Beautiful Liars_a gripping thriller about friendship, dark secrets and bitter betrayal

by Isabel Ashdown

  Before long, the girls paused where the footpath opens out on to the main street beyond, now only a short distance from me, continuing to speak in hushed tones.

  ‘It must be more than that,’ the girl in the striped hat said, turning her bike wheels towards the exit path. The elegant lines of their bodies, the juxtaposition of the two bicycles at opposing angles, seemed almost balletic in its arrangement. ‘It’s not like Liv to lose the plot so easily. Me, yes – but not Liv.’

  The taller girl lifted one delicate wrist, pushing back her thick hair, a swirl of white breath drifting from her mouth like mist. ‘Honestly, I haven’t got a clue. It isn’t just you she’s been funny with lately.’ She tugged at the white tabard she wore over her winter coat, readjusting its hem to bring the Square Wheels logo into clear view.

  ‘She even had a go at Tom earlier,’ said the other. ‘I still reckon she’s got a thing for him. She seems to be hanging around your house a lot more lately.’

  The Square Wheels girl laughed raucously, betraying her real self, and I swear I saw the brightness of her sputter like a flame in a draught. ‘No, I already asked her. She said she’d never be interested in Tom – and anyway, he’s just started seeing some girl at uni.’

  It was strangely exhilarating to listen in, unseen, to hear them talk of boys in this casual, disposable fashion. I almost forgot why I was there, what it was that I came to the waterside to do. To my irritation a rush of traffic passed beyond the hedgerow, drowning out their words, though it was clear to me there was tension between them when their voices drifted back into my earshot. The striped hat girl turned her bike around to face back the way they’ve just come.

  ‘Can’t you leave it until tomorrow?’ asked the other. It sounded like a complaint.

  ‘No – the café doesn’t open up until mid-morning, does it?’ There was impatience in her voice now, her words slurred. They’d been drinking, that much was clear. ‘Anyway, I don’t want to risk someone nicking it.’

  Another cyclist zipped by, going one way; a dog walker passed along the path in the other. The girls lowered their voices and I could feel the strained atmosphere between them as I struggled to listen in. But all I could make out was ‘tomorrow’, delivered with resignation in its tone.

  ‘Promise?’ the other one said in reply, and they embraced stiffly before the girl in the hat cycled away, her figure disappearing into the night.

  For just a brief moment, the lone girl paused on the frosty path, her eyes resting on the gently rippling surface of the water, and I saw something shift in her expression. What was it? Sadness? Regret? Whatever it was, it was fleeting, vanishing entirely as she mounted her bicycle and pushed away, sailing past me, flaxen locks streaming behind her like spun gold.

  ‘Oh, hello!’ I called after her, feeling a surge of panic rising as I stepped out on to the path and adrenaline flooded my veins. ‘Hi!’

  She came to a stop, jerkily hopping on one foot as she twisted to look back at me, her mouth breaking into a broad, gleaming smile. ‘Hi!’ she called back lightly, and she seemed pleased to see me. She had the power to paralyse, that one. ‘I’m late, aren’t I? Has everyone else headed off?’

  ‘No, you’re fine,’ I replied, beckoning her over. ‘Actually, I’m glad you’re here,’ I said as she approached, indicating towards the shadows at the foot of the bench. ‘I’m having a bit of trouble with this …’

  As she bent to take a closer look I glanced up and down the empty towpath and hooked the fishing rope beneath her beautiful chin, tugging her up and towards me, crossing my wrists to close up the circle and shut off her breath.

  Right up until that moment, I believe I had only meant to talk with her. Of course the rope was coiled and ready in my pocket, and one might gather from that alone that I had waited on the path with the sole intention of extinguishing that girl’s life. But that wasn’t how it was: the rope was merely a precaution – something I’d picked up in the cabin earlier that same evening, sliding it into my pocket without malice or plan. Even as the girl took her last gasp, as her mittened hands fumbled to gain purchase on mine, her writhing legs slowing to a weak judder, I regretted not talking to her as I had planned. If I’d just spoken with her, as I’d intended, things could have worked out quite differently. I know that now. I know now that I got a few things wrong. A little mixed up, you might say.

