Who Did You Tell (ARC)

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Who Did You Tell (ARC) Page 17

by Lesley Kara


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  WHO DID YOU TELL?

  ‘I’ve got nothing left, Astrid.’ Her voice cracks.

  ‘Oh, Helen, that’s not true. You’re doing so well.’

  ‘I was, but I’m not any more. I’ve . . . I’ve been very weak

  today.’

  At last, there it is. The admission.

  ‘Come on, Helen. It’s not too late to stop. It’s just a little set-

  back. Don’t have any more. Please.’

  ‘It’s all right for you. You’ve got your Mum and Josh. You’re

  still so young. You’ve got your whole life ahead of you. I’m all

  washed up.’

  If only I could tell her what’s happened, but I can’t, can I?

  Not while she’s drinking. Before I can stop myself I tell her to

  hold on and that I’m on my way round right now. She’s at that

  dangerous self- pitying stage. I’ve got to be strong and help her

  before she loses it completely. It could quite easily have been

  me who broke first. When I think of how close I’ve come

  lately . . .

  My hands are shaking so much it takes me ages to get my feet

  into my shoes and tie the laces, partly because it’ll be the first

  time I’ve left the house on my own since opening that enve-

  lope, and partly because turning up at Helen’s flat while she’s

  drinking is going to test me to my limits. I’m fragile enough as

  it is at the moment. But if I leave her on her own, who knows

  what might happen?

  I’m on high alert from the second I leave the cottage, walk-

  ing as fast as I can without actually breaking into a run. I’m

  there in under five minutes, panting as I press the bell and stare

  up at her window. At last, the curtain twitches. A few minutes

  later the buzzer goes and I push open the heavy glass door and

  head for the stairwell. The door to her flat is ajar when I get

  there. The telly’s on in the background.

  As I move further in, I see her in the kitchen, emptying a

  bottle of wine down the sink. My shoulders relax.

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  LESLEY K AR A

  ‘Shall I make us both some coffee?’ I say, trying not to look

  at the red wine sploshing against the stainless steel, averting

  my eyes from the telltale purple ring in the large wine glass still

  standing on the counter, like the one I saw not so long ago on

  her draining rack and wondered about.

  She hands me the empty bottle and goes and slumps in an

  armchair. I push it through the flap of her swing bin as fast as I

  can. I don’t want to hold it any longer than I need to. It makes

  a loud clinking noise, and I bet if I rootled around in there I’d

  find another empty. She probably wanted me to see her tip it

  down the sink – a ruse to cover up how much she’s already had.

  I know all the tricks.

  All the while I’m busying myself with the coffee- making,

  Helen is staring into space through dull, heavy- lidded eyes. I’m

  right. She’s drunk a lot more than half a bottle.

  While I’m waiting for the coffee to brew I pick up the empty

  wine glass, take it to the sink and swill it out with water. Then

  I use it to rinse away the last traces of wine down the plug hole.

  ‘Here, get this down you.’ I put the tray on the coffee table,

  then sit on the sofa opposite.

  ‘It’s good of you to come,’ she says, pointing the remote at the

  TV and pressing it wildly, impatiently, her thumbs stabbing at

  the buttons. Eventually, she finds the right one and turns it off.

  I keep my voice as low and calm as I can. After all, I’ve no

  idea what kind of drunk she is, whether she’s the type to get

  obnoxious and aggressive or just maudlin and sleepy. I’m hop-

  ing it’s the latter.

  ‘It’s not a good idea for you to be on your own right now,

  Helen. And I know you’d do the same for me.’

  She leans forward and grasps the handle of the mug, takes a

  mouthful of coffee and sinks back in her chair with it.

  ‘Helen, what you said on the phone just now – it’s not true.

  There’s still time for you to turn things around.’

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  WHO DID YOU TELL?

  She blows air through her cheeks. In the harsh overhead light

  she looks older, drained. It’s horrible to see her like this, with

  her hair all wiry and unkempt and her blouse gaping open.

  I want to tell her that she’s wrong about it being ‘all right for

  me’, that however rosy it looks from where she’s sitting, I could

  lose everything if this Laura ups her game. Laura. She’s proba-

  bly not called Laura at all. She wouldn’t be stupid enough to

  give Mum her real name, surely?

  Helen closes her eyes and, within a few minutes, her breath-

  ing changes. She’s fallen asleep already. Whatever I say to her

  now, she won’t remember in the morning. Gingerly, I extricate

  the mug from her fingers. Her eyes open briefly. Seconds later,

  she’s dropped off again.

  I stay for a while, just in case she wakes, but soon she’s out

  for the count and snoring her head off. Then I empty her mug

  of coffee down the sink and pour her a large glass of water,

  which I leave on the coffee table. Just as a precaution, I empty

  out her wastepaper bin and put that next to her armchair too.

