The Girl Who Lied(62)

Chapter 21


Before I have even reached my parents’ flat across the road, I know I’ve overacted. A feeling of shame and embarrassment begins gnawing at my insides. I shouldn’t have snapped back at Kerry like that. I don’t know exactly what went on between him and his mum. In the same way as I don’t want him to judge me, I shouldn’t judge him. We are as bad as each other. We are both damaged goods.

Reaching the flat, I let myself in and go into the living room. I’ve already decided that I’ll apologise to Kerry later. I’ll let the dust settle and when we are both calmer, I’ll go over and say sorry.

I flop down on the sofa and switch on the TV. Nothing holds my attention. I feel restless. I make myself a cup of tea and bring it into the living room, placing it on the coffee table, next to the bunch of keys for the flat and shop. Idly I play with the keys, sliding them round the keyring itself, ticking them off in my mind like a school register. The key for the front door of the flat. The key for the back of the shop. The key for the front of the shop. The key for the till.

The bunch of keys is familiar. It’s the same bunch my dad has used since I can remember. I know he always kept the safe key separate, for security reasons, but where in the flat he hid it, I don’t know. It’s odd that Mum can’t remember, and even more odd that the spare key’s whereabouts is just as much of a mystery.

I get up and go into my parents’ bedroom. The safe is fixed in the bottom of Mum and Dad’s wardrobe. Kneeling down, I look at the safe. There is no other way to open it than with a key.

I look around the room, trying to determine a suitable hiding place. It would make sense that it’s in the same room as the safe. The dressing table seems the obvious place to start. I’m careful not to disturb anything too much and the things I move, I carefully replace. I feel a bit guilty looking through my parents’ stuff, but I justify it with the need to know for definite whether my dad was mugged or not. The thought that someone would do that is not nice. I hope his fall was purely an accident and finding the takings in the safe will confirm this and put everyone’s mind at rest. Not only that but Roisin’s parting words in the car park still bother me. The way she emphasised the word ‘accident’. As if she knew something about Dad’s fall that I didn’t.

After ten minutes going through all their drawers and both bedside tables, I find nothing. No sign of the key or even a clue as to where they might have put it.

‘Well, Dad, you’ve certainly hidden that key well.’ I huff in frustration and, giving up, I wander back through to the living room and gaze out at the grey waves and white horses crashing onto the shoreline. The wind has picked up and a flag attached to the radio mast of one of the fishing boats performs some sort of crazy hip-hop dance as it flaps wildly in the weather.

The earlier calm I gained from the rhythmic crashing of the waves eludes me now. The tide has turned not only out at sea, but here on land too. With Ed I had felt landlocked. Now I am bobbing like a piece of driftwood, the off-shore drift teasingly taking me into safe waters with Kerry and then pulling me back out again. I need to make a decision. To take control and not let the currents drag me along to unchartered waters.

The first step is to apologise to Kerry. He deserves it. I’m just about to turn from the window when a movement to the left catches my eye. In the dwindling clouded light of the day, I see Kerry as he emerges from the road between the bike shop and Beach Road. He stops by the shop front to light a cigarette. Whether he knows I’m watching or whether he looks up by chance, I’m unsure.

‘Wait there,’ I call through the glass, holding up my hand to him. Animatedly, I tap my chest with my finger and point at him. ‘I’m coming down’

With that I grab my jacket and handbag from the back of the chair and race out of the flat. I go to run down the steps, but then, remembering Dad lying in hospital, slow myself to a more orderly descent.

Safely reaching the bottom, I jog round to the front of the shops. I expect to see Kerry standing there but the street is empty. I look around, completing a three-hundred-and-sixty-degree turn. Not a sign.

My shoulders droop, disappointment floods through me. He hasn’t waited. Maybe he didn’t see properly or misread my mad hand gestures. He’s probably only gone to the pub, otherwise he would have been on his bike.

I take a deep breath. ‘I’m no driftwood,’ I mutter and, walking faster and more determined than necessary, head for The Smugglers.

As I turn the corner, the pub within a few hundred yards, I let out a spontaneous groan. Walking towards me is Roisin.