by Jane Bidder
Then, her courage failing her, she pressed End Call.
The woman finished her last chip, scrunched up the paper bag, and threw it on the ground. At any other time, Georgie would have said something or at the least, put it in the bin.
Then her phone rang of its own accord, startling her. Sam, said the screen.
Shaking, she pressed the green answer button.
‘You rang.’ His voice was so stiff that it might have been speaking to a cold caller.
‘Yes.’ Her own voice wobbled audibly. ‘I wanted to explain.’
‘Your letters did that.’
‘Don’t you want to know more?’
There was the sound of disgust at the other end. ‘More? What else do I need to know. My wife passed herself off as a dead woman in order to hide her past. A past which consisted of drug running and – oh yes – a murder charge.’
His voice got louder and angrier. ‘For nearly twenty years, you have pretended to be someone else and I – idiot that I am – believed you. You only married me for safety – to escape the past. No wonder you didn’t want to see your mother. She doesn’t even know where you are. Now I understand why you were so nervous when we came back to England and why you’ve never wanted to make contact with her. You’re a fake, Georgie or Georgina Peverington-Smith or whoever you are.’
‘Wait, wait,’ she cried desperately. ‘It wasn’t like that.’
‘I don’t believe you.’ His voice was hurt now rather than angry. This was worse. ‘Just as I don’t believe you know about the money. All that nonsense about the car going missing and then our accounts being emptied. You made it up. You’ve got the money squirreled somewhere in a private account.’
‘No, no,’ she protested, aware that people were looking at her. ‘That’s not true.’
‘True? There was a bitter laugh at the other end. ‘What do you know about truth? Luckily, I have good friends to help me. David Romer-Riches has put his own security people onto your latest trick. He’s managed to get my money back, although he’s still working out how you did it. Frankly, if it wasn’t for the children, I’d go straight to the police …’
‘Don’t. Don’t.’
Her voice rose in pain. ‘Give me two weeks. I’ve – I’ve got to go somewhere. When I come back, I’ll be able to prove everything.’
There was a silence. ‘Come back from where?’
‘Thailand,’ she said, more quietly now. It wasn’t until the words came out that she realised this was the only option open to her. If she could persuade Joly that she wasn’t responsible for Georgie’s death, maybe – just maybe – the others would understand too. Until then, she didn’t want to explain the full story to anyone, including Sam. He was in such a state that she might only have one chance to do this – and she couldn’t blow it.
‘I didn’t kill anyone,’ she added quietly. ‘It wasn’t me.’
‘But what about the drugs? You know my feelings on that. Just look at Ellie. People like you were responsible for young kids ruining their lives.’
‘I know,’ she said numbly. ‘I’m sorry. But I didn’t realise … I just went along with the others … I simply carried a few parcels …’
Silence. Dead. He’d put down the phone. Wiping her eyes, Georgie leaned back on the bench, her eyes closed. At the same time, her phone bleeped with a mixture of new text messages and emails.
One from Ellie in Turkey with her friends, asking if she was ‘OK’ because she hadn’t heard from her. ‘Staying out here another week.’
Good. The longer she was away, the better. Georgie couldn’t bear the thought of her daughter knowing her past.
Another from Nick. ‘Sicily is great.’
Once more, the longer he was away travelling, the better too. Then a new term would start at Durham. Now that seemed more like a blessing than it had before. He wouldn’t be around to witness the fall-out.
There was a missed call from Lyndsey’s mobile.
Lyndsey. Her old friend who knew her better than anyone else – despite everything. Lyndsey, who was the only person, apart from Sam, who knew the truth.
The phone picked up immediately.
‘Are you all right?’
No need for preambles. The test of a true friendship, they’d agreed, was the ability to slip right back.
‘Brilliant. The treatment is working.’ Her friend’s voice was brighter than usual. ‘But I was worried about you. You’ve been away for weeks. How’s the job? Have you spoken to Sam yet?’
‘Just now. He doesn’t believe me.’
