Chapter 35
35
ONE DAY BEFORE HE LEFT ME
It’s taken me just over an hour to get to Chepstow. My mind is whirring with all of the information I’ve uncovered, all of the deceit. I’ve replayed times where Kit has been more subdued than normal, all of the days when he would be fizzing with energy after a meeting. I’m so angry, with him, with myself. The sky is overcast. The storm hasn’t hit here yet but the sky spits at me as I make my way across the car park.
How long has he been gambling? How much does he owe? How much does he lose today?
I approach the barrier, pay for entry and begin searching for Kit. There is the smell of grass, of perfume, of fried food. There are hundreds of people here, the stand wrapping its way around the oval of the course.
A race begins, the horses’ hooves thundering as I wander through the crowds, all cheers and whoops, smiles and arms thrown over heads urging the animals and jockeys on, the voice of the commentator on the Tannoy echoing around the white tiered stands. The adrenaline is pulsing through the atmosphere. I know this is the type of place that Kit would love. He would be pulled along for the ride, shouting, cheering, forever optimistic.
I move from stand to stand, examining each face as they all eject from their seats as the winner clears the line.
Climbing up and down the steps, I scan along the rows as people begin filing out. It must be the last race of the day. I’m pushing against the tide as they head towards exits.
I make my way further down, closer to the track.
Then I see him. In the middle of a now-empty row.
He’s wearing his olive-green suit, jacket folded beside him, white shirt open at the collar. His head has dropped to his chest, an unlit cigarette in his hand.
‘Kit?’ I say gently. He turns to my voice. The action is slow, like he’s stoned: bloodshot eyes unfocused, hair curling around his collar. I expect him to be shocked, for his body to stiffen, but he just gives me a weak smile.
‘Hey,’ he says. I’ve never seen him look so broken. He doesn’t ask me what I’m doing here. It’s as if he was expecting me. In his other hand, a matchbook with the logo on. Now I know where I’ve seen it before. It was in his suit jacket; it had fallen to the floor. I’d been crying, remembering how he would occasionally have a sneaky cigarette: there are times when you just need one perfect smoke to end a perfect day. I’d been so wrapped up in that memory, of him, that I hadn’t paid the slightest bit of attention to the logo on the front. He’s opening and closing it, opening and closing: three matches missing. Three knocks on the door before he leaves, three kisses at the edge of his note. I sit down next to him.
‘I’ve fucked up, Liv.’ His eyes meet mine briefly before he looks away. Everything he hasn’t told me – the lies, the shame, the defeat – seems to draw grooves into his skin. Bags under his eyes seem to fill. The laughter lines around his eyes are cut deep. The light behind his eyes that has always been there is dimmed, dipped, faded .
It hits me then. The Kit I thought I knew wasn’t real. This is the real Kit.
‘I know.’
His head sinks into his chest. ‘Can you… take me home?’ he asks, tear-filled eyes pleading with me.
‘Of course,’ I say gently, as if he’s a child. He nods, and as he stands it’s as if part of him has already disappeared. How did he hide this from me? He wasn’t like this that night. He was laughing, joking, talking about the fucking clown and mini golf.
Kit doesn’t speak as we walk across the car park, the sounds of the stands fading, swallowed by the heavy silence between us.
The rain is falling in earnest, now – wipers sweeping across the windscreen. Kit has closed his eyes; his head is turned away from me. The words he needs to speak fill up the car, like the mist on the windows. I turn up the fan, waiting for him.
‘Do you want to talk?’ I begin. The indicator judders into the silence. He shakes his head, this broken man beside me. And for the first time, I see a man who is desperate enough to fake his own death.
When we reach home, Kit still doesn’t move. He’s staring blankly out into the darkening sky, street lights glowing amber in the twilight. The engine clicks: metal contracting, heat evaporating. There is steam rising from the bonnet.
‘Kit?’ He turns to me with a look of confusion, as if he doesn’t know where he is or why I’m here. ‘We need to go inside,’ I say. The words seem to reach him. ‘And then you need to tell me – you need to tell me everything.’ He nods, unbuckles his seat belt and climbs out of the car.
I guide him to the door, sliding the key into the latch. The wind is cold at the nape of my neck, rain coming down in gusty breaths, pulled back then exhaled against my skin.
The door closes behind me and follow him up the stairs: heavy feet, defeated shoulders. He walks into the kitchen, glances at the note on the table, the remains of the breakfast he’d laid out. Kit picks up the paper and rips it into pieces, stacks the parts on the centre of the table before opening the cupboard, twisting off the lid of a bottle of vodka and drinking it neat before pouring three inches into a tumbler. He doesn’t look at me as I take off my coat and hang it on the back of the chair.
I follow him into the lounge, his eyes glancing at the newspapers on the desk. He stares at the pages. Sharp bursts of pain cross his face, like the red dots are being tattooed into his skin.
We sit opposite each other on the sofa, legs folded like the morning I came back here, the morning I came back to find the answers that were here all along. Everything I have discovered this week was already there for me to see, if I’d just read the signs more clearly: the interest in sports, the low moods when a team played badly, the relentless optimism, the times he would take himself into his office for hours on end to work, Rebecca at the funeral, the knock at the door from a stranger, the matches, the receipts, the necklace, wish me luck: it was all here, all hidden in plain sight.
