‘I’m taking Cass down to the woods, Alex!’ I call back towards the kitchen. ‘Load your plate in the dishwasher and leave the rest for me. I’ll tidy the kitchen when I get back.’
A mumbled reply comes back, but I’m already through the door with the dog.
I’d told Cam to drive further on and park near the track which runs down to Trevaylor Woods and wait for me there. He had answered with a grim-faced nod.
Cass and I turn off the lane and walk down into the woods. The ancient trees that flank the track form a dense skein of branches overhead, which allows only dappled light to penetrate. The air is cool and damp and scented with mulching leaves. Cass bounds on ahead, rooting through the leaves and undergrowth in search of rabbits. I walk a little way down and lean on the farm gate and wait for him to follow. The fields overlook Mounts Bay in the distance and the last of the evening sun is glistening like fire on the sea. I hear footsteps and turn to see Cam walking towards me, hands shoved into his pockets, shoulders slouched. He is dressed in the same jeans and boots, and has swapped his sweater for a T-shirt, faded khaki and creased. A number of frayed fabric bands encircle his left wrist and his arms are pale, not tanned and weathered as I remember them.
He stops a little way from me as if he’s met an invisible barrier and is unable to get any closer, twitching and shifting his weight from side to side awkwardly.
There’s a rustling in the hedge and Cass appears, pushing through the undergrowth to run at Cam, tail wagging madly. He crouches and ruffles her with both hands, talking in low whispers as he presses his face to the top of her head.
‘She’s lovely,’ he says as he stands.
I nod.
The sun has set below the horizon now and the sky has turned a deep pink shot through with purple and grey. We walk down the track, through the woods and on towards a small stream which babbles over and around the moss-covered boulders which rest on its bed. Cass leaps over it and disappears into the brambles and ferns on the other side.
‘I need to know,’ he says again, his voice diamond-tipped. ‘Why Nathan Cardew? Why him of all people?’
Has this been playing on his mind all these years?
I stop walking. He does the same and we face each other. I should fabricate something. Another lie to add to the towering pile, but even though lying has become second nature, right now I’m weary of it. Exhausted, in fact. Lying seems easier, a quick fix to hide something more complicated, but it’s much more demanding than recalling what actually happened. You have to take more factors into account: credibility, plausibility, consequence, as well as remembering not to give yourself away with any number of tells. You have to act to affect honesty. It’s energy sapping. So I decide not to lie.
‘He saw you.’
Rather than watch him try and work out what I’ve said, I turn and walk on down the track.
‘Hannah?’ He catches up with me and touches my arm.
‘That night. He saw you. He watched you go out to sea.’ I blink slowly and take a breath. ‘And he waited and watched you come in. He was there. Hidden behind the buildings.’
Cam’s brow furrows as he attempts to process what I’m saying. ‘But if he saw me… why didn’t he tell the police? It wasn’t as if he didn’t hate me. He did. Why did he keep quiet?’ He shakes his head as if attempting to dislodge something. ‘I don’t understand.’
I take a deep breath and dredge the next words up from deep inside me. ‘He was going to go to the police. I asked him not to. Begged him, in fact. He told me he loved me. Said you were no good and violent and he should do the right thing and turn you in. And… I said…’ I blow air slowly out and wince. This is harder to get out than I ever could have imagined. ‘If you love me, you won’t.’
My hands tremble as if an electric charge is passing through them. I stop walking and we face each other again. His face is pale. His lips drawn tight.
My stomach somersaults. Why did I tell him? I should have lied. I should have lied, but I didn’t and now it’s too late. I press on, ignoring the gathering nausea.
‘Then…’ I hesitate and shake my head.
‘What?’
‘Then he asked me if I loved him. And… and I said yes, because I didn’t know what else to say, because I didn’t want anything to happen to you and my head was clouded up.’ I pause and purse my lips, glance up at the darkening sky. ‘He said if I really did love him I’d be with him and not you.’
Cam is silent.
‘It was a pact, Cam. A deal. He wouldn’t go to the police about what he’d seen if I ended our relationship to be with him.’ My throat constricts as memories of that conversation bear down heavily. Dread had curdled my blood as my world caved in. ‘It went from there. Things snowballed and gathered pace. It was like I was trapped in a car hurtling towards a cliff. I couldn’t think straight. My brain was full of mud. And, God, I was scared. I was so, so scared. The thought of the police getting involved? Visions of you and me in prison.’ I pause and blink slowly. ‘It seemed like my only option. It seemed like the right thing to do.’
Understanding gathers on Cam’s face like a squall.
‘I couldn’t let you go to prison. And,’ I sigh heavily, ‘I didn’t want to go to prison either. I kept thinking about Mum and Dad and how it would destroy them. They would have been so ashamed.’
‘You wouldn’t have gone to prison,’ he whispers.
Dusk has set in and his features are becoming obscured in the murky light.
‘I hated him from that moment. We slept together. The night you left.’ I pause to wipe the tears away. It hurts to recall it, me lying there rigid and scared, my mind closing down as he kissed me and told me he loved me in hot sticky whispers. ‘I thought about calling his bluff. Leaving him and trying find you. I thought we could get on a plane to somewhere miles away, like Mexico, like they do in American films, and it wouldn’t matter if he told the police.’ I rub my face and smile ruefully. ‘But then a month or so later I found out I was pregnant and everything changed. I had to stay. Because what else could I do?’ I breathe steadily, trying, but failing, to stem my tears. ‘How could I be pregnant and go to prison? They would have taken him away from me. Put him into care.’
