Invisible

by Christine Poulson

Genres: Romantic Suspense

Synopsis

Lisa has a secret lover, an escape from the pressures of caring alone for her son, who has cerebral palsy. Once a month she meets Jay, just for the weekend, free from all responsibilities. Their time together is perfect  ? until the day when Jay doesn't show up, and everything she thought she knew about him turns out to be a lie. For Jay it was perfect, too. But he shouldn't have let himself fall in love with Lisa, because now the people who destroyed his entire life five years ago are onto him and he must disappear again ?

Release date: May 15, 2014

Publisher: Accent Press

Print pages: 246

Sample

FIVE YEARS LATER



Chapter One

‘This is my last day.’

Jay didn’t take in what the cab-driver said. He was too busy looking through the back window, trying to decide if he had seen that car before.

The traffic was slowing down, grinding to a halt.

‘Yes,’ the cab-driver said, ‘my last day on the job. Demob happy, that’s me. I’m retiring. Well, I say retiring, me and the missus are opening a bar in Spain. This time next week, I’ll be playing golf in the sun.’

Yes, it was the same car, Jay was sure of it. Oh God. But surely he was safe enough for the moment. They were hardly going to pull him out of a cab going round Piccadilly Circus in broad daylight, unless …

What if the cab-driver was in on it, too? His eyes went to the man’s licence. Darren Clarke was the name – and this was a properly licensed black cab. He looked at the man’s solid meaty shoulders and the straw-coloured hair fringing a shiny dome. That ratty jumper – grey-and-white lozenges with pulled threads – he couldn’t be anything but a cab driver. Could he? And surely it was pure chance that Jay had stepped into this particular cab. He didn’t see how they could have planned it.

‘What’s up, chum?’ Darren asked. His eyes met Jay’s in the rear-view mirror. ‘You’ve been like a cat on hot bricks ever since I picked you up.’

Maybe it was the rosary dangling from the mirror that decided Jay.

‘I think someone’s following me,’ he said.

‘Oh ho,’ Darren said, ‘so that’s it. Your girlfriend’s hubby? Some geezer you owe money to?’

They had reached the north end of Haymarket. The traffic was inching forward.

Darren laughed. ‘Nah, let me guess, if you tell me, you’ll have to kill me!’

He wasn’t so far off the mark.

‘So which one is it?’ Darren tilted his head to look into the rear-view mirror.

‘The dark blue Citroen.’

‘That!’ he said scornfully. ‘A mini-cab –’

‘Do you think you can –’

‘Lose it? Wouldn’t be much of a cab-driver if I couldn’t! Fasten your seat-belt, you’re in for a bumpy ride!’ Darren spun the steering wheel. The cab swerved and shot down the bus-lane, flinging Jay back against his seat with a jolt that took his breath away. The cab swung left into a narrow canyon of a street. Jay gripped the handrail and braced his feet on the floor. They emerged into a little square where people sitting at tables outside a restaurant looked up startled. Ahead the road narrowed to one lane. On one side was the back entrance of the National Gallery, on the other Westminster Reference Library, and in the middle a van was parked, blocking the road. Darren didn’t even brake. The cab tilted as it mounted the pavement. The rosary swung wildly from side to side. Jay wanted to offer up a prayer himself. He resisted the temptation to cover his eyes. They slid past the van and a line of bollards with a hairsbreadth to spare.

They shot round a corner. A queue of taxis was waiting to turn into St Martin’s Lane. The lane for in-coming traffic was empty. Darren swerved into it. The traffic was solid, but Darren nudged his way in. The driver of another black cab budged over just enough to let Darren through. Darren acknowledged the courtesy with an airy gesture. He muscled his way through the second lane, eliciting a V sign from a bus driver, and shot off down William IV Street and into Maiden Lane.

‘Have we lost the Citroen?’ Darren asked.

Jay craned his neck. ‘Yes – oh, no, no, oh fuck! He’s just come into view!’

‘OK!’

Darren took a right turn. The traffic lights were green and in moments they were heading south across the Strand. They took another right and doubled back along John Adam Street.

Darren turned left. To his horror Jay saw that they were heading for a dead end. In that terrible moment he knew that he had been wrong about Darren. Darren was not his saviour, but his abductor. A trap was closing around him. The ground dropped steeply away to an underground car park. They plunged into the darkness like a rabbit going down a hole. This time Jay did close his eyes, expecting the cab to screech to a halt. But it didn’t so much as slacken speed. He opened his eyes to see rows of parked cars sliding past on either side. The cab shot out into daylight. Jay caught a glimpse of grey choppy water. They were on the Embankment. Darren laughed. ‘Not many people know about that. I bet that’s foxed the bugger.’ The traffic was running freely here and the cab sped along towards Blackfriars. Jay braced himself against the back seat and looked out of the window. The Citroen was nowhere in sight. As the cab went into the underpass beneath Blackfriars Jay allowed himself a sigh of relief.

