The Truth-Teller's Lie Read online

  I want the opportunity to take you for granted. Although I never would.

  ‘Why don’t you want me to see her, Robert?’ I asked, because you seemed to be stuck in a thought, trapped somewhere in your head. You had that look you always get: a frown, your lower jaw jutting out. ‘Is there something . . . wrong with her?’ If I’d been someone else, I might have added, ‘Are you ashamed of her?’ but for the past three years I have been unable to use the word ‘ashamed’. You won’t understand this, because of what I haven’t told you. There are things I too like to keep separate.

  ‘Juliet’s not had an easy life,’ you said. Your tone was defensive, as if I’d insulted her. ‘I want you to think of me as I am when I’m with you, here. Not in that house, with her. I hate that fucking house! When we get married, I’ll buy us somewhere new.’ I remember giggling when you said this, because I’d recently seen a film in which a husband takes his new wife to see the house he has designed and built for her. It is huge and beautiful and has a big red bow wrapped round it. When he removes his hands from her eyes and says, ‘Surprise! ’ the wife storms off in a huff; she is angry that he hasn’t consulted her, has presented her with a fait accompli.

  I love it when you make decisions for me. I want you to feel proprietorial towards me. I want things because you want them. Except Juliet. You say you don’t want her, but you’re not yet ready to leave. It’s not if, it’s when, you say. But not yet. I find that hard to understand.

  I stroked your arm. I cannot and never have been able to touch you without feeling faint and tingly, and I felt guilty then because I was supposed to be having a serious conversation, not thinking about sex. ‘I promise I’ll keep my distance,’ I said, knowing you need to be in control, cannot bear to feel events slipping away from you. If we are ever married—when we are married—I will call you a control freak affectionately, and you will laugh. ‘Don’t worry.’ I held up my hand. ‘Scout’s honour. I won’t suddenly turn up at your house.’

  Yet here I am, parked directly opposite. You tell me, though: what choice do I have? If you are here, I will apologise and explain how worried I’ve been, and I know you’ll forgive me. If you are here, maybe I won’t care if you forgive me or not; at least I’ll know you’re all right. It’s been more than three days, Robert. I’m starting to go slowly crazy.

  When I turned into your road, the first thing I saw was your red lorry, parked right at the bottom on the grass verge, beyond the few houses and before the road narrows to become a country path. I felt a surge in my chest, as if someone had given me a shot of helium, when I read your name on the side of the van. (You’re always telling me not to call it a van, aren’t you? You wouldn’t accept ‘Red Van Man’ as a nickname, though I tried several times.) Robert Haworth, in big black letters. I adore your name.

  The lorry is the same size it’s always been, but it looks enormous here, at an angle on the grassy slope, crammed in between the houses and the fields; there is barely enough space for it. My first thought was that this isn’t a very convenient place for a lorry driver to live. It must be a nightmare, reversing out on to the main road.

  My second thought is that it’s Monday. Your lorry shouldn’t be here. You should be out in it, on a job. I am getting really worried now, too worried to be intimidated—by the sight of your house, yours and hers, Juliet’s—into scurrying home to pretend everything is probably okay.

  I knew your house was number three, and I suppose I imagined that the numbers would go up to twenty or thirty as they do on most streets, but yours is the third and last house. The first two are opposite one another, nearer to the main road and the Old Chapel Brasserie on the corner. Your house stands alone further down, towards the fields at the end of the lane, and all I can see of it from the road is a bit of slate roof and a long, rectangular slab of beige stone wall, broken up only by a small square window on the top right-hand side: a bathroom, perhaps, or a box room.

  I have learned something new about you. You chose to buy the sort of house I’d never buy, one where the back is front-facing and the front is concealed, not visible to passers-by. It gives an unwelcoming impression. I know it’s for the sake of privacy, and it makes sense to have the front overlooking the best views, but I’ve always found houses like yours disconcerting all the same, as if they have rudely turned their backs on the world. Yvon agrees; I know, because we drive past another back-turned house on our regular route to the supermarket. ‘Houses like that are for recluses who live on their hermity own and say, “Bah, humbug,” a lot,’ Yvon said the first time we passed it.

  I know what she’d say about 3 Chapel Lane if she were here: ‘It looks like the house of someone who might say, “You mustn’t ever come to the house.” As indeed it is!’ I used to talk to you about Yvon, but I stopped after you frowned and said she sounded sarcastic and chippy. That was the only time something you said really upset me. I told you she was my best friend and had been since school. And, yes, she is sarcastic, but only in a good way, only in a way that cheers you up, somehow. She’s blunt and irreverent and she firmly believes we should all poke fun at everything, even bad things. Even agonising love for a married man you can’t have; Yvon thinks that, especially, is something we ought to poke fun at, and half the time her levity is the only thing that keeps me sane.

  When you saw that I was hurt by your criticism of her, you kissed me and said, ‘I’ll tell you something I read in a book once that’s made life easier for me ever since: we do as much harm to ourselves and others when we take offence as when we give offence. Do you see what I’m saying?’ I nodded, although I wasn’t sure I did.

  I never told you, but I repeated your aphorism to Yvon, though of course I didn’t tell her the context. I pretended you’d made some other hurtful remark, one that was unconnected to her. ‘How astonishingly convenient,’ she said, giggling. ‘So let’s get this straight: you’re as guilty when you love a tosser as when you are a tosser. Thank you, oh great enlightened one, for sharing that with us.’

  I have worried endlessly about what will happen at our wedding, when we eventually get married. I can’t imagine you and Yvon having a conversation that doesn’t descend rapidly into silence on your part and uproarious ridicule on hers.

  She phoned your house last night. I made her, begged her, ruined her evening until she agreed. It makes me feel slightly sick, the idea that she has heard your wife’s voice. It’s one step closer to something I don’t want to face up to, the physical reality of Juliet in the world. She exists. If she didn’t, you and I would already be living together. I would know where you were.

  Juliet sounded as if she was lying. That’s what Yvon said.

  In front of the back of your house, there is a stone wall with a brown wooden gate set into it. Nowhere is there a number three; I am able to identify your house only by a process of elimination. I climb out of my car and stagger slightly, as if my limbs are unused to movement. It is a windy, blustery day, but bright—almost spectacularly so. It makes me squint. I feel as if your street has been highlighted, nature’s way of saying, ‘This is where Robert lives.’

  The gate is high, level with my shoulders. It opens with a creak and I slip on to your property. I find myself standing on a twig-strewn dirt path, staring at your garden. In one corner, there is an old bathtub with two bicycle wheels in it, beside a pile of flattened cardboard boxes. The grass is patchy. I can see many more weeds than plants. It’s clear that there were once flowerbeds here, distinct from the scruffy lawn, but now everything is merging into a matted green-and-brown chaos. The sight makes me furious. With Juliet. You work every day, often seven days a week. You haven’t got time to tend the garden, but she has. She hasn’t had a job since she married you, and the two of you have no children. What does she do all day?

  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-tw
o 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.

  2

  4/3/06

  ‘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.’