Lie For Me

by Mick Bose

  He lowered his face to mine. His lips were turned up with hate. “Oh yeah? Precious princess with Daddy’s trust fund, aren’t you? Money grows on trees for you, does it?”

  Before I could do anything, he had gripped my arms tightly. His fingers were like claws, digging into my flesh.

  “Let go of me!” I cried, struggling. He shoved me back against the wall, hard. I hit the back of my head, and pain exploded in my skull, radiating down my spine.

  I held my head, and looked at him with crazed eyes. “You bastard!” I raised my arm to strike him. He parried my blow easily and kicked me hard in the stomach. The sudden spear of pain was like a deep tear inside me, like I had been stabbed with a knife.

  My eyes shook, and I sank to my knees.

  He stormed out, banging the door shut. I held my belly, and knelt on the floor, sorrow and rage fighting a terrible battle inside my heart. For a while, I stayed there, gasping, trying to fight the waves of pain. As they faded, I fell back on trying to piece my life together. What was happening to me?

  My eyes fell on the suitcases. I went over to then, and tried to open one. He had locked them. Try as I might, they wouldn’t budge open.

  I gave up after a while, and sat in the chair. The suitcases sat there, taking up a corner of the lounge. Discomfort prickled my skin every time I looked at them.

  I got up and decided to go into the office. Make some phone calls, see if any new properties had come onto the market.

  I was in the shower when a pain suddenly gripped my lower abdomen. It wasn’t a normal tummy cramp, this was deep, visceral, clutching my guts in an iron grip. I went down on my knees, crying out. The shower kept splattering water on my face. The pain became cramping, vicious, moving further lower. Like it was trying to come out.

  I looked down, face twisted with pain, and that’s when I saw it. On the wet shower floor there was a trickle of blood. It was coming from me. The water washed it away but more came.

  “No,” I whispered. The pain came in waves, making me double over with its intensity. With it came the bleeding, spasming out of me. It stopped eventually, to a trickle. I got up, feeling sick and dizzy, taste of bile in my mouth.

  I rummaged in the bathroom cabinet till I found a pad, and somehow got dressed. The belly pains came again in waves, this time much worse than before. I was doubled over, clutching myself, mouth open. Saliva trickled out onto the carpet. I wouldn’t make it out of the door, and I suddenly realised something was seriously wrong with me. My eyes fell on my hanging coat. I crawled over to it, and pulled it off the peg. I found my phone, and dialled 999.

  “Ambulance, please, I’m bleeding…pregnant.”

  The woman on the other side was asking me questions, but her voice was far away, at the end of a long tunnel. My eyes glazed over again, and the wall, mirror, corridor wobbled and went out of focus.

  “Hello? Hello? Can you hear me…?” I could hear the woman’s voice still. I wanted to answer, but the light darkened in my eyes. Then I didn’t remember anything else.

  CHAPTER 26

  Present day

  When we get back home, I offer Molly a treat for getting into the gym squad. She wants pancakes with maple syrup. I have some ready-made pancakes, and I start frying them while she watches TV.

  My mind remains on the sickening vandalism at Steve’s gallery. That fire burnt many of my hopes as well. Despite having online sales, like every artist I wanted people to see my physical work, too.

  And then the warning on the text message. I flip a pancake over quickly as it sizzles, slightly burnt. Once four pancakes are done, I call Molly to the table. She doesn’t have more than two normally.

  I look out from the front room window as Eva parks. I open the door for her. She’s on her own, having left Lottie with the au pair. She waves at Molly, who’s busy going through her pancakes. Molly gives her a thumbs-up.

  “Coffee?” I ask.

  “And cake, I hope,” Eva laughs. As it happens, I have some lemon drizzle slices leftover from last week. I put them out on a plate and put some beans into the coffee-maker.

  Eva takes a bite of the lemon cake and closes her eyes. “Mmmm, this is lovely. You are such a good baker.”

  “Thanks,” I say, putting a steaming mug in front of her.

  “What did you want to talk about?”

