Where the Truth Lies

by Julie Corbin

  She goes in and out of my earshot as she strides back and forth along the pavement. Lara is watching her pace. Her eyes are large and liquid, her breathing shallow. Although she doesn’t say much, I can see that she misses nothing and her mother’s distress is worrying her. I recognise the signs. My childhood wasn’t always a bundle of laughs. After my mother died, when I was just four, and for the two years before Wendy came along, Lisa and I were often left to fend for ourselves while my father drank himself into a stupor. I don’t know much about the particulars of Sezen and Lara’s background, but I do know something about the weight of uncertainty, and I see it fill Lara’s small frame until she begins to tremble.

  ‘You can’t go back to Tooting,’ I say, remembering the smell in the stairwell, the broken windows and lift, and picture this vulnerable child living among it, as out of place as a blind man in a war zone. ‘Apart from anything else, it isn’t safe.’ I make a quick decision. It’s not their fault the timing is off. I can’t just leave them here and I don’t want to drive them back to Tooting either. ‘We have a room in the top of our house you can stay in for a couple of days. Until you sort out some interim accommodation.’

  ‘No.’ Sezen pulls her back straight. ‘You have already been very kind.’

  ‘Sezen—’

  ‘I will find somewhere temporary in Brighton.’

  ‘Well, in the meantime you can come and stay with us. Just for a couple of days.’ I close the door to the back of the car and open the front one, gesturing for her to go inside. ‘We have the space. It’s really no trouble.’

  I watch her do battle with herself. I know that she is independent. Accepting help is difficult for her. In the back seat, Lara is sitting quietly, her fine features as delicate as bone china. ‘For Lara,’ I say. ‘It’s the least disruptive solution for her.’

  Sezen glances quickly at her daughter and reluctantly agrees. We set off again, round the corner and into my street. Lara spots the park opposite our house and points and shouts, ‘Look, Mummy! Swings!’

  ‘Yes.’ Sezen turns round to address her. ‘Later, Lara. You can go on the swings later.’

  In the rear-view mirror I watch Lara deflate back into her seat. ‘We can go now,’ I say, my eyes seeking out Baker and Faraway and finding them exactly where I left them this morning. ‘I’ll get Bea from the house and come and join you. It’ll be a good place for the girls to meet each other.’

  ‘Should we unload the car first?’

  ‘We can do it afterwards.’

  Sezen and Lara cross the road to the park and I go inside. The house is completely quiet. I walk through to the kitchen and look down into the garden. Bea is playing outside, hopping first on her left foot and then her right, round and round in circles until she grows dizzy and has to hold on to the handlebars of her bike.

  I hear the flush of the downstairs toilet and Wendy comes out. ‘Oh! You’re back!’

  ‘Sorry I took so long.’ I hang my car keys up on the hook. ‘And thank you for looking after Bea.’

  ‘No problem at all. You know how much I enjoy her company. How’s Sezen? Is she pleased with her new rooms?’

  ‘There was a mix-up.’

  ‘What sort of a mix-up?’

  I summarise our conversation with Mr Patel.

  ‘Oh, no! That poor girl! As if life hasn’t been hard enough on her.’ Wendy likes Sezen. She liked her instantly and is convinced that although she has said very little about her past, she has been put upon, exploited even – not least by Lara’s absent father.

  ‘So she and Lara will be staying with us for the next couple of days. They’re in the park. Do you want to join us?’

  ‘Perhaps next time.’ She looks at her watch. ‘I’ll pop along and visit Lisa. Take her a late lunch.’ She lifts her bag off the kitchen table. ‘Oh, and Mary Percival called from the nursery.’

  ‘I should have let her know Bea wasn’t coming in.’

  ‘Wasn’t a problem. I said I wasn’t sure about tomorrow and that you’d be in touch.’

  ‘Are Charlie and Amy home?’

  ‘They’re upstairs.’

  I open the patio door to shout to Bea, who comes running in to give Wendy a goodbye-grandma hug. Bea and I follow her to the front door to wave goodbye and then, before Bea shakes off her boots, I tell her that we are going to the park to play with Lara.

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Sezen’s daughter. She told you about her. Remember?’

