The Storm

by Amanda Jennings

  I stop walking. He does the same and we face each other. I should fabricate something. Another lie to add to the towering pile, but even though lying has become second nature, right now I’m weary of it. Exhausted, in fact. Lying seems easier, a quick fix to hide something more complicated, but it’s much more demanding than recalling what actually happened. You have to take more factors into account: credibility, plausibility, consequence, as well as remembering not to give yourself away with any number of tells. You have to act to affect honesty. It’s energy sapping. So I decide not to lie.

  ‘He saw you.’

  Rather than watch him try and work out what I’ve said, I turn and walk on down the track.

  ‘Hannah?’ He catches up with me and touches my arm.

  ‘That night. He saw you. He watched you go out to sea.’ I blink slowly and take a breath. ‘And he waited and watched you come in. He was there. Hidden behind the buildings.’

  Cam’s brow furrows as he attempts to process what I’m saying. ‘But if he saw me… why didn’t he tell the police? It wasn’t as if he didn’t hate me. He did. Why did he keep quiet?’ He shakes his head as if attempting to dislodge something. ‘I don’t understand.’

  I take a deep breath and dredge the next words up from deep inside me. ‘He was going to go to the police. I asked him not to. Begged him, in fact. He told me he loved me. Said you were no good and violent and he should do the right thing and turn you in. And… I said…’ I blow air slowly out and wince. This is harder to get out than I ever could have imagined. ‘If you love me, you won’t.’

  My hands tremble as if an electric charge is passing through them. I stop walking and we face each other again. His face is pale. His lips drawn tight.

  My stomach somersaults. Why did I tell him? I should have lied. I should have lied, but I didn’t and now it’s too late. I press on, ignoring the gathering nausea.

  ‘Then…’ I hesitate and shake my head.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Then he asked me if I loved him. And… and I said yes, because I didn’t know what else to say, because I didn’t want anything to happen to you and my head was clouded up.’ I pause and purse my lips, glance up at the darkening sky. ‘He said if I really did love him I’d be with him and not you.’

  Cam is silent.

  ‘It was a pact, Cam. A deal. He wouldn’t go to the police about what he’d seen if I ended our relationship to be with him.’ My throat constricts as memories of that conversation bear down heavily. Dread had curdled my blood as my world caved in. ‘It went from there. Things snowballed and gathered pace. It was like I was trapped in a car hurtling towards a cliff. I couldn’t think straight. My brain was full of mud. And, God, I was scared. I was so, so scared. The thought of the police getting involved? Visions of you and me in prison.’ I pause and blink slowly. ‘It seemed like my only option. It seemed like the right thing to do.’

  Understanding gathers on Cam’s face like a squall.

  ‘I couldn’t let you go to prison. And,’ I sigh heavily, ‘I didn’t want to go to prison either. I kept thinking about Mum and Dad and how it would destroy them. They would have been so ashamed.’

  ‘You wouldn’t have gone to prison,’ he whispers.

  Dusk has set in and his features are becoming obscured in the murky light.

  ‘I hated him from that moment. We slept together. The night you left.’ I pause to wipe the tears away. It hurts to recall it, me lying there rigid and scared, my mind closing down as he kissed me and told me he loved me in hot sticky whispers. ‘I thought about calling his bluff. Leaving him and trying find you. I thought we could get on a plane to somewhere miles away, like Mexico, like they do in American films, and it wouldn’t matter if he told the police.’ I rub my face and smile ruefully. ‘But then a month or so later I found out I was pregnant and everything changed. I had to stay. Because what else could I do?’ I breathe steadily, trying, but failing, to stem my tears. ‘How could I be pregnant and go to prison? They would have taken him away from me. Put him into care.’

  I bite down on my lip until I taste a trace of blood. His breathing has grown heavier and I’m aware of his body tensing, as if he is about to speak. I press on, worried that if I let him talk now, I won’t finish what I need to say.

  ‘When Alex was a few weeks old I ran away. I had no idea where we were going. I was all over the place with postnatal depression. I’m sure I was suffering some sort of PTSD as well. I had nightmares. I’d relive it all over and over again.’ I blot my tears with my sleeve. ‘Nathan found me at the station. He was furious and threatened everything. The police. Prison. Custody of Alex. He said he couldn’t trust me and after that he barely let me out of his sight.’