  But I’ve always been somewhat rash; it’s a curse.

  13. Martha

  The next morning, Martha and Toby have an early breakfast in the quiet of the Peak Inn lounge bar, discussing last night’s revelation. According to Eddie’s account, in the spring of 1970 a seventeen-year-old girl called Tilly Jones was brutally murdered and left in the copse close to David Crown’s family home at Blackdog Farm. The girl, new to the village, was known to David, as the parents were old family friends who had moved in from Mansfield way only a few weeks earlier. On the day in question, David had been asked to show Tilly around and together they had gone to a local café, watched a film at the cinema and got chatting with a few of David’s friends before he walked her home. But Tilly Jones never made it home, and when she was found dead at the copse the following morning, David was the first to be questioned.

  This extraordinary piece of news has kept Martha tossing and turning most of the night.

  The rest of the breakfast area is empty, and when landlord Ant brings their food, he pulls up a seat.

  ‘The girl in that photograph you showed me last night,’ he says. ‘I phoned my brother – he’s a few years older than me. Her name was Hattie Brown – Harriet, I suppose – and he can’t remember much about her, other than the fact she was going out with David back when he was doing his A-levels. What he did say was that she – the girlfriend – was the reason David didn’t get charged. Turns out Hattie was with him when he walked Tilly home. Lots of folks, like Eddie, for example, didn’t believe it, thought she was just covering for him, but then, sometimes people just want to believe the worst, don’t they?’

  ‘Do you know where she is now?’ Toby asks.

  ‘Again, the family moved on years back. Stew said they lived in the big house on Dale Road, but I can’t picture her. I think she was away at boarding school most of the time.’

  Martha makes a note to get Juney on the case to trace this old girlfriend. If she was with him that night, she would be able to provide vital insight into David’s involvement – or otherwise – in the murder of Tilly Jones.

  As they settle their bill, Jay and Sally arrive, having driven up early from London to film the location shots. In separate cars, they all set off in the direction of Blackdog Farm, just a mile outside of Castledale, stopping off several times en route to film some straight-to-camera pieces. Since the latest revelation, Martha has cobbled together some additional scripts, which she delivers to camera against the backdrop of the Derbyshire peaks.

  ‘When we arrived in Castledale last night, we were in search of more information about David Crown, missing London gardener and charity worker, and the main suspect in the case of vanished student Juliet Sherman in 2000. Less than twenty-four hours later, and our enquiries have uncovered more questions than they have answers, presenting us with a second cold case from three decades earlier – the unsolved murder of teenager Tilly Jones. Two seventeen-year-olds, missing or dead – a coincidence, perhaps?’ She hesitates for a beat, unblinking. ‘Perhaps. Except for the fact that our missing charity worker David Crown was a person of interest in both cases.’

  She waits for Sally to give her the nod, then snaps her notebook shut and jumps back into the passenger seat.

  ‘Bloody hell,’ Toby says, indicating and pulling away. ‘You really are a pro, Martha. I’ve never seen someone nail a take so quickly.’

  She laughs, and decides she’ll let him do the next one. It’ll be good for him, both the experience and the exposure. After this short period of working with Toby, it’s clear to Martha that she had been wrong to judge him so harshly. Any reservatio
ns she had about him were more to do with her own insecurities than his ability to do a good job, and she makes a mental note not to be such a tight-arsed cow in future.

  For a Monday morning, the drive from Castledale couldn’t be more different from a morning’s commute in central London, and as they pass through hedge-lined lanes and alongside mist-shrouded fields, Martha wonders how she would fare in the countryside. As beautiful as this place is, she suspects she’s a city girl through and through.

  Toby slows down as they approach a lone house on the edge of farmland, a tall brick building, a little shabby around the window frames and doors. ‘This must be the neighbour’s place. What did you say her name was?’

