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

by Isabel Ashdown

  Martha brings her cup to her mouth, casting a sideways glance at the drunk man who lurches close to their table on his way to the gents. She feels her heart rate rising. It’s the one thing that can unsettle her to this day: being in close proximity to drunks. Not drunk people, but drunks – those dead-eyed souls already lost to the bottle, beyond caring what the rest of the world makes of them. How does an upright, intelligent human being descend to such depths?

  She drags her eyes away from the stumbling man and back to Finn. He’s watching her watching, she thinks. He knows what’s on her mind. She places her cup solidly on the table.

  ‘OK. So what we need to work out is why would Katherine do that? Why would she purposely mislead us? Why would she interfere with a live police case?’

  ‘Exactly,’ Finn agrees. ‘I think the most likely conclusion is that she did it to divert blame on to this “Ethan” – and away from her father. I think she’s trying to protect the memory – or the reputation – of her father.’

  This makes complete sense. It would explain why she took on the Liv role, having been panicked by the nature of Martha’s questions. All her responses to Martha during those communications insisted that David Crown was a decent man, that he couldn’t possibly have taken Juliet. It was Katherine who had first introduced the idea of a complete stranger – and then of ‘Ethan’ – way before the MisPer chat-room thread appeared, and before the hair was sent to the police with a letter from ‘Ethan’. Now that Martha thinks about it, Katherine even had her wondering whether Juliet’s lovely brother Tom could have had anything to do with Juliet’s vanishing. Christ, that should have alerted her, if nothing else!

  ‘So do we think that Katherine is behind the MisPer chatroom thread too?’ Martha asks.

  ‘Almost certainly,’ Finn replies, checking his watch. ‘How are you doing for time, love? I’ve got a couple more things for you.’

  ‘I’ve got a few more minutes,’ she says, glancing at her phone. ‘Though we’d better not keep Mrs Crown waiting.’

  Toby runs a pen down his own list. ‘My mate hasn’t had any luck yet working out the IP address of the account that initiated the thread.’

  ‘Well, the police analysts will be on to it now,’ Finn tells him. ‘They’ll winkle it out before you know it. It would help if we could get hold of Miss Crown’s PC, but my chap tells me there was no sign of it at her place. Looks like she took her laptop and mobile phone when she fled – so she had her head about her to some degree.’

  ‘You don’t think—’

  Finn interrupts, reading her thoughts. ‘That she might be responsible for Juliet?’

  Martha nods, pinching her lower lip. Is it possible? Could the teenage Katherine have been behind Juliet’s disappearance – behind her death? She, of all people, would have had access to the building site at the school, what with her father working there. And she was around in that period, they now know.

  ‘What if she killed Juliet, and her father was the one who covered it up?’

  ‘Bloody hell, love. Maybe you should have followed in your father’s footsteps and joined the force? I’ve had the same thoughts, but I’ve yet to be convinced it’s not David Crown – especially when you hear the other details I’ve got to share with you. I suppose it would be another motive for her diverting attention away from her dad, if she knew that our suspecting him might lead us to her. But it doesn’t explain why he then did a runner so promptly. Why would he have run off like that, if his daughter was the one who killed Juliet?’

  ‘To protect her?’ Martha says. ‘Perhaps he did cover it up for her, and then decided the only way to completely remove suspicion from her was if he disappeared and took the suspicion with him?’

  Toby is drumming his fingers on his knee, his face fixed in concentration. ‘Yes. But it’s hard to completely disappear like that, isn’t it? Especially if you haven’t had lots of time to think about it. Maybe he did help Katherine cover up her crime, but couldn’t live with what he’d done, and topped himself?’

  It sounds plausible, Martha thinks. Mad, but plausible.

  ‘What about the postcards to his wife?’

  ‘Katherine?’ Toby and Finn say at once.

  Martha takes a deep, juddering breath, suddenly aware of the time running away, with so much to follow up on before Glen Gavin starts asking for another status report. ‘What about these “other details” you mentioned, Finn?’ She pulls on her jacket as the drunk man stumbles past again, on his way back to the bar.

