Your Guilty Secret

by Rebecca Thornton

  ‘OK,’ he said. ‘I’ll fill it in later after we’ve been through all the boring stuff. This will be good,’ he says. ‘And apart from that, if anything does happen, we need to make sure that you don’t have any . . .’

  ‘Any what?’

  ‘Well, skeletons in your closet. Put it that way. Anything that could come out later in the press that might, well, destroy your reputation. You know if you ever became big people like to betray you. Lure of money. Of power.’ I couldn’t believe he was already talking as though I was going to be a star. ‘So at least if you tell me if there’s anything you’ve done, I can manage it before it gets to that point. All right? You don’t need to tell me now. I just want you to think about it for the time being. That’s your homework.’ He went quiet, waiting for me to say something. Anything.

  ‘No.’ I heard his breath stop down the phone. Because at that point, it had been absolutely true. ‘No,’ I tell him again. ‘Nothing on me. I’m as good as gold.’

  He laughed. ‘Lara King. As good as gold,’ he chuckled again. ‘That’s what I like to hear.’

  August 26th 2018

  2055hrs

  ‘I can’t believe this.’ Conor rushed into my study. ‘Your website has crashed. Too many people visiting it after your letter to the public went live. I’ve got IT on it now. But it’s worked.’

  ‘Thank God.’ I looked at myself in the mirrored part of a photo frame on my study desk, as I thought of it being read. ‘Should we do anything else?’

  He massaged his earlobe. ‘No, we don’t want overkill. We need to leave it now. We need to leave the narrative to breathe. There’s going to be people looking into your past, though, so we need to be careful. They’re going to use this as an opportunity to find other things they see as inadequate parenting from you. So we have to prepare for that and anything else.’ He gave me an odd look at that point, narrowing his eyes, his head tilted to the right.

  Flashes came back to me then. Ben Finn in the nightclub, wearing white trainers, his eyes fixed on mine

  And then afterwards, leaving England. I thought about how people had turned once. How I’d managed to rein it back in. How I wasn’t going to let that happen again, because when my daughter came back, we were going to carry on as we had before and I was going to make sure everything was absolutely perfect for her. I felt better now, after my chat with Joan. We’d done something proactive that had had a positive effect for the search. I told myself not to play to the earlier guilt. That it was good that Ava had a female role model to look up to in me. But still, my heart clenched when I thought about what I’d do if she didn’t come home.

  ‘Lara?’ Conor said. ‘Are you with me? Listen. If there’s something you need to tell me, you need to let me know now. Before I get any more of these.’ He showed me his phone. I looked over, skimmed through a load of phone messages from his office.

  ‘What the hell are these?’ I asked.

  ‘I’ve just been talking to you about them. Haven’t you heard a word I’ve been saying?’ I shook my head. ‘Messages saying they had to talk to you. About England. They’ve been talking about Be Squared?’ At the mention of it, my mouth filled with a bitter taste. The throb of music. The sparkle of diamonds. I started to feel like I was going to throw up.

  ‘Some nutter,’ I told him, pleased he hadn’t googled Be Squared and found all the old headlines. Even though the press had only managed to get a fraction of the story, I didn’t want him thinking there was more to things than had initially been reported. ‘Ignore them. There’s nothing to tell.’ I passed back his phone.

  ‘OK, good,’ he said. ‘So I can tell the office we’re good? Because obviously now the police have released the CCTV footage of you and Ava at that red light.’ He crossed his arms. ‘And I want the public focus to remain on that now. I think it’s going to be useful.’

  ‘Fine. All fine,’ I said. ‘Anything else?’ I wanted to be alone to do more online searches on Media Spy and see what was going on.

  ‘No,’ Conor said. ‘We need to keep quiet for a while. Don’t want the public to think we are in any way capitalising on anything.’ He bit his lip when he realised the implication.

  But I hadn’t exploded. Because I knew it would be a possibility you might think that. See? I told you. I know you. I know how your minds work. And although I like to think that such cynical behaviour wouldn’t enter your psyche, well – somehow, just somehow – it might be planted in there by the things you read, the images you see. The headlines you skim when you’re on your way to work.

  I’ve been guilty of it myself, you see.

  So I know.

