Behind the Lie

by Amanda James

  It’s a wonder I didn’t get stopped by the police the speed I was going at after we left Yvonne’s. Jowan made me pull over and took the wheel, thank goodness, because my hands were shaking and all I had screaming in my head over and over was the same sentence – Mark Jenson has my boy! Then a stomach-churning question followed that one, equally repetitive – Why? Why? Why did he have him? How did he get him? Jonathan must be involved after all, mustn’t he? He and Mark went back even further than Mark and Simon…Why did Yvonne say he wasn’t? Jowan could hardly believe it when I told him who Mark was. Neither could I. I just needed to say the words out loud.

  Okay think! Take a moment, be logical. I sit back on my haunches and scan the bedroom again. Of course, the wardrobe, I remember now… The dressing-table stool might be just tall enough. I shove it next to the wardrobe and climb on top, stretch my hands up, feel the rough wicker basket under my fingers. It’s heavy, but yes, I’ve got it! Please let it be inside.

  Inside the basket under a fine layer of dust, is a box labelled – Our Wedding Day. The woman who lovingly placed the box in this basket a few years ago was so different from the one sitting on the bed now, her stomach churning with a mixture of worry and anticipation. I run my finger over the label, wipe the dust on the bed sheet, then snatch off the lid, rip off the tissue paper surrounding it and yank out the wedding album. I try not to look at the happy faces of my friends and family on that day, because I’m not taking a trip down memory lane; I’m making a beeline for the group photos. I’m looking for the tallest man on the back row, and there he is, his hands on Demi’s shoulders. Mark Jenson. Jonathan is standing next to him, a dwarf in comparison.

  ‘Found it, Jowan! Can you bring my phone?’ I yell over my shoulder.

  Jowan comes in with Iona, gives me my mobile, and puts her on the bed with her cuddly purple dinosaur toy. I squeeze his hand then take all the photos of Mark Jenson there are and send them to Yvonne. Okay, there are lots of tall men in the world – but six-feet-six with a long, hooked nose? In my heart of hearts I know it’s him, it has to be, but we have to be absolutely sure… and what if it isn’t? What then? I push that thought away and lock it down somewhere deep and dark. It has no place in the light hopefulness of my heart.

  We wait for a response. Jowan talks to me about Iona and how content she seems. I can’t answer, because my tongue is stuck to the roof of my mouth and I can’t focus on anything but my phone screen. Then he tries asking if I’d like him to make an omelette or something, as we haven’t eaten since breakfast. Again no words will come. When the phone screen lights up and chirrups an incoming message, I let out a slow breath I didn’t know I’d been holding and sweep a finger across it. It’s from Yvonne and it says, Yes, it’s him. That’s the ‘doctor’ I saw. No question!

  As if from a long way off I hear Jowan say, ‘Well? Is it from Yvonne?’

  I nod and hand over the phone. Relief both raises my spirits to the ceiling and immobilises me too, and there are a thousand questions waiting in my throat, but only ‘Thank God’ whispers from my mouth. Jowan whoops and punches the air, then takes over the questioning bit for me.

  ‘You say this Mark is Jonathan’s oldest friend so he must be involved in it all? But why on earth would he do such a thing? Why did this Mark want Ruan? And who’s the person who paid off Yvonne? She said it wasn’t Jonathan. You say this Mark is rich and powerful, so how do we persuade him to give your boy back? He’ll most likely deny he’s yours when we track him down, won’t he?’ He bites the edge of his thumbnail and frowns. ‘DNA test then?’

  Jowan jumps off the bed and starts to do annoying pacing up and down my bedroom, running his hands through his mop of curls as he asks more questions and has a conversation with himself mostly, because I’m only capable of just grunting now and then. Although we have come further than I dared hope, these questions tell me we’re only at the foothills of the mountain.

  ‘Holly, did you hear me?’

  ‘Um, which particular thing? You have said quiet a lot.’ Iona has managed to pull the dinosaur over her face and can’t quite push it off, so I scoop her up and shower her with kisses.

  ‘I said do you know where he lives?’

  ‘No. Except Hampstead rings a faint bell somewhere. All I have to do is look in the address book and then we’ll have it.’