  I put Molly in front of the TV, and she is very happy, being allowed to eat her pancakes and watch TV in the living room. I come back to the kitchen where Eva is sipping her coffee.

  I take a minute to compose myself. “This is going way back, alright?”

  Eva nods, her face looking comical with a slice of cake puffing out the left cheek.

  “Do you remember Clive Connery?”

  She is blank for a few seconds then her eyebrows clear. She swallows hastily. “Oh yes. What about him?”

  I don’t know where to start. It all sounds silly, till Steve Ponting described the man who came to see him. I tell Eva about the birth certificate sent to me, the text about Molly, the problems with Steve, and the man in the park. I go on to mention the torchlight in the park the night before we found Suzy’s baby. When I tell her about the art gallery and the last text message I received my voice breaks. I compose myself, and drink the coffee.

  Eva is digesting all of this in silence and I pause to let her consider it.

  “So,” she says, “the only reason for you to think this might be Clive is the description that Steve gave you? Have you actually seen him?”

  “That’s a pretty good reason. Unless he was describing his body double, which I doubt. And I did see a man by the park, watching me, but he was too far away to identify.”

  “Besides,” I continue, “who else would have Molly’s birth certificate?”

  Eva nods. “But why would he be sending it to you now? What does he want?”

  I have my thoughts, but I keep them to myself.

  “I don’t know,” I say, and then shiver.

  Eva says softly, “Maybe what he wanted the last time.”

  “But I don’t have anything…” I begin to say, and then stop. He impersonated Jeremy. Does he know about Jeremy doing well in his work? I think back to the card he left with Steve. He knew enough about Jeremy to print a card with the right job title. What else does he know about my husband?

  I have wondered how he found me, but these days that’s easy. All he has to do is a Google search on my name or look in the electoral register to track me down.

  “Has he ever tried to get in touch with you?” I ask.

  Eva looks surprised. “No. Why do you ask?”

  “Just wondering if he asked you about me, and so on. But I know you’d tell me if he did.”

  “Exactly,” Emma nods rapidly. “I saw him a couple of times, with you, in the beginning. Before it all happened.”

  I purse my lips.

  Eva says, “After that, I never clapped eyes on him. Has he tried to contact you?”

  “Not yet, no. Not directly, I mean. It can’t be anyone else who’s behind these calls.”

  We let the silence hang between us for a while. Then Eva says softly, “Have you got in touch with him?”

  Even the thought makes me shiver. Like there’s a snake at my feet, ready to sink its sharp fangs into my leg. I draw my feet up under me and wrap my arms around my legs.

  Eva is watching me, and our eyes meet. She says, “I take that as a no.”

  “That’s right. But I know I have to now. This is going beyond a joke.”

  Speaking to Eva is making me feel better. I hardly slept last night, listening to the leaky radiator pipe dripping somewhere in the house. The creak of rafters in the ceiling. The wind speaking, whispering outside the window like a restless soul. Endless sounds of the night.

  This morning I barely brushed my hair and tied it into a ponytail. Couldn’t be bothered to put any make-up on. I must have looked like a hobo when I arrived at the art gallery. I wonder if my dishevelled appearance made Ingram more susp
icious.

  I didn’t care. I need to sort my life out first.

  Softly, Eva says, “Do you want me to speak to him?”

  Jolted, I stare at her. She has been my friend since God knows when. I guess she can see how disturbed I am by this. But as generous as her offer is, I can’t let her go through with it. She can’t fight my battles for me.

  “Thanks, Eva. But I think I need to speak to him myself.”

  “Have you got his number?”

  “No, but I will find him.”

  After Eva leaves, promising to make me call her after I had seen Clive, I delve into my handbag. I have put the business card I got from Steve into my purse. I look at the phone numbers carefully. Like I thought, the mobile number is not the same as Jeremy’s. I punch the digits in, and wait with bated breath while it rings.

