The Truth-Teller's Lie Read online

  ‘What about Sean and Tony?’ I snap at the barman, scrolling through the photographs on my phone while Yvon pays for our drinks. ‘Do you know them?’

  My question elicits a throaty laugh. ‘Sean and Tony? You’re having me on, right?’

  ‘No.’ I stop fiddling with my phone and look up. My heart is racing. The names mean something to him.

  ‘No? Well, I’m Sean. And Tony also works here, behind the bar. He’ll be in this evening.’

  ‘But . . .’ I am at a loss for words. ‘Robert talked about you as if . . .’ I assumed that you, Sean and Tony came here together. Thinking about it now, you never actually said that was what happened. I must have made it up, leaped to the wrong conclusion.

  You come here alone. Sean and Tony are here already because they work here.

  I turn back to my phone. I don’t want Yvon to see that I am confused. How can this development be anything but good? I have found Sean and Tony. They know you, they’re your friends. All I need to do is show Sean a photograph and he’ll recognise you. I choose the one of you standing in front of your lorry outside the Traveltel, and pass my phone across the bar.

  I see instant recognition in Sean’s eyes and allow myself to breathe again.

  ‘Elvis!’ He chuckles. ‘Tony and me call him Elvis. To his face, like. He doesn’t mind.’

  I nearly burst into tears. Sean is your friend. He even has a nickname for you.

  ‘Why do you call him that?’ asks Yvon.

  ‘Isn’t it obvious?’

  Yvon and I shake our heads.

  ‘He looks like a bigger version of Elvis Costello, doesn’t he? Elvis Costello after he’s eaten all the pies.’ Sean laughs at his witticism. ‘We said that to him an’ all.’

  ‘You didn’t know his name was Robert Haworth?’ says Yvon. Out of the corner of my eye I can see that she is looking at me, not at Sean.

  ‘I don’t think he ever told us his name. He’s just always been Elvis. Is he okay? Tony and me were saying last night we haven’t seen Elvis for a while.’

  ‘When?’ I say sharply. ‘When did you last see him?’

  Sean frowns. I must have sounded too fraught. I’ve put him off. Idiot. ‘Who are you, anyway?’ he says.

  ‘I’m Robert’s girlfriend.’ I have never said this before. I wish I could say it over and over again. I wish I could say wife instead of girlfriend.

  ‘Did he ever mention a Naomi?’ asks Yvon.

  ‘Nope.’

  ‘What about Juliet?’

  Sean shakes his head. He is starting to look wary.

  ‘Look, this is really important,’ I say. This time I make sure my voice is calm and not too loud. ‘Robert’s been missing since last Thursday . . .’

  ‘Hang on . . .’ Yvon touches my arm. ‘We don’t know that.’

  ‘I know it.’ I shake her off. ‘When did you last see him?’ I ask Sean.

  He is nodding. ‘Would’ve been around then,’ he said. ‘Thursday, Wednesday, something like that. But he’s normally in most nights for a sly pint and a chat, so after a few nights of him not turning up, me and Tony started wondering. Not that it doesn’t happen, mind. We get loads of punters like that: regular as clockwork for years and then suddenly, boof! They’re gone and you never clap eyes on them again.’

  ‘And he didn’t say anything about going away?’ I ask, though I already know the answer. ‘He didn’t mention any plans to go on holiday or anything?’

  ‘Did he say anything about Kent?’ Yvon chips in.

  Sean shakes his head. ‘Nothing like that. He said, “See you tomorrow,” same as always.’ He laughs. ‘Sometimes he said, “See you tomorrow, Sean, if we’re spared.” If we’re spared! Bit of a gloomy sod, isn’t he?’

  I stare at the dark wooden floorboards, blood pounding in my ears. I’ve never heard you use that expression. What if you said it to Sean for a reason? What if, this time, you have not been spared?

  Yvon is thanking Sean for his help, as if the conversation is over. ‘Wait,’ I say, dragging myself out of the haze of dread that temporarily silenced me. ‘What’s your surname? What’s Tony’s?’

  ‘Naomi . . .’ Yvon sounds alarmed.

  ‘Is it all right if I give your names to the police? You can tell them what you’ve just told us, that you agree that Robert’s missing.’