  Ryans-world.com

  Entry: August 26th, 2115hrs

  Author: Ryan

  I’m sorry for earlier. Cardinal sin. Bringing myself into the story. Back to the important things.

  Wow. Just wow. It’s eerie here. But beautiful. The canyon’s lit up with the back glare of cell screens. Every motherfucker here is watching that video of Lara and Ava at the red light.

  Play, rewind, repeat. Because we’re all thinking the same thing. What the hell happened to Ava King? She just vanished and that was it. No clues, no nothing.

  ‘Oh my God, there she is,’ everyone’s whispering and pointing to their screens. ‘Look. That might be the last time any of us ever see her alive.’ I’ve watched it too, over and over. The way Ava looks right out the window as they stop at the lights. She’s perfect. And Lara, in the front seat. Those diamonds. Freaking hell, those diamonds! She looks so beautiful too. I wanted to reach right out and touch her face. And they looked so happy together. I guess it was. They searched Lara’s car. Took all the fingerprint swabs. All was exactly as it should have been. Clean, perfect and lovely. Just like both of them.

  There are candles everywhere too, and Chinese lanterns, floating up into the sky. Beautiful fire, orange against the black night. The stars are out too. I wished for Ava on one.

  People are singing, praying, chanting. It’s like a shrine here and it’s gone all quiet. If you listen carefully you can hear songs too, from across the canyon. People have stopped shouting for Ava now. Occasionally there’s a scream, echoing across the place. The bark of a dog. But otherwise there’s this weird atmosphere. Like people are just waiting, waiting for the call that they’ve found a body.

  ‘She’s not dead yet,’ I want to shout. ‘Come on. Don’t give up. Don’t give up on her.’

  I’m still here, by the media scrum. If I’m quiet, hunched over behind their vans, I can hear the news reporters talking in their hushed, urgent voices. It’s where I’m getting most of my updates from because they don’t know I’m there.

  ‘We can’t release that yet,’ they’re saying. ‘Police orders’ and all that shite but Ryan_Gosling_Wannabe is here to give you the dirt, all the juicy stuff I’ve been collecting on the way. Titbits from Casey Lane, hack extraordinaire. She’s been talking to her friend at the LA Times, apparently. Manny Berkowitz.

  Casey says there’s something on Matthew that Manny’s hiding. ‘That fat bastard,’ she was hissing. ‘He knows something. I’m going to fucking find out what it is if it’s the last fucking thing I do on this godforsaken earth.’

  Word also has it (sorry, Case, I know that earwigging isn’t the done thing but I also know that you would do the same thing in my situation) that Matthew was being questioned earlier as a ‘person of interest’, whatever that means. Apparently, the big whisper of the day from the Sky News van is that perfect Matthew Raine wasn’t where he told police he was at the time Ava disappeared. They can’t trace his phone signal for a part of the day. Something about someone knowing someone at the telecoms company but it’s not set in stone, folks. Need two sources to verify and all. (See, I’m getting the hang of this!)

  Anyway, that’s all I got, folks, from behind the scenes. But I promise to let you in on the scoop as soon as I have it here.

  As for the police, they’re still here, trailing the area. I saw the forensics s
haking their heads earlier too. ‘Nothing,’ they said to the weirdly staring detective who was here earlier. ‘We’ve found nothing.’ Ha! There’s good lip-reading for you.

  Btw y’all see me on Sky News? They’re repeating it on the hour every hour. If you like it, please feel free to retweet and share! Ryan_Gosling_Wannabe bringing you the latest on Ava King.

  Click here for the link.

  Here with the latest updates on missing Ava King, brought to you by Lara and Ava King’s number one fan.

  Twitter: @ryan_gosling_wannabe

  August 26th 2018

  2130hrs

  ‘I’d like to be famous,’ Ava once told me, her brown eyes searching my face. ‘Like you.’ And then she’d asked me how everyone knew who I was. ‘All the paps that chase you all the time. Why do they want to do that?’ I wanted her back here now, so that I could tell her that soon she’d be more famous than she could possibly imagine. She might laugh. See the irony in it all. That her face, right now, was probably one of the most recognised on the planet. I wanted so desperately to tell her that that was a mad thought. That I was sorry she had got what she wanted and that she wasn’t here to enjoy it.

