Someone is Lying, page 11
‘Yes,’ he answers.
‘Can I speak to Issie?’ Her voice sounds unusually high.
‘No, she’s—’ he answers quickly, but then doesn’t appear to know what to say next. ‘No. She … well, she doesn’t know I’m calling you.’
‘And she would be cross to find out you are?’ Kay questions. She doesn’t know whether she sounds like she is holding it together – inside she is doing anything but.
Dylan doesn’t speak for a moment. When he does, he says, ‘Yeah. I don’t know. Please, Mum, can you do this one thing for me?’
‘I can tell them I’ve spoken to you,’ she says, ‘but if you won’t let me talk to Issie, then …’ Kay doesn’t know how to finish. Then what? She will refuse to do what he asks of her? And what does that say about her? That she does not trust her son when he is telling her Issie is fine but he needs her help?
‘Look.’ He says this sharply and it takes her back. He is getting frustrated and she doesn’t want to lose him. She doesn’t want him hanging up the phone and then not be able to get hold of him again. ‘We had a fight, that’s all. It’s nothing. We want to sort it out between us and we need a bit of time. Mum?’ His voice is softer again now.
‘You had a fight?’ She tries to sound genuine and sympathetic but she doesn’t know how much her voice gives her away when she is fraught with tension and fear. ‘What did you fight about?’
‘Not a fight,’ he corrects himself. ‘A disagreement. It’s nothing, but we need some time. She doesn’t want to speak to her mum. I’m telling you this so you don’t worry,’ he says.
She inhales a deep breath and lets it out slowly.
‘Mum? Can you do this one thing for me?’ he asks.
Kay has reached the school gates where she sees Billy coming out of his classroom. ‘Dylan, I need to go,’ she tells him.
‘Mum? Will you do it?’ he pleads.
‘I don’t know,’ she says in a whisper. ‘I – I’m sorry I have to go.’
Billy ambles across the playground towards her, telling her he doesn’t feel well. He has a tummy ache. She asks him if anything more has happened during the day. She tells him she knows one of the kids taunted him about not having a dad, but Billy shrugs it off like yesterday’s memory is a world away from today.
Kay is relieved it is Friday night and the start of the weekend, which means she doesn’t have to work for two days and Billy doesn’t need to go to school. She walks him home as quickly as his tired legs will take him and tells him to lie on the sofa as she covers him with a blanket, leaving a top window open to let in air. She isn’t sure if his stomach ache is real or not but she will never take a chance, and he is asleep within ten minutes. Kay finds herself sitting on the other sofa, watching him, wondering how nice it must be to have someone scoop you up, wrap you up and watch over you. Wondering what it would be like, just for once, to have someone take care of her.
But who is going to do that? She doesn’t let anyone close to her any more. Not after Neil and Carl. She realises how sad it is that the closest people to her are Mike and her neighbour, Cath, who, at fifty-eight, is twenty years older and while they talk over the fence and she has been inside Cath’s kitchen, she doesn’t know her any better than that.
Kay doesn’t share her problems with anyone, but she often listens to others – especially mothers in the playground complaining about their husbands not cleaning up after themselves or never offering to do a load of washing. Kay wants to scream that they need to see how lucky they are. Don’t they ever look at their lives and realise they have everything?
There were a couple of times when she heard it from Issie too. ‘Mum always wants to drive me everywhere,’ she’d moaned to Dylan. ‘Like she doesn’t trust me.’
Maybe Kay would drive Dylan everywhere too if she had a car. She didn’t say as much as she wasn’t supposed to be listening in to their conversation, but girls like Issie would never know what it was like to have to catch multiple buses across town for an appointment. Or to count out change in an emergency to call a cab, while wondering whether she was doing the right thing. All Issie needed to do was ask her mother to be there at whatever time and Jess could sit in her car and wait for her.
‘I couldn’t wear the jumper I wanted because the tumble dryer broke down,’ Issie had once said, rolling her eyes.
