Two Years After ; Friends Who Lie ; No More Secrets

by Paul J. Teague

  ‘Oh God, Sarah. Have you seen her?’

  ‘Yes, she came down here to visit you, but you were out cold. She’s in a real mess. She doesn’t know whether to feel grief for Nathan or to hate him. She’s gone home now. She’s not in a good way.’

  ‘This fucking place!’ Katy cursed. She’d found her voice again. Swearing had helped to clear her throat. ‘It’s messed up so many lives. It’s so beautiful up here … but look at the damage that’s been done.’

  ‘I know. Sarah said the marriage had always been difficult. She said it’s like a part of Nathan was never there. Well, we know what part that was now, the heterosexual part.’

  ‘Buchanan thought there might have been some incident between Elijah and Nathan. Maybe that’s what this is all about.’

  ‘I’m not sure if we’ll ever know. It’s all so long ago. They’ve gone right back to our university days. They’re tracking down Nathan’s personal tutor, trying to see if he told them anything at the time. He’s been living a secret life for years though. Poor sod, why didn’t he just come out?’

  Katy thought about that one. Maybe it was easier to keep the lie going than it was to risk revealing everything. She didn’t know. Or maybe she did have some insight. She thought of how long she’d stayed with Louis, even when she knew it was wrong. Perhaps that’s how Nathan had felt. He had a job, a wife, a professional reputation to uphold. It might have been easier to sustain the pretence than to reveal the truth.

  ‘I feel like I have a million questions to ask,’ Katy said. ‘I can barely take it all in.’

  ‘I need to apologise to you, Katy. It was all my fault. What happened, it was my fault.’

  Katy looked into Emma’s face. It was a ridiculous thing to say. How could it possibly be Emma’s fault. She’d been in London the whole time.

  ‘How? How can this possibly have anything to do with you? It was Nathan. He’s the one to blame.’

  ‘It was through me that he knew what you were doing. I let him install some piece of software on my phone and laptop so he could sort out my technical problems. It was amazing, he could do it from Aberdeen or wherever it was he was working. He did fix them too, but he didn’t remove the software. The bastard could help himself to my phone and PC to see exactly what I was doing. The police reckon he was reading all my emails and all our chats, and that’s how he knew what you were up to. He’s a clever bastard, and I’m a stupid bitch. I’m really sorry.’

  ‘It’s not your fault,’ Katy consoled her, reaching out to squeeze her hand. ‘None of us walks away from this completely free of blame. It all goes back to that blasted holiday.’

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  ‘I’m going to miss you so much.’

  Katy couldn’t remember seeing Emma so upset, not even after the fire. Paige gave her a hug. They’d become good friends over the past three months. Solus Na Madainn had been a great place to recover and set her head straight. And now her old friend and her new friend were seeing her off from Inverness Airport. She was heading for Majorca. It was the sunniest place that they flew to from there. All she wanted was to find a nice beach and forget everything.

  ‘You will let me know how you’re getting on, won’t you?’ Paige asked.

  ‘I will. I’m usually terrible at keeping in touch, but I promise I will. I’m really grateful for everything, Paige. What can I say?’

  Katy’s mobile phone cheeped and she checked the text that had just arrived.

  ‘It’s from Buchanan telling me to have a good flight. That was nice of him.’

  ‘It’s good to see he’s up and about again,’ Emma said.

  ‘He emailed me yesterday. He reckons he’ll be out of his wheelchair by the end of the month. I owe him a lot – I hope he understood that when we visited him.’

  ‘I think he got the message,’ Emma said. ‘It was something to do with the tears and hugs. He definitely picked up your vibe.’

  Katy thought over the past few weeks. Sarah had come to see them, but it was all still so raw for her. She had discovered that her entire adult life had been built on a lie. Izzy and Nancy had been over too. The scarring on Izzy’s neck was so bad that she would always have to wear a scarf to conceal it. She’d sent the motorbike the same way as the cigarettes and had reinvested the insurance money in a vehicle of the four-wheeled variety. Nancy was lovely. She’d completely changed Izzy from the girl that they’d known when they were teenagers. She seemed happy. It wasn’t lost on Katy that if Nathan had had the courage to live his life openly, maybe things would have been different for him too. His hatred for Katy must have festered for years.