  Conor came in again. Darkness had settled and he looked more agitated than ever, blinking three, four times in a row on repeat.

  ‘I have a feeling things might start unravelling,’ he said.

  I battled to keep from losing myself entirely. ‘Conor. Please, you’re meant to keep things calm for me.’ I battled to keep from losing myself entirely.

  ‘OK.’ He inhaled a great gulp of air. ‘OK. Let’s start again, Lara. Manny, he’s got something. On Matthew. He wants our statement before he releases it. But it doesn’t look good.’ His voice had sped up again and I could barely make out what he was saying to me.

  ‘Conor. Stop it.’ I was angry. Wasn’t I going through enough? ‘Conor. Stop. Please. I can’t keep up. There’s a million things going on in my brain right now. Just start from the beginning. I’m trying to pick up a thread halfway through.’

  ‘I’m sorry, Lara. I’m sorry.’ He stopped and pressed his fingertips to his lips. ‘OK. I’m sorry. I’m ready. Do you remember at the announcement, Matthew was late?’ I didn’t like where this was going. But then I thought there’s no way Manny could have any idea about the swimming pool.

  ‘I remember. Yes.’

  ‘We told Manny during the announcement that Matthew was late because his dad was in hospital.’

  ‘God damnit.’ I held my hand up to my chest. ‘God damnit. Seriously. I don’t need this now. There’s a missing child. Why’s he pestering about a small white lie?’ But as I said it, I was thinking about everything else that Manny could uncover.

  ‘I know. He rang me just now. He’d been to find out what hospital Mr Raine Senior was in. To try and get him to make a statement about Ava. Or something. Who knows with Manny.’

  ‘Well, he could have still been in hospital? Couldn’t he?’

  ‘Well, I tried that. But Manny’s ferocious at his job. He’s like a fucking parasite. Apparently he thought something was dodgy when Matthew came back with wet hair, smelling freshly washed.’ I remembered then, Manny asking if Matthew had been for a shower and that he’d said no. That’s apparently when he became suspicious.

  ‘Well, I couldn’t very well tell him that I’d been to have a shower whilst everyone was waiting, could I?’ he had told me.

  ‘It wouldn’t have taken Manny long.’ Conor leaned his head back and massaged the bridge of his nose. ‘He traced Raine Senior to Fremantle Prison in Perth. Somehow managed to get out from the guards that he’d been right as rain.’

  ‘We can’t let this get out.’ I thought of Matthew’s father. It had been one of the first things he’d told me. ‘Of course, no one knows,’ Matthew had said, as he’d sat next to me on the large cream sofa in my lounge. ‘I’ve never really told people this before but I need to tell you. Just so you know everything. My dad. He’s locked up. Behind bars.’ He had wiped his mouth.

  ‘Oh God,’ I’d said.

  ‘We were out drinking at this watering hole in the middle of nowhere back home in Perth. Me and my old man. Anyway, there was a brawl. I can’t remember what it was about. Then my dad – I followed him outside to the back of the pub in this small square. Thought he was going for a smoke. Turns out he . . .’ Matthew had swallowed then, unable to go on. I had held my hand out to his.

  ‘It’s OK,’ I’d whispered.

  ‘He punched this guy. He’d said some things. About me. My dad was steaming angry. Went at him. And, well . . .’

  ‘Well?’

  ‘That was it. One punch. It was over. The guy got airlifted to hospital but he died a day later. He never meant to hurt him badly. He’s a good man, my dad. A real good man.’

  ‘I’m so sorry.’

  ‘It’s OK. It’s weird. He’s the softest guy, Pa. He’s not some crazy’ – he’d bitten his thumbnail – ‘murderer. He loves me so much. Was being loyal. But to see the family of the guy. I had to look them in the eye. I was the only one there to be a witness. Against my own father. Anyway. It’s all in the past. They never want to talk of it again.’ He’d read my mind as to whether it would ever come out in the press. ‘Come on, drink up.’ He passed me an alcohol-free beer. ‘Let’s go crazy.’

