The Lies We Told

by Camilla Way

  So Clara told her everything she could think of: how Luke had traveled around Asia in his gap year, the university he’d gone to, the friends he’d made, his career, the music and books he liked. She told her about the Luke who made the best roasted sea bass she’d ever tasted and did the worst impression of Michael Jackson she’d ever seen, the Luke who cared about his friends and his family, and her.

  Emily listened avidly, her legs curled up beneath her where she sat on the sofa next to Clara, her head resting on her arms, her quiet, thoughtful gaze upon her face. “You love him very much, don’t you?” she said, and mutely Clara nodded. Outside on the street the thudding bass of a car stereo swelled, then faded, and a child cried out one long, plaintive wail, yet up here all was quiet and still.

  She felt strangely shy in Emily’s presence here in her flat, far more so than she had at the bar. She wasn’t entirely sure what Luke’s sister wanted from their meetings, sensing that there was something more to it than the simple desire to keep abreast of the search, and she could only conclude that talking to her somehow made Emily feel closer to her family, a connection to her parents and brothers after so many years apart. But that, too, didn’t seem quite right. Hoping to get her to open up, Clara asked tentatively now, “What was it like growing up at the Willows? It’s such a special place—it must have been idyllic.”

  Emily’s eyes lit up. “Oh, it was! Mum and Dad built such a wonderful life for us, you know? That big lovely house, so full of people, so many parties, they’d both met so many interesting people through their careers, and they welcomed everyone—you’d be just as likely to be sitting down to dinner with the local dog walker as with the local MP.” She paused, lost in thought for a moment. “But I think Mum, despite her career and devotion to Dad, loved more than anything just being our mother. Her family has always been everything to her. She put so much love and time into making our home beautiful for us all. It was perfect.” She smiled sadly. “You’re right. We were very lucky.”

  “They’ve always been so lovely to me,” Clara told her. “I was so nervous before I met them—I was afraid they wouldn’t think I was good enough for Luke, but I couldn’t have been more wrong.” She paused, remembering the talks she’d had with Rose over the years, how sometimes Rose had felt more like a mother to her than her own ever had. It struck her now for the first time that perhaps Rose had had similar thoughts: replacing Clara in her head with her own lost daughter, that it was Emily she’d been thinking of when she’d wrapped Clara in one of her warm hugs or given her advice while they’d cooked or gardened together.

  She glanced at Emily and the sadness on her face made her catch her breath. “It must be hard for you to talk about them,” she said.

  But Emily shook her head. “No, I want to.” She looked at Clara. “They were always very close, Luke and my parents. Are they still?”

  “Incredibly so. That’s what makes it all the more heartbreaking, to see Rose and Oliver so desperate.”

  Emily nodded, and unable to stop herself, Clara leaned forward and said, “You obviously love your family so much. What made you leave? You said it would be dangerous to go back to them now, but—”

  “Clara . . . ,” Emily began, a warning in her eyes.

  “I know, I know. I’m sorry, I know you don’t want to talk about it, but if you’re in danger still, if you think your parents might be in danger . . . surely we should go to the police? I can help you!”

  But Emily looked away and a silence stretched between them, before Clara pressed gently, “Why did you want to meet with me? I mean, I know you wanted to talk about Luke, find out how the search is going, but . . . I get the impression there was another reason. . . .”

  Something in Emily’s face altered and Clara understood that she was right. Carefully she reached out and touched Emily’s arm. “If there’s something you want to talk to me about, you can. I want to help you.”

  Abruptly Emily got up and went to the window, staring down at the street below. “Clara, please don’t . . . ,” she began. In her agitation she swiped a hand through her hair, an unconscious, nervous gesture that caused the T-shirt she was wearing to rise a few inches.

  Clara felt her heart almost stop. “Jesus,” she said in alarm. “What happened to your back?”

  Emily turned to face her, hurriedly tugging her T-shirt back into place. “Nothing. It’s nothing,” she said, backing away.

