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

‘I’m so—’

‘Please don’t say you’re sorry.’

‘No, of course.’ I can feel the words slipping away. ‘I just want to help you,’ struggling to offer some form of reassurance, I find myself repeating my most hated phrase, ‘to move on in some way.’

‘I don’t have the luxury of moving on, Mrs Hardy. I’m living in a house I can’t afford – which is just about to be repossessed, by the way. I’m doing a shitty part-time teaching assistant’s job, and I’m surviving on a diet of anti-depressants and alcohol just to get to sleep every night.’

Ah, something in common.

‘Well, if not me, then what about friends? Are there others – people that were there – that you could talk to?’

‘There were a couple of friends in the house, but I don’t think they’d want anything to do with someone who was considered mentally unstable.’ She gives a long, jittery sigh. ‘Ever since I tried to come out about it, everything has gone wrong.’

I fight back the fury that threatens to overwhelm me, and instead I think of the eager and hopeful teenage Lisa opening herself up to such cruelty and exploitation.

‘So, you see,’ she says, ‘there’s nothing I can do. Nowhere I can go.’

I look at the Lisa in front of me now: broken, traumatised, with a failed marriage behind her, a life in ruins, and nowhere left to go.

The words come out before I can stop them. ‘You could come and stay with me for a while.’

‘What?’

‘At my mother’s house in Calstock. Until you get things sorted. The last thing I want is for you to be out on the street. I’ll even try to help you find a better paying job.’

‘Stop, Mrs Hardy – please stop!’ Lisa buries her face in her hands. ‘I can’t accept your help.’

‘Why not?’

‘I don’t deserve your help, or anyone else’s for that matter.’ Lisa picks at an imaginary scab on her elbow. ‘I saw them. Together. That afternoon. The day he died.’ Her long-held confession emerges in a series of short sharp sentences. A Morse code of admission. I am too stunned to reply. ‘They were on the green in front of the swimming centre,’ she continues. ‘Smiling, laughing. I was so angry I just ran away.’

‘And the police?’ I ask. ‘Afterwards did you tell the police?’

The look of shame on her face is so manifest that I find myself turning away.

‘Just because they were together that day, doesn’t mean she was with him the night he …’

‘The night he drowned.’

‘Yes.’

‘But you suspected?’

‘I saw her later.’

‘And?’

‘She looked like she was on her way to meet someone.’ Lisa lets out a tiny sob. ‘She was wearing lipstick. She always wore lipstick when we met.’

I scramble for my phone and show her the screenshot I took of Michael’s text to Diving Fish. Meet me by the water’s edge tonight. ‘They did meet that night, Lisa. The night Michael died, and yet you did nothing about it.’

Lisa’s expression deepens. ‘I did try to speak to the head teacher.’

This is becoming more and more unbearable. ‘And what did he say?’

Lisa’s voice has gone very low and there’s bitterness in every syllable. ‘He told me I was being ridiculous and to mind my own business.’

That’s it. I’ve had enough. ‘We need to go to the police, Lisa. Right now.’

‘I won’t go back there.’ The skin on Lisa’s elbow is now raw and bleeding. ‘Not after the way they treated me.’

‘But I’ll be there with you this time.’ I could report this to the police myself hoping that Lisa would be questioned, forced to cooperate. ‘I’ll make sure you get all the support you need. I’ll make sure they listen.’

Lisa’s eyes look hopeful before quickly fading back into despair. I’m losing her. I must think fast. ‘I know a lawyer in Truro – a friend of my sister’s. I could ring her and arrange for her to come with us.’

‘I don’t want anyone else involved,’ says Lisa. ‘And anyway, what good would that do?’

I take an antiseptic wipe from my bag and pass it to her, watching her gently dab it on her elbow. ‘She’ll make sure you’re taken seriously.’

Lisa’s face is a fortress. ‘I’m tired. I want to go home.’

‘I’ll drop you off if you like.’

‘No, Mrs Hardy. I have a car.’

‘But what about the police? The sooner we tell them everything, the sooner they can start to investigate?’

Lisa looks as if she’s about to burst into tears again, but instead takes a gulp of air and steadies herself. ‘You shouldn’t get involved in this, Mrs Hardy. You’ve suffered enough.’

Somewhere in the distance I hear a door slam and the sound of approaching footsteps.

‘That’s the head,’ says Lisa, clearly terrified. ‘You shouldn’t be here – she’ll hit the roof. I’ve already been late twice this month. I can’t get in trouble again.’

Using the bloody antiseptic wipe, she rubs the mascara from her cheeks, then, jumping up, returns to wiping down the whiteboard. I’m about to suggest going to the police again when we hear the door open.

‘Mrs Gannon?’

The head teacher, a tall willowy blonde in her late forties, is standing in the doorway eyeing both Lisa and me with suspicion.

‘Yes, Mrs Drake?’

‘You’re aware we don’t encourage parents in the school after four p.m. unless under special circumstances.’ She gives me a polite once-over. ‘And you are?’

‘Kate Hardy.’

She looks momentarily perplexed but, used to the ever-changing nature of the modern nuclear family, she smiles. ‘And your child is?’

‘Mrs Hardy isn’t a parent.’ Lisa puts down the whiteboard eraser and I can see that her fingertips are stained with red marker. ‘She’s the mother of one of my former classmates.’

Mrs Drake arches a perfectly threaded eyebrow.

‘My son, Michael, attended Edgecombe Hall School with Lisa.’ I’m eager to keep her from getting into any further trouble, at least until I can get some answers out of her. ‘He passed away a few years ago. The anniversary was only last week. I just came to see Lisa to ask her