💙🖤"The Widower's iLie" by J.A. Baker

And then I think of the letter I wrote to Phillip Kennedy. Is that what I’m doing? Am I one of those strange types who attaches themselves to prisoners, sending letters and striking up a relationship? Fucking hell, that isn’t it at all. I’m not some deranged individual desperate to hook up with a jailbird just for the fun of it. I have my reasons for writing to Phillip Kennedy, not that I’m prepared to share them with anybody. They are mine and mine alone, a form of insurance should things turn bad. Should any of my secrets come slithering out.

These are the thoughts that are whirling around my brain as we plod along the moors, Alice limping badly, Dad holding her hand and letting her lean in on him, using him as a human crutch.

‘I’m going to go ahead and get the car then drive back and pick you both up. You can’t make it with your knee, Alice.’

She protests but Dad is insistent. He shakes his head and pulls the backpack off Alice’s shoulders, placing it on the ground at his feet.

‘Here,’ he says, laying out the picnic blanket and patting it gently. ‘You sit down here with Lauren. It’ll only take me twenty minutes or so to walk to the car and another couple of minutes to drive it back.’

She drops down on the blanket, her leg jutting out in front of her. I stay where I am. I want to offer to go with him but know that he’ll refuse. Besides, despite my mixed feelings about Alice, it doesn’t seem right leaving her here on her own in the middle of the moors. It would appear churlish, uncaring and I’m not the one who started this weird little charade. I have to act normally, go along with it. It’s also a chance to ask again, to get the answers I need before I open myself up completely to this woman.

‘Right. Won’t be long.’ And with that, he is gone, walking at a brisk pace, his figure already a speck in the distance as I sit on the ground opposite her and shield my face with my cupped hand against the glare of the sun. There is now a barrier between us, as if somebody has dropped a metal shutter, cordoning us both off into separate annexes. A strange kind of silence settles. An uneasy, palpable heaviness that is stained with something that I can’t quite put my finger on. Something grey and murky that is pressing down on me.

‘So,’ she says brightly. ‘I certainly didn’t plan on damaging my knee. What a daft thing for me to do, eh?’

I pull my face into a grin, the feel of it making me sick, and lower my hand. ‘So, where do you live then, Alice? Are you local? What’s the name of your street?’

For some reason, my heart is battering about my chest. Maybe it’s the thought of pushing the subject, maybe it’s because I’m imagining this secretive life she has, how she has decided to target us. Or maybe it’s because I can see the way her face changes, as if she is removing a mask to reveal something more sinister underneath, something dark and ominous that fills me with complete dread.

‘You know, sometimes, Lauren it’s better to not know these things. Why are you so concerned with where I live?’

I’m not immediately certain how to answer this. It’s now obvious she isn’t going to reveal her address, but why? What exactly is she hiding? I pick at a loose thread on my hem and try to turn away from her. She’s watching me closely. I can feel it. My face burns, my throat thickens. My pulse, solid and rhythmic hammers away in my neck. Does she know about us? About Dad and me and Mum getting murdered? She has a plan. I’m now sure of it. I just don’t know what it is yet. I need to get inside her head, read her thoughts. Find out who she really is, see if she’s as fucked up as I first thought.

‘Who are you, Alice? It just that it seems you know so much about us and yet we know nothing about you.’ I don’t inject any friendliness into my voice. Perhaps I should. If I play the innocent victim, she might be more likely to open up to me. Or not. I’m not prepared to be manipulated by her. All I want is the truth although I think the chances of that coming out are slim and shrinking rapidly with every passing second. I know now that there’s way more to this relationship with Dad. She has an ulterior motive for being here and the possibilities of what that motive could be cause me to feel sick with dread.

‘I’m Alice Godwin. There’s not a lot else to know.’ Her voice is even, no hint of distress or anger. No hint of anything at all. She sounds robotic as if this moment has been rehearsed many times, the lines played out in her head to perfection. An a-emotional woman playing at being caring.

‘So, where do you live, Alice Godwin?’ I’m going to keep at it. I too, can be polite and well-mannered when required but I’m also tenacious and I’m definitely nobody’s fool.

She shuffles closer to me. I can smell her perfume, even the occasional waft of coffee as she leans in, her fingers now gripping my arm with force, her nails digging into my exposed flesh. ‘Don’t ask so many questions, eh, Lauren? Let’s keep everything just the way it is and that way nobody will get hurt.’

I spin around, my heart now a galloping stampede beneath my ribcage, and stare at her. She’s smiling. Not a smile. A grimace, her eyes narrowed into tiny slits as she stares at me and nods.

‘What?’ I shake my arm loose from her grip and shuffle away from her, putting some distance between us. The ground is soft under me. I try to stand up but my balance is out of kilter, the earth tilting and rocking, throwing me about as if it is trying to tip me out into deepest space.

‘As I said earlier, except you refused to listen, you have no need to know anything about me. So why don’t you stop asking questions and just shut your fucking mouth, eh? There’s a good girl. Now sit the fuck back down and let’s wait for your father to turn up and then he can take the two ladies in his life back home.’ She looks away into the distance. No pulse in her neck. No sheen of perspiration coating her face. No signs at all that she is unnerved by any of this. Cool, calculated. Deliberate. Dear God, what are we dealing with here? Who is this woman, this Alice? Who the fuck is she?