  She thinks. ‘Why is she here?’

  ‘Because she’s coming to live in Brighton.’ I kneel down in front of her. ‘In fact, for a couple of days she’s coming to stay with us.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because her house isn’t ready yet.’

  ‘Why?’

  I can just about see her blue eyes regarding me with confusion, through strands of her hair, which is still as soft as when she was a baby and has slid out of the two grips on either side of her head.

  ‘You’ll like her.’ I pin back her hair and she winces as the grips rub against her scalp. ‘She loves to play outside, just like you do, and she likes animal tea parties.’

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘I asked her.’

  ‘Can she talk?’

  ‘Of course!’ I laugh. ‘She’s a little bit older than you.’

  She thinks some more. ‘Does she not have a house to live in?’

  ‘No, darling.’

  ‘Then I’ll let her play with Bertie because he knows about these things. Grandma says Bertie is a wise old dog.’

  ‘That’s very kind, Bea.’ I kiss her forehead. ‘I’m sure she’ll appreciate you sharing your toys.’

  ‘He’s not a toy. He’s a dog.’ As if to prove it, she pulls Bertie out from underneath her arm, looks into his lopsided face and makes a woofing sound.

  I laugh. ‘You are a funny Bea!’ I hug her hard enough to make her squeal.

  ‘Mummy!’

  ‘I can’t help it.’ I let her go. ‘Sometimes I love you so much I want to cuddle you and never stop.’ We move out on to the front step. ‘Look! There’s Lara.’ I point ahead to where Lara is climbing the ladder on the slide. When she gets to the top, she sits down carefully and then lets go, her face frozen in an ecstatic smile all the way to the bottom. Bea holds my hand while we cross the road, then runs off to join her. They find common ground instantly and play together for some time. Sezen and I sit down on a bench and chat. Out of the corner of my eye, I notice that the two policemen are watching us, their presence reassuring.

  When the girls have had enough, we unpack the car and go inside. Bea takes Lara to her den under the stairs, while I show Sezen around the house. Although she’s been coming here for a month, it occurs to me that she hasn’t been beyond the ground floor. The level of the front street is higher than the back garden, which is accessed either from the basement level, where there is the utility room, Jack’s bedroom and Julian’s study, or from the patio doors in the kitchen and down a series of steps. As well as the kitchen and sitting room, the ground floor has a bedroom and en suite, where Lisa will sleep. On the very top floor are the spare rooms: two bedrooms and a bathroom. When I show Sezen where she and Lara will sleep, she exclaims with delight at the view. It stretches over the rooftops and out to the sea, which is two hundred metres or so in the distance.

  ‘I grew up on the coast,’ she says. ‘I love to be close to the sea.’ She wanders into the bathroom next door. ‘This is lovely, Claire,’ she says. ‘Much more than I expected.’

  ‘Mummy!’ Bea is shouting up the stairs. ‘Come and see what we’ve done.’

  We join the girls downstairs and they show us the tea party they’ve set up for the dogs: miniature cups, saucers and plates spread out on a blanket. Sezen offers to prepare dinner and I accept, knowing that I couldn’t concentrate on making a meal. My thoughts are a powerful tide that drag me elsewhere, preoccupying me to the point of obsession. I look at my watch. Just under an hour until Julian gets home
. I think about all the things we have to say to one another. We don’t often argue, and it’s been years since I lost my temper, but anger has been simmering inside me since I found out he was keeping the emails from me. I want an explanation. I want reassurance, and I want him to prioritise Bea’s safety over everything else.

  A text arrives. I take my phone from my pocket and read the message. Julian’s on his way back from the airport. I go down to the basement level and check his email – nothing new from the blackmailer. I wander next door to busy myself with laundry, moving clothes from one pile to the next, building mounds of dirty and clean clothes. As I stand there, I hear steps in the corridor. I expect whoever it is to be heading for the garden and to walk through the room I’m in, but they don’t. The door to Julian’s study opens and closes. I wait for a couple of seconds and then it occurs me that it will be Bea, sneaking Lara into Julian’s study so that she can have a turn on Julian’s swivel chair and show her the wig Julian wears when he’s in court.

