Deceive Me

by Karen Cole

Please can Jack stay the night with you?

  She messages back almost immediately.

  Sure. no problem. Are you okay hun?

  Yes, will explain later. Thank you xx

  It’s hard to believe Chris would ever harm Jack, but I’m starting to doubt my own judgement in the light of the evidence and at least now I can be sure Jack will be safe for the night.

  ‘Stella said the boys were having fun together, so Jack is going to stay the night again,’ I tell Chris as I come back into the living room.

  ‘Okay.’ Chris shrugs and smiles.

  Now all I need to do is to wait for an opportunity to get out of the house without him noticing. But that proves easier said than done. Chris is unusually attentive this evening. He insists on cooking me a chicken curry and watches me as I force it down, trying not to gag. Then he settles down for the evening in front of the TV, right by the front window where he has a view of the door and of my car.

  ‘Come and sit next to me,’ he says, patting the space on the sofa next to him. ‘Let’s just try and relax for an hour or two. It won’t help Grace if we both make ourselves ill with worry.’

  Reluctantly, I perch on the sofa in front of the TV and stare blankly at the screen. There’s some kind of documentary about earthquakes and tsunamis on. But I’m not really paying attention. The images wash over me, and the droning voice of the presenter is just a meaningless sound. I do my best to feign interest while all the time I’m feeling more and more frustrated and on edge until Chris finally suggests we go to bed.

  In bed I lie awake, rigid with fear and anxiety, waiting for Chris to fall asleep. But he’s restless. He tosses and turns, wrestling with the pillow and sighing loudly. It’s almost as if he’s guessed what’s on my mind. And I’ve practically given up hope that he’ll ever go to sleep when finally, the sound of his breathing changes subtly.

  ‘Chris?’ I whisper, just to make sure.

  No answer.

  Slowly, not daring to breathe, I peel back the cover and climb out of bed. Fumbling my way to the chair in the dark, I pull on the T-shirt and shorts I left there. But as I’m heading towards the door, I trip on a pair of Chris’s shoes.

  My heart nearly explodes in my chest as Chris gives a sudden snort and rolls over. ‘What you doing, Jo?’ he mumbles.

  ‘Nothing. I just need the loo. Go back to sleep.’

  In the en-suite I sit on the edge of the bath, waiting and praying that Chris will just go back to sleep. I count to a hundred in my head, trying to stop the shaking that has overtaken me. And by the time I emerge Chris is snoring gently. Glancing over at his large, dark shape in the bed, I creep past to the door. It opens with a whine which seems unbearably loud in the stillness of the night and I freeze with my hand on the handle, waiting, holding my breath. To my relief, Chris shifts a little but doesn’t wake up. Exhaling slowly, I tiptoe as quickly as I can across the landing, past Jack’s room and down the stairs. I’ve just reached the front door when I hear heavy footsteps on the landing.

  Shit.

  I fumble with the lock on the door and yank it open.

  ‘Jo? Where you going?’ Chris plods down the stairs, rubbing his eyes and blinking at me in surprise. ‘Come back to bed.’

  I don’t answer. It’s too late for explanations now. If I’m going to do this, I need to be quick. Heart pounding out of my chest, I escape outside and slam the door shut behind me. Then I make a dash for the car. I’m just starting up the engine as Chris comes running down the path and out of the gate.

  ‘Jo!’ he shouts, banging on the bonnet. ‘What the hell?!’

  Revving the engine wildly, I back up and swerve around him. And the last thing I see before I screech around the corner is Chris lit up in my taillights and the look of anger and astonishment on his face.

  Twenty minutes later I’m parked outside Andreas’s house. It’s three in the morning and very dark. The one street lamp on the corner isn’t working and the only light comes from the moon and the twinkling lights on the highway far away across the farmland opposite. I switch off the engine and sit at the wheel, trying to steady my nerves. At least Chris hasn’t followed me, though he has been constantly ringing my phone. But it’s not just Chris I’m worried about. I’m not sure who I want to see less right now, Chris or Andreas’s brother. I glance nervously up at the house. The lights are all out and it’s slightly reassuring to note that there’s no sign of the brother’s car outside.

