.

  I stop the slide by digging my nails into the flesh of my forearms, forcing myself to feel the very real and present physical pain. Like resetting a timer, I’m back in the present and the battle begins again. Don’t think ahead. Just hold it together. Breathe.

  A policeman drives me to the hospital. Julian is in theatre and then he’ll be brought to the high-dependency unit. I meet Lisa walking up and down the corridor. It’s after three in the morning. The corridors are deserted apart from a few lone members of staff moving between wards. She runs to hug me and I let her, but only for a second.

  ‘Please look after the boys for me,’ I say.

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘They’re with each other in the sitting room. Charlie is looking through Julian’s emails and papers. Jack is on the PlayStation.’

  ‘I’ll go straight home.’

  ‘Thank you, Lisa.’

  I walk on to the ward, remembering that it was only three days ago I collected Lisa from another part of the hospital. Lisa, who is sick, and is now havi
ng to cope with this. I should have let her hug me for longer. I should have been kinder. I shouldn’t have fought with them both before I went off to Mac’s. What was the last thing I said to Julian?

  I think and then I remember. I told him a lie. I said I was going to the seafront to sit quietly. A big, fat lie. If I hadn’t gone, I would have been home when Megan came. I could have stopped her.

  ‘Mrs Miller?’

  ‘Yes?’ I swing round sharply. There’s a nurse behind me.

  ‘Would you like to wait in our relatives’ room? The doctor will come and speak to you as soon as he can.’

  I follow her into a small room, painted magnolia. Bland watercolours take up space on the walls. Three of them are hanging squint, as if somebody fell against them and didn’t bother to set them right afterwards. Four padded bottle-green chairs face each other. There’s a coffee table in the middle with a box of tissues and a pile of magazines on it.

  ‘There’s a vending machine back along the corridor if you want a drink. I’m sorry we don’t have any facilities to make you something ourselves.’

  ‘That’s OK.’ I sit down. She closes the door on her way out and I’m left alone. There’s a clock facing me. It sits high up on the bare magnolia wall. Loud and malevolent as a playground bully, it marks the seconds.

  Tick . . . Julian is in a critical condition.

  Tock . . . I slid on his blood. It’s on the floor, on the walls, on the light switch, on my clothes, on the keyboard of my laptop.

  Tick . . . He could die.

  Tock . . . My daughter has been kidnapped.

  Tick . . . She is in grave danger.

  Tock . . . I don’t know whether she has Bertie with her.

  I should have checked. Why didn’t I check? I start to moan. At first it’s a low, monotonous sound and then it rises in pitch and I snap my back up straight.

  Enough.

  I want to cry, wail, tear my hair, seize the chair and hurl it at the clock. I want to scream the place down, demand that we wind back time. I want to be held by Julian. I want to see my daughter’s face.

  The clock keeps up its relentless ticking and I know that I can’t stay in this room. Herein lies the way to madness. And madness is not an option. I haul myself up and walk out of the room and along the corridor. I’ll do something normal. I’ll get a drink. That’s what I’ll do.

  The drinks machine has a range of choices. I drop some coins in the slot and choose hot chocolate. I wait. Nothing happens. I press the return button but still nothing happens. No money, no hot chocolate. I knock my head against the front of the machine, then give it a swift, angry kick. A cup drops down, wobbles on the plinth and is caught by two metal arms. Boiling milk trickles down into the cup, then a shot of chocolate and some more milk.

  ‘Claire!’ Jem is jogging along the corridor towards me. She stops just short of me, doesn’t speak, just holds my eyes and then says, ‘Christ. Oh Christ! He’s not, is he?’

  I shake my head. ‘He’s in the operating theatre.’

  Her face crumples like she’s going to cry. She puts her elbows and forearms against the wall and rests her head between them. When she’s composed herself, she looks back at me. ‘Tell me what I can do to help.’

  ‘The boys,’ I say immediately. ‘Will you look after the boys for me?’ I offer her the drink. She shakes her head. ‘And Lisa,’ I say. ‘I’m worried that she’ll do too much.’ I take a drink of the hot chocolate. It tastes powdery and overly sweet. ‘And someone needs to tell Wendy.’

  ‘Will do.’ She reaches out a hand and lightly touches my shoulder. ‘Julian’s strong. He’ll get through this.’

  I nod. Neither of us mentions Bea, but I feel her presence and I’m sure Jem does too. I visualise her skipping ahead of us along the corridor, Bertie under her arm. I feel her so strongly that I don’t understand why she doesn’t materialise in front of me.

  ‘I’ll walk with you to the door,’ I say. ‘I want to use my mobile.’ I haven’t turned it off just in case a text comes through from Megan, but I know that using it in the hospital is frowned upon.

  We make our way back to the main entrance. It’s a long walk, two hundred metres or more, and when we get there, I take Jem’s hand and say, ‘Thank you for coming out like this.’

  ‘It’s the least—’

  ‘After . . . you know. Being accused of something you hadn’t done.’ I give her a half-smile. ‘No hard feelings?’

