You Can Trust Me: A Novel

by Sophie McKenzie

  Into Julia’s living room and I hold my breath. I don’t want to look, but of course my eyes go straight to the sofa, where the dark stain lingers on the seat. My heart is beating fast as I look away, around the bookshelves and across to the table and chairs that are, as always, positioned under the window.

  Wait. Where’s the art? Julia had a couple of pieces—nothing valuable, just some abstract stuff she liked. I don’t know the names of the artists. The walls are bare—also missing is the flat-screen TV that used to stand in the corner of the room.

  I head into Julia’s bedroom. Her jewelry lies scattered across the dressing table. There’s so much here, I can’t tell if any of the more expensive pieces are missing. There’s certainly no sign of the diamond and emerald ring she was given by one of her wealthier former lovers. Alan Rutherford was a widower who doted on Julia. The ring wasn’t the only extravagant gift he presented her with. He died a couple of years after they broke up, and much to Julia’s astonishment, he left her his seaside cottage in Lympstone, which they had, apparently, visited occasionally on weekends. Julia immediately began supplementing her income by renting it out. What will happen to it now?

  Wondering about both the ring and the cottage, I stroll into the spare room, which Julia used as an office. I gasp. Her computer is gone, leaving a large square gap surrounded by papers in the center of her desk. The sun shines on the wooden surface, highlighting the layer of dust at the edges of the gap.

  I grip the back of the chair, suddenly panicked. Who has taken all this stuff? The police? Why would they bother? They’ve already accepted the suicide verdict.

  I whip out my phone, intending to call Joanie. Then I remember that I am, effectively, intruding here and that it’s still only a few hours since Joanie buried her only daughter.

  I put my phone away. There are no signs of a break-in. Joanie herself has probably removed the missing items. Perhaps she felt they would be safer away from an unoccupied flat.

  I still don’t like it, but there’s nothing I can do. And I’m here to look for evidence that Julia didn’t kill herself. That’s the priority.

  I go back into Julia’s bedroom and sit down on the bed where Zack, Hannah, and I huddled just two weeks ago. It feels like a million years have passed since then. Without access to Julia’s phone, which I already know Joanie has with her, or her computer, I’m not sure what to look for. A diary? Julia was never one to pour out her soul on the page, but she definitely kept an appointments book. She always refused to use the calendar on her phone and computer, buying instead an annual Moleskine diary. It’s a journalist rite of passage, Liv, a way of channeling Hemingway without the dead bulls.…

  I rummage in Julia’s bedside drawers. I feel voyeuristic looking here, though I know what I’ll find—nail file, hand cream, paperbacks, cigarettes (she kept them for guests), condoms (ditto), and pens and Post-it notes. No sign of her diary. She always kept that in whichever handbag she was using at the time. A girl can’t have too many bags. Or shoes. Or orgasms. I wander over to the large fitted wardrobe and slide open the door. Julia’s dresses and tops hang from a rail. On impulse, I grab a handful of Prada silk shirt and hold it to my face, hoping for a scent of her. But all I can smell is the faint whiff of chemicals. I sigh. Trust Julia to be on top of her dry cleaning. Shoes and boots line the second section, with skirts and pants hanging from the rod above. I rummage through the final, shelved section, my fingers stroking the soft, delicate lingerie that Julia loved to buy. I hold up a pair of black silk panties, then a lacy basque. I remember Hannah wide-eyed when Julia showed her a recent purchase: a blue bra and panties in soft satin with a thin cream trim. Julia had grinned at Hannah’s awe. Beautiful underwear, honeypie, will always be your greatest gift to yourself after financial independence and an inquiring mind. Hannah had nodded solemnly, as if Julia were offering her the keys to adult life.

  Perhaps she was. It’s funny, but I never resented how much Hannah looked up to Julia. I was always grateful that, having lost her aunt, my daughter at least had a godmother who adored her.

  The huge bottom shelf is full of handbags. Small and large, High Street and designer, they’re testament to Julia’s lifelong search for that one, perfect bag to go with every occasion.

  Stupidly, my eyes fill with tears as it strikes me she will now never achieve her ambition.

  For God’s sake, Livy, get a grip, I mutter under my breath. Handbags are the least of it.

