Chapter 24
“No,” said Jeremy immediately. “No, you see that’s impossible because this here is Kay.” He flicked through his phone until he came to a photo, which he showed to Sondra.
“That,” said Sondra, “is quite clearly a model.”
“Just what I thought,” said Dan quietly.
Jeremy’s panic-stricken eyes darted between the two of them. “No, no, this can’t be. You’re telling lies both of you! This is Kay. It’s Kay I tell you!” He looked close to hysteria and Dan had to seize him by the shoulders to calm him down. “It’s okay, Jerry, deep breaths, come on now. Let’s just listen to the story. This could be good news. It sounds like Kay’s not dead after all.”
Jeremy turned on Sondra. “How can you possibly know all this? How do you know what Kay looks like?”
“Because I work at St Luke’s, and Kay is my colleague there. You must have come in on a day when I was off work for some reason, luckily for her. Otherwise she’d never have got away with this deception.”
“I don’t get it,” said Dan. “Why would she pretend to be someone called Elaine and tell Jerry that Kay is dead?”
“I imagine she panicked when she saw Jeremy coming into the library and quickly concocted a story about Kay dying. When she told me she’d ghosted you, Jeremy, I strongly advised her to write to you to give you some peace of mind. Funnily enough, that conversation took place on a bus we caught from the bus-stop right outside this pub. A few days after that, she told me she’d written to you, but she must have been lying, as she lied about a lot of things.” Sondra put her hand on Jeremy’s arm. “I’m so sorry for the way she treated you. I almost feel ashamed to call her my friend.”
Jeremy’s head hung low over his drink, so much so that his fringe looked in danger of catching some froth. When he finally raised his head, a dreamy, possibly insane light was dancing in his eyes. “I can’t believe the woman I had coffee with that day was actually Kay. So we met then. We met in real life, and I never knew it was her! She was so convincing. I totally believed her when she said Kay was dead.” His face took on a forlorn yet stoical quality, like the weathered statue of an old soldier. He asked Sondra: “Did she ever tell you why she ghosted me?”
Sondra nodded. “She did, but I don’t think I should say.”
“After what she did, I don’t think Kay deserves any discretion from you,” said Dan .
“You’re right, she doesn’t,” said Sondra. “But that’s not why I think I should keep quiet about this. Trust me, it’s better you don’t know.”
“I don’t think I can be hurt any more than I already have been,” said Jeremy. “If she thought I was ugly or stupid or mad, I’d want to know. It’s better than the torture of not knowing. It would give me what you spoke about earlier – peace of mind.”
“She didn’t think you were any of those things,” said Sondra, a tenderness entering her voice. “In fact, she said you were one of the nicest, kindest human beings she’d ever come across. And very handsome, too.”
Jeremy looked up at her, his eyes glittering with emotion. “She really said that? So then why ghost me? I don’t understand.”
Dan, too, was staring at Sondra, his interest now seriously piqued.
Sondra drew a deep breath. “Okay, I’ll tell you, but please remember, I warned you that I didn’t think this was a good idea.”
Jeremy nodded. “I’m ready. Go ahead.”
“You sent her photo, which also included Dan.”
“That’s right,” said Jeremy. “It was of the two of us standing next to each other outside my café. What about it?”
“The moment she saw Dan, she realised that she fancied him more than you.”
“What?” This came from both brothers in unison .
“She started asking you questions about Dan, didn’t she? And the more you described him the more he seemed like her dream guy. That was when she realised she couldn’t continue with the relationship, because it would cause all sorts of awkwardnesses in the future. So she ghosted you, Jeremy, not because of anything you said or did. She really liked you, it’s just that she liked Dan more.”
A horrid feeling had crept into Dan’s stomach as she was talking, and he suddenly felt very scared, as if he’d woken up on some narrow, high-up place. All his muscles had become stretched and taut and his body was trembling with the tension of trying to stay balanced and not fall, because if he were to fall from this height, his whole body and mind would crack like an egg on a concrete floor.
Very carefully, as if even moving his mouth might upset the fragile equilibrium, he phrased a question. “So did Kay by any chance say what she was going to do about this situation? Did she suggest to you that she might pursue me instead of Jeremy?”
