Now You See Me (26 page)

My mouth drops open despite myself. “You're French? But your English is so…”

“Good? Thanks. I grew up speaking it with my mother. I'm only half French – she was English – though I was raised in the South of France.”

I study him, not bothering to disguise it. Try to absorb the impact of this confession. I mean, I knew. As soon as I saw the missing birthmark, I knew. Maybe before that even, some part of me knew.

But at the same time I was still hoping I was wrong, that there was some explanation that would make everything okay.

Hearing him admit it hurts like a blow. It's so…so final.

“
Why?
” I stammer. I'm shaking now, fear getting the better of me.

Eric shrugs. “Why not? You all missed Danny. I missed having a family. It was right for everyone, I think.”

Even as he speaks, his voice is beginning to change, sounding different somehow, lower in tone. And with a trace of an accent I've never heard before.

Letting his mask slip. Allowing me a glimpse of the stranger underneath.

My skin creeps beneath my clothes. I should leave now, I think. I should run across the rocks and take the short cut and get as far away from him as I possibly can.

But I stand there, rooted by a sudden surge of fury.

“
Right?
How could it be right? You've come here. Fooled everyone. Made them believe Danny was still…”

I can't bring myself to say it.

“How could you?” The words spill out my mouth in a torrent of rage. “How could you be so…so cruel? How could you do that to Martha? What the hell has she ever done to you?”

Danny…Eric smiles. An amused, indulgent smile, like I'm some kind of backward child. “Who says I did her any harm? Wasn't it everything she wanted, to have her son back?”

“That's ridiculous,” I spit. “That's just—” I stop, my thoughts a muddle. Words elude me. So many questions whirl around my head. So many answers in their wake.

“The hair dye…” I say finally.

Eric eyes me for a moment before pulling off his cap, tipping his head forwards, using his hands to flatten the parting. Along the white line of his scalp a thin band of darker hair is just visible. Really dark, nearly black. Not mousy like mine.

Then he lifts his face, puts a finger to his eye. Holds it out, upturned. On its tip sits a perfect circle of thin blue plastic with a clear centre.

A contact lens.

“Clever, huh?”

I look up at his exposed eye. Dark brown, flecked with green.

“Oh my god…” I'm giddy now, my anger fizzling away as I try to take in what I'm seeing.

“You can buy them almost anywhere these days,” he says. “You can have different colour eyes every day of the week.”

I examine his features and the stranger emerges, like a face hidden in a picture. He looks nothing like Danny, I see now. His nose is too angular, his eyes too closely set. And without his cap, I notice his ears for the first time. Danny's never stuck out that way.

My mind reels. How could we ever have thought this
was
Danny?

“You see what you want to see,” Eric says, reading my thoughts. But then they must be written all over my face.

“How did you know?” My voice comes out as a whisper. “How did you know all that stuff about Danny? About us?”

Eric regards me carefully, as if wondering how much to reveal. “I saw the story on the internet, on that site for missing persons – it had a link to Martha's website. Then it was only a question of checking out Facebook, chat rooms, places like that. It's not hard to get information. People post stuff everywhere.”

He takes a deep breath, gazing out across the channel. “Anything you don't know, you can find out. You go round any home, discover all those things tucked away in boxes, diaries or in files, in photo albums, wherever. All the past is there.”

I think of my diary, what he must have read in it, and feel a tremor of disgust.

“You don't even have to bother with research,” Eric says. “The whole amnesia thing means you can ask people pretty much whatever you like. You just pretend you can't remember.”

I flashback to the party. Everyone talking, reminiscing, telling stories. He's right – it's not difficult to get people to fill in the gaps. You just have to play on their trust.

“It's all about secrets, you see.” Eric eyes me with something close to pride. “Every family has them. It's like taking the back off a watch and examining inside, finding what makes it tick. Once you know people's secrets, what they most fear, what they most long for, you can get them to believe almost anything.”

