The Liar's Girl

by Catherine Ryan Howard

  “Why does he think that?”

  “In Ireland if you plead guilty, there’s no trial. Malone says because of that, the evidence against Will wasn’t … interrogated is the word he used. There wasn’t a lawyer in a court room somewhere defending Will, saying, ‘Yeah, okay, but what about this?’”

  “That’s his name? Will?”

  It was strange to hear his name spoken in Sal’s voice. It had always been this gulf between us, this dark void—and Sal hadn’t even known it was there. At least, no matter what happened now, I had closed that up and let her in. I’d finally told her everything.

  Almost.

  “Yeah,” I said. “Will.”

  “How long were you together?” Sal asked.

  “All of first year. Well, up until he was arrested. That happened at the start of May. So about nine months.”

  “What was he like?”

  No one had ever asked me that without hoping I’d unconsciously reveal some trait that absolutely pointed to him being a serial killer. Sal, I knew, just genuinely wanted to know.

  “He was … He was great. Kind and smart and funny and caring. And gorgeous, I thought. I’d say I spent our entire time together just totally … distracted by him. I couldn’t concentrate on anything else. He was my first proper boyfriend, so there was that, too, but still. I’d never met anyone like him before. I haven’t since. He was just … He was perfect. I mean, nobody’s perfect but for me—to me—he was.” I paused. “I think this is where one of us uses the phrase ‘too good to be true.’”

  “Okay, so look,” Sal said. “The police. They’re trying to catch this new guy, right?”

  “Right.”

  “And if they do and if the new guy admits he killed the girls ten years ago, that will prove Will’s innocence?”

  “If and if, then yes.”

  “But otherwise, Will is guilty? I mean, it’s not like you can prove his guilt or innocence, right? Not by yourself.”

  “No …”

  “Are you trying to?”

  “No,” I said again, although I wasn’t sure. I’d gone looking through my photographs, hadn’t I? I’d told myself it was because I wanted to know where I knew the CCTV guy from.

  But was that the real reason?

  “Ali, you say you don’t know what to do, but really, you shouldn’t be doing anything at all. You don’t have to. All you need to think about is how you’re going to react to however this turns out. I mean, do you want your life to change? Do you want to ditch your job, move back to Ireland and live with Will, happily ever after?”

  “God, no.” The idea was preposterous. I couldn’t even picture it, let alone examine whether or not I wanted it. “No. Not at all. That’s not what this is about.”

  “Then what is it about?”

  “Doing the right thing.”

  “For who?”

  I exhaled. “In general.”

  “So you flew to Dublin on Morals Air, is what you’re saying?”

  “I owe him this.”

  “Owe him? You owe him nothing!”

  “That’s not strictly true.”

  Sal sighed. “Explain.”

  I shifted my weight. The water was going cold around me.

  “I did something,” I said. “Back then. I made … I made a mistake.”

  A beat of silence. “Go on.”

  “The reason they arrested him—” I swallowed, trying to hold back the tears that were trying to break through once again. “I think they arrested him because of me.”

  alison, now

  I borrowed a freshly laundered T-shirt of my mother’s to slip on under my gray sweater, took the time to blow-dry my hair straight, and applied a little of the expensive makeup I found in the bathroom cabinet. There was a nearly empty bottle of some floral perfume in there as well and, after a second’s hesitation, I spritzed some of it on. But now, seeing the look on the face of the uniformed Garda who’d been tasked with driving me to the CPH, I wondered if maybe I should’ve just changed my T-shirt and left it at that.

  She’d flashed her badge and ID at me: Garda Emily Cusack. Half a foot taller than me, Cusack had large blue eyes and that kind of fresh-faced, natural-beauty look that I knew I’d never achieve without a makeup bag.

  “Alison Smith?” she’d said after I’d opened my mother’s front door to her. “I need you to come with me, please. I’m to escort you to the Central Psych Hospital for a patient visit.”

  There was a squad car parked outside the garden gate with its engine running and another uniformed Garda behind the wheel. Cusack motioned for me to get in the back on the passenger side, then sat in the seat in front of me. The central locking clicked and we drove off, tires squealing.

  I’d never been in a proper Garda car before, not one of the liveried ones. A clunky-looking laptop computer was mounted to the dashboard, angled toward the driver, and there was some sort of radio or walkie-talkie thing charging on the dash. I would’ve thought there’d be a kind of grate or Perspex partition between the front and back seats, but there was none. I must watch too much TV.

  The two Gardaí spoke in low tones to each other up front, but not at all to me. I was grateful they took the M50 to Dundrum, reducing the awkwardness to a twenty-minute drive.

  At the CPH, neither Shaw nor Malone was anywhere to be seen, but I’d been expecting that. Malone had called to say they were tied up with the missing girl and he’d check in with me later. In the meantime, I was to meet Will as planned and try to convince him to talk to them as soon as they had a chance to talk to him.