  I root around for a bit. Julia’s Kelly bag isn’t here. Neither is her vintage Chanel clutch nor her tiny Versace shoulder purse. I open the bags I saw Julia use most frequently. The third I pick up is one of Julia’s recent High Street purchases. I hadn’t thought it was anything special myself, but Julia was ecstatic when she found it—total Prada knockoff, Liv, she’d told me as proudly as if she’d designed the thing herself.

  The diary is lurking in the inside pocket. My throat is dry as I take it out. This, suddenly, feels like I’m touching her life in a way that the clothes and bags do not.

  I flick back through the pages to the week Julia died. Our Sunday lunch is logged in her bold, firm hand, but apart from a few work meetings, most of the week to either side appears empty. The Thursday two days before her death is marked: A.H. 9pm. I wonder for a moment who A.H. is, then turn to the week after her death. It’s blank, apart from a dental appointment.

  My heart sinks. I’d so hoped for some clue to her state of mind here, but there’s nothing. In fact, the absence of appointments surely serves to support the verdict of suicide.

  I turn the page again, to the current week. I stare at today’s date. It’s empty. How bizarre to think that Julia might have flicked over this page, never dreaming it would be the date of her own funeral. I shiver and move on. Tomorrow night, Tuesday, contains the following entry:

  SHANNON, 10:30 PM, ACES HIGH

  I stare at the words. Aces High is a singles bar in Torquay that Julia once described as a lean-meat market, full of skinny, trashy women and classless men.…

  Why would she be going to meet someone there? Julia hated bars like that as much as she disliked Torquay itself. And who is Shannon? I’m certain Julia doesn’t have a friend with that name. I’m intrigued and encouraged. Because this, more than the work or dental appointments, suggests that Julia was looking into the future before she died. Maybe I’m clutching at straws, but it feels like fate that I’ve found this. It’s something to hang on to at least.

  Something to help me act.

  It takes me most of the following twenty-four hours to face up to what that action needs to be: I have to go to Aces High and meet Shannon myself. Of course, she probably won’t be there. Chances are she will already know Julia is dead. But I have to try.

  I put off telling Will—I know he’ll come up with all sorts of logical reasons why I shouldn’t go to a meeting arranged between a stranger and a dead person. Put like that, it does sound crazy, and yet whoever Shannon is, he or she may know what it was Julia wanted to talk to me about. Or even something relevant about how she died.

  I troll through the guest list for the funeral, which Joanie e-mailed me last week. There’s no one with the name Shannon. I call Joanie herself, hoping to check that there aren’t any other friends or family members I don’t know about—as well as to ask about all the stuff missing from Julia’s flat—but she doesn’t answer her phone. This isn’t a surprise. Julia often complained that her mother screened all calls. Joanie certainly has a reason not to want to speak to people at the moment. She’s probably still with Robbie and Wendy anyway.

  It makes no difference. I’m going. I’m going to Aces High to honor Julia’s arrangement to meet Shannon. If no one is there, then I’ll have lost nothing except a couple hours of my time.

  And Will’s approval, of course.

  As the day wears on, I get more and more nervous—and less and less in the mood to tell Will what I’m planning. I could phone him at work, but I don’t. He doesn’t get in until almost
eight. I could—maybe should—say something straightaway. But I hesitate. He’s tired and grouchy and I decide to wait until he’s had a chance to take the edge off his mood with a glass of wine and a bowl of pasta.

  I’ve already eaten with the kids, so Will takes a spoon and scarfs the remaining Bolognese out of the saucepan as he slumps in front of the TV. Apart from a good night to the kids, he has barely spoken since he got in. I read Zack a story, then turn out his light and head downstairs. I mean to tell Will now. I really do. But he’s in the middle of some History Channel documentary on the D-Day landings and has such an I’m zoning out, please don’t disturb me look on his face that, again, I can’t face telling him.

  I tidy up in the kitchen, then check on Zack. He is already asleep, snuffling peacefully into his duvet. I nag Hannah out of her bedroom and into the bathroom to clean her teeth. She protests, as usual, at her school night bedtime of 9 P.M. with lights out at 9:30. I make sure she’s in bed and reading, then go into my own room and put on some makeup. I’m not dressing up—jeans and sandals will do fine—but I don’t want to look totally out of place, so I select a silky top and fuss over earrings for a bit. I go back to Hannah and insist she switches out the light. She claims she’s not tired and she wants to finish the chapter she’s reading. Clever middle-class kids who know how much their parents value books miss no tricks. I give in and wait a few minutes. Of course, she still hasn’t finished by nine forty-five, but it’s starting to feel like this could be a long, drawn-out battle, so I insist and flick off the wall light as she’s still looking at the page.