  ‘I’ve got to go,’ Katy said. ‘I’ll miss boarding if I don’t go now. I love you both. I’ll send you a postcard. Probably. Or probably not. But I love you both anyway.’

  Katy picked up her rucksack and walked through the gate. Hand baggage only. Nothing that would be a burden. Onto a new life.

  Epilogue

  Spean Bridge, July 1999

  Nathan was in love with Elijah. He had known it for some time and he was sure Elijah reciprocated his feelings. He’d been Elijah’s confidant throughout the bullying episodes – they were close, they shared every hope, worry and fear. When Katy came along Nathan was confused. He detested her and more than anything he wanted her out of the way. When Elijah fell head over heels in love with her, he smouldered with resentment.

  He fooled himself that Elijah was testing him, making sure that he was worthy. After all, Sarah clearly wanted to be his girlfriend, but he wasn’t interested in her, only as a friend. Surely Elijah felt the same about Katy. For Nathan, Elijah was his first true love and his heart ached with a deep passion for him.

  The day that Elijah and Katy fell out, he’d finally resolved to reveal his feelings. They’d been close again that day, the way it had been before Katy came along. He felt invigorated, he was ready to take a chance with Elijah. Katy had been furious with her boyfriend. What to her was outrage at Elijah’s insensitivity was to Nathan the inevitable outcome of a doomed relationship. Elijah just hadn’t realised it yet.

  They were in the bedroom, chatting and laughing. They’d got a few beers down them. Elijah was wheezing a bit – sometimes alcohol made him do that. Asthma could be a nuisance, but he had it under control. Brown puffer, blue puffer, they followed him around everywhere. Only he’d left them in Katy’s bag from their day trip.

  They were sitting next to each other chatting about the things they’d got up to before Katy arrived on the scene. For Elijah, it was a bit of male bonding, a postponement of the inevitable showdown with his girlfriend. For Nathan, it was something different. For a moment, only a fleeting moment, their faces were close – uncomfortably so for Elijah. But before he had a chance to reposition himself, Nathan moved forward and kissed him on the lips.

  Elijah recoiled.

  ‘What the hell was that?’ he shouted.

  ‘I thought … I thought …’

  Nathan’s face was bright red, he’d completely misjudged the situation. He knew it the minute his lips touched Elijah’s.

  ‘Damn it, Nathan. What were you even thinking? You know I love Katy, I’ve told you a million times. Why did you even do that?’

  Elijah’s wheezing was becoming louder from the stress of what had happened. Nathan felt humiliated, hurt, angry – he was such an idiot. What had he been thinking of?

  ‘I thought … I thought we were more than friends.’

  ‘No! We’re just friends. We were friends. I don’t know what say. I don’t mind if you’re gay, but come on! You’ve got eyes, you can see how I am about Katy.’

  Tears began to drop from Nathan’s eyes. This was the first time he’d dared to declare that he might love a man. He was despised by Elijah, he felt sordid and dirty, as if he was some kind of abomination.

  ‘I love you … I only wanted to tell you that I love you.’

  ‘Leave me,’ said Elijah. ‘Give me some space to think this through.’

 
‘Please don’t tell the others,’ Nathan begged. ‘Please don’t tell.’

  ‘Just go!’ Elijah shouted. He was wheezing badly now, he needed a moment to calm down and regulate his breathing.

  ‘Are you okay?’ Nathan asked, turning back at the door.

  ‘Can you ask Katy if she’s got my puffers? I think they’re in her bag.’

  Nathan nodded, trying his best to conceal his tears. He’d have to keep his voice steady and find somewhere to go until the redness had gone from his eyes.

  ‘Elijah says can you let him have his puffers,’ he managed to blurt out in as steady a voice as he could muster, before rushing out of the front door to get some privacy.