  I leave the laundry and open the study door. ‘Now, young lady—’ I stop short. It isn’t Bea; it’s Amy. She has her bag slung over her shoulder and is standing by the built-in unit in the corner rummaging through a drawer. ‘Amy?’

  ‘Yeah?’

  ‘What are you doing?’

  ‘Looking for some plain paper. I thought I’d do some drawing with Bea and Lara.’

  ‘The paper is over there.’ I wave my arm towards the substantial printer that rests on the corner of Julian’s desk. Next to it there is a stack of paper. An obvious place. A visible place.

  ‘Oh.’ She raises a languid eyebrow. ‘So it is.’

  ‘So what were you really looking for?’

  ‘Excuse me?’ Her stare is bold.

  ‘You said you were looking for paper, but it’s sitting on the desk, as large as life.’ I give a short laugh. ‘Instead, I catch you going through a drawer.’

  ‘I wasn’t looking at anything private!’ She snorts. ‘If that’s what you’re implying.’

  ‘Amy—’

  ‘It’s not a problem.’ Her tone isn’t aggressive; it’s perplexed. Her fingers trail along the spines of some books as she walks across to stand in front of me. ‘Is it?’

  ‘You know, Amy. Yes . . . I think it is.’ I hold her gaze. Her eyes are the navy blue of stormy seawater. She blinks twice in quick succession. ‘I’m sorry but it’s not acceptable for you to come into Julian’s study like this. He has confidential files stored here.’

  She snorts again and her bag swings forwards on her shoulder. There’s a piece of paper sticking out of the top and something is written on it. I do a double-take. It’s Julian’s handwriting. Even from a few feet away I recognise his neat, legible script.

  ‘The paper on top of your bag, would you pass it to me, please?’

  ‘What?’ She looks down at the bag, then back at me. ‘Why?’

  ‘Because I don’t think it belongs to you.’

  My tone is growing colder, but it doesn’t bother her. With what seems like deliberate nonchalance, she takes it out of her bag and looks at it. ‘It’s scrap paper. I found it in the kitchen.’

  ‘Let me see it, please.’

  She sighs, rolls her eyes, then passes it to me. At the same time Charlie comes into the room and I glance at him briefly before reading it. On one side Amy has scrawled an address, and on the other are the details I was looking for – the name and phone number of Julian’s hotel in Sofia.

  ‘This piece of paper was on the pinboard,’ I say quietly. ‘Julian left it for me, and Charlie specifically asked you whether you’d seen it.’

  ‘I didn’t know he was talking about that piece.’

  ‘Airhead.’ Charlie gives her an affectionate slap on the backside.

  ‘I wrote Bug’s address on it,’ she tells Charlie, ‘but your mum thinks I’m up to no good.’ She says the last four words with wide, mock-scary eyes and a humorous tone. Charlie laughs.

  ‘Charlie, I need to have a word with you,’ I say tersely. ‘A private word.’

  ‘Well . . . OK, yeah.’

  I turn away as they kiss each other and then Amy saunters upstairs.

  ‘Charlie.’ I twist my hands in front of me. ‘I don’t know quite how to put this.’ I hesitate. ‘I’m not sure I trust Amy.’

  ‘Eh?’

  ‘This is the second time I’ve caught her coming into your dad’s study. None of your other friends has ever done this.’

  ‘Well.’ He looks sheepish, shifts from one foot to the other. ‘She probably doesn’t realise it’s private. I’ll ask her not to.’

  I remember Mac’s question earlier – Are you suspicious of anyone you know? Am I suspicious of Amy, or is it just that I haven’t warmed to her? I don’t know. And under normal circumstances I would give her a second chance, but having her to stay while all this is going on with Bea doesn’t feel right. I need to have people around me I can trust, not people who undermine me.

  I move across the room and pull open the drawer that she was rummaging through. Julian is in the habit of tidying anything that’s lying around into one of the half-dozen drawers. It’s stuffed full of bits and pieces: batteries, golf tees, screws, a spare calculator, numerous wires and stray sockets for headphones and radios, a couple of broken mobile phones, an old necklace and a stash of keys. None of it’s important; in fact most of it needs binning. I can’t see anything in here that Amy would have wanted, or indeed taken. But still.

