Chapter Thirty Two
O n Saturday morning, Alli woke up and made herself some green tea. She then did a series of yoga stretches and attempted to meditate. She was not especially successful, but the meditation guide in her anger management program had told her that these things take time, so she didn’t force the issue.
One day, she might be able to clear her mind. But today was not that day. Even the greatest relaxers in the world couldn’t have cleared their minds after just two sessions, she told herself. She took a few deep, cleansing breaths though, and decided that she’d go out for a walk and get some exercise in.
Exercise was important. Not just to be healthy, but also to work off any aggression that she might be harboring. Being angry was normal. Showing anger wasn’t. It was alright for her to feel things, but she needed to control her impulses better. That was the theory.
She was walking back to her flat through the park when her phone rang.
It was silly, but every time it rang Alli thought it might be Bea. Every time she woke up, she thought Bea might be there beside her. Sometimes she turned around and almost caught sight of Bea out of the corner of her eye .
It was like being haunted by someone who wasn’t dead and she didn’t really understand it. She knew that she had feelings; she knew that those feelings probably went deeper than she thought. She didn’t know what she was supposed to do about them now that her calls weren’t being answered. There was every chance that she wasn’t going to see Bea again. She tried not to think about that.
“Hello.” She picked up her phone but kept walking. The sun felt nice on her skin.
“Alli?”
It took her a second to place the voice. “Charles?”
“Yeah, I’m sorry it took me a while to get back to you. I know you called me. But what with the kids and the investigation and everything, I’ve been up to my eyeballs in it. It’s not that I didn’t want to talk to you.”
Alli laughed. “Are you sure?”
“Are you laughing?” He sounded suspicious. “That doesn’t sound like the Alli I met.”
“Well, some things are a bit different now.” She took a deep breath of fresh air. “I’m, um, trying to be different. Be a bit healthier, less intense.” She had to have another deep breath. “And, um, working on the anger.” It still didn’t feel quite natural to say that out loud, but she was working on it.
“God, yes, it must be even worse for you. But I’m glad you’re getting the help you need. Was there something I could help you with?”
Alli’s first call had been long before all this. It felt like years ago, even if it had only been a couple of weeks. In fact, she could barely remember why she’d called Charles at all, unless it had been another escape attempt. “No, actually, I think I’m doing alright. It’s nice to hear from you, though. I had a coffee with Izzy the other day.” She should call Izzy, apologize, do better by her. She would, she decided.
Charles laughed. “Kind of like war veterans. You’ve been through something. Though I suppose we’ll be seeing more of each other at some point. ”
“We will?” asked Alli, confused.
“Obviously. With the investigation and all, you know.”
And things started to fit together a bit better. She remembered why she’d called Charles. He’d had a phone call and lost his temper about something, and she’d wanted to know what. And now, now, he was acting oddly too. He’d mentioned an investigation twice now. “Charles, what’s going on?”
“What do you mean?”
Okay, let’s start at the beginning, she thought. “You had a phone call at the program, and then you left. Can I ask you what that phone call was about?”
“The investigation, obviously,” Charles said. “Well, the beginnings of it, anyway. It wasn’t being investigated right then, but my lawyer got things rolling.”
Alli stopped in the middle of the footpath. “What investigation?”
There was a pause. “You mean you haven’t heard?”
“Heard what?” She was getting a little irritated, and she made herself breathe more evenly.
“It’s all a scam,” Charles said. “A kind of benefit fraud, I suppose. Or maybe just government aid fraud. There’s a lot of money in it, apparently.”
“In what?” Alli asked, afraid that she already knew but wanting to be sure.
“You might want to sit down,” Charles told her.
In the end, it all came out. Luke was a conman, a scam artist. The program was a slightly elaborate form of fraud. The government sponsored a certain amount of the money to run the program and then paid a certain amount per person who attended. Luke was pocketing that money, running up costs on credit cards and banking the actual cash.
“That’s not the worst of it,” Charles said.
“I don’t know, that’s pretty awful,” said Alli. She could feel herself getting angry. She’d done the stupid program, she’d lost her job because of the stupid program.