‘It was Waterloo you wanted?’ Darren said.

‘Doesn’t really matter. I just need to get out of London.’

‘Liverpool Street do you?’

‘Fine.’ Jay leaned back. Now that the tension had relaxed, he had to clasp his hands together to stop them trembling. As the cab headed north-east at a more sedate pace, he concentrated on slowing his breathing and planning his next step.

The cab drew up outside Liverpool Street and Jay reached for his wallet.

Darren turned. ‘Not on your life – it’s all on the house today.’

Jay saw him full on for the first time. He had a slab of a face and little piggy eyes, but at that moment Jay loved him like a brother.

Darren said, ‘And if you ever find yourself in Malaga, there’ll be a drink on the house.’ He fumbled in his jacket pocket and brought out a card.

Jay reached for it, his fingers grasped it, but Darren didn’t release it. He looked expectantly at Jay. Something hopeful and wistful shone out of his face, something even a lifetime of ferrying arrogant city types and drunken hen parties hadn’t quenched.

For a moment Jay was puzzled, and then it dawned on him.

Of course. Darren wanted to know what it was all about. The least he could do for this fine man was to give him a story to take into his new life, something to tell his customers. Jay could see him with his elbows propped on the bar: ‘Last day on the job, and who do you think he turned out to be – no, honest, straight up –’

He cast around, uncertain what to say. Then it came to him. He leaned forward, catching a whiff of a pungent cologne. He put his face close to Darren’s and told Darren what he wanted to hear.



Chapter Two

Something was badly wrong. Lisa was way behind schedule with her commission: an anthology of the poets of the T’Ang dynasty. It ought to have been easy to capture their elegiac tone. God knows, she felt miserable enough. But the deadline for the first part was looming and she had done drafts of only twenty-four out of a hundred and eighty poems. They weren’t any good, but her editor was asking to see them.

Can translators have writer’s block? Normally she was scarcely aware of the individual characters. They were a window onto a familiar world. But today they lay inert on the page. She found herself examining them as if she had never seen them before, struck by their strangeness and complexity, just as when she’d first studied Mandarin. The character for woman, for example, she used to see it as a seated figure leaning forward to embrace a pregnant belly. Now the figure seemed to be hugging herself in grief.

She gazed around her study. It was immaculate. But surely there must be something she could tidy up. On her desk was a mug stuffed full of leaking biros. She tipped them out and began testing them on a piece of scrap paper, chucking the dead ones in the bin as she went. Some had come through the post from charities that she supported, like the Red Cross and the British Heart Foundation, and some from charities that she didn’t. This one advertising a car dealership must have come from her friend, Stella ; a pen with a liquid compartment in which a gondola went up and down, that was a memento of a holiday in Venice; and this one from some hotel in Sweden, that would be one of Lawrence’s from one of his work trips. He used to say that the place was like a rest home for old biros, but he was as bad as anyone at throwing things out ... and Ricky positively sought them out, the more recherché the advert, the better. The Swedish pen was a cut above the others, rather elegant in fact. She liked the way it felt in her hand. She began doodling with it. She came to herself with a start. Time was getting on.

She went out onto the gallery that ran along the back of the long, double-storey living room. The house was on a plateau overlooking the Bristol Channel. On clear days the Welsh coast was visible and the constantly changing seascape was like a living picture that filled an entire wall. Today it was hard to tell where the sea stopped and the land began. The coombes on either side of the house were filled with water vapour like a landscape in a Chinese watercolour. She sighed. A dull, flat day. That was how she felt too, as if her head was full of fog.

Ricky’s room was immediately below her study. Normally he would have been at school, but this was the autumn half-term. She went down the spiral staircase, knocked on his door, and went in. There was an image of a rocky landscape with figures on the computer screen, then Ricky clicked on his mouse and it disappeared. The screen was filled by a photo of a surfer racing ahead of a breaking wave as big as a house.

Ricky spun his wheelchair towards her.

‘Here’s looking at you, kid,’ said a dark-brown voice.

Ricky was mad about old movies and Lisa never knew if she was going be greeted by Humphrey Bogart or Marilyn Monroe. He’d only had this state-of-the-art software for a few weeks, but he’d quickly learnt to manipulate it. It’s default setting was a young male voice like the one Ricky might have had if cerebral palsy hadn’t slurred his speech.

‘Play it, Sam,’ Lisa murmured, putting plenty of huskiness into her voice.

Ricky grinned his crooked grin.

‘Are you about ready to be off, Ma?’ he said in his own voice. Should she ask him what he had been looking at on the computer? She decided to let it go for now.

