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

by Irvine, Ian C. P.

  Yet, as I sit down at the back of the bus, thoughts of bombs and tubes and terrorists quickly fade into the background and my mind is in turmoil thinking about something completely different.

  How is it that this has come full circle, right back to me? How is it that now it is up to me to decide? And how come, that out of all the ridiculous scenarios that I ever contemplated, the only one I didn’t consider is the one that faces me now?

  “I need time to think…” I had told her. “You have to give me a few days…”

  I wonder for a moment if Sal is far clever than I give her credit for. Maybe she did hear every word that I said to her just before the heart attack, and maybe this is the way that she has so cleverly engineered a way out of it?

  Then again, I know in my heart of hearts that this is not so.

  The fact of the matter is that guilt ridden and desperate, she has confided in me, and now it is up to me to determine the course of that guilt.

  It is up to me to decide whether or not she should tell Guy and risk all of her happiness, or whether or not I should tell her to say nothing, and potentially leave her to endure a life-time of inner shame and harbouring a truth that could potentially eat away at her from the inside as the years pass. Or perhaps I am just being over-dramatic?

  The bottom line though, is that it’s up to me.

  What if she does tell Guy? How will he take it?

  For sure, at first it will break his heart. The question is, will he forgive her and then live with a degree of pain that he will never forget, or will he end it with Sal and call the wedding off?

  Perhaps, it is not for me to advise her to do the right thing, but to do only that which will cause the least grief amongst us all.

  Like I said to Sal, I need time to think.

  .

  When I get into the office, no one really comments that I am late for the second time this week. Perhaps they all think that I was out visiting a customer? Or maybe, they know, that whatever time I take off now I will just have to make up later. Flexi-time: come to work when you want, but don’t go home until the job is done.

  I wait an age for the PC to boot up and for Outlook to start downloading this morning’s new emails, giving me the chance to stare for a while out of the window at the river Thames beneath.

  Swivelling around in my chair after a few minutes I examine Ben’s desk for any signs of life, but realise with a certain degree of contentment that he hasn’t made it in yet. A pang of guilt hits me when I realise that if he doesn’t turn up for work today, it may partly be my fault. Perhaps I should have got him to drink orange-juice when I first realised he was already drunk, and then I should have got him into a taxi-home, instead of just abandoning him alone to the demon drink…

  Or alternatively, maybe he just deserves it.

  Sending Gail an email, I get a quick response telling me that he didn’t appear at her flat last night at all, and when she tried calling him this morning, at first he didn’t answer the phone at home. Eventually he replied to one of her text messages, admitting he was in a bad way.

  So bad, that he doesn’t make it into the office until two o’clock, and even then he only stays for two hours.

  “I’m really sorry, Andrew,” is what I think he muttered to me, after plonking himself down in his seat, and fumbling with the power button on his desktop.

  “For me or for what you did to yourself?”

  “Both. But I deserve to suffer pal. This is self-induced. You didn’t deserve to get so much shit from me last night.”

  “Don’t worry about it. You were fine.”

  “Can we do it again sometime, when I’m not so drunk?”

  “Let’s talk about it later...”

  “Like I said, I’m sorry.”

  “I know...I heard you.”

  .

  --------------------------

  .

  James is back in the office in the afternoon, and I spend an hour with him catching on up a few things, the most interesting of which is to start planning a customer road-show that we are considering doing in September. When five o’clock rolls around and everyone starts drifting down to the pub, I realise almost with a shock that today is Friday. It’s been such a short week, and with so many other things on my mind, I had completely lost track of time, relatively speaking.

  It’s funny: tonight I don’t feel as much of the normal buzz that I normally do on a Friday night. Unlike the other nights when the evening held so much potential, so much opportunity to set forth on a voyage of drinking, fun and discovery, tonight I just miss Slávka.

  I am the last person out of the office from our group, and I can’t resist calling her from the office landline just before I leave. She picks up quickly, recognising the London number on her display and guessing that it is me.

  Her voice is soft and melodic and as we talk, I listen fondly to the way she speaks in almost perfect English except for the occasional glaring absence of “the” and “a” and other pronouns, or whatever they are called, and I realise just how much I am growing accustomed to her voice. It soothes me, but excites me at the same time, and I almost purr with childish satisfaction when I hear her say my name with her lilting accent: ‘AAnndddrew’.

  We talk for half-an-hour, and only hang up when I can hear her mother shouting after her in the background.

  “I go now, …I must go now, my Aaandrew. Sorry. My mother is calling me that dinner is now on table.”

  “The table.”

  “Yes. Dinner is on the table.”

  We blow childish kisses at each other down the phone, and I promise to meet her at Liverpool Street station in a week’s time when her train gets in from Stansted Airport. A whole week away.

  When I leave the office, I am excited after all. Not because it is Friday night. But because I am in love with Slávka.

