Karla glanced through the hallway blinds and watched Felicity’s front door close behind her. Guilt prickled at her – Felicity would only have been coming over to show support – now was not the time to be sending friends away. But Marcus was right, they just needed to close ranks until they had figured out a plan of action. This latest podcast didn’t mean anything. Okay, it wasn’t the best reflection of their lives, but it was hardly the damning evidence of murder that Andy Noon – whoever the fuck he was – had claimed to have on them. But what if this was only the beginning?
‘Did you hear how he talked about everyone? To everyone ? As if he knew us. It’s got to be someone who lives here. He said “our community”, for God’s sake. Why can’t we find out who he is?’
‘What do you want me to do, start hammering on all the neighbours’ doors, asking them if they’ve been accusing us of murder? We can’t start turning on each other, Karla. For all we know, it’s someone outside trying to make us believe they live here. Maybe they think we’ll all start burning each other’s houses down, smoking the bastard out.’
Karla sighed. ‘I know, it just seems so stupid that there are only thirteen houses here and we have no idea who this guy is.’
‘It might not even be a guy,’ Marcus reminded her. ‘You remember what Brandon said about voice distortion. It’s more likely to be a woman – wouldn’t a guy have used a woman’s voice as a disguise?’
Karla thought of the woman she’d confronted the night of the Halloween party nearly a year ago. Could Andy Noon be . . .? But why? She was angry, yes, but angry enough to set them up for murder? Or was this just her way of exposing their lies so she could sweep in and pick up the pieces – have Marcus back, the way she wanted? Karla wanted desperately to ask Marcus if she’d been in touch, if he’d seen her again. But that would mean talking about it, and once they pulled it out into the fresh air instead of burying it deep, an unspoken knowledge between the two of them, who knew where it would end?
‘I’m going out.’ Brandon’s voice broke into her thoughts.
Marcus was at the bottom of the stairs before their son could get halfway down.
‘Not now, mate. We’re all staying in tonight, keeping a low profile and all that.’
Brandon raised his eyebrows. ‘What, so because Mum lied to the police I can’t—’
‘Your mother did not lie to the police, and you need to watch what you’re saying. The papers get hold of you saying something like that, and you’ll end my career, probably your mum’s too.’
‘Oh, and that would be devastating,’ Brandon replied, his voice laden with sarcasm.
‘In there.’ Marcus directed his eldest son into the small living room the family kept for themselves, the room they had always referred to as ‘the snug’. It was there that Karla had breastfed her children, where she and Marcus had sat up all night watching horror movies under piles of fleecy blankets, and where the boys had retreated to when they felt ill, feet up on the squidgy sofa, watching back-to-back episodes of whatever TV show had been popular when Brandon was younger. Karla could hardly remember him being young, these days – it felt as though he’d always been a surly sixteen-year-old.
‘Zach?’ Marcus shouted up the stairs to their youngest.
Karla followed Brandon into the snug, immediately feeling calmer. The wall to the left of the door was lined with bookshelves, crammed with everything from Jenny Colgan to Shaun Hutson, books from every decade of their family life. There were box sets of Secret Seven novels and true-crime compendiums. The carpet was a muted scarlet, mostly covered by a woven multicoloured rug Karla had found on a market in Benidorm. A DVD cabinet housed box sets like Lost and films like Taxi . The desk in the corner was covered in Zachary’s homework, and pictures of the family adorned the wall above – not huge canvases taken by professional photographers but actual photographs – family camping holidays, Bran on his first bike, Zach on the potty. An electric guitar lay propped up in the corner; it had been there for four years, and Brandon had barely touched it in three. This was the only room in the house that showed who the Kaplans were when they weren’t being famous.
Karla took up residence in the armchair, pulling her feet underneath her, while Brandon slumped into the corner of the sofa. Marcus sat on the floor and Zachary appeared in the doorway, the only one who had no idea of what was going on.
‘What? What is it? Is someone ill?’
