The Lake by Louise Sharland (best ereader for pc txt) 📕

of her. ‘It was a bread-and-butter knife, Mrs Hardy, and I put it away almost as soon as I’d taken it out.’

Looking at the whimpering young woman in front of me now, I’m finding it hard to believe that she could be capable of any actual violence.

‘But what made you angry enough that day to get the knife out in the first place?’

Lisa’s bottom lip trembles. ‘Michael was winding me up, making fun of me, making fun of the fact that I …’ she places a hand over her mouth to try to stifle her sobs.

‘What?’ I demand. ‘That you what?’

‘That I was in love,’ she blurts out finally. ‘Desperately in love.’

‘With … Michael?’

She shakes her head vehemently and I make the connection. In those eight simple words the truth begins unfolding itself to me like an origami swan. Lisa wasn’t jealous of Michael; she was jealous of his relationship.

‘Diving Fish,’ I whisper. ‘You were in love with Diving Fish.’

Lisa rests her head in her hands and wails. ‘Diving Fish’ – she spits the name – ‘took everything, absolutely everything – and then threw me away like a piece of rubbish!’

‘Because of Michael?’

‘Michael!’ She snorts. ‘He was just one more toy!’

Suddenly I feel very cold. I lean in closer. ‘Who was Diving Fish?’

She looks up at me with wide, wild eyes and chews on her fingernail so fiercely that it tears away, then whispers, ‘I promised I’d never tell.’

Her voice has that faraway tone that reminds me of a time when as a trainee nurse I had been working an overnight shift in A&E. A woman in her early twenties had been brought in accompanied by two policewomen. One eye was bruised, her nose bloodied. As I helped her out of her clothes and into a hospital gown, I noticed clearly delineated finger marks around her neck. ‘Fell over,’ she had muttered numbly as I applied a butterfly closure across a gash on her forehead. That was all she would say until the police had no other choice but to let her go home.

‘Lisa, were you hurt?’ I ask, gently.

She leans her head back on her chair and stares up at the ceiling. I can hear her laboured breathing, see her chest rising in tiny intermittent jumps. ‘More than that,’ she says. ‘I was destroyed.’

It takes a few minutes before Lisa can compose herself so that we can continue our conversation.

‘I was going through some pretty awful stuff at the time.’ Now that she’s calmed down a bit, she can’t seem to stop talking. ‘My parents were divorcing. I got into a bit of trouble.’ She tilts her chin forward so that her hair forms a soft curtain in front of her face. ‘Michael wasn’t the one using performance-enhancing drugs; I was.’

Conscious of her reluctance to divulge any details I decide to tread carefully. ‘And this Diving Fish person found out? Used it against you?’

There is a slow, steady nod. I think of my fourteen-year-old son vulnerable, needy, away from home for the first time, trying to integrate into a new routine, make new friends; estranged from his natural father, furious with his stepfather, and unwilling or unable to seek support and solace from the most important person in his life: me.

‘I tried to speak to someone about it,’ she continues, ‘but …’

‘They didn’t believe you?’

‘I wished I’d never opened my mouth.’

‘How could they not believe you?’ I’m still desperately struggling to take it all in.

‘They said I was treading on very dangerous ground.’

‘What?’

‘Said making false accusations could get me in big trouble.’

I feel that familiar, painful sting of injustice. Even though I’d been determined to break the girl, I’m becoming aware that the truth surrounding Michael’s death is much more sinister than I could ever have imagined. Attacking her won’t help. ‘I want to help you, Lisa.’ I reach out for her hand, but she pulls away.

‘It’s too late.’ Her voice is lifeless, flat.

‘It’s never too late,’ I reply, and believe it.

She looks up at me and gives a slow, sad smile.

‘He was a lot like you, you know.’

‘Pardon?’

‘Michael. Willing to put himself out to help others.’ She stares into the distance. ‘Do you know he used to stay after evening training sessions to help the junior swimmers?’ She shakes her head in a mixture of exasperation and wonder. ‘He could have been back in the house watching telly, or at the gym doing strength training, but instead he would stay late to help the year seven scrotes perfect their front crawl.’

I find myself smiling. ‘He was always doing things like that.’

‘Do you know, Mrs Hardy, even though we didn’t always get along – well, I really admired him.’

Something about the way she says the words suggests deeper feelings. For someone who supposedly hated Michael, she certainly had a lot to say about him.

I force my thoughts away from my dead son. For the moment there’s something more important that needs my attention. ‘Why don’t you come with me to the police station right now?’

Lisa stares at me, incredulous. ‘You think I haven’t tried that? The first time I tried to get help it was just after I got married.’ She absent-mindedly twirls her wedding ring around her finger. ‘Joe and I were already thinking about having kids … and I wanted to make sure I’d be a good mum. To be free of the past.’

‘Is Joe your husband?’

‘Was.’

‘Oh, I’m sorry.’

‘Don’t be.’ Again, that sad, resigned voice. ‘The truth is we got married way too fast and way too young. I’d just turned nineteen, not long left school. I guess it was a bit of an escape route for me, after everything that happened.’ I’m not sure if she’s referring to Diving Fish abandoning her or Michael’s death. ‘And anyway,’ she gives a little shrug, ‘he’d been messing around the entire time. While we were dating, afterwards. I wouldn’t have been surprised if he had screwed the maid of honour on our wedding night, except of course that she