  The air around us is damp with the approaching night and I realise how cold I am, my teeth chattering softly. I wrap my arms around my body.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Cam whispers.

  I shake my head. ‘Don’t be. I love Alex with all my heart and having him gave my life meaning. I haven’t told you this because I want your sympathy and I don’t want you to worry about me. I just want you to know I didn’t choose him because he was a lawyer or because of the big house or the money or the spotless car we aren’t allowed to breathe in.’ I pause and take a step closer to him. ‘Watching you walk away was the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do and it haunts me every single day.’

  Before I know what’s happening, he has put his arms around me. His body is lean and hard. He smells strange and my breath catches. I rest my cheek against his chest and my tears soak into the fabric of his shirt. I can hear his heart beating and it takes me back to when we were young, when I laid my cheek against this same part of him and dreamt of being happy forever.

  I can’t do this.

  ‘I need to get back.’ I push myself away from him. ‘This is wrong. Jesus. If Nathan finds out I’ve seen you, he’ll go to the police.’

  Cam reaches for my hand but I snatch it away.

  ‘Hannah, listen, he won’t go to the police.’

  ‘You don’t know him. He will—’

  ‘He won’t. He’s a lawyer. He knows he can’t. If he saw me that night and didn’t report it, he’s in as much trouble as I am. Keeping quiet makes him complicit. There’s no way he’s going to let himself go to prison for a fifteen-year-old crime he didn’t commit. Think about it.’

  His words take shape in my head and leave me breathless. I could kick myself for being so stupid. So naive. How can I not have seen such an obvious thing in all these years? If he goes to the police he’ll have to explain why he withheld information. Information which would have shed light on a missing person. Withholding information is a crime. There’s no way Nathan will take himself down. Not for a crime he didn’t commit. Especially when the crime is murder.

  My mind races so fast it trips over itself as I realise he couldn’t even prove he wasn’t involved himself. It would be his word against ours. Nathan’s hold over me is decimated. But is it? Nathan is clever, manipulative too; there’s no way to be sure he hasn’t planned for this, that he hasn’t constructed a means to protect himself, so he could still turn us in but remain safe himself. I’m hit by a vivid image of him and Alex watching from the front doorstep as I’m led away in handcuffs to a police car parked at the gate with its blue light twirling.

  ‘I can’t risk it. I couldn’t put Alex through it.’

  We get to the top of the lane and the canopy of trees thins. It’s time to say goodbye but neither of us makes a move to leave. Cam’s face is clearer now we’re out of the woods and in the light of the moon. I smile, a weak apologetic gesture, which feels insubstantial. Without warning, he bends close to me and hovers in the sliver of air between us before gently touching his lips to mine.

  It takes me by surprise and for a moment everything else falls away. It’s just me and him. The kiss is tender and soft, free of urgency or lust, but soaked with pain and regret and a longing for things to be different.

  What am I doing?


  No. No…

  No!

  I shove him hard away. Shake my head. Step back. I shake my head again and two tears tumble down my cheeks.

  ‘No,’ I whisper.

  He stares at me, forlorn, uncomprehending, needy of love or affection or forgiveness, or whatever it is he craves. Unexpected anger flares inside me. ‘Jesus, Cam, don’t look at me like that. What do you want me to do? What do you think’s going to happen? That we kiss then tear each other’s clothes off for old time’s sake? Fuck here against the farm gate?’

  ‘What? No! Of course not.’ His face screws up. ‘It’s just seeing you again. It’s—’

  ‘It’s what? Time to put everything behind us and crack on where we left off?’ I give a bitter snort of laughter. ‘Time to forget what happened and give our tragic story a happy ending?’

  His mouth opens then closes and his eyebrows knot, before he drops his head, defeated. I’m hit again by how damaged this new version of Cam is. How his pain infects the air around us. How weakened he is. I cover my face with my hands and breathe the hot air, then stifle an exasperated growl; I can’t carry his damage as well as my own.

  ‘I’m sorry you’ve had such a difficult time,’ I say in barely whispered words. ‘But it’s too late for us. Do you understand? What we had is gone. We can’t ever get it back.’

