Dare to Remember: Shocking. Page-Turning. Psychological Thriller.

by Susanna Beard

  She pauses for a moment to steady her breathing. She tries a different tack, her words slow and clear. “So do you remember what you said to me?” A slight movement from her mum on her right. They hadn’t discussed this.

  He looks at her then, a hint of uncertainty, his eyes meeting hers for a brief moment before he looks away, then at Sarah. She nods, as if to allow the question.

  “There was a lot of shouting and screaming, that’s all I know.” His tone is dismissive now.

  She wants to scream at him. The fear has gone and she feels nothing but anger. All the tension of the past months mounting, a volcano on the brink.

  “Come on, Fergus, you must remember – what did you say to me?” Her voice has risen, a sharp edge to it, and both Sarah and her mum turn to look at her, startled. Her mum tugs at her arm as if to say: “steady”, but she has to do this.

  “I don’t know,” Fergus says. “What do you want from me? I don’t know what I said to you.”

  “You said,” she says, leaning forward, enunciating each word with precision. He lifts his eyes at the cold fury in her voice. “You said, ‘Who’s it going to be, Lisa? You, or her?’”

  She pauses as realisation dawns on him, the colour draining from his face, his eyes wide open with what looks like fear. There’s a sharp intake of breath from her mum, but she can’t stop now, she has to get it all out. A slight shake of his head, a denial, makes her yet more determined. His eyes are fastened to hers as if by some invisible thread. She won’t let go. He has to know.

  “You gave me the choice. You had a knife to my throat, and you… you made me choose.”

  *

  Her heavy words fall into the room. There’s a long silence while everyone absorbs what she’s said. She can feel their eyes on her, but she holds Fergus in her power now and she won’t let go.

  He swallows noisily and sits straight in his chair. He unclenches his hands, places them flat on his thighs.

  He flashes a look at Sarah. “She’s lying. I never said that.” He drops his gaze to the floor but his voice carries round the room, echoing in Lisa’s head.

  Her body tightens with fury and she almost rises from her chair. Sarah holds her hand out, palm down, a gesture that makes Lisa sit back, biting her lip.

  “Do you remember what you did say?” Sarah says.

  “No. I already said, I can’t remember. But I never said that, I wouldn’t have said that.”

  Sarah’s hand drops and Lisa jumps up from her chair, her hands balled into tight fists. “But you did, Fergus. You made me choose. You were holding me by the hair. The knife was cutting into my throat, I was bleeding. You made me choose.” From the corner of her eye she sees the others flinch at the venom in her voice.

  Sarah leans forward. “Lisa, please sit down.”

  She sits, her body stiff. “You made me choose, Fergus.”

  “I didn’t! What do you want from me?” His voice rises and Sarah leans forward as if to contain him. Everybody waits.

  Is he really going to deny it? How can he? Will they let him get away with it? “I want you to recognise – what you did to us.”

  There’s a long pause. They all look at Fergus. He stares in silence at his hands, elbows on his thighs, head down. Then, slowly, he lifts his arms, curls them up and back and holds his head in a tight embrace, shielding his face. The supporter on his left puts a hand on his shoulder.

  His voice is low and shaky. “I didn’t know what I was doing. I didn’t mean… I’m sorry.”

  “So you do remember?”

  “I’m not sure, it’s all a haze, I was out of my head. I just wanted the screaming to stop, that’s all it was. That’s all I remember.”

  “Just because you can’t remember, it doesn’t excuse you, and it doesn’t make it go away,” she says in a rush, the words tumbling over each other. “It was horrific, what you did, and what you made me do.”

  “What do you want me to say?” he says again, but this time all the confrontation in his voice has gone.

  “You cut my throat, you caused the death of my best friend. And you – you made me betray her.”

  “I’m sorry. I really am. I don’t know what else to say.”

  His voice doesn’t sound sorry. It’s not enough. She wants him to feel her pain.