A tumble dryer was a luxury. Many a winter Kay has taken in her boys’ school shirts from the line and had to thaw them out, their arms frozen into balloon shapes, and still they always had a clean shirt to wear the next morning.
Kay watches Billy as thoughts of her other son flood her head. His desperation on the phone for her to help him.
She isn’t able to fly over to Portugal for her child. All she can do is wonder whether to do the one thing he is asking her for. Whether she can bring herself to when it means lying.
Thoughts oscillate back and forth.
Maybe Jess is too smothering of Issie. According to Dylan, she had encouraged Issie to end their relationship. She came to the café and silently accused him. Kay saw it in her eyes, she didn’t miss the look of contempt. Jess insinuated Dylan had done something to hurt Issie, but knew better than to say it aloud.
Kay has always trusted her son and she does not owe Jess anything. Besides, she would at least put Jess’s mind at rest if she says she has spoken to them.
But then it is wrong. So wrong. Kay knows that, she isn’t stupid or blind to what she may or may not do. Lying to the police is not right, even though she has her son’s word everything is okay.
Thoughts tumble over and over until Kay believes she will never come to a decision. And then, half an hour later, Jess’s name flashes up on her phone. Kay stares at the screen for a moment. It must be about to go to voicemail when she finally picks up.
‘I have just spoken to Inspector Melo and he says he spoke to you earlier,’ Jess says. Any pleasantries, which Kay supposes had been fake anyway, have clearly dissipated.
‘He has.’
‘You still haven’t heard anything then?’
Kay’s fingers play with the piping of a cushion that sits on her lap. She knows how concerned Jess is and yet if she tells her she has spoken to Dylan it will have consequences and lead to plenty more questions. She needs to make a decision as to what to say and she needs to make it quickly.
‘Don’t you think that’s strange?’ Jess is pressing. ‘That he hasn’t called you back yet? It’s been over twenty-four hours.’
‘I don’t know,’ Kay tells her. Then, ‘I’m still sure everything is okay. They’re together. No harm is going to come to them.’
Jess makes a noise Kay tries to decipher. The woman is sure that harm has already come to her daughter, and she thinks Dylan has caused it.
‘Dylan loves Issie very much, despite what you think. He would never hurt her,’ Kay insists.
There is a moment of silence before Jess speaks. ‘Can you be certain about that?’
‘What?’ Kay says. ‘Are you really asking me this?’
‘I want to know what has happened to my daughter.’ Her desperation cracks her words apart. ‘I want someone to help me,’ Jess says. ‘I want to know where they are, and, in answer to your question, then yes, I am asking you that. Because, despite you telling me there is nothing to worry about, both our children have disappeared. And to be frank I can’t believe you’re not as anxious as I am about it. It doesn’t make any sense to me at all,’ she goes on. ‘So either you are worried, but for whatever reason you’re making out you’re not, or you know more than I do.’
Kay can’t tell her the truth now. Jess has made it impossible. Or rather, Kay has made it impossible for herself by not coming clean up front, and all she can do now is to keep pretending. ‘I don’t know anything,’ she lies. She raises her eyes to the ceiling, to a God she was taught to pray to every week at Sunday school, hoping he knows she is begging his forgiveness.
‘Then you need to start asking some questions, Kay,’ Jess cries. ‘About where they are and why he isn’t answering your calls. Because whether you think your son is missing or not, my daughter is. And if you don’t believe Dylan is, then I think he knows more than you’re making out. You know he’s hiding for a reason.’
‘Don’t,’ Kay says. ‘Don’t say that. You don’t know Dylan—’
‘Oh I know him, all right,’ Jess spits. ‘I know exactly what he’s like – I’ve seen the way he is with Issie. The way he controls her. I can’t believe you’re not aware. You must know the kind of man your son is.’
‘None of that’s true. He doesn’t control your daughter.’ Kay lets out a laugh. The thought of her son doing such a thing! Has Jess not seen the two of them together, like she makes out she has?
It’s clear Jess doesn’t know him in the way she professes to. The woman made up her mind about Dylan way back. He has never been what she wanted for Issie, never good enough for her precious daughter because of his job, and the fact he didn’t go to a grammar school or university.