  ‘He didn’t say that,’ says Yvon.

  ‘I don’t mind. Like I say, me and Tony did think it was a bit funny. Mine’s Hennage, Sean Hennage. Tony’s is Willder.’

  ‘Wait here,’ I say to Yvon, and I’m outside with my bag and my phone before she has a chance to object.

  I sit at one of the white-painted metal tables and pull my coat tight around me, tugging my sleeves down over my hands. It’ll be a while before people are drinking outside. It is spring in name only. I watch three swans glide down the river in a line as I dial the number I spent an hour tracking down this morning, the one that will get me straight through to CID at Spilling Police Station. I wanted to phone immediately to ask what exactly Detective Sergeant Zailer and Detective Constable Waterhouse were doing about trying to find you, but Yvon said it was too soon, I had to give them a chance.

  I am certain that they are doing nothing. I don’t think they will lift a finger to help you. They believe you’ve left me by choice, that you’ve chosen Juliet over me and you’re too scared to tell me this directly. Only you and I know how ridiculous that idea is.

  A Detective Constable Gibbs answers the phone. He tells me that Zailer and Waterhouse are both out. His manner is offhand, verging on rude. Does he so resent speaking to me that he is trying to use as few words as possible in response to my questions? That’s the impression I get. He has probably heard all about me and thinks I’m some kind of bunny-boiler, hounding you when you’d rather be left alone, sending the police to do my dirty work. When I tell him that I want to leave a message, he pretends he has a pen, pretends he is writing down Sean and Tony’s names, but he can’t be. He growls, ‘Got it,’ too quickly. I can tell when someone is really making a note of something—there are long pauses, and sometimes they repeat bits under their breath, or check spellings.

  Detective Constable Gibbs does none of these things. He puts the phone down while I am still talking to him.

  I walk over to the white-painted iron railings that separate the pub’s terrace from the river. I ought to ring the police station again, demand to speak to the most senior person in the building—a chief constable or chief superintendent—and complain about the way I’ve been treated. I am brilliant at complaining. It is what I was doing the first time you saw me, and it’s why you fell in love with me—you always tell me that. I had no idea you were watching, listening, otherwise I’m sure I would have toned it down a bit. Thank God I didn’t. Beautifully savage: that’s how you describe the way I was that day.

  It would never occur to you to protest about anything—on your own behalf, I mean; you would always stick up for me. But that’s why you admire my fighting spirit, my conviction that misery and shoddiness do not have to be part of life. You’re impressed that I have the nerve to aim absurdly high.

  I can’t go back into the pub, not yet. I am too churned up. Tears of rage fill my eyes, blurring the cold, slow-moving water in front of me. I hate myself when I cry, really loathe myself. It doesn’t do any good. What’s the point of resolving never to be weak and helpless again if all you can do when your lover vanishes into thin air is stand beside a river and weep? It’s pathetic.

  Yvon will tell me again to give the police a chance, but why should I? Why aren’t Detective Sergeant Zailer and Detective Constable Waterhouse here at the Star, asking Sean when he last saw you? Will they bother to go to your house and speak to Juliet? Unaccounted-for married lovers must be bottom of their list of priorities. Especially now, when all over the country, it sometimes seems, networks of maniacs are planning to blow themselves up and take train-loads of innocent men, women and children with them. Dangerous criminals—tho
se are the people the police care about finding.

  My heart jolts as an impossible idea begins to take shape in my mind. I try to push it down but it won’t go away; it advances from the shadows slowly, gradually, like a figure emerging from a dark cave. I wipe my eyes. No, I can’t do it. Even to think about it feels like a terrible betrayal. I’m sorry, Robert. I must be going properly mad. Nobody would do that. Besides, it would be a physical impossibility. I wouldn’t be able to utter the words.

  What kind of a person does that? Nobody! That’s what Yvon said when I told her about how we met, how you drew yourself to my attention. I told you she’d said it, remember? You smiled and said, ‘Tell her I’m the person who does the things nobody would do.’ I did tell her. She mimed sticking her finger down her throat.