‘Then we have to think of a way to make him.’
We. The plural gave her strength. ‘Actually, there is a way.’ Falteringly, Georgie told her friend about the American in the art gallery. ‘It’s a gamble,’ said Lyndsey when she’d finished.
‘I know.’ Georgie began to watch a mother playing ball in her toddler on the grass opposite the bench. The child fell and cried. The anguish on the mother’s face was painful. Why did life seem difficult at times when actually it wasn’t – because there was so much worse to come.
‘Would you take it?’ she asked suddenly.
‘Yes.’ Lyndsey’s voice rang out clearly. ‘Yes. I would. Besides, you need to see Joly again. Reading between the lines, Georgie, he’s a ghost that needs to put at rest.’
‘Passengers for Flight 7173 must now go to Gate Number Fourteen …’
She could still leave, Georgie told herself. She could still go back through security and say that something had happened. That she needed to go home for an emergency.
But home wasn’t home with Sam any more. It was a decrepit, one-bedroom flat with a job that wasn’t anything to do with interior design. Except there was no job now. She just couldn’t go on living another lie. Even so, their disappointment at her resignation letter was curiously gratifying. ‘You had potential,’ her boss had said. ‘I was thinking of training you up as a negotiator.’
She’d been touched but explained that she had friends in Thailand who needed to see her. Then the boss had said something about coming back if she ever needed a job.
It might well come to that.
‘Gate Number Fourteen,’ reminded the tannoy.
‘We will contact the police if you do not get on the flight,’ the American had said.
It had to be done.
Showing her passport, Georgie experienced a momentary flicker of panic as she had done in the past. Since moving back to the UK, she’d persuaded Sam that they didn’t need to holiday abroad – it was nicer to explore Cornwall and Devon. Anywhere where she didn’t need to show her paperwork.
Thank goodness technology hadn’t been as hot all those years ago as it was now.
The girl at the desk smiled. ‘Have a pleasant flight.’
As she went through, Georgie turned round. She couldn’t see anyone but there was a distinct feeling of being watched. Sam had retrieved the money from his own account but that didn’t explain the other frauds, including the plundering of her friend Jo’s account. Was that a coincidence or was someone else after her too?
Taking her seat next to an elderly woman, Georgie tried to calm herself by taking deep breaths. Was it really possible that in sixteen hours’ time, she would be seeing Joly again?
‘You don’t like flying?’ Her neighbour’s powdery face wrinkled with kindly concern as she misinterpreted the cause of the deep breaths. ‘Me neither. I’m visiting my son in Bangkok. He’s just been promoted, you know …’
Georgie allowed the woman to natter for the next hour. After that, she feigned sleep. After changing planes at Abu Dhabi, she was placed next to a mother with a sleeping child. Her heart contorted, taking her back to the early days with the children. People had been curious of course, to see her with one white son and a daughter who was darker. Georgie made a point of not offering an explanation unless someone was bold enough to ask.
‘My daughter is from my husband’s first marriage,’ she would say. ‘But I see her as m
y own.’
Marriage? Another lie in a complex tapestry of deceit.
Finally, there was a bump as the plane landed. ‘The temperature in Bangkok is 27 degrees,’ announced the pilot.
Georgie’s body felt the heat as she stepped outside. Not just of the place itself, but of what lay before. ‘A taxi will be waiting,’ the American had said. ‘It’s a five-hour drive to the ferry.’
When she’d done this before, it had been a van crammed full of backpackers. This car was a luxury with its air conditioning, she told herself, leaning back into the seat. Outside, the crowds bustled past. There was the palace. There was the floating market where Sapphire and Emerald had sent her to buy food. Were they here still? What were they doing now? And what about the boy, who would be a man now?
The driver grinned at her. ‘You are here on holiday?’
She shook her head, swallowing hard. ‘No.’
A trickle of sweaty fear ran down her back. ‘I’m here for business.’