  ‘Fuck him!’ Katy said. ‘Let him get them himself if he needs them. He knows where they are.’

  At the moment she said that, in the room, Elijah collapsed on the Z-bed from lack of oxygen. It was a long time since he’d had such a bad attack, but the stress had been building all afternoon. He’d been trying to manage it, breathing deeply and methodically. There was no way he was asking Katy for the puffers that were in her bag, not after the row they’d had in the car. He was determined to do without them until she came to apologise. He was now regretting that choice.

  As Elijah lay slowly suffocating on the bed, Isobel’s cigarette stub came flying through the open window. It wasn’t intentional, just a careless act. It was only when the investigation was complete that she’d discover what she’d done. After all, she was the only one who smoked at the time. It would be a habit that Nathan took up shortly after Elijah’s death.

  And so the tragedy played out. As the cigarette began to burn the rug beneath the window sill, Elijah struggled for breath, wondering where Katy was with his puffers. He couldn’t cry out, and by the time the smoke had filled his room and a spark turned to searing flames, he was unconscious.

  It was only when the friends had come together at the front of the house that Katy asked where Elijah was. They’d assumed he’d jumped out of the window and run around the back of the building – why wouldn’t he when the cries of ‘Fire!’ went up? But Elijah was dead by then. And as they stood watching the flames destroy the lodge, nobody would ever know that it was really Katy who had killed Elijah, for hers was the final kindness that might have saved him.

  So Many Lies preview

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  Join us in celebrating the seventieth birthday of

  Tony Harrington

  Saturday 2nd – Sunday 10th June

  Gather at Singapore Changi Airport (at Toastbox, Terminal 2) 2pm Saturday 2nd June for transfers by boat

  Book your own flight (we'll pay you back!)

  We've taken care of all transfers and expenses

  Prepare for a week of sun, sand, sea and relaxation

  See you there,

  Tony & Susan

  PS It will be lovely to have all the family back together again!

  June 2018: The Island

  Ben was shaken out of sleep by the sound of a bird which seemed intent on making the most grating sound possible. According to Mauricio it was a koel. To Ben it was an irritating nuisance. His eyes were stuck shut, gritty and sore from the sand that had lodged in them. He had to force them open. Where the hell was he? This wasn't his house. It wasn't his bed either. In fact, it was more of a mattress than a bed.

  His head was aching. It was persistent and painful. He closed his eyes again and tried to work through the events of the previous evening. As it all started to come back to him, so too did the sick feeling deep in his stomach. And the desire to sleep – forever if possible – to avoid the inevitable hellish aftermath.

  The koel let out its grating call once again.

  'Get lost, you little bastard!' he half-shouted, half groaned.

  He could hear the sea too, it was close – really close. And voices in the distance. Concerned voices.

  He looked around him. He saw that he was in a wooden hut. It seemed familiar – he knew he'd been there before. Beyond the open window he could see lush green foliage gently swaying in the morning breeze, behind it the bright blue sky.

  Where was the baby? Was the baby safe?

  She has a name, you know. She's called Harper.

  Ben heard Laura's chiding voice in his head. He knew he should call his daughter by her name, but a part of him – the part that had thought he'd be retiring in a couple of years and living a life of relative leisure – that part of him still couldn't accept that he'd be saddled with a third child until he was in his mid-sixties. He'd be 66 years old when Harper left home. He'd only just got there with Ted and Alice. He should have been jettisoning responsibilities, not adding to them. Yet, there he was, with a young wife and new baby. Not a wife – a girlfriend or partner? He still wasn't sure how to refer to Laura. When he and Diana became a couple, they'd done things the good old-fashioned way – albeit they had moved in together at first, much to the disapproval of their parents. They lived together for a couple of years before getting married then having the kids. That's how they did it in the old days. Not quite the way the Bible intended, but close enough.

  With Laura ... Well, he wasn't even officially separated from Diana when she dropped the bombshell on him. Maybe the headache Ben was experiencing was just another day in his screwed-up life, the throbbing in his head simply a symptom of the mess he'd got himself into.

