Where the Truth Lies

by Julie Corbin

  ‘I’m not tired.’

  I come into the room. She pats the space beside her. I climb into bed and lean back against the pillow.

  ‘What on earth happened to your head?’ She reaches to touch it and I stop her hand in mid-air.

  ‘It’s really sore. Even after two glasses of wine it hurts.’

  ‘Have you taken painkillers?’

  ‘Not yet.’

  ‘Then you should. And use arnica cream. That will help with the bruising.’ She adjusts herself and her pillow so that she can both rest her own head and see my face. ‘How did you do it?’

  ‘I hit it on the bedside cabinet. I was . . . shocked and I fell over. Julian and I were arguing. In fact . . .’ I hesitate, then decide to go ahead and say it. ‘I’m furious with him. And hurt. And appalled.’

  ‘What’s happened?’

  ‘He’s asked for the witness to be moved. He won’t be informed as to where they’re keeping him. He sent the blackmailer an email saying as much. So that’s that.’ Tears come into my eyes. I press my fingers into them until it hurts. Water spills out and I wipe it away with the edge of the duvet cover. ‘We have no power,’ I say. ‘None.’

  ‘But surely that means she won’t come for Bea,’ Lisa says, her tone tinged with urgency. ‘There wouldn’t be any reason to, would there?’

  I recall the photos of the murdered priest and the little Italian boy. Both of them drained of blood. ‘Georgiev is behind this, Lisa. He doesn’t give up until he gets what he wants.’

  ‘What are the police saying?’ She hesitates. ‘Mac – what’s he saying?’

  I shrug. I’m not going to tell Lisa about my plan to get the information from Mac. I don’t think she’ll approve and I’m not giving her the opportunity to dissuade me out of it. ‘Julian and Mac are of like mind. I expect when he comes tomorrow, after the pre-trial hearing, he’ll be pushing for the safe house.’ I shiver. ‘I can’t trust either of them.’

  ‘Claire?’

  ‘I won’t forgive Julian for this. Never.’ I look into Lisa’s eyes, misty with fear and empathy. ‘I can’t believe that he’s doing this. He goes ahead and makes decisions without even considering my point of view.’

  ‘That must be hard for you.’ She takes my hand. ‘But you have to remember that Julian is Bea’s father. He’s not putting her in danger by doing this. In fact, by making clear he doesn’t know where the witness is, potentially he’s putting her in less danger.’

  ‘I don’t buy that. There’s no guarantee that she’ll believe him. She’s very certain she’s going to get Bea, and her confidence is not misplaced.’ I think again about the photos. ‘Georgiev has engineered this kind of operation before.’ I tell Lisa about the little Italian boy. ‘The kidnapper was the family au pair. Her papers and her references were checked. The boy’s parents and the police thought they had all their bases covered. Still he was taken.’

  ‘But Bea won’t leave the house.’

  ‘No, she won’t, but still.’ I shake my head. ‘Oh, Lisa . . .’

  I don’t know how to explain it: the emails, the words she uses, her surety, her knowingness. She is prepared. She is more than one step ahead of us. She is an expert at this. She enjoys it. This is her world, not ours.

  I turn my head and focus on my sister’s face. ‘Some people have a gift for fooling others. I read an article once about a woman who managed to hide three pregnancies, each of them two years apart. After she gave birth to three full-term babies, she gave them up for adoption and carried on as normal. She was married and she had a loving extended family. I remember reading the article and thinking, Why didn’t her husband comment on her growing bump? How could her family have missed it? What sort of family were they?’

  ‘Perhaps her bump was really small.’

  ‘She was a swimming instructress! Most of us could get away with baggy jumpers and leggings, but she was on display every day and yet she fooled dozens of people.’

  ‘That’s bizarre.’

  ‘It is, and when I looked into the story, you know what she told her family?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘That she had irritable bowel syndrome and that she bloated out. You’d think her family were idiots to believe that, wouldn’t you?’

  Lisa nods.

  ‘They weren’t. They were switched-on people, and her husband was an intelligent man, well respected, well liked. They all believed her because she had authority. She was self-assured. She was convincing. She pre-empted any suspicion by offering explanations.’

  ‘Weird.’