  I think about Yiannis, his weary, stone-grey eyes, the way he pointed the gun at Chris so casually, like he uses it all the time, and fear twists in my gut. But the fear that Chris is guilty is even greater. And even greater than that is the fear of not knowing. I try to muster my courage. I have to do this. I have to know.

  Once my breathing has steadied, I climb out of the car, walk up to the front door and ring the doorbell. I wait for what seems like ages before Andreas finally appears, standing there in shorts and a T-shirt, his face pale in the dim light, a phone hanging limply in his hand. He looks skinny and weak and scared.

  ‘You again!’ he exclaims. ‘This is harassment. I’m calling my brother.’ And he starts tapping at his phone.

  ‘Wait, Andreas,’ I say hurriedly. ‘Please, don’t do that. I just want to talk.’

  He hesitates, finger poised over the screen, then he sighs and to my intense relief slots it back in his pocket. ‘Is your husband with you?’ he asks, looking warily over my shoulder at the car.

  ‘No, I’m here on my own. I promise.’

  He seems to relax a little when he hears that. ‘Well, what do you want?’

  ‘Can I come in?’

  He sighs and reluctantly stands back to let me in.

  ‘What do you want?’ he repeats in the living room, standing opposite me, his arms folded defensively across his chest.

  ‘That photo you showed me of Grace, the one you took for the talent show. I need to see it.’

  He stares at me. ‘It’s three o’clock in the morning. That’s what you’ve woken me up for? Do you have to see it now?’

  ‘It’s really important. Please.’

  ‘Okay,’ he shrugs. ‘’He takes out his phone, swipes with his finger along the screen and hands it to me. ‘There. But I don’t understand. Why do you need to see it?’

  I ignore his question and peer at the image of Grace and a spasm of almost physical pain grips my body. I clutch the phone tightly, trying to breathe. So, I didn’t imagine it. The necklace is there, around her neck, plain as day. The conclusion is unavoidable. Grace was in Chris’s van at some point on Monday after I dropped her at school and he’s been lying about it. And there can be only one reason why he would lie about something so serious. It must be true. He must have hurt my baby girl. I feel like I’m about to faint. My legs buckle and I sink onto the sofa.

  Dimly, I’m aware that Andreas is hovering over me, long arms dangling ineffectually. ‘What’s wrong, Mrs Joanna? Are you okay?’ he asks.

  For a moment I can’t speak.

  ‘Can I get you something? A drink maybe?’

  ‘No, no, it’s okay. I’m okay.’ I bat his offers away impatiently. ‘Did Grace ever talk to you about anything . . .’ I inhale deeply. It’s hard to get the words out. Each word feels sharp and painful as if I’m regurgitating broken glass. ‘Did she ever say anything about her stepfather?’

  Andreas takes a step back. There’s no mistaking the sudden change in his manner and my heart plummets.

  ‘Yes, she did,’ he says quietly.

  So here it is. The moment of truth. There’s a part of me that wants to run away, a part of me that doesn’t want to hear the truth. ‘What did she say?’ I force myself to ask.

  He frowns angrily. ‘You must know. Don’t try and tell me you don’t.’

  ‘Know what?’ I whisper.

  Andreas stares at me. ‘That he wa
s abusing her, of course.’

  Monday, 25th September 2017

  Chapter 39

  2001

  This can’t be happening. He can’t do this to me. He can’t build my hopes up like this and then dash them completely as if I’m nobody. As if I’m nothing.

  ‘So when will you come?’ I ask.

  ‘I don’t know, Jo,’ Hakan sighs. ‘It’s difficult. Helen’s not very well. I can’t leave her on her own with the baby. I’m not going to be able to come.’

  Silence. The deafening sound of my dreams crashing and burning.

  ‘But when she’s better, you’ll come?’

  ‘I don’t know. I can’t really think about that right now.’

  Silence.

  ‘But you love me?’ My voice rises in pitch and becomes a whine. I hate the sound of it.

