The Lies We Told: The exciting new psychological thriller from the bestselling author of Watching Edie

When she looked up from her computer thirty seconds later, however, it was to a ring of her colleagues gathered around her desk, staring down at her.

‘Shit, Clara, are you OK?’ asked the features editor.

‘We had the police here yesterday,’ breathed one of the subs.

‘Is there any news of Luke, where do you think he is?’ asked someone else.

‘I don’t know,’ she stammered. ‘They don’t – the police, I mean – they don’t know either.’ She wondered, as she spoke, how many of them knew about Sadie, and felt the heat climb in her cheeks.

For the rest of the morning she tried to distract herself with work, ignoring her colleagues’ sympathetic glances, but by eleven she found herself gazing blankly at her computer screen, unable to concentrate on anything except the thought of Sadie sitting a couple of floors below. At last, before she could change her mind, she clicked open her emails and began to type. ‘Can you meet me at lunch?’

She waited, heart thumping, for a response, and a few seconds later it came: a one-word reply that said simply, ‘OK.’

She’d chosen a café on the far side of Leicester Square, one where they were unlikely to be spotted by any of their colleagues. It was a tacky, overpriced ice cream parlour-cum-souvenir shop, crammed with tourists buying Union Jack tat and clogging the aisle while they confusedly counted out their change. She had made sure she’d arrived early and taken a table at the back out of the way, eyes fixed on the can of Coke in front of her, her fingers nervously shredding a serviette.

For a second, when Sadie appeared in front of Clara, she almost laughed, she was so ridiculously beautiful. Long honey-coloured hair and wide blue eyes, the proverbial traffic-stopping figure. And then she had a sudden image of her and Luke in bed together and felt as though she’d been punched, the pain like a physical blow to the solar plexus. How must she have compared to this goddess? Had he secretly been laughing at her, comparing Clara’s short legs and unimpressive chest to this perfection? She found it difficult to comprehend now that she could have been so naive, so self-deceiving as to have believed Luke when he’d dismissed girls like Sadie as too young and too silly to really find attractive – that he found her intelligence and wit preferable to such beauty. What a total fool she’d been.

Wordlessly Sadie sat down opposite her. They stared at each other warily for a moment, each of them waiting for the other to speak. It was Sadie who looked away first. She began fiddling with a bowl of sugar cubes and Clara noticed with a flicker of surprise that her hands were trembling.

‘Have the police spoken to you, yet?’ Clara asked at last, amazed when her voice came out sure and strong, rather than the tearful stutter she’d been expecting.

Sadie nodded.

She swallowed. ‘Well? Have you seen Luke? Do you know where he is?’

At this she shook her head vehemently. ‘No! I haven’t seen him since Tuesday, at work, I swear to God, Clara!’

‘Were you still … seeing him?’

She shook her head again.

‘How long?’ Clara’s voice caught and she winced at the indignity of it all. She cleared her throat and tried again. ‘How long were you fucking my boyfriend?’

Sadie coloured; a delicate dusky rose staining her flawless skin. ‘It only happened once.’

Clara gave a snort of disbelief. That wasn’t what Mac had said. For the first time her hurt was replaced by an icy disdain for Luke. Beautiful or not, was this lying child what he’d in fact wanted? Really? ‘I know that’s not true,’ she said. ‘Didn’t you even care he had a girlfriend?’

Sadie’s eyes filled with tears. ‘I’m so sorry, Clara. We never meant it to happen.’

We. The irony was, Clara had always liked Sadie; they’d often chatted at work dos, laughed together in the pub about Sadie’s crazy boss. She’d been too sweet, too eager to please to be considered a threat, not that Clara was in the habit of thinking of other women in those terms. Perhaps she should have been, she reflected bitterly now. ‘Why did it end?’ she asked.

‘He wouldn’t … he didn’t want to leave you. He said he loved you, wanted to marry you,’ she began to cry, ‘that I … was a mistake.’

