Single (ARC)

by K. L. Slater

  I grit my teeth. I can almost hear a clock ticking in my head. Every second, Harrison drifts further away from us.

  ‘Look, it’s up to you, Darcy.’ George holds his hands up in the air. ‘Far be it from me to tell you not to involve the police… and I think we should call them. All I’m saying is, let’s find out if she has got him before we do, if we can. Then police action will be so much quicker.’

  I look at him, see lines of worry etched around his mouth and eyes. He knows Opal better than anyone and is the best person to play her at her own game.

  ‘OK,’ I say. ‘Anything that will find Harrison. What do you think we need to do?’

  ‘I have a hunch where it is we need to head for.’

  I look back towards my car where two small frightened faces are taking it all in.

  George thinks for a moment. ‘I’ve got an idea. You wait here in your car, just in case it’s a false alarm and Harrison turns up again for the end of the game and his lift. And I’ll take the kids somewhere safe. It won’t take long.’

  Fifty-Nine

  When George and the kids have left, I get back in the car. But after two minutes of silence, sitting alone with my thoughts, I can’t bear it.

  ‘One more thing to try,’ I say out loud and I release the handbrake, steering the car back onto the road. I’ll retrace the route I know Harrison should have taken one more time, just in case he’s been sulking somewhere in the school grounds and is only just making his way home or back to the match for his lift.

  When I get close to the school field again, I spot a solitary figure dressed in jeans and a dark jacket hanging around the corner of the street opposite the school field. I can see the football team clearly from here, I can even see Mr Porter back in coaching mode. Harrison has clearly already been forgotten about.

  As I draw nearer, I see that the person is wearing a black knitted hat covering her hair and obscuring her face, but it’s not enough to disguise her. I know exactly who this is.

  Opal Vardy.

  * * *

  I park the car a little further up the street and run down to the corner.

  ‘Darcy!’ Opal looks around in alarm when I suddenly materialise in front of her.

  ‘Where’s my son?’ I walk forward until I’m really close, inside her personal space. My chest burns with an escalating heat that makes me want to lash out and I silently remind myself not to do anything silly.

  ‘What?’ She frowns.

  ‘Don’t play the innocent, Opal. I’ve seen the pictures you’ve posted online, and I know it was you who sent me those photos in the post. You keep popping up in places you shouldn’t be.’

  ‘I… Yes, I admit, I did send those photographs. To let you know I was watching, that was all.’

  ‘That’s all?’ This woman has no grasp on reality. ‘Skulking around a ten-year-old boy’s football matches, taking photos? And I’m guessing the tomato prank on my car was you too. What’s it all about?’

  Her cheeks colour. ‘Just to unnerve you, I suppose. So that you stay away from George and—’

  ‘And what?’

  She hesitates, as if she’s debating with herself whether to say something.

  ‘Where is he? Where’s Harrison?’ I step closer to her, feeling fury coursing through me. ‘I’m calling the police. This madness has gone on long enough.’ I curse myself again for leaving my phone at home. But this time I’ll go to the school office, ring the police from there.

  ‘Darcy, I… I swear,’ she stammers, ‘I haven’t seen your son. I was just standing here searching the field, wondering where he was.’

  ‘Why would you even wonder where my son is? He’s nothing at all to do with you!’

  Her eyes are wide and she actually looks nervous. In fact she looks awful. Black circles around her eyes, cheekbones popping out under stretched skin. She looks like she might keel over any second.

  ‘I knew something like this would happen,’ she whispers. ‘I had this feeling… something was in the air. I’ve been watching things develop, trying to warn you in my own way.’

  She’s either a fantastic liar or she’s telling the truth. But I don’t believe the latter, for a second.

  ‘Something might happen like what?’ She looks past me, into the middle distance, and I tug at the sleeve of her coat. ‘Something like what?’

  Her eyes refocus on my face, and at last she breaks the silence.