  ‘None.’ There are tears in her eyes again and I look away, not wanting to see what’s written there. She feels sorry for me. She feels sorry for me because my husband is closer to death than he is to life and my daughter has been taken by people who have killed, and shown themselves willing to kill again.

  We say our goodbyes, Jem promising to look after the family, me promising to ‘keep my hopes up’. As soon as she’s a few steps away, I check my emails – nothing. I call Mac for an update. There’s no news yet on finding Megan, but her parents have been shedding light on how Megan could have met Georgiev.

  ‘She worked in Europe during her gap year, in one of the mountain ski resorts in the Alps,’ Mac tells me.

  ‘I know about that,’ I say. ‘She was only telling me about it the other day.’

  When she returned, she had changed, her parents said. She was more secretive. They thought it was all part of her growing up. She seemed more mature, had a clear sense of direction. Having been disillusioned with life and unsure about what she wanted to study at university, she announced she wanted to be a solicitor. Naturally, they were delighted.

  ‘He was setting her up that long ago?’ I say, astonished.

  ‘Seems so,’ Mac affirms. ‘Georgiev knew that at some point the law would catch up with him. There had already been attempts to build a case against him, but the evidence hadn’t been strong enough to support a prosecution. He wanted someone on the inside. The Italian Mafia are past masters at this.’

  ‘Any other updates?’

  ‘The two men with her on the CCTV are known associates of Georgiev, and we’ve traced the dark blue Fiat. It was bought for cash from a woman in Worthing last week. She said the man who bought it was foreign – Polish, she thought.’

  ‘It’ll be dumped somewhere.’

  ‘Most likely,’ he agrees.

  ‘Thanks, Mac. I’m going back inside now. See whether Julian’s out of surgery yet.’

  ‘We’ll speak soon.’

  ‘Find her, Mac,’ I say quietly. ‘Please just find her.’

  I end the call and go back into the hospital. The night cleaners are mopping the corridors, the smell of strong disinfectant wafting around them. I make my apologies as I tiptoe my way along the edges of their clean floor and arrive back in the HDU. The duty doctor is waiting for me. He introduces himself. His name is Dr Sam Kitto. He is wearing small, round Harry Potter glasses. His eyes behind them are bloodshot as if he has either drunk too much or not slept in weeks. Or maybe he’s a swimmer and the chlorine affects his eyes. Or maybe he’s had an allergic reaction to contact lenses. These thoughts go through my head, one after the other, like horses on a carousel. They take care of the time between him introducing himself and ushering me into the room with the ticking clock.

  He takes my elbow and sits me down, then sighs as he lowers himself into the seat opposite me. I think of all the television programmes I’ve seen about the National Health Service. The state it’s in. How doctors are working up to a hundred hours a week. The mistakes that are made.

  ‘We have private health insurance,’ I blurt out.

  He shakes his head as if this is an irrelevance not worth considering. ‘Mrs Miller, your husband is in a critical condition.’ He pauses. I think he expects me to acknowledge his words, so I nod. ‘He has lost large volumes of blood. Mr Murray is repairing the knife wound to his throat, but’ – he takes a big breath and I do the same – ‘he may have suffered brain damage.’

  ‘I see,’ I say, choosing not to believe it. Brain damage?
Julian? Not possible. I can’t imagine him like that. I won’t imagine him like that.

  ‘We are replacing blood and fluids to raise his blood pressure.’ His accent is soft, a gentle Irish brogue. I tune into the melody that almost makes a lie of the words. ‘His condition will remain critical for a number of hours. Mr Murray will be out of theatre presently and will be able to tell you more.’

  ‘In your experience’ – I clear my throat – ‘is Julian’s case very bad? What I mean is that . . . people recover from this sort of injury, don’t they?’

  ‘We need to get your husband through the next twenty-four hours.’ He’s looking at me with a heartfelt yet measured empathy. ‘Then the next twenty-four hours after that.’

  ‘Do you come from Dublin?’

  ‘Yes.’ He gives me a half-smile. ‘My father was a general practitioner in the city centre, before it became as fashionable as it is now.’

  ‘We went there for our honeymoon. We stayed in a bed and breakfast close to the river. It rained almost constantly.’ I can feel tears running down my cheeks and realise that I’m crying. ‘But it didn’t spoil its beauty.’

  He takes several tissues from the box on the table and hands them to me. ‘We must take one hour at a time,’ he says. ‘I’ve seen people recover from the most devastating injuries. Your husband is not lost to you, Mrs Miller.’

  I’m grateful for this because I can’t countenance the idea that I might lose Julian. I try to smile my thanks, but the tension in my face won’t let me.

  Dr Kitto goes back to the ward and for a second, when the door is open, I look beyond him to where two nurses are standing either side of a bed, a blood-stained sheet, blinking monitor lights and a bag of fluid suspended from a drip-stand with a tube attached leading down to the body in the bed. Not Julian, but someone else who’s fighting for life. I think about the two policemen, Baker and Faraway, on their first shift of night duty, their throats cut, and Megan, just two days before, standing on the pavement, flirting with them, her behaviour so callous, so calculating that it’s difficult to count her as a human being. I think about the policemen’s families as they were given the news. The shock and the horror of it. The reality taking a lifetime to sink in.