The lies we tell, p.25
The Lies We Tell, page 25
‘You’ve picked a blowy day for a walk.’
‘Actually we’re a bit lost,’ said Freddie.
I shot him a ‘What are you saying?’ look.
‘On holiday, are you?’
‘House hunting actually. We only got down today and we’re meeting my dad later.’
I was shocked at how easily the lie came out of my son’s mouth, even if the first bit was possibly true. Still, the ‘dad’ bit was clever. If this farmer heard anything on the news about a woman and teenager on the run, it might throw him off the scent.
‘Picked the right part of the world, you have. Nothing like it. As I’m always saying to the missus, it’s God’s own country, with the fields and the sea. Let’s get you on the right road, shall we?’
He’d been tinkering with the tractor while talking and now there was a whirring noise followed by the hesitant burr of the engine, which then spluttered into a louder, more confident sound.
‘That’s my beauty.’ He tapped the bonnet. ‘Hop in, then. I’ll give you a lift.’
‘Thank you,’ I said quickly, ‘but actually we’d like a walk.’
‘Don’t be daft. Take a gander at that.’ He pointed up to the grey sky. ‘I give it ten minutes before the downpour they promised us on the radio. There’s enough space for your dog too.’
‘That’s really cool of you,’ said Freddie, climbing in. He held out a hand to me. He didn’t need to speak. His eyes said it all. It would look too odd if we turned down the lift.
As we trundled along, I braced myself for the inevitable ‘Where are you from?’ questions. But instead our rescuer only wanted to talk about how beautiful the county of his birth was and how he and his father and his father’s father before him had all farmed locally. It struck me, as he rambled on, that the air smelt different here. Fresh. Clear.
Unlike my conscience.
‘You wouldn’t get me out of Cornwall for anything,’ he said. ‘Beats me why the young want to leave. See that?’ He pointed to a run-down cottage at the end of a rough track we were passing. ‘Belonged to Gladys Furwood. Born and bred there. She’s moved to a home now. But did her nephew want to live there? Did he not. Buggered off to Australia instead, he did.’
Briefly, he paused for breath. ‘Now it’s on the market and they can’t sell it for love nor money. Bloody shame. It’s not the only one. There are quite a few places like this. You just have to look in Jim’s window to see that. He runs the town’s estate agency. Most grockles decide to come here cos of the low prices and the scenery. But they miss the bright lights, so they leave after a year.’
‘What’s a grockle?’ asks Freddie.
There was a snort. ‘A holidaymaker. You can spot ’em a mile off, you can.’
It was so insular here, I thought. Freddie and I would stand out like two sore thumbs. Or maybe this could work for us. People might be more interested in what was on their doorstep than a crime that had been committed in London. By my own son.
‘My husband works abroad a lot,’ I said carefully. ‘My boy and I thought it would be nice to live by the sea while he’s away.’
‘Is that so? Then Jim’s your man. I can drop you off there, if you like.’
‘Thanks.’
‘Mind you, you’ll want to wait for your husband first, I suppose?’
This was getting complicated. ‘When my son said we were meeting my husband later, he meant in a few days,’ I said quickly.
‘Yeah,’ said Freddie. He jerked a thumb at the pub on our right. ‘He’ll need to sound that out, won’t he, Mum?’
Tom wasn’t much of a drinker. Either Freddie was trying to build up a picture of someone completely different to throw this man off the scent or else he was imagining someone he’d have liked as a dad. One who took his son out for a pint when he came of age.
The man chuckled. ‘Well he won’t find better bitter than the brew at the Lamb and Flag on the high street.’
I remained silent, quite happy to hear him chatter on in a running monologue – luckily without asking more questions – until we reached what appeared to be the outskirts of a village. There was a community hall with the date 1891 engraved above the door and a small petrol station opposite.
Outside was a news placard. I could hardly bring myself to look but I forced myself: Plans for new sea defences underway.
Nothing about us. Perhaps it was too soon.
