The Friend Who Lied

by Rachel Amphlett

  ‘Then why did she come to see me?’

  ‘I don’t know. You were the one she spoke to. What did she say when you asked her?’

  ‘Just that she was updating their report, and that she wanted to check some details.’

  ‘Such as?’

  ‘What time we got to the escape room, where we’d been before that.’

  ‘Did you tell her?’

  ‘Of course I did. I said we’d been to the Ragamuffin Bar for a few drinks before we walked over the road to the escape room.’

  ‘Did she ask anything else?’

  ‘No.’

  He drains the coffee, signals the waitress over, then asks for another. He watches as she gathers up the plates.

  ‘Have you spoken to Bec’s parents?’ I ask when she’s gone.

  ‘No. Why would I?’

  ‘I wondered, that’s all.’

  ‘Why? Want me to ask them if she’s said anything? Wondering if she’s going to tell everyone what you’ve done?’

  I drop my cup into the saucer with a clatter, chuck a twenty pound note on the table and grab my bag before pushing back my chair, then bend down and shove my face next to his.

  ‘Fuck you, David. I know what you did.’

  38

  Lisa

  Another follow-up appointment. One more blood test. One more consultant to see this week, and then that’s it.

  I don’t have to come back until next week.

  Four whole days without the stench of disinfectant, the squeak of rubber-soled shoes on tiled floors, the sight of all these sick people.

  I can sense freedom, despite the regular appointments I will have to keep for the next three months. My heart rate quickens every time I think of the future.

  My future. My plans.

  I smile as Dr Clark reads through the latest report and reiterates what three other doctors already told me last week.

  ‘So,’ he says, scribbling another prescription and handing it to me, ‘you need to pick up these from the pharmacy counter on your way out, and then we’ll see you in a few days to check on progress.’

  He pats my back as he opens the consulting room door for me.

  I pause on the threshold and hold out my hand. ‘Thank you. For everything. I realise I’m lucky, that not all of your patients get this far, but I want you to know how much I appreciate what you and your team have done for me.’

  He seems taken aback, and for a fleeting moment I wonder if I’d said something wrong but then he clasps my hand between his own, and smiles.

  ‘Every success helps us through the others,’ he says. ‘It’s why we do this.’

  We part, with me agreeing to phone him if I’ve got any concerns, and then I follow the winding corridor back through the hospital, back towards the exit.

  The pharmacy counter has a queue eight deep, but I can’t get these drugs from our local chemist, not without a twenty-four-hour wait, and I have to start taking these today.

  I resign myself to shuffling forward behind a young couple with a new-born baby, the mother’s face drawn and pale. I hope to hell the baby’s okay and they’re only here for routine medicine. Headache pills, maybe.

  ‘Lisa?’

  I turn at the sound of my name, and my jaw drops open.

  Bec’s mother is hurrying towards me, her arms outstretched while Derek, Bec’s dad, hovers in the background. He holds up a hand in greeting as Sue envelopes me in a bear hug.

  ‘You’re looking well, love. Good to see you.’

  Relief floods through me; I thought they’d be angry with me, that they thought I’d abandoned their daughter, that I hadn’t been there to stand up for her.

  ‘Lisa.’ Derek stoops to kiss my cheek. I’d forgotten how damn tall he was – I always thought he resembled an oak tree when I first met him, but his kind-hearted nature soon put me at ease.

  ‘Have you been to see Bec?’

  ‘Yes. We’ve been here every day, trying to help her cope with everything.’

  Any other mother would be traumatised by what had happened to her daughter – mine would be – but Sue seems more pragmatic.

  ‘They haven’t let us yet,’ I tell them. ‘How is she?’

  ‘Getting there,’ says Derek. He’s not as stoic as his wife, and his voice wobbles. ‘But she’s a good kid. She’ll come through it.’

  Sue slips her fingers through his. ‘They’re very pleased with her progress. I think she simply hit rock bottom, and didn’t know how to cope.’

  ‘I feel so bad I couldn’t be there for her.’

  Sue shakes her head. ‘How could you be? You were recovering from a transplant. Don’t be silly. Bec would’ve known that. I think this has been building up for a while, to be honest. That’s what the psychiatrist thinks, anyway. Too much stress, he said. And then, what with Simon’s death …’

  She sighs, and Derek puts his hand around her shoulders, drawing her near. ‘You can go in and see her, if you want.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘They reckon she’ll be able to come home at the weekend, so they’re lifting visiting restrictions. They probably think it’ll ease her into talking about it… about what happened.’

  ‘If you wander along there now, you can probably see her before visiting hours are over,’ says Sue. ‘She’d love to see you.’

  I think back to our last conversation, the strange way Bec acted before she hurried from the house, and I wonder if Sue’s assumption is correct.

  ‘Okay,’ I say. I check over my shoulder but the queue has hardly moved. ‘I’ll go now. I can stop by here on my way out.’

  ‘Wonderful.’ Sue beams at me, then Derek. ‘We’d best be going. We only put three hours on the car, and we’re already ten minutes over. Good to see you, Lisa.’