‘Of course it is,’ she is shouting down the phone. ‘Of course it’s true. I’m not blind. I’ve seen it. She shouldn’t have gone away with him, but she has. She trusted him, and now—’ Jess breaks off. ‘And now he’s hurt her. For all I know, my daughter is dead,’ she cries, ‘and you’re standing by, not doing a damn thing about it. Is that what you are? Are you one of those mothers who will stand by him regardless?’
Kay feels the anger rising inside her, building slowly until it takes over. How dare she. How dare she suggest her son could have killed the girl he loves. He is not a murderer. The thought would be laughable if it wasn’t so frightening, because at the same time she can see now that this is what people will think soon enough. If they don’t reappear soon, everyone will start accusing her son of something awful, something so horrendous that will stick to him forever more.
Kay ends the call before she says something she will regret. There is no point talking to someone who doesn’t want to listen and who has already decided her son is guilty of an unthinkable crime.
Her heart is thumping in her chest. Her fingers have curled around the edge of the cushion so tightly that she has scrunched the velvet into a ball. She would scream if it wasn’t for Billy sleeping soundly opposite her.
There is of course something she can do to stop this madness from spiralling too quickly, and perhaps she just has to do it instead of dithering all night. Before it is too late.
She goes to the recent call list on her phone, her finger hovering over a number which she eventually presses. When Inspector Melo answers, she tells him, ‘I have spoken to my son and Issie Adams today.’
Jess
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
8 July
I had all but forgotten about Leah Martin calling me back, when a message popped up on my phone earlier from the only one of Issie’s friendship group I hadn’t spoken to.
Sorry I didn’t answer your call. I’m back home now it read.
I had just stepped out of the police station after meeting Inspector Melo this morning, my head filled with how they weren’t concerned in the slightest that Issie might be in danger. I couldn’t see how Leah could help me, the details of their fight weren’t conducive to finding Issie, but I called her anyway.
‘Hi, Leah,’ I said when she answered. ‘I got your message.’
‘Sorry I didn’t pick up your call sooner but I was on holiday.’
‘It doesn’t matter. I don’t know if the other girls have told you, but I’m trying to find Issie. I don’t know where she is. I spoke to Katia and she said something had happened between you all. She said it wasn’t her story to tell.’ I paused. ‘Is it yours, Leah?’
‘Yeah, I guess it is,’ she laughed sadly.
‘What happened?’
‘We had a huge fight,’ she told me. ‘Issie became someone really different over the last year. She didn’t want to hang around with us, she only ever wanted to be with Dylan. She acted like she was more mature than us, and all because she had an older boyfriend. Like we were the idiots because we wanted to work hard and not be out driving round town in that pathetic GTI like she was. She said things that were really cutting and I was the one who called her out on it.’
‘I’m so sorry,’ I whispered. I saw the changes myself but I never knew they had spread so far. ‘But why have a go at you for working hard. Wasn’t she?’
‘I don’t know. Like I say, she spent all her time with him. I don’t know what she saw in him,’ Leah said. ‘I mean, he’s a waster. I told her as much and she didn’t like that either. We stopped talking after that, but it had been a long time coming. She told us we were all clones of each other who couldn’t think for ourselves!’ Leah laughed again.
‘Dylan must have said that,’ I mused.
‘She became impossible to be around,’ Leah said bluntly.
‘I’m so sorry she fell out with you girls. I was hoping she’d come to her senses and realise she was blinded by him, but right now I’m really worried about her. I haven’t heard from her in five days and it was her birthday and—’ I broke off, choking up. ‘I’m sorry,’ I sobbed. ‘I just want to know where she is. And no one is helping me.’
I started crying properly then, not noticing at first that Leah wasn’t speaking. She likely didn’t know what to do with her ex-friend’s mother sobbing down the phone to her. Finally I said, ‘Thank you for telling me.’