  I clutch the railings for support, feeling wrung out, as if this new fear that has suddenly saturated me might dissolve my bones and muscles. ‘I can’t do it, Robert,’ I whisper, knowing it’s pointless. I had this exact same sensation when we first met: an unwavering certainty that everything that was going to happen had been laid down long ago by an authority far more powerful than me, one that owed me nothing, entered into no contract with me, yet compelled me entirely. I couldn’t have tampered with it, however hard I’d tried.

  It’s the same this time. The decision has already been made.

  Sean smiles at me as I walk back into the pub—a bland, cartoon smile, as if he hasn’t met me before, as if we haven’t just agreed that you are missing, that there is cause for serious concern. Yvon sits at the table furthest from the bar, playing with her mobile phone. She’s got a new game on it that she’s addicted to. It’s clear that, in my absence, she and Sean have not been talking to one another. It makes me angry. Why am I always the one who has to drive everything?

  ‘We’ve got to go,’ I say to Yvon.

  Her name has not always been Yvon. I’ve never told you this. There’s a lot I haven’t told you about her. I stopped mentioning her after it occurred to me that you might be jealous. I am not married, and apart from you Yvon is the most important person in my life. I am closer to her than I am to any of my family. She has lived with me ever since her divorce, which is another thing I haven’t told you about.

  She’s tiny and skinny—five feet tall, seven and a half stone—and has long, straight brown hair that reaches her waist. Usually she wears it in a ponytail that she twists round her arm when she’s working, or playing games on her computer. Every few months she chain-smokes Consulate menthol cigarettes for between a week and a fortnight, but then she gives up again. I’m never allowed to mention these lapses from healthy living once they’re over.

  She was christened Eleanor—Eleanor Rosamund Newman—but when she was twelve she decided that she wanted to be called Yvon instead. She asked her parents if she could change her name, and the fools agreed. They’re both classicists at Oxford, strict about education but nothing else. They believe it’s important to let children express their personalities, as long as it doesn’t interfere with their getting straight ‘A’s all the way through school.

  ‘They’re a pair of numbskulls,’ Yvon often says. ‘I was twelve! I thought “Too Shy” by Kajagoogoo was the best song ever written. I wanted to marry Limahl. They should have locked me in a cupboard until I grew out of it.’

  When Yvon married Ben Cotchin, she took his surname. Her friends and family, including me, were mystified when she decided to keep it after the divorce. ‘Every time I change my name, I make it a little bit worse,’ she explained. ‘I’m not risking it again. Anyway, I like having a shit, wrongly spelled first name and the surname of a spoiled, lazy alcoholic. It’s a fantastic exercise in humility. Whenever I pick up an envelope addressed to me, or fill in the electoral register form, I remember how stupid I am. It keeps the old ego in check.’

  ‘Are we going home?’ she asks now.

  ‘No. To the police station.’

  I so badly want to tell her. Yvon is the person whose opinions I use to test my own. Often I don’t know what I think about something until I’ve heard what she thinks. But I can’t risk it this time. Besides, there’s no point. I know all the reasons why it’s wrong and bad and crazy, and I’m going to do it anyway.

  ‘The police station?’ Yvon begins to protest. ‘But—’

  ‘I know, I should give them a chance,’ I say bitterly. ‘But this isn’t about that. This is something different.’ I feel stunned by my own outrageous nerve, but calmer, also, now that I have decided on a course of action. No one can accuse me of being a coward if I do this.

  ‘Let’s talk outside,’ Yvon says. ‘I don’t like this place at all. It’s too close to the river, the water’s too loud. Even inside there’s a damp, waterlogged atmosphere. I’m starting to feel like a creature from Wind In the Willows.’ She stands up, pulls her purple shawl around her shoulders.

  ‘I don’t want to talk. I just need a lift. You don’t have to come in with me, you can drop me off and go home. I’ll make my own way back.’ I start to march towards the car park.

  ‘Naomi, wait!’ Yvon runs after me. ‘What’s going on?’

  Saying nothing is not so hard after all. This isn’t the first secret I’ve kept from her. I’ve had three years to practise.

  Yvon waves her car keys in the air, leaning against her red Fiat Punto. ‘Tell me or I’m not driving you anywhere.’