  She swears at me. Normally I would take issue. Or fetch Will to back me up. Today I ignore her. To reach Torquay by ten thirty, I’m going to have to leave in the next fifteen minutes or so, and I’m already anticipating a spat with Will. I can’t get into one with my daughter as well.

  For a moment I feel an overwhelming resentment that I’m so often left to be the bad guy with Hannah—that Will tends to abdicate responsibility for bedtimes unless I call on him in a crisis. I remind myself this was the deal we made when Zack was born. I would give up my junior family law job, which barely covered Hannah’s child care fee as it was, while Will would bring in the big bucks and leave the kids to me during the week.

  Being a homemaker’s a job too, Julia had said wryly at the time. Just one without status, remuneration, or opportunities for promotion.

  I start to head downstairs then, suddenly self-conscious about turning up at a night club underdressed, I go back to my bedroom and change out of the flat sandals and into my open-toed Lanvin wedges. Julia found them in a sale and, knowing they would fit me perfectly, bought them as a birthday gift last year. I peek around Hannah’s door. For all her protests at not being tired, she is already asleep, the book she was reading still defiantly in her hand. Sleeping is when Hannah looks most like Kara, and the sight of her still body sends that image of Kara’s lifeless eyes into my head again. I shiver, unable to stop myself touching Hannah’s arm for reassurance that her skin is warm. I remove the book and ease her under the covers. I smooth her fine, silky hair off her face and pull the duvet up over her shoulders. Over the years, I might have become less neurotic and overprotective, but if I’m honest, seeing her safe and asleep is the only time I feel truly secure.

  With a sigh, I turn away and head downstairs. I need to leave. Now.

  “Will?” I stand in the living room door for several long seconds before Will tears himself away from whatever program he is now watching to glance irritably at me. He does a double take when he sees how dressed up I am.

  “Liv?” he says. “What’s going on?”

  “I have to go out.”

  “What?”

  “Hopefully I’ll just be a couple of hours.”

  Will looks so bewildered, I feel terrible, but his shock makes it even harder to explain what I’m doing. I turn and head for the front door.

  Will follows me. “What the hell are you talking about? Where are you going? It’s almost ten o’clock, for God’s sake.”

  I reach the front door. “Julia had a … meeting with someone called Shannon for ten thirty P.M. tonight,” I said. “I found it in her diary. I’m going to be there for when this Shannon turns up.” I open the door.

  “Are you crazy?” Will strides over. “Why the hell do you want to do that?” He stands right beside me. “Whoever it is won’t be there, anyway. They’ll know Julia is dead.”

  “Not necessarily,” I say. “And if they don’t know, I can tell them.”

  “But it’s late, Liv.” Will’s eyes are wild with shock. He gesticulates behind him, indicating the kids upstairs … the whole house. “You won’t be back for ages. It’s mad.”

  “No, it’s not,” I say. “Anyway, you’re often out late yourself.”

  “That’s work. It’s different.” Will snaps, “You shouldn’t go alone, anyway. Not to a club. This ‘Shannon’ could be anyone. It’s not safe.”

  “For God’s sake. I’m thirty-eight,” I say. “And you can’t come. You’ve got to stay with the kids. They’re both asleep. They won’t even know I’m gone.”

  Will gapes at me, now completely at a loss for words.

  “It’ll be fine,” I say.

  “No, Livy.” He finds his voice as I open the door. “This is crazy. You’re becoming fixated on Julia’s death. It’s affecting Hannah.”

  “What?” I stare at him. Where the hell did that come from?

  “It’s the truth.” Will levels his gaze at me. I used to find that dark, intense gaze of his sexy. Now I’m just infuriated.

  “I’m not fixated, and Hannah’s just at a difficult age. Plus she’s upset about Julia, which is perfectly natural.”

  “It’s more than that.”

  “I don’t think—”

  “She’s quieter than she used to be. Introverted. She hardly ever smiles. Her confidence is shot to pieces.”

  “What?” I don’t recognize the picture he’s painting. “That’s ridiculous. Hannah’s just starting to go through puberty. It’s … it’s more hormonal than anything.”

  “I’m not going to argue about it.” Will rolls his eyes. “The point is, you can’t just walk out at a minute’s notice.”

  “Why not? You do it all the time.” Properly furious now, I stomp away from the house and wrench open the Mini.