  I turn back to Charlie. He’s staring at me expectantly. ‘Is Amy going to be staying much longer?’

  He shakes his head at me. ‘What do you mean?’

  I think of an angle. Amy, like most students, is chronically hard up. The reason she’s spending her third year in halls and not a shared flat is because she needs to save money. ‘She has her room back in university accommodation, doesn’t she?’

  ‘Yeah, but . . .’ He shrugs. ‘We like being together.’

  ‘I thought the deal for her cut-price room was that she was there as a mentor for the first-years?’

  ‘It’s June already. They don’t need their hands held.’

  ‘Still. She has been staying here for four nights.’

  ‘What are you getting at, Mum?’ His eyes cloud over. ‘Isn’t she welcome here?’

  ‘No.’ The word is out of my mouth before I can stop myself.

  ‘Mum!’ Charlie starts back, confusion and hurt battling it out on his face. ‘She’s my girlfriend.’

  ‘I know and I’m sorry I’m saying this, but—’

  ‘That drawer doesn’t having anything important in it!’

  ‘I know, but that’s not the point.’ He’s looking at me with such naked hurt that for a moment I falter. Then I think about what we’re facing as a family and know that I can’t leave any room for doubt. ‘I’m so sorry, Charlie, but I really would like Amy to leave.’

  ‘But she—’

  ‘Not for ever.’ I hold my hands up and go to place them on his shoulders, but he moves backwards. ‘Just until . . . life is more settled.’

  ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

  ‘Well . . .’ I give myself a couple of seconds to think. Mac said it would be better to keep this quiet until Monday, when he comes to talk to the family, but Charlie is nineteen and I think that keeping him completely in the dark is unfair. ‘We have to be careful of security because of Dad’s trial.’

  ‘Eh?’ His neck cranes forward in disbelief. ‘You think Amy’s a security risk?’

  ‘Not exactly. But she doesn’t behave the way most people would if they were in someone else’s house.’

  He throws out his arms. ‘She’s a free spirit!’

  ‘Actually, Charlie, she’s—’

  ‘And she’s not afraid of you, Mum. Is that what you don’t like?’

  I bite my lip. ‘Please, love. I know this is hard—’

  ‘Bollocks to this.’

  ‘Charlie!’

  He stomps past me to the bottom o
f the stairs. ‘Am I welcome here, then?’ he shouts back.

  ‘Of course you are!’

  ‘Or should I go as well?’

  He takes the stairs two at a time. I call after him, but he ignores me. I lean my head against the wall and shut my eyes. I didn’t handle that at all well. It might have been better to wait until Julian arrived home. Charlie would have taken it better from him. I contemplate going upstairs to them both, but I’m not about to change my mind. Much as it upsets Charlie, I really don’t want Amy here. I find it at best astonishing and at worst suspicious that I ended up discovering her in Julian’s study again. Despite Mac’s scepticism, I feel in my gut that the blackmailer is a woman. A woman who knows our family. And as Julian pointed out, what do we really know about Amy? Sezen has come into our home with cast-iron references, but the boys’ friends and girlfriends are invited in on trust. I know that Amy made a play for Charlie. I also know that it was just around the time Julian was asked to represent the Crown against Georgiev. A coincidence? Most probably. But it’s not a risk I’m willing to take.

  8

  I stay in the laundry room until ten minutes before Julian is due to arrive home. Charlie and Amy have left the house, the door slamming loudly behind them. I figure I’ll give Charlie a cooling-off period, then call him on his mobile. I ask Sezen to keep the girls busy in the kitchen so that I can have some time alone with Julian. The taxi pulls up outside the house and I open the door as he’s paying the driver. He comes up the steps, drops his suitcase in the porch and holds out his arms. I am always taken aback by how happy I am to see him. Even after twenty-odd years together, and with all that’s going on, I still feel a rush of excitement and then a quieter feeling of a shared life and sense of belonging with each other.

  ‘How was Sofia?’

  ‘Hot and sticky.’

  ‘Cup of tea?’ I ask without thinking, and immediately hope he says no. If we go into the kitchen, Bea will monopolise him until bedtime.