  Hakan gives a deep sigh at the other end of the line. ‘I loved you, yes. But I have to put Helen and the kids first. Look, I’m sorry, Jo. I’ve got to go.’

  He mumbles something vague about an appointment and rings off. I call him back immediately but there’s no answer.

  I punch in the numbers again, hot tears stinging the back of my eyes. Still no answer. So, I try again. On the fourth try his phone’s been switched off.

  ‘Fuck!’

  With a cry of rage and frustration I fling the phone across the room and it smashes into the wall.

  In her Moses basket, startled by the noise, Grace wakes up and starts crying. A low grizzly cry at first.

  ‘Shh . . . Gracie,’ I say. ‘Be quiet, please, baby.’ But she carries on crying, getting steadily louder until she’s screaming, her little face red with fury, the sound as piercing as an electric drill. I stride angrily over to her Moses basket and pick her up, rocking her backwards and forwards.

  ‘It’s okay, Gracie,’ I say as gently as I can. ‘It’s okay.’

  But it’s not okay. Hakan’s not coming and he may never come. I start crying hopelessly as this sinks in. My tears seem to come from deep in my gut and my whole belly shakes. They run down my cheeks, dropping onto Grace’s face and mingling with her tears. He never really loved me, I think. He can’t have. He cares more about Helen and Adam and his new baby than he does about me and Gracie.

  Grace carries on crying inconsolably. It’s as if, somehow, she understands what’s happened. I unhook my bra and try to feed her, but she refuses to latch on. Her little face scrunches up in disgust and rage and she turns away from me, crying loudly.

  ‘Come on, Gracie, please,’ I beg. ‘Please stop.’

  But she can’t or won’t stop. She carries on wailing for hours. I try everything I can to stop her. I try singing to her softly. I try burping her to get rid of wind, the way the health visitor showed me. I even try shouting at her to shock her into silence. That works for a second as she blinks at me in shock, but then her lip trembles and she screams even louder, opening her toothless mouth wide until it seems all I can see is her mouth red and raw and accusing. And finally, I can’t stand it anymore, so I place her back in her Moses basket, carry her upstairs and shut the door firmly.

  Downstairs I turn on the stereo very loud to drown out the sound of her wailing and I try ringing Hakan one more time. But his phone is still off the hook. It can’t be a coincidence, I think. He must have left it off deliberately. He doesn’t love me anymore. He just wants me out of his life. All the anger I felt earlier turns to despair and I take out the bottle of vodka that Tessie bought me on her holiday in Russia. I take a slug straight from the bottle. It tastes disgusting, but I can feel it numbing the pain, fogging my head. So, I drink until I can’t drink anymore and curl up on the kitchen floor sobbing.

  Chapter 40

  I knew what Andreas was going to say, of course, but it’s still a massive shock hearing the words spoken out loud. Is he right? Did I know? Was there a small part of me that knew? I examine my conscience. There are many things I’ve done and not done in my life, many lines I’ve crossed and ways in which I am guilty. But I’m not guilty of that. I can honestly say I never suspected that Chris was hurting Grace, not for a single moment. But how could I have missed something so momentous – so horrendous – right under my nose?

  It can’t be true. It just can’t be.

  ‘Are you sure? She told you she was being abused by her stepfather?’ I ask. ‘She actually said those words?’

  He thinks for a moment. ‘Well, no, not those exact words. She was very upset naturally. She didn’t really want to talk about it.’

  ‘What did she say? What were her exact words?’ I insist.

  He frowns. ‘I don’t remember. She said her childhood had been stolen from her or something like that. She said she couldn’t stand being at home anymore – that she’d been betrayed by the one person who she should be able to trust.’

  ‘Do you think he had anything to do with her disappearance? Do you think it’s possible that he’s . . . hurt her?’

  Something very subtle shifts in his manner. ‘Maybe,’ he says vaguely. ‘I don’t know.’ He walks over to the window and looks out, fiddling nervously with the curtains.

  I watch him carefully. Something doesn’t fit, and I’m struck once again by the conviction that this boy is lying to me.

  I pick up his phone and examine the photo.