‘I heard from her,’ Leah replied, seemingly out of the blue when of course this should have been the question I asked at the outset. Only, given the others hadn’t heard from her in months, I hadn’t anticipated Leah would have.
‘You heard from her? When?’
‘I don’t know, it was …’ She paused, no doubt checking her phone. ‘The day before her birthday. I had a snap from her.’
‘What did it say?’
Leah read it out: ‘I’m sorry about what happened between us. I was wrong.’
‘That’s it?’
‘That’s it.’
‘Did you get back to her?’
‘No.’ She paused. ‘I was going to …’
I closed my eyes. They stung from tears that were beginning to subside. Issie had held out an olive branch and Leah hadn’t responded. None of them were in touch with her over her eighteenth birthday and I couldn’t imagine how that would have made her feel.
But something must have happened to make her realise she was wrong for the way she’d treated her friends. To make her apologise for it. Was it Leah she was messaging outside the bar?
I don’t believe it’s a coincidence that no one has seen her since.
At four o’clock in the afternoon, I call Kay again. I cannot believe she hasn’t heard from Dylan and yet she tells me she hasn’t, and that she still believes there is nothing to worry about.
I don’t believe her. How can a mother not fear for the safety of her child if they are unable to speak to them? I don’t mean to say the things I do, but I can’t help it when she tells me I don’t know her son.
I do. I know exactly the type of person he is. He is controlling and manipulative, and either she’s too blind to see it or doesn’t want to. Perhaps she knows what I’m saying is true but will never admit it.
Is that it, Kay? ‘Are you one of those mothers who will stand by him regardless?’ I say. She hangs up when I add that my daughter may be dead.
It is not even an hour later when I receive a call from Inspector Melo. I have programmed his number in, I know who it is before I answer. ‘I have some good news for you,’ he tells me. ‘I have spoken with Dylan’s mother and she tells me she has heard from her son, and that she has spoken with Issie too. Your daughter is safe. The kids are just taking some time out.’
‘What?’ I choke, incredulous, a flash of initial relief too quickly superseded by disbelief. ‘No, she can’t have.’
‘She tells me she has. Her son called her today and she spoke to them both.’
‘She’s lying,’ I tell him. ‘I spoke to her. She said she hadn’t heard from him. She would have called me back if she had.’
Wouldn’t she? I think. Wouldn’t Kay still call me even after I accused her son of being a murderer?
‘I have no reason to think this is the case,’ Melo is saying.
‘Why isn’t Issie calling me then? There’s no way my daughter would ignore my messages.’
The inspector lets out what sounds like a sigh. ‘As I say I think your daughter maybe needs a little time away, Mrs Adams,’ he says like I am an overbearing parent.
Is this all he thinks I am? Perhaps the fact I have flown to Lisbon to look for her makes me into a woman who refuses to let her child grow up. Did he and Kay agree on this over the phone as they discussed why my daughter won’t talk to me?
Shit, I think. Is it true?
‘Mrs Adams? Please do call me again if you need to, but I am sure you will hear from your daughter very soon.’
‘Wait!’ I say. ‘When did Kay Whiting call you?’
This time he makes no attempt to cover up a sigh. ‘Four fifteen p.m.,’ he eventually tells me.
‘But I’d only just spoken to her,’ I say. ‘So she can’t be telling the truth. She must have called you as soon as she spoke to me because I called her at four o’clock.’
I put the inspector on speaker and pull up my phone log. ‘And the call lasted six minutes. So she must have called you as soon as she had spoken to me and—’
‘Mrs Adams—’
‘She’s lying,’ I cry. ‘I am telling you, she is.’
‘Maybe she did not want to tell you what Issie spoke to her about,’ he suggests. ‘Maybe this is what it is. It is difficult to hear.’
‘Or maybe,’ I emphasise, ‘she is lying. I know she is, and I don’t know how you can ignore it.’
Scott calls me as soon as Melo finishes the conversation, the sight of his name on my screen siphoning what last reserve I have in me. The only thing keeping me going is the knowledge that I am all Issie has. No one else will find her. No one else is looking for her.
