Chapter 19
Present day
Anna
The next day I spend time recording the new information and photographs from yesterday’s impromptu visit to Liam’s house.
It gives me an overview of where we are and also ensures I don’t forget anything. I can be prone to forgetfulness.
After the shock of discovering her Facebook message to Liam, I feel as though I’m running on go-slow. I am even a little late getting to the hospital for the start of visiting time.
It’s hardly surprising but I’ve barely slept a wink.
The thought that she has hunted Liam down on Facebook in order to send him such a lying, conniving message beggars belief.
Leopard, spots. . . it just goes to show that people never change no matter how much time elapses.
She is calling herself ‘Amanda Danson’ now, so at least that’s one mystery solved.
Before I left their house I neatly handwrote ‘Amanda’s’ message word for word, and back at home, I printed off the clearest photographs of Liam’s bedroom and filed them with the one I took of him in the hospital.
I was disappointed to discover I couldn’t see anything more than her profile photo due to her high privacy settings. If that’s not proof she’s got something to hide, I don’t know what is.
Still, I’m grateful I discovered the message before Liam had the chance to see it and buy into her seething lies.
Once I copied it out, I deleted it from his message inbox. What kind of a friend would I be if I left it for him to read when he’s feeling at his most vulnerable?
Before I get into the car, I pop next door to check on Mrs Peat. My heart sinks when she beckons me: time is tight as visiting time starts in just half an hour.
‘My legs are playing me up today, Anna, could you help me move over to my bed?’
Mrs Peat may be old but she’s still quite sturdy, to phrase it kindly, and she takes some moving.
She suffers with chronic rheumatoid arthritis, has good and bad days. Linda, her care assistant, has set up Mrs Peat’s bed downstairs, and she also has a commode in here.
She virtually lives her whole life in this one dreary room. I feel guilty complaining; the least I can do is stay for a quick chat.
I brace myself and hope my lower back holds up when Mrs Peat finally manages to get to her feet and lean heavily against me.
‘You’ve been busy, coming and going a lot lately,’ she groans with discomfort as we shuffle across the room at a snail’s pace.
Mrs Peat might be old and sick but she doesn’t miss much.
‘Yes, I’ve been going to the hospital quite a bit,’ I say between breaths. ‘To see my friend, Liam.’
‘Ah, a friend.’ She smiles warmly. ‘Sounds like things might be looking up for you, dear.’
‘He’s just a friend. That’s all,’ I say tersely. I don’t want Mrs Peat getting the wrong idea.
When she is settled in her bed I make her a cup of tea and tell her all about the accident, how I sat with Liam in the road until the ambulance arrived.
‘You’re an angel, Anna,’ Mrs Peat says. ‘Always thinking of others. His gran must be so grateful you were there to help him.’
I let that one go. I’m not completely certain yet what Ivy thinks of me.
‘I can still see you now, sat over there in the chair with Arthur, reciting nursery rhymes or drawing your pictures. Such a bright girl, you were.’
I make an excuse to go into the kitchen to wash my hands. At least until she stops talking about the past.
Once I am sure Mrs Peat is comfortable again, I head to the hospital.
On the way, I call at the cobbler’s kiosk and get another copy of Liam’s house key cut, just in case there is no one to feed the cat again.
And that’s when I remember: I didn’t feed Boris yesterday.
With the shock of finding Amanda Danson’s toxic message to Liam, I forgot all about feeding the poor cat.
By some miracle, I find a parking space near the hospital entrance and manage to get a ticket just as a lengthy queue forms behind me.
I am a little late for the start of visiting but so is everyone else by the look of it.
I don’t call in at the shop, and I don’t wait for the lift. I take the stairs two at a time and then regret it when I have to stand outside the ward for a minute to get my breath back.
They buzz me in, and I walk briskly past the reception desk without speaking to anyone.
If you stand just outside the partial glass door, it’s possible to see straight into Liam’s private room from the ward corridor. I spot right away there is already someone sitting in there: a woman, with her back to the door.
I take in the blonde ponytail, the pink coat, and I realise, with a dizzy rush, that it’s her. It’s Amanda Danson or whatever she’s calling herself these days.
My face and neck feel like they’re on fire.
I decide I’m going to call her by this fictitious name for now, at least. I don’t want to blurt anything out to Liam or Ivy about what she did yet. I have to keep my head clear and think rationally about what I’m going to do.
Amanda is busy talking, moving her hands animatedly.
Weaving her story, constructing new truths from old lies.
It is clear she has Liam’s full attention. He is nodding and smiling.
I watch as she throws her head back and laughs raucously about something. Laughs! While the man she nearly killed is confined to a hospital bed in front of her, unable to remember and unable to move.
Something inside me seems to shrink, to pull tighter, and I have to steady myself by leaning against the wall.
‘You alright there, love?’ A passing nurse slows down.
Before I can answer her, Liam looks up and spots me.
‘Anna!’ he calls. ‘Come in.’
I step away from the door, my head whirring. This isn’t supposed to happen; I don’t want Amanda Danson to see me. I need more time to plan, to think about my next move.
It kills me to abandon Liam to her lies but I can’t blow my cover just yet.
But then the door opens and there she is, smiling in my face.
I ball my fists in my jacket pockets to stop myself from grasping her stringy neck.
‘Hi,’ she says, ‘I’m Amanda.’
I have no choice but to stand still in the doorway and look straight at her.
