by S. J. Watson
‘A birthmark.’ I point to my own body. ‘Just here.’
At first she says nothing. She shakes her head. She looks hurt, devastated. ‘You . . . bitch.’
The last word is hissed. Of course she hates me, and I hate myself for having to do this to her.
‘Anna! . . . I’m sorry . . .’
She’s standing just on the other side of the barrier now. If either of us were to reach over we could touch each other, yet she is utterly unreachable, as if the barrier between us were impenetrable.
We both remain utterly still, just staring. A moment later a voice cuts in with a jolt.
‘Is there some kind of a problem here?’
I look over. It’s the guard. He’s standing just beyond Anna. We both shake our head. ‘No. It’s fine.’ Dimly, I’m aware that I’m blocking the barrier, a queue is forming behind me.
‘Could you move along, please?’ He sounds so calm; his politeness clashes with what’s going on.
I put my hand out, palm up, as if offering something. ‘Anna, please.’ She looks at it as if it’s an unknown object, dangerous, alien. ‘Anna?’
‘Why are you doing this?’ She’s crying now, tears pouring down her cheeks. ‘I thought we were friends . . .’
‘We were.’ I’m desperate, insistent. ‘We still are.’ I wish I could make her understand, let her know I’m doing this because I do love her, not because I don’t. I get out my phone. ‘He’s not the person you think he is. Ryan, I mean. Believe me.’
‘You have everything. From the moment I told you we were engaged you haven’t been able to even pretend to be happy for me. I feel sorry for you. D’you know that?’
‘No—’ I begin, but she interrupts me.
‘I’ve had enough.’ She turns to go, and I try to grip her arm. The guy watching us steps forward; again he asks us to move along.
‘Give me a second, will you? Please?’
I have to make Anna understand, before she gets on the train and disappears back to Paris and everything is lost. Otherwise she’ll marry this man and ruin her life. It hits me that, even if I succeed, Lukas will carry out his threat, send Hugh the pictures. Whatever happens I might lose everything.
I feel myself slip back into the blackness, but I know I can’t. This is my last chance to do the right thing.
‘Wait a minute. I need you to hear something.’ The rest of the station disappears; I can think of nothing else. It’s just me and her. My words come out in a rush. ‘He’s . . . I know him as Lukas . . . he’s the one I met through the website you told me about . . . he . . . he’s . . . he’s got to Connor. He’s been following him . . . following me, too . . . he’s flipped, I swear . . .’
‘Liar.’ Over and over again she says it. ‘You’re a liar. A liar.’
‘I can prove it.’ I hold my phone in front of me. ‘Just listen to this. Please. And then—’
‘Miss. I’m going to have to ask you to move out of the way. Now.’
He steps between us. My desperation turns to anger; the world comes back in a furious rush. The station seems noisy and I don’t know whether Anna will be able to hear my recording. A small crowd has now gathered, on both sides of the barrier, staring at us. A man has taken his phone out and is taking pictures.
‘Please! This is important.’ I’m fumbling with my phone, unlocking the screen, opening the file. ‘Please, Anna? For Kate?’
She stares. It’s calm, suddenly, and then the guard asks me again to move away. This is my last chance.
‘Just give her this. Please?’
‘Miss—’ he begins, but Anna interrupts him. She’s holding out her hand.
‘I’ll listen. I don’t know what you want, but I’ll listen.’
I hand the phone to the man standing between us, and he passes it to Anna.
‘Press play. Please?’ She hesitates, then does so. She stands, her head craned forward. The section I’d selected is ready. My voice, his voice. Just as it’d been in the taxi. She’s too far away and I can’t hear what she’s listening to, but I know it by heart: ‘. . . a nice little arrangement . . . I don’t love her.’ She plays enough, just a few moments, then it ends. She crumples. It’s as if all the tension of the last few minutes has caused her to snap.
‘I’m sorry.’
She looks at me. She’s crushed. She seems diminished, empty. All emotion is squeezed out. I wish I could reach out, comfort her. I can’t bear the thought of doing this to her and then sending her on her way. Back home. Alone.
Then she speaks.
‘I don’t believe you. It doesn’t even sound like him. Ryan’s right.’
I see the doubt on her face. She’s not sure.
‘Listen again. Listen—’
‘It’s not him.’ Her voice falters, broken. ‘It can’t be.’
Her free hand goes to my phone, though. She presses the play button, tries to turn up the volume.
‘Love Anna? . . . I don’t love her.’
‘Anna. Please . . .’ There’s a hand on my arm, someone tugging at the sleeve of my jacket, trying to drag me away.
‘Anna?’
She looks up at me, then. The expression on her face is chilling, her eyes wide with disbelief and pure horror. It’s as if I’m watching all of her plans evaporate, taking flight like nervous birds, leaving nothing behind.
