The Truth-Teller's Lie (3 page)

I head for the front door, passing the side of the house and another small, high window. Oh, God, I mustn’t think of you trapped inside. But of course you can’t be. You’re a broad-shouldered, heavy, six-foot-two man. Juliet couldn’t confine you anywhere. Unless . . . But I mustn’t allow myself to start being ridiculous.

I have decided to be bold and efficient. I vowed to myself three years ago that I would never be scared of anything or anyone again. I will go straight to the front door, ring the bell and ask the questions that need to be asked. Your house, I realise once I get round the front, is a cottage, long and low. From the outside it looks as if nothing has been done to it for several decades. The door is a faded green, and all the windows are square and small, their panes divided into diamonds by lines of lead. You have one big tree. Four straggly lengths of rope dangle from its thickest branch. Was there once a swing? The lawn here at the front slopes down, and beyond it, the view is the kind that landscape painters would fight over. At least four church towers are visible. Now I know what attracted you to the back-turned cottage. I can see right up the Culver Valley, with the river snaking its way along as far as Rawndesley. I wonder if I could see my house, if I had a pair of binoculars.

I cannot pass the window without looking in. I feel elated, suddenly. This room is yours, with your things inside it. I put my face close to the glass and cup my hands around my eyes. A lounge. Empty. It’s funny—I’ve always imagined dark colours on the walls, copies of traditional paintings in heavy wooden frames: Gainsborough, Constable, that sort of thing. But your lounge walls are white, uneven, and the only picture is of an unkempt old man in a brown hat watching a young boy play the flute. A plain red rug covers most of the floor, and beneath it is the sort of cheap wood-laminate that looks nothing like wood.

The room is tidy, which is a surprise after the garden. There are lots of ornaments, too many, in neat rows. They cover every surface. Most of them are pottery houses. How odd; I can’t imagine you living in a house full of such twee knick-knacks. Is it a collection? When I was a teenager, my mother tried to encourage me to collect some hideous pottery creatures that I think were called ‘Whimsies’. No thanks, I told her. I was far more interested in amassing posters of George Michael and Andrew Ridgeley.

I blame Juliet for turning your living room into a housing estate in miniature, just as I blame her for the laminate floor. Everything else in the room is acceptable: a navy-blue sofa and matching chair; wall lights, with semicircular cups of plaster around them so that you can’t see the bulb; a wooden, leather-topped footstool; a tape measure; a small stand-up calendar. Yours, yours, yours. I know it is a lunatic thought, but I find I identify with these inanimate objects. I feel exhilarated. Against one wall there is a glass-fronted cabinet containing more pottery houses, a row of tiny ones, the smallest in the room. Below these, a fat, honey-coloured candle that looks as if it has never been lit . . .

The change happens quickly and without warning. It’s as if something has exploded in my brain. I back away from the window, stumbling and nearly falling, pulling at the neck of my shirt in case it’s that that’s restricting my breathing. With my other hand I shield my eyes. My whole body is shaking. I feel as if I might be sick if I can’t suck in some air soon. I need oxygen, badly.

I wait for it to pass, but it gets worse. Dark dots burst and dissolve in front of my eyes. I hear myself moaning. I can’t stay upright; it is too much effort. I fall down on to my hands and knees, panting, sweating. No more thoughts of you, or of Juliet. The grass feels unbearably cold. I have to stop touching it. I move my hands and slump forward. For a few seconds I just lie there, unable to understand what has sent my body into this state of emergency.

I don’t know how long I spend paralysed and breathless, in this undignified position—seconds or minutes. I don’t think it can be more than a few minutes. As soon as I feel able to move, I scramble to my feet and run towards the gate without looking back into the room. I couldn’t turn my head in that direction if I tried. I don’t know how I know this, but I do. The police. I must go to the police.

I dart round the side of the house, reaching out both my hands for the gate, desperate to get there as soon as I can. Something terrible, I think. I saw something terrible through the window, something so unimaginably terrifying that I know I did not imagine it. Yet I can’t for the life of me say what it was.

A voice stops me, a woman’s voice. ‘Naomi!’ it calls out. ‘Naomi Jenkins.’ I gasp. There is something shocking about having my full name yelled at me.