  As I pull her front door shut behind me it strikes me that the

  whole time I’ve been in Helen’s flat I haven’t once had the urge

  to drink. Even with all this other weird shit going on, helping

  Helen has made me stronger. Maybe it’s true what they say at

  AA. Maybe this Twelve Step thing really works.

  But when I’m back on the street the panicky feeling returns.

  It might still be light, but that doesn’t stop the tension in my

  neck and shoulders, the sensation that I’m being watched wher-

  ever I go. I can’t get back to the cottage soon enough and, even

  when I do, the fear still clings to me like a wet shirt and I have

  to check each and every room before settling down in front of

  the TV. I can’t concentrate on anything, but at least it’s back-

  ground noise.

  The more I think about it, the more convinced I am that

  whoever’s doing this to me is someone Simon met at AA. He

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  LESLEY K AR A

  used to make a point of going to meetings in different parts of

  London. Said it was good not to get too attached to one group.

  Spread the misery, he used to joke.

  Oh, you’ve done that all right, Simon. You’ve done that all

  right.

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  28

  The next morning I wake with a stifling sense of unease. It’s

  only seven fifteen, but I need to get up and clear my head. It’s a

  miracle I slept at all, but in the end I was so exhausted my body
r />   must have taken over and switched off my mind. That’s what

  drinking used to do – silence the maelstrom of my thoughts.

  They always come back in the morning,

  though –

  the

  thoughts, the regrets, the fears – they never go away for long.

  As I’m pulling on my jeans and sweater I think of Helen, alone

  in her flat, waking up with a stonking headache and the jitters.

  I should call her later, after she’s had a chance to sleep it off.

  Make sure she’s all right.

  It’s low tide and the beach is empty, save for the gulls. It’s

  already warm and the sea is glassy and luminous. Other-

  worldly. The early- morning sun glitters on its surface.

  For a while I just stroll along the water’s edge, trying to con-

  vince myself I’m not scared. Maybe it’s a good thing that Josh

  and Richard have gone to Berkshire. It gives me time to think,

  to work out what I should do, if there’s anything I can do.

  Who is this person who knows all about my past? Someone

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  LESLEY K AR A

  Simon got close to? Close enough to let her take his photo. To

  disclose his guilty secrets. Our guilty secrets.

  The tide has washed up a dead eel that gleams silver in the

  sun. A gull makes a beeline for its glistening bead of an eye.

  With one stab of the beak, it plucks it out. I clap my hand to my

  mouth. I know it’s just nature and that the eel is already dead,

  but the savagery of it still shocks me. I watch as the gull rinses

  the eyeball in the shallows, then gobbles it down.

  I hurry past, suddenly afraid of the emptiness of the beach and

  the immensity of the sea. I know it’s just words on a piece of paper, but it’s a real threat this time. You’d better not get too comfortable in sleepy little Flinstead. You’d better keep your wits about you from now on.

  And to deliberately put my name on a death notice like that . . .

  Soon I’ll be level with the beach huts on stilts, the ones with

  their backs turned, defiantly, to the water. I set off in a diagonal line towards the wooden steps that lead up to the path in front

  of them, unnervingly aware of my own vulnerability. It reminds

  me of the time I came down here at night, how the fear crept up

  on me like the tide.

  I squint in the sunlight. Something that looks like crockery

  is strewn all over the sand up ahead. I jog over there to check it

  out. It is crockery. A pretty teaset, some of it smashed, lies scattered on the ridge of pebbles and shells left by the tide. I look

  up and see that one of the huts’ windows is wide open. The

  crockery must have been thrown out deliberately.

  As I reach the path I see exactly what’s happened. Several of

  the huts have had their doors kicked in, padlocks sawn off;

  personal contents litter the decked platforms and spill on to

  the path: cushions, towels, plates. A plastic bucket and spade.

  Green shards of glass from a broken bottle on a dark, drying

  stain on the concrete.

  I recognize the Carter hut straight away and it too has been

  damaged. The door is hanging off its hinges. I know it’s only a

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  beach hut, little more than a small, painted shed, and no one

  has been hurt, but it’s still a shocking sight. I should tell some-

  one. Call the police. My heart hammers in my chest.

  I look in both directions. Surely someone else will be along

  soon. Someone I can share my dismay with. Someone who’ll

  take over and phone the police themselves. But there’s no one

  in sight. I climb past the hanging door and step over the thresh-

  old into the hut. It doesn’t seem to have been ransacked, like

  some of the others, but the single bed is all messed up, and two

  of the cushions are on the floor. Perhaps whoever’s responsible

  got frightened off before they had a chance to do any more

  damage. Unless . . .