When Clara didn’t say anything Sadie blurted, ‘You must hate me. I know you do. But I’m not a horrible person, Clara. I’m really not. I just … where do you think he is? Do you think he’s OK?’

Clara stood up. ‘How would I know, Sadie?’ she said tiredly. ‘I have absolutely no fucking idea about anything any more.’

Rose called her as she was walking to the Tube later that evening. She hesitated, weariness rolling over her, her finger hovering on the Accept Call button, unsure whether she could face going through DS Anderson’s visit with her once again. Eventually she picked up, knowing that Luke’s disappearance must surely be even worse for Rose than it was for her. ‘Hello,’ she said, ‘how are you feeling today?’

‘Oh, Clara. I can’t bear it. I keep going over and over where he could be, whether he’s hurt, whether he knows how much we all love him …’ Her voice gave way to stifled sobs.

‘I know,’ she murmured. ‘I know how awful this is for you.’ She hesitated. ‘How’s Oliver taking it?’

‘Very badly. He’s dreadfully upset. This all brings back some extremely painful memories, as I’m sure you can imagine.’

‘I’m so sorry.’

‘I’m worried about him, Clara. He hardly eats or sleeps, just locks himself away in his study, barely speaking to me.’

Clara’s heart ached for her. She knew how much Rose loved Oliver; her devotion to him had always touched her, how proud she was of him despite her own considerable achievements. The strength of the Lawsons’ marriage was something she’d always aspired to; its generosity and inclusiveness being so unlike the insular, unwelcoming one between her own parents.

‘It’s such a comfort to us that Luke has you,’ Rose went on. ‘That we all have you. Knowing you’re there looking for him, helping the police. You’re like a daughter to us, you know that, don’t you, Clara?’

Clara briefly closed her eyes as hurt washed through her. ‘Don’t worry,’ she said, ‘it’s going to be all right.’

‘I keep thinking about those awful emails. Tell me again what DS Anderson said, he does think they’re connected, doesn’t he?’

‘I don’t think he knows yet what—’

‘But it must be! The same person who broke into your flat, who took those photographs …’

For the briefest moment Clara considered telling Rose about Luke’s affair, that she was washing her hands of her son, that he had hurt her too much to care about his whereabouts any more. But even before the thought was fully formed, she knew she never would. Because despite everything, despite all that he’d done, she couldn’t do it, not to Luke, and especially not to his parents. After all, it was hardly their fault that any of this had happened. ‘I’m going to get on the Tube now,’ she said instead. ‘I’ll phone you as soon as the police get in touch. Try to stay strong, Rose. We’ll find him. I promise.’

Sitting on the Northern Line a few minutes later, Clara brooded over Rose’s distress. Her mind wandered to a weekend in Suffolk a year or so before. It had been the day of the village fete, an event organized entirely by Luke’s parents, to raise funds for a little local girl with leukaemia. There had been stalls and games, live music and dancing, and the whole village had come along, a joyful atmosphere of community and goodwill in the air. Clara had watched as Rose had danced energetically to the band, while a smiling Oliver had organized tug-of-war contests and run the coconut shy. Despite the weeks and weeks of hard work, the time and money that had gone into organizing the event, she saw how they brushed off all congratulations and thanks with self-deprecating modesty. It was only when the parents of the girl for whom the fete was in honour approached and hugged them both that Clara saw how touched and relieved they were by the day’s success.

As her train drew into Old Street, Clara got up, reflecting bitterly at how cruel life was. Why was it that bad things seemed to happen to those who least deserved it? Hadn’t Rose and Oliver suffered enough? She stepped out on to the platform, resolving that she would do everything she possibly could to help Luke’s parents find him.

Mac was waiting for her on the street outside her building when she arrived. He was leaning against the wall, watching her warily as she approached. He raised his hands in a gesture of surrender. ‘I just wanted to see how you are,’ he said.