At Zach’s words, Karla realised just how long it had been since they had gathered together as a family. How was this so unusual that it had to mean bad news to their ten-year-old son? How had they built a brand out of showing others ways to craft the perfect family when their own children couldn’t remember the last time they had all spent together?
‘Listen, we need to talk about what this guy is saying, this anonymous podcaster. It’s imperative that if the press ask you anything, you don’t make a comment. In fact, it’s best if you don’t comment on it to anyone, not kids at school, not—’
‘What’s he saying?’ Zach looked confused.
Karla beckoned for him to come to her and when he did, she pulled him onto her knee.
‘He’s saying Mum lied to the police,’ Brandon said, a hard edge to his voice that Karla didn’t like. ‘He’s saying that Dad planted cigarettes on Erica Spencer’s dead bod—’
‘Brandon!’ Karla’s hand flew to her mouth, but Marcus shook his head.
‘Don’t, Kay, he’s right. We heard what he said: that Erica had written in that bloody journal of hers that I was smoking again, and that my brand of cigarettes were found in her pocket when she had quit smoking months ago. So for once in a long time, let’s treat our kids like the adults they are growing into. If they can’t talk about it here, they will only talk at school.’
‘Spoken like a true self-help guru,’ Brandon muttered, rolling his eyes.
‘What is your problem?’ Karla snapped. ‘Just what is it that we’ve done to you that is so bad? We’ve given you everything – probably too much, by the looks of it – but we always thought we had taught you to be respectful of how much you have, to appreciate our good luck. We volunteer at shelters, we donate to food banks – Dad has his own charity, for fucksake – and still, you’re turning into a spoiled brat. What is it, Bran?’
‘Why don’t we see Nana Randley?’ Brandon asked, looking his mother level in the eye.
Karla flinched.
‘You know why,’ Marcus interjected. ‘I haven’t spoken to my mother in years. You don’t need to know the details, but we had a falling out, and we thought it best she wasn’t part of your lives.’
‘Because she abused you.’
Karla gasped. ‘Who told you that?’
When Brandon didn’t speak, Marcus answered for him. ‘You’ve read my book.’
‘What, did you really expect me not to? When all anyone at school can talk about is my junkie dad whose mum beat the shit out of him. Do you know how many times I’ve been asked if Mum’s books have any recipes with dog food in? Or if the pair of you have plans to work together on a hash brownie book?’
‘Oh, Bran,’ Karla breathed.
Marcus just looked white. Zach still looked confused by the whole outburst.
‘You mean hash brown,’ he corrected his brother.
Brandon scowled.
‘Mate, I’m sorry—’ Marcus started, but Brandon jumped to his feet.
‘And I’m not your mate, why do you have to call me that? You think you’re so cool and hip because you’ve been on drugs, but everyone I know thinks drugs are for losers. So what does that make you, mate ?’
Without waiting for a reply, Brandon stormed from the room. Marcus looked at Karla, and she felt as though her heart was breaking. While they had been busy building an empire, she hadn’t ever realised how opening their family life to the public would affect the two most important people in it.
Karla heard Brandon’s door slam.
‘I’ll talk to him tomorrow,’ Marcus said.
‘I need to go out.’
‘Wait, where are you going?’ A vision of long blonde hair, watery blue eyes, flashed into her mind.
Marcus hesitated. He could still decide to stay. It wasn’t too late yet. He shook his head. ‘Just out.’
24
Karla leaned over to the laptop that was balancing precariously on the arm of the chair and pressed ‘refresh’. It was getting late, dammit, and Marcus still wasn’t home. She wasn’t expecting anything other than the ‘coming soon’ notice that had been taunting them since the first podcast, so when the website began to load she almost fell off the chair.
The landing page of The Truth About Erica was a montage of black-and-white photographs that looked as though they had been taken by a deranged stalker. Which they probably had. Karla could make out herself, out walking Gigi, at the beginning of summer by the looks of it. She was wearing a dark-coloured vest top and tiny cut-off shorts, with Grecian sandals. From the angle it had been taken at, her legs looked dumpy – how dare they! Her legs were her best feature.