  Everything was different this time around. I had to produce ID, have my photo taken, pass through a metal detector, and submit to a pat-down by a security guard. My bag and phone were placed in a locker, but I was—inexplicably—given the option of keeping small change on me. I was brought to a waiting room where I was surprised to find a man standing with a dog on a leash until the dog started circling my legs and I realized he was working.

  I felt bewildered by all this, and confused as to why this was my third visit but my first time experiencing any of it.

  A few minutes later, the door to the waiting room opened and a familiar face walked in.

  “Alek,” I said, relieved.

  “Welcome back.” He shook my hand. “You get the full visitor experience this time.”

  “Yeah, I noticed,” I said. “But why?”

  “Well, it’s been in the papers, hasn’t it? There’s no point in special measures anymore. We’re going to put you in the visitors’ room this time. You’re entering the main area of the hospital and you’ll be in a space where other patients will be after you leave, so we’ve had to process you like we would any other visitor. The director has granted an exception for you to visit outside of regular hours, but other than that”—Alek winked—“you’re not a VIP anymore. Sorry.”

  Using his staff keycard to open various locked doors along the way, Alek led me through the building and into a glass corridor, which formed a connection between the main building and another smaller, newer one behind it. A security guard there checked my name against a list on his tablet computer and, judging by the way he peered at me, matched me to the photograph they’d taken back at reception as well. Then, into the visitors’ room: a huge, open space that reminded me of the PE hall at school or a local community center. Breezeblock walls painted magnolia, overly bright fluorescent lights, navy and blue checkered carpet tiles. A number of tables paired with four chairs each—eight, I counted—were spread around the room and away from each other, all unoccupied. There were two vending machines in a far corner and, set into the back wall, some kind of hatch or service counter with its shutters rolled down. A security camera was mounted in each corner of the ceiling and a heavyset security guard stood against the opposite wall. She had her arms folded and was staring right at me, co
ldly.

  “Anywhere you like,” Alek said. “But visitors must sit facing the door. During the visit, physical contact must be kept to a minimum. A hug hello and goodbye is okay, but keep it to that. Normally we’d have teas and coffees available but as this is outside regular hours, you’re stuck with the vending machines. If you use them, you can get something for Will but he must remain seated. The patient can’t move around the room. Do not attempt to pass the patient any other items. If you have any, you must declare them to security and submit them for screening. They will then determine their suitability and, if approved, give them to the patient. Any questions?”

  It sounded like Alek had, at some point in this speech, slipped into reciting a spiel he knew off by heart.

  “Are you staying?” I asked.

  “I’m going to go get him now but yeah, I will. Have a seat.”

  I picked the closest table, the one furthest from the guard, and hung my jacket over the back of the chair. My mouth felt bone dry; I wished I’d brought in some water. There were probably bottles of it in the vending machines, but I didn’t want to draw the guard’s ire by getting up again so soon. I ran my tongue around the front of my teeth, licked my lips to moisten them. The dryness was spreading to my throat, tickling the back of it.

  About three minutes later, Alek returned with Will in tow.

  He wasn’t restrained in any way; I was beginning to understand that it was the building itself that was tasked with that. I hadn’t noticed on previous visits, and maybe it was just because now I was watching him walk across a room to me, but he was in normal clothes, jeans and a dark blue T-shirt with some kind of print splashed across its middle. I wondered where his clothes came from. Could he buy things in here? If so, where did he get the money from? I’d asked him practically nothing about what his life was like; all I knew about it had been volunteered by him.

  He was smiling at me, pleased to see me, and clearly a lot more alert and upbeat than he’d been when I’d last met him.

  That’s what I was thinking when, instead of stopping at a seat on his side of the table, he kept coming, around to mine, arms lifting away from his sides and, on auto-pilot, I pushed back my chair, stood up, turned to him—

  Will wrapped his arms around me, dipping his head, turning his face into my neck so I could feel his breath on my skin and the heat of him through the thin material of his T-shirt.

  For a moment I froze with the shock of it.

  In the next, I forgot myself. I put my arms around his waist. I turned my head to press my right cheek against his chest. I closed my eyes, breathing him in. I heard him breathing me in, a long, deep breath in through his nose.

  I longed to let go, to let the edges of us blur and merge.

  To lift my face to his.

  It wasn’t about him. It was about having someone, being with someone, and he was all I really had to remember of that.

  The security guard coughed pointedly and I pulled away, embarrassed.

  “You okay?” Will said in a whisper reserved for when you’re only inches from the person you want to hear you. The intimacy of it was disorientating.

  I nodded. “Yeah.”

  “Take your seats,” the guard commanded.

  Alek had taken up a position directly opposite the guard, against the other wall. So we had one of them on either side, but we were much closer to Alek and still a few feet from both.

  “I recognize that jumper,” Will said, sitting down across from me. “That can’t be the same one, though, surely?”

  “It is, actually.” I looked down at it. “It was at my parents’ house, packed away. I didn’t bring enough clothes with me so I threw it on.”

  “Did you find the photos?”

  “Um—yeah. Yeah, I found one.”