‘I first put a bet on the year I broke my leg,’ he begins, swirling the clear liquid in his glass. ‘It was a free bet of a fiver. I was bored, fed up of being stuck inside. It was hard for me, not being able to get around, to not have the freedom to run, to do anything but sit there.’
Kit had broken his leg in two places after he had been knocked off his bike, before his first year of uni. He’d already been signed up semi-professionally when he was seventeen, had been talent-scouted while he was in sixth form. He had a good future ahead of him.
James would often talk about the weekends he was left in peace as Lynn and Alan went to watch Kit play, how their Sunday hikes with their dad trailed off because they would go to watch him train. James said it gave him space to breathe.
‘You have no idea how hard that was for me. Everything I thought about my future was lost, taken away from me in one afternoon. I lost the highs I would get when I played well, when I knew I was the best player on the pitch.’ My whole body feels like its vibrating as he talks, like I’ve had too much caffeine. He glances up at me. There is darkness behind his eyes, a crack, an emptiness that widens as the words fall from his mouth.
‘I missed it so much.’ His fingers flick against the edge of the glass in beats of three. ‘The rush, the purpose, winning, knowing that I was getting better in every game I played, hearing the crowd cheering, the pride on my parents’ faces.’ His eyes glint at that, that fire that I know so well.
‘I started playing online a lot, after they dropped me from the team. My injury took me from being the best to barely being able to run up and down the pitch. I couldn’t climb, couldn’t walk. When I wasn’t playing video games, I watched football and I tried to predict the outcome, see the flaws and the strengths of each player. I would take notes. I thought if I can’t play, then maybe I could be a coach, you know?’ But he’s not asking me; it’s as if I’m not even here. ‘But when I started my degree, it wasn’t like that. It was all biology and healthy eating and science. It bored me. It was too easy; it wasn’t a challenge.
‘Then I got talking to this lad about computer programming in the student bar. He told me about the money he was already making on the side, you know, setting up websites and stuff? I thought to myself’ – a smile; a sparkle – ‘I could do that. I was good at maths, I was good at computers, so I changed courses in my second year. My leg was almost fully recovered. I could play football again, but not to the standard I used to.’ Kit hadn’t talked to me about that time in his life much. All I know is that it took months to recover, that he deferred uni for a year, and that he changed course to computer programming. He’s never talked about his time confined to bed. James had said it was tough on him, but listening to Kit now, it’s clear that it wasn’t just a small setback; it moulded him into this person, this person who gambles, who pretends he’s dead.
‘I was watching the football, and an ad came on for a free bet if I signed up. And I thought, why not? What have I got to lose?’ He takes a deep sip of the vodka, his lip curling at the bitterness.
‘I won.’ He stares back into the glass. ‘It was such a rush, that feeling of freedom, of taking a risk, winning. So I placed another bet, a different site, another free bet, and I won again. It was so fucking easy. I started climbing again, got the job at Waterways to explain my extra income, then I met you and then I was chasing a whole other type of high.’
He smiles at me, but my facial muscles remain impassive even though the thoughts are screaming inside my head. How did I miss it? How did James?
‘Does James know?’
He shakes his head. ‘God no. I mean, we went to a few casinos when we were on holiday with the lads; I wasn’t in too deep back then. It was just fun.’
‘Why didn’t you ever tell me?’ I ask him.
He reaches for my hand, but he stops, clasps his fingers around the glass. ‘I honestly don’t know. I think there was part of me that knew, that knew I was going to go down this road.’
‘When did it get worse? ’
‘I don’t know. It just became a habit. Saturday afternoon, I’d place a bet. Then it was Saturday and Sunday.’
For years this had been happening right under my nose.
‘I started paying more attention to the news, to the games. Football and boxing at first, the sports I knew more about, then tennis in the summer. I watched how the players performed on different courts – grass, clay… the fitness of the players, the up-and-comers.’
‘How much were you betting by then?’
‘A tenner, twenty, thirty, and if I was really sure, fifty… Just at the weekend. It was like a treat, you know? Like a film and a bottle of wine on a Friday night.’
I don’t move. Because I don’t know. I have no idea.
‘When did it start to get out of control?’
He chews the inside of his mouth. ‘You remember the Ridley account?’
I think back to a moment two years ago: Kit coming home with a bottle of champagne, the big account he had landed that would set him up, allow him to expand. I nod. ‘That was my biggest win up until that point.’
‘So what are you saying? There was no Ridley account?’
‘Oh, there was, but I used the money on a dead cert. Quadrupled the bet.’
He smiles, proud of his achievement. I feel like I’m going to throw up.
‘I did well that year, started earning a nice income. I mean, I lost some but I was winning, making easy money. Then I thought to myself, how about the races? I could apply the same kind of research, looking at new trainers, jockeys, the tracks, the horses. I was still in control back then. I had a hard line; I was still only betting at the weekends. But I started losing more than I was winning. I started opening up more gambling accounts under different names, and betting on weekdays, using the fixed-odds betting terminals in the bookies. I started haemorrhaging money.’