  The koel squawked one more time, tilting its head to one side as if to make sure that it had had the desired effect, then flew away to perch on a distant palm tree.

  'Thank God for that!' Ben said aloud. His voice was hoarse and weak. He could hear voices again, they were drifting in and out, he wasn't certain they were even real. He was fully clothed, he hadn't realised that when he woke. He still had his shoes on. Too exhausted to move, he lay on his back gazing out of the window.

  He tried to re-trace the events of the night before. It had begun politely enough. In fact, it had looked like they might get through the evening without it all turning to shit. But that was too much to hope for. When the Harringtons got together, nothing was ever simple. It was coming back to him now. Steve and Kiki – what a couple of stuck-up, pompous pricks. And Mina, fancy waiting until your grandad's seventieth birthday to make that announcement. The little cow. It could have waited. She must have known the impact it would have.

  Then there was Gaby. God, Ben wanted to love Gaby, she was his kid sister after all. But she was so self-righteous and whenever the wine began to flow she'd glide into ferocious rants about the husband who'd abandoned her with her spoiled horror of a child or, even worse, she'd start singing. Ben cared for Gaby and he felt sorry for her, he really did. He of all people knew what the impact was when a feckless man left the family home and abandoned some poor woman to cope with the kids on their own. He was that dickhead of a man. It was his gift to his own children – Ted and Alice would forever have their view of what a father is shaped by his treacherous abandonment of their mother. Nice one, Ben. What a legacy.

  And he'd forgotten the cherry on the cake. Richard. Richard's presence had been a problem from the start. And that punch from Tony. No wonder it had all gone to pot so fast. Their get-together had been doomed right from the start.

  Ben could only piece together snippets of the night before, his mind was so hazy. He remembered Alice leaving. She'd had to wear her callipers that night, he could have cried for her. She looked stunning, he was so proud of his young daughter. She'd worn the most beautiful floral dress and pushed her hair up.

  'It's only from a charity shop,' she'd smiled when he complimented her on how wonderful she looked.

  She'd always have to wear those callipers, the shackles which prevented her from living the life he'd always dreamed of for his kids. He loved Alice with every bit of his heart. Even after all these years, he still blamed himself for the life they'd given her.

  Ben was coming round now. His senses were kicking into life. Outside the air was fresh and invigorating. The morning sun
was shining. The birds were chattering in the distance as if they'd just arrived for work and were catching up with the latest gossip.

  His clothes were soaked with sweat. Cautiously he turned over, peeling his top away from his skin as he did so. He turned around awkwardly, he was sore all over. Resting his weight on his elbow, he twisted round to get a better view of the other side of the hut. On the bed was some wet clothing. It was drenched with seawater, he could smell it now. That was Alice's dress, the one she'd been wearing the night before. There was no sign of Alice, his beautiful Alice. But there on the floor, as if discarded in a fight, a kitchen knife sat in a pool of blood. He jumped up, ignoring the sharp pain in his groin.

  He could picture it clearly now. They hadn't been able to find the knife at the party. Tony had never got as far as cutting the cake.

  Ben dropped back down on the bed, drifting out of consciousness.

  As his world grew dark once again, all he could think of were the horrors of the night before.

  'Oh my God. What have we done? What the hell have we done?'

  Carry on reading So Many Lies

  Also by Paul J. Teague

  Don’t Tell Meg Trilogy

  Book 1 - Don’t Tell Meg - read it here

  Book 2 - The Murder Place - read it here

  Book 3 - The Forgotten Children - read it here

  Standalone Thrillers

  Dead of Night - read it here

  One Last Chance - read it here

  No More Secrets - read it here

  So Many Lies - read it here

  Two Years After - read it here

  Friends Who Lie - read it here

  Paul J.Teague & Adam Nicholls

  Now You See Her - read it here

  Morecambe Bay Trilogy

  Book 1 - Left For Dead - read it here

  Book 2 - Circle of Lies - read it here