  ‘OK. Now mum’s the word on this info – I don’t want to see this turning up in your documentary, Martha, at least not until you’ve got official approval to include it. Agreed? I’m going to give you the investigating officer’s details, and I want you to contact him with a summary of everything you have so far. He’s a good mate of mine, and I’ve managed to convince him about these connections – and he’s expecting your call. He’s willing to meet up and see if you can help each other, but it’ll be on the condition that you keep everything to yourself until you’re given the nod.’

  Martha takes the contact card from Finn, slips it inside her wallet. ‘Thanks, Finn. I’ll give him a call after we’ve been to see Janet Crown.’

  Finn continues down his list. ‘After your attack, the police found some items of interest hidden in Katherine Crown’s home. They were looking for a recent picture of her to put out on their wanted bulletin. They didn’t find one, but they did find a box of old photographs, probably her father’s, most of them from the fifties and sixties. We think David and members of his family are the main subjects, because the background strongly suggests a Derbyshire location. Him and his family dog, with his parents, him with a sister or perhaps a girlfriend.’

  ‘That’s where she got that picture she sent me!’ Martha says, visualising the image of a young David Crown arm-in-arm with his beehive-wearing girlfriend. ‘I just couldn’t work out why Liv would have a picture like that.’ Idiot, Martha thinks, not for the first time.

  Finn shrugs. ‘Makes sense. Also inside that box was a gold cross on a chain, which is unremarkable except for the fact that it has a small ruby gemstone set in its centre.’

  ‘And?’ Toby asks.

  ‘And, when our chaps cross-referenced its description with the details of that Castledale cold case back in 1970 – the murder of Tilly Jones – a piece of jewellery exactly matching that description is noted as missing from the scene. The gold cross in David Crown’s photo box – in his daughter’s home – belongs to our murdered schoolgirl Tilly Jones.’

  Martha can’t believe what she’s hearing. ‘So he did it? It’s a trophy? David Crown actually murdered Tilly Jones?’

  ‘Looks that way,’ Finn says, savouring the shocked responses on Toby and Martha’s face. ‘And that’s not all.’

  ‘Jesus, Finn, there’s more?’ Martha is almost laughing. This is insane.

  ‘Also in the box …’ He pauses now, as though uncertain how best to deliver this piece of information. ‘It’s bad news, I’m afraid, Martha, love. Also in the box was a silver-plated bangle with Juliet’s name and the year “1998” inscribed on the inside surface.’

  Martha shakes her head, willing her emotions to stay locked down. Her fingers encircle the wrist of her other hand. They each had one: friendship bracelets they’d saved up for together, ordering them at Lamb’s Jewellers on the high street at the end of Year Eleven, after their GCSEs. They were a symbol of their unbreakable friendship. After collecting them from the jewellers, they’d sat together, legs dangling from the wooden walkway that edged on to the Regent’s Canal, slipping them on to their narrow wrists as they looked out across the sunlit waters. Martha had taken hers off the day the police announced they were halting the search for Juliet Sherman, and vowed that she wouldn’t wear it again until the day Juliet was found.

  But now they had found Juliet, hadn’t they? She racks her brains, trying to remember what she did with her own bangle. It seems suddenly of vital importan
ce that she finds it, that she returns it to her wrist where it belongs. Where did she put it? Surely she didn’t leave it behind when she finally left Dad and Stanley House all those years ago? A flash of grief fills her mind, a snapshot of her younger self, puffy-eyed, curled up small on her single bed in Stanley House, her sense of loss like a physical pain. Her dad standing in the doorway slurring his reassurances. No Mum; she was long gone. ‘She’ll be back,’ Dad had said when Juliet had been missing just one or two days, but instinctively Martha knew she wouldn’t. He’d said the same about Mum, and look how that had turned out. Martha knew Juliet wouldn’t just disappear like that, but it was more than just the certainty that came from having known someone well; it was something else, a conviction she can’t quite now grasp. Does she know more about Juliet’s disappearance than she’s allowing herself to admit – or was she just recalling the bleak response of a scared teenager? After a week, Dad stopped trying to convince Martha that Juliet would be back. After a month, they stopped talking about her altogether. If only Martha hadn’t left her alone on that towpath; if only she’d been a better friend.

  ‘Martha, are you alright?’ Toby has his hand on her shoulder, and she has the strongest desire to push against the gentle pressure of his fingertips, to soak in his warmth. ‘Martha?’