The accent in his voice is unmistakable now. And it sounds deeper. Older.

I swallow. “You sound like you've done this before.”

“A few times.”

I suck in some air. “Here?”

“France, America. This is my first time in the UK.” He looks strangely pleased.

“So you planned it all? Being picked up by the police? Getting taken back to England?”

Eric nods. “It went like a dream.”

“Even beating yourself up?”

His face lapses into a momentary scowl. “No, not that. That was real.”

I'm lost for words as I try to get my head around everything Eric just told me. Somehow I can't make sense of it. Something doesn't add up.

“But why?” I gasp finally. “I still don't understand. Why go to all that trouble? What could you possibly hope to gain?”

Eric bends down, picks up a pebble and lobs it into the water. “I never knew my father. And barely my mother since I was twelve. Love, affection, attention – you take these things for granted, but not if you spent half your life in foster homes.”

“But Martha,” I splutter, my anger resurging. “How could you do that to her? This'll kill her when she finds out.”

Eric spins round and looks straight at me. “So why does she have to?”

I stare back. “You're kidding, aren't you? Are you actually suggesting I don't tell her?”

“Yes.”

“Jesus,” I gasp. “That's absurd. I mean, what the hell am I supposed to do? Just carry on pretending you're Danny?”

“Why not? It wouldn't be so hard. Martha doesn't want to know the truth. Martha has never wanted the truth; it's been right in front of her all this time and she chooses to ignore it. All Martha wants is her son back – it makes no difference to her whether it's me or Danny.”

I open my mouth to protest, then close it again. My mind flounders, confused. The ground seems to shift beneath my feet, like sand eroded by the sea. Maybe he's right, I find myself wondering. After all, what's the alternative? I show Martha the photograph and the letters, force her to believe me – and she loses Danny all over again.

Or I go back. Keep my distance and my mouth shut. And she's never any the wiser.

Would that really be the best thing to do?

I study my shoes, trying to think, trying to find solid ground. But the world feels like it's pitching, tilting at a dangerous angle, and I no longer know which way is up, which is down.

Then I see Rudman, lying in his basket, bruised and cut and shivering with shock. And Alice's face, filled with fear and confusion as she kneels beside him, stroking his head.

“Did you take him?”

“Who?”

“Rudman.”

Eric snorts. “I shut him away, that's all. That animal was getting on my nerves.”

“Where?”

“In an old shed, down by the allotments.” He laughs at the look on my face. “Don't worry, I left him water. And some food. I figured someone would hear him barking sooner or later.”

“But he was really hurt!”

He shrugs. “Must have been when he escaped.”

I stare at him, wondering if I believe him. Then shudder as I realize it wasn't only Rudman who sensed the truth. It was Alice too. And if Eric could do that to Rudman, what might he do to her?

I take a step backwards. “I have to tell them. You know that. You can't seriously expect me to do anything else.”

Eric regards me for a moment, as if sizing me up. I see his mind calculating his options, his odds of success.

“I really suggest you don't.”

He moves towards me and fear floods me like a dam burst. I'm suddenly aware of Eric's height, his strength. And speed – if I try to run, he'll catch me easily.

He picks up on my nervousness, and his hand darts out and grabs my wrist. “Listen, Hannah,” he hisses, “I'm warning you…”

An unexpected sensation of wet and cold hits my feet. I glance down. A wave breaks over our shoes, soaking them in seawater. Eric stares, appalled, then swings round to look behind him.

And sees what neither of us noticed before. How late it is. The sun is sinking behind the hills across the channel, and the tide has already reached the crest of the little beach, cutting off the way back.

“Shit.” His grip on me tightens. “The water…” He glances up at the cliffs behind us, too steep and high to climb to safety, and groans. I see the panic on his features, feel his fingers dig into my arm.

“What do we do?” he asks, looking at me.

I don't say anything for a moment, watching him. Sensing his power over me begin to dwindle.