She sighed, too tired to turn him away. ‘Come up.’

Five minutes later they were sitting across the kitchen table from each other. She took in the familiar, endearing gawkiness of him, the pale skin that looked like it barely saw sunlight – which wasn’t far from the truth: Mac was a freelance photographer and spent his nights taking pictures of gigs and music concerts for a living, which meant he often slept during daylight hours. Luke’s funny, loyal friend who could usually make her helpless with laughter within seconds, who until yesterday she had thought was one of her closest friends, too. ‘Why did he do it?’ she asked. ‘We’ve only just moved in together, he told me he loved me! What the fuck was he playing at?’

Mac shrugged helplessly. ‘Because he’s a bloody idiot.’

‘You should have told me, Mac. I thought you were my friend.’

‘I am your friend. Think about the position I was in. I fucking hated it. But it needed to come from him, not me. I told him to tell you, I told him over and over, you’ve got to believe that!’

She rubbed her eyes, considering this. ‘How did it start between them?’ she asked.

‘Sadie was in the pub one night after work and Luke got talking to her. Her dad had died recently I think and she was drunk and upset, so he comforted her, told her he was always around for a chat. You know what Luke’s like, always wants to be there for people. Anyway, he said after that she used to seek him out whenever she could, they’d meet at lunch now and then, and she’d turn up at the pub after work and make a beeline for him. A few of them ended up at her flat one night and, well, I guess one thing led to another. He told me she wouldn’t leave him alone after that, saying she’d fallen for him, he was the only thing keeping her going. He got in too deep, didn’t know how to get himself out of it …’

‘I expect it helped that she looks like a fucking supermodel,’ Clara muttered, once again mentally comparing her own looks to Sadie’s and finding herself humiliatingly lacking. She was the sort of woman others referred to as ‘cute’. Five foot five with a short, Bettie Page bob, a slightly snubbed nose and freckles, she’d long made peace with the fact that she wasn’t the stuff of male fantasy – until now, that was, when suddenly every long-buried adolescent insecurity seemed to be rushing back at her with the speed of an express train.

He sighed. ‘Look, I’m not trying to excuse him, but he made a mistake, a massive one, he totally ballsed up and he knows it … he’s truly sorry, I know he is.’

‘Jesus,’ she said, putting her head in her hands. ‘I thought he was so … nice.’

‘He is nice,’ Mac said. ‘He’s just a bit of a fuck-up underneath it all.’

‘What right has he got to be fucked up?’ she said angrily. ‘I mean, you’ve met his parents, seen their beautiful home …’

Mac was silent for a while. ‘Did he ever talk to you about when Emily went missing?’ he asked.

She glanced at him. ‘No, not really,’ she admitted.

He nodded. ‘I moved down to Suffolk from Glasgow right after she disappeared. I was the lanky new kid with a weird accent. The other lads made mincemeat of me, until Luke stepped in. We just hit it off and, well, I was only a kid, but fuck me it was a horror show round at his place for a while.’

Clara frowned. ‘Go on.’

‘They were all totally destroyed by it. Rose went to bed for months and barely ate or spoke. His dad barricaded himself in his study and Tom went completely off the rails.’

She looked at him in surprise. ‘Tom did?’ It was a side of Luke’s rather uptight, pompous brother she wouldn’t have guessed at.

‘Yeah, it was like he’d just checked out of the family. He was sixteen by then and hanging out with a bad crowd – off getting pissed and high, that sort of thing, you know? I think Rose and Oliver felt they’d lost their grip on him. But the point is, after that it was as though Luke became the centre of their world, like they became fixated on him. With Emily gone and Tom out all the time, everything began to revolve around him – he was still only ten when she left, remember.’

‘What do you mean, “fixated”?’

