The Sleeping Truth : A Romantic Thriller (Omnibus Edition containing both Book One and Book Two)

by Irvine, Ian C. P.

I square up the tab with the waitress at the bar downstairs, then I am gone, relieved and pleased to be out of there.

  As I wander back down to Waterloo train station, still too scared to even think about travelling by tube, I can’t help but wonder about Ben’s ‘dark places’.

  What on earth was he talking about?

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  When I get back to the flat, the light on the answer phone is blinking red and I know even before I play back the messages, who mine will be from. The first message is for Guy, from someone I don’t know, then there is one for me from Hannah, nagging me, quite correctly, that I still haven’t returned her call. The last one is from Gail. I call her first and tell her that I was with Ben, but that I left him in the pub. She asks what we talked about and I have to confess that by the time I got there, he was too far gone to talk about anything sensible.

  “Who’s idea was it to meet up then?” she asks.

  “His.”

  “Why?”

  “I don’t know. I think he just wanted to be friendly,” I lie. Tonight was anything but friendly.

  “So how drunk was he when you left him?” she asks, concern showing through her words.

  “Pretty far gone. I just hope he makes it home safely.”

  “And I just hope he doesn’t turn up here, demanding sex and a bed.”

  “Just call me if there is a problem, okay?” I say, but hoping furiously that there won’t. The last thing I want to get is a phone call dragging me into a drunken domestic.

  Feeling sorry for Gail, I make myself a cup of herbal tea in the kitchen, and sit down on the comfy sofa in the lounge, put my feet up, and call Hannah.

  “Aha…so at last you think of your big sister!” Hannah laughs at me down the phone. “Even if it is at eleven o’clock.”

  “Since when do you go to bed before one?” I ask.

  “Since I got my new job, the one that you haven’t even asked me about?”

  “I didn’t even know that you were looking…”

  “Show’s you just how much you think about your big sister, nowadays.”

  “So what is it and why did you have to get a new job?” I ask, feeling very guilty. I have been so absorbed in my own little world for the past month, I haven’t even considered that other people might have their own problems too.

  I listen as she tells me about the head-hunter that called her a few weeks ago, set up an interview for her and how before she knew it, she had been offered a seven thousand pound pay rise to move to another financial software company in Edinburgh. The only real drawback being that the job is on the other side of the city, and Hannah has to get up an hour earlier each day just to get there on time.

  “…but I was getting really bored in the other job, so it’s going to be really good. I needed a change. Anyway, enough of little old me. What have you been getting up to since last week, and why didn’t you return my calls before now? I hope you’ve got a good excuse?” she asks.

  “How about that I was out of the country, in Slovakia, with my new girlfriend? Is that good enough?”

  She listens as I tell her the whole story, about how the stress and fear of living in London suddenly just got to me after the failed bomb attempts last Thursday, and how Slávka invited me to go with her to Slovakia.

  Hannah can hear the excitement in my voice when I talk about Slávka, and when she asks how much I like her and what happened, I tell her the truth.

  “She’s amazing. And before you mention it, I am not going to mess this one up. I’m going to dive into this head first and trust her completely. I’m not going to push her away, and I’m not going to be selfish, or stupid, or cruel, or any of the things that I could or may have been in the past when I was scared to fall in love.”

  “Am I going to get a chance to meet her?”

  “Absolutely. Whenever you want. I think you two would get on like a house on fire.”

  “You actually want me to meet her? Wow. Things must be serious. So, do you think you could fall in love with her?” Hannah asks.

  “It’s not a question of ‘if’,” I reply. “I already have.”

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  Chapter Forty One

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  The tube is packed so early in the morning, full of commuters rushing into work in the city, eager to make money, be successful and rise to the top of the career ladder. The word ‘rat-race’ pops into my mind, and I laugh as I realise that some of them even look a little like rats, as they race against each other to get on the tubes and find a seat before anyone else gets there before them.

  After standing on the platform for ten minutes, trying to control my fear and letting two trains go past, I realise that I just can’t do it. The memory of the panic attack I had the last time I stepped foot inside a tube train carriage washes over me and I begin to feel queezy. Even just thinking about it while still standing on the platform I begin to feel strange, and I am suddenly worried that the panic attack is going to happen again. I rush back up to the surface and breathe the morning air deeply into my lungs, taking ten minutes to calm down and regain my composure.

  My hands are still shaking when I finally catch a bus, but I am only just a little more relaxed as the bus slowly makes its way through London towards the hospital. I remind myself as I look around me, the bus completely full, that the terrorists attacked two buses in London. One they blew up, and on the other one the detonator failed to set off the main charge.

  I notice two dark skinned men with black beards men sitting down towards the back of the bus. One is carrying a big black bag, probably full of something completely innocent, but nevertheless looking very suspicious. I suddenly wonder if these men are radicalised Muslims, and for a moment I feel a surge of panic, but I force myself to breathe deeply and be realistic. I can’t allow myself to become Muslim-phobic. After all, when the bombs went off in London, they killed indiscriminately. Muslims, Jews, Christians and Agnostics all died together. Muslims are good people. Just like us. One of my best friends at university was a Muslim. I can’t allow myself to become brainwashed into believing everyone with a black beard and a dark skin wants to kill me! That is exactly what the terrorists want us to think like…Was this how it was in the days of the IRA? Was everyone with an Irish accent then considered to be a terrorist too?