  She turns her attention on Finn, her focus sharpening. ‘Another trophy?’ she asks.

  ‘I think so, love. We shouldn’t rule out the possibility that Katherine is involved, but I think this is pretty strong evidence that Juliet came to harm at David Crown’s hands. The forensic results are due in tomorrow morning. Hopefully we’ll know a bit more about the “how” then.’

  ‘Will you call me as soon as you know anything?’ Martha asks, reaching to squeeze his hand as she stands to leave. One of her spotty gloves drops to the floor, and Toby retrieves it, unobtrusively popping it back into her jacket pocket.

  ‘Of course I will, love,’ Finn replies softly. ‘Go on, then, you’ve got things to do. And don’t forget to contact the DS – he’s expecting your call.’

  Martha and Toby leave Finn at the bar, getting another pint in. ‘Ease up there, Finn,’ she wants to say. But he’s not her dad, is he? Finn knows when to stop.

  At Janet Crown’s house there’s no reply, even after they’ve knocked several times. A few doors along the street, a woman is brushing down her windowsill and she waves to catch their attention.

  ‘Are you looking for Janet?’ she asks, holding her brush aloft.

  ‘Yes – do you know her?’ Toby calls back.

  The small woman, dressed in bright red slacks and a yellow polo-neck jumper, drops down off her low step and hurries along the path to join them. She must be in her early seventies, and looks as though she’s stepped straight out of a 1960s television ad.

  ‘She’s been taken into hospital!’ she tells them. ‘The police were here this morning – looking for Katherine …’ She hesitates a moment, as vague recognition of Martha flickers across her expression. It’s something Martha experiences all the time, that shift in people’s demeanour when they know that they know you, but can’t quite place where from. ‘Oh, are you police too?’

  ‘No, no.’ Toby smiles, sweeping back his boyish fringe and engaging his charm. ‘We’re friends. Is Janet alright?’

  ‘Well, no, I really don’t think she is. I’m Jeanie, by the way. Number eighteen. As you know, Janet’s very ill. She doesn’t like to talk about it much, but I know she’s been in and out of hospital for the last few years. Since her daughter left, she sometimes calls on me to feed the cat. You know, when she has to be away for appointments and suchlike.’ Martha has the impression that she’s adopting a smarter accent in response to Toby’s rounded vowels.

  Toby makes all the right noises, urging her on. ‘Poor Janet. So what happened?’

  ‘Well, I couldn’t help but notice the police were here yesterday afternoon – on my way back from the corner shop, I was – and just as I was chatting to the PC at the front door, telling him I hadn’t seen Katherine for a long time, I hear one of the other officers shouting out that she just collapsed. Janet. I tried to get in to see her, but they said it was best to wait for the experts. Before I knew it there was an ambulance in the road and she was rushed to A&E.’ She lowers her voice now, although there’s no one else to overhear. ‘Have you seen her lately? Looks on the brink of death. Her poor body must be in shutdown.’

  Martha shakes her head in understanding. ‘Cancer’s a terrible thing, isn’t it?’

  Jeanie looks confused. ‘Cancer? Oh, no, you’ve got the wrong end of the stick there, sweetheart. Janet hasn’t got cancer. She’s one of them anorexics. She’s been starving herself to death for years.’

  28. Katherine

  There was a hard frost overnight, dusting the roof of every houseboat with a sparkling coat of white. Once again I rise at dawn, and make my way to the high street to see if I can find a different café to pick up Wi-Fi and check in on any new developments. I’ve already decided I won’t be going back to that nasty man’s place again in a hurry. His hot chocolate was thin and those teacakes must have been at least a day out of date. Like a complete ninny I’ve misjudged things, because it’s Sunday and there’s nowhere except the newsagents open this early on a Sunday morning. It’s so bitter, and even with my hood pulled up and my top button pinching into the flesh beneath my chin the icy wind seems to get in, freezing me through to the bones and making me want to sob with the agony of it. As ever, my stomach is cramping and twisting, and I’ve swallowed so many tummy tablets that if you shook me I really think I’d rattle! It’s the most miserable feeling, to be cold and afraid and in spasms of pain. I’m thinking I can’t just wander around like this, not when there are things to be done, and then I find myself at the end of my old street, where Mum still lives, standing outside the corner shop with its enticing swing board advertising ‘Hot Tasty Coffee!’.