‘I’ll be leaving in about an hour,’ she said. ‘What are you up to this weekend?’

‘Charlotte’s coming round so that we can do our photography project together.’

‘Again?’ Lisa asked and wished she hadn’t. She’d always welcomed his friends to the house. Wasn’t this why she had worked so hard to get Ricky into mainstream education, so that he would meet a mixture of people, not just other children with disabilities? And yet … 

Ricky frowned. ‘Why don’t you like her? It’s because she’s a Goth, isn’t it? I thought you didn’t believe in judging people by their appearance.’

She didn’t. And God knows, she herself had looked strange enough as a teenager, but it wasn’t just that. Charlotte smoked for one thing, and maybe not just tobacco. But it would just make Ricky keener if she made a fuss –

‘What was on your computer screen when I came in?’ she heard herself say.

A look of open-eyed innocence came over Ricky’s face. ‘That? Oh, that was just my website. I was updating my blog. Look, I’ve been wondering – what do you want for your birthday?’

It was a transparent attempt to change the subject, but she let it pass.

‘Oh, I don’t know, when you get to my age, you’d rather not think too much about it.’

‘Yeah, forty-five. That is pretty ancient,’ he said seriously, ‘but you don’t look too bad. No grey hairs, anyway.’

‘Oh thanks. Look, I’m just going to take Piki out before Peony gets here. I won’t be long.’

‘But your birthday?’

‘Surprise me!’

Piki was lying in her usual place by the back door. Her eyes swivelled in Lisa’s direction, but she didn’t lift her head from her paws. It wasn’t Lawrence, that was all that mattered. It never would be Lawrence, but she didn’t know that and was still waiting for him.

And Lisa wasn’t so very different.

She would find herself wandering from room to room and realise that she was searching for him. The place was still saturated with his presence. She was forever thinking that she saw him out of the corner of her eye, but it always turned out to be something hanging on the back of a door or a shadow cast by the birches that crowded up close behind the house.

The death of a parent was a bit like having a baby. Nothing could really prepare you for it – and after it nothing was ever the same again.

Lisa took Lawrence’s overcoat off the peg by the back door. It was old and woolly and a dark bottle-green. She always wore it when she walked the dog. For a surprisingly long time it had smelt of Lawrence, especially around the collar. He had always used a particular citrus aftershave.

Piki clambered to her feet. She was a funny little animal with stumpy legs and a chocolate brown coat as woolly as a teddy-bear, the result of a liaison between a poodle and a Jack Russell terrier. Lawrence used to say that she had the cleverness of the first and the strength and determination of the second.

Lisa locked the door and set off down the footpath towards the headland with Piki at her heels.

At first she fretted about Ricky. He never used to be secretive and she couldn’t quite think when it had begun. In the past the connection between them had almost amounted to telepathy. Now there were times when she had no idea what he was thinking and those times were getting more frequent. It was natural, of course it was, he was sixteen for God’s sake, but still …

She concentrated on the rhythm of her footsteps and let the stillness seep into her. The path brought her out near the tree-house on the headland.

The tree-house had always been Lisa’s special place. Lawrence had built it at the same time that he had built the house. It had been a simple structure in those days, just a platform, four walls and a roof, reached by a rope ladder. Later Lawrence had decided to turn it into something more elaborate, a place for Lisa to work. He ran an electric cable out from the house and replaced the rope ladder with a spiral staircase. There was a desk and an electric heater and a place for Lisa to plug in her laptop.

It was out here that Lisa had found Lawrence’s body eight months ago. Piki had returned alone from a walk and had led Lisa to him. Lawrence had had angina for a while. Most mornings he was in some discomfort, but exercise was part of his regime and he was usually fine by the time he got back from his early morning walk. But not that day. He was lying on his back, still grasping his walking-stick and Lisa had known right away that he had gone.

Today, like every day, Piki stretched herself out near the spot where Lawrence had lain. She whimpered softly. Lisa squatted down beside her and put one hand on the dog’s wiry coat. Lawrence had only been sixty-nine, no age at all. Why do people have to die? It’s not fair. She would give almost anything to go back to the days before they knew that Lawrence had heart disease. She hadn’t understood how precious that time had been. If she could only go back, she would know now how to appreciate it.

There was a boom so stunning that it filled her head. Piki let off a volley of barks. For an instant Lisa caught sight of the military airplanes low overhead, huge, dark, cruel shapes, like something from a sci-fi film. They were moving so fast that she saw no movement. They were there and then they were gone, leaving the air vibrating. Lisa put her arms round the trembling dog. Her own heart was racing and it was a minute or two before she stood up. These practice flights occurred at least once a week, but they weren’t something you could ever get used to and they always took a second pass twenty minutes later.

She glanced at her watch and was surprised to see how late it was. She’d better be getting back. She had a long drive ahead.