  ‘Thatcher,’ Martha replies, and she checks the time on her phone. Ten o’clock. They park the car in a lay-by, and Martha instructs Jay and Sally to carry on up the road to capture some footage of the Crown place as it looks now.

  ‘We’ll see you there afterwards,’ she says. ‘Just a couple more speaking pieces and then I think we’re done.’ She looks up and down the road. ‘Jay, see if you can get me and Toby walking towards the neighbour’s house – and the neighbour answering the door, if possible?’ She checks her watch. If they get a move on with this interview, they could all be back in London by three or four. She taps out a text to Finn Palin, asking him to meet her later today. ‘OK, let’s go.’

  The woman who answers the door is elderly, dressed in a faded floral dress beneath a floury apron. Her white hair is rolled neatly around her small head, and she has all the appearance of a traditional fairytale grandmother. Martha takes care to position herself in such a way as to allow Jay and Sally a clear shot. She’ll ask for permission later, once they know whether it’s relevant or not.

  ‘Hello, Mrs Thatcher,’ Martha says. ‘Martha Benn. You’re expecting us?’

  Within minutes they are seated at the woman’s round farmhouse kitchen table, looking at photographs of the two families enjoying a celebration in the garden here, the views overlooking Blackdog Farm. There are only a few pictures, but it seems the Thatchers and Crowns knew each other well, before the Crowns moved on.

  Mrs Thatcher places a teapot on the table, inviting Toby to pour. ‘I’m a good few years older than David, but of course, who could forget the murder? It shook the community. For a long time people stopped walking home late at night. No one wanted to let their kids out of their sight.’

  ‘Do you think David Crown killed Tilly?’ Martha asks, the tea poured, the niceties done.

  Mrs Thatcher tuts, her friendly demeanour clouding for a moment. ‘David didn’t kill Tilly Jones. I know all about the rumours, but the poor boy was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. And anyway, he was with his girlfriend, wasn’t he? She told the police she was with David, and that was that. But you know how people like to gossip.’

  ‘Did you know her well?’ Martha checks her notes. ‘Hattie Brown?’

  ‘Not really. She was only ever here in the holidays – I think she was away at school the rest of the time. Pretty girl. The Crown family sold up a couple of years after all this, when the father died. That place of theirs was enormous – it’s a country hotel now.’

  ‘And David was never charged?’ Toby asks, steering the conversation back.

  ‘There was nothing to charge him with. David told them the truth – that they’d walked Tilly most of the way home, and said goodbye to her at the edge of the copse, where her house was in sight. That’s the worst part of it: she was murdered just yards from her family home.’

  ‘It must have been awful, for all of you,’ Martha says. ‘Do you recall if there were any other suspects?’

  The woman sighs heavily. ‘There was plenty of speculation, of course – not all of it helpful – but as far as I know no one else was taken in. You get a lot of walkers through here, all seasons, heading for the Peaks. That seemed to be the favourite opinion, that it was a stranger, some maniac who chanced upon her. You know her skull was completely crushed? Poor love.’

  Martha is momentarily derailed, wondering what kind of person has the capacity to crush a person’s skull. To crush them to death. Could David Crown have done something like that?

  Toby steps in to ask the next question. ‘Why do you think he – David and the rest of his family – moved away so suddenly?’

  Mrs Thatcher stands momentarily, picking up oven gloves and fetching a tray of scones from the dark range cooker that dominates the far wall. She places the tray on the top and returns to sit at the table. The smell is so comforting. Martha breathes it in, savouring the reassuring warmth of the homely kitchen.

  ‘Oh, it wasn’t all that sudden,’ the elderly woman says, reaching across to top up their teacups. ‘David went first because he had a place at university – Cambridge, I think. He was a clever boy. Most of the youngsters move away from here eventually, looking for something new.’

  ‘And the parents?’

  ‘They’d had enough of farming,’ she says sadly. ‘And the gossip. They’d had enough of the gossip.’