  “What you can explain is why. Why me, why us? We hadn’t done anything to hurt you.”

  His eyes flick back to hers and he shakes his head. “I wasn’t myself. The drugs…”

  “You were supposed to be our friend.” She spits it out. “We were close…” Realising what she’s saying, she stops, her heart pounding, she’s almost let it slip out. Wide-eyed, she looks at him and sees a flash of understanding.

  “I know, we were. But I lost it, completely. Something happened to me – the drugs, the drink. Some kind of mad, jealous rage. I really fucked up. I’m sorry, Lisa. I was your friend and I’m sorry for everything.”

  She holds his gaze, searching for the lie. But all she can see is need. Is he looking for forgiveness? A strange mixture of emotions grip her – grief, anger, sympathy? There was a time when she’d liked him, laughed with him, trusted him, even. Sitting there facing her he looks young and vulnerable. Her fear falls away. He’s just a lad who’s been overtaken by events, no more. His life has been wrecked, too – it’s his own fault, and he knows it. He’s not evil, he’s sad. The whole bloody thing is sad. Her eyes well up and she fights to keep the tears at bay.

  There’s a long pause, then Sarah sits straight in her chair and everyone changes position in their seats, as if a gust of wind has touched the room.

  “Lisa, perhaps you could describe to us how you’ve been affected by the events of that evening.”

  Lisa takes a moment, steeling herself.

  “My life is completely different. I get flashbacks and nightmares. I haven’t slept properly since that day. I’m too frightened to go out to work. I’m scared of everything: men, loud noises, public places, strangers. I’ve been on medication for depression ever since.”

  That’s the speech over with, then – the one she’s rehearsed. She soldiers on with the rest, unable to stop.

  “When I remembered – that I made the choice – I was completely devastated. I felt like I’d killed Ali myself. I didn’t think that my meagre existence was even worth living.” Chloe grips her hand tightly and she daren’t look at her because she knows there’ll be tears on her face and she can’t bear to see them.

  There’s a long silence while her words seem to echo around the bare room.

  “How do you feel about that, Fergus?” Sarah says.

  “I wish it never happened,” he says with a look of sheer desperation. “I regret it every day. I never meant to hurt anybody. I’m ashamed of what I made you do, and I’m so sorry.”

  *

  They excuse themselves from tea and biscuits after the meeting. It strikes Lisa as a bizarre idea, to be sharing a civilised snack with Ali’s killer, after all that’s been said and done. She’s overwhelmed with exhaustion. Enough is enough, I’ve said what I came to say, she thinks. I know all there is to know, now.

  Sarah winds up the formal part of the meeting. She asks for a measurable outcome – a promise from Fergus to his victim. Lisa and her mum have discussed this in advance. They want him to get clean. If drugs really have played their part, then he needs to give them up if he’s going to change.

  He agrees to rehabilitation and therapy. Lisa offers him no option. His remorse seems genuine, though, and she can’t ask for more. When he leaves the room, flanked by his probation officer and a guard, he shuffles and dawdles like a small child.

  She just wants to get away, calm her roller coaster emotions and absorb the events of the day in her own environment. She needs Riley, his constant warmth, his soft coat.

  *

  The train clacks and rumbles towards home.

  She collapses in a heap of fatigue at a window seat, staring unseeing at the ground racing by. The cold of the pr
ison has touched her bones and she’s chilled to the core. Her mind’s frozen, too.

  Chloe falls asleep straight away, her head lolling. Lisa knows she has some explaining to do, but there will be plenty of time to talk later. Sarah sits opposite Lisa, making notes.

  After an hour or so her mum wakes up and Sarah orders hot drinks for them all. When they arrive, she looks at Lisa. “How do you think that went?”

  She attempts to kick-start her brain.

  “I’m still trying to decide. It was really hard seeing him again,” she says. “At first, I thought he was going to be resistant and deny it all, and I didn’t want him to get away with it. I started to get really angry.”

  “It’s understandable,” Sarah says.

