S. Watson - Second Life

Hugh interrupts me.

‘But that’s not possible.’

‘What?’

I hear him sigh. ‘I’m sorry, Julia. Kate told me—’

‘What?’

‘Connor’s father is dead.’

I’m silent. ‘What? Who is he then? That’s ridiculous.’

‘I can’t tell you now. Not like this.’

I hear an announcement in the background. His train is pulling in.

I begin to shout. ‘Hugh? Tell me!’

‘We’re here. I’ve got to go.’

‘Hugh!’

‘I’m sorry, darling. I’ll be there soon. I’ll tell you everything.’

We slow to a crawl, then stop in traffic. There are lights ahead, a busy junction where a railway bridge spans the road. Hugh is wrong, he must be. Connor’s father isn’t dead, he’s here, and he’s lured his son here, too.

‘ Nous sommes ici ,’ says the driver, but he’s pointing forward. I peer through the rain; ahead I can see the place. Berger. It’s still open, its doorway looks warm, inviting. A woman comes out, almost collides with a guy going in. I watch as she stands, lights a cigarette. I can’t sit still any longer; I have to get moving. The driver grunts as I tell him I’ll get out here; I pay him and then I’m on the pavement. The rain hits, instantly I’m soaked through. The woman with the cigarette is walking towards me; she nods as we pass, then I’m outside the gym. Lukas’s apartment should be just on the other side of the road, yet now I’m here I don’t know what to do. I glance over the road, past a stack of prefab offices covered in spray-painted graffiti. The building opposite is grey, its windows monotonously regular. It looks institutional; it could be a prison. I wonder which flat is his, and how I’ll get in. Further up the street a train thunders along rails and I see a row of bollards strung like sentinels along the pavement. Just beyond them is a kiosk, bright blue, advertising Cosmétiques Antilles , and just this side of it an alleyway arcs off the road, unlit, towards who-knows-where.

I know, then. I’m sure. I’ve seen this place before, on my computer. I hadn’t recognized it at first, not in the dark, but this is the place. I run past Berger to the mouth of the alleyway. I’m right.

This is where my sister died.

I run into the alleyway. It’s rain-soaked, in almost total darkness. I can’t believe it. I’m here. This is it. This is where my sister’s body was discovered, where her life bled out on to the cobblestones. This is where the nightmare that has been the last few months began.

My mind races. I’ve been a fool. All along. Lukas wasn’t on holiday in Australia, or at least he wasn’t when Kate was killed. It wasn’t a drug dealer who killed her.

Kate wasn’t mugged for a cheap earring, or attacked while buying drugs, or killed in a random attack on her way home from a bar. She’d come here to see him, to meet the father of her son.

I try to picture it. Was he hoping for a reconciliation? I see Kate rejecting him, telling him she wanted nothing to do with him, that he’d never see Connor again. They argue, insults are hurled, a fist is raised.

Or maybe it was his plan all along. To bring her here. To punish her for sending Connor away and then failing to get him back.

I take out my phone. I want Hugh. I need his help, I want to find out how far away he is, but it’s more than that. I want to tell him he’s wrong, that whatever Kate said, she lied. Connor’s father is alive, and he killed her. I want to make him understand, and tell him how I found out, and that it’s my fault and I’m sorry. I want to tell him I love him.

But his phone goes straight to voicemail. Once again, I’m alone.

I feel curiously calm, like stone, yet underneath it my stomach begins to knot and I’m aware it’s the first sign of an incoming tidal wave. I have to stay focussed, remain still. My hand goes to the gun in my bag, yet this time it doesn’t give me confidence. Instead it reminds me of the impossibility of what I have to do. For a moment I want to run, not to the police, but away. Away from everything, to a time when all this had never happened, and Kate is still alive and Connor is happy.

But that’s not possible. Time grinds forward, inexorable. And so I’m stuck; there’s no escape. I want to sink to the wet ground and let the cold rain wash over me.

All of a sudden there’s a noise, a shriek. I startle. A train is passing, overhead. It’s come from nowhere. I look up; it’s yellow and white, travelling so quickly it’s almost a blur. Still I can make out the passengers, all looking downwards, unsmiling. Reading newspapers, no doubt, working on laptops, using their phones. Had none of them seen what happened? Did no one happen to glance down to see my sister, fighting with Lukas?

Or maybe they did, and thought nothing of it. Just a row, an argument. They happen all the time.

The wheels squeal, the train passes, as quickly as it’d come. I look back to the end of the alleyway, where it joins the street.

And he’s there. Even though he can’t possibly know that I’m here, that I’ve worked out where he lives, he’s there. Standing at the end of the alleyway wearing the same blue parka he’d had on the other day. Lukas.

Something is released inside me. The wave builds and I take a step back. ‘What—?’ I begin, but I already know how he found me.

‘You think it was an accident? Letting you see over my shoulder? You’re a clever girl, Julia. I knew you’d work it out. Plus, I knew you wouldn’t want to leave it until tomorrow—’

‘Where’s Connor? Where’s my son?’

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

Damn him. I begin to move. My hand goes to my bag, then inside it. I feel the weight of the gun, its hardness. I wonder if the rain will affect it, then remember it doesn’t matter. I have no intention of using it. I have to scare him. I have to make him think I’m capable of killing, something I now know he himself has done.

No. I stop the thought dead. Connor’s face comes into view. I can’t afford to think of Kate. Not now. I have to focus. I have to make him give me my son back, and then admit what he did, somehow get him to turn himself in.

I raise my face to him. Defiant. The rain hits.

‘I know what you did.’

‘What I did? To Anna? And what’s that, then?’

‘Here. I know what happened here. You were chatting to Kate, online. You… you enticed her here. You killed her…’

He shakes his head.

‘I know you’re Connor’s father. No matter what she told Anna, or me, or Hugh. You’re Connor’s father.’

His eyes narrow. ‘You’re even crazier than I thought. I didn’t even know Kate.’

‘Liar.’ I try to steady my voice and say it again. ‘You’re a liar.’

‘Don’t be absurd. I didn’t—’

I lift my hand up out of my bag. The sweater drops away. He sees the gun, his eyes go wide.

‘Fuck!’

I feel it coming. The boiling anger, the rage. The wave is breaking, but I can’t give in to it, not yet. I have to keep my head clear.

‘You killed Kate!’ My fury is molten lava; it burns and will not be contained. I wipe the rain out of my eyes with the back of the hand holding the gun. ‘You killed my sister!’

He takes a step forward. ‘Julia,’ he says, ‘listen to me…’

A look of fear flashes on his face and his swaggering bravado drops away. He’s Lukas again, the man I once knew. My mind goes to the time I’d been angry with him, told him I wasn’t sure what was happening between us or whether I wanted it to continue. He’d looked frightened, then. I thought that was because he loved me, when really it was because I was close to escape.