Let Me Lie(12)

I walk slowly along quiet streets, revelling in the illicit freedom I’ve seized for myself. Every action has a consequence; I haven’t broken these rules lightly. If I’m caught, I risk losing my next life, languishing instead in purgatory. A prison of my own making. But the buzz of being back is hard to ignore. My senses are tingling after so long away, and as I turn into the next street I feel a racing in my chest.

Nearly home. Home. I catch myself. Remind myself it’s Anna’s home now. I expect she’s made changes. She always loved the bedroom at the back, with the pretty sprigs of blue on the wallpaper, but I suppose it’s silly to imagine her there now. She’ll have taken over our bedroom.

For a second my defences slide and I remember the day we went to see Oak View together. The previous owners, an elderly couple, had updated the electrics and connected the house to mains gas and waste, replacing the costly oil tank and the unpleasant septic tank still buried in the garden. Your father had already made an offer. All that was left for us to do was to breathe life into the place; to uncover the original doors and fireplaces, and free the windows long-since painted shut.

I slow my pace. Now that I’m here, I’m nervous. I focus on the two things I need to do: stop Anna going to the police and ensure that any evidence points to suicide, not murder.

But how?

A couple, walking arm in arm, turn into the street ahead of me. I step into a doorway, wait until they’ve passed, and use the time to calm myself. I need to make Anna understand the danger she’ll be in if she starts to question what she thinks she knows. How can I do that yet stay invisible? I imagine a cartoon ghost, rattling chains and wailing in the dead of night. Ridiculous. Impossible. Yet how else do I get a message to her?

I’m here. Outside our – Anna’s – house. I retreat to the opposite side of the street, and when even that feels too close I move into the gated park in the middle of the square, watching through the prickly branches of a holly bush. What if she isn’t home? I could hardly have called in advance to check. What if the risks I’ve taken to come down were all in vain? I could lose everything. Again.

A noise along the street makes me retreat further behind the holly. I peer through the gloom onto the street. A woman, walking with a pram. She’s on the phone, walking slowly. Distracted. I keep watching the house, scanning each window for signs of activity.

The pram’s wheels make a rhythmic sound on the wet pavement. I remember pushing Anna around the forecourt at Johnson’s, in and out of the cars, waiting for sleep to envelop her. We were just kids ourselves, barely scraping by on what your dad saw fit to pay us. The pram was a second-hand monstrosity, with a bouncing chassis that jerked Anna awake if we went over bumps. Nothing like the sleek modern affair this woman has.

She pauses by the house, and I tut, impatient for her to move on, in case I miss some movement beyond the open curtains. But she doesn’t walk by. And now I see that she isn’t alone. She has a dog with her, trotting in the shadows beside her. I feel a sharpness in my chest.

Is it …?

The pram wheels crunch over gravel as she pushes it through the gates and to the front door. The stained-glass panel in the front door glows a soft red from the light in the hall.

It is.

The woman’s call ends and she slips her phone into a pocket. She takes out a key, and as she does so she pushes back her hood and I see mousey hair beneath the light above the door, and soft features above a mouth that was always quick to smile, only it isn’t smiling now, and there’s a pounding in my head, because it is her.

It’s Anna.

And a baby.

Our daughter has a baby.

She turns around to pull the pram up the steps into the hall, and for a second she looks out into the park and it feels as though she’s looking right at me. Tears glint on her cheeks. She shivers, pulls the baby into the safety of the hall, and closes the door.

Anna has a baby.

I have a grandchild.

And even though I know no one could have told me – that nothing cuts communication channels like a death certificate – I feel a rush of anger that this momentous transition from mother to grandmother has taken place without me knowing.

Anna has a baby.

This changes everything. It will change Anna. Motherhood will make her question everything she thought she knew; it will make her examine her life, her relationships.

My death. Yours.

Having a baby makes Anna vulnerable. She has something now she loves more than anything else in the world. And when someone knows that, they can use it against you.

Don’t look for answers, Anna. You won’t like what you find.

If she goes to the police she’ll put herself, and her baby, in danger.

She’ll set something in motion that can’t be stopped.





SEVEN


ANNA


I’ve been home for half an hour when the doorbell rings. Laura pulls me into a hug.

‘Mark called me. He didn’t want you on your own when you were upset.’ She gives me another squeeze, then gently pulls away and looks at me, assessing the damage. Guilt seeps through me. I shouldn’t have left that message for Mark – there’s nothing he could have done and now he’ll be worrying all afternoon, distracted from his course and from the drive home.

‘I’m fine.’

‘You don’t look it. Can we go inside? It’s bloody freezing out here.’ There’s nothing to Laura – she’s tiny and skinny, with long blonde hair and a baby face that means she’s still asked for ID to buy booze, despite being over thirty.