I bite down on my lip until I taste a trace of blood. His breathing has grown heavier and I’m aware of his body tensing, as if he is about to speak. I press on, worried that if I let him talk now, I won’t finish what I need to say.
‘When Alex was a few weeks old I ran away. I had no idea where we were going. I was all over the place with postnatal depression. I’m sure I was suffering some sort of PTSD as well. I had nightmares. I’d relive it all over and over again.’ I blot my tears with my sleeve. ‘Nathan found me at the station. He was furious and threatened everything. The police. Prison. Custody of Alex. He said he couldn’t trust me and after that he barely let me out of his sight.’
The air around us is damp with the approaching night and I realise how cold I am, my teeth chattering softly. I wrap my arms around my body.
‘I’m sorry,’ Cam whispers.
I shake my head. ‘Don’t be. I love Alex with all my heart and having him gave my life meaning. I haven’t told you this because I want your sympathy and I don’t want you to worry about me. I just want you to know I didn’t choose him because he was a lawyer or because of the big house or the money or the spotless car we aren’t allowed to breathe in.’ I pause and take a step closer to him. ‘Watching you walk away was the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do and it haunts me every single day.’
Before I know what’s happening, he has put his arms around me. His body is lean and hard. He smells strange and my breath catches. I rest my cheek against his chest and my tears soak into the fabric of his shirt. I can hear his heart beating and it takes me back to when we were young, when I laid my cheek against this same part of him and dreamt of being happy forever.
I can’t do this.
‘I need to get back.’ I push myself away from him. ‘This is wrong. Jesus. If Nathan finds out I’ve seen you, he’ll go to the police.’
Cam reaches for my hand but I snatch it away.
‘Hannah, listen, he won’t go to the police.’
‘You don’t know him. He will—’
‘He won’t. He’s a lawyer. He knows he can’t. If he saw me that night and didn’t report it, he’s in as much trouble as I am. Keeping quiet makes him complicit. There’s no way he’s going to let himself go to prison for a fifteen-year-old crime he didn’t commit. Think about it.’
His words take shape in my head and leave me breathless. I could kick myself for being so stupid. So naive. How can I not have seen such an obvious thing in all these years? If he goes to the police he’ll have to explain why he withheld information. Information which would have shed light on a missing person. Withholding information is a crime. There’s no way Nathan will take himself down. Not for a crime he didn’t commit. Especially when the crime is murder.
My mind races so fast it trips over itself as I realise he couldn’t even prove he wasn’t involved himself. It would be his word against ours. Nathan’s hold over me is decimated. But is it? Nathan is clever, manipulative too; there’s no way to be sure he hasn’t planned for this, that he hasn’t constructed a means to protect himself, so he could still turn us in but remain safe himself. I’m hit by a vivid image of him and Alex watching from the front doorstep as I’m led away in handcuffs to a police car parked at the gate with its blue light twirling.
‘I can’t risk it. I couldn’t put Alex through it.’
We get to the top of the lane and the canopy of trees thins. It’s time to say goodbye but neither of us makes a move to leave. Cam’s face is clearer now we’re out of the woods and in the light of the moon. I smile, a weak apologetic gesture, which feels insubstantial. Without warning, he bends close to me and hovers in the sliver of air between us before gently touching his lips to mine.
It takes me by surprise and for a moment everything else falls away. It’s just me and him. The kiss is tender and soft, free of urgency or lust, but soaked with pain and regret and a longing for things to be different.
What am I doing?
No. No…
No!
I shove him hard away. Shake my head. Step back. I shake my head again and two tears tumble down my cheeks.
‘No,’ I whisper.
He stares at me, forlorn, uncomprehending, needy of love or affection or forgiveness, or whatever it is he craves. Unexpected anger flares inside me. ‘Jesus, Cam, don’t look at me like that. What do you want me to do? What do you think’s going to happen? That we kiss then tear each other’s clothes off for old time’s sake? Fuck here against the farm gate?’
‘What? No! Of course not.’ His face screws up. ‘It’s just seeing you again. It’s—’
‘It’s what? Time to put everything behind us and crack on where we left off?’ I give a bitter snort of laughter. ‘Time to forget what happened and give our tragic story a happy ending?’
His mouth opens then closes and his eyebrows knot, before he drops his head, defeated. I’m hit again by how damaged this new version of Cam is. How his pain infects the air around us. How weakened he is. I cover my face with my hands and breathe the hot air, then stifle an exasperated growl; I can’t carry his damage as well as my own.
‘I’m sorry you’ve had such a difficult time,’ I say in barely whispered words. ‘But it’s too late for us. Do you understand? What we had is gone. We can’t ever get it back.’
He starts to speak, but I don’t let him.
‘Nothing has changed. I’m married. I have a son. This is what I chose. This is how our story ends. You and I don’t get to live happily ever after.’
He is silent.
‘You need to leave Cornwall. You need to get away from me and this whole sorry fucked up mess. You don’t need this.’ I take a weary sigh. ‘And, frankly, nor do I, because seeing you again, having you back here,’ I say, my voice barely audible now, ‘is too hard.’
My words have dried up and I am drained. I give Cass a feeble whistle and she bursts out of the bushes and trots happily to my side, her wet nose finding my hand in the dimness. Without saying anything more, I turn and walk away from him, up to the lane, in the direction of home, and I don’t look back.