  ‘Very. She fooled everyone, even those closest to her.’

  Lisa thinks. ‘You’re saying this blackmailer is someone we know? Someone who is fooling all of us?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘But who?’

  ‘I don’t know!’ I throw my arms out. ‘I don’t want it to be Sezen, but I hope that it is her because at least she’s in custody at the moment. Mac’s looked into the people it could be, including members of the police and the CPS. It’s unlikely to be any of them, but’ – I shrug – ‘I just don’t know.’

  ‘Claire, listen.’ She swings round in the bed to face me. ‘If you want to go away with Bea, if you think that will be the easiest way to keep her safe, promise me you will do that.’

  ‘I will.’ I kiss her cheek. ‘I promise.’

  Her head falls back on the pillow. She looks drained and at once I feel guilty for using up what little energy she has with my troubles. I leave her to sleep, go upstairs and climb into bed. Bea is lying between Julian and me. I lay my hand on her back and gradually drift off. I fall asleep three times, but each time wake up within minutes to check that Bea is still there.

  The bump on my head hurts so that I can’t lie on my right side. I move around trying to get comfortable.

  Julian’s voice whispers into the almost darkness, ‘Shall I get you some painkillers?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Claire?’

  I don’t answer.

  ‘This is going to work out,’ he says softly. ‘You know that, don’t you?’

  ‘No, I don’t.’

  ‘Claire.’ He stretches across Bea to find a piece of me to touch: my hand, my arm, my side. I keep myself out of his reach. He stands up and walks round to my side of the bed. He sits down close to my middle. ‘Claire, please talk to me.’

  I leave a few seconds before I say, ‘Can’t you see that the decision you’ve made might be the wrong one?’

  ‘I’m confident we can beat her.’

  ‘Well, I don’t share your confidence. I have a horrible, sinking feeling she’s going to get Bea.’

  ‘How, Claire? How?’

  ‘I don’t know how,’ I say, my voice rising so that Bea stirs beside me. I take a second to compose myself and then say much more quietly, ‘But I do know that she’s smarter than us and that’s why we should have given her what she wanted.’

  ‘I can’t agree with you.’

  ‘Then we’ve nothing to say to each other.’

  I shift over on to my right side, ignoring the pain in my temple, it being more important to turn my back on Julian. He rests his hand on my back and I shrink away from it. I hear him sigh, then stand up and return to his own side of the bed. I sense him lying awake in the dark, on the other side of Bea, our positions in the bed reflecting our separate approaches to this: Julian on one side, me on the other and Bea in the middle. I can’t think about what this rift will do to our marriage in the long run. I have to take one minute, one hour at a time.

  Bertie’s fur on my cheek, Bea’s hair on my neck, I put my arm round her and lie there mulling everything over, trying to work out from which direction the threat will come. Rationally, of course I agree with Julian. I am the only person who knows the code for the burglar alarm. There are two policemen outside the house. CCTV cameras are focused on the front and back doors. How could she get inside? The simple answer is that she can’t unless she comes with reinforcements and the
n the police will be able to arrest them all.

  I spend what’s left of the night drifting in and out of sleep. Come six o’clock, I decide to get up and face the day. It’s Monday, the day of the pre-trial hearing. The judge will decide whether to grant the defence’s request for full witness disclosure. Julian’s already up and I know that he’ll leave for work early. I get dressed. My head is still pounding, the lump on my temple the size of a quail’s egg. Lisa and Julian are in the kitchen. They both look up when I walk in.

  ‘I’ve made some porridge,’ Lisa says, standing up.

  I wave her down again. ‘I’ll get it.’

  I see her look at Julian, waiting for him to say something: a good morning, ask me about my head, pour me a coffee. He doesn’t speak. He doesn’t acknowledge my presence. Fine by me. I ladle some porridge into a bowl and join them at the table. Lisa has poured me a coffee. She tops up the mug with milk. I thank her and take a drink.

  ‘Of course there’s a moral imperative, and as laws are drawn up, this is taken into account in the courtroom,’ Julian is saying to Lisa. ‘What has to be established are not so much the rights and wrongs of it, but whether the defendant has broken the law.’ He takes a spoonful of porridge. ‘It’s about proof. In an ideal world justice would always prevail, but we don’t live in an ideal world.’