I remain silent, a wall between us. She makes no attempt to say anything else and I make no attempt to speak to her. Two disparate souls sitting close together yet miles and miles apart.

I haven’t the first idea what her agenda is, or who it is I’m dealing with here. But then, neither does she. We all have something to hide, things we would rather keep hidden, tucked away from the prying eyes of the world. Alice Godwin, or whoever the fuck she is, may just have met her match.

Dad arrives with a flourish. Red-faced and concerned as his car shrieks to a halt beside us, he takes Alice’s arm, helping her up as if she were made of porcelain. I open the car door and slide into the back seat, unable or perhaps unwilling to take part in this sick little farce.

‘Lauren, can you help out here, please? Get the blanket and fold it up. Put it back in the bag.’ His voice is sharp, turning soft again as he helps Alice into the front seat, cooing and shushing her gently when she cries out in pain.

I throw the bag and blanket into the back seat and get in, unable to look at either of them. I can hear her as she settles down into the leather seat, sighing softly. She rests her head back and turns to look at Dad. ‘Thank you so much, Peter. I hope the walk didn’t tire you out too much. I feel like such a nuisance.’

‘You are anything but that, my love. Now let’s get you home and sort out that knee, shall we? And I insist that you stay over at ours tonight. You can’t manage on your own.’ Dad looks over at me and gives me a half smile. ‘Lauren and I will spoil you, won’t we, Lauren? You can sit back and we’ll wait on you hand and foot, if you pardon the pun.’

He chuckles at his own joke then leans towards her and they kiss and all the while I want to vomit, to leap in and drag them apart, screaming at him that she isn’t who she claims she is, that there is something else going on here. Something deeply menacing and underhand but I know he won’t believe me. He will take her side because he is well and truly smitten. And I also don’t know what that something else is and until I find out, I am onto a loser. I need more evidence that she isn’t the sickly-sweet individual she claims to be.

I just don’t know where to look to find it.

33PETER

Lauren has turned sullen, shrinking away from him and Alice and holing herself away up in her room as soon as they arrive back at the house.

He noticed it first in the car on the drive back home – the pout, the dark looks, the truncated sentences. Disappointment had rippled through him. He thought her better than this. Better than other teenagers who flounce around the house, grunting and answering in monosyllabic tones and yet it appears she has suddenly morphed into just that.

It disappoints him. He wants them to gel as a family because they fit together, him and Alice, and deep down, he thinks Alice knows that too but also knows that she is holding back, still too scared to commit herself fully. He isn’t about to pressure her. That would only fuel her fears and frighten her off. She just needs a little time and careful handling, that’s all it is. They’ve both been through a lot. More than most. He thinks about the sessions at the church, how quiet she was, almost disappearing off his radar. Demure and sensitive. He needs to tread carefully around her. She’s a quiet one. Deep and thoughtful.

Months from now, they may look back on this delicate period in their lives and smile, recalling how they tried so hard to treat one another with the utmost care, how he handled Alice with kid gloves. Like fine bone china. But that’s okay with him. That’s all he can do: show her some decency and let her know how much he cares about her and then everything else will fall into place.

Except for Lauren’s rapid and unexpected change of mood, that is. That has put a big dampener on things. Maybe it’s something different – a boyfriend issue, a girlfriend thing, some kind of fall-out. Or maybe it’s Alice. He doesn’t want to think about that. She is here to stay and his daughter had better get used to it.

It starts as soon as he gets back in after dropping Alice off home. She declined his offer to stay over at his house, telling him she had work in the morning, insisting she would manage just fine. All the way home, she had regaled him with tales of her employers, telling him how lucky she is that they treat her so well although she fears that a redundancy may be on the cards as his business is in trouble, this Jack Downey. Thoughts and visions had flitted through Peter’s head as she spoke – visions of Alice moving her things into his house and settling there with him and Lauren; waking up next to her every morning, staring into her eyes, the lingering scent of her perfume on the pillow.

He had had to force himself to stop. Jumping ahead would do nobody any good. One day at a time, that’s what he told himself. One day at a time.

‘What did Alice say when you dropped her off?’ Lauren is standing in the hallway, hands on hips to greet him as he shrugs off his jacket and hangs it over the newel post.

‘Nothing of any real importance. Why?’ He keeps his voice even. Measured and controlled. He refuses to get into an argument with her. She has the same attitude she had that day she discovered the damage to the books. A dark, simmering fury located somewhere deep inside her. He has no idea where it has sprung from, why she is being like this. She needs to try harder, be more accepting, throw off the shackles of distrust, have fewer misgivings.

‘She didn’t say anything about me and our conversation when you went to collect your car and we waited behind?’

‘No?’ Peter furrows his brow in confusion, exasperation creeping into his tone. ‘Why would she?’

He refuses to second guess what Lauren is about to say and will not get involved in a spat with her. Things were looking up, almost damn near perfect. She will not spoil it. He won’t allow it. He will shut her down before she has the chance to even begin.