‘No. Everything’s closed up, and she’s not answering her phone.’
‘No police have turned up, though?’
‘Police?’
‘Well,’ Miranda took a sip of her drink and looked away, ‘you know, what with her having lied to them about why Erica was going outside and with Marcus planting those cigarettes on her . . .’
‘Miranda!’ Felicity gasped. ‘You have no right saying things like that! All the podcast said was that she had cigarettes on her—’
‘Those weird clicky dual ones Marcus smokes,’ Miranda pointed out. She gave a little shrug. ‘I’m just saying.’
‘Well, you’d better not let Karla hear you “just say”. Otherwise you’d better hope Karla does get arrested – otherwise she’ll kill you.’
‘And make it look like an accident, I’m sure,’ Miranda muttered.
Felicity glared.
‘Stop it. You know Karla would never hurt Erica, and neither would Marcus. And what is this guy saying, that they killed her because she’s never seen Karla make a lasagne? Ridiculous.’
‘Yes, of course,’ Miranda murmured. ‘Let’s hope the news vans I saw driving towards us this morning think the same.’
26
Miranda surveyed the mess around her and closed her eyes. She counted to three but when she opened them again the saucepan and plates were still piled up next to the sink, crusty with the remnants of uneaten mash and gravy. Stray peas littered the countertop and a cup of what could only be described as ‘juice-mush’ sat on the table, where Charity had tried to sink her leftovers into her drink so that she would be allowed to leave the family dinner Miranda had slaved over.
She couldn’t blame lack of time for the carnage that was strewn through the living room, kitchen diner and into the bedrooms. Logan was staying overnight at Jesson’s, Charity was at her mother’s all day, then she had ballet at 4 p.m., which her grandmother would gladly sit through, so she wouldn’t be home until after five. Miranda probably wouldn’t have to cook later, as Grandma would likely have prepared a tasty stew or nutritious steamed chicken for after class, delivered to Miranda’s in a still-warm casserole dish so it was clear that it was home-made. No, Miranda’s house was in a total state of disrepair because she just couldn’t be fucked to clean it. What she wanted to do was to get back into her pyjamas and lie in bed all day, tucked up under the plush duvet, and binge-watch trash TV – Real Housewives of Cheshire , or something equally as brain-numbing.
It hadn’t always been this way. Before the kids came along, she had a job, she was something other than an unpaid cleaner. It was a bloody good job too – she had been a Business Continuity Planner, and multinational companies all over the country had called on her to help them safeguard their futures. Nowadays the only people who called her were the school, wanting to know why Charity only had one welly in her forest school bag, or demanding last week’s dinner money payment. All those countless ‘What Career Should You Have?’ questionnaires in school and she couldn’t remember ever once answering that she wanted to follow a small child and a grown man around the house flushing toilets after them.
She took a deep breath and counted backwards from five – something she’d mocked Felicity for – to clear her mind and refocus on the task ahead. Then, as she hit one, she began to move automatically towards the kitchen.
Speaking of Felicity – she’d been particularly on edge when they had met for coffee today. Then again, there didn’t seem to be a member of the Severn Oaks Six – bloody hell, now even she was thinking of them with that awful moniker – who looked themselves lately. Well, Miranda supposed no one knew what Mary-Beth looked like, given that she hadn’t been seen since the first podcast had aired. And how did that make her look? Guilty, that’s how. That’s why Miranda had stuck around so long; running made you look like you have something to hide. And with all the focus suddenly on Marcus Kaplan and the brand of cigarettes he smoked, no one was looking at her.
At least, not yet.
The sound of a car engine entering her driveway and being switched off pulled Miranda to the window. Bugger! What was Alex doing home? Quickly she opened the dishwasher and began shoving plates in, scooping up the peas from the counter and tipping them into the bin. As he walked into the kitchen she closed the china cupboard on the cup of soggy leftovers and prayed he wouldn’t try and make himself a drink.
‘What are you doing back?’ Miranda smiled and tried to look as though she’d been cleaning for hours. ‘Home for lunch?’
One glance at Alex told her that he wasn’t just home for lunch. His perpetually tanned face was grey and his eyes looked bloodshot. Had he been crying?
‘Jesus, you look like shit! What’s wrong? Are you coming down with something?’
Alex shrugged, throwing his coat onto the back of the sofa – Christ, she hated it when he did that. It was two extra steps to hang it up, for goodness’ sake. ‘I feel like shit. I’m going to go and lie down.’
He barely looked at her. Miranda wanted to tell him about the podcast she’d listened to alone last night – he’d told her he wasn’t interested in that crap after she’d made him listen to the first one with her. She wanted to talk to her husband about the coffee shop this morning, where she was certain people were watching her and Felicity, talking about them in hushed tones. Two of the Severn Oaks Six, out in public! It seemed like the whole population of Cheshire was holding their breath, waiting to see what was revealed next. But Alex clearly wasn’t in the mood to be bothered, and he would only tell her she was being paranoid – besides, hadn’t he told her to stop listening to the podcasts in the first place?