  When Mrs Thatcher sees them to the door, she hands Toby a rolled paper napkin containing two warm scones. She rests a hand on Martha’s arm and smiles kindly. ‘You know, David – and the rest of the Crown family – they were some of the nicest people I’d ever met. I don’t think there was a bad bone in that entire family. Until that business with Tilly Jones, he’d never had a moment’s bother, you know? Bright as a button and meek as a mouse. If you want my opinion, David wasn’t charged back then for the very good reason that he was innocent.’

  By four o’clock they’re back in London, and Toby drops Martha and her overnight bag close to where she’s meeting Finn Palin. For most of the journey she’s been revisiting last night’s conversation with Ant and the man at the bar, and today’s visit with Mrs Thatcher – wondering how the police could have missed so fundamental a coincidence when they were investigating Juliet’s disappearance thirty years later. Martha had hoped to find out more about the young David Crown on this Derbyshire trip. But she hadn’t anticipated a breakthrough of this gravity: another dead girl. Another seventeen-year-old girl murdered, and David Crown once again in the close vicinity. Surely they had to be connected? At any rate, one thing was clear: Derbyshire had presented them with more questions than it had answers.

  Now she’s sitting in the café, and when Finn Palin enters through the steamed-up glass door, Martha feels an unexpected rush of emotion. She’s been speaking to him regularly since starting on this project, but she hasn’t seen him in the flesh for a good few years. He’s aged, in a good way, his serious expression having softened into sun-weathered creases that gather around his eyes. She rises, and he wraps her in a strong embrace.

  ‘Look at you.’ He smiles as he releases her and pulls out the chair facing hers. ‘All grown-up.’

  She raises her eyebrows. ‘I’m thirty-five, Finn. I’ve been grown-up a fair few years now.’

  ‘Thirty-four,’ he replies with a crinkle of his face. ‘Still, you’ve got some way to catch up to me. Sixty-five this year.’

  ‘Same as Dad. You’re looking good, by the way, in case that was what you were fishing for?’

  Finn laughs, as though that wasn’t what he meant, but looking pleased all the same. They’ve chosen an inconspicuous greasy spoon, halfway between Finn’s old patch and Martha’s home, somewhere he knows other coppers won’t frequent and where she won’t attract too much unwanted attention. The woman behind the counter brings over two mugs of tea and a Danish pastry, which Martha ordered when she arrived. Martha slides the pastry across the formica table.

  ‘My favourite,’ Finn says.

  ‘I know,’ Martha replies. ‘It’s on me.’

  ‘So, what can I help you with, love? It goes without saying—’ he starts to say.

  Martha holds her hands up. ‘Your name will never come up in this – but are you happy for us to quote “police sources”? I mean, you’re retired now, so it shouldn’t come back on you in
any way. But I don’t want you to put yourself at any risk.’

  ‘Just keep my name out of it and I’ll do whatever I can to help. This is all a bit “below board” for me, Martha, but I know what it means to you. A couple of Crime Squad lads who came up under me have said they’re prepared to help with a bit of historical info, so long as there’s no trace back to them.’ He stirs a sugar into his tea, and Martha is grateful for his matter-of-fact approach. ‘Any joy with your old friend? Olivia, is it?’

  Martha releases an exasperated breath. ‘I’m not sure what’s going on there. She’s been fairly forthcoming in her emails, but impossible to pin down to a face-to-face meeting. She’s living in the same place in Hackney, so it’s not as if it would be difficult for her to meet up. I can’t help wondering if she’s hiding something, something to do with Juliet’s disappearance that she just doesn’t want to tell me. Maybe I should just drop in on her. Force the issue.’

  ‘Sometimes an element of surprise is your best bet,’ Finn agrees. ‘Though you run the risk of alienating her if she’s not happy about it.’

  ‘That’s what I’m worried about. I emailed her again last night, but I guess I could leave it a few days and see if she warms to the idea.’