The Lies We Told(58)

His eyes widened in surprise. ‘Tom? Why?’

Quickly she told him about Emily’s visit, the panic and fear she’d seen on her face when Tom had called to say he was on his way over. ‘She had the most awful scars on her back,’ she said, shuddering as she remembered Emily’s disfigured skin. ‘She said it had happened before she left home all those years ago. Mac, I think Tom’s got something to do with why she’s too scared to go back to her family. The look on her face when she thought he was coming over – seriously, she was absolutely terrified. And before, when my flat got broken into, Tom turned up straight afterwards, out of the blue. Then he called me and said he’d been around to yours the morning you were attacked. He’s been in London every single time something weird or awful has happened. Surely that’s got to be more than a coincidence?’

Mac stared at her. ‘I’ve known him for years, I just … I mean, why would he …?’

The door opened at that moment and Clara started in surprise. ‘Alison!’

Her neighbour stood in the doorway, one hand still on the handle. ‘I’ve been discharged so I thought I’d come and …’ she trailed off, her eyes shifting nervously from Clara’s face to Mac’s, to the floor.

‘Are you OK? Were you hurt?’ Mac asked, breaking the surprised silence.

Alison shook her head. ‘No, not really.’

In the harsh brightness of this room she seemed even more wraith-like than ever, Clara thought, but her face, scrubbed clean now, looked far younger and prettier without its customary mask of make-up. Clara stared at her wordlessly, not knowing what to say to this woman who had saved her life, yet had always been so prickly and antagonistic towards her. ‘The police told me what you did,’ she said at last, ‘I don’t know what to say …’

Alison shrugged. ‘It was the people downstairs who found you, it was them really, not me.’

Clara nodded. ‘Still … I mean, thank you – it doesn’t seem enough somehow, but thank you.’

No one said anything for a moment or two, until Alison mumbled, ‘Well anyway …’ she moved as if to leave, and Clara and Mac exchanged a glance.

‘Wait,’ Clara said. With effort she pulled herself out of bed, wrapping her thin gown around her as she went. ‘Are you sure you’re all right?’ she asked.

But instead of answering, Alison blurted, the words escaping from her mouth almost involuntarily, ‘Have they found Luke? Is there any news?’

And it was the desperation, the misery in her eyes that made something click inside Clara at last. She stared at her. ‘Something happened between the two of you, didn’t it?’

Mac glanced at her in surprise, but Clara kept her eyes on Alison, who scowled, her gaze shifting away. ‘No,’ she said, ‘don’t be stupid.’

A beat or two, then, ‘Alison, I just want to know. I think something did happen, and I think that’s why you’ve always been so weird towards me.’

At this, Alison’s face changed, her chin dropping to her chest, and Clara understood now that her spiky belligerence had merely been a cover for something else, that she was far more vulnerable than she first appeared. ‘Look,’ she said gently, ‘I’m only asking you to tell me the truth. After everything that’s happened, I think I deserve that, don’t you?’ Clara waited, her gaze never leaving Alison’s face.

Finally she spoke. ‘Nothing happened,’ she muttered. ‘Not really.’

Clara nodded. ‘But you wanted it to?’

Alison shrugged.

‘How did it start?’ Clara asked.

At this, Alison burst into tears, covering her face with her hands. ‘Come and sit down,’ Clara said, leading her to a chair.

‘My boyfriend left me,’ Alison began, her voice thick, the pain clearly still sharp. ‘Luke and I got chatting on the stairs one day. Then I got locked out of my flat and he invited me in for a beer.’ She glanced up at Clara. ‘You were out.’

Clara sighed. ‘Go on,’ she said.

‘He was so nice to me, and I thought …’ she coloured now, ‘he told me I was pretty, that I’d find someone else.’ She wiped her nose with the cuff of her jumper and gave a loud sniff. ‘After that he’d stop and chat if he saw me. I gave him my phone number and he’d text me. Nice stuff, you know? Telling me I was … Well, anyway, it started to mean a lot to me, the attention, you know … he’d pop up to see me sometimes when you weren’t in.’

Clara nodded. ‘And did something happen between you?’

Alison met her gaze and shook her head. ‘No.’

There was another silence, and Clara wondered if the younger girl would clam up again, but it seemed instead that she wanted to unburden herself now that she’d started. ‘I wanted it to,’ she admitted. ‘I told him that I was falling for him.’ She shook her head, a flash of anger in her eyes now. ‘I thought he felt the same way. But then he changed, started being funny with me, acting like it had all been in my head, he didn’t think of me like that. And I was so fucking angry with him …’

‘So that was what all the loud music was about, the dirty looks on the stairs,’ Clara said.

Alison glanced away. ‘He made me feel good about myself for the first time in ages, then there you’d be, the two of you, so happy together, rubbing my face in it. I wanted to make him see how bad I felt. And I guess I thought that him and I could be together if it wasn’t for you.’