The Memory: A Gripping Psychological Thriller With a Heart-Stopping Twist Read online

  The Memory

  A gripping psychological thriller with a heart-stopping twist

  Lucy Dawson

  Also by Lucy Dawson

  The Memory

  White Lies

  The Daughter

  Everything You Told Me

  His Other Lover

  You Sent Me A Letter

  What My Best Friend Did

  Little Sister

  The One That Got Away

  Contents

  1. Eve

  2. Claire

  3. Eve

  4. Claire

  5. Claire

  6. Eve

  7. Claire

  8. Eve

  9. Eve

  10. Claire

  11. Eve

  12. Claire

  13. Eve

  14. Claire

  15. Claire

  16. Claire

  17. Claire

  18. Eve

  19. Claire

  20. Eve

  21. Claire

  22. Eve

  23. Claire

  24. Claire

  Two Weeks Later

  25. Eve

  Nine Months Later

  26. Claire

  The Daughter

  Lucy’s Email Sign Up

  Also by Lucy Dawson

  A Letter from Lucy

  White Lies

  Thank You

  For Jenny Thompson.

  Loved and missed.

  One

  Eve

  He asked me out again as the class was about to start, while the kids were taking their shoes and socks off. The other mothers were watching us and I saw them whispering to each other as they made their way to the door of the sports hall, on their way to get hot chocolate from the vending machine by the changing rooms.

  ‘Just a Christmas drink.’ Paul deliberately placed his hands on his hips so that his judo jacket widened to reveal his smooth and over-muscled chest. I imagined him shaving it and felt sick.

  ‘Thank you, but I’m going to be busy.’

  ‘I haven’t even said when yet.’ He looked affronted.

  ‘I mean that Christmas is a really busy time for everyone, especially when there’s only one of you doing everything.’ I didn’t want to play the widow card, but I thought perhaps I could be excused on this occasion, given the circumstances.

  He frowned and scratched his head. ‘Yeah, it’s just I’ve asked you more than once now and you said no then too. A lot of women round here would be hellish pleased to go on a date with Paul Jones; you probably don’t know that yet.’

  I couldn’t help staring at him in disbelief. He’d really just referred to himself in the third person? ‘I didn’t know that – you’re right.’

  ‘No problem.’ He rolled up his sleeves and crossed his arms to show off his biceps. ‘Anywise,’ he continued, ‘I thought we could go down the pub on Christmas, Eve.’ He smiled widely, delighted at his own joke.

  ‘Very good, I see what you did there. My name is Eve and Christmas Eve.’ I forced a polite smile, and he chuckled, looking down at the floor modestly.

  ‘Well I’ve always been known for being funny-like too, Eve, you see? That and being international and three times national mixed martial arts champion, obviously.’ His smile vanished. ‘Which is no joke.’

  ‘Obviously. Well, it’s very kind of you to ask, but I’m still going to decline, thanks anyway.’

  He frowned. ‘Ah c’mon, Eve. I’m getting sick of asking, and you’ve got to get out there again while you’re still young enough.’

  ‘I’m only twenty-eight.’

  ‘But you’ve got to have your own life. He’s not coming back, is he?’

  My own smile vanished completely.

  ‘I know that might sound harsh,’ he continued, ‘saying it like it is about your dead fella, but I’m straight up and down. That’s good though, see?’ He pointed right at me. ‘I won’t mess you around, like. You’ll know where you are, and that’s a promise. Sometimes you need someone to tell it as it is.’

  I cleared my throat. ‘Can I be “straight up” with you, too, then? It was only the six-month anniversary of my husband’s death yesterday, but even if it had been six years, or sixteen years,’ my voice started to strengthen as I spoke and carried across the sports hall, ‘I still wouldn’t want to go out with you. I don’t fancy you. Sorry.’

  One of the mothers who had hung around to earwig stared at me in disbelief, as the other – with wide delighted eyes – gleefully grabbed her friend and burst out of the door to gossip.

  Jones watched them leave, looked down at the floor again, and snorted. ‘All right. There’s no need to be like that. It’s just a drink, dahhhhling.’ He mimicked my English accent. ‘A word of advice, Eve. People round here don’t like airs and graces. You’re no better than anyone else, you know?’

  ‘I never said I was.’

  ‘You’re acting like it. You’re behaving like someone who thinks she’s much smarter than the person she’s talking to, and that’s not nice, Eve. There’s folks round here that don’t like English people looking down on them, moving in and taking their homes. It could get dangerous for a girl like you on your own. Did you ever think of that?’

  My heart thumped. ‘You can’t possibly be comparing the local people – who have been nothing but kind to me since we moved here – with the Meibion Glyndwr protesters who burn down English holiday homes? Plus, you do realise that technically this town is English?’

  ‘We’re right on the border, love. I consider myself Welsh and I’m proud of it.’

  ‘You should be – Wales is lovely. But I’m confused – who are you saying is threatening me then, because it seems to just be… you?’

  ‘You’re obviously taking it that way, which is weird. I’m saying I could look out for you, if you wanted. People respect me.’ He shrugged.

  I glanced across at my seven-year-old daughter who was watching us, waiting with the other kids to start, apparently listening to every word we were saying. ‘Again, thank you for the invitation, but I just don’t want to go out with you, Mr Jones, even if that does make me an unusual woman, or will mean that I won’t have your protection.’ I spoke clearly and confidently for Isobel’s benefit. ‘People should never be forced into something they don’t want to do.’

  He took a disgusted step back. ‘Man alive, what are you on about now?’ He gave me a confused look then an amused leer spread across his face. ‘Oh I get it – you’re one of them as well, aren’t you? Keep your knickers on, you daft cow. Look, just forget it. You’re not all that, anyway, just so you know. I was only trying to be nice cos you’re on your own, like, but I’m not that bothered.

  ‘Come on you lot!’ He spun around on the spot and clapped his hands at his students. ‘Line up to start, please! Dyke.’ He casually threw the last insult at me over his shoulder as he walked away.

  My mouth was still open as Isobel stood there uncertainly. I should have just taken her home then and there, but the ridiculous truth is, I didn’t want to make a scene. I didn’t want to make my little girl feel uncomfortable. The whole point of bringing her to the classes in the first place was to improve her self-confidence, help her make friends outside of school and give our Saturday mornings a focus that wasn’t the gaping, lonely and unbearable absence of Michael.

  ‘Go on, sweet,’ I mouthed and smiled encouragingly for her to join the others, to show her I was fine. She turned and did as she was told. I went and sat down on the wooden bench by the door, smiling brightly like I wasn’t ‘bothe
red’ either, even though, ridiculously, I wanted to cry. It shouldn’t have mattered what some idiot meathead said to me, but I suddenly missed Michael with such acute longing it made me gasp and I had to cover my mouth with my hands – making it look like I was coughing – to cover the sound.

  I cleared my throat, determined to stay strong and not let Isobel see I was upset – or give Jones the satisfaction of realising he’d got to me. This would be Isobel’s last class. I’d tell him at the end we wouldn’t be coming back in the New Year. I’d just thought he fancied himself and expected everyone else to. I’d had no idea quite how unpleasant he really was. I wasn’t having a man like him teach Isobel.

  As the lesson progressed, however, it became apparent that for all his insistence otherwise, Jones was pretty bothered by what had happened as well. He was much shorter than usual with the children, barking instructions at them, crossly insisting they weren’t doing the exercises and drills properly. There were only four of them in any case – perhaps that was why he was annoyed, too.

  Towards the middle of the session, one of his teenage helpers from the adult class arrived to assist with some pad work. I had retrieved a book from my bag that I was pretending to read, but was glancing up regularly, anxiously waiting for Isobel’s turn to work one-on-one with Jones. I caught my breath as he got to her and she began kicking the pad he was holding, I could see him urging her to go harder. He wasn’t going to take out what had happened on her, was he? I watched as he leant forward and said something I was too far away to hear. Isobel stopped completely and stared up at him, bewildered. Shit – he was. I tensed and put my book in my lap. What was going on?

  ‘I don’t want to,’ Isobel said clearly, and I stood up.

  She didn’t want to what?

  But Jones just laughed, reached out and ruffled her hair. I was about to walk over when he beckoned the next child forward. Whatever had just happened during their exchange, it seemed the moment had already passed. I sank back down again slowly.

  ‘Dewi!’ Jones called over his shoulder, to his young assistant. ‘Come here a moment.’ I watched the boy run across obediently and Jones whispered something in his ear. Dewi nodded, hurried back to Jones’s pile of belongings, picked something up and sprinted to the emergency exit that led to the car park.

  Satisfied that everything seemed to have settled down, I returned back to my book. I was actually pretty thirsty but didn’t fancy running the gauntlet of the two other mothers in the foyer. I couldn’t face the nosy questions but also didn’t want to make things worse. Least said soonest mended, as my grandmother used to say. Instead I tried to concentrate on reading.

  So I didn’t actually see Dewi Roberts come back into the hall carrying the gun.

  He’d left the emergency exit slightly ajar enabling him to just slip back in again. The children were doing shuttle runs by this point, up and down the hall. Jones had been shouting at them to go faster, but he suddenly yelled ‘COME ON!’ ferociously, and, alarmed, I looked up properly, to see he was holding a machine gun.

  I’m almost certain that’s when I stood up again, in shock. The four children had stopped running and were staring at him, too.

  ‘Isobel says she “doesn’t want to” do pad work,’ he put on a mock whingey voice, ‘and none of you lot is even trying. This time – let’s see you RUN!’ He shoved the gun at his shoulder. One of the boys, Izzie’s little friend Adam Owen, laughed nervously thinking he was joking.

  ‘I said RUN!’ He looked down the sight and took aim right at them. Their expressions changed; they turned on their heels and fled – as he pulled the trigger.

  The ‘pffft’ of the big, black gun firing, sounded exactly like a machine gun in a movie, only echoing eerily around the sports hall we’d spent the last six consecutive Saturday mornings in. As the first burst stopped, I could hear the children’s panicked bare feet on the badminton court floor, like fluttering birds, as they approached the barrier, turned and desperately ran back towards us, obediently continuing their shuttles as they’d been told. I looked wildly right at my daughter – and I remember this bit very clearly – she was already sobbing with terror.

  ‘Pfffffffttttt!’ The gun began again and someone screamed. It might have been me. I couldn’t be certain though. I started to run towards her, but my shoe caught on the strap of my bag lying at my feet. I stumbled, crashed to the floor and looked up to see one of the three small boys scrabbling through a break in the plywood barrier sectioning off our area from the other badminton courts behind. There was enough of a gap, running underneath, to reveal his bottom. He’d sat down and was cowering to take shelter. Jones laughed – laughed – and pointed the gun right at him. I heard another cry but twisted back to Isobel. She was about to pass in front of us, less than twenty feet away. The gun stopped again and so did she. Adam, still running, accidentally thudded into her, knocking her off balance. I heard the squeak of the skin on her toes against the shiny wooden floor and the slap of her other foot go down as she tried to steady herself, but instead fell to her knees.

  ‘Get up!’ Jones shouted. And he took aim right at her.

  I was almost standing again but I couldn’t get there fast enough. Nothing went in slow motion. It was horrifyingly quick. Adam had frozen and was staring down at Isobel in fright.

  ‘Pffffffttt’ went the gun again, as the last remaining boy deliberately dived in front of my daughter to shield her. They huddled together on the floor, alongside each other, hands about their heads, the boy’s small arm protectively around my little girl’s back. I heard them yelping as the shots made contact with their bodies.

  Then silence. Everything stopped. The whole episode had lasted less than ten seconds.

  My breath was rasping and my body started to judder as I rushed over to them, trying to make sense of what I was looking at, what I’d just seen. He’d shot them? Actually shot them? Isobel wasn’t moving. My daughter was not moving.

  Jones turned to me and pointed behind me, at the floor. ‘You’ve dropped your book.’ I stared at him, horrified, still unable to process what he’d just done.

  He scowled with annoyance. ‘Calm down. It’s not real. They’re just pellets, not bullets. Even the kids know that.’ He turned abruptly, walked back over to the pile of pads next to his bag, and carefully propped up the gun. I looked back at the children who were slowly, miraculously, unfolding like flowers. They were white, shaking, and all three of them, without exception, were crying. It had felt just as real to me, too.

  ‘Get out from behind that fence,’ Jones shouted at the boy still sat out of sight, who re-emerged, weeping.

  ‘On your feet for bows – all of you.’

  The children scrambled into a line. It was as if they’d been caught in a hailstorm – hundreds of tiny white balls rolled around at their feet.

  The children bowed at Jones. ‘Sensei.’ They managed, just about audibly and Jones nodded, apparently satisfied.

  ‘See? You can do it properly. Do it first go next time, all right? I’ll see you all after Christmas. Remind your mams and dads to bring the money to the first class back, please.’

  Dismissed, Isobel ran and flattened herself onto me, wrapping her arms round my legs so tightly I almost wobbled over as she buried her face in my jeans, just as the sports hall door opened and the two oblivious mothers walked back in laughing and chatting, holding their purses, and chocolate bars for their children.

  I bent down to whisper to Isobel: ‘Where’s your coat?’ – even looking around for it before I realised it didn’t matter. We needed to get out. Paul Jones had gone mad. He had a gun. He said it wasn’t real, but what if that was a lie and he had real bullets in a bag back there? Should I shout? Should I tell the other parents who hadn’t seen what had just happened to get the children out now! The father of the boy who had jumped in front of Isobel arrived; Adam’s mother and the other woman were frowning down at their sons, beginning to notice they’d been crying – all of the children were accounted
for. I looked at the gun again and I began to shake. We had to leave. I had to get Isobel out immediately.

  I reached into my pocket for my keys as one of the little boys ran up to Jones, holding a Christmas gift that his dad had unwittingly given him to hand over to the teacher who had just shot him. I watched Jones take the wine as the boy turned and dashed away, before Jones looked up and right across at me, clutching the bottle tightly round the neck. I pulled Isobel from my legs and almost dragged her in my haste towards the emergency exit doors at the back of the gym. My ankle throbbed as I pushed down on the cold, metal bar to release us. Isobel shivered involuntarily in her judo kit and stopped on the threshold.

  ‘I’ve got no shoes, Mummy.’

  We’d left them behind.

  ‘Should I just walk anyway?’ She looked up at me, red eyes still wide with fear.

  ‘Quick! Jump up into my arms.’ I reached out and braced for her whole weight as she put her arms around my neck, leapt up and buried her face in my shoulder, clinging on like a baby monkey. I panted as I staggered towards the car, determined that my ankle would not give way. Forget my bag, her shoes – everything.

  ‘Here,’ I sat her on the bonnet as I fumbled with the keys, repeatedly glancing behind me in fear, half expecting Jones to come bursting out of the doors behind us waving the gun again. ‘Get in quickly.’ I bundled her into the back seat and roared out of the car park as fast as I could.