‘Why didn’t you tell me?’
‘I wanted to, but… I was too ashamed, too proud, I guess. It was like the words I needed to say were stuck in my throat and the more I did it, the more the lies just piled on top, pushing the words further and further inside my chest. I tried to stop. I did stop. For three whole months. I couldn’t risk losing everything I had built; I made the decision there and then. I wouldn’t use any money from the business. But then there would always be another game, another match, another free bet. You have to understand, I still had this hard line. I wasn’t putting my business at risk, but I started borrowing from elsewhere.’
‘Where?’
‘Cash loans that I put on pre-paid credit cards, and I started borrowing from a few other people I knew.’
‘Rebecca? And the guy at the door the other day: Kane?’
The air goes out of him. He deflates, shoulders sinking inwards, his spine compounded. ‘Yes but no, not originally. I borrowed money from a small-time lender at first: Julie Donohue. She had a good rep. I’d checked her out, no mention of thugs with baseball bats or that kind of thing.’ His half-smile twists. ‘But when I couldn’t pay her back, she sold my debt on.’
‘Kane,’ I say.
He flashes a look of surprise then nods. ‘That’s when the interest spiralled.’
‘He’s a loan shark?’
‘I thought I could get myself clear, borrow from Rebecca. I just had to win big. I told myself if I just had one more win, just a good streak, I would be in the clear. I had no other choice,’ he says. ‘I was desperate, Liv,’ he says, tears threatening .
‘But you lost?’
He nods. ‘I’ve lost everything. I didn’t mean to. I knew the track was wet; I knew the front three didn’t run so well on a wet course. I split the money, placed multiple bets, multiple races. I just needed one to win.’ His eyes light up as he talks, and I can see the gambler in him; it expands into the room, this sphere of hope, swelling around him, the optimism making it grow so large that I doubt he is aware of how small he is inside.
‘You have to understand, Liv, I had no choice.’ The sphere wavers, the walls thin, unable to keep its form. ‘It would have fixed everything, Liv. I’d be able to pay Rebecca, Kane…’
‘How much do you owe? Altogether?’ He hesitates, knocks back the drink in his glass. ‘Kit, how much?’
‘Seven-fifty.’ The sphere pops, all the light and air lost around him.
My mind corkscrews, I feel like laughing. This all sounds so ridiculous. It is all so ridiculous. ‘Seven hundred and fifty thousand ?’ He just looks at the empty tumbler, his eyes glassy. ‘You borrowed seven hundred and fifty thousand pounds, Kit?’
‘No. Yes. It’s complicated.’ He rotates his hands, an invisible cat’s cradle of deceit and lies.
‘So un-complicate it for me: how much do you owe Kane?’
‘Four hundred grand,’ he rushes on, ‘but it didn’t start off like that. I borrowed a few grand and then…’
‘Then you borrowed more.’
‘Most of it is interest. Every time I missed payment the interest went up. But I just need a couple of big wins, and I’ll be out.’
The present tense hits me, like a window has been blown open, freezing air making my skin pinch. ‘How much do you owe Rebecca?’
‘Twenty. And there are… others.’
‘So, this is why you do it?’ I sink back down onto the sofa .
He frowns, his head tilting. ‘Do what?’
‘I know what you’re about to do.’
‘I don’t know what you mean.’ He tops the glass back to his mouth, a trickle of vodka hitting his lips.
‘You’re going to fake your own death.’
‘What?’ he asks, eyebrows shooting up, ‘I’m not going to fake my own death, Liv. I’m going to make this right. I just need to?—’
‘Borrow more? Steal from me?’
‘I’ve never borrowed a thing from you, Liv, I swear.’
‘What about the necklace?’
His eyes widen. ‘I’ll get it back.’
‘You’re about to let me and your family believe you are dead, Kit. You let us grieve you…’
‘What are you talking about?’
I get up, and pace the room. ‘Do you have any idea what you are about to put us through? The damage you cause? You ruin our lives, Kit. Do you know that?’
‘Liv, I’m telling you the truth! I have no idea what you’re talking about!’
I’m processing all of this information. My life here is nothing like the life I thought I had. A thought stops me in my tracks. Something happened tonight that makes him disappear. Something that I can stop.
He must borrow from someone else. Someone who is much worse than Kane. I can fix this.
‘You’re going to borrow the money from someone else,’ I say. The words concrete. He nods.
‘I’m… I have to. There’s no other way.’
‘Who are you going to borrow it from, Kit?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Kit!’
‘I don’t know!’ he repeats. ‘Kane mentioned someone who I could borrow more from but I don’t know their name. I swear, Liv. I don’t. I just have to call him and he said he could put me in touch.’
He takes my hand in his. ‘I promise you, I’m not going to run away or fake my own death.’
‘Yes, Kit. Yes, you are. Call him now.’
‘Why?’
‘Because I need to know who is the last person you saw before you disappear. But first, I need to tell you about the next seven years.’ And I begin again, from the end.