  “Hello, cupcake,” the baritone voice drawls. A tremor shakes me from the core of my being, spreading outwards, growing like a growling tsunami, and goose bumps prickle my flesh. I feel hollow, my stomach full of acid, making me nauseous. Memories slide free from the closet I keep them enclosed in, and I shudder, trying to get rid of them.

  “I wondered when you would ring,” he says, in that same deep voice.

  “What do you want?” I say, trying to keep the quake away from my voice. I don’t want to say his name.

  “What, no hello or hi? How have you been?” His voice becomes taunting.

  I grit my teeth. Although I’m scared, I can’t let the bastard hear it in my voice. “I’ll give you five seconds. Then I’m hanging up.”

  “Tough cookie now, are we?”

  After what he did to me, I had to become tougher. It’s only now that I realise how naïve I had been back then.

  “I’m counting. One, two…”

  “Meet me today and I’ll tell you all about it. How about…”

  I cut him off. Firmly, I say, “No. I choose where we meet.”

  He chuckles. “Sounds good to me. Where, cupcake?”

  I hate it when he says that, it feels like a rake running over my skin.

  CHAPTER 27

  It’s the next day, and I have done my school drop-off and some food shopping.

  I go back home, pack the food in the fridge, doing things like an automaton. I am going through the motions, my mind on what is to come today. It has been ten years. I promised never to see him again. He destroyed me. He even broke my mother, who made me promise on her deathbed I would never see him again.

  Today I have to break that promise. And I’m not doing it lightly. If I don’t see him, if I don’t deal with him, he will destroy me once again. And this time, I don’t think I will have the strength to rise up.

  I finish stacking the fridge, put stuff out for dinner, then take one look around the kitchen. My lips tremble, and my heart squeezes painfully against the ribs. My hands shake. But I am also angry. He is a bully, a bastard, and I will not give him the satisfaction of thinking he can run roughshod all over me again.

  I am tougher than who I was.

  After half an hour’s driving, I pull into a car park off Purley Way in Croydon. There is a complex of department stores in this retail park, mixed with a cinema, bowling alley and restaurant. I head for the TGI Fridays in the right corner, next to the cinema. I know this place has CCTV, and it’s public. He can’t do anything to me here, and I am far enough from Wimbledon not to know anyone. Not that Clive will do anything obvious to harm me physically. He’s far too clever for that.

  I take the table by the window as agreed. I order a cappuccino and wait. The coffee steams into my nostrils, but I am too distracted to drink. I watch the cars as they park. After ten minutes of waiting, I check my watch. Its 11 am. He should have been here by now.

  “Hi, Emma,” a voice says behind me.

  I turn around so fast I almost spill the coffee. Good job it’s not in my hand. The seat behind me is occupied and a shape lifts from it and comes around to my table. He has been sitting behind me all this time, observing me.

  He is wearing a hat that tips down over his forehead, obscuring his face. He takes it off as he sits down. He smells nice. I can’t help but stare at him. He still has a pull on me, I realise, as I look into his intense, dark eyes. The familiar glint in them is mocking me. He is clean-shaven, and the square-jawed handsome face is still the same.

  The face I see in my nightmares.

  He studies me intensely, and I drop my eyes. I look away, then lift my chin and stare back at him. Anger, frustration and regret scythe their way through my heart. I want to scream and shout, wish him away in a puff of dust. But it doesn’t happen. It’s the cold light of day, and like a spirit risen from the night, he sits there, staring at me. The angles of his face are the same. I wish he didn’t have the power to affect me so much still, and it’s definitely not something I want him to know.

  “What do you want?” I asked.

  “You owe me, Emma.”

  “What?” Despite everything, I snort derisively. “How did you figure that one out? It’s the opposite, if anything.”

  He shakes his head slowly. “You know what for.”

  A spike of fear jabs inside me. I say nothing, just look at him impassively.

  Finally, he utters the one word I didn’t want to hear. “Molly.”

  “Leave her out of this,” I say brusquely. “She’s nothing to do with you.”

  “On the contrary, she is everything to do with me.” He grins at me now, an evil, lopsided crook of his lips that I want to reach out and rip right off his face. He says, “You want Molly to be safe, don’t you?”