  The sun is shining as I wander up to the Embankment and across the Golden Jubilee Bridge that crosses the river Thames. People rush past me on the bridge, heading into the centre of the most cosmopolitan and exciting city in the world, and I think that tonight I can almost sense that the atmosphere is changing. It may be only temporary, but once again I can begin to feel the pulse of the city, a pulse without fear or dread. Tonight people are starting to live again. To be free. To be unafraid.

  And as I stand in the centre of the bridge, looking towards Big Ben and the Houses of Parliament, the magnificent and beautiful London Eye on my left, I decide that so many people can’t be wrong. Why live in fear? Why not live life? Why not, for as long as we can take a breath and see and feel and touch, why not rejoice in the simple act of being?

  I smile.

  Life it seems, is good.

  .

  --------------------------

  .

  After wandering for a while, I find myself drifting to the Lemon Tree. Why not join the others? I feel good now, and far more sociable than I was feeling several hours ago. The idea of going home to be alone doesn’t appeal to me, and I feel like laughing and chatting to people I know, so why not go to the place where on a Friday night everyone knows my name- the Euro.com equivalent of CHEERS-?

  “Hey Andrew!” and “Hi!” and “If you’re going to the bar, mine’s a pint of lager!” all greet me as I walk in and I am recognised by the other Eurocomers. Feeling generous, and literally quite wonderful, I decide to buy everyone a drink. Everyone seems enthralled by the idea.

  “Can I help you?” a soft female voice asks me, its owner, Dianne, coming to my side as I walk over to the bar.

  “Sure,” I say, looking briefly at her, as I perch an elbow on the counter and wave four ten pounds notes in the air trying to grab the barmaid’s attention.

  “So,” she says, standing quite close to me, the order now taken and the barmaid starting to pour the drinks. “I haven’t seen you for a while.”

  “No, you haven’t,” I reply, not feeling an awful lot like bursting into conversation with her.

  “I was thinking
about you,” she says. I let the sentence hang in the air, deciding not to respond to it.

  “I was hoping maybe that you might have come to the Road House again.”

  “Sorry, I’ve been busy, or out of the country.”

  “I hear you have a girlfriend now.”

  I look at her. “Who told you?”

  “A friend.”

  “Who?”

  “Doesn’t matter. A few people at work have mentioned it.”

  “No one at work knows, and anyone who does wouldn’t mention it to you.”

  “You’d be surprised.”

  “About what? That you have friends at work, or that anyone would want to waste their time talking about me?”

  “I was just saying, you’d be surprised. Does that mean that now you have a girlfriend you won’t be having your wicked way with me again?”

  I ignore her, and start putting the arriving drinks onto a couple of trays.

  “Andrew, I’m not worried about the girlfriend, okay? I would still like to see you sometime. Maybe we could repeat what we did the other night, …or anything else you would like to repeat.”

  I pick up one of the trays and turn to take it to the group.

  “I don’t think so. Whatever happened between us, won’t be happening again. I told you before.”

  Dianne reaches up and places a cautionary hand on my wrist, stopping me from moving and threatening to topple the tray of drinks from my hands.

  “Listen. I’m seriously not bothered about you seeing someone else at the same time as me. Just so long as I see you now and then. I think we have fun together…”

  She is looking at me expectantly. The words are already queuing up to trip off my tongue, and I can’t resist it. It has to be said…

  “I’m sorry, Dianne. I just don’t do relationships…I do a relationship. One. Just one. And I met someone very, very nice, so for now, my relationship quota is all taken up. But thanks for the offer.”

  I start to walk away, and I feel her tug on my arm, forcing me to turn to face her again.

  “What, so you think that you can just come over to my house and fuck me whenever it suits you, and then just dump me whenever you find something better? That’s not how it works.”

  “Correction, Dianne. That’s exactly how it works. You made it very clear what the ground rules were. I accepted them. Now, that’s it. There’s nothing more to be said. Don’t worry, you’ll find someone else ‘not to have’ a relationship with. Now let go, and leave me alone.”

  I stare at her sternly, warning her as best I can to back off. She studies my eyes for a second, then slowly releases her grip. I walk away, rejoining the rest of the Euro.comers. About twenty minutes later I notice Dianne slipping out of the pub, alone. As she walks out of the door, she turns to look back at us all, and for a second our gazes meet. I see sadness in her eyes, and for a moment I wonder if I was too harsh on her. Just then someone asks me a question and I turn back to the group. When I look back over my shoulder a second later, Dianne is gone.

  As the evening passes, and everyone else starts to get pretty hammered, I start drinking orange juice, not feeling the need to get plastered and wanting to be completely sober so that I can think later about what I should advise Sal. Come ten o’clock, everyone else decides to move on somewhere else and I duck out, preferring to clear my head and go for a coffee in Leicester Square. I need to think.

  What am I going to tell Sal? The question has been going round and round in my mind all day, but without any hope of any resolution.

  Sitting in a café and drinking coffee doesn’t seem to help me in any way to bring me closer to an answer so I start thinking about Slávka instead.

