Secrets and Lies - Harry's Secret

by R L Stephens

  Chapter 4

  All the next night Harry lay awake starring up at the ceiling, his mind whirring through the various scenarios and possibilities that the choices he had made could lead to and none of them seemed even remotely good. The least bad scenario involved Harry going to prison for fraud for using a false name in order to gain some kind of financial reward, whether it be the salary he hoped to earn from the job at the bank to any insurance payout that he had received over the last couple of years. The worst of which could amount to a murder charge, which would be hard for him to defend with laying out the full sordid details of his deceptions. Most of which he found it hard to explain to anyone, especially to himself.

  It's not as if I intentionally planned all of this, Harry argued with the unseen accuser of his own conscious. It just started out as a bit of fun, a bit of any escape, and surely people will realize that, he then found himself justifying to the darkness that seemed to close in on him as he lay there like a gang of interrogators out to extract the truth from him. As he heard the creak of the settling stairs outside of his room Harry forced himself to rollover onto his side and pushed all thoughts of what could happen out of his mind as surely the next day would be the day he got the good about the job at the bank in London.

  As Harry drifted off to sleep he realized that his immediate anxieties stemmed not just from the ill-advised encounter with Susan, but also from the unexpected and troublesome visit from his creepy landlord Matt Russell. Who Harry was certain a fine and decent fellow, but there was just something about him that made Harry shudder right down his spine from the moment he first him. A feeling that Harry, at the time, was sure would go away with the passing of time as he got to know him, but it never did seem to ease. Even now after almost eighteen months of living in is this bedsit and seeing Matt every so often to pay rent and the like the nagging worry that there something odd about him never seemed to go away.

  Physically Matt was a little shorter than Harry and had a very slight frame and smallish head that was proportionate in size to his body. The man had a slight hunch appearance to his shoulders that seemed to push his head forward and he had small glasses with round lenses. His overall appearance raised thoughts of certain stereotypes in Harry’s mind, all of which Harry had tried hard, and frequently, to push out of his head. But no matter how hard he tried the ill feeling never really left him.

  Maybe it was the fact that Harry often, when he couldn’t sleep, would see Matt creeping around the house late at night or early in the morning. And while couldn’t fault the man for trying to be quiet while others slept, Harry couldn’t help but wonder why he was doing it or what he was doing at such strange hours of the day, or the rather night.

  In any case on the Thursday afternoon after he had met up with Ken, there came a soft knocking on Harry’s door and his mind immediately rushed to the possibility that Susan had finally some to her senses and made complaint against him. The knocking on the door therefore, he reasoned, must have been the police who had managed to track him down from the hotel. Harry’s heart started to pump at a mile a minute as he frantically looked around his room for a way out. But the door was the only sure way in or out room, and outside there were the police who surely here it arrest him. For a moment he considered making a dash for it by climbing out of the window, but then he dismissed this absurd idea as the police would have that escape route covered anyway.

  Out of apparent options, Harry closed the gap between where he had been sitting and the door in no more than a few strides and all too soon for his liking Harry found himself standing by the door with his hand reached out ready to open it. He took one last deep breath to steady his nerves and then, bracing himself for the in rushing burly police officers who he was convinced were about to barge their way, he opened the door.

  “Yes?” He queried the unknown and unexpected visitor with his eyes closed in anticipation of the worst.

  “Harry,” said the soft masculine, but all too familiar, voice that belonged to his landlord Matt Russell. “I'm glad I caught you,” Matt then added when Harry acknowledged his presence, even though the words ‘caught you’ sent a shiver down his spine.

  “Oh?” Harry queried in feigned innocence, trying to remember when he last paid rent or even when had last cleaned his flat, hoping that he had done so before he had left for London and mentally telling himself that he planned to have a tidy up later day after he had run some errands or some such other reasonable excuse.

  “Can I come in?” Matt asked in such a tone that was clearly more a statement of his intent than an actual request that Harry could in all honesty refuse.

  “Sure,” Harry said his heart starting to race again and the he turned away from the door so that the other man may enter. Matt then positioned himself in the middle of the room and ran his beady little eyes over the room scanning for any sign of wrong doing on Harry’s behalf. As Matt’s head turned around the room on his neck like some kind of surveillance camera on its bracket Harry could feel his palms getting sweaty from the anxious anticipation of the reason behind this visit.

  “Do you know Emily Baxter is?” Matt asked, his eyes now firmly fixed on Harry as if they were trying to peer into his and probe his thoughts. Oh fuck, I've been found out; Harry thought and had to work hard to stop the panic from overwhelming him.

  “Why do you ask?” Harry queried trying to buy for himself so that he could come up with some kind, any kind, of plausible excuse.

  “When you were away in London last week some mail came for her,” Matt said reaching into his pocket and pulling the now rather dog eared letter. “You do know that this is a single room and you're not allowed overnight guests without letting me know?” Matt then added caressing the envelope loving as if it were a smoking gun and that it contained undeniable evidence against Harry and his unwelcome girlfriend. Is that all? Harry thought to himself and breathed out a massive sigh of relief that he hoped Matt hadn’t noticed.

