The Lying Tongue

by Andrew Wilson

  Mum brought in a dish of tiramisu, my father’s favorite, and placed it in front of us on the table.

  “Gosh, look at that. Doesn’t that look splendid?” said my dad.

  I probably should have said something then, or at least tried to have made some sort of inarticulate but appreciative sound. But I was thinking about Venice, my new job teaching English and the time I could spend on my novel. I was somewhere else.

  I think he must have tried to pass me a slice, but I wasn’t aware of this until I heard him slam the plate down.

  “That’s the problem with you, you think of no one else but yourself,” my father said suddenly. “Your mother has gone to all this trouble for you and you can’t even thank her.”

  “Oh, Peter, come on now, really—”

  “I’m sorry, Sally, but this really has to be said. I’m not going to let him treat you—treat us—like this. He’s got to learn a lesson.”

  “Sorry,” I said. “Have I missed something here?”

  “You know very well what’s wrong. Why can’t you just try, at least try to be normal?”

  “Darling, now stop it. It’s Adam’s last night, and I wanted it to be really nice—for all of us.”

  My father’s eyes blazed with anger. “There’s no need for you to defend him. Remember, you were the one who was upset when you found out what he’d done.”

  “Peter, now is not the time—”

  “No, Mum,” I interrupted. “If Dad wants to say something, why not let him? He’s obviously not happy, and I’d rather have him come straight out with it than let it fester.”

  I pronounced the last word with undisguised disgust, as if it encapsulated everything he stood for.

  “Okay, okay,” he said. “I’ll tell you what bothers me. If you really want to know, I can’t bear to even think about what you’ve done. When Eliza’s father called me, I could not believe what he was saying. I was just so ashamed. Although that is disgusting enough in itself, what is even worse is that you don’t seem to show any kind of remorse for your actions. Where’s your conscience, Adam?”

  “Peter, calm down. You know you don’t mean it, really. Come on, say sorry now. Otherwise Adam’s going to go off thinking—”

  “For God’s sake, Sally, don’t you understand? We’ve been through all that with him before, but he just doesn’t seem to take it in. I almost wish Eliza had called the police. Her father certainly wanted her to, and I can’t understand why she talked him out of it. Maybe we should have turned him in.”

  “Don’t be so ridiculous. You don’t mean that,” my mother said, tears filling her eyes.

  “It might have done some good. At least it might have forced him, for once in his life, to stand up and take responsibility for his own actions.”

  No one said anything for a few seconds. My mother looked down at the table, desperately trying not to cry, and then she pushed her chair away, flinging her napkin into her seat.

  “If it wasn’t for you being so distant with him,” she muttered under her breath as she walked into the kitchen, “none of this would have happened.”

  “So it’s all my fault now, is it, that we’ve got a monster with no morals for a son?”

  I couldn’t stand any more. I got up from the table and, without saying anything, grabbed my coat and rucksack from the hallway. In the kitchen I kissed my mum good-bye as she scraped her plate of tiramisu into the rubbish bin. Of course, she halfheartedly tried to stop me from going but realized it was no use. On the way out, I caught my dad staring at me, his mouth open, docile and moronic. I looked at him with hatred. For once it felt good to be me.

  “Don’t fucking come anywhere near me or I’ll kill you, you cunt,” I said. I slammed the door behind me and left.

  I hadn’t spoken to him since. It was safer if we kept our distance.

  I was back on Crace’s trail. I felt as if over the past few days, apart from my encounter with Lavinia Maddon, I had let him slip away. The past had intruded too much, shadowing my thoughts and obscuring my real purpose.

  On the train down to Dorset, I looked through all the material I had gathered on Crace. I flicked through my notebook, now full of my research, and examined the newspaper cuttings once again. If everything went to plan, by the end of my trip I would find out exactly what had taken place between Mr. Shaw’s “stepson” and Crace, and I would be in possession of the diary. When I flew back to Venice next week, I would be armed with the basic biographical material provided by the very obliging Lavinia Maddon; hopefully the journal would describe the lead-up to Chris’s death and tell me whether he had taken his own life or if he had been murdered. The word sounded so strange and unreal. I still couldn’t believe that Crace was capable of killing.