  I hate the way all this is affecting me. Perhaps it’s all some sort of post-traumatic stress thing, which is just coming out now that the danger with Sal is passing.

  When I finally arrive at the hospital, Sal is waiting for me, sitting on the edge of her bed, her zimmer-mobile already revved up and ready to go.

  I kiss her on the cheek.

  “Let’s go to the café and get a cup of tea,” she says. “I want to talk to you in private. At least, away from the other patients here…”

  As I follow her slowly into the café, having negotiated our way carefully through the hospital and down one floor in the elevator, I look fondly at the table where I was sitting when I first spoke to Slávka, and think just how far we have come since that day. We pass the table, now occupied by two Asian doctors chatting away together in Hindu or Punjabi, and take a table at the back of the café as seemingly as far from everyone else as possible.

  “So,” I say, pulling back a chair from the table and helping Sal to sit down, before taking a seat opposite her. “What is this all about?” I ask.

  “I need your advice, Andrew. But before I say anything, I want to ask you to promise not to tell Guy anything of what I want to tell you just now.”

  “What’s it about?”

  “It’s got to do with marrying Guy. You’re his best friend, and for some reason, I feel sort of connected to you now, like I said before, probably because while I was in the coma all I can remember is your voice and Guy’s, talking to me constantly. I can’t remember what about, just that you were always there, holding my hand, or comforting me. By the way, the doct
or told me this morning that he thinks that I will probably never remember the few moments before the explosion, or what happened during my coma, -which includes everything you said to me-…because I had some sort of stroke when I had the heart attack. The stroke doesn’t seem to have done any real physical damage, but it’s wiped that part of my memory away, Anyway…that’s all by the by. The point is that I want to talk to you, but you have to promise me first or I can’t say anything more.”

  The conversation is starting to make me a little nervous.

  “I don’t know Sal…”

  “Come on. I wanted to talk to you ages ago, before the bomb got me, but you were always too busy. I don’t want to put pressure on you or anything, but if you had just spoken to me then, then maybe perhaps we wouldn’t need to be having this conversation now…”

  “Woahhhh, hang on there a moment. So you’re saying that whatever this is about is all my fault?” I ask, incredulously.

  “No, sorry. That came out wrong. It’s not your fault. Whatever it is I want to talk to you about is my fault. But perhaps it wouldn’t have happened if you had been able to help me before…”

  I am silent for a moment. I don’t like the sound of this at all.

  “Come on Andrew, this is important. It’ll affect you too. But I need advice from a friend, and right now, you’re the only friend I have got who can help me.”

  Talk about pressure.

  “Okay, okay. I promise. I won’t tell him. As long as you promise to take whatever advice I give you.”

  Now it’s Sal’s turn to think.

  “But that’s not fair. Maybe I won’t agree with you!”

  “Them’s the conditions. Take ‘em or leave ‘em.”

  She laughs.

  “Okay.”

  “So, like I asked a minute ago, what’s this all about?”

  “It’s difficult, Andrew. I really like you now. I think you’re great, and I don’t want you to hate me for what I’m about to say to you. Please don’t. I need you to try and understand, and not to get angry with me, ok?”

  “I’ll do my best, but I can’t promise anything. Just get on with it…”

  “The thing is, I knew that Guy was probably going to ask me to marry him. I could tell that something was coming, just by the way he was behaving. He started to get a little weird- nice weird, not bad weird-Things were getting a little bit more serious between us than they were before. I mean, they were always pretty serious, but they started to get even more serious. At first I really loved it, because I really love Guy. Honestly, I do…” and her eyes mist over a little as she says this, “but after a while, I started to get really worried.”

  “What about?”

  “I don’t know…, just about things. I think I just started to get scared.”

  “Why? I thought you loved Guy?”

  “I do. I do. I just got so confused… “ She takes a deep breath then continues. “For a while last year I even dreamt of marrying him. I was really ready then, and I think I even dropped a few hints about it for a while. But then nothing happened, and we just carried on…”

  “So, you went off the idea?”

  “No. I didn’t. But I just got a little older. And life got more complicated…”

  Complicated? What does she mean? An affair with someone else?

  “…no, not complicated. That’s the wrong word. What I mean is, ….blast, I don’t know what I mean. That’s the whole problem. I couldn’t think of being without Guy, not for a second…but I think I just started to worry if I was too young, or something. I mean, I’m only twenty six.”

  “So, what are you telling me? Do you want to split up with him and then maybe see if there is somebody better out there…?”

  She stares at me. Her face as white as a sheet.

  “I…I….” Tears begin to well up in the corners of her eyes, and I can see the sadness beginning to overwhelm her. “I don’t know. Maybe. Maybe I thought that just once or twice, just for a second or two. I think it just hit me… it just hit me a couple of weeks ago, that this wasn’t a dream. That this was reality. And that he was probably really going to ask me to marry him. And then, I think I just panicked. What if I was too young to get married….what if even though Guy is a brilliant man, what if I was really meant to be with someone else? What if…?”

