One Perfect Witness: a gripping psychological suspense

by Pat Young

  This seems to make Mum cry even louder and she spills her brandy, all over one of her fancy cushions, but she doesn’t look bothered. She just goes, ‘Oh, Charlie…’ with a big wail at the end.

  ‘Son,’ says Dad, touching me on the arm, ‘can you tell us why you stopped talking? When you were small?’

  ‘Because of the curse,’ I say, and then I start crying and I’m so angry at myself for being a big baby. This time, when Mum hugs me, I let her and it feels wonderful. I tell them about Robbie and how he made me touch him.

  ‘He what?’ says Dad, his eyes wider than I’ve ever seen them. ‘Jesus Christ. Did he do anything else?’

  Not sure what he means, but I shake my head.

  ‘He didn’t …’ Dad goes quiet, as if he’s not sure what to say.

  ‘Richard,’ snaps Mum. ‘Stop this. There’s no point.’ She kind of cradles my face in her hand and makes me look at her. ‘Charlie, did Robbie hurt you? In any way?’

  ‘No,’ I say, wishing we didn’t have to talk about this.

  ‘Son, why didn’t you just tell us?’

  ‘I didn’t want to, I felt dirty. And I was scared you’d be angry with me. I knew I should tell you and I was going to. Then the next morning, you told me that Robbie and his mum and the wee baby had died in the fire and I believed it was all my fault because of the curse.’

  ‘Oh, son,’ says Dad. ‘We wouldn’t have been angry at you.’

  Mum gives a kind of laugh through her tears. ‘Charlie, darling, there’s no such thing as a curse.’

  ‘There is. I said it to Robbie the day before the fire. Then I said it again to that Seb guy and we both nearly got burned to death.’

  ‘What did you say, son?’

  I don’t want to say the words out loud. What if saying them to Mum and Dad puts the curse on them and they die too? I shake my head. ‘Can’t tell you. It’s a curse and I’m never going to say it to anyone ever again.’

  Mum and Dad give each other a look. I can tell they think I’m crazy.

  ‘Listen to me, Charlie,’ says Dad. ‘What happened to Robbie’s family was tragic, but it was an accident. A terrible accident that had nothing to do with you.’

  ‘But I caused the fire.’

  Their eyebrows come down over their eyes. I can tell they’re thinking about me ‘messing about with matches’. Mum turns her head to the side when she says, ‘How could you have started the fire, Charlie? It was the middle of the night.’

  ‘Don’t even go there, Viv. It was an electrical fault. That was the official finding.’

  69

  France

  Friday 17 August

  Catherine is grinding coffee for breakfast when the phone rings. She stops the machine and shouts, ‘Eric, can you get that please?’

  Coffee forgotten, she strains to listen, just in case it’s their son on the line. Something in Eric’s tone troubles her and she bites at her lower lip as she walks into the hall.

  ‘Is it Sebastien?’

  Eric puts his finger on the mute button. ‘It’s someone from Police Scotland but I think they might know where Sebastien is.’

  Catherine clamps her crossed fingers to her lips and resists the urge to bounce like an excited child. Eric puts his hand on her shoulder, as if to keep her grounded. She touches her head to his so she can hear the voice on the other end.

  ‘Mr Lamar, we may have found your son.’

  Catherine’s hopes take off like a rocket. ‘They’ve found him? Oh, thank God.’

  ‘My wife is listening in,’ says Eric, ‘I hope that’s alright?’

  ‘Of course, sir, it’s appropriate that you both hear what I have to say.’

  There’s a pause and Catherine thinks she can hear the man on the other end taking a deep breath.

  ‘Mr and Mrs Lamar, do you think it would be possible for you to come to Scotland, please?’

  ‘When?’

  ‘Ideally, in the next few days.’

  ‘Well, of course, if you think it’s necessary, but I’m not sure I understand why you’re asking.’

  ‘We may need you to make a formal identification for us.’

  ‘Why can’t Sebastien identify himself? Don’t tell me the daft little bugger has gone and lost his passport now?’