FORTY-ONE
I had a holiday once. It was when I was in the first children’s home after that trouble with the foster family.
A whole week in Southend! We ran round for days beforehand, giddy with excitement. When we got to the caravan, we couldn’t believe it. There were loads of other kids there too. All from foster families.
Susie was in the one next to us. She was fourteen. I was twelve.
At night, we’d all sneak out together when the adults were having a smoke or a bonk in their tents.
I don’t need to tell you what happened between Susie and me. Or maybe I do.
Let’s just say I got sent home early. But every time I drive past Southend, I think of Susie and what she’s doing now. There are some people whom you simply can’t forget in life.
Sometimes I think that’s what made me into the kind of bloke I am now.
Just in case you’re wondering about the letter, it was from my nan. Granddad had died. She wanted me to come to the funeral. To show respect and prove I was sorry for everything I’d done.
It was dated six weeks earlier.
FORTY-TWO
The ferry. Georgie sat upright in the back of the taxi, suddenly awake after hours of bumping along dark roads. She remembered the ferry!
In those days, she had been one of those backpackers she saw now; scurrying past the lines of waiting cars, eager to get onto the boat and discover the island which beckoned tantalisingly from the other side of the water.
Now she was a middle-aged woman with a Louis Vuitton handbag which hid the fact that she was almost as broke as the backpacker she had once been.
‘You hungry?’ asked the driver, gesturing to a shop on the harbourside.
She was. But she had to watch her savings, which had taken a bash from living costs in London and she’d been too proud to ask Sam for more when she’d spoken to him.
Joly’s letter kept ringing round and round in her head. ‘How clever you have been to deceive us by pretending to be someone you weren’t’.
Well, here she was, trying to make amends. Maybe, if she saw Joly, she could persuade him that she hadn’t had anything to do with Georgie’s death. Then perhaps Sam might take her back.
The taxi jolted as it lurched forward onto the ferry. Don’t be daft, she told herself angrily. That still wouldn’t take away the fact that she had stolen someone’s identity and hidden it from her family. How would she feel if Sam had done that?
‘Your friends, they meet you on other side?’ asked the driver.
It was one of those ferries where you could stay inside the car as it moved. Georgie began to wish she could get out to avoid conversation.
‘I told you,’ she said slightly snappily. ‘I am not meeting friends. It’s a business meeting.’
He grinned again as if he didn’t believe her. But that’s what it was, Georgie told herself firmly. Joly didn’t want to be her friend any more than Sam wanted to be her husband any more.
Then again, what did Joly want? To hand her in to the police? To question her about what happened? To tell her about his own experiences in prison so she’d feel even more guilty?
Georgie was beginning to feel really sick. Then again, it might be the waves which were slapping up over the ferry and hitting the side of the ferry.
‘The weather,’ said the taxi driver, his eyes narrowing. ‘She is behaving very strangely.’
The island was getting closer now. Georgie could see the outline of roofs. Small ones. Large ones. Something that looked like a hotel. From the looks of things, the island had become more developed since she’d been here.
There was another lurch. Another slap of waves. The ferry had stopped and the taxi was moving. ‘Where shall I go now?’
Georgie took out the piece of paper she’d folded neatly in her handbag. It had been in the envelope with the flight tickets that had been handed to her by the American.
On it was the name of the hotel.
The driver nodded. ‘Very nice place,’ he declared approvingly. ‘Very nice.’
So Joly wanted her to meet him in a hotel? Georgie felt her mouth going dry. Was that because it was a public place and she couldn’t make a scene? Or was it because he had booked a suite and wanted to talk intimately?
Sweat began to pour down her back. Glancing in the passenger mirror, she saw that her eye make-up had begun to run too. What would Joly think of her? What did that matter?
They were climbing up a steep hill now. On either side were clumps of bushes and trees overlooking a river down below. Parts looked familiar. Others didn’t. Had her nineteen-year-old self been here before? Or was it her imagination playing tricks the way it did when you were abroad and saw people you thought you knew from home? It was all about creating security, she had read once. Hah! Security. Something she’d been trying to find all her life. But every time she caught the tail end, it slipped out of her grasp. And now was no exception.