  “I still don’t understand what you are trying to say,” I interrupt her.

  “Neither do I. I’ve been so confused, Andrew. So bloody confused.”

  She is crying now, tears flooding down her cheeks.

  “Andrew, I love Guy more than any person I have ever met. Honestly, you’ve got to believe me. But, I think for a while I just went a little crazy. I just began to worry. What if I was making a mistake? I’m so young. My parents split up and got divorced when I was only eight. What happens if I married Guy and we ended up having kids and then getting divorced, just like my parents?...” She stops speaking, and reaches over the centre of the table and pulls a cheap white napkin out of a napkin holder. She wipes her eyes. “Before I met Guy I was actually really lonely. All the men I was meeting in London were complete jerks. Whenever I met anyone, all they wanted to do was to get me into bed. I could never meet a decent man, someone who was intelligent, and smart, and romantic and kind…And then one of my friends introduced me to Guy, and it was practically love at first sight. I couldn’t believe how lucky I was to meet him…he was everything I had ever wanted!”

  “So what’s changed?”

  “Nothing.”

  “So what’s this all about then?” I ask, still worried that I know exactly where this is heading.

  “Since we met, having Guy propose to me is probably all I’ve ever wanted. But when I could see that my little dream was going to come true, I just started to get worried that I might be making a mistake…can you understand what I’m trying to say here…?”

  I shake my head, “…not exactly.”

  “I just got the jitters. I got scared.”

  “Okay, so you had second thoughts. So what? I think it’s probably quite understandable if you really question what it is you want like that. The question is, what do you feel now?”

  “I feel absolutely certain now that I want to marry Guy. I can think of no-one else I would rather spend the rest of my life with. I can’t believe how much he has been there for me over the past few weeks. Everything he has done for me. I’ve got to be the luckiest woman in the world! I love Guy. I really do. And I have no doubt, not a single shred of doubt, that there isn’t anything in the world that he wouldn’t do for me. Guy is the rock that I want to build the rest of my life upon. I know that now.”

  “So what’s the problem? You just have to tell him that’s what you feel, not me.”

  “The only problem is…”, and an in an instant she is in floods of tears again, cupping her face in her free hand and sobbing her heart out. I wait for a minute or two, giving her some space.

  “The only problem,” she continues. “...is that I almost slept with someone else the day before Guy proposed to me!” She howls aloud, and I look briefly around the restaurant, wondering what attention we must be attracting now. Thankfully, the café is quite empty.

  “YOU DID WHAT?” I feign surprise.

  “I went to bed with an ex-boyfriend that I met by accident,…well, sort of by accident, one night when we went out for drinks with my work colleagues…the night before Guy proposed to me…”

  “ I can’t believe this…” I start to say.

  “Please, listen, don’t judge me like that. It was…I was…all…I was so confused. I went out with a group of my friends, and I sort of knew he was going to be there...”

  “Why did you do it?”

  “I think I was just wanting to test my feelings. Or maybe just to have one last fling. Or to prove to myself that another man would still find me attractive. Andrew, I DON’T KNOW. I was crazy. I was completely out of order. Anyway, the point is, he was really, really attentive to me. He was all ove
r me, flirting with me. Trying to sleep with me. And I got a little drunk and let him. I think I liked the attention, or enjoyed the flirting again. Maybe it helped me to believe in myself a little more, so that I could say yes to Guy knowing that I was still attractive to other men, and that I wasn’t desperate or something…and that I wasn’t just about to say ‘yes’ to Guy simply because his was the only offer I had…”

  “Did you have sex with this man?” I ask.

  “…It depends what you mean by sex?...”

  “Come on Sal, what happened? Let’s not play a game of words!”

  “Perhaps there was a little bit of heavy petting…maybe…I got quite drunk…Anyway, we ended up going back to his place, and the next thing I knew we were in bed and starting to take our clothes off. I just froze. I suddenly realised what I was doing, and started to cry. I realised then just how much I loved Guy, and that what I was doing was crazy, so I ran out of the flat, and caught a taxi home.”

  “You’re saying that you didn’t sleep with him then?”

  “No. But I did let him touch me…I was …it was … it was really wrong.”

  She is in tears again.

  “So why are you telling me all this, Sal? What has it got to do with me?”

  “Because I want to tell Guy that I want to spend the rest of my life with him. I want to marry him, but I need your advice.”

  “For what?” I ask, dumbfounded.

  “I need you to tell me if I should tell Guy about the other man, or not? Or should I just keep quiet about it, and live with the guilt myself for the rest of my life?”

  “What?”

  “Do I come clean with him before we start our new life together, or do I start our married life by hiding secrets from him? Andrew, … I’ll do whatever you tell me. But you have to tell me what you think I should do!”

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  Chapter Forty Two

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  The tube trains are emptier now and I know that no suicide bomber is going to waste his life on a half-empty train, but I still can’t find the courage to ride the underground back down to Waterloo.