I wait for the shock to register on her face. Wait for her conniving brain to bridge the thirteen-year gap and realise exactly who I am.
She glances back at Liam and then looks at me again. A couple more seconds pass and there doesn’t appear to be any spark of recognition.
‘Are you a relative of Liam’s?’ she asks.
‘A friend,’ I croak and swallow down a thickness in my throat that is threatening to choke me.
I can’t bring myself to speak to her but I can’t tear my eyes away from her face, either.
It seems she hasn’t got a clue who I am but I am fully expecting it to click any moment now.
Her face is longer and thinner than I remember it but the features are identical. Roman nose, almond-shaped eyes that border on being sly rather than attractive. I remember she had a tiny mole on her chin but it looks like she got that removed. Her vanity doesn’t surprise me in the least.
She stands aside at last and I move, trance-like, into the room.
Amanda pulls another chair round, as though I’m the visitor and she is Liam’s good friend. ‘There you go,’ she says, brightly, before sitting back down in her own seat.
I wait for the, ‘Hang on, don’t I know you?’ look that is bound to shadow her face any second now.
Only it doesn’t.
She sits back, seemingly relaxed.
The sheer audacity of her takes my breath away. Why on earth didn’t the nurses stop her from coming in? I can’t imagine what they were thinking.
The first line of her message had been packed with lies.
‘I just had to send you this message to say how sorry I am. One minute the road was clear, the next, there you were.’
She was driving too fast. And she doesn’t look sorry to me, at all.
‘Sit down, Anna,’ Liam urges, and I realise I’m still standing frozen to the spot, near the door.
If by some miracle she really doesn’t recognise me, the last thing I want to do is alert her there’s a problem, so I sit down. Still, I can’t stop staring at her. I can’t.
With no make-up on and her hair pulled back into a severe ponytail she looks, to all intents and purposes, as if she is suffering too. But obviously, it’s all part of the act.
She has to be at least eight years older than me but I think she looks younger, fitter. Liam is bound to compare us and I’ll come away wanting.
Liam coughs.
‘Anna, this is Amanda, the lady who—’
‘I know who she is,’ I say tightly.
Her face instantly glows red. She rubs hard at bony wrists protruding from beneath her cuffs as if she’s surprised to find they are hers.
Liam opens his mouth to speak but then closes it again.
What was it that her message to Liam had said?
‘I only delayed braking for a second but you kept on coming. I’ll regret that second for the rest of my life.’
‘I recognise you,’ I say, and she looks up.
From thirteen years ago, I’d like to add.
‘From the accident. I was there, you see; I saw it all. I helped Liam as he lay injured in the road.’
Silence. Liam clears his throat.
‘I came here today to tell Liam how sorry I am,’ she whispers.
She is putting on an impressive show but I’ve seen it all before. It’s alarming, though, to see Liam looking at her almost pitifully.
Her message had been clearly constructed to garner his trust, his sympathy.
‘I’ll never get behind the wheel again. I could have killed you and now I have to live with that.’
Little did she know it hadn’t quite gone to plan because he hadn’t seen the message, thank goodness.
‘You came to say you’re sorry?’ I repeat, in the vain hope she’ll hear how ridiculously inadequate it sounds.
‘Yes.’ She stands up then and dusts down her jeans as if that might brush the problem away. ‘I know sorry isn’t really enough, I just wanted—’
She looks at Liam, tightens her lips into a small, straight line and her eyes glitter with tears.
It is quite a performance.
‘It’s okay, Amanda,’ he says kindly. ‘Thanks for coming; it took guts. I don’t remember anything about the accident, but when I’m discharged you should pop round the house for a cuppa, like you said.’
Just as she’d planned:
‘I hope we can be friends.’
Liam, in his vulnerable state, is playing right into her hands.
‘I don’t think it’s going to be as simple as popping round and we can all forget what’s happened, Liam,’ I blurt out before I think better of it. ‘The police are involved now, and I’m not sure you two should even be communicating.’
‘Actually, the police haven’t even been in touch with me yet,’ she says in a notthatit’sanyofyourbusiness tone. Then she catches herself and softens her manner. ‘They’re giving me some space to get my head straight, you see. I’ve been in a bit of a state with the shock of it all.’
Only a few minutes earlier she’d been hooting with laughter.
I don’t know how I manage it but I clamp my mouth shut and look away as she heads for the door. I’m afraid of what might happen if I let go of whatever is bubbling like acid in my chest.
She nods goodbye at me, which, of course, I completely ignore.
‘Apparently, it’s not the first time she’s done this,’ I say to Liam when I close the door behind her. ‘She knocked a child off his bicycle, too.’
Even as the words tumble out, I don’t know why I’m saying it. It’s the sort of thing that can be checked out but someone has to bring Liam to his senses before she gets her claws into him.
Liam frowns. ‘But she said she’d only just passed her test.’
‘A woman of her age? I seriously doubt that,’ I scoff. ‘Besides, she’s hurt a child all the same. I’m not supposed to know that so keep it to yourself but I think you need to be aware of what kind of a person she really is behind all that play-acting.’
‘I can’t believe it,’ Liam says, staring out of the window. ‘I can’t believe she’d hurt a kid and not mention it, not after saying how much she loves her job.’
The back of my neck prickles.
‘Her job?’
Liam looks up at me.
‘She works at a private nursery, Little Bees or something, in West Bridgford, she said. She told me she really loves kids.’
And that’s when my plans start to slide into place like a perfectly designed jigsaw.