  He starts to speak, but I don’t let him.

  ‘Nothing has changed. I’m married. I have a son. This is what I chose. This is how our story ends. You and I don’t get to live happily ever after.’

  He is silent.

  ‘You need to leave Cornwall. You need to get away from me and this whole sorry fucked up mess. You don’t need this.’ I take a weary sigh. ‘And, frankly, nor do I, because seeing you again, having you back here,’ I say, my voice barely audible now, ‘is too hard.’

  My words have dried up and I am drained. I give Cass a feeble whistle and she bursts out of the bushes and trots happily to my side, her wet nose finding my hand in the dimness. Without saying anything more, I turn and walk away from him, up to the lane, in the direction of home, and I don’t look back.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Hannah

  The first thing I see when I walk through the gate is Nathan’s car glinting in the moonlight on the driveway. My heart skips a beat. I tell myself to relax. I’ve done nothing wrong. I took the dog out. That’s all. I take her out every night. It’s normal. Breathe. You’ve done nothing wrong.

  Breathe.

  I follow the gravel path around the side of the house and take Cass in through the kitchen door. The lights are off. The dishwasher is on and whirring softly. The door closes behind me and the air immediately tightens. As soon as I step into the kitchen the smell hits me, an unpleasant hint of something in the air, sweet and rancid. It catches the back of my throat. I turn the light on and scan the room, searching for the cause of it, but the surfaces are cleared of everything, polished down, spotless. There’s no way Alex would have done it and the thought of Nathan cleaning the kitchen so thoroughly gives me the chills.

  I walk to the sink and the smell gets stronger. I open the cupboard beneath, where the bin is, and when I do, I pull back and lift my hand to my nose. Whatever is causing the stench is in the bin. I peer in and there, on the top of the rubbish, is a plastic bag. I can see something brown and soft inside it. I flick back the opening of the bag to reveal whatever it is and, when I do, draw back in shock and cover my mouth with my hand. Inside the bag is a collection of rodents curled around each other in a Celtic knot. Their matted fur is wet and putrid, their eyes rotted away, lips pulled back from sharp yellow teeth in macabre grimaces. The smell is hideous. They’ve been in the bag for some time, which I imagine must have been sealed and somewhere warm.

  ‘Jesus,’ I whisper. I breathe through my mouth and keep as far back as I can, while I reach in and pick the bag out.

  As I grasp hold of it, Nathan appears at the door. I hold the plastic bag out towards him, my hand still blocking my nose, my heart racing. ‘Did you put these mice in the bin?’

  ‘Not mice. Voles. Nasty little voles which were attacking my seedlings so I poisoned them. Did you know they can eat through a whole greenhouse of plants in a matter of hours? I collected them up and put them in the bag, but forgot about them. They stank the greenhouse out spectacularly.’

  ‘Why are they in the house bin?’

  ‘Because they’ve been poisoned?’ he says as if I’m stupid. ‘You said I wasn’t to throw poisoned animals in the bushes or over the fence in case the dog ate them. Remember?’

  ‘They should be in the wheelie bin. Outside not in.’

  ‘I didn’t know you were quite so sensitive. I can double-bag them if you’d prefer?’ A glint of maliciousness flickers in his eyes.

  I stare at him for a moment or two before turning towards the kitchen door and marching the hideous creatures to the black bin inside our gates. When I come back he has taken a bottle of wine from the cupboard and is retrieving a bottle opener from the drawer.

  ‘So how come you’re home so early?’ I say as casually as I can muster. I turn the tap on and squeeze some hand soap on to my hands to wash them.

  ‘I didn’t feel like it in the end.’

  The smell of the rotting voles still hangs heavily in the kitchen. I knot the bin bag and as I do he clears his throat and leans back against the worktop.

  ‘I thought I’d spend the evening with you instead. Where were you?’ The lightness in his tone masks a direct accusation. I watch him driving the corkscrew into the bottle. He yanks it out easily and it gives a soft pop as it releases. He inspects the cork and holds it up to his nose. ‘I didn’t know you were going out.’