‘Shall I bring you some lunch? Soup?’
‘I don’t really feel like anything. Thanks,’ he added as an afterthought.
As he left her standing in the kitchen, staring after his back, she realised he hadn’t even got close enough to give her a kiss.
Breathing in deeply through her nose, Miranda busied herself, the tidying and cleaning seeming more appealing now that she needed a distraction. She picked up Alex’s coat and was hit by the stench of alcohol – had he been drinking?
No, that was ridiculous. Alex had his shortcomings but being a drunk wasn’t one of them. Especially as his car was on the driveway – he’d driven home from work, and he would never drive after drinking. No. No, definitely not.
Miranda hung the coat in the cloakroom, pausing at the bottom of the stairs. There was a voice coming from her bedroom – probably Alex on the phone. She took a couple of stairs. It wasn’t eavesdropping if the person was your husband – right? And the way he’d looked when he’d come in, she was worried about him. If it was the flu it had come on awfully quickly.
It was a man’s voice, but it didn’t sound like her husband. Perhaps his boss on speakerphone, she thought, but dread rose in her chest with every step she mounted. Because that voice was familiar, and it wasn’t Ged – Alex’s boss. It was a voice she’d heard more recently than that – last night, in fact, with her earphones on as the bath water cooled around her, too horrified to move. Despite everything he’d said about not listening to that crap, and it being some kind of wind-up, her husband was playing last night’s podcast. Obviously he did think it was a big deal, after all. Had someone at work told him she was on it? Maybe he suspected what she’d done at the party. Maybe he thought she killed Erica.
Miranda stood frozen on the stairs, until the slamming of their en-suite door jolted her back into life. She padded down the stairs as quietly as possible and out into the back garden, behind the shed, where she crouched down and pulled a packet of cigarettes from inside a fake plant pot. Hands trembling, she lit one up and inhaled deeply. Just hearing that voice put her on edge – enough even to risk being caught smoking by her husband.
Leaning back against the shed, she exhaled and pulled her phone from her back pocket. Checking social media was like picking a scab. Even as she told herself she shouldn’t be doing it, that it would be painful a
nd leave her feeling worse than before, she couldn’t help but click on the Facebook app and scroll through her newsfeed.
‘Any chance I could steal one of those?’
Miranda jumped at the voice. She’d been so deep in thought and automatic screen-scrolling that she hadn’t even heard the back gate open or seen Jack Spencer walk in.
27
‘I don’t know what’s more insulting – that you think I would be such an asshole to you and Mum, or that you think I would be stupid enough to use your details to register it.’ Brandon opened the door of the American-style fridge and pulled out a tub of butter.
‘Nobody said you were an asshole, Bran. I had to ask.’ Marcus ran a hand over his face. He was exhausted; he and Karla had stayed up half the night in the snug, her head in his lap, covered in blankets, while they debated what exactly was going on, and how they were going to deal with it. The police were yet to speak to them about the allegations being made by Andy Noon, but with Mary-Beth’s disappearance being upgraded to ‘high risk’, whatever that meant, and thinly veiled accusations that Karla had lied to them in her statement, it wouldn’t be long. Plus the press were beginning to realise how big this story was getting, and articles were already showing up in local newspapers loaded with snark about Karla and her fitness to tell others how to raise their families. If this guy turned out to be one of their kids, it would end her career – and possibly his.
‘Can’t you just get it taken down? If you own it?’
Not for the first time, Marcus was surprised at how quick-thinking his ten-year-old son was. It had taken an hour of hand-wringing before either he or his wife had had the same thought.
‘Close, Zach, but no cigar, I’m afraid. I don’t have the email address or password for the account. It’s in my name, and our home address is listed, but the email isn’t actually mine – it just looks like it is. I’ve emailed LCN, the people who host the site, but Dean doesn’t think there’s much we can do about it other than get them to contact the owner to change the address.’
‘Can’t they get the IP address of the customer?’
Marcus raised his eyebrows. ‘What do you know about IP addresses?’
Zach shrugged and spooned Rice Krispies into his mouth. ‘They ping a signal to tell you where a computer was used,’ he said through a mouthful of cereal and milk.
‘You are too clever.’ Marcus ruffled his son’s hair. Karla had thought they should keep the kids out of all of this, but he knew now that he was right to involve them. Despite what Erica obviously wrote in that fucking journal of hers, they were a close family and thought of themselves as good parents. They treated the boys as the young adults they were, and they never kept secrets. Well, almost never, but what kind of parents told