The tractor driver noticed me looking. ‘About time. If they don’t get a move on there’ll be nothing left of our coastline, what with all the erosion. Discovered Shell Cove, have you? No? It’s a real little gem. Mind you, it’s a bit nippy for swimming at the moment. You have to be careful with the currents. The Coastguard helicopter’s already been out once today. I saw it coming back not long ago.’
So it hadn’t been looking for us after all. I felt a flood of relief.
‘Did they save the people?’ asked Freddie.
‘I believe they did, young man.’
Freddie’s question gave me hope. If my boy was worried about strangers being drowned, surely he couldn’t have killed someone himself?
There was an old-fashioned department store on the right now. It looked strangely comforting, with its floral patterned duvet covers and notices advertising a sale of ‘ladie’s slacks’. Normality in the middle of this nightmare. The displaced apostrophe almost felt reassuring, perhaps because we were displaced too.
‘My Brenda works there,’ said our tractor driver. ‘Loves it, she does.’
‘Is that your wife?’ asked Freddie. I wished he wouldn’t talk so much. He might let something slip.
‘Lord no! She’s got her hands full with the farm. Brenda’s me granddaughter. Seventeen, she is. Getting married to one of my farm workers next month. With any luck I’ll be a great-grandfather before the year is out.’
This man, with his bright blue eyes and agility, didn’t look old enough to be the grandfather of a teenager.
‘Here we are!’
The tractor stopped outside an estate agency that appeared, from the signs outside, to double up as a post office. ‘Tell Jim I sent you. And make sure that husband of yours tries out the local beer when he arrives.’
‘Thank you so much.’ I felt in my pockets. ‘I’m afraid I don’t have anything to give you.’
‘I don’t want nothing.’ He looked hurt. Instantly, I realized I’d done the wrong thing. ‘Happy to help. Hope you have a good time.’ Then a thought seemed to occur to him. ‘Not at school then, lad?’
‘No.’ Freddie’s reply was smooth and fast. ‘I’ve left. I’m going to be looking for work.’
‘Good on you. Well, if either of you need anything, ask for Blockie. Everyone knows me. What’s your name, love?’
‘Sarah. Sarah Vincent. And this is my son, Freddie.’
‘Why did you give him your maiden name?’ Freddie asked when he’d gone.
‘Why do you think? It might disguise us if people come looking for us.’
‘They’ll still be looking for a Sarah and a Freddie. You should have gone for something completely different.’
He was right. I hadn’t thought. But Freddie had. Who was this person?
‘Why did you say you weren’t going to school any more?’ I asked.
‘I can’t, can I? They’ll ask questions.’
Although I’d told myself the same earlier, I felt my chest slump. So that was it, then. The end of my son’s education.
Freddie’s face tightened. ‘Besides, I’d rather do something than hide away until they find us.’
‘Shhh.’ I looked around quickly to see if anyone could have heard. ‘They might not find us.’
Freddie made a ‘Don’t be daft, Mum’ face. ‘But they will, won’t they? We can’t hide for ever.’
And I knew he was right.
Before long, someone would find us.
41
Truro Crown Court
‘Almost exactly five years ago,’ says the barrister, ‘an innocent man died.’
My ears are buzzing. I need to stand up now. Tell them everything. Otherwise I’ll be breaking the law. But I can’t. My mouth is frozen. I cannot speak. Just listen.
‘Help me, Mum. Help me.’
I can hear Freddie’s voice as clearly in my head as if he was here now. I’ve been waiting, every day for the last five years, for the knock at the door. Waiting for a policeman to ask where my son is. And now it’s someone else’s son on trial.
I look at the man in the ill-fitting suit behind the glass screen. The accused. The defendant who is described on the charge sheet as Paul Harris, also known as ‘Knuckles’.
So that’s his real name, then. The one that Freddie had refused to give me until his phone call yesterday. The name sends shivers down my spine. Presumably it’s a reference to the things he does with his hands to other people. I steal another look at him. He must be, at a guess, six foot three or more. The same sort of height as my son, although Freddie is slighter.