  Clara got to her feet, shock propelling her across the room to where Emily stood. Without another word she lifted the fabric and recoiled in horror. The skin on the lower half of Emily’s back was grotesquely scarred: puckered and discolored as though it had been terribly burned. “Emily,” she whispered, “what happened to you?”

  But Emily jerked away. “Nothing. It’s nothing!” Her eyes widened with something close to panic. “Please, Clara, don’t—”

  “When did this happen?”

  It seemed to Clara that the expression in Emily’s eyes changed then, something dark and harsh and bitter transforming her into someone else entirely, so that Clara gave an involuntary shiver. “It was a long time ago, when I was sixteen,” Emily said.

  “Seventeen?” Clara shook her head in confusion. “When you were still living at home? I don’t understand—”

  Emily stared at her and Clara held her breath, sure that Emily was going to tell her something, and she leaned forward, again touching her arm. “Emily,” she said, “you can tell me. Who did this to you? How did it happen? If you’re still scared of whoever it was, if they’re preventing you from going home, then I’ll help you. You can stay here with me. I’ll go to the police with you. It will be all right—I promise.”

  Tears spilled down Emily’s face, her eyes searching Clara’s. “I—,” she began, but at that moment Clara’s phone started to ring, startling her into silence. “Who’s that?” she asked nervously.

  Inwardly Clara cursed herself for not muting her mobile before Emily arrived. She felt sure that she’d been about to tell her something. “I don’t know. It doesn’t matter. Emily, please—”

  “You should answer it,” insisted Emily, turning away.

  Clara shook her head and took hold of her hand. “No, Emily. Please talk to me.”

  Emily only stared at her, her expression unreadable. The phone rang off. “You should see who that was,” she said finally. “It might be important—the police, or . . .”

  Knowing she was defeated, Clara nodded and went to her bag. “It was Tom,” she said in surprise when she looked at her phone. A bleep signaled a voice mail message and she put it to her ear. “Clara?” Tom’s voice was harried. “I’m in London. I need to speak to you. I tried looking for you at Mac’s, but I guess you must be at your place. I’m coming over. I’ll be there in half an hour.”

  She frowned, staring down at her phone. “That was Tom. He’s on his way over. I wonder what he—”

  But Emily had already snatched up her coat and was making for the door. “I have to go.”

  As Clara stared at her in surprise, she scrabbled with the door handle. “Emily, calm down!” she said, going to her. “It’s all right. Let me do it, I—”

  The look of panicked desperation Emily shot her stopped Clara in her tracks. “You won’t tell him, will you, Clara?” she begged. “You won’t tell Tom I was here? Please, Clara, you must promise.”

  “Of course I won’t. I promise—hey, Emily, calm down. I won’t tell. . . .”

  But Emily was already out of the flat and heading for the stairs, the hood of her jacket pulled up high around her face.

  “Emily, wait!” Clara called, but there was no reply. She watched until she disappeared, waiting until she heard the main door slam below before she went back into her flat. She stood, a little stunned, her heart thumping, then sank onto the sofa. The expression on Emily’s face when she realized Tom was on his way had been one of pure terror.
Her thoughts raced, remembering now the scene she’d witnessed at the Willows, Rose so cowed, so defeated as Tom had towered over her. Then she recalled how Mac had told her Tom had gone off the rails after Emily left, getting involved in drugs and drink and a bad crowd. And Mac had said something else too—that Rose and Oliver had become so protective of Luke they wouldn’t leave him alone in the house—not even if Tom was there. Her unease deepened. Had it, in fact, been Tom they’d been protecting Luke from?

  Who had hurt Emily so badly when she was seventeen? Why was she too scared to go back to her family now? From the little Luke had told her about his sister, he had painted a picture of someone strong and single-minded, yet the woman Clara had met was someone intensely vulnerable, and clearly traumatized. Something else occurred to her. Tom had been in London the day her flat was broken into, turning up out of the blue only a few hours later, looking as though he’d barely slept. Then there was the fact Emily had treasured photos of Luke and her parents, but not one of him—had visibly flinched at the mention of his name.