‘I’m sorry.’
‘We need to talk.’ It’s so quiet I can barely hear her. The crowd around us senses the breaking tension and begins to move, to go back to their day. The bubble of drama that had formed in front of them has burst. Anna turns to the official standing between us and says, ‘Can you let me back through? Please? I need to talk to my friend . . .’
Time seems to speed up. The world has been on pause, held in the thrall of her fury, and my desperation. But now it’s all been released; it crashes in. The noise of the station, the bustle and chatter, the old piano that’s been installed on the concourse and which somebody is playing badly, the same phrase, again and again. I take her arm and she doesn’t resist; together we go, up the escalator, supporting each other. We’re silent. I suggest a coffee, but she shakes her head, says she needs a drink. I need one, too, I tell myself I could, just this once, but I force the thought away. Anna is crying, her voice cracks as she tries to speak. She fumbles for a tissue and we go upstairs to the bar. I feel wretched, my guilt is almost overwhelming. All I can think is, I’ve done this. This is my fault.
We sit under the umbrellas. Behind me the door leads to the hotel, to the room in which Lukas and I first had sex. Memories of our affair are everywhere, and I look away, trying to ignore them. Anna is murmuring something about her train. ‘I’m going to miss it,’ she says, stating the obvious. ‘I want to go home.’
I hand her a tissue. ‘Don’t worry. I’ll help. You can stay with me, or—’
‘No. Why would I want to do that?’
She looks angry. It’s as if things are finally coalescing for her, the hurt she feels condensing, becoming easier to comprehend. I want to do something, make some small gesture, however meaningless.
‘Then I’ll pay for you to go on the next train. But Anna, you have to let me explain. I didn’t want any of this to happen . . .’
‘I can pay for my own ticket.’ She’s defiant, but then she looks down at her lap. I imagine she wonders how she could ever have got herself into this situation, how she could have let herself trust Ryan. And also how she could have ever trusted me. The waiter comes over and I order some water and a glass of white wine. He asks which we want, whether we’d like to see the list. ‘Anything. Just the house white is fine . . .’
Anna looks up once he’s moved away. ‘Why?’
‘I don’t know. Believe me. I never knew . . . I didn’t know that that man, Lukas was seeing you. If I had, I’d never have dreamt—’
‘You mean he didn’t tell you? He didn’t tell you he was engaged? To me?’
‘No.’ I’m emphatic. ‘Of course not.’ I want to make her understand; right now it’s all that seems to matter.
‘And you didn’t think to ask?’
‘Anna, no. I didn’t. He was wearing a wedding ring—’
She interrupts me, shocked.
‘A ring?’
‘Yes. He told me he’d been married, once, but that his wife had died. That was it. I thought he was single. I didn’t . . . I wouldn’t have seen him if I’d known he was involved with someone else. Least of all you . . .’
Even as I say it I wonder if it’s true. Am I kidding myself? My relationship with Lukas had developed incrementally, had started off with my search for the truth, developed into chatting online, and from there had turned into what it became. Even if he had been married, or engaged, at what point would I have stopped it, said, no, this far but no further? At what point should I have done that?
There’s a point when an online dalliance might become dangerous, but who can really say when it is?
‘I swear.’
‘And I’m supposed to believe that?’
I feel a flicker of anger, of injured pride, but her face is impassive.
‘He pursued me, Anna. You might not want to hear that, and I’m sorry, but you need to know. He came after me.’
She blinks. ‘You’re lying. He wouldn’t.’
Her words are a slap. They sting. Why not? I want to say. Why wouldn’t he? I’m aware again of the way he’d made me feel. Young, desirable. Alive.
‘Because of my age?’
She sighs. ‘I’m sorry,’ she says. ‘I didn’t mean that. I just meant . . .’ The sentence dissolves, her head sags to her chest. She looks exhausted. ‘I don’t know what to think.’
‘Anna—’
She raises her head. She looks defeated, she’s searching for help, for somewhere to turn. ‘Tell me what happened. I want it all.’
And so I do. I tell everything, in great detail. She’s silent as I talk. Five minutes. Ten. The waiter comes with the glass of wine and my water, but I push my drink away and keep talking. There are things she’s heard before, and things she hasn’t, yet this is the first time she’s known the story is not about me and a stranger but about me and her fiancé. I find it hard enough; for her the pain must be unbearable. Every time I ask her if she’d like me to stop she shakes her head. She says she needs to hear it. I tell her about Lukas’s first approach. I tell her that we’d started to message regularly, that I thought he lived abroad, in Milan, that he told me he travelled a lot. I explained that he’d asked me to go and meet him, in real life, and because I’d thought it could only happen once and might lead me to the truth about my sister I’d done so.
‘And you had sex?’ Her lips are set in a hard line. I hesitate. She knows we did.
I nod.
‘What was it like?’
‘Anna. Please . . . I’m not sure it’s a good idea—’
‘No. Tell me.’
I know she wants to hear that it was disappointing. That we didn’t click, that it was obvious his heart wasn’t in it. She wants to be allowed to think what they have is special, and that what happened between me and him was a one-off, nothing.
I can’t lie, but neither do I want to make her feel any worse than she already does.
I look away. Unwittingly, my eyes are drawn to the statue across the platforms. ‘It was . . . all right.’
‘All right. So you never saw him again, after that one time. Right?’
Her sarcasm is caustic. She knows I did.
‘I never intended for it to become an affair. I never intended any of it.’
‘And yet here we are.’
‘Yes. Here we are. But you must understand, Anna, I didn’t know he even knew you. I promise. What can I swear on?’ I whisper. ‘Connor’s life? Believe me, if that’s what it takes I will.’
She looks at the wine in the glass in front of her, then back up to me. She seems to make a decision. ‘Why? Why is he doing this?’
‘I don’t know. Money?’
‘What d’you mean?’
‘He knows Kate left money to you, and to Connor. Maybe he was hoping to get his hands on Connor’s share as well as yours—’
‘He isn’t going to get his hands on mine!’ She sounds shocked, affronted. ‘We’re getting married!’
‘I’m sorry. You know what I mean.’
‘And how would he get his hands on yours, anyway?’
Once again I look away. ‘He has pictures. Pictures of us. Of me . . .’
‘Having sex?’ She sounds devastated, the words are seeping out.
I nod. I lower my voice. ‘He’s threatened to show them to people. To Hugh.’
I see Hugh’s face, sitting at the dining table, looking at the pictures. He looks confused, then shocked, then angry. ‘How could you do this?’ he’s saying. ‘How could you?’
‘He’s asked you for Connor’s money?’ says Anna. I think about blackmail. If I let it start, it’d never stop. He’d just demand more and more and more.
‘Not yet. But he might.’
She looks down again. Her eyes seem to lose their focus. She slowly nods her head. She’s remembering, piecing things together.
‘That recording,’ she says eventually. ‘He says he doesn’t love me.’
I reach across the table and take her hand.
‘None of this is your fault. Remember that. He could be anyone. He’s probably not called Ryan or Lukas. We don’t know who he is, Anna. Neither of us does . . .’ I take a deep breath, this is painful. I’m trying to support her when I have no strength left myself.
But I have to do this.
‘Anna,’ I say. I hate myself for asking her, but know I must. ‘Has he ever hurt you?’
‘Hurt me? No. Why?’
‘During sex, I mean?’
‘No!’ She answers a little too quickly, and I wonder whether she’s telling me the whole truth.
‘I just wanted to make sure—’
She looks horrified. ‘Oh my God. You still think he killed Kate?’
‘No,’ I say. ‘I’m certai
n he didn’t. He can’t have—’
‘You’re crazy,’ she says, but at the same time I see horror flash on her face. It’s as if I can see her faith, her belief in her fiancé, disappear.
‘He killed Kate,’ she says.
‘No. He can’t have—’
She interrupts.
‘No! You don’t understand,’ she says. She’s speaking quickly, caught up in the whirring cogs of her own fantasy. I’d done it myself, not long ago. Tried to make his behaviour fit into a pattern I could recognize. ‘He might’ve met her, online, then found out about the money. He might’ve got close to me just to get to her, then killed her, and—’
‘No. No, it’s coincidence. Lukas was in Australia when Kate died. And anyway—’
‘But we don’t know that! He might’ve lied to both of us . . .’
‘They’ve caught the man who killed her. Remember?’
She still looks unconvinced. I go on. ‘Anyway, there’re photos. They show him, in Australia. They’re dated from the time that Kate was killed . . .’
‘Is that conclusive? I mean, can’t you alter those things?’
I don’t answer. ‘But the main thing is they caught him, Anna. They caught the man who killed her.’
It seems finally to sink in. ‘I don’t believe this,’ she says. A low moan starts in her throat; I think she’s going to scream. ‘How could he do this to me? How could he?’
‘It’ll be okay. I promise.’
‘I have to end it, don’t I?’ I nod. She reaches for her bag. ‘I’ll do it now . . .’
‘No! No, you mustn’t. He can’t know I’ve told you. He said if I told you he’d show Hugh those pictures. Anna, we have to be clever about this . . .’
‘How?’
I’m silent. I know what I want her to do. To wait for a while, to pretend to the man she calls Ryan that she’s still in love with him. And then to end it, in a way that seemingly has nothing to do with me.