  Jowan puts his head on one side and gives me the sweetest smile. ‘Are you okay, love? It’s just that I thought you’d be more excited. We have the man who has your boy.’

  Unexpectedly I feel a rush of… of warm affection for him. I won’t allow the word love. No. Even though I admitted to myself that I still did have strong feelings, that day at the beach house when he called my name from the sand dunes, I refuse to be that woman again. The woman who, each night, asked the stars in the dark sky what she’d done to drive him away. The woman who sobbed into her pillow until she was exhausted enough to sleep. He abandoned me once, so he could do it again.

  ‘Hols, what are you thinking?’ He lifts a hand, strokes my cheek. Of course I don’t tell him my most recent thoughts, but at last out tumble the words that have hitherto evaded me.

  ‘Oh, Jowan. Of course I’m thrilled we have a positive ID and lead to Ruan, but finding where he lives is the least of our problems. What if Mark is just a middle man or something? What if he took him to someone else?’ Then an uncomfortable and ludicrous thought surfaces. What if he and Demi are in it together? I remember how they flirted at the wedding. Remember that, in the photo, he had his hands on her shoulders. She had said he was hot, in a Downton Abbey kind of way… and now I know she might not be able to have children… Perhaps they have been having an affair all this time. Perhaps she never went to Greece and Alex is just a cover? Another memory rocks me on my feet. Demi had come to the hospital to see us…I didn’t know she’d been there at the time, but she told me at the beach house when she’d come to see Iona and I, about three weeks after Ruan had supposedly died. Could she have taken him…her and Mark?

  I think about telling Jowan but decide against it. That might be one step too far. I shake this notion out of my head and continue, ‘Like you said, he’s yet another powerful man, well connected, more so even than my husband. What chance do we have? Like you also said, he’ll never admit anything. And the DNA test?’ A humourless bark of laughter escapes my throat. ‘He would never agree to that, and to even go there would mean involving the police.’

  ‘Hey. This is defeatist talk before we’ve even tried. Stop all the “what ifs” and let’s just make a plan. We’ll take each bit as it comes along.’

  That rankles. ‘Of course I’m not defeated, just bloody practical! We have to plan for every eventuality, not just blindly stumble through with Pollyanna optimism.’

  ‘I’m not the Pollyanna here.’ Jowan’s cheeks colour and he shoves his hands under his armpits. ‘If you think we can somehow go through this without involving the police then you must be nuts.’

  ‘Nuts? Yes, exactly that! If the police become involved, we’d have to tell Simon that two of his oldest friends are involved in some crazy bloody conspiracy to steal his child; that they told him he had in fact died and produced a dead baby from somewhere to prove it. He would say I was psychotic, drag up my whole sorry drugs history, say I’d become depressed again, was an unfit mother. He would never believe me over them. He has friends in high places, well connected. We’ve been through all this before, only this morning. Why aren’t you listening to me?!’

  My shouting has startled Iona; she makes a square of her mouth and howls. The crestfallen look on Jowan’s face forces me out of the bedroom and to the play mat in the sitting room, on which I place Iona. My daughter immediately stops crying and stretches her hand up to a sparkly pink giraffe, a smile forming on her lips. Oh, if only life could be so simple for me.

  Perhaps it’s time Jowan went. That would uncomplicate things a bit, wouldn’t it? And after all, I need to be able to cope on my own sooner or
later.

  ‘I’m sorry I upset, you, Holly,’ Jowan says quietly from the doorway. ‘Just want to help and I really can’t see how to do that without the police. They would have to listen to you and you never know, they could take you seriously. Iona and Ruan are twins after all. There must be some sort of resemblance. Look, I’m here to back you and they might see through Mark and Jonathan…’ The icy glare I toss over my shoulder at him has his hands in the air in a second and there is surrender in his tone when he says, ‘But I will do whatever you think best. I promise.’

  Moments pass while I consider his words, consider the whole situation, then I say, ‘Firstly, my children are not identical, being different sexes. There might not necessarily be any resemblance at all. And the problem is, Jowan, you can’t back me in the way the authorities would need. You’re my friend… my ex-lover… and, for all the police know, might be lying your head off to protect me. And, believe it or not, I don’t want to land Yvonne in it, because we’d have to, you know, if we were to stand a chance of getting them to take us seriously. I think she lied about Jonathan, given his connection to Mark, and I abhor what she’s done, but you know when she asked me if I’d do the same…?’ Jowan nods, sits on the sofa, a serious look on his face. ‘Well, I would. Of course I would. So she’d be right up shit creek, and where would that leave her little girl?’