“We'll have to swim for it,” I say. “Round the headland. I think there's a way up to the path there.”

“Swim?” Eric gasps, jaw slack with horror.

“It's not far. Only round to the next bay.” I glance at the sea. “At least it's calm.”

“But I can't,” he splutters.

“Don't be silly, you…” Then I remember. Danny was the champion swimmer – not Eric. “You can't swim?”

Eric's look of terror is my answer. I stare at him and stare at him and then the laughter spills out of me like something overflowing, the sound of it echoing off the rocks around us.

“
You can't swim!
”

I picture all the trophies in Danny's bedroom. His easy crawl up and down the lanes in the school pool. The dance of his smile whenever he won a race.

You can steal someone's secrets, I think. You can dye your hair and copy the colour of their eyes.

But there are some things you just can't fake.

“Shut up!” Eric's voice is a cross between a growl and a whimper. “How do we get out of here?”

When I don't answer, he twists my wrist until I squeal in pain. I wrench my hand away and fish my mobile out my pocket. Check the signal.

Nothing. No way to call for help.

Hell.

“How deep is it?” Eric asks, his face rigid with fright.

I look, but it's hard to tell. The shoreline around here is deceptive – shallow in parts, deeper in others – and the water so murky you can't see through it, especially in this light.

“I don't know,” I say. “We could try and wade.”

“Oh god.” Eric's voice is rising towards hysteria. “I can't… I just can't…”

“We haven't got a choice.”

I study the fear on his face. It would be easy to dive in, to swim away and leave him. He couldn't stop me.

But how could I? We're well below the high tideline; the water will come right up over the rocks.

He'll drown.

“Walk behind me,” I tell him. “I'll test out where the deep bits are.”

Eric stares down at his feet, at the waves lapping over his trainers.

“Come on,” I urge. “We haven't got much time.”

We hurry to the point where the water swallowed the way back. I start to wade in, trying to remember the lie of the rocks, where the shallow parts are. But as soon as I edge forward, the water engulfs my knees, rising to my hips as I inadvertently step off the brink of the ledge.

It's freezing, and with the clouds congealing overhead, the sky is darkening by the minute. It's getting hard to see where I'm going in the growing gloom.

I look back. Eric is watching me, his face paralysed with horror. I hold out my hand.

“Come on, just follow me.”

“I can't,” he whimpers.

“You've got to,” I hiss. “There's no other way.”

He stares into the sea and back at the dwindling area of rock behind him. He looks like he's going to cry. For a moment I almost feel sorry for him.

Then he steps gingerly into the water.

“I can't swim.”

“You told me.”

He grabs my hand and I feel his fingers trembling. I use my foot to find the next rock, letting my weight drop down onto it. Eric follows, a cry of alarm as he sinks right up to his waist.

We make our way slowly around the headland, the tide rising fast around us. Jesus, I'd forgotten how quickly it comes in.

I slip on seaweed, nearly losing my balance, and have to let go of Eric's hand.

“How much further?” he asks, fright shrinking his voice to a whisper.

I peer through the failing light. It can't be far to the next cove, and I'm fairly sure there's a way through there onto the coast path.

What if you're wrong? asks a fearful voice in my head. What if there isn't a way up?

“
Hannah!
”

I turn round barely in time to see Eric lose his footing and tumble into the water. He flails his legs and arms in blind panic, trying to stand. But he must have hit a deep patch. His head keeps sinking under the waves and re-emerging, mouth gulping for air.

“Help…” Eric vanishes again.

Oh god, he really
can't
swim.

“Hang on!” I edge my way back towards him and hold out my hand. He grabs it wildly, and immediately I'm dragged under, a mouthful of saltwater scalding my throat as I kick out my legs, trying to keep afloat. I wrench my hand away but Eric clutches at me, his arm encircling my neck. I can hardly move. He's so big and heavy, and his grip is nearly strangling me.