  I send her a text message. She replies. I tell her I think she is special. She tells me the same. I tell her I can’t wait to make love to her again. She tells me that when she gets back to London in a week's time she wants to spend the night with me at my flat, and that she doesn’t want to get out of bed all day Sunday. She wants to spend the whole day with me, locked in the room, alone. Making love all day long. I find it difficult to object…

  When I get home an hour later, I take a shower and go to bed with a smile on my face. How is it that even though I have only known her for such a short period of time, I am so crazy about her?

  As my eyes close and I drift off, I promise myself that this time I will not, under any circumstances, mess this relationship up. At last, without even looking, I have found a woman I can trust.

  Slávka is the one.

  Chapter Forty Three

  Saturday afternoon, one week later

  .

  .

  Over a week has passed since I got home from Slovakia, and I am missing Slávka more than I have ever missed any other human being on the entire planet. We have talked on the phone every night, and texted each other continuously. I can’t wait until she gets back later this afternoon. When finally, finally, I can hold her in my arms again.

  I have spoken to Hannah twice this week already, and she really wants to meet the mysterious eastern European woman who has changed her brother so much, who has saved him from a death of cynicism. She is planning to come down to London in a week's time, and I am really looking forward to the two most important women in my life meeting each other.

  I have seen Sal twice this week at the hospital and the news there is good too. With any luck, she will be allowed home sometime next week. She is already walking without the use of the zimmer-mobile, and has astounded doctors with her swift and almost perfect recovery. The only lingering damage seems to be her broken arm and to her short-term memory, with no real recollection of the moments the bomb went off or anything afterwards when she was lying in the coma. Which, all things considered, is probably a blessing in disguise.

  The only bad news this week is something that I probably shouldn’t be feeling bad about at all, but which for some reason, is really bugging me.

  Yesterday afternoon some of us were standing in a group in the kitchen, waiting for the kettle to boil, when someone came into the kitchen and started to spread the latest bit of gossip.

  “Apparently Dianne in IT is leaving,” the woman said.

  “Why?” David, one of the Pre-Sales Engineers asks.

  The woman turns around, reaching into a cupboard to fetch a cup. “Well,” she says, enjoying the preamble to the most interesting thing she has had to say all day. “Apparently she resigned, because she is pregnant!”

  “What?” about four people all say simultaneously. The woman closes the cupboard door, and does a double take as she notices that I am in the group.

  “Oh…” she starts to say, immediately embarrassed.

  Everyone else looks at me.

  “What?” I ask, suddenly realising what everyone is thinking. “Oh no… no way. Don’t even go there. It’s got nothing to do with me. Nothing!” I laugh. Everyone else laughs with me. Except I’m not laughing at all. Inside I am trembling with fear.

  How long has Dianne been pregnant for? And why is she resigning? If she’s pregnant, surely that’s the last thing she should be doing…?

  Although I was already one million percent sure that I was not the father, I returned to my desk and whilst I was pretending to do some email, in my mind I ran through every second of each time I made love to Dianne. I pictured the condom in my mind, going on, coming off. No chance of any leakage. And I convinced myself again that there was no way on this planet that I could have made her pregnant.

  If she is pregnant, the baby is not mine.

  After an hour of increasing mental discomfort I realised I had to speak to her. I considered calling her, but couldn’t exactly face it. What would I say? So in the end I sent her an email, the coward’s communication tool.

  ‘Dianne, I just heard that you are leaving the company? Is it true?”

  .

  Probably less than twenty seconds later I got a reply.

  “What do you care? And I know what everyone is saying.
Anyway, what has it got to do with everyone else? And before you even think it, don’t flatter yourself. The reason I am leaving has nothing to do with you.”

  .

  I replied, my fingers shaking nervously as I typed the message.

  ‘Is it true what people are saying, about why you are leaving?’

  .

  Another immediate reply:

  “Like I said, whatever the reason that I am leaving is, it has NOTHING to do with you. It’s someone else’s problem. Not yours... Obviously.”

  In spite of the fact that I already knew that it was not mine, I was surprised just how relieved I still felt to have it confirmed. It felt like I had just had some sort of weird near-death experience, and that I had just escaped a fate probably worse than death itself.

  But as the evening wore on, safe and secure in the knowledge that I was not the father, a part of me couldn’t help but begin to feel curiously sad for Dianne and her predicament.

  What would happen to her now?

  .

  --------------------------

  .

  The next morning I am on my way to the hospital to meet Sal and to give her my considered opinion on what she should tell Guy, when my mobile phone rings. I hit the little green phone on the keypad without looking at the caller display. It’s Gail. She’s crying.

  “What’s the matter?” I ask.

  “Can I see you?” she asks.

  I think quickly. I am meant to be meeting Slávka later at the train station when she gets back from Stansted, but I feel a little guilty that I haven’t spent much time with Gail all week. And once Slávka gets back, I’m probably going to be very, very busy.

  “I’m just about to arrive at the hospital.”

  “Please?”

  “Why? What’s it about?” I ask.

  She is sobbing at the other end of the phone.

  “Did you hear the news yesterday about that slut Dianne? That’s she’s leaving because she is pregnant?”