  The train, sheathed in a gray mist, pulled into Dorchester station. Outside, rain bulleted down onto the platform, sending people for cover, hunched and scuttling. I ran inside, past the ticket office and down a slope that led to the taxi rank where one car remained, its windows steamed up from the inside. As I ran my hands through my wet hair, I caught the attention of the driver, an overweight but youngish man with doughlike skin. I asked him if he knew the village, about fifteen miles from Dorchester, and we settled on a fee of £18.

  As he drove through the streets, skirting around the edge of the town, the window wipers flicking backward and forward like the wings of a distressed mechanical bird, he attempted to strike up conversation.

  “Down here for business?” he asked.

  “Sort of,” I replied.

  “Been down this way before?”

  “Not really,” I said. “Nearest place would have been Bourne-mouth, I suppose, on holiday.” That was true enough. And with that we fell silent, the roar of the dual carriageway and the wash of the water on the car the only noise.

  We turned off the busy road, through a village, past fields and into an expanse of green. The trees were dripping with rain and the wind swept across the fields. The road was only one-car wide at times, the vehicle caressed by branches and twigs, a dark tunnel through an endless woodland. We descended a dip in the road and then up on an equally steep incline, around a sharp bend and into a clearing. On the left emerged the school where Crace used to teach, a perfectly symmetrical, neoclassical building set amidst acres of land. A few seconds later the abbey, standing slightly behind the school, came into view, a gothic monstrosity that looked out of place next to the Palladian-style building. The driver slowed down, jerked his head and stole a look.

  “It’s certainly some sight,” he said, nodding as if to answer his own observation.

  “It certainly is.”

  The car took us along the edge of a tree-covered hillside, over a verge and down again. The village lay before me, its church tower silhouetted against the sky. The driver dropped me off by the village pub, the Stag, which with its thatched roof and quaint lopsided doorway completed the pastoral scene. It was hard to imagine anything bad happening here.

  I gave the driver a twenty-pound note and walked across the gravel pathway of the pub. I turned the handle and stepped inside to be faced by a wall of heat so strong it felt like I was being branded on both cheeks. Across the room, a log fire burned furiously, in front of which lay an old mongrel hound. The place was empty except for a member of staff, a red-faced middle-aged woman who stood behind the bar twisting a cloth, thrusting it deep inside a glass. I moved toward her, clearing my throat, but she didn’t look up. It wasn’t until I raised myself onto a stool and placed my bag on the wooden counter that she blinked and realized she had a customer.

  “I just wondered if you had any rooms.”

  The deep furrows on her forehead rippled together, and she stared at me as if I had just spoken a sentence in a foreign language. Then she nodded, the loose skin around her neckline shaking, turkey-like.

  “I’m afraid I’m not sure how long I might stay,” I said.

  She didn’t seem to care. As long as she had her money up front—£35 a night—then it
seemed I could do whatever I pleased.

  The taciturn woman led me through a low-ceilinged snug room and up a back staircase. It looked as though there were three small rooms that ran along a central corridor. She showed me into the first one. It was a little tatty and not at all clean. A cluster of dead flies lay on the windowsill, which had dried in the autumn sunshine like sinister currants. I felt a cobweb brush against my hair. As I slung my bag onto an armchair in the corner of the room, a cloud of dust rose up from its cushion.

  “You’ve most probably got everything you need,” said my new landlady, gesturing around as if she had just accompanied me to a suite at the Savoy. In fact, apart from the bed, the dusty chair and the dead flies, there was nothing else in the room. “So I’ll leave you to it.”

  She turned to go. “Oh, and there’s a bathroom just down the corridor. Nothing special.”

  I didn’t doubt her word for a second.