  Will calls my cell phone before I’ve even driven to the end of the road, but I don’t pick up and he doesn’t leave a message. I’m seething over what he’s said. For a start, he is totally wrong about Hannah. She’s just acting out a lot at the moment. Julia’s death hasn’t made a big difference to that. And what colossal nerve, telling me I can’t just walk away from the house when he does exactly the same thing whenever work demands it. Look at how he went to Geneva the other night.

  I calm down as I drive through Exeter. The streets are virtually empty. It’s weird to be going out this late and without Will. Once I did it all the time. Now I actually feel a little nervous—and not just because I’m about to meet a stranger.

  Is it marriage and motherhood that have drained all my confidence?

  Or is it just that I miss Julia?

  I did go out a lot in my early twenties, but most of the time Julia was with me, steering a clear passage through all social waters, drawing me effortlessly along in her wake.

  There’s a queue at the next set of lights. As I wait for the red to turn green, I gaze at the Asian couple huddled in a doorway, poring over a phone together. They look so young, so hopeful, their lives in front of them. I lean my head against the car window, watching them as rain trickles down the glass.

  My life is already almost half over, and I don’t feel as if I’ve properly begun it yet. Apart from the children, what have I really achieved? Undergraduate honors in History and a few dull years in a law office don’t add up to much. Once I dreamed of being an academic with a tenured professorship: authoring important papers, giving talks at glamorous conferences, and guiding grad
uates through MAs and PhDs, then going home to my handsome, loving husband and brood of bonny babies. I’d successfully juggle it all, and eager students like the girl I once was would look at me with admiration in their eyes, seeing me as a role model and an inspiration.

  I reach Torquay and stop to let a group of young women in short skirts above bare, mottled legs cross the road ahead. It starts raining very lightly, but the girls don’t seem to notice. A few moments later they have giggled and tottered their way past me, leaving empty sidewalks gleaming under the streetlamps.

  * * *

  The music is deafening. That’s my first thought. The second is how long it has been since I set foot inside a nightclub. Aces High is designed in the shape of a diamond, with several themed rooms set around a large, square glass bar. It took less time than I was expecting to get here, so it’s barely 10:20 P.M., and the whole club is practically empty. The bouncers and the girl in her ACES HIGH T-shirt stamped my hand without a second glance, but now I feel everyone is looking at me. The group of men at the glass bar certainly are. But then they’re checking out everyone.

  I wander out of the bar area and into the first themed room, feeling horribly self-conscious. Diamond Room is glittery, with high, tiny tables for standing around, and lit with artificial candles. It’s empty. I pass through an arch into Club Room. It’s gloomy and musty-smelling, all fake-wood paneling and black leather chairs. Like Diamond, it’s completely deserted. I walk on, into Heart Room. Unlike the previous two spaces, Heart at least looks comfortable. Three or four pink sofas are arranged around a heart-shaped coffee table. Three young women with high heels and bare midriffs are giggling over a mobile phone. Two men stand at the door, watching them. No one gives me a second glance.

  I check the time. Ten twenty-five. I walk into Spade Room. The walls are dark purple and hang with chains and masks. A long whip snakes down from the ceiling, into the corner of the room. There are no proper seats, just functional black-matted slabs on chrome bases. They look like torture tables. All very Red Room of Pain. I feel stupidly embarrassed. Two men are sitting in opposite corners. They both stare at me. I decide neither can possibly be Shannon and scurry away, back out to the light and bustle of the main bar. This is starting to fill up,—plenty of singles dotted between the groups—but a number of stools are still available. I perch on one at the far end, which gives a good view of the whole bar. At least out here, where it’s busy, I feel less noticeable. I look around. Julia’s phrase for the bar—lean-meat market—comes to mind. All the women are over-made up and underdressed, and some of them—the older ones, mostly—are also giving off an air of desperation that belies the grim smiles fixed to their faces. As for the men, they’re as predatory and cold-eyed as they are unattractive. To me, at least. The muscular barman wanders over and I order a white wine—I’m driving, but one drink is fine; I need it to steady my nerves. The barman brings it over and lays it down on a small white circular napkin. He doesn’t look at me. I drink the wine. More people arrive at the bar. Most of the girls are in pairs or groups. They are all dressed to the nines in low-cut tops and thigh-skimming skirts. They cast excited glances around them. Some of the men are in groups—hunting packs. Others pace the perimeter of the bar—lone wolves.