I turn. I am on the other side of the house now. There is no danger that I will see your lounge window from here. I am far more frightened of that than I am of this woman, who I suppose must be your wife.

But she doesn’t know my name. She doesn’t know I exist. You keep your two lives completely separate.

She is walking towards me. ‘Juliet,’ I say, and her mouth twists, briefly, as if she is swallowing a bitter laugh. I examine her closely, just as I did the tape measure, the candle, the picture of the old man and the boy. She is something else that belongs to you. Without your income, how would she survive? She’d probably find another man to support her.

I feel drained, ineffectual, as I ask, ‘How do you know who I am?’

How can this woman be Juliet? From everything you’ve told me about her, I have built up a picture of a timid, unworldly housewife, whereas the person I’m looking at has neatly braided blond hair and is wearing a black suit and sheer black tights. Her eyes are blazing as she walks slowly towards me, deliberately taking her time, trying to intimidate me. No, this can’t be your wife, the one who doesn’t answer the phone and can’t turn on a computer. Why is she dressed so smartly?

The words rush into my head before I can stop them: for a funeral. Juliet is dressed for a funeral.

I take a step back. ‘Where’s Robert?’ I shout. I have to try. I came here determined to find you.

‘Was it you who phoned last night?’ she says. Each word embeds itself in my brain, like an arrow fired at close range. I want to shy away from her voice, her face, everything about her. I can’t bear it that I will now be able to picture scenes and conjure conversations between the two of you. I have lost forever that comforting shadowy gap in what I could imagine.

‘How do you know my name?’ I say, wincing as she comes closer. ‘Have you done something to Robert?’

‘I think we both do the same thing to Robert, don’t we?’ Her smile is smug. I have the sense that she might be enjoying herself. She is wholly in control.

‘Where is he?’ I say again.

She walks right up to me until our faces are only inches apart. ‘You know what an agony aunt would say, don’t you?’

I jerk my head back, away from her warm breath. Fumbling for the gate, I grab the bolt and pull it free. I can leave whenever I want to. What can she do to me?

‘She’d say you’re better off without him. Think of it as a favour from me that you don’t deserve.’ Barely raising her hand, she gives me a small wave, an almost imperceptible flutter of her fingers, before turning to go back to the house.

I can’t look at where she’s walking. I can’t even think about it.

‘LIV? ARE YOU THERE?’ Detective Sergeant Charlie Zailer spoke quietly into her mobile phone, tapping her fingernails on the desk. She looked over her shoulder to check no one was listening. ‘You’re supposed to be packing. Pick up the phone!’ Charlie swore under her breath. Olivia was probably doing some last-minute shopping. She refused to buy things like aftersun lotion and toothpaste in a foreign supermarket. She spent weeks working on a list of everything she would need, and bought it all beforehand. ‘Once I leave the house, I’m on holiday,’ she said, ‘which means no errands, no practicalities, just lounging on the beach.’

Charlie heard Colin Sellers’ voice behind her. He and Chris Gibbs were back, had stopped only to trade insults with two detectives from another team. She lowered her voice and hissed into her phone, ‘Look, I’ve done something really stupid. I’m about to go into an interview that might last a while, but I’ll ring you as soon as I’m free, okay? So just be there.’

‘Something really stupid, Sarge? Surely not.’ It would never occur to Sellers to pretend he hadn’t overheard a private conversation, but Charlie knew he was only teasing. He wouldn’t push his luck or use it against her. He’d already forgotten about it, was concentrating on the computer in front of him. ‘Grab a chair,’ he said to Gibbs, who ignored him.

Had she really said, ‘Just be there,’ to her sister, in such an imperious tone? She closed her eyes, regretting it. Anxiety made her bossier, which was a direction in which she definitely didn’t need to go. She wondered if she could delete the message from Olivia’s voicemail somehow. It’d be a good excuse to keep Simon waiting a bit longer. She knew he’d already be wondering what was keeping her. Good. Let him stew.