  ‘But with witness anonymity,’ Lisa says, ‘there must be some problems.’

  ‘There are credibility issues. Does the witness have motive to lie? That’s the main one. But in a case like this, with Georgiev as dangerous as we know he is, anonymity is the only way to stay alive.’

  ‘Do you have forensic evidence?’

  ‘Criminals like Georgiev can’t be caught with direct evidence: fingerprints, DNA, blood, CCTV. Useless. He has other people doing his dirty work. We need a witness to testify. To give names, dates, times, details that tie in with minor witness statements and police intelligence.’ He finishes his porridge and pushes the bowl across the table. ‘Finally we have a chance to get him.’

  ‘And your family is paying the price for that,’ I say. And then compound it by adding, ‘Or hadn’t you noticed?’

  He glances across at me. ‘What’s happening is inconvenient, Claire, I grant you, but in the grand scheme of things, having to live in a safe house for a month or so is hardly the greatest of hardships.’

  ‘It’s not just being shut in the house, though, is it? It’s the incipient danger and the fear that it generates.’ I bang my chest. ‘I am afraid, Julian. Me. Your wife.’

  ‘Claire, there are young girls being trafficked and murdered out there.’

  ‘And you have brought your children, our children into that world.’

  ‘Like it or not, this is the world we live in.’

  ‘Well, I don’t like it, and it isn’t my world.’ I stand up. ‘And for me, my family comes first.’

  ‘And it doesn’t for me?’

  ‘You’re sacrificing your family’s safety for your principles.’

  ‘I am not.’ He stands up and leans towards me. He is angry; it simmers in his eyes. ‘I am not sacrificing their safety.’

  ‘Claire?’ Lisa stands up too. ‘Sweetheart, why don’t you finish your porridge?’

  I don’t answer her. My eyes are still on Julian.

  ‘When did you lose your principles, Claire? What happened to the girl who went into law to make a difference?’

  I recognise the look on his face. It’s one that’s shrunk many a witness in the past. It’s a cross between contempt and surety, and something inside me snaps.

  ‘She woke up!’ I slam my bowl down on the table and it breaks into two halves; left over milk spills on to the wooden surface. ‘I don’t have the luxury of principles, not when my daughter’s life is at stake.’

  ‘I can’t talk to you when you’re like this.’ He turns away from me. ‘You need to calm down.’

  ‘Fuck you, Julian. And fuck your principles.’ My tone is even, but at once Lisa is beside me, gripping my elbow, urging me to sit. I shake her off and follow Julian across the kitchen. ‘If something happens to our daughter, I will cry every day for the rest of my life. I won’t be able to live; I won’t be able to breathe.’ I follow him into the hallway. ‘It will never be bearable. We will never have peace. We will never be a family again. We will never be a couple again.’ He’s on his way downstairs to his study and I move quickly, stepping in front of him to block his path. ‘I am not ready to lose my sister, I was not ready to lose my mother or my father, and I will never, never be ready to lose a child. Do you understand that?’ His expression is stony. ‘If we lose our child because of your principles, then God damn you to hell, Julian. I mean that.’

  I move out of his way and he goes off down the stairs. I’m shaking from anger and from the realisation that I meant every word I said. And as each word sinks in, I am brought that bit closer to the nub of it. Julian and I are moving further apart. Our outlooks are irreconcilable. I am sacrificing my marriage to ensure my daughter’s safety. That’s the way it has to be.

  The doorbell rings and I answer it straight away. Megan. I bring her into the porch but no further.

  ‘Big day,’ I say. ‘Are you all ready for it?’

  ‘I have butterflies.’ She presses her stomach and gives me her busy-but-interested smile. ‘We’re well prepared.’

  ‘I saw you yesterday making friends with the two policemen.’

  ‘Well, they seem nice, you know.’ Her eyes flick to the side, suddenly nervous. ‘Claire, I haven’t had the chance to tell you properly how sorry I am about what’s happening.’

  ‘It’s shit,’ I say. ‘It’s frightening and it’s desperate.’

  ‘Yes.’ She shifts from one foot to the other.

  ‘What do you know about the witness?’

  ‘Sorry?’ She looks around as if she thinks I might be talking to an invisible someone behind her.