  She sat up straighter, her heart accelerating as she looked at her watch. Ten minutes had passed since Tom’s phone call. She suddenly realized she didn’t want to be alone with him. She needed to get out of the flat.

  * * *

  —

  When she arrived on the Holloway Road half an hour later, she stood on the street looking up at Mac’s windows. Though she’d tried to call him on her way over, he hadn’t picked up the phone. She rang the bell now and waited, desperate to talk to him about what had taken place at her flat, but the intercom remained silent. Where was he? He knew that she was meeting Emily today; had told her he’d be waiting for her to come back and tell him all about it. So what was going on? Stepping back from the door, she looked up at his windows, before catching the eye of Mehmet, the owner of the kebab shop.

  “You all right there, my darling?” he called.

  She went in. “Have you seen him today?” she asked, breathing through her mouth to avoid the stench of sweating meat.

  “No, my love, not since this morning.”

  She nodded, fingering the keys Mac had given her when she’d first started staying with him. She’d never just let herself in before, because she’d never needed to, and it felt a bit intrusive to start doing so now.

  “Some bloke called round for him an hour or so ago, though,” Mehmet went on, turning down the radio from which Taylor Swift’s voice blared, “but I don’t know if he had any luck. I nipped out the back for a fag when he started knocking.”

  Tom, she thought. Murmuring her thanks, she was about to leave when Mehmet added something that stopped her in her tracks. “He’s definitely in, though.”

  She looked at him in surprise. “Mac? How do you know?”

  “When I came back after my cigarette, I heard him crashing around like a herd of baby elephants a while back and he hasn’t left the flat since. I’ve been right here.” He raised his eyebrows at her. “Thought he was going to come through the ceiling at one point. What’s he doing up there—rearranging the furniture or something?”

  The narrow staircase that led from the front door to Mac’s flat was silent as she climbed it, a sense of foreboding rising inside her with every step. When she reached the top, she found his front door ajar. “Mac?” she called nervously, but there was no response. Gingerly she gave it a push.

  It took a few moments for her to make sense of the scene she was greeted with. A repetitive scratching sound filled the air. She listened to it in confusion until it dawned on her it was the sound of the needle rasping against the dead wax of a record on the turntable, the noise amplified by Mac’s prized Bowers & Wilkins speakers. To her right, the living room was a mess of upturned furniture and scattered belongings; even the TV had been knocked to the floor. Just like her flat the week before, Mac’s had been completely ransacked. She tried to call his name again, but fear made the words stick in her throat. It was only when she turned toward the kitchen that she saw his legs sticking out from behind the half-closed door. She cried out, her shock making the noise fight its way out past the knot of fear in her throat.

  “Mac!” She ran to him, having to shove against the door to prize it open against the weight of his body; then she fell to her knees next to where he lay. A thin line of blood trickled across the pale linoleum floor; his skin was a deathly white, his eyes closed. “Mac,” she cried, “Mac, wake up, oh please, oh God, please wake up!” On the floor next to him was an unopened bottle of wine, its glass smeared with blood. Presumably it was what had been used to hit him. Sobbing now, she searched desperately for a pulse and cried out in relief when she felt the faintest flutter at his throat. “Okay,” she said, “okay, you’re okay,” and, her hands shaking, she scrabbled about in her pocket until at last she found her phone and called for an ambulance.

  * * *

  —

  It was almost eleven p.m. and Clara stood on the street outside University College Hospital, blinking into the darkness, sick and disorientated after the bright glare of the intensive care unit. For several hours she had sat by Mac’s side, letting go of his hand only to be interviewed by the police and speak to Mac’s mother on the phone. He had woken once, opened his eyes and, finding Clara there next to him, smiled briefly. She had bent her head and cried with relief.

  He was stable, at last, the doctors telling her that he would make a full recovery, that he had been “very lucky,” but that she should leave him now, should go home and get some rest.