Every twenty or minutes or so, they passed through shanty towns with run-down shops selling vegetables and tin-roofed houses. Men sat on the steps, smoking and staring. Women clucked after their children. Someone walked beside an elephant in a field, as it carried something in its mouth. There was a smell of sewage in one hamlet. Swiftly, Georgie put up the window even though the air conditioning wasn’t working. The driver smiled as if taking enjoyment in her discomfort.
Suddenly, he took a sharp left. The road in front narrowed but the surface was smoother. There was a sign for a hotel. Private. Georgie’s heart quickened just as the taxi pulled up outside a substantial three-storey pagoda-style building in green and red brick. It could be a private house.
‘We are here,’ he announced.
Georgie sat, rooted to the spot. Why had she done this? Why expose herself to more danger? Joly could be waiting here with the local police. She might be dragged off. She could be …
Then a tall figure emerged from the side of the house. Slightly stooped but tall nevertheless. Dressed in a crisp, white shirt and tailored trousers, gold chain round his tanned neck. Blond. A face which was plumper than she had remembered. Eyes which were crinkled. On any other face, they might have suggested a smile. But not this one.
‘Georgie,’ said Joly solemnly. ‘Thank you for coming.’
It was like arriving at the hotel as a guest. One who was being treated by the host. It was clear that he either owned this place or managed it. After shaking her hand – such formality! – Joly tipped the driver handsomely, judging from the satisfied look on the man’s face. Then he called a boy to take her luggage.
‘I’ve put you in the green suite,’ he said as if she was already familiar with the place. ‘Shall we meet downstairs in, say, half an hour for a drink?’
He consulted his watch as he spoke. A gold one with the kind of discreet numbers that suggested serious money. She nodded, aware that she had hardly spoken since getting here. It was too much to take in. Joly had only been out of prison for ten years or so, from what Vanda had said.
>
Yet he had not only stayed in the very country that had imprisoned him, but he also appeared, both from his surroundings and appearance, to have done rather well for himself. More worryingly, he was neither angry nor pleased to see her. What was going on?
You should have asked him when you arrived, she told herself crossly, looking into the mirror.
Her worried face stared back. A face that she had seen before, all those years ago. Her old nervous self. The one that had been so glad to be accepted by a cool crowd that she hadn’t asked the right questions. Hadn’t followed that gut instinct inside her that had said it was wrong to help Joly with those bags of white stuff.
She shivered. Wasn’t that how Ellie had felt? Wasn’t that why her daughter had resorted to taking drugs? Because she had been different with that beautiful dark skin. And wasn’t that why Georgie had stood up for her against Sam, arguing that they needed to understand everything she was going through?
Now she could only hope that Ellie would understand when all this came out. As for Sam, she had a horrible feeling that this was beyond him.
Quickly, she showered and changed into a cool, blue cotton dress that – miraculously – hadn’t creased in her bag. Briefly, she glanced in the mirror. She looked better now. At least from the outside. Inside, she was still quaking.
Her eye fell on her mobile. Should she text Sam to say where she was? No. He didn’t want her any more. It was no more or less than she deserved. Instead, she texted Lyndsey.
Here safely. Meeting Joly for drink. Not sure what to expect.
It felt good knowing that someone somewhere knew what was happening.
More than I do, she murmured to herself, making her way down the wooden stairs and the shiny handrail, which someone clearly polished regularly.
Joly was waiting in a comfortable, square room that might have passed as a drawing room in Sussex. It had two sofas facing each other in sage-green silk. The drapes at the window were quintessentially English too. Yet there was also a definite far-eastern touch in the carved sideboard stacked with drinks and wooden statuettes. There were huge shells too, she noticed with a pang, on another table. None were as lovely as the little shell which Georgina had given her. Once more, she felt a lurch of loss.