Mac shrugged. ‘They’d never leave him alone. He couldn’t move without them breathing down his neck. They wouldn’t even go out for the evening without him, even if Tom was around to keep an eye on him. They became obsessed with everything he said and did, his schoolwork, how he was feeling, what he was thinking, every word that came out of his mouth … It was intense, like they wanted to make up for how wrong things had gone with Emily.’

Clara frowned. ‘OK …’ she said.

‘Well, so anyway, maybe growing up like that made Luke feel responsible for his parents’ happiness, for everyone’s happiness. Or maybe the attention lavished on him made him a bit selfish, a bit entitled. But you need to hear from him how sorry he is, how much he regrets it. He told me it was over with Sadie, he said it was the worst mistake he’d ever made, that he didn’t want to lose you. I believed him. Honestly, Clara, I really think it made him realize how much he loves you.’

She put her head in her hands. ‘Where the hell is he? I can’t bear this … nothingness. There’s so much I want to say to him.’ She glanced up at Mac. ‘Maybe he has left me. Maybe he just couldn’t find the balls to tell me to my face.’

Mac shook his head. ‘No. Not like this, not without his phone, without telling work, his parents … me.’

They were suddenly interrupted by an explosion of music from the flat above; a pounding bass so loud it made the ceiling vibrate. ‘For Christ’s sake,’ Clara shouted, jumping to her feet. With a sudden fury she stormed from the flat and up the stairs and began hammering on her neighbour’s door. There was no response. The music blared on. ‘Answer the bloody door,’ she yelled, giving it a kick. ‘Open it! Just bloody well open it right now!’

Unexpectedly it swung open. Her neighbour stared back at her, eyebrows raised in mock innocence. ‘What?’

‘Turn the bloody music down. It’s insane. I can’t live like this!’

Slowly, and with an infuriating smile on her face, the woman turned and sauntered to her sound system, then flicked the dial down a notch. She turned back to Clara. ‘Happy?’

Clara stared at her. She was so very thin, her shapeless oversized T-shirt only accentuating her bony limbs and sharp angles. Her finely featured face, peeping out between curtains of long lank dark hair, was covered by a thick, elaborate layer of make-up that was almost mask-like. She was gazing back at Clara with prickly belligerence. What on earth was her problem? Glancing past her at the flat, Clara saw that it was a tip; clothes and plates and CDs strewn everywhere, a potent smell of dustbins coming from the kitchen. And who the hell listened to trance these days anyway? ‘Yes,’ she said with icy sarcasm. ‘Thanks so much.’ She was about to leave when her gaze caught something draped over one of the armchairs. It was a sweatshirt. Luke’s sweatshirt. She stared at it in astonishment. A distinctive green and red design with an eagle on the back that he’d bought in New York a few years before. He loved it. She remembered how annoyed he’d been when he’d lost it. When was that, exactly?

The woman followed her gaze. Quickly she began shutting the door. ‘I’ve turned it down, now piss off!’ she said, and for a few seconds Clara stood staring at the closed door in astonishment. She remembered how she’d said, ‘Where’s Luke?’ the day he’d gone missing; the strange, knowing smirk on her face. ‘Open the door!’ she shouted, hammering on it. ‘Open the fucking door right now!’ But the music pounded on and the door remained closed. Eventually, with a cry of frustration, Clara ran back down to her own flat. When had the sweatshirt gone missing? Had it been around the time they were broken into? That sort of fit, she thought. They’d believed nothing had been taken, but … perhaps the reason why the police had no idea how the intruder had got in was because she’d been living amongst them all along. Had she been the one sending the emails?

‘Are you OK?’ Mac asked when she raced back into the flat. ‘You look like you’ve seen a ghost.’

Without replying, she fetched her phone and found DS Anderson’s number. He picked up immediately. ‘Hi, it’s Clara Haynes,’ she said. ‘I have something I need to—’

‘Clara, I’m glad you called. I was about to ring you. We’ve discovered something interesting. How soon can you come to the station?’