  I looked at Conor, thinking about the conversation I’d had with Matthew about his father and wondering how much Matthew had told him. ‘I know this cannot get out,’ Conor replied. It seemed he knew more than he was letting on. ‘Look. I don’t want to be bothering you with this. Normally I’d deal with it. As you know. But I need your input here, Lara.’

  ‘And I’m giving it to you.’ I felt strangled. ‘Aren’t I? What am I doing? Oh God. I’m sorry. Yes. I’m here.’

  ‘Shall we give him something in return? He’s suggested something.’

  ‘What?’ Although I already knew what was coming, thinking back to Manny asking me questions about Ava’s father before the announcement.

  ‘No, no. I’m not going into Ava’s paternity. Not now. At the very least that would be of the height of disrespect to Ava. And how on earth would that look?’ I clung to the edge of my desk begging for some form of respite or some good news. I wasn’t going to put myself in the firing line where Matthew and his father were concerned.

  ‘Ring Mcgraw,’ I said. ‘Tell Manny he’ll have to stop under police instructions. That it will impact the investigation.’

  ‘Done that. Didn’t work. As if Manny gave two shits. He’s pissed you lied to him.’ I thought back to the panic that had overwhelmed me. The swimming pool. The big announcement. Mine and Ava’s future. ‘He says that under the circumstances, it looks dodgy you lied about why Matthew was late.’

  ‘What the hell does that mean?’ The pit of my stomach fired up. ‘What’s he insinuating? I don’t like that. I lied to him because he’s a member of the press and I don’t want them knowing every single in and out of our lives.’

  ‘Listen.’ Conor chewed his lip. ‘OK. I shouldn’t have asked you. Don’t worry about that. I’ll sort him out. I’ll figure it out. But, Lara, you need to tell me. You need to tell me about Ava’s dad. So I can—’

  ‘You need to know nothing,’ I said in a breezy voice. I squeezed the edge of the table again, thinking about Ava’s father.

  ‘It wasn’t’ – he swallowed – ‘non-consensual, was it? Because—’

  ‘No. No it wasn’t. But it was a mistake. It was someone I met at a party here in LA. I’d never met him before. But we both clearly fancied each other. I drank too much. So did he. That was it. There’s no crazy secret. No one from my past who is going to sell a story on me. No one who knows about Ava.’ I thought back to Detective Mcgraw’s face when I’d told him the same thing. The way he’d looked just past my cheek and chewed at his lip, and the way my mind had immediately filled the gaps into what he’d been thinking of me.

  ‘Fine,’ he said. My mind started jumping from thoug
ht to thought. Ava, Manny, Matthew. ‘Leave Manny to me, then,’ he said. ‘That OK?’

  ‘Yes. I don’t care. Just think about it. Think about what’s at stake here,’ I said. ‘Please.’

  He turned to leave but then looked back at me. ‘Why so secretive then? About Ava’s father?’ God, not you now too, please, Conor. He was the one person I could rely on not to ask questions and to get on with his job.

  ‘Because—’ I thought about how to answer him. ‘Because mine and Ava’s relationship is sacred. Something special. Mother and daughter bond.’ A sharpness twisted in me. ‘And I don’t want that ruined by anyone else. She’s mine, you understand? I don’t want someone I barely knew at the time sullying it. Reminding me daily that I slept with a stranger. And who knows what he’d want from me.’

  ‘OK.’ With that, he left the room. ‘I’ll go and deal with it. I’ll speak to him again. See what I can do.’

  ‘Thank you, Conor.’ I thought back to Ava, how she’d never really asked about her father until Matthew had come onto the scene, and how I’d told her that it didn’t matter. We had all we needed here in our home – with Joan and Rosa and Marcy – and that we were strong.

  But all these questions were setting me on edge. People demanding too much from me, wanting to know this or that when really, they should be thinking about Ava. And then I thought about someone else who might be affected by Manny’s line of questioning. I picked up the intercom. I realised I’d have to tell Matthew about his dad.

  ‘Matthew?’ I said. There was no answer. ‘Your dad. Things are going on. You might want to prep him.’ But still he didn’t answer. Perhaps I could ask Joan to find him. Perhaps I could get up and look. But something paralysed me to the spot. I felt too fearful to move, like a child scared to get out of bed in case there was a monster underneath it.