  ‘Sir, I’m most terribly sorry, but the young man we believe to be your son may have been shot.’

  ‘Oh, my good lord. Is he badly hurt?’ asks Eric. ‘How serious is it? Can he be moved to Paris?’ Catherine, knowing suddenly, touches his arm to tell him to stop talking. The silence at the other end of the line is ominous.

  ‘Sir, we cannot be certain this young man is your son until he has been formally identified.’

  ‘For God’s sake, man. Out with it!’ Eric doesn’t often shout at people, but Catherine understands his frustration. Her heart beats at twice its normal speed. She knows this is the moment she’s been dreading since Sebastien left.

  ‘Perhaps you and your wife would prefer to sit down?’

  Eric looks at her and she shakes her head. ‘We’re fine,’ he says, his voice sombre.

  ‘I’m sorry to tell you that a young man has died. His body has been found on the grounds of Brackenbrae campsite near Ayr.’

  Eric interrupts, shaking his head and shouting, ‘Hang on a minute, hang on there. What makes you think this is Sebastien? You can’t phone me up and tell me it’s my son. You don’t know my son. This body you’ve found could be anybody.’

  ‘You’re quite correct, Mr Lamar. We’re unable to say for certain, at this time, that the young man we’ve found is your son. It would help us with our investigation if you could come and make a formal identification, positive or otherwise.’

  Catherine gently takes the phone from Eric’s hand. ‘We will make arrangements to be with you as soon as possible,’ she says. Her voice is calm and controlled, as if she has been expecting this call and preparing herself for it. ‘Where is our son?’ she asks. Eric, crumpled by her side, seems unable to speak.

  ‘The Procurator Fiscal has instructed a post-mortem examination. The body has been taken by CID to the mortuary at Queen Elizabeth University Hospital in Glasgow, but the post-mortem cannot take place until a formal identification has been carried out. In this case, by two people, because of the circumstances.’

  ‘What circumstances?’

  ‘We call it a suspicious death, Mrs Lamar. I regret to tell you that your son may have been the victim of a murder. I am most terribly sorry.’

  A few lifetimes pass in silence. A siren screams up from the street and Catherine feels her legs weaken under her, as if her body has become too heavy for them to bear. Eric helps her sit and squats, holding her hand, his eyes full of fear.

  ‘We’ll be there tomorrow, at the latest,’ he says. ‘Tell them we’ll leave right away and get on the first available flight.’

  ‘Do you know someone who could drive you to the airport?’

  ‘Don’t worry about that,’ says Catherine. ‘Just tell us where to come and we’ll be there, as soon as we can.’

  Her hand shaking, she writes down an address in Glasgow and a phone number and hangs up the phone. Eric sits, half-collapsed on the floor, looking as if all his strength has deserted him.

  Catherine takes command. The sooner they get there, the sooner she’ll see her boy and whatever’s happened, that’s all that matters right now. ‘Come on, Eric,’ she says quietly. ‘Let’s go and do what we have to do.’

  He looks up at her, his face as aged as his father’s in the days before he died.

  70

  South Africa

  Thursday 30 August

  Gus can’t sleep.

  A gentle voice asks, ‘Are you still awake, Gus?’

  ‘Yes, I’m awake.’

  ‘Do you need a little medication to help you sleep?’

  They know he suffers from sleeplessness and nightmares. They don’t know the reason why.

  He shakes his head. It’s tempting, but he nee
ds to prove he can do this on his own. Medication makes no difference anyway. Even with the pills he gets, at best, an hour of sleep. Some nights he gets none at all.

  ‘No, thank you,’ he says, ‘I’m doing okay.’ He hears his door close, the tiny click barely audible. He listens as the almost silent footsteps go padding off down the corridor.

  Many nights he’s been too exhausted to fight sleep. That’s when the guy in the grave comes back to haunt him. Gus rolls over, punches his pillow and buries his face in it.

  A hundred times a day he wishes he could rewind his life. If only he’d walked on past the kid that day, not got involved. Or maybe if he’d called the police, told them it was all a horrible accident. Charlie would have backed him up. He might even have spoken sooner and been a witness in court. But oh no, Gus had to try to outsmart everyone, burying the body and pretending to be the guy he killed. How could any of that ever have seemed like a good idea?