9

Cambridgeshire, 1988

I made the phone call one afternoon while Doug was at work, my fingers shaking as I dialled the number. It began to ring and I felt such a rush of panic I almost hung up. Then I heard the click on the other end, the familiar voice saying, ‘Hello?’ and the words stuck in my throat. ‘Hello? Hello?’ a note of impatience now. ‘Who is this, please?’

So strange to hear that voice again after so many years, to know that its owner was standing in the house I’d once known so well. In my mind’s eye I saw the duck-egg blue wallpaper in the hall, the light falling across the floorboards in two vertical slants. For a moment I was back there again, smelling the familiar smell – a mixture of lavender furniture polish and fresh coffee, the bowl of potpourri on the windowsill – hearing the ticking of the clock above the stairs, looking into those familiar eyes that used to cry so much in those days. I swallowed hard and at last, in a whisper, I said, ‘This is Beth Jennings.’

There was absolute silence. ‘Please,’ I begged. ‘Please, please don’t hang up. I need to see you. I need to speak to you.’ And then I burst into tears. ‘Can we meet?’

The voice was ice cold, tinged with fear. ‘Absolutely not. We made a deal. You promised.’

‘I know,’ I said. ‘I wouldn’t call if I wasn’t desperate. I need to talk about what happened. I thought I could live with what we did, but I can’t. I just can’t. I think we need to put it right, I want to go to the police.’

‘No! No, Beth.’ There was a long silence, until finally it came. ‘All right I’ll meet you. But not here. You can’t come here. Give me your address.’

Surreal to see that face again, that familiar figure sitting at my kitchen table. Within minutes I was crying again, my words spilling out of me. I talked about everything – about what we did, how the guilt had never left me. I talked about Hannah, my marriage, how I felt I was losing my mind. I realized how desperate I’d been to have someone to confide in, how much I’d missed having a friend. ‘What do you think I should do?’ I asked desperately, when I’d finally run out of words.

But those eyes remained cold as they looked back at me. ‘If you tell the police, we will lose everything. You will lose everything. Don’t you understand that? What good can come from dragging it all up now?’

‘I don’t know. I don’t know!’ I saw that it was useless. Nobody could help me; there was nothing to be done. I bowed my head and cried and cried. I didn’t even look up when I heard the chair scraping back, the front door opening and closing once more. It was over. It had all been for nothing.

It was a while before I got to my feet. I made myself take long slow breaths. Toby would be waking from his nap soon and I needed to pull myself together. Slowly I went to the sink and washed my face, then I made myself walk towards the stairs, intending to go up to check on my son, trying to plaster on the necessary smile. I was suddenly desperate to see him, to feel his little body, smell his delicious scent. As I passed the telephone in the hall I replaced the receiver in its cradle – I’d taken it off so we wouldn’t be disturbed – and almost as soon as I withdrew my hand it began to ring.

I picked it up. ‘Hello?’

‘This is West Elms Primary,’ the briskly efficient voice said. ‘Is Hannah with you, Mrs Jennings?’

‘Hannah?’ I asked in confusion. ‘No. Why would she be with … isn’t she at school?’

‘I’m afraid she’s run away again. She must have slipped out of the upper school’s gate after lunch. When we couldn’t reach you, we called the police. I believe they’re on their way to see you now.’

‘But …’ I felt the colour drain from my face. ‘How long has she been gone?’

‘About forty minutes. As I said, we did try to call you, but …’

I hung up and rushed back into the kitchen, my heart pounding. The last time Hannah ran away from school, I’d found her sitting in the back garden on the bench below our kitchen window. It was a warm day today and our kitchen had a stable door, the top part of which I’d left open. Nervously I went to it and looked out, terrified that I would find her there, that she had been there all along. But she wasn’t: the garden was empty and I exhaled, relief crashing over me.

Конец ознакомительного фрагмента.

Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес».

Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию на ЛитРес.

Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.