Page 127 of A Dark Fall
Of course it’s true. Mark is hardly likely to come here, risk his job like this, if he wasn’t certain of it. God, I want him to leave now. So I can collapse to the floor and start ordering this into neat, manageable little piles.
“What about what he does for a living—is that something you guys spoke about?” He sounds a little condescending now, as though I’m the victim of some horrendous crime he needs to treat delicately. It flicks my defensive switch back on.
“He runs a nightclub for a living, Mark,” I snap. “It’s how we met.”
Something glimmers behind Mark’s eye, but it’s no more than that. He sighs and takes a step toward me. “Everything you need to know about him is in here. Everything we have on him.” He stretches his arm out, and I take another step back from the brown envelope. “This is who Jake is, Alex.”
I laugh almost hysterically. I feel hysterical. “There is no way I’m reading that, Mark. I want to hear it from him. He can tell me whatever it is for himself.” As I say this though, I wonder how true it is. I wonder if deep down, it’s no longer what I want. Do I want to hear Jake tell me he’s a violent criminal who’s been in prison for some horrendous crime?
“Or he can lie through his teeth like he’s been doing since he met you,” Mark says. “You’re not a stupid woman, Alex, so he’d have to have lied a great fucking deal to have you look at him the way I saw you look at him last week at that dinner table. Don’t let him keep doing it.”
“How often do you lie to me, Jake?”
“Only when I have to.”
“Well then, I guess I’ll have to take that chance, won’t I, because I don’t want to hear it from you or a piece of bloody paper.” My voice trembles with rage and something else. It sounds weak.
He looks at me again before letting out another sigh. When he steps back, he takes the instrument of my torture with him.
“I didn’t come here to upset you, Alex. That’s not what this was about. I came to warn you because ... I care about you. This is not a good guy we are talking about, and I’m trying to protect you the only way I know how.”
I want to laugh again. Because didn’t Jake say that to me too? How he wasn’t a good guy and that he was only keeping things from me to protect me.
I believed him each time he told me those things. I believe Mark too.
I know Mark isn’t doing any of this to upset me, but that doesn’t make any of it any easier to hear.
When I say nothing, Mark nods then turns to place the envelope on the dining table. I can see it’s unsealed, and the front is blank. He takes a deep breath before he speaks again.
“Does the name Fred or Freddie Ward mean anything to you? Did Jake ever talk about him with you or introduce you to him?” he asks.
I shake my head. Kevin, Vicky, and Caleb are the only people from Jake’s life I’ve met. Then I remember the guy who was in Jake’s flat when he took me there last week, and I scour my memory for the name.
Paul. Yes. Paul. Not Freddie.
“No,” I confirm.
“Okay, good. That’s good.” He nods. But then his eyes are concerned again. “I know you say you want to hear it from him, and I know you don’t want to believe what I’m telling you is true, Alex, but I strongly suggest you arm yourself with what’s in there.” He glances at the envelope again and looks to be debating something else. He scans me over quickly—my neck, my arms, and down to my legs—before bringing his eyes back to mine. “The most recent suspicion is the serious assault and battery of a woman. She was beaten pretty badly. Broken arm, broken ribs, and a fractured jaw.”
I can tell he’s holding something back. I can also tell that whatever it is isn’t likely to help with what’s happening to my chest as this new information sinks in.
Mark sucks in a quiet breath. “We suspect she was sexually assaulted too.”
My legs almost buckle beneath me then, and I have to grab onto the rim of the sink to keep myself upright. Bile rises in my throat, and I have to swallow it back down.No. No. No.I’m shaking my head now. This is not who he is. I know him. I’d know if this was who he was. I’d know.
You know nothing ...
“What are you talking about?”
Mark nods gravely. “The wife of a known associate of his was assaulted a couple of weeks ago. Jake was known to have had ... relations with this woman. Her husband was badly beaten a week before, and we suspect it’s related. We don’t know how, and neither of them is talking to us. These are the kinds of people who don’t talk. Certainly not where Freddie Ward or Jake Lawrence are concerned,” Mark says.
Hearing Mark say Jake’s full name like that almost makes him sound like a different person altogether. Someone I don’t know. Maybe even someone who beats and rapes women.
No. I don’t believe that. I can’t seriously think he would do that. Jake would never do that.
“Alex, if I had any say in this, I’d tell you to pack a bag and go to Rob and Dan’s or your parents’ for a few days. Tell this guy by phone that it’s over. I’d tell you to stay the hell away from him. You have no idea what he’s capable of.” His face has that same sad, concerned look it’s had since I opened the door. “But you’re not going to do that, are you?”
“Jake would never hurt me,” I tell him in a hollow, robotic voice.