  At that moment I’m hit by an idea so blindingly simple I’m amazed I didn’t think of it before. Glancing over at Andreas still standing by the window, I rapidly jab the icon in the corner of the screen before he notices. Then I select ‘Details’.

  ‘Hey, what are you doing?’ exclaims Andreas. And he lunges at me, trying to grab the phone, but not before I’ve seen enough to know that I’m right. It’s all there. The size, format and resolution of the photograph. And the date it was created.

  10 /9/2017.

  ‘That’s my phone. It’s private. You can’t use it without me,’ Andreas protests. I don’t answer. I’m too busy thinking.

  Of course. How could I not have realised? How could I ever have doubted Chris? This photograph with the necklace wasn’t taken on Monday morning. It was taken more than a week earlier which means that Grace could have dropped the necklace in Chris’s van sometime last week. But if Chris is innocent and he isn’t the one who betrayed her trust or committed a crime . . . I turn all this over in my head, trying to order my frantic, scattered thoughts.

  There’s a long silence. I stare at the marble floor tiles, chipped in places, at the dust collecting in the corners of the room.

  ‘Why did you lie?’ I ask at last.

  ‘I don’t know what you mean,’ he says.

  ‘You didn’t take this photo on Monday morning. You took it a week earlier.’

  His eyes dart nervously from side to side. ‘I must have made a mistake. Shown you the wrong picture.’

  ‘So, where’s the photo you did take?’

  He scrolls through his phone, getting agitated. He knows he’s not going to find it. ‘I must have deleted it,’ he says at last.

  I think about what Maria said on Tuesday morning outside the gym. She said she thought he’d given her a phone. What if she had been right about that all along?

  ‘You gave her a phone that morning. Why?’ I say out loud. ‘Did you swap it for her phone?’

  He doesn’t answer, just stares sullenly at the floor. And I’m gripped by another idea.

  I snatch up his phone so that he can’t ring his brother and make a dash for his room. I’m more than halfway up the stairs before Andreas catches up and tries to grab me. But I slip out of his grasp, pushing him away from me, and he tumbles backwards down the stairs. I hesitate for only a second, wondering if I should check he’s okay.

  Then I lurch into his room, shutting and locking the door. Andreas can’t have hurt himself too badly because within a few seconds he’s hammering furiously on the door.

&
nbsp; ‘Mrs Joanna, let me in,’ he demands.

  Ignoring him, I make a beeline for the drawer where I found the heroin. I was so distracted the other day by my discovery, I didn’t think to examine the entire contents. Now I wonder, is there something else inside there, something I missed? I wrench the drawer completely out and tip everything onto the floor. And there, sure enough, amongst all the junk, I find what I’m looking for.

  A phone. It’s just an ordinary black phone, a standard model. And one phone can look very much like another, I suppose, but Grace’s has a distinctive crack like a spider’s web in the right-hand corner of the screen. We hadn’t got around to fixing it.

  This phone has an identical crack in exactly the same place.

  Chapter 41

  Andreas has given up banging on the bedroom door and is slumped on the floor with his back to the wall when I finally open it.

  I brandish the phone in his face.

  ‘This is Grace’s,’ I say. ‘Why is it in your bedroom?’

  He doesn’t answer but from the defeated look on his face I know that I’m right.

  ‘She gave it to you, didn’t she?’ I persist, squatting down beside him on the floor. ‘She knew there was no point in keeping her own phone. If she used it, the police would easily be able to track her. Did you give her a different phone in exchange? Is that what Maria saw you give her?’

  Still no answer. He wraps his arms round his legs and buries his face in his knees.

  ‘I think you helped her run away,’ I say more gently. ‘You know where she is, don’t you? Where is she, Andreas?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ he mumbles.

  I don’t believe him, not for a second. But it doesn’t matter. I’ve got Grace’s phone and I’m willing to bet I’ll find the answers I’m seeking on it.

  I press the power button and am surprised to find that it’s still charged. Andreas doesn’t seem worried. Maybe he’s given up or maybe he assumes that I won’t be able to get in because the phone is password protected.