  A sudden impulse makes me open the cupboard under the

  counter, the one I last saw Josh tidying something away in. It’s

  one of those unconscious actions I don’t even question till I’m

  in the process of doing it. The cupboard is empty apart from a

  box of glasses on the bottom shelf and a blue- and- white polka-

  dot bikini on the top shelf. I rock back on my heels. It must

  have been the bikini he hid in here, because the box is large

  and heavy and I would almost certainly have heard the glasses

  clinking against each other if he’d been picking it up and slid-

  ing it inside.

  I take hold of the bikini top and draw it out. It’s a skimpy lit-

  tle thing and there are grains of sand in the bra cups. It doesn’t

  mean anything. It could belong to anyone. A friend or relative.

  Or maybe it belongs to one of Josh’s ex- girlfriends.

  I think back to the other day, when Richard conveniently left

  us alone together in the house. For all I know, that’s a common

  occurrence, an unspoken arrangement between father and son.

  I could end up telling him all the sordid details of my life like

  some shame- faced penitent when all he wants is a bit of fun

  over the summer. A couple of weeks ago, that’s all I wanted too.

  I step towards the broken door to make my way out and see

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  if anyone else is coming along the path and catch sight of some-

  thing that most definitely wasn’t here before. A half- empty bottle of brandy and two glasses on the wide shelf that serves

  as a kitchen counter.

  A pulse beats in my throat. There’s still a drop of amber liq-

  uid in the bottom of one, and a lipstick smear at the top. Josh

  said his dad never used the hut, hasn’t for ages. So either the

  vandals stopped and helped themselves to a glass of brandy, or

  Josh is messing around with someone else as well as me.

  I lift the glass up and breathe in the fiery tang of solvent and

  burnt caramel and my insides fold over. I almost gag with long-

  ing. Why the hell am I worrying about what Josh may or may

  not be up to? Someone out there appears to want me dead. This

  is nothing compared to that. Nothing.

  I put the glass down and wrap my fingers round the neck of

  the bottle, feel the comforting weight of it in my hand. I imag-

  ine unscrewing the top and lifting it to my lips, the brandy

  scalding my throat, searing my oesophagus like liquid fire. Just

  a few good swigs and it will all go away. I won’t care about any-

  thing any more. Josh. Simon. The girl in the puffa jacket. The

  fractured events of that terrible night. Just a few good swigs

  and it will all start to fade.

  The sound of a dog barking brings me to my senses. I lurch

  out into the sober glare of the sun and come face to face with

  two stout old ladies and their excitable Bichon Frise. They’re

  both staring at me as if they think I’m the perpetrator and

  they’ve caught me
red- handed. The stouter of the two women

  raises her walking stick in the air and points it straight at me.

  ‘This is Richard Carter’s hut,’ she says. Her tone is indignant,

  accusing. It doesn’t help matters that I’m still grasping the bot-

  tle of brandy.

  ‘I know. I’m a friend of the family.’

  She squints at me from behind thick- lensed spectacles. The

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  WHO DID YOU TELL?

  little white dog strains on its lead and barks. More dog- walkers

  are turning up now, staring at the huts in horror, tutting and

  exclaiming. One of them, a middle- aged man with a black Lab-

  rador, pulls out his phone and starts taking pictures.

  ‘Bloody bastards!’ he says. ‘I’d like to get my hands on them!’

  Walking- stick Woman’s companion peers behind me into

  Richard’s hut. ‘We should call the police,’ she says, giving me a

  sidelong glance. She clearly still thinks I’m a suspect.

  I return the bottle to the hut and come out again. I need to

  start acting the part of concerned citizen. ‘Looks like they only

  got as far as kicking the door in on this one.’ I gesture with my

  head towards the beach. ‘There’s crockery all over the sand

  back there.’

  She purses her lips. ‘It’s disgraceful,’ she says at last. ‘Bored

  teenagers, no doubt.’ I pull out my phone. I’ve never actually

  rung Josh before. He sounds surprised when he answers.

  ‘Your dad’s beach hut’s been broken into. So have lots of

  others. I’m here now.’

  ‘Shit!’ I hear him relaying the information to his dad.

  ‘Dad says can you let Charlie in the art shop know? He lives

  in the flat above the shop. He’ll able to board it up for us till we get back. Dad forgot his phone in the rush to leave yesterday, or

  we’d ring him from here.’

  ‘Sure.’

  The two women are now chatting to someone else. Seems

  like I’m off the hook.

  ‘You’re luckier than some,’ I tell him. ‘There’s bottles of wine

  been smashed, and plates and cups and things.’ I take a deep

  breath. Part of me wants to mention the brandy and the messed-

  up bed so that he knows I’ve seen it. But a bigger part doesn’t.

  Because while I’ve got a deranged stalker on my tail I’d much

  rather keep Josh on side. Besides, I’ll know from his reaction if

  it means something, and I don’t want to know. Not yet.

 

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