  Rage bubbles inside me. It evaporates off my skull like smoke off a volcano. I jab a finger at him. “You try to get anywhere near her, and you’ll be sorry,” I hiss.

  “What will you do, Emma? Call the police?”

  He smiles as I cringe inside. A heavy weight is pressing down on my chest. I can’t breathe, my lungs are blocks of cement. Clive knows very well that for Molly’s sake, and mine, I cannot go to the police. Doing that would let the mistakes of my past destroy my present life. It would kill off Molly’s future, too, and I can’t sit around and watch that happening.

  Clive smiles again, and I want to be physically sick. “I thought not. Now, listen to me carefully.”

  He pauses for a few seconds. He lowers his voice. “Your husband is going to meet with a fatal accident. After he’s dead, you get all his money, including his pension. I might need your help in how the accident occurs, or do it myself. I will let you know.”

  I am listening to him with wide eyes, but my brain can’t believe what I’m hearing.

  Clive continues. “When you get his money, you hand me half. You keep half for yourself. Then we are done.”

  He sits back in his chair, observing me intently. My tongue won’t move. It’s become a block of ice. I lick my lips with an effort and clear my throat. “What do you mean by accident?”

  He leans forward again and clasps his hands on the table. “I will let you know. It won’t be anything difficult.”

  I shake my head. “You’re mad. I can’t do this.”

  “Can you do it for Molly?”

  I feel my eyes bulging, veins standing on my forehead. To infuriate me even further, he smiles again. Revolted, I look away. Outside, its cold yet sunny. People are laughing and chatting as they come inside the restaurant. A flock of teenagers come out of the cinema. Normal people, enjoying their normal lives.

  What had happened to my life?

  Just when I was getting back on my feet again. Anger burns inside again, and I clench my teeth.

  Clive says, “You do this, and we’re even. I’ll never bother you again. But if you don’t…” He leaves the threat hanging. I want to cover my ears. I don’t want him to say my daughter’s name again.

  “And don’t bother trying to run. I will find you. When I catch up, it’s going to be worse. No more Mr Nice Guy,” he sneers and I feel like hitting him.

  “I’ll be in touc
h.” He knocks on the wood of the table, then gets up. Hat on head and head bent, he goes out of the double doors. I look out and catch a flash of him running to the left. Then he disappears from view.

  I want to pinch myself. Did that just happen or was it a bad dream?

  My world is imploding around me, the sunshine turning into sickly yellow, poisoned rays. Essentially, Clive is giving me a choice.

  Who am I willing to sacrifice?

  My daughter, or my husband?

  CHAPTER 28

  My fingers are shaking and I drop the car keys on the ground. I swear and pick them up. Somehow, I get in the car, and slam the door shut. I sink down in the seat and close my eyes.

  I wrap my arms around me, hugging myself. What shall I do? There is an immediate solution. I leave Jeremy. Pack my bags, and head off, without leaving him any forwarding info. That will break his heart, but it will save his life.

  But will it save mine? More importantly, will it save Molly’s? Clive can still come after us, purely for revenge if nothing else. The thought of him makes me sick. Maybe he’s been watching me all these years. Waiting to pounce on me when I got some money.

  If I run, he will come after me. And what if I collude with him? Go along with his plan, do whatever he wants me to do? I can’t bear thinking about it, but a voice inside my head tells me that if I do what he wants me to, it won’t be the last time he expects something of me. He will keep coming back, holding what I did as a cross over my head. That talk of leaving me alone if I did his bidding was just that – talk. Now that he had found me again, he would never leave me alone.

  I am damned if I do, and damned if I don’t.

  I think seriously of going to the police. But then…thoughts twist in my head till I can’t think anymore.

  The car is freezing inside. My breath creates fumes in the air, shaped like question marks. Shivering, I turn the engine on, turning the heating up full blast. It’s past midday. I need to pick up Molly from school. In a daze, I drive back home.