“No.” Sondra shook her head vehemently. “Not even Kay would do something that immoral. She told me you were in a happy, long-term relationship, so what would have been the point?”
“And you had that conversation with her when exactly?”
“About a month ago. We were on the bus, as I said.”
“Do you have an exact date?”
Sondra frowned, thinking. “Well, she’d just taken some photos of a car park…”
“I knew all about the car park photos,” said Jeremy glumly.
“She probably uploaded them to her Flickr that night…” Sondra took out her phone. She opened an app and typed in some words. “Oh, it looks like she’s not posting on this Flickr account any more – not surprising, I suppose, if she wanted you to think she was dead. These were the last pictures she put on here. It was on Sunday 1 October.”
“The day I officially broke up with Lorna,” said Dan.
“You broke up with her?” gasped Sondra.
He nodded bleakly.
“Still, Kay couldn’t possibly find out about that,” said Sondra. “I think you’re safe from her, Dan.”
“I’m not so sure.” He turned to his brother. “When you met up with Kay, posing as Elaine, did you tell her I’d broken up with Lorna?”
Jeremy emerged from his world of sad reveries, and paled slightly. “Yes. Yes, I think I did. She’d just told me about Kay dying, and I said something about it already being a terrible week, what with you and Lorna breaking up.”
“Oh God,” said Dan, suddenly overcome with nausea. He lurched to his feet and staggered to the Gents, getting there just in time to crouch over a lavatory bowl and throw up. He remained there in a crouch, groaning and spitting the foul, acidic remains of his lunch – the lunch he’d had with Elaine –or, as he should now think of her, Kay. She’d deceived both him and Jeremy, and if a string of fortunate coincidences hadn’t brought Sondra to their table tonight, that deception might have continued for who knew how long – maybe forever.
As soon as she’d heard he was single, Kay had targeted him like some sort of predator, booking the driving lesson, offering the bakery lesson. She spun lies like spider silk, about the job in the pub and her ambition to be an actress. And she lied about not having known Jeremy, about getting his name from Jenny. She’d known him alright. She’d bloody well dated him for weeks, allowed him to fall in love with her before dumping him like a piece of human garbage – she didn’t just dump him, she ghosted him, the most disrespectful, humiliating, cowardly way of treating anyone, let alone someone you purported to care about. As all this flashed through his mind, he realised he loathed and detested her. He would have liked to consign her to the same circle of Hell as Uncle Nigel, until his innate sense of fairness rebelled – she hadn’t actually physically tortured Jerry, though the mental scars she’d left on him might never heal. Maybe one circle of Hell out from Nigel’s would be a suitable eternal abode for her wretched soul .
“You okay, DeeDee?” He felt Jeremy’s hand on his shoulder.
“Yeah,” he groaned, getting to his feet. He went to one of the sinks and drank some water from his cupped hand, washing away the bad taste.
“We worked it out after you ran off to the toilet,” said Jeremy. “Kay’s been posing as your Elaine, hasn’t she? I knew it had to be the same person when I saw her this afternoon. She persuaded us it was that double she’d been at school with, but it was just another of her lies.”
“She’s pretty good at them, I’ll give her that,” said Dan, scowling into the mirror.
“Yeah, but for how long did she plan to keep it up? I mean, sooner or later you’d have found out she worked at a library and her name was Kay.”
“I’ve no idea what was in her head,” Dan shouted over the roar of the hand dryer. “And I never will, because I don’t plan on ever seeing her again.”
“You probably won’t, even if you wanted to,” said Jeremy. “My guess is she’s decided to ghost you like she did me. That’s why she hasn’t shown up tonight.”
Dan felt another upsurge of acid in his throat. He pictured Kay as a parasitic ghost, greedily devouring broken hearts. All she’d needed was to hear him say the words I love you and then observe his reaction as she failed to respond. Sated on his misery, she could withdraw to whatever foul, otherworldly swamp she came from. And when she grew hungry again, she’d tempt some other poor sap into saying the same fateful phrase.