  ‘Yes, I get that but…’

  ‘And what would our lives become? There would be a pack of media wolves at the door day and night, my family and friends would be questioned, photographed, misquoted… My mother, perhaps even Demi, might say they think I’m imagining it all, delusional because of my grief after losing my baby. They’d say Mark and Jonathan wouldn’t do such a vile thing, especially Mark. Demi was all over him at our wedding… it would be a bloody nightmare. They wouldn’t believe me, Jowan. Don’t you see? And worse, much worse than that, Ruan would be lost to me for ever.’ My voice falters and I scoop Iona up again. I need to have her close, feel her little heart beating under my hand. I look into Jowan’s sympathetic eyes. ‘If they took her from me, I…’

  ‘Okay, okay. I understand. I do. So what do you think we should do?’

  The shadow of a plan that’s been hovering in the wings plucks up the courage to stride on to the stage. ‘Maybe Jonathan is being blackmailed by Mark somehow. Jonathan arranged for Ruan to be given to Mark. Mark wants a child, and for some unknown reason chose my boy. Or perhaps Mark’s acting as a middle man for someone… for people that wanted a child? God, I don’t know. I think it’s more reasonable to think Mark wanted Ruan for himself though. I don’t say that Demi might be in on it with him, even though the words are waiting there on my tongue. ‘We’ll go to Mark’s house. The letter Yvonne wrote said that Ruan had new parents. I know he has a wife, though she wasn’t at our wedding. We watch their movements, find out as much as we can about them, and then snatch my boy back when the time is right. When she’s on her own with him if possible. That’s if he isn’t some kind of middle man, of course, as I said, and has passed my son on to God knows who… Then… well, I don’t know what we do then. I’m not even going there for now.’

  Jowan’s eyebrows jump up and his mouth looks like it’s shaping some words, but then he just says with a sigh, ‘Whatever you think. But where does the one who paid for Yvonne’s silence fit in, if it isn’t Jonathan?’

  ‘I have absolutely no idea.’ I sigh and suddenly deflate. I think my ideas are just pie in the sky. Going round to Mark’s? Not a great idea but what other option do I have? ‘I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking it’s mad. That we’ll be caught and he’ll have us arrested.’

  Jowan shrugs. ‘More or less.’

  ‘Well, if that happens it will all have to come out anyway. The scenarios I’ve been terrified of will come true and it will be horrendous. But we have to try and do this my way first, because we might have a chance, Jowan. A slim chance, granted, but we could get away with Iona and Ruan, go somewhere Mark will never find us.’

  I watch Jowan twist his hair into the nape of his neck and let it fall, an unreadable look on his face, and I realise he thinks I’ve included him in the ‘we’. Perhaps I have. That’s the subconscious for you. My face is on fire, so I concentrate on Iona for a while. ‘Oh, I don’t mean you. I was actually thinking you might want to go back to Cornwall now anyway. You’ve gone above and beyond, and you were saying yesterday that you’ll need to find a job before long…’

  ‘Eh?’ Jowan’s pale-blue eyes are shadowed by a deep frown. ‘You think I’d go and leave you now? How on earth would you organise a heist to get back your most precious treasure without my help?’

  I look at his earnest expression, and an irrational urge to giggle at his dramatic choice of words is with an effort turned into a cough. I look away, place Iona back on her mat. ‘Well, that’s kind of you to offer, but I honestly wouldn’t blame you. Without you I couldn’t have come this far, so thank you from the bottom of my heart. You’ve certainly done your bit to earn my forgiveness.’

  ‘Is that what you think this is about? Me earning your forgiveness?’

  ‘Well, yes, I…’

  Then he’s right next to me on the mat, his arms around me, his lips on my hair. ‘Don’t you realise how I feel about you, Hols? I…’

  I pull away. ‘Stop. Don’t say it, Jowan. I can’t hear this; I can’t even think about what we have, or don’t have, while my boy is with that man. Surely you get that?’ Though my tone is calm, my insides are in turmoil.