  After tidying up the room and sweeping away the cobwebs and the flies, I unpacked my few belongings, stacking a spare pair of jeans and a couple of sweaters on the armchair. I took out my notebook and found Shaw’s details. I checked my mobile. No reception. I grabbed a few coins from my wallet and went downstairs to the pub, where I had spotted a public phone. The dog still lay immobile in front of the fire; the landlady was back behind the bar, slowly and methodically drying glasses.

  I dialed his number. After a few rings I heard a rasping noise that eventually formed itself into a “Hello?”

  “Hello, Mr. Shaw. It’s me, Adam Woods. You asked me to give you a call when I arrived. And, well, I’m here.”

  It took a few seconds before he caught his breath.

  “Yes, so pleased to hear from you. Mightily pleased, indeed.”

  Obviously the lure of the money, the thought that within days he might be able to get his hands on £1,000, had raised his spirits.

  “I just wondered when the best time was to come around. To see you…and to pick up the material you had mentioned.”

  “Ah, yes, the book, the book.” He cleared his throat. “You could always come around later this afternoon if you like, if that is to your convenience.”

  I suddenly felt an overwhelming disgust for this nasty little man trying to make money out of his dead “stepson.”

  “That’s fine, yes. I look forward to seeing you at…what…about five o’clock?”

  “That suits me very well indeed, Mr. Woods.”

  After giving me directions to his cottage, he hesitated for a moment. “And y-you do have it with you, don’t you? You know you won’t be able to see anything unless I have the…the…due recompense first.”

  “You mean the money? Do I have the money?”

  “Well—”

  “Yes, Mr. Shaw, don’t worry. I have that with me. You can count it in front of me if you like.”

  “No…I didn’t mean…it was just—”

  “That’s fine. I understand.”

  I understood only too well what he was about, the scheming, grasping little blackmailer. As I put the phone down, I considered whether it was worth teaching him a lesson. An image of him flashed into my mind. I had no idea what he looked like, but I saw him as a wizened gray man, the color and consistency of ash. I was sure he would be as easy to crush as a piece of burnt paper.

  As I walked back up to my room, I thought about the morality of giving money to a blackmailer. If I handed over the one thousand pounds, would that not make me just as much a sleazebag as him? The thought of dirtying my hands, soiling myself by associating with someone like him turned my stomach. Surely I was made of better stuff than that.

  In my room I took out the original letter he had sent to Crace. What kind of game was he playing? Could I even trust him to give me the diary? Was it wise to pass over the cash without seeing some evidence? Suppose he didn’t even have the diary. What if it didn’t even exist? I felt a fluttering inside me; my throat tightened. A few beads of sweat boiled on my forehead. No, I would be letting Crace down if I didn’t retrieve the journal. I had to safeguard his memory. I was the chosen one, after all. He relied on me; he trusted me.

  I had to be prepared for every eventuality. I had to be strong. What happened later that afternoon could make the difference between ultimate success and abject failure. And I had failed too many times. I would not allow myself to shrink away from what had to be done—no matter what.

  I set off knowing that I would be early. Although the showers had stopped and the gray sky had begun to clear, the wind continued to blow rain from the trees. I ran my hands through my hair, slicking it back off my forehead. As I walked, I played with the bundle of cash in my pocket. Shaw would certainly see that I had the money; whether I would hand it over to him was another question. I hadn’t quite decided yet.

  His cottage was a small, run-down detached building that backed onto a field leading up to a wooded ridge. In front of the cottage ran a narrow track that eventually led down to the village church. At five, the church bell rang out, a pathetic attempt to symbolize order. All was not right with the world.

  I stood outside the house, doll-like in its proportions. Honeysuckle tendrils snaked their way around the porch and up the primrose yellow wall. A wisp of smoke curled its way out of the chimney. I knocked on the door, which opened almost immediately. The man, small in form, wizened and gray, almost an exact match of the one I had pictured in my head, looked surprised to see me. His eyes twitched, his mouth fell open and he steadied himself on the door frame. Perhaps I had just roused him from an afternoon nap. But if that was the case, he would never have opened the door so quickly. Or maybe he was expecting someone older.