Chapter Three

Lisa was only ten miles from the cottage when it happened. There was a jolt, the car swerved and veered to the left. She steered it over to the verge. She knew what it was even before she got out to look. A flat tyre. This would have to happen when she was already late. She’d forgotten what a long and tedious drive it was from Exmoor to Norfolk and she had been held up on the M5 by a bad accident. Edging past on the other side of the carriageway she had caught an unnerving glimpse of ambulances and people sitting by the roadside covered in blood. Her shoulders ached with tension and fatigue. And now this. What to do? She weighed the options. Should she ring Jay or ring the breakdown service? Jay would be at the cottage by now. Probably best to ring him and get him to come for her. They could sort out the car tomorrow.

She hunted in her bag for her phone. It wasn’t in the compartment where she usually kept it. She tipped everything out onto the passenger seat and sorted through it, but no ... She turned the bag upside down and shook it, patted the compartments, unable to believe that it really wasn’t there. When had she last used it? In her mind’s eye she saw the phone sitting on the table in the café at the service station where she’d stopped a couple of hours ago. She had got it out to check for texts. Surely, surely she had put it back in her bag? Had it fallen out in the car? She got a torch out of the glove compartment and shone the beam around the footwell. Nothing.

OK. A public phone, then, or maybe she could knock on someone’s door.

She got out of the car and looked up and down the long narrow road. The sun was setting, leaving stripes of indigo and lemon in the sky and darkness was rising like smoke from the fields. On one side was a grove of pine trees and on the other a vast ploughed field stretched into the distance. There were no houses or lights in sight.

At least she’d had the foresight to pack the local ordnance survey map. She got it out and located her position. She could hardly have picked a worse place to break down: no village, or phone, or pub within five miles. And in the ten minutes she had been here, not a single car had come along the road. Tears welled up. They were never far from the surface these days. She took a deep breath and got a grip. She did – in theory – know how to change a tyre. Lawrence had made sure she was up to speed on practical things. She got the jack and the wheel brace out of the boot and put on an old raincoat over her good red cardigan, the one that Jay had given her as a Christmas present. She propped up the torch on a stone. As she set about removing the hub cap, she felt flecks of rain on her face and with them came a sudden drop in temperature. She attached the wheel brace to a hub nut and leaned on it. It didn’t budge. She tried another one, that didn’t move either. Her fingers were growing numb, but she was sweating. Panic was rising in her. She was going to be stuck out here ... How could she loosen the nuts? WD40? Was there a canister in the boot?

There was. She sprayed it on the hub nuts and waited for it to take effect, hugging herself against the cold. Light had drained from the sky now and the landscape lay dark and silent around her. She tried again with the wheel brace. Nothing. She took a deep breath, gritted her teeth and put all her weight on the brace. There was a creak and it started to move. She heaved a sigh of relief.

After that things went smoothly. She got the jack under the car alright and removed the tyre. The treads were almost worn down. When had she last checked? She couldn’t remember ever checking. Lawrence had always done that. She went round and shone the torch on the others. They seemed OK, but she’d better have the car serviced when she got home.

She got the spare tyre on and tightened up the nuts. She had just straightened up and was massaging her aching lower back, when there was the sound of a car and she saw headlights approaching. Just when she’d almost finished! No point in waving it down now. But the car stopped anyway and a figure got out. He was just a shape in the darkness. The headlights on full beam made her squint and it wasn’t until he spoke that she even knew it was a man.

‘Can I help?’ It was a pleasant voice, low-pitched and cultured, but she was suddenly uneasy.

‘I’m fine, thanks – almost done –’

‘Oh surely –’

‘No, really, I’m fine.’ Her voice came out high-pitched, anxious.

He stepped forward and she instinctively stepped back. The car headlights shone on the wheel brace in her hand.

He hesitated. Then he threw up his hands. ‘Suit yourself, you ungrateful cow.’

He got in his car, slammed the door and revved the engine savagely. He shot off down the road. She watched until he was out of sight, then bent to remove the jack. Her fingers trembled and she kept looking up to check that he wasn’t coming back. Once she was safely back in the car with the doors locked, she felt better. As she drove on towards the cottage she tried to arrange what had happened into an amusing story for Jay, but it didn’t work. She really had been frightened and still felt shaky. Never mind, she would soon be in Jay’s arms and then nothing else would matter.

She drove on through the night, her anticipation mounting. That first kiss, after a month apart ... she’d thought of little else throughout the whole long drive. She ached to feel Jay’s lips on hers.

When at last she turned off onto the grassy track and pulled up outside the little Gothic cottage, it took her a few moments to realise that the place was in darkness.

The key was where she remembered from the previous time they’d been here: under the mat. When she opened the door . . .