It’s there. The part I’d hoped for. Luckily, I’d stepped towards him, he’d been close; plus, my plan to raise my voice in the hope that it would encourage him to raise his had worked.
I rewind. Play it again. At first it’s broken: ‘…using her… love her…’ but then there’s a gap and the next sentence is clear. ‘I know this is about the money, my sister’s money, but why involve her?’
Lukas’s answer is clear, too.
‘How else was I going to get close to you?’
Then it’s me. I must’ve shifted on my feet as I spoke; the first part of the sentence is lost as something rubs against the microphone of my phone’s recorder. I recognize my own voice, but what I’m saying is all but lost. Only one word is audible: ‘her’.
It shouldn’t matter, though. I know it’s his response I need next; I remember what he’d said, but the whole recording is meaningless unless it’s audible.
Luckily, his answer is perfectly clear. I play it twice, just to be sure.
‘Me?’ he’s saying. ‘…Look, we have a nice little arrangement going on, but I don’t love her.’
I close my eyes, as if in victory, then rewind and listen to it a third time. It should be enough to convince my friend, I think. I just need to get there in time now.
I freeze. It occurs to me, as if for the first time. I don’t have to do this. I could just leave it, just walk away, go home. Lukas has demanded I leave them alone, so why not?
I think of his hands on me. I think of the places he’s taken me. Can I abandon my sister’s best friend to that? What kind of person would that make me?
From nowhere I think back to Anna’s reading, at the funeral. ‘To the angry I was cheated, but to the happy I am at peace.’
She thinks she’s happy, but it won’t last. I can’t abandon her now and live with myself, knowing I’ve betrayed her. I can’t.
I glance at the time and shift forward in my seat. It’s just after one o’clock. The traffic is bad, but we’re moving; already we’re over the river and skirting the city. If only I knew what time her train was, I think, then I’d be able to work out whether I have time, or no chance at all.
I look on my phone, navigate to the Eurostar webpage, to the timetable. It’s grindingly slow – I need to press refresh two, three times – but it makes me feel like I’m doing something, at least. Eventually the page appears. There’s a train just after two, and she’ll be checking in at least half an hour before it.
I look up. We’ve got as far as Lambeth North. It’s a twenty-minute trip, I’d guess, then we’ll have to find somewhere to pull in. I’ll need to pay the driver, then I have to find my friend. I’m desperate, yet helpless. I will the traffic to move, the lights to change. I curse as we get stuck behind a cyclist, as someone steps out on to a pedestrian crossing and we have to brake.
I’m not sure we’re going to make it, plus Lukas may ring her and tell her I’m on my way. It’s hopeless.
It’s almost one thirty when we pull up outside the terminal; I’m numb, certain I’ll have missed her. I pass my fare over to the driver – far too much, but I tell her to keep the change – and then I start to run. She shouts, ‘Good luck, love!’ but I don’t answer, don’t even turn round. I’m already frantically looking for Anna. I run in, towards the gates to the terminal, past the coffee shops and ticket offices, remembering as I do the times I’d met Lukas here. The images assault me, in Technicolor. I think of the second time we’d met, just after he’d lied to me and told me he lived near London after all. Back when I felt almost nothing for him, by comparison to what came later, at least. Back when it would’ve been easy, relatively, to walk away. Back when I was worried he had a wife, when really he was about to ask someone else to marry him.
Not just someone, I think. Anna. And now, I realize with increasing panic, I’m here rushing to try to save her.
The station is crowded; I can’t see her. I stop running. ‘Find Friends,’ I think she’d called it. We’d linked our profiles. I scrabble for my phone, drop it, pick it up again. I open the map, but there’s only one dot. Mine.
She’s disconnected her profile from mine. She hates me. I’m about to despair. She’ll go back home; all is lost. I could try to call her, yes, but she probably won’t answer the phone, and even if she does how will I make her believe me? I need to be there, in front of her. I need to make her understand.
I see a flash of red in the crowds, and somehow I know it’s her coat. When the crowd clears I see I’m right. She’s at the gate itself, pulling her case behind her with one hand, with the other already fumbling her ticket over the automatic scanner. ‘Anna!’ I shout, but she can’t hear me and doesn’t respond. I start running again. My words are lost in gasped breath, caught up in the noisy chaos of the station, rising and echoing in the vault of the ceiling. I shout again, louder this time – ‘Anna! Wait!’ – but by the time she looks up and sees me I’m too late; the automatic gates have registered her ticket, swung open and she’s gone through.
‘Julia!’ she says, turning back to face me. ‘What’re you…?’
I stop running. We’re on either side of the gates, a few feet apart. There’s a security booth just beyond her, and beyond that the waiting rooms and restaurants of the international terminal. ‘I met Lukas.’ She looks momentarily confused, then I remember myself. ‘I mean, Ryan. I saw Ryan.’
She looks at me, her head tilted, her mouth turned down. It’s pity. She feels sorry for me. Again I’m reminded that Lukas has won.
‘I know. He called me.’
‘They’re the same person, Anna. I swear. Ryan is Lukas. He’s been lying to you.’
She seems to well up. Something she’s so far been holding in check erupts to the surface.
‘I thought you were my friend.’
‘I am.’ But then my mind goes to the scar on Lukas’s cheek, just beginning to crust. I can only imagine what he’s said to her.
‘Whatever Ryan’s told you, he’s lying.’ I look her in the eye. ‘Believe me…’
She shakes her head. ‘Bye, Julia.’ She turns to leave.
I grip the barrier. For a second I think I could jump it, or push through, but already we’re attracting attention. A staff member is watching us, he’s stepping forward, as if he expects trouble.
I call instead. ‘Anna! Come back. Just for a minute. Let me explain!’
She looks over her shoulder. ‘Goodbye, Julia.’ She begins to walk away.
‘No!’ I say. ‘Wait!’
The guy in the uniform is standing right by us, now looking from one to the other. Anna doesn’t turn round.
I cast about for a way to convince her. I’m desperate. I need something that proves I know him as Lukas, have slept with him. Then I remember.
‘He has a birthmark. On his leg. His thigh. His upper thigh.’
At first I don’t think she’s heard me, but then she stops walking. She turns, then slowly comes back towards the barrier that separates us.
‘A birthmark.’ I point to my own body. ‘Just here.’
At first she says nothing. She shakes her head. She looks hurt, devastated. ‘You… bitch.’
The last word is hissed. Of course she hates me, and I hate myself for having to do this to her.