  ‘You don’t believe me, do you? You don’t believe that Juliet’s done something to Robert. You think he’s dumped me and hasn’t got the guts to tell me.’

  There is an echoey squawk of birds above our heads. It’s as if they’re trying to join in our conversation. I look up at the grey sky, half expecting to see a committee of gulls staring down at me. But they are oblivious, going about their business as usual.

  Yvon groans. ‘Can I refer you to my forty-seven previous answers to the same question? I don’t know where Robert is, or why he hasn’t been in touch. And neither do you. It’s very, very unlikely that Juliet’s chopped him into small pieces and buried him under the floorboards, okay?’

  ‘She knew my name. She’d found out about the affair.’

  ‘It’s still unlikely.’ Yvon relents and unlocks the car. I am disappointed. She could have persuaded me to tell her, if she’d pushed a bit harder. Most people are not as persistent as I am. ‘Naomi, I’m worried about you.’

  ‘It’s Robert you should worry about. Something’s happened to him. He’s in trouble.’ I wonder why I am the only person to whom this is obvious.

  ‘When did you last eat?’ Yvon asks, once we’re in the car. ‘When did you last get a good night’s sleep?’ Every question she asks me I think of in relation to you. Are you hungry and tired somewhere, gradually giving up hope, wondering why I’m not trying harder to find you? Yvon thinks I’m being melodramatic, but I know you. Only something that paralysed or confined you, or took away your memory, would prevent you from making contact with me. A lot of tragedies are unlikely, but they still happen. Most people do not fall off bridges, or die in house fires, but some do.

  I want to say to Yvon that statistics are irrelevant and unhelpful, but I can’t spare the words. I need all my energy to steel myself for my next step. It’s obvious, anyway. Even if the odds are one in a million, that one could be you. It has to be somebody, doesn’t it?

  Yvon is on Juliet’s side; she too believes I’m better off without you. She thinks you’re repressed and sexist, and that the way you talk is grandiose and pretentious, that you say lots of things that sound deep and meaningful but are actually meaningless and trite. You present clichés as if they are profound, newly discovered truths, she says. Once, she accused me of trying to mould my personality to suit what I imagine you want, although she took that back the following morning. I could tell from the look on her face that she had meant it, but thought she’d gone too far.

  I wasn’t offended. Meeting you did change me. That was the best thing about it. Knowing I had a future with you helped
me to bury everything I hated about the past. How I wish I could leave it buried.

  We drive up the steep tree-lined road, the sound of the river fading behind us. There are no leaves yet on these trees, which throw their bare arms up towards the sky.

  Yvon doesn’t ask again why I want to go to the police station. She tries a new tactic. ‘Are you sure I wouldn’t be better off driving you to Robert’s house? If you’re so sure you saw something through the window . . .’

  ‘No.’ The dread I feel at the mention of it is like a hand closing round my throat.

  ‘It’s one mystery we could easily get to the bottom of,’ Yvon points out. I understand why she thinks it’s a reasonable suggestion. ‘All you need to do is go and look again. I’ll come with you.’

  ‘No.’ The police will go, as soon as they’ve heard what I’m about to tell them. If there’s something to be found, they’ll find it.

  ‘What could you possibly have seen, for God’s sake? It can’t have been Robert, handcuffed to a radiator and covered in bruises. I mean, you’d remember that, wouldn’t you?’

  ‘Don’t joke about it.’

  ‘What do you remember seeing in the room? You still haven’t told me.’

  I haven’t because I can’t. Describing your lounge to DS Zailer and DC Waterhouse was bad enough; some reflex in my brain kept springing back, away from the image.

  Yvon sighs when I fail to answer. She turns on her car radio and jabs one button after another, finding nothing she wants to listen to. In the end she chooses the station that’s playing one of Madonna’s old songs, and turns the volume down so that it’s barely audible.

  ‘You thought Sean and Tony were Robert’s best mates, didn’t you? That’s how he talked about them. He misled you. They’re just two guys who work behind the bar at his local pub.’

  ‘Which is how they met Robert. Obviously they became friends.’

  ‘They don’t even know his real name. And how come he’s in the Star every night? How come he’s in Spilling every night? I thought he was a lorry driver.’