Knuckles’s eyes are searching the public gallery, almost as if he knows I am here. But he can’t know. As far as I’m aware, he’s never seen me before.
Besides, no one from my old life would recognize me. I’ve gone back to my ‘alternative look’, as Tom used to call it. I’ve grown my hair long again. I wear floaty pink and purple dresses from charity shops. I am fitter and browner from the long walks along the beach when I’m not at my potter’s wheel. I meditate daily, which helps me to be calm. Though, right now, I’m twitching all over.
‘We will argue,’ continues the prosecuting barrister, ‘that Paul Harris told his cellmate in HMP Downwood that he had killed a man in a hit-and-run in London five years ago, and that he had “got away with it”.’
Downwood was near Truro. I was sufficiently aware of judicial procedures to know that defendants were generally tried near the place where the crime took place. Maybe it was simpler to try him near his prison – especially as some of the witnesses were fellow inmates or staff.
But why would Paul Harris make this confession?
Perhaps he’d been boasting. When I’d been in prison, there’d been women who had claimed they had done some terrible things. One had allegedly slashed her mother-in-law’s throat and watched her bleed to death, giving her status and making others more afraid of her. That way, they might be less likely to be attacked by other prisoners. It was how it worked. It still gave me nightmares.
The man next to me mutters something about hoping ‘the big bastard gets his just deserts’. I wonder why he’s here. Is he a reporter? Or simply a voyeur? Judging from the chatter on the way up to the public gallery, there are quite a lot of people who simply enjoy watching cases. What would they say if they knew the wrong man was in the dock?
‘The defence will declare that Mr Harris was merely present but not involved,’ continues the prosecuting barrister. ‘He denies that he was the killer and claims that a friend, someone called Ziggy, was responsible for the crime.’
My fingers tighten as I recall the tattoo on Freddie’s wrist. My son’s ‘new’ name.
‘Unfortunately, the CCTV evidence offered by the defence is, as you will see, insufficiently clear to permit identification of the perpetrator, so we only have Mr Harris’s word. Despite an extensive manhunt, the police have been unable to find any evidence to support the claim that this person exists. It is the prosecution’s intention to prove that no such person exists, and that Harris acted alone.’
This is where I should get up and find a court official. To tell him that my son had confessed that he had ‘killed someone’. That it wasn’t just this giant of a man, Paul Harris, with his shiny suit, slicked-back hair and furtive look.
But then my boy will go to prison. And I know all too well what that is like. The noise. The claustrophobia. The hunger. The constant threats from other prisoners. The taunts from staff.
Freddie’s life will be ruined.
I will not – cannot – allow him to go through what I did.
I make a low groan. The man beside me gives me a curious look. I turn it into a cough.
‘Tell the court.’
That’s what Tom would be saying if he was here. But he isn’t. He’s with Hilary. Or maybe he’s moved on to someone else by now. It’s just me. Alone. This is not something I can share with friends from the new life I’ve made for myself. I am scared.
‘Then we shall proceed,’ declares the judge.
A murmur ripples through the court. Papers are shuffled. The prosecuting barrister leans forward in anticipation of the kill. Paul Harris thrusts his hands together defiantly. He no longer appears frightened. He seems angry.
It’s time for the prosecution to begin.
‘Kieran Jones. You have been sharing a cell with Paul Harris, the accused, for the past eighteen months. Would you please tell the court what he told you regarding the deceased, Hassam Moheim, and the unidentified person known as Ziggy?’
The huge, meaty man in the witness box is the type I would usually swiftly cross the road to avoid. Now, though, he is my saviour. If his evidence helps to send Harris/Knuckles down, the case will end. My boy will be off the hook.
‘I already told the police.’ He has large hands, which he is waving around indignantly. What crimes have they committed, I wonder.
Did this Kieran have a mother who refused to believe his crime? Or had she taught him everything she knew about breaking the law?
‘Please tell the court what you told the police, Mr Jones.’