  Jowan hangs his head, shoves his golden curls back a few times and sighs. ‘Of course, I’m sorry. Just sometimes I want to…’ He catches the warning look in my eye and smiles. ‘Okay. Let’s find that address book and get on with the next step. I’m with you, like it or not.’

  As I walk to Simon’s study, I realise I’m ridiculously pleased that my next step won’t be taken alone.

  Chapter Sixteen

  The tie around his neck felt like a noose. Why, in order to look smart, men were expected to have bits of material around their necks that endeavour to cut off their air supply, had always been beyond him. Jowan studied his appearance in the cheval mirror and fiddled with the top button of his shirt until Holly slapped his hand away.

  ‘You can’t undo it, Jowan, you’ll look messy.’

  ‘But I feel like the damn thing is choking me.’

  It’s only for a few hours and then you can go back to your jeans.’ Holly took a step back and dusted an invisible speck of something off the charcoal-grey suit he’d been forced to wear. ‘And to be honest, you look really good in it. Much better than Simon ever did.’

  Jowan looked into her big blue eyes and wondered if she was just saying that to make him feel better, more confident. The idea of pretending to be an estate agent and rocking up to Mark’s house wasn’t thrilling him, if he was honest, but they’d talked it all through for hours and, of the three or four scenarios, it was the best of a bad lot.

  ‘You say the nicest things,’ he said and rolled his eyes. She laughed, picked up Iona and left the bedroom. He loved to hear her laugh, but just lately she’d not done much of that, unsurprisingly. In fact he was worried about the way her face had grown thinner, the haunted look in her eyes, the dark circles underneath them, the way she jumped at every noise but pretended she hadn’t. She said he looked better in the tie than her useless husband. God, how he’d love to get a tie around Simon’s cheating throat and throttle him. He’d be back this evening and the thought of leaving Holly alone with him was almost too much to bear.

  ‘So, I think we’re almost ready… when I’ve seen to your hair,’ Holly said, coming back in with some gel and a comb.

  ‘My hair? What’s wrong with it?’

  ‘Nothing, I love it. But in order to look the part, I think we need to tame it a little.’ She put Iona in his arms and instructed him to sit on the bed.

  ‘My own mother won’t recognise me when you’ve finished.’


  ‘That’s the idea.’

  ‘And do you really love my hair?’

  ‘Yes. What’s not to like?’

  Jowan looked up at her and gave her a slow smile. ‘I love the feel of your fingers running through it.’

  ‘Jowan…’ she said in a warning tone.

  ‘Sorry.’

  ‘Right, that will do.’ She wiped gel from her hands, whisked Iona away and nodded to the mirror. ‘See what you think while I get her coat on.’

  In front of the mirror again, Jowan pulled a face. With his slicked-back hair and sharp suit, he looked the epitome of a successful businessman type, which was, of course, the look they’d been hoping to achieve. He pretended to hang himself with his tie and then went in search of Holly.

  *

  When the ‘estate agent plan’ had been just that – a loose network of ‘it might just work’ notions inside their heads as they’d plotted in Holly’s flat, far away from reality – it hadn’t really inspired him. Now, as they sat in her car, parked on the sweeping, tree-lined avenue next to Hampstead Heath, he realised the plan was pants. Really, really pants.

  ‘Had you any idea this area was quite so grand?’ Jowan said, moving to run his hand through his hair but stopping when his fingers met a sticky mat.

  Holly twisted her mouth to the side. ‘Well… not exactly.’

  ‘That’ll be a no then.’ Jowan tried to keep the irritation out of his voice but couldn’t quite manage it. ‘I mean, these houses must be worth millions of pounds each. Can you imagine the reaction of whoever opens the door to me when I say I’m just checking to see if they might be in the market for selling their property? Me, with no ID or business card, a made-up estate agent’s name, and hair that feels like it’s been glued on?’

  Holly stifled a giggle. ‘Your hair looks fine. And I told you, that’s what really happened to me one day. A guy turned up at the door asking the exact same thing…’

  ‘Yes, but he was a real, bona fide estate agent with an office you’d heard of, and…’