There were others: Marcus outside his accountants, Felicity and Peter talking in Felicity’s front garden, Miranda in her car, Mary-Beth looking over her shoulder. The photographs were arranged at angles, laid over each other as though spread over a table. Above the middle of the montage was a menu bar with options:
Halloween 2017
Erica’s Diary
The Severn Oaks Six
What is the truth?
Karla clicked on the tabs one by one and scanned each page. Information about the night Erica fell. Pictures and biographies of each of them: Felicity, Peter, Mary-Beth, Miranda, Marcus and herself. Her cursor hovered over the tab ‘Erica’s Diary’, not wanting to look but knowing she was going to anyway. The page loaded and Karla gave it a quick scan – there it was, in black and white, Erica’s alleged scribblings about how Karla had never even made a lasagne. But nothing new. She let out a sigh of relief. What had that horrid man said? That he would be releasing extracts every week? Perhaps he was waiting for his big reveals to be on the podcast. She clicked on ‘What is the truth?’, her heart rate lowering. There wasn’t anything new here – Marcus’s lawyers could probably get it taken down, perhaps they could even find out who the owner—
She gasped as the last page loaded. The only thing on the page was a full-sized picture of Erica, the word ‘MURDERED’ scrawled across the middle in blood-red letters.
‘Brandon!’ Karla shouted up the stairs. She didn’t want her son to see this but with a physical link to the podcaster now, surely that made him more traceable? ‘BRANDON!’
He appeared at the doorway of the snug, headphones slung around his neck and his trainers on.
‘I was just going out,’ he said, his face still sullen from their earlier argument.
‘At this hour? I need your help with something,’ Karla said, spinning the laptop to face him. ‘This website – do you know how to find out who owns it?’
Brandon took a few steps into the room and leaned down to scan the screen. ‘Shiiiit.’
‘Yes, exactly,’ Karla said. ‘Shit. Can you trace the owner or something?’
Brandon shrugged. ‘Depends. I doubt they would have left their personal details visible but I can try.’
He took the laptop over to the sofa and Karla crouched down next to him, watching as he pulled up a site called Whois.com .
‘Usually this will just show you the host details, unless the owner has made their details public. It’s unlikely this guy would do that – unless he’s stupid – so it will probably just show LCN or HostGator or some . . . oh fuck.’
‘What? Show me,’ Karla demanded, shifting for a better look. ‘I don’t understand . . .’
‘Me neither,’ Brandon said, his eyebrows raised. ‘It says here that the domain name owner is Dad.’
25
‘Of course, I didn’t know she was pregnant,’ Felicity said, nudging her way up the queue. ‘Did you?’
‘She never said a word to me. I wonder whether Jack knew?’
Miranda looked awful. Felicity had called her as soon as she’d left Karla’s last night – her best friend hadn’t answered her repeated door ringing or text messages, and Felicity had needed to speak to someone, at that point – even Miranda would have done.
‘Surely he must have,’ Felicity mused. ‘More to the point – where the hell is Jack? Have you seen him since any of this crap started?’
‘No.’ Miranda shook her head. ‘I thought maybe he’d taken the kids away, but the curtains have been opening and closing as usual. The car hasn’t been on the drive, but it might just be in the garage.’
‘Could be the cleaner opening the curtains.’
‘What about Peter?’
‘I’ll get these,’ Felicity said, ignoring the question. ‘You sit down. What do you want?’
‘Oh . . .’ Miranda looked as though no one had ever bought her a drink before. ‘Can I get a hot chocolate, please? No cream but I’ll have the sprinkles.’
Felicity watched Miranda make her way to a free table, taking in just how different she looked today. Her usually sleek auburn hair was pulled back into a messy bun at the nape of her neck and she’d obviously been forgetting to tan because she looked a shade paler than white. One of her gel nails had come off. This would usually warrant an emergency trip to the house for her regular nail woman – Miranda didn’t go to nail bars like the rest of the mums, she had a ‘woman’ – but today she’d obviously had other things on her mind.