  “You’ve not got anyone living here with you, have you?” Matt then asked being more direct and pointing the envelope in Harry’s direction. “That would be a clear violation of the lease,” he added o a serious note.

  “No, no, not at all,” Harry stammered while he tried to buy even more time to come up with a plausible explanation. “She’s, she’s,” Harry said pausing while an idea formed in his mind. “She’s overseas travelling,” he then found the words exploding out of his mouth almost like projectile vomit before he’d had a proper chance to think the idea through before saying anything. Yes that’s it, he thought to himself triumphantly, abroad and travelling in Australia. Harry hoped that he hadn’t said that bit out loud.

  “Then why are you getting mail for her?” Matt added looking very confused. “I mean I'm sure they’ve been letters here before, but I didn’t quite twig it then,” he added searching his memory other times he’d seen mail for names he didn’t recognize.

  “That’s because,” Harry paused and wondered whether he should at least give part of the truth. Well it would more plausible than anything I could think up, Harry persuaded himself that it's time he came partially clean. “That’s because it's a cheque from an insurance settlement a few years ago,” he then explained more or less truthfully.

  “Oh, but don’t they tend to pay out in lump sums?” Matt asked still looking more than a little confused and Harry wondered whether he was going for it.

  “Yes, but,” Harry started to say, but then had to pause so that he could get the words right. “But Emily got them to set it up as some kind of trust and pay her in regular payments instead of a lump sum,” Harry finally said, hoping that it would be convincing enough.

  “Then are you getting them?” Matt asked still not wholly buying it. That’s a good point; Harry conceded to himself and wondered what he had told Matt about his background so that he wouldn’t get caught up in a lie.

  “I mean she’d have to be a very good friend as did
n’t you say you didn’t have any brothers or sisters?” Matt said not giving Harry any room to maneuver. Bugger I did say that, Harry said to himself.

  “Sister in law,” Harry said slowly as if that would make it sound more convincing, but then realized he had to find a way to make it said reasonable why he was no longer married and was on such good terms with his sister in law. “Sister of my late wife who died a couple of years ago and now Emily is travelling around Australia trying to get over the guilt as she was driving at the time,” Harry said almost mentally handing himself a shovel to dig himself into a rather deep pit here and not leaving himself much of chance to get of it if Matt didn’t go for this.

  “Oh I see,” Matt sad, still not looking as if he were wholly convinced, but Harry still hoped he had done enough to get his landlord off his back. “I'm sorry to hear that,” he then added handing over the letter. “Don’t forget your rent is due in a couple of weeks,” Matt then added as more of an afterthought as he turned to head toward the door.

  As the door closed behind Matt Harry stood rooted to the spot with the letter in his right hand held out in the same position as when he had received it from Matt a few moments earlier. He just stood there dumbfounded that he had actually managed to talk his way out of that awkward situation with a story that he had managed to cobbled together on the spur of the moment with a loose combination of the truth and fabrication that was rather more convincing than he expected at the time.

  Harry wasn’t sure how long he stood there in stunned disbelief, but he couldn’t bring himself to move until he was sure that Matt wasn’t coming back. When he was sure, and could finally relax somewhat, Harry breathed out a huge sigh of relief and almost collapsed on the spot, such was his release of anxiety at that moment. He was then able to bring himself to open the letter and he stared at the expected cheque that was contained within.

  “Thank you Emily Baxter,” Harry then said aloud as he kissed the letter in thanks at its timely arrival. But I really must get my story straight in advance in future , Harry said quietly to himself determined to learn from this experience and not to get caught having to make something up that risked the chance of him being caught.

  Retrieving the cash card from his drawer, Harry knew he would have the simple matter of paying the cheque into Emily’s account. But this didn’t usually cause him many problems as banks not to worry too much about money being paid into an account; it was more trying to get it out again that had been the issue in the first place. Still he’d long managed to work out a system that had worked well for him over the last eighteen months.

  This didn’t really help Harry when he was lying in bed later that night trying to get off to sleep, but having the constant anxiety of being caught wondering through his mind. Still there didn’t seem to be much of a threat from Matt, the landlord, it was just the issue of fraud relating to those cheques that worried him. Not to mention what the police might find if they started to look into what had happened to Emily Baxter. It wasn’t as if he had started out with the intention of killing her or causing her any kind of harm, it's just that things had gotten rather out of hand far too quickly and he’d lost control of the situation, without having had a proper exit strategy in place. Not to mention his encounter with Susan, at least in his mind of course, further complicated matters.

  Still no sense losing sleep over it, Harry thought to himself as he turned over onto his side and pulled the duvet close in around him. There's always tomorrow, was the last thing that filtered through Harry’s mind before he finally fell asleep.