  ‘Something very bad. I want to tell you everything, I do,’ she says. ‘But can I trust you not to tell George?’

  I nearly laugh out loud. Opal Vardy is asking me to trust her instead of the man I live with, the man who has given me and my children a loving home.

  ‘But how can I trust you? You’ve been stalking my family, posting pictures of a life that isn’t even yours!’

  The only reason she can’t want George to know is because she still holds hope out of rekindling their ‘relationship’. If he finds out she’s telling more lies about him, she knows he’ll never come around to her skewed way of thinking.

  ‘You won’t regret listening to what I have to say,’ Opal continues, her eyes growing more hopeful as she senses doubt in me. ‘If you truly value your own safety and the safety of your children, then I beg you, listen to me for ten minutes without judging.’

  ‘I haven’t got ten minutes!’ I snap. ‘I need to find my son.’

  Harrison might already be home. Maybe he got distracted on the way, took longer than usual. But I can’t risk assuming that.

  I have to drive the streets and get back to the front of the school for when George gets back.

  My stomach is churning and I can feel my heartbeat up in my throat. I never take my eyes from Opal, and the longer I watch her, the more I see.

  Her big eyes and pale skin, the dimple to the left-hand side of her mouth. A familiarity I can’t pin down.

  ‘I have to keep looking for Harrison. I have to.’

  ‘I think I know where he is, where he’s gone. But I’ve had nothing to do with it, you have to believe that.’ She turns and begins to walk. ‘Where’s your car? I can talk while we drive.’

  ‘If you’ve had nothing to do with it, how do you know where Harrison is?’ I snap back at her.

  ‘Because I’ve seen things,’ she says ambiguously. ‘It’s a case of putting two and two together if you see what I mean.’

  I don’t see what she means at all, but time is running out.

  The air is damp. There’s going to be a heavy frost tonight, and I can feel the nip in the air. And Harrison is out there, somewhere.

  Just because Opal is here, it doesn’t mean she hasn’t already taken my son, locked him up somewhere.

  I spin around to face Opal. ‘Back off. I don’t trust you as far as I can throw you. You’re unhinged!’ I start walking back to my car. ‘I’m calling the police.’ She doesn’t have to know I haven’t got my phone with me.

  Opal follows me. I can hear her feet pattering behind me. I feel as if my head is about to blow off with the pressure building inside my skull.

  ‘Why have you been watching us?’

  She walks beside me, head down against the cold air. ‘I haven’t been watching you,’ she says. ‘Not really.’

  There’s a quality in her manner that is unexpected, surprisingly genuine. I push the thought away. I can’t allow her to fool me.

  I think about how I watched Daniela in the past, as if it could somehow give me answers as to why Joel didn’t choose me and the boys, why he didn’t leave his wife. And I remember how long I was able to successfully deny it, even to myself.

  ‘You have been watching us, and you stalked George for eighteen months before I even met him.’

  ‘I’ve known George a lot longer than eighteen months and it’s actually the opposite of stalking,’ she says curtly. ‘I’ve been protecting someone.’

  ‘What are you talking about? We don’t need protecting.’

  I unlock the car and she steps in front of me to st
op me getting in.

  ‘I’ve been protecting someone I love more than anything in the world. Someone I’d die for.’ She smiles, pulls off her hat. ‘I don’t want George; I don’t want to hurt you or your children. Look at me, Darcy. Really look. Look at my eyes, my smile…’

  I pull at the scarf around my neck and relish the kiss of the cold air against my hot, damp skin. What I’m thinking is far too ludicrous. Seeing her features close up, my mind has drawn an impossible line between two faces…

  I look away, but her stare doesn’t waver. When I glance back, her eyes burn into me like hot coals, her frosty demeanour crumbling in front of me.

  ‘I know you can see it. She looks just like me,’ she says, her voice breaking. ‘Romy is my daughter.’