  “With the CCTV guy in it? Really?”

  “Yeah. I think so.”

  “Can I see it?”

  “The Gardaí have it,” I said.

  “So who is he, then?”

  “I don’t know. I found him in a photo of us on a night out, in a club, with Liz and two girls whose names I don’t remember, and that guy—that guy had his arm around Liz.”

  Will frowned. “Like they were together?”

  “I don’t remember her seeing anyone at St. John’s.”

  “But one of us must have known him if we were out with him, right?”

  “Well, one of us in the picture,” I said. “He could be a friend of one of the other girls.”

  Will asked me to describe the guy as he appeared in the photo, and then the two girls as well. When I was done, he shook his head. “I’ve no idea who any of those people are. When can I see the photo?”

  “The Gardaí want to be the ones to show you. They want to talk to you, Will. Formally. An interview. And they’d like it if when they ask you questions, you answer them.”

  “Nope,” he said flatly. “Not happening.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because I’m guessing Detective Sergeant Jerry Shaw is involved.”

  “He’s a sergeant now?” I didn’t know.

  “He made a point of telling me when they came to see me last week.”

  “And you don’t want to talk to him.”

  “He’s the reason I’m in here. He’s the one who bullied that confession out of me.” Will folded his arms. “They searched my room this morning, confiscated half my stuff. I bet that’s his doing as well?”

  “They’re just trying to catch this guy, Will.”

  “I bet.”

  I glanced at our audience, gauging how well they could hear from their positions. Then at a volume I judged low enough not to be overheard but not so low as to make it obvious that I was aiming for that, I said, “There’s been another one. A St. John’s first-year is missing.”

  His eyes widened. “Since when?”

  “I don’t know any more details than that. All I know is Shaw and Malone found that out at lunchtime today.”

  “Jesus Christ,” Will spat. “What are they doing out there?” He exhaled. “I don’t get it. That’s three now. Why didn’t they stake out the canal? Or impose a curfew. Didn’t they do that with us?”

  “As far as I remember we all kicked off about the curfew,” I said, “and I don’t know if this girl’s disappearance even involves the canal.”

  Will shook his head. “It’s ridiculous. Do they have anything?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “What’s in the news?”

  “I haven’t seen any.”

  A shadow crossed Will’s face. “Didn’t you look up that website?”

  “What website?”

  “The one I asked you to. The one that John told me about.”

  I’d clear forgotten about it. “Sorry, I haven’t had a chance to yet. I was only here last night.”

  “What about the letter?”

  “What was I supposed to do about that?”

  Will sighed, frustrated. “Find out about it.”

  “How?”

  “I don’t know. Why don’t you ask one of your little Garda friends?”

  A beat passed.

  “Sorry,” Will said then. “Sorry. It’s just … I’m just frustrated. I can’t do anything. I’m powerless in here.”

  “It’s not all plain sailing for me out there,” I said. “The press found out about us meeting. They’re calling it a date. And there’s at least one newspaper this morning with my picture splashed all over the front page.”

  Will’s face fell. “Shit.”

  “Yeah, it is.”

  “This is my fault. I asked you to come here.”

  “It’s not all you. I could’ve said no.”

  “Why didn’t you?”

  I shifted in my seat. Glanced at Alek, at the guard. “Because I felt guilty.”<
br />
  “Ali, look, I get it. I understand. I couldn’t at the time but looking back now, I see why you did it. Our lives imploded, the press was everywhere … If the roles were reversed, I might have run away too.”

  My heart was pounding, thumping. My ears filled with the sound, as if the audio of someone else’s heartbeat was being piped into the room.

  I hadn’t been planning on telling him. I hadn’t been planning on telling anyone, ever. I didn’t even like reminding myself of what I’d done.

  But just like on the phone to Sal earlier, I could feel it coming, feel the truth rushing to the surface, determined to break through.

  I couldn’t stop it.

  I wouldn’t try.

  “Will,” I said, “there’s something I have to tell you.”

  alison, now

  “I did something.” My voice was a whisper. “Back then.” I couldn’t look him in the eye. I focused on his hands, resting palms down on the table. I wondered how quickly Alek could get to the table. I didn’t know how Will would react to this. “At the time, I thought I was doing the right thing. To be honest, I didn’t even realize I was doing a thing at all.”

  Will frowned. “What are you talking about?”

  The room felt so still that I bet if the dust particles in the air became visible, they’d all be hanging in suspended animation, unmoving, frozen in place.

  “I never thought for one second …” I bit my lip. “I just didn’t want to get in trouble. Or for you to. I thought I was helping.”

  “Alison, what did you do?”

  “They talked to us all,” I said. “The Gardaí. Back then. Do you remember? After Liz died? They came to the campus, set up that room at Halls. We all went in one by one. They were just taking statements. You went in before me. I was standing outside the door. I could … I could hear everything, Will. I heard what you told them. About the night Liz died. You said you were with me all night, but you … You weren’t. Not technically.”