‘OK. But it’s repeating myself, innit?’
He’s looking nervous. Had someone got to him? Maybe Knuckles had threatened him. ‘Grass me up and you won’t wake up in the morning.’ I’d heard that phrase often enough in prison.
‘It doesn’t matter if you repeat yourself,’ says the prosecutor with a hint of impatience in her voice. ‘We just want to know the truth.’
This bear of a man shrugs in an ‘It’s your call, guv’ way. ‘OK. We was talking about the worse things we’d done that we’d got away with. I told him about the old lady. Not the one I’m in for but another.’
There’s a chilled silence in the court. Sometimes, as I knew from the women in prison, the most disturbing crimes are the ones where you don’t know the details but can imagine all too well.
‘And then he said he could top that. I never believed him at first. Thought he was just pissed up. We’d made some hooch, see. Anyway, he came out with this stuff about running some geezer over in a garage and not stopping. “No one saw us,” he told me.’
‘Us?’ repeats the barrister. ‘So, even then, he was claiming that someone else was with him?’
My heart freezes.
‘I dunno. I didn’t ask who it was. We was just talking about what we’d got away with, see.’
I feel like I can’t breathe. My mind goes back to those news stories on my phone when Freddie and I had gone on the run. ‘Which one was it?’ I’d said. ‘There are three stabbings and a young man who throttled his ex-girlfriend’s new partner.’
All this time I’d thought he must have had something to do with one of those. Though after we parted ways I just tried not to think of it at all. Of course, I know differently now.
‘Did he say why he didn’t confess?’
There’s a sound of disbelief. ‘Would you hand yourself in if you’d run a bloke over and no one knew who did it?’
‘It’s the law, Mr Jones.’
‘And we’re criminals.’
There was a disapproving sound from a couple of people on the jury.
‘Did he say anything else?’
‘Yeah. He said he’d nicked the car an’ all. “Went like shit off a shovel, it did.” Those were his words. “Or else we couldn’t have got away.”’
‘Did he say where he stole the car from?’
‘Nah.’
‘Thank you, Mr Jones. That’s all for the time being.’
‘That’s it, then,’ whispers the man next to me in the public gallery. ‘Clear-cut case. That Knuckles bloke is as guilty as hell.’
But he’s not! It’s Freddie who should be in the dock. My mind goes back to my son’s call last night.
‘Mum. I have to tell you something awful. I ran a man over. It was a mistake. But we left him there.’
Paul Harris was already in prison for running someone else over in cold blood – I knew that from looking him up online. He was obviously evil. So what was wrong with him getting another sentence?
Because it is wrong, says my inner conscience. Because he didn’t do it. My son did. He didn’t mean to. But he still ought to be punished.
‘Don’t you think?’ says the man next to me.
I started, jolted out of my thoughts.
‘Think what?’
‘That this Knuckles bloke is guilty.’
I dig my nails into the palms of my hands.
‘It looks like it, doesn’t it?’ I hear myself say.
I almost believe myself.
42
Jim the estate agent seemed very pleased to see me when I told him I was looking for a three-bedroom house. ‘My husband will be joining us,’ I added. ‘He’s working abroad at the moment.’
‘Really? Whereabouts?’
‘All over the place,’ I said. I only mentioned the ‘abroad’ bit to fit in with what I’d told the farmer and hopefully throw them off the scent. A single mother with a teenager might stand out too much in a rural place like this. Perhaps we should have gone to a city after all. But what if Freddie made friends and told them what he’d done? At least here I had more chance of keeping an eye on him.
‘What sort of price range are you looking at?’
‘I’ve no idea. I’m not familiar with rental rates here.’
His face fell. ‘You want to rent rather than buy?’
‘I’m sorry. Didn’t I mention that?’
Buying somewhere was totally out of the question. It would leave more of an identity trail. I’d already worked that out in my head. But my mind wasn’t my own. It hadn’t been since Freddie had come home, soaking wet, and confided that he’d killed someone. Could that really only have been last night?