  “Hello, Mr. Shaw? It’s Adam Woods.”

  I stretched out my hand and after a slight hesitation he did the same. But as we greeted one another, I noticed that his palm was moist and sticky and that his fingers trembled.

  “Please come in,” he said, clearing his throat. “You’ll have to excuse me if I appear a little out of sorts. It’s just that I’m not used to this kind of thing—dealing in these matters. All a bit…above my head, if you know what I mean.”

  “There’s nothing to worry about, Mr. Shaw. I’m sure we can come to some arrangement that suits us both. I mean, suits both you and Mr. Crace.”

  The door opened into a cluttered space that functioned as a sitting room at the front and kitchen at the back. Stale cooking smells—cabbage, liver and bacon—lingered in the air. A maroon V-neck jumper hanging over the back of a chair gave off steam as it dried in front of the wood-burning stove.

  “Just got caught in that terrible downpour we had earlier,” he said. “I hope you weren’t…incapacitated.”

  His choice of words made me smile.

  “No, I luckily avoided the worst of it,” I said.

  “Anyway, make yourself at home. Please take a seat, please do.”

  His hand, still shaking, gestured toward a two-seater sofa.

  “Can I get you a cup of tea…or coffee? I’ve got coffee.”

  “Tea would be lovely,” I said.

  Shaw whistled to himself as he made the tea but made a point of looking over in my direction every couple of seconds.

  “There you go,” he said, presenting me with the mug. “Biscuit?”

  “No, thanks,” I said. “I’m fine. I was just wondering, did you know Mr. Crace at all…when he lived here?”

  “No. Maureen did, of course. But I don’t think I ever spoke to him.”

  “I see,” I said.

  He sat down in a chair opposite me, nearer to the door. I took a sip of the hot tea, put the mug down on the gray carpet and then fished out the money. I thought there was little to be gained from wasting time.

  “I suppose you’ll be interested in seeing this,” I said, brandishing the cash in front of his face.

  His eyes lit up.

  “It is the least Mr. Crace can do for you…to cover your expenses for looking after the diary,” I said.

  He stretched
out his right hand, eager to fondle the money.

  “But I’m afraid I can’t give it to you until you show me the journal,” I said. “Mr. Crace is not a suspicious man. It’s just that, quite naturally, he wants to know that he is putting his money to good use.”

  Shaw bit his bottom lip and his eyes darted nervously around the room. He lifted a finger up to his mouth and chewed on a piece of already red raw skin around the base of a stubby nail.

  “I’m afraid we might have a little difficulty on that particular matter,” he said.

  “Excuse me? What do you mean exactly? You told me that you had the diary here, with you.”

  “I can get it—easily get it—”

  I shoved the money back in my pocket and stood up. As I did so, my left foot brushed against the mug of tea, knocking it over. A dark brown stain spread out over the carpet like a fungal bloom. He pushed himself up from the chair. Panic paralyzed him, making him unable to decide whether to rush to the kitchen for a cloth or stay where he was so he could block my path to the door.

  I walked toward him as if I had made up my mind to leave.

  “Please don’t go. Let me explain,” he said between wheezes. “There’s no need for you—”

  I stopped in my tracks and stared at him, hard.

  “I hope you haven’t brought me all this way to mess me around. Mr. Crace would not like that at all, not one little bit. He would be extremely angry if he found out you were playing games with him. Do you understand, Mr. Shaw?”

  His lips formed themselves into words he couldn’t say. As I moved toward him, he flinched and steadied himself by taking hold of the armchair. I knew he was scared of me.

  “Where is Chris’s diary?” I raised my voice. “Where is it?”

  “I can bring it here…I just need a little time, that’s all.”

  “I’m afraid Mr. Crace has not got that luxury. Neither has he got much patience. I could call him right now and he could call off the whole deal.”