  I’m so stricken with cold that I consider going inside, despite the fact that the shopkeeper may recognise me from my life here before, despite the fact that my name is plastered up on the billboard that stands on the frosty kerb outside the door. The headline leaps out at me, stark black against white, handwriting huge and menacing.

  LOCAL WOMAN WANTED IN CONNECTION WITH SERIOUS ASSAULT

  Can they really mean me? Am I that local woman? Slipping inside the entrance, my hood pulled low, I enter the quiet shop and pick up a copy of last night’s newspaper, keeping my back towards the till, merely returning a ‘Hi!’ to the shopkeeper when he tries to catch my attention with a cheery hello. The heat from the overhead blower is a blessed relief, and I feel my numb fingers begin to thaw around the edges of the newsprint.

  Police are searching for local woman Katherine Crown in connection with a serious assault in the Stack Street area of Hackney on Friday afternoon. It is believed that a well-known television personality was the victim of this attack, but police sources are declining to disclose further information at this time. Katherine Crown, 35, is described as approximately 5′ 1″ tall, of larger than average build, with dark hair cut in a distinctively uneven bob. Police are warning public not to approach Katherine Crown as she may be dangerous. If you have any information about the crime, or her whereabouts, please call the Crimestoppers number on …

  Dangerous. Me? Dangerous. I hope that Martha’s been spared the falsehood of seeing this awful headline; I couldn’t bear for her to think of me in that way. If only she and Liv knew how I just wanted to be their friend, if they knew how much I admired them, longed to be one of them. I’ve felt that way ever since those early days when Dad first introduced us at the Square Wheels cabin, purposely omitting the detail that I was his daughter so that I might make new friendships on the basis of my own personality and not because of him. ‘They’re lovely girls,’ he’d told me on our way to open up the cabin that night, to prepare the sandwiches and get the urns boiling. To get me out of Mum’s hair. But I was sceptical, having encountered ‘lo
vely girls’ before, girls who at best blanked me, at worst recoiled. Why should these girls be any different? But these three were, and I knew that, of course, the moment they turned up. They arrived together in a chatter of high spirits, Juliet absently worrying that she had a slow puncture, Liv complaining about the chain oil that had ruined the hems of her new white jeans. Martha seemed to be the glue, the more grown-up of the three, and when Dad introduced us she shocked me by immediately asking if I wanted to help her butter the bread for the sandwiches. Later that evening, Dad paired me up with Liv to take one route along the canal bank, while Martha and Juliet took the opposite direction. It was summer and so the evenings were still light and long, and as Martha and Juliet cycled away I was mesmerised by the sunbeams that haloed about their long flowing hair. Of course there were other volunteers too, perhaps as many as twelve of us altogether, and although I was paired with most of them at one time or another over the next week or so, I can’t say I got to know any of them intimately. Or rather, they never got to know me. I was quiet, you see, because I knew from experience that the moment I opened myself up to conversation the judgements were sure to follow. Even in the relatively friendly surroundings of the Square Wheels cabin, I once overheard two of the other volunteers – a boy and a girl – whispering how it was ‘disgusting’ to be as thin as I was. That it must be an eating disorder or something, because who chooses to look like that? I had thought I’d covered my body well, dressed as I was in an oversized sweatshirt and shapeless jeans, but no, apparently not. It seemed that, fat or thin, I was subject to the scrutiny of all and sundry, and none of them seemed to care how their words wounded; how their curled lips and narrowed eyes cut me to the quick. But Martha did. Martha, I always sensed, knew how it felt to be hurt, to be disappointed, and to disappoint. That evening, when the gossiping boy and girl had loaded their baskets and cycled on their way, Martha joined me at the sandwich-making table and without a word began to help me in my task of slicing the tomatoes. ‘They’re wankers,’ she said eventually, just low enough for me to hear, then she patted me on the wrist and went to help Dad pour out more teas. I knew I loved Martha then – and Juliet and Liv, but most of all Martha – and I’ve followed her life and career ever since. Social media is a wonderful thing when you want to stay in touch from a distance, and on many occasions I’ve dropped her a tweet under one of my assumed identities, just to let her know I’m there, to tell her how wonderful she is.