  ‘You too.’

  I wander across to the reception desk, check where to find Bec’s ward and then follow the green line painted on the ceiling up three floors and towards the back of the hospital.

  It’s more peaceful here.

  There’s none of the bedlam that fills the ground floor, no one dashing around to be somewhere they should’ve been half an hour ago, and a calmer atmosphere lingers all around me.

  I scan the index for the floor outside the lift doors, and set off along a corridor lined on one side with floor-to-ceiling windows that overlook the car park on one side and landscaped gardens on the other. It’s all new, this wing. I remember seeing the articles online about some dignitary or other attending an opening ceremony a year or so ago.

  I see Bec before she spots me.

  She’s in an armchair next to a window at the far end of a room that resembles a care home – there are various armchairs dotted around the edges, all of which are empty at the moment.

  She looks up as I near. ‘Did you see Mum and Dad downstairs?’

  ‘Yes. I thought your mum was going to hug all the air out of my lungs.’

  That makes her smile, at least.

  I pull out a chair next to her, eyeing the bandages that cover her wrists.

  She notices, and holds up her hands. ‘I reckon I’m on the same painkillers as you.’

  ‘Are they working?’

  She nods, drops her hands to her lap, and shoots me a sideways look. ‘How are you?’

  ‘That was my line.’

  ‘I asked first.’

  ‘All going well, as far as they can tell at the moment. I met with my consultant earlier. They’ve changed my medication again. That’s when I saw your mum and dad downstairs.’

  ‘Did they seem okay?’

  ‘Yes. Worried about you, but grateful that you’re okay.’ There’s no easy way to do this. ‘Why’d you do it, Bec?’

  ‘This?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘I don’t know. I guess I felt I didn’t have much of a choice anymore.’ She picks at a loose thread on one of the bandages. ‘Enough about me. So, your transplant worked, then?’

  ‘Yes, seems so.’

  ‘What�
�s next for you, then?’

  I tell her my plans for buying my own place, going back to work when I’m recovered. Normal things.

  ‘That’s good. That’s really good.’

  She sounds genuine. I shuffle in my seat. ‘Can I ask you something?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Why did you and Simon split up?’

  Her shoulders sag. ‘I suppose it’ll all come out now anyway. He owed me money. A lot of money. When we first got together, he was investing in a new software application. One of his ex-colleagues was leading the project, and Simon got involved. He wanted to be in it at the beginning, not just as a developer but as a vested business partner. He didn’t have enough money of his own, so he asked me and said he’d pay me back within six months. I stupidly agreed.’

  ‘What happened?’ I ask, dread crawling in my stomach.

  ‘I asked him back in July when I could expect my money. He stalled for a while, saying he was saving for the wedding next year. I gave up waiting six weeks ago. That’s when he told me there wasn’t anything to pay me back with,’ she says bitterly. ‘I met with his business partner to try and understand what was going on, and why they were haemorrhaging so much money. It turned out Simon had a gambling problem I didn’t know about. He’d somehow managed to keep it hidden from me. He’d siphoned off the money I’d invested and used it on those online gambling apps, spending thousands. I split up with him right then – I was livid. The company they formed started bankruptcy proceedings the day after.’

  ‘He would’ve paid you back eventually, wouldn’t he?’

  Even as I say the words, I know I’m wrong. I’m already viewing Simon through rose-tinted glasses and it’s only two weeks since he died.

  ‘I don’t think so,’ says Bec, echoing my own thoughts. ‘Not that I’m going to see any of it now anyway.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘The idiot didn’t leave a will. Under intestacy law, I’m not entitled to anything. Even my own money. It’s gone. It’s all gone.’

  I rock back on the chair, stunned. ‘I had no idea.’

  ‘Me neither. We spoke about having wills done when we first got engaged. I had mine; I just hadn’t updated it since we split up. I thought he had one, too. I thought …’

  She drifts off, and turns her gaze to the garden beyond the window.

  I clear my throat. ‘How much did he owe you, Bec?’

  ‘Eighty thousand pounds.’

  Fucking hell.

  ‘Is that why the police interviewed you when he died?’ I say.

  Her head snaps around. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ I’ve gone too far; I can see that now. I should’ve kept my mouth shut. ‘Sorry. I just wondered if they thought … you know …’

  ‘If I killed him to get my money back?’ She sneers at me, anger flashing in her eyes. ‘You can’t talk. You had more motive than any of us to kill him. After all, if it wasn’t for him dying you wouldn’t be here. He was your final hope, remember?’

  39

  Bec

  I hope it worked.

  I hoped it wouldn’t come to this, but I’m resigned now.

  Lisa will keep digging, keep asking questions, keep picking at the scab that’s formed over the truth.

  I have to protect her. I have to make sure she believes me.

  I’m telling the truth about the money, at least. Simon really did coerce me into lending it to him.

  I resisted at first, saying I didn’t think it was such a good idea to do such a thing so early on in our relationship.

  After that, he sulked.

  He stopped suggesting nights out, saying he had to work late to try and find a way to move the venture forward, that he was too tired for sex, that he was too stressed out wondering how they were going to seize the opportunity.