  The shrinks in this place have advised him to focus on happy memories. Soon, he hopes, he’ll be so good at it, he’ll be able to put all this behind him. Once he gets out, he’ll be ace. He’s planning to stay chilled, and off the steroids. Thinking nice, happy thoughts, like the ones he had when he got off the plane and his feet touched his homeland for the first time in a year.

  He thought it was going to be easy, that he’d got away with it, but then the nightmares started up. His sleep became more and more disturbed. It was hard to concentrate in the daytime, so he’d started to take high caffeine drinks and then pills, telling himself everybody took them. He packed in his college course and that didn’t help, only gave him more time to dwell on things. Pretty soon he was no fun to be with, unless he was drunk. His friends began to avoid him and only the desperate girls paid him any attention.

  A toilet flushes somewhere in the building, pipes gurgling for a minute then subsiding into silence.

  Then came the day on the rugby field when a player with red hair rose out of the scrum right in front of him. Gus went berserk, seeing only the demons that tormented him day and night. It took the combined might of his teammates to drag him off and restrain him, but he’d managed to hurt the poor guy by then. Badly hurt him.

  It was the solicitor who suggested a way out.

  ‘Gus, it’s a long shot but I might be able to get you off.’

  ‘You serious, man?’

  ‘Yes, but you’ll need to volunteer to undergo psychiatric treatment.’

  ‘No way! You suggesting I’m a nutter?’

  ‘I know you’re not, but we agree you have serious anger issues, your ‘red mist’. As that poor bugger found out to his cost. My God, you say he didn’t even do anything to provoke you. Take my advice and, if you’re lucky, you might avoid a prison sentence.’

  So, Gus agreed to be admitted to Sunnyvale, a branch of the state mental hospital. He was happy to cooperate, terrified of going to jail and having to survive among real hard men. His physique, which he’s always seen as an advantage, would attract all the wrong types, for all the wrong reasons.

  Spending a couple of months in this place, surrounded by real nutcases, is nothing. A small price to pay if it keeps him out of jail. All he has to do is remain calm, keep his temper and be a good boy. Take the classes, deal with his issues and prove he’s learning to manage that anger. The doc has told him how pleased he is with his progress, several times. He’s an exemplary patient, apparently, almost ready to leave.

  Somewhere far off in the night, a powerful motorbike roars up through the gears, increasing speed and fading into the distance. He feels sick with longing for the open road, for his precious Harley, locked up in a mate’s garage.

  Soon he’ll be out of here and he can put all this behind him and pick up the pieces of his life. The first thing he intends to do is take that bike of his for a run up the coast road. He imagines racing along the highway, the wind in his hair and the sun on his back. The shrinks are right, those good thoughts work, he thinks, as he relaxes for the first time in days and feels himself drifting off to sleep.

  71

  France

  Catherine stirs and turns over onto her back, disturbed by a persistent ringing that sounds remarkably like their doorbell. She knows she ought to get up and answer it but can’t summon enough energy to get out of bed. Perhaps Eric has forgotten his key? She glances at the clock beside her bed; 11am. So, not Eric then. The postman? No, ridiculous. He would, of course, leave any mail in their box in the foyer.

  The ringing goes on and on. She covers her ears with her hands but the racket continues, becoming louder and more difficult to ignore. She pulls the covers up over her head and tries to block it out. There is no one in the world that she wants to see, so whoever is at the door can go to hell.

  The ringing continues. She grabs her pillow and presses it to her face, clamping it over her ears.

  After only a few seconds, she pushes it away. She can’t breathe and worse, even through a pillow, she can still hear the damned ringing. The din is impossible to shut out and whoever is at the door seems determined to get an answer.

