Truth and Lies

Truth and Lies

It perhaps began with the tube journey to Holborn Bars though it could have been earlier. My memory is cloudy, but it was my daily commute that must have attracted attention. Something I realized only later on.

We always got on at the same door of the same train most days of the week. I thought I was being rather clever by timing my journey so I could stand close to her. She got off first and I went on to Holborn and forgot all about her. Well, nearly all about her. And the next morning our little dance repeated itself, taking much of the boredom out of the commute.

That is why I felt a loss whenever I got on the train alone and when she did not show for over two weeks I convinced myself she had changed jobs or moved away. A further two weeks on, when I had found reading a good book was as interesting a way to disengage from my trip each morning, I was followed home.

When done openly, spotting someone following you is easy. And I shivered in anticipation when I realized the middle-aged man walking not far behind me had stopped across the street and noted something on a piece of paper before going back the way he had come.

A week later, as the incident was moving peacefully to the back of my mind, I opened a letter stating that a Mr. Evans would like to have a chat about the disappearance of Evangeline Evans one morning a month earlier on her way to work. It would seem that I might have some information about where she might be. It was a formal letter, the sort the police might phrase, using words like ‘whereabouts’ and ‘enquiries’. It concluded by asking that we meet and suggesting 6.00 pm the following day at the Brasserie. He would be wearing a red scarf. I don’t have the letter anymore or I would let you have it.

The Brasserie was always full after work. I never went there but I walked by it on my way home and sometimes stopped to watch the 35-year-olds all shouting and drinking chardonnay. I stood by the door looking for a red scarf and assuming it would be the same man who followed me home. I started to leave to find the red scarf beside me and a hand under my elbow urging me towards the outside tables on the terrace.

He came to the point at once before we had sat down. ‘We have been very interested in your journeys to work’ he announced quite formally. I felt a tremor. He was a big man, dressed in black which emphasized his resemblance to Johnny Cash. This observation completely distracted me and I laughed. ‘ I have no idea what you are talking about’ I retorted, quite indignant. Perhaps I should have been mystified instead.

‘So, you saw Evangeline day after day for two years and have no idea what this is about? There was by now no doubt whom he meant by Evangeline but I was not going to admit it, threatened though I felt. ‘Who is Evangeline?’ I came back with. But the fear in my eyes surely gave me away.

‘My sister, as you know well, she talked about you’, he said. I was flattered by this news and felt on firmer ground. ‘I have no idea who your sister is’. This was true a few minutes ago though a lie now but, hell, I needed to be convincing so I gave myself back those few minutes, which encouraged me. I could see uncertainty in his eyes. I had scored!

‘You followed her day after day on the tube from Fulham’ he said. ‘No I didn’t, I answered truthfully. I felt like adding a further truth that there was a woman I stood behind many days on the tube but thought better of it. Instead, in the silence that prevailed I shivered, half way between past and present, fiction and reality, truth and lies.

Denial is easy if you can see your way forward through its consequences. I was good at it, I knew. Fiction, or maybe lies, can become truth as I had proved in my several interviews with Serjeant Poulton some four years earlier. His queries about the death of a small boy under the wheels of my car persisted over many days. Finally a witness came forward to exonerate me: no one could have seen the kid he volunteered. I did not ask why in that case he was able to. Luck of the devil

So, we faced each other across that table in Fulham. I could sense his conviction draining. He wanted me to be guilty and this clouded his judgement and added to his difficulty. I then took a risk. ‘Why not tell the police you think I have done something to this person?’ `I asked. ‘Yes, I am going to’ and he got up and left in silence.

The police never came to see me and life went on. I never saw him again nor, as you may imagine, did I see Evangeline again either. I never saw any coverage of her disappearance or death but of course I read few newspapers and have no television. I live very quietly, as you know.