  Suddenly the enormity of it all—the shock of finding him, the horrible fear that he might die, the hours of stress and lack of food—hit her with full force and she staggered toward a lamppost, leaning against it as her legs almost buckled beneath her, choking back the bile that flooded her mouth. She realized she was shaking violently.

  “Excuse me, are you okay?” A passing nurse on her way into the hospital’s main entrance stopped and looked at her in concern. “Are you feeling unwell?”

  Clara nodded. “I’m fine.” She managed a weak smile. “Thank you. I’m just . . . tired.”

  “You all right getting home?”

  Clara nodded and moved on, fighting her exhaustion. Where could she go to tonight? Not to Mac’s, of course. She couldn’t encroach on any of her other friends either, not at this time. The only possible place she could go to was her own flat. She stood for a moment, hating the thought of it, swaying with tiredness. After a few moments, her heart sinking with resignation, she flagged down a passing taxi. “Hoxton Square, please,” she said.

  * * *

  —

  When the cab dropped her off, she paused outside, staring up at the windows. Her heart jolted when she saw that there was a very faint light on in the top-floor flat. Alison. She swallowed hard and let herself in. Once she was on her own floor, she stopped for a moment and listened, but all was silent. Inside her flat, she hastily switched on all the lights as well as the television, knowing that she might go slowly mad if she sat in silence, jumping at every sound and creak from above. As she passed her door again, she noticed a piece of paper she’d not seen before, lying on the floor. It was a note from Tom. She stared down at it. Even the sight of his handwriting chilled her. How had he got into her building to post it through her door? Perhaps one of the downstairs neighbors had found it in the entrance hall and brought it up for her. Still, unease shifted inside her. Clara, she read, I must talk to you, it’s very important. I called round but have to return to Norwich now. I could drive back to London tomorrow. Can I see you then? Please call me to let me know. Tom.

  Relieved that he had left town, she sank onto the sofa, the enormity of what had happened hitting her afresh. She saw again Mac lying unconscious on the floor. Could Tom possibly have been responsible? But why on earth would he want to harm Mac? Tiredness rolled over her in heavy waves, yet she felt too wired, too on edge, to sleep. Turning down the TV’s volu
me, she listened hard, but heard nothing.

  Finally she went to the kitchen and found a bottle of wine, pouring herself a large glass, and then another and another. When she felt sufficiently drunk enough, she went to bed, her tired mind full of thoughts of Tom. Had he been involved in Luke’s disappearance? Was that why Luke had got into the blue van, because his own brother had been driving it? And what part had he played in Emily’s disappearance? Had he caused the horrific scars she’d seen on her back? But why would Tom want to hurt his brother or sister—or Mac? On and on, her thoughts raced until finally, exhaustion and drunkenness getting the better of her at last, she fell into a deep sleep.

  * * *

  —

  She dreamed that she was being chased, her lungs screaming for air as she ran down darkened streets, her faceless pursuer close on her heels. She was aware as she ran of the overpowering smell of burning, and mingled with the frightening confusion of her nightmare was the horrifying sensation of the skin on her back blistering and melting. She woke suddenly, gasping for breath, confusion and fear gripping her when she realized that the pain in her lungs and throat persisted. Half raising herself up, she saw that smoke billowed through her room, the passageway beyond her bedroom door glowing and flickering with red light, the crackle of fire filling her ears.

  She couldn’t move. Smoke filled her eyes and lungs; a scream of terror caught in her throat. She saw a figure standing in her doorway and her heart lurched with fright. It was only when the figure reached her bed that she recognized the slender form and long, lank brown hair. It was the woman who lived upstairs. The last thing she saw before she blacked out was Alison looming over her.

  TWENTY

  CAMBRIDGESHIRE, 1997

  Doug, Toby, and I stared at one another in astonishment after the front door closed behind Hannah. “Where’s she going?” whispered Toby. “Why’s she dressed up like that?”