‘What can I get you?’ The guy behind the counter was someone Felicity had never seen before. Where was her friend when she needed him? A complimentary muffin would go down like a dream today.
‘Flat white and a hot chocolate, no cream, sprinkles. To drink in, please.’ She wanted to ask where the other guy was, even if just to make the point that she came here all the time, but what difference did it really make? Was it really so important to her to be more special than the other customers. Eurgh, I’m no better than Miranda.
‘Hot chocolate, flat white. That’s four eighty.’
Felicity paid, finding that she was paying particular attention to his voice. She’d been doing it with every man she’d spoken to since the podcast. Could he be the mystery podcaster? No, his voice was too young, and he spoke too fast. Andy Noon spoke slowly, with a deeper husk. But wouldn’t he be disguising his voice? Face it , Felicity thought, he could be anyone, and we’d have no clue .
Carrying the drinks over to where Miranda was sitting with her back to the rest of the coffee shop, Felicity was glad – she couldn’t bear thinking that everyone she met was whispering about her, nudging one another. No wonder Karla had gone to ground, it must be a hundred times worse for her and Marcus – two of the most recognisable faces in Cheshire.
‘Did you go to the website?’ Felicity asked, placing Miranda’s drink down in front of her.
‘Thanks. I tried, but it just said “coming soon”. Did you?’
‘Same. I haven’t checked today.’
‘He didn’t mention Mary-Beth,’ Felicity said, voicing something that had been on her mind since she’d heard the second podcast. ‘He didn’t say anything about her disappearing.’
‘What does that mean?’
Felicity shrugged. ‘Maybe nothing. Maybe he’d recorded it in advance and couldn’t be bothered to edit it after she went missing.’
‘I don’t have a clue how that works. Logan would know more than me.’
‘Do you recognise the voice?’
Miranda shook her head. ‘I’ve listened to it twice – as much as I hated it. It just doesn’t sound like anyone inside the gates to me – does it to you? I mean, there’s Marcus – and I definitely don’t think it’s him, for obvious reasons. Then there’s Peter, and God knows he’s got enough on without all this.’
‘Karla says that Brandon said that it doesn’t even have to be a man. The voice sounds like it’s been altered, with distortion software. It
could be anyone. It could be you.’
Miranda let out a tinkling laugh but her face didn’t reflect amusement. ‘Well, I think we both know it isn’t me.’
Felicity was inclined to believe her. For a start there was the blog. The Truth About Erica . Felicity could hardly see Miranda sitting in front of her computer setting up websites and recording podcasts. She would have had to ask Felicity what an FTP was, why LCN were hosting and where the party was. The idea that she would be behind all this was laughable really.
‘Have you spoken to him, by the way?’
Felicity started, realising that Miranda had been speaking to her. ‘Sorry, who?’
‘Peter.’ Her voice sounded innocent enough, but that was the problem with Miranda. When she was making an effort to sound innocent, you should beware.
Felicity felt colour flood her face. ‘No, why would I have?’
Miranda pulled a face. ‘Well, he left in such a hurry the other night, after saying that the police had found Mary-Beth’s car. I expected him to come back and tell us what was going on but when he came home, early hours that morning, all I saw was the garden security light go on. I haven’t seen him since.’
The garden security light. Was that Miranda’s way of telling her that she knew about Peter and Felicity’s garden meetings? Or was she just being paranoid – everything felt like a personal dig these days.
‘I suppose one of us should go and see him.’ Felicity shrugged, trying to look nonchalant. ‘After all, where they found Mary’s car, I mean, you know how that looks, right?’
Of course Miranda knew, Felicity thought. How could she not? Mysterious disappearance after being named as a suspect in her best friend’s murder, then her car shows up at the side of the river? Things did not look good for Mary-Beth.
‘I’d have no idea what to say to him.’ Miranda looked down into her hot chocolate. ‘Or poor Jack. Sometimes I . . .’ she hesitated then shook her head. ‘Have you spoken to Karla?’
Someone Is Lying Page 9