  I became worn down, paranoid about spending my own money for fear of him judging me, that he might see a new pair of shoes as another nail in the coffin for the exciting opportunity he made me feel I denied him.

  Of course, I gave in eventually. Three months of guilt was more than anyone should have to take and, in the end, I was too exhausted to argue anymore.

  I went into my bank to transfer the money into his account, thinking the transaction was enough of a receipt.

  I’m a fool, I know.

  But I loved him once.

  I tug at the bandages, impatient now to heal. The fire has turned to an aggravating itch and I can’t wait to be rid of them. They are ugly, reminding me of what has happened and what I used to have.

  I am angry with myself. I never thought I was the sort of person to give up like this, that I could be so desperate to finish it all.

  I knew Lisa and Simon had been together for a while when they were at school studying their A-levels, and I don’t know why they split up, but I never felt that I could talk to her about him until now.

  Now that he’s dead.

  A few days ago, as I sat here, I wished that David hadn’t saved me. I wish that he had let the blood flow out from me, let me sink under the surface of the bath water, and let me die.

  Now, I feel a new determination. I want my life back.

  Simon is gone. I don’t have to answer to him anymore. No more arguments. No more worrying that he will snap at me, tell me I’m being stupid, tell me he knows better than me.

  I realise I am clenching my jaw, and force myself to relax.

  I’m going to have to find a new job, of course. Maybe even move away – it wouldn’t be a bad thing to put some distance between me and the rest of them now.

  Not after everything that has happened.

  At least in a new town, perhaps a few hundred miles from here, I can start again. I can change my appearance, get a haircut, change the colour, and, if anyone asks me if I am that Rebecca Wallis who allegedly killed her boyfriend, I can laugh and tell them I don’t know what the hell they’re talking about.

  Despite my bravado though, there is a dull ache where our friendship used to be. The five of us began fracturing apart from each other even before Simon died, and I don’t think the ones who are left are going to stay in touch, to be honest.

  I am scared, too.

  What if the police decide they want to speak to me again? What if they take this as an admission of guilt, rather than an act of desperation to make it all end?

  I push away the empty takeaway coffee cup and wonder if I should venture along the corridor and downstairs to the café for another one. I glance up at the wall, forgetting there are no clocks in this ward, and then decide to move to a different armchair across the room as a middle-aged man with stringy hair lowers himself into the one opposite mine and leers at me.

  I need to get out of here. All this sitting around thinking isn’t doing me any good. I never used to be like this. Simon shattered my confidence, as well as my bank balance and reputation.

  When I finally told Mum and Dad what had happened, what he’d done to me, they were incredulous.

  Surely not. Surely not Simon, not the future son-in-law they thought they were getting.

  Even now, I’m not sure they believe me.

  I haven’t been allowed access to my mobile phone or a computer – something about ensuring I have a full recovery without being exposed to social media, I expect – but I told them where to find the paperwork, the evidence of what he had done.

  I need them to know. I need them to know that I’m telling the truth about what he did.

  Lisa, though. Lisa worries me.

  Now that she has a new lease of life she seems determined to wreck everyone else’s.

  While she was ill, when things were so desperate, we all rallied around her, doing all we could to help. I hadn’t realised at the time though how self-centred she had become – or was she like it before she got ill, but I hadn’t noticed?

  All I know now is that she really can’t remember. I wish she would leave this alone, go back to work, do what she says she’s going to do
and get on with her life, and leave mine well alone.

  She could do so much damage, and she doesn’t even know it.

  There’s a flurry of activity near the door.

  I suddenly wish I could stay in here, safe from the outside world, because the person standing in the doorway is the last person I want to see right now.

  40

  David

  I run a hand across my eyes and stare at the computer screen once more, battening down the panic that is threatening to rise.

  Since Hayley stormed out of the café, I’ve alternated between wanting to phone her to apologise, and leaving her to stew.

  I think she knows something, and I’m not ready yet.

  I don’t know if I will ever be ready.

  Martin wanders past, whistling under his breath, oblivious to the turmoil of his employee’s mind. He’s been a good boss to me these past few weeks, giving me time off to visit Lisa, to mourn for Simon, to try to understand what my life’s become.

  At least he hasn’t noticed my mistakes. I’ve been extra careful, double-checking – no, triple-checking – everything that I’ve worked on since I saw that first error. I can’t afford to lose my job on top of everything else.

  I lower my gaze to the computer screen again. The calculations are wrong. At this rate, the state-of-the-art roof will be lost with the first gust of wind that hits the client’s house next winter. It’s a beginner’s mistake, and not the first one I have made this month.

  I used to be good at this. I used to be able to block out the outside world and be lost within my work. It became a sanctuary, a way to escape. I could spend hours within the finite details of each design, turning someone’s dream into a reality.

  I enjoyed it, too and it’s that abandonment that I’m trying to find again because it’s my only release from what’s going on around me.

  Everything feels like it is unravelling, that I have lost control.

  I realise with horror that in a situation like this, I’d turn to Simon for advice.