  “But I believe him. I don’t think he can remember what happened. And at the end he seemed genuinely sorry for what he did.”

  “Were you frightened of him?”

  “I was at first. But at the end, he seemed ordinary. And scared, too. I almost felt sorry for him.” She sighs. “It’s all so sad.”

  Her mum nods. “I didn’t know you’d remembered more. Why didn’t you tell me, darling?”

  “It was only a few days ago. I’m sorry, I’m still coming to terms with it myself. I don’t want anyone to blame me for Ali’s death. I didn’t mean for him to hurt her.”

  Tears stream down Chloe’s face as she leans over and hugs Lisa. They break apart and rest their foreheads together.

  “What a terrible thing for you to deal with.” Sarah’s eyes are full of sympathy. “Are you getting some support?”

  Lisa turns towards her. “A lot of therapy.”

  “Do you think today’s meeting will help?”

  “I need to think about it for a while, absorb it properly. He doesn’t remember what happened and I still don’t know why he did it. I suppose I’ll never know what came over him. Will I feel any sense of resolution? I don’t know.”

  “Sometimes there’s no logical reason for someone behaving like that, particularly when drugs are involved. You just happened to be there.”

  “So it’s all down to bad luck?”

  “Maybe.”

  Lisa thinks about that for a while, the countryside passing in a blur of green and grey. The train rolls and sways with a comforting, hypnotic rhythm and she closes her eyes. Perhaps she should stop asking why and how. Perhaps it’s all down to fate, or luck, or randomness. But it’s the betrayal that she needs to come to terms with.

  *

  It takes a long time for her to regroup after the prison visit. When she gets back home, it feels like she’s been away for weeks and the house has that odd feeling of neglect that follows a long holiday.

  In many ways seeing him again was cathartic. She’s no longer frightened of him, she knows she feels sorry for him, even though she doesn’t want to admit it. She hadn’t foreseen that.

  He’d gone to the flat in a drugged state, not meaning to attack them, hurt or kill them. She’s pretty certain of that. When he did attack them, it was because he’d lost his mind on drugs, and in the end he just wanted to stop the screaming. There was no other reason.

  And he doesn’t remember the moment when Ali fell.

  They would never know what really happened, whether she was pushed, or fell by accident, or even jumped, as he’d claimed at the beginning. Whatever happened, she fell and died, and there was nothing they could do about it. Whatever Lisa had said in reply to Fergus, that’s the fact of the matter.

  I didn’t mean him to harm Ali. I didn’t know what he would do. If she says it often enough, perhaps she’ll end up believing it.

  *

  “You look different,” Graham says. It’s the first time she’s seen him since the prison visit. It’s getting on for two weeks now.

  “I feel different,” she says.

  “In what way?”

  “Fergus seems less important. I’m not as frightened of him.”

  He nods. “Well, that’s good. What do you mean, less important?”

  “He didn’t remember what he made me do – I had to tell him. So I felt more in control than him. And he had no excuses for what he did, only the drugs.”

  “Does that make you feel better about what he made you do?”

  “I still wish I’d chosen myself instead of Ali, if that’s what you mean. But I don’t know if it would have made any difference. Anything could have happened, no matter what I said.”

  “So do you think you played a part in Ali’s death?”

  “Yes, indirectly.”

  He nods, a minuscule movement of his head.

  “Does that bother you, that you’ll never know?”

  “Yes and no. I don’t know. I’m hoping I can come to terms with it.”

  Another tiny nod. “Will you tell anyone else about it?”

  “I’m not sure, now. If it’s less important to me, it matters less if people know. It depends who it is and why they need to know, I suppose. I’m still not sure what to tell Ali’s family. I don’t know how they would react and whether they need any more horrible detail than they’ve already had.”

  “Does your mum know?”

  “She was there when I confronted him, so yes. It was a shock for her, though, she knew nothing about it.”

  “How was she after the meeting?”

