To read Part One
The walk to my train that night felt like the longest of my
life.
I reached the station but instead of boarding my usual
train, I caught another, to a station a few stops away. To the place that
had been calling me since I saw his face yesterday.
The alley.
It had been twenty years, but I knew exactly where it was.
The snow was gone now, obviously. The blood stains on
the floor had long since been washed away. There was no little girl
there, screaming until her throat hurt. My father was not there, dying on
the ground.
It was just an alley. A dirty, ordinary alley.
I stood there for a long time. I did not know why I
had come, but every muscle in my body had drawn me back there.
Then, I heard footsteps behind me. I didn't turn
around. I didn't need to.
"Funny place to come for a walk."
Tom.
My hands curled into fists. My body moved into a
fighting stance that my Krav Maga instructor had taught me.
"You followed me."
"I wanted to talk."
"I don't want to talk to you."
"I think you do."
I turned around.
He was standing there with his hands in the pockets of his
trench coat. The same weasel-like face that haunted my
dreams.
Only now I could see what time had done to him. The
wrinkles around his eyes. The grey peppered through his hair. A slight
stoop in his posture. The smile that still did not reach his
eyes.
The man I had dreamed about for so long had become the size
of a monster. Evil incarnate. But now, standing there, he just
looked like an ordinary middle-aged man.
Somehow, that made it worse. I needed him to look like
the monster of my dreams.
"Why?" I asked.
He looked at me.
"Why what?"
"Why did you kill him?"
For the first time since I had met him, the smile
disappeared.
"So you do remember."
It wasn't a question.
"Every. Single. Second."
He looked down at the ground. "I wondered if you
would. When I saw you in the bank yesterday I knew immediately who you
were."
"You recognised me."
"Of course I did."
"You could have just left me alone. Why come after me,
why follow me here?"
He was silent for so long that I thought he wasn't going to
answer.
Then he said something I had never expected.
"Because your father had a debt to pay and that day was
the day he paid for it."
I actually laughed. It was a horrible sound.
"A debt? So you killed a man over money?"
"The debt was not about money. The debt was a
life. My daughter's life. He ran her over and left her to
die."
"I don't believe you. My father would never kill
anyone."
"Well he did. My daughter was six years old when
she died. My Charlotte. He ran her over. Left her for
dead."
"How do you know it was him? "
"Because I knew him. Knew his face. I saw
his face as he carried on driving. Leaving my daughter, dying in the
road. He moved away shortly after. I had been looking for him for
ten years and that day was the day that he paid."
He seemed serious. He seemed sincere. Yet, this
could all be an elaborate story. Because he did not want me to go to the
police.
"Why in the world would I believe you? You are
just trying to save yourself."
"Save myself from what? You have no proof, just
as I had no proof to have your father arrested. But I do have
this".
He handed me an old newspaper clipping. There was a
picture of a pretty young girl. The headline "Child Slain in Hit and
Run". And the name. Charlotte Allen. Further down
the article, another picture. A woman, looking broken, with her husband.
It was Tom.
I looked back at him. "So what now? You
kill me too to keep the secret?"
"No. I don't want to hurt you. But you
deserve the truth. I knew my comment about alleyways would bring you here
if you remembered what had happened."
"What if I go to the police?"
"Then go. Tell them. You deserve justice,
just as I did for my Charlotte. I will deny it, of course, but you needed
to know the truth. "
I looked at the man standing in front of me.
For twenty years I had trained my body to kill him.
Karate.
Krav Maga.
Hours and hours spent learning how to hurt someone before
they could hurt me.
I had built my entire personality around him, around this
moment.
I turned away.
"Lucy."
I stopped.
"I'm sorry."
I closed my eyes. For years I had imagined hearing
those words.
I had imagined satisfaction. Relief. Justice.
Instead, I felt nothing.
And that was when I finally understood.
The little girl standing in that alley had died that
day. But the woman who had survived her had spent twenty years waiting
for permission to live.
I turned back to him.
"You took my father away from me. My
childhood. You ruined my life"
"I know."
"I don't forgive you."
He nodded.
"And I don't know if I even believe what you have told
me. But I am walking away. Don't come back to work.
Leave. I don't want to see you ever again"
"I understand."
I walked away.
This time I didn't look back.
I didn't know whether Tom Allen was telling the truth.
I didn't know whether the police would ever be able to
uncover what really happened twenty years ago. Prove that he had killed
my father. Find out whether my father really had killed his daughter.
But for the first time since I was five years old, I
understood that my life belonged to me and I needed to start living it.