‘Here we go,’ said Sellers, nodding at the screen. ‘Might as well print this lot now. Do you think?’ Clearly he assumed he was not working alone. Gibbs wasn’t even looking at the screen. He dawdled, some distance behind Sellers, chewing his fingernails. He reminded Charlie of a teenager determined to look bored in front of the grown-ups. If he hadn’t been so obviously depressed about it, Charlie would have suspected Gibbs of lying about his forthcoming wedding. Who on earth would marry such a morose bastard? ‘Gibbs,’ said Charlie sharply. ‘Do your meditation practice in your own time. Get back to work.’

‘Same to you. I’m not the one phoning my sister.’ The words came out in a torrent, spat in Charlie’s direction. She stared at him in disbelief.

Sellers was shaking his head. ‘
How to Make Life Easier
, by Christopher Gibbs,’ he muttered, fiddling with his tie. As usual it was too loose round his neck and the knot was too tight, dangling low like a pendant. He reminded Charlie of a dishevelled bear. How was it, she wondered, that Sellers, who was larger, fatter, louder and physically stronger than Gibbs, appeared entirely benign? Gibbs was short and thin, but there was a condensed ferocity about him, one that had been packed into too small a container. Charlie used him to scare people when she needed to. She’d worked hard not to be scared of him herself.

Gibbs turned on Sellers. ‘Shut the fuck up.’

Charlie switched her phone off and threw it into her bag. Olivia would try to ring while she was busy with this interview, and by the time Charlie could call her back, her sister would have gone out again—wasn’t that the way it always worked? ‘To be continued,’ she said coldly to Gibbs. She couldn’t deal with him now.

‘Hols tomorrow, Sarge!’ Sellers called out cheerfully as she left the room. It was code for ‘Go easy on Gibbs, won’t you?’ No, she bloody well would not.

In the corridor, at a safe distance from the CID room, she stopped, pulled her hand-mirror out of her bag and opened it. People talked about bad hair days, but they never mentioned bad face days, and that was what Charlie appeared to be having. Her skin looked worn, her features ungainly. She needed to eat more, do something about the severity of those cheekbones, flesh out the hollows. And her new black-framed glasses did nothing to make her bleary eyes look better.

And—if you wanted to go beyond the face, which Charlie didn’t—there were three strands of grey in her short, dark, wavy hair. Was that fair, when she was only thirty-six? And her bra didn’t fit properly; none of her bras did. A few months ago she’d bought three in the size she thought she was, and they all turned out to be too big around her body, the cups too small. She didn’t have time to do anything about it.

Feeling uncomfortable in her clothes and in her person, Charlie snapped the mirror shut and headed for the drinks machine. The corridors in the original part of the building, the part that used to be Spilling Swimming Baths, had walls of exposed red brick. As Charlie walked, she heard the sound of water travelling at speed beneath her feet. It was something to do with the pipework for the central-heating system, she knew, but it had the odd effect of making the police station sound as if its main function were still an aquatic one.

She bought a cup of café mocha from the machine outside the canteen, recently installed for the benefit of those who didn’t have time to go in, though the irony was that the drinks available from the buzzing box on the corridor were far more varied and appealing than the ones made by real people with alleged expertise in the field of catering. Charlie gulped down her drink, burning her mouth and throat, and went to find Simon.

He looked relieved when she opened the door of interview room one. Relieved, then embarrassed. Simon had the most expressive eyes of anyone Charlie knew. Without them, he might have had the face of a thug. His nose was large and uneven, and he had a wide, prominent lower jaw that gave him a determined look, like a man intent on winning every fight. Or afraid he might lose and trying to hide it. Charlie gave herself a mental shake.
Don’t go all soft about him, he’s a shit. When are you going to realise that it takes effort and planning to be as irritating as Simon Waterhouse is?
But Charlie didn’t really believe that. If only she could.

‘Sorry. Got held up,’ she said.

Simon nodded. Opposite him sat a slim, pale, sharp-eyed woman wearing a long black denim skirt, brown suede clogs and a green V-necked jumper that looked like cashmere. Her hair was wavy, shiny reddish brown—a colour that made Charlie think of the conkers she used to fight Olivia for as a child—and she wore it in a shoulder-length bob. At her feet was a green-and-blue Lulu Guinness handbag, which Charlie guessed must have set her back a few hundred quid.

The woman pursed her lips as she listened to Charlie’s apology, and folded her arms more tightly. Irritation or anxiety? It was hard to tell.