  With huge reluctance, she drags herself out of bed, every one of her limbs weary and weighing a ton. Throwing on a robe, she opens her bedroom door and trudges into the hall. As she passes the mirror she catches sight of herself and stops in her tracks. She hasn’t seen her reflection since the day of Sebastien’s funeral. She simply doesn’t care how she looks any more. Nevertheless, she’s shocked to see the spectral face looking out of the mirror. Her skin is pale and blotchy, her eyes are sunk deep into their sockets, with dark, purple shadows underneath. Her hair, always her crowning glory, is an unkempt, unstyled mess, grey at the temples. It hangs in a tangle to her shoulders, which are as skinny as a coat hanger, her dressing gown hanging off one side. Catherine has never seen herself look like this. Neither, she thinks with a tiny touch of regret, has Eric.

  The ringing shows no signs of stopping. Better answer it, she tells herself. As she walks towards the door she can see, through the opaque glass, a tall figure.

  She pulls the robe tight round her body and wonders whether it’s wise to open the door. Normally, no one should be able to come to this door without keying their code into the external security entrance.

  Whoever the visitor is, he’s still ringing the accursed bell. She has to get it to stop. She opens the door and takes a step backwards, steadying herself against the doorframe. It can’t be.

  ‘Hey, Mum,’ he says, and flips his hair off his face.

  ‘Sebastien,’ she whispers. ‘My precious boy.’

  ‘Sorry, Mum, forgot my key. You okay?’

  He brushes past her, into the hall, where he shrugs off his jacket and slips his feet out of his trainers.

  ‘Right,’ he says, opening his arms wide, ‘how about a hug?’

  She hesitates for no more than a heartbeat, then throws her arms around him. He hugs her tight, just like he used to.

  ‘I’ve missed my mum’s hugs,’ he says, holding on to her.

  She can feel his chin touch the top of her head. She breathes in the smell of him. ‘So have I, darling boy, you’ve no idea.’ She eases away from him and gazes at his face. He looks wonderful. His eyes are sparkling, full of fun, his skin is glowing with health and his hair is shiny. He seems to have filled out, turned from a boy into a fine, handsome young man. She feels proud that he is her son, proud that she brought him into the world.

  He looks into her eyes, smiles at her and says, ‘Love you, Mum.’

  ‘I love you too, son.’ She smiles back, then hugs him tightly to her. She becomes aware that the ringing that woke her still hasn’t stopped. It must be the phone. ‘Let me just answer that, will you?’

  ‘Sure.’

  She lets go of him, moves away and picks up the receiver. ‘Hello?’ she says, then again, ‘Hello? That’s odd, they’ve rung off.’ She turns back to her son, smiling.

  The front door is closed. There are no trainers on the floor, no jacket on the peg.


  There’s no Sebastien and yet she senses him, still with her. She can feel his arms around her and hear his voice: ‘Love you, Mum.’

  She puts the phone back in its dock, then raises her head and looks at her reflection. The hair and face are as unenhanced as before, but she appears transformed.

  ‘What happened there?’ she asks the woman in the mirror.

  ‘I have no idea,’ Catherine’s reflection replies with a smile, ‘but it felt good.’

  72

  Scotland

  Tuesday 25 September

  ‘Charlie! Can you come down?’

  ‘I’m doing my homework.’

  ‘There’s someone here to see you.’

  I hear giggling in the hall and Mum whispering, ‘Shh, here he comes.’

  ‘Surprise!’

  ‘Natalie?’

  ‘OMG, what a lovely deep voice. Say “Natalie” again, go on, please, Charlie.’

  At first I shake my head, but they look disappointed so I say, ‘Natalie,’ but this time it comes out high and squeaky and they laugh. Hate it when my voice does that, but I laugh too.

  Mum kind of shoves us through to the kitchen and starts to make tea. ‘It’s so good to see you, Natalie,’ she says. ‘You look great. Teaching obviously agrees with you.’

  ‘I love it. Especially inset days like today – no kids.’ She giggles, just like I remember from before.

  ‘That’s why I’m here. I was at Charlie’s primary school at a sharing good practice course and I thought I’d swing by and surprise you. I met Miss Lawson, Charlie. She was telling me she hears great things about you from the Academy.’

  Can feel myself blushing.