  ‘Walking Cass.’ I open the back door and put the bin bag outside. My knees threaten to buckle.

  ‘Nice walk?’

  My heart picks up speed as I bend to retrieve the disinfectant from beneath the sink. ‘Yes, thank you. It’s a lovely evening.’ I reach for a cloth and tip the liquid on to it and begin to wipe the inside of the bin. The chemical pine smell is acrid and almost as unpleasant as the lingering odour of decomposed rodent I’m trying to get rid of. ‘I stayed out longer than I expected to because you were out and Alex went up to bed, and, well, I like walking at night. Especially when it’s not too cold…’ I stop myself, aware I’m rambling.

  ‘Where did you walk?’

  ‘Across the fields.’ The answer is instinctive and I regret it immediately. The thing about a good lie is it should be as close to the truth as possible.

  ‘You seem jumpy. Is everything all right?’

  I swallow, but my throat is dry. ‘Yes, of course. It’s nice you’re home. I might join you with a glass of wine.’

  He doesn’t move immediately, but then takes a second wine glass from the cupboard and pours some red wine. He holds it out to me. For a moment I imagine it’s poisoned and I’m going to end up like the voles. I take it and he turns to pick up his own glass.

  ‘Cheers.’ He stares at me and raises his wine. ‘By the way, if you still want me to take you to visit your mother tomorrow, I want to leave at eight. I need to get to the garden centre for some more poison. I seem to have used it all up on those vermin.’

  I watch his face like a hawk but his smile doesn’t falter. Something’s going on, there’s something he’s storing up, and he wants me to worry about what it is. My mind jumps back to the woods. To what Cam said to me. How much pleasure, I wonder, would I get from turning myself in and seeing Nathan go to prison for concealing a murder? Cam would be collateral damage. Alex and my mother, too. But would it be worth it?

  ‘We can catch the train if you’d prefer. It’s not far to walk from the station.’

  ‘Half an hour.’

  ‘Not far.’

  We are dancing around each other, watchfully, as if engaged in the opening bars of a dangerous tango.

  ‘I said I’d drive you and I will.’ That smile again.

  I n
od.

  ‘Hannah?’

  His voice has turned flinty and my stomach spasms.

  ‘Are you sure you walked in the fields? Not the woods?’

  I remain as passive as I can.

  ‘Only, I drove home through Gulval and Trevaylor tonight.’

  He knows.

  I sip some wine. ‘Yes. Definitely the fields. The woods are too dark at this time of night.’

  ‘There was a car parked on the side of the road. Near the track down to the woods.’ He smiles. ‘It looked familiar. But, of course, I could be mistaken.’

  The tremor in my voice is hard to conceal. ‘I was in the fields.’

  ‘It’s just the crappy old jalopy parked at the woods was remarkably similar to the one Cameron Stewart drives. Almost identical, in fact.’

  ‘But he’s gone back to wherever he lives, hasn’t he?’

  ‘I thought so, but, well, it’s hard to be in two places at once, isn’t it? And if his car is parked at the top of Trevaylor Woods, it’s almost impossible for it to also be parked on a street in some shitty part of Reading.’

  ‘Why do you think it was his? It could be anybody’s. Lots of people walk there and all those red cars look the same, don’t they?’

  His exaggerated smile finally slips away. ‘You appear to think I was born yesterday.’

  I don’t react. I am careful. I drink some wine then place the glass down and cross my arms firmly. This bravado is a mask; inside I am jelly.

  ‘You never stopped seeing him, did you?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘You kept in contact. You’re still in a relationship. Alex knows him. That’s why he went there.’ He steps close to me and moves his face so close to mine I can smell the wine on his breath. ‘You’ve been fucking him this whole time, haven’t you?’

  I shake my head and hold back tears.

  ‘Will you visit him in prison?’

  ‘You can’t,’ I begin, struggling to get the whispered words out. ‘You can’t prove anything.’

  ‘Excuse me?’

  ‘It’s been too long. We’ll tell them you’re lying. I’ll tell them he was with me… in his… car. All night. At Lamorna.’ I swallow hard and clench my fists in the hope it gives me strength. ‘It’ll be our word against yours. I’ll say… I’ll say you’re making it up because… you’re jealous…’