  ‘The witness,’ I say. ‘Do you know who he is and where he’s being kept?’

  ‘No, I . . .’ She clears her throat. ‘That’s not the sort of information I’m given. This one’s top secret. You know how it is.’

  ‘Yes, I do.’ I move a step closer. She keeps her gaze away from mine. ‘Do you have aspirations to be a mother some day?’

  ‘I would have to find a man first.’ She looks up at me through her lashes. ‘The young policeman – Alec Faraway. What do you think?’

  ‘He seems very nice.’ I hold her gaze. ‘Are you sure you don’t know the witness’s name?’

  ‘Claire . . .’ She shuffles her feet again. ‘I know that Julian . . .’ She trails off.

  ‘You know that Julian what?’ I keep my tone light, unthreatening.

  ‘He feels bad about this. He’s worried. He knows he’s walking a tightrope, but there are no other options.’

  ‘He shares his thoughts with you?’

  She draws back.

  ‘Megan, at the moment, with the direction my life is taking’ – I lean right into her face – ‘I don’t care how close you are to my husband. I don’t care whether you’ve had sex with him. I have much bigger things to worry about.’

  ‘You shouldn’t be saying this to me.’

  ‘Woman to woman, I am asking you whether you can help me.’

  ‘I don’t know anything, Claire.’ She makes big eyes at me, then touches her heart. It’s a sweet but theatrical gesture and I don’t buy it. She knows more than she’s letting on. ‘Trust the police. Trust Julian.’

  The inside door opens and Julian is standing there. Megan immediately straightens up and steps away from me. I open the outside door for them both and they start off down the steps. When they’re almost at the bottom, Julian glances back at me. ‘I’ll be in touch after the pre-trial ruling.’

  Why bother? I almost shout, but don’t want the two policemen and Megan as an audience. I make do with pretending he hasn’t spoken and close the door.

  ‘Has Daddy gone?’ Bea is on her way down the stairs. �
��He didn’t say goodbye.’

  ‘He thought you were sleeping.’ I swing her from the fourth stair on to my hip. ‘Is Lara not up yet?’

  ‘She needs her sleep,’ Bea says, moulding herself into my body and putting her thumb in her mouth while her left hand keeps tight hold of Bertie. ‘She needs to grow.’

  I smile. ‘I think Wendy might be right.’ I tickle her feet as we walk into the kitchen. ‘You spend too much time with adults, young lady.’

  She giggles into my shoulder and wraps her legs further round me. ‘Look!’ I tip her forward so she can see into the pot. ‘Auntie Lisa made some lovely porridge.’

  ‘I like Coco Pops.’

  ‘We don’t have any Coco Pops,’ I say, beginning the negotiations. ‘But if you have just ten spoons of porridge, you can have some toast with chocolate spread on it.’

  I set her down at the table while she considers this, her legs swinging backwards and forwards. I place a bowl of porridge in front of her and hand her a spoon. Holding the spoon vertical and with both hands, she stirs it round vigorously so that some milk spills over the edge. ‘Oops.’ She catches the milk with her finger and then licks it.

  ‘It’s just the right temperature,’ I say. We’ve recently read Goldilocks. ‘Try some. It’s like Baby Bear’s porridge.’

  ‘Was Baby Bear Goldilocks’s friend?’

  ‘I expect they became friends.’

  She squints up at me through her hair. ‘You and Daddy are my special friends, and Bertie is my special friend.’ She lifts Bertie from his seat beside her up on to the table. His head hangs down into the bowl. ‘He’s sniffing it.’

  ‘Yes, he is,’ I say. ‘But don’t let him fall in or he’ll end up in the washing machine again.’ She snatches him off the table at once and puts him on to her knee. I find some hairclips in the pocket of my jeans and pin up her hair. ‘Shall I do aeroplanes?’

  She pulls her chin in towards her neck. ‘No, Mummy! I’m not a baby.’ Then she notices the lump on my temple and gasps, ‘What happened?’

  ‘I bumped my head.’

  She stands up on her chair and reaches across. ‘It’s sore?’ She touches it so gently, so reverently that I can barely feel it. Then she draws her hand back and says, ‘Did Daddy kiss it better?’