  “She wanted to know why I hadn’t told her, of course. But when we talked about it, she understood why. It was because I felt so ashamed. And horribly guilty. I couldn’t tell anybody.”

  “And is that how you’re feeling now?”

  “It’s only been a couple of weeks.”

  He shifts in his chair, crosses his legs the other way. Today his socks are matching. He looks more rested, the lines on his forehead softening into his fringe.

  “How are the nightmares? Flashbacks?”

  “I’ve not had any flashbacks since we saw him. Bit early to tell, probably. The nightmares have lessened too. I’d call it disturbed sleep, but not every night. I’ve slept much better in the last few days.”

  “That must be a huge relief for you.”

  “It is. Waking up not feeling desperate, even once a week, is a massive improvement. If I can sleep better, maybe gradually I can get back to who I am.”

  “Do you want to go back to how you were, before the attack?”

  “I meant… finding out who I am now. It’s hard to find the right words. But I don’t want to focus on myself any more. I need to think about other things, other people, rather than myself and what happened to me.”

  “Do you think that will help?”

  “Definitely. I’ve thought about little else for nearly two years. Quite apart from the lack of sleep, it was pretty awful being me.”

  *

  She doesn’t want to be ungenerous or self-pitying. She tries to block the feelings whenever they strike, which is usually when she thinks about other people’s good fortune. There are plenty of people who seem to sail through life with nothing getting in their way, only happy times and success punctuating their voyage.

  She discusses these feelings with Graham.

  “I don’t want to end up a sad, bitter person because of what happened to me. I don’t want my life to be formed or overtaken by it. I know it sounds childish, but it feels really unfair. Why couldn’t I have a normal life?”

  “Who do you know who has had a normal life?”

  “Well, there are lots of people.”

  “Like?”

  “Well…” She looks at Graham, who waits for her reply.

  “Your mum?”

  “Not my mum, because of losing Dad so young.”

  “Jessica, then.”

  “Yes, except her husband beat her up.”

  “Who else?”

  “I can’t think. I’m sure I know plenty, but I can’t think of them.”

  “Do you see what I’m getting at? Things happen to everybody. Other people’s traumas may not seem as bad as what happened to you, but for them, those things are pr
obably pretty awful.”

  “I suppose so.”

  “And they’re affected in various ways. And maybe they change because of what happened to them. But it doesn’t mean that changing is a bad thing. Or that people lose control of what they want and how they live the rest of their lives.”

  “Yes. I mean, no. I think I get what you’re saying.”

  CHAPTER NINE

  There’s a tumble of letters and leaflets on the mat by the front door. Most of it is junk mail, but there’s one envelope, thick and white, that catches her attention. Her name and address are typed and she doesn’t recognise the name on the franked stamp at the top.

  It takes her a while to read the letter, though it isn’t long.

  In formal legal language, it informs her that Mr John Grey, recently deceased, has left £50,000 in his will to Ms Lisa Fulbrook.

  Unbelieving, she rereads it until the words and the numbers jump out at her in a bewildering jumble. When Riley’s bark at the back door announces his desire to come in, she leaps up from the table with a sudden burst of nervous energy, her slippers sliding on the tiled floor.

  To give herself time to absorb the incredible news, she makes up the log burner in the sitting room, waits for a flame to take hold, then plops herself down on the sofa and picks up the letter again.

  “Well, I’ll be. Bloody hell.” Riley looks up at her as she lets her body fall backwards, lifting her feet into the air.

  “Fifty thousand pounds, Riley! John’s left us fifty grand!” He wags his tail and lands his front paws next to her. She hugs him until he wriggles, kissing the top of his soft, shiny head. He licks her ear in response, infected by her excitement.

  Lisa has never had much money in her adult life and she can’t remember the family having much, either. Chloe had always worked part-time and survived on that income and a small widow’s pension, while Lisa’s pay has never allowed her to do more than foot the bills and put food on the table. She’d received a small sum in compensation for her injury but it’s pretty much all gone on therapy.