  Sixty

  I slip into the car and Opal gets into the passenger seat. I’m too preoccupied to challenge her. I flick the rear window heater on and set the fans going on the windscreen. My head feels like it’s about to explode.

  We sit there in the car for a few moments, just staring out of the window. I’m stunned into silence, can’t bear her near me, yet a part of me doesn’t want her to go until I’ve processed what she’s said.

  If I felt as if I were overheating before, I’m chilled to the bone now. I feel as if my flesh is frozen solid.

  Opal is Romy’s mother? All the instances of George insisting we don’t involve the police rush at me. It seems impossible to grasp and yet it’s the only thing that adequately explains his continual denial in getting anything official in place to keep Opal away legally.

  If it’s true.

  Why should I believe a thing this woman tells me? Yes, she has a passing resemblance to Romy but… lots of people look alike who are no relation to each other.

  ‘I swear on my daughter’s life I haven’t taken your son, Darcy. I’m sorry for the things I’ve done to unnerve you, but I was desperate to drive you away. Not from George… but from Romy. I was terrified you were getting too close to her, would raise her to believe you were her mother.’

  I don’t acknowledge what she’s saying because one thought keeps recurring and it makes me feel nauseous: if Opal hasn’t taken Harrison, then who the hell has?

  Daniela’s face appears in my mind. When we spoke, she was so plausible, seemed so genuine. I accepted without hesitation that what she said was true, that she’d returned to help me recover from Joel’s betrayal.

  But what if she’s just pulled off the biggest betrayal of all?

  ‘Have you got a phone I can use?’ I ask. In my desperation I’m ready to plead with Steph to see if she knows anything about Harrison’s absence, even though there’s a risk she could use it against me to show I’m neglecting my kids.

  Opal shakes her head. ‘I just need a few minutes of your time.’

  She doesn’t wait for my reply. She simply begins to speak, staring straight ahead towards the expanse of the school field, where the football team are now leaving the pitch, as Harrison should have been doing.

  Somewhere between refusing to speak to her and this very moment, I realise I’ve given her licence to say exactly what she pleases about George and he’s not here to defend himself. I can’t verify a thing she tells me.

  ‘I don’t want to hear it,’ I say. ‘Get out of my car, please.’

  But it’s as if I haven’t spoken. She clears her throat.

  ‘My younger brother went to the same school as George,’ she begins.

  I interrupt her immediately.

  ‘George has told me about his school days, and they were awful. His father sent him away, and he experienced the most dreadful bullying.’

  She stares at me.

  ‘It was a hellhole all right. Twenty-five years ago there was none of the protection that’s in place in today’s schools, no anti-bullying policies or peer support groups.’

  So it seems George told me the truth.

  ‘My brother was only at St Mark’s for a short time, but he wrote to me at least half a dozen times. His final letter I received a few days after we heard he’d died. He must’ve posted it just before.’

  I glance at my watch, willing George to return.

  ‘My brother was murdered by a notorious gang of bullies at the school called the Panthers. All wealthy boys with influential parents whom even the teachers were afraid to challenge.’

  ‘Opal, where is all this going? Where do you think Harrison is?’

  ‘The leader of those bullies was a psychopath called George Mortimer.’

  I stare at her.

  ‘Yes, Darcy. Your George. The man you live with, the man you leave in charge of your children without a second thought.’

  Calm down. She could easily be lying. I can’t afford to accept every word she tells me. Her actions have been nothing but unstable and revengeful.

  ‘True to form, George operated from the shadows. He nearly destroyed him and then pretended to befriend my brother when he was at his lowest ebb. He successfully encouraged him to commit suicide. My brother was already terribly depressed, thanks to the constant bullying. George as good as murdered him.’

  It’s easy to blame someone else when a loved one takes their own life. Understandable, even. But you can’t just go around accusing people of doing such a terrible thing.

  ‘So… why didn’t George go to prison, if he murdered your brother?’

  ‘Because there was no proof.’ She throws her hands up in the air. ‘He was clever back then and he’s even cleverer now.’