“The other participants? They were fakes,” Charles told her. “ Luke needed to pad the place out to claim the maximum amount of funding that he could. So he paid people to come and do the program.”
“They were lying? Izzy? Marcus? The rest?”
“Some of them. I don’t exactly know who,” Charles said. “Some of us were real. People like you and me, we happened to stumble on the place and enroll. But the rest, they were stooges.”
Alli sat back on the bench she’d found. It made sense, she could see it. Izzy, who never seemed like she could be angry at all. Julia, who’d never lost her temper. The fact that they were all together and yet no one ever got aggressive.
And Bea. Bea had thought there was something weird going on. She’d said as much and Alli had dismissed it.
“I’m sorry to be the bearer of bad news,” Charles said. “But you’d find out sooner or later. I mean, the police are involved now, so…”
“Jesus,” Alli said. “Thanks for telling me.”
When she’d hung up on Charles, she tried to digest the information. She was angry, but in control, a good sign. More than that, though, the only person she could think of was Bea. Bea was losing her job. Did she know already?
Alli looked down at her phone. Then, coming to a decision, she called the number. Her heart beat in her mouth as she waited.
But in the end, it was like every other call. Unanswered.
DARREN POURED HER a glass of wine. “I can’t believe it,” he said.
“Neither can I. What a nightmare for everyone involved. And Bea’s going to lose her job and I know she needs the money. I hope she’s not going to get into trouble.”
“She’s the one you’re worried about, isn’t she?” Darren asked.
“Of course.” Alli picked up the wineglass. “But I can’t get in touch with her.”
He cleared his throat. The restaurant was a small one, nice and quiet. “What happens if you never see her again?”
Alli took a shaky breath. “I… I have to accept that.”
He leaned closer. “What I’m worried about is that all of this, the therapy, the improving yourself, you’re doing it all to get Bea back. To prove yourself worthy.”
Alli took a sip of wine, rolled it around her mouth, seriously thought about her answer. Then she nodded. “Yes, you’re right, partly anyway. If I can in any way prove myself worthy of someone like Bea then I’m going to try. I… I miss her.” Talking about emotions wasn’t something she did easily. Wasn’t something she was used to doing.
“I know you do, Al.”
“But…” Another sip, another breath. “But this is bigger than that. I’m not doing all this for Bea. I’m doing it for me. I’m doing it to save myself, Darren. At the end of the day, if Bea never picks up a phone call, if I never see her again, I have to change things for myself.”
“That’s what I was hoping you’d say,” he said with a smile.
“Why?”
“Well, because all this, this lying and cheating and fraud, it changes things, doesn’t it?”
“Does it?” Alli asked, picking at her salad. “I mean, it changes things for the people who worked there. People like Bea and Josh.” She paused. “I suppose it explains a little better why Daria ran off with my money. She and Luke were in things together.”
“Someone ran off with your money?” Darren asked. Alli told him what had happened and he shook his head. “The lengths you go to to get what you want.”
“I’m lucky, though, aren’t I?” she said, spearing some cucumber. “I mean, in the end, it’s all worked out pretty well for me.”
“That’s sort of what I’m talking about, though,” Darren said. “The program was a sham, a fake, so you not graduating from it shouldn’t really be an issue. This is my fault. I enrolled you in it. You’re now in a decent program with a good reputation.”
“What are you saying? ”
“I’m saying that there’s a good argument for you getting your job back, if that’s what you want.”
The day was a quiet one. The sun was warm and the side street was almost empty. Alli could hear birds, could smell the heat on the pavement. And she could see that she was being offered her old life back.
It was a life that she’d loved. And maybe she could go back. Maybe she could change and still do her job. Maybe she could work fewer hours and be more in control.
There were a lot of maybes.
She could fight for this, make her voice heard, regain all that she’d lost. All except Bea.
Or she could go on the way she was, groping blindly toward something new, something she hadn’t identified yet, but something that could end up being better if she had enough faith and strength to get there.
She smiled at Darren and loaded her fork with salad. “No,” she said. “Thanks, but no.”