  She seems to think I don’t know much about her and George when in actual fact he’s told me plenty. If she is lying and completely deluded I won’t gain anything by reacting aggressively. If she knows where Harrison is then I need to build some kind of rapport with her and quickly.

  ‘He told me he met you online. On a hospital forum, is that right?’

  She shakes her head. ‘No, though I did work at the hospital, in the archives. I’d searched everywhere for him for years, and then that was how I discovered him. Pure chance… my destiny, even.’

  She’s starting to sound unhinged, her thought patterns jumping about all over the place. She notices my expression.

  ‘Whatever you’re thinking, just hear me out,’ she says. ‘When I met George, I was a temp in archives and he was the quintessential handsome doctor with ambitions to become a surgeon. He seemed so kind and sympathetic, and everyone in his team looked up to him. The general consensus was that he was destined for great things. At first, I even questioned whether I had the right person, but of course, I had.’

  She’s not making a lot of sense. I feel like choking her to rush her along, get her to tell me where she ‘thinks’ Harrison might be.

  ‘We got on so well. Liked doing the same things, eating the same food. We even liked the same movies. I found myself wanting to believe he was the real deal, that my suspicions were a mistake. But when he said that because of his position at the hospital we had to keep our relationship a secret for the time being, I saw a glimmer of his underhand nature.’

  I resist the urge to hurry her along and let her tell me in her own time.

  ‘Did you overhear a conversation about an operation he did that went wrong? Did you turn up at the house claiming to be George’s girlfriend and demand Maria let you in?’

  She actually laughs and shakes her head. ‘You couldn’t be further from the truth!’

  Did George make that up, too… or is she the liar?

  ‘It’s hard to imagine, looking at me now, but he did seem to find me attractive, which is what I intended, of course. I don’t know if he really did.’ She looks at me. ‘I’ve asked him a dozen times, and he just gives me this strange smile. I think he’s a sadist at heart. I’m certain of it.’

  I think about George’s caring touch, his butterfly kisses on my eyelids before we go to sleep at night. I think about him saving Kane’s life that day at the park. Only a day ago, I’d have called Opal deluded. But now… now I know the truth about Romy – if it
is the truth – my whole reality has twisted on its axis.

  Yet George has done nothing to make me think he has another persona. Opal, on the other hand, has consistently showed her true colours.

  ‘It nearly killed me, but I had finally found him and so I had to make it count. I pretended I was in love with him, told him I was on the pill and fell pregnant in record time. That was when the real horror began.’

  ‘Why would you do that?’ I look at her aghast. ‘After everything that supposedly happened with your brother… You knew what kind of a man George was and yet you purposely got pregnant with his child?’

  She gives me a look like it should be obvious. ‘My only intention was to have his child and take the baby away. I never wanted him.’ Regret and pain burn on her pale, worn face. ‘I wanted him to feel what I felt when I lost my brother. So he would know what it felt like to lose the person you love the most in the world.’

  I think about this. That someone would go to such extreme lengths, use a tiny baby to exact revenge. It makes me nervous of being in Opal’s company all over again.

  ‘What happened?’ I’m frightened of hearing what she has to say, but I have no choice. There are three children to think about. Three children living with a possible sadistic psychopath who also happens to be a pathological liar.

  Even as I say it, I don’t really believe it. And yet… I’ve suspected something doesn’t add up about George and Opal for a long time now. Who should I believe?

  ‘George was furious when I told him I was pregnant. He told me I’d have to get rid of it, that I’d have to choose between the child and him.’ She shakes her head in disgust. ‘I played along at first, said I’d have a termination. I secretly went for my first scan and found out I was having twins. It might sound silly, but I wasn’t prepared for the strength of emotion I felt towards my babies. Suddenly, hurting George didn’t seem the most important thing any more.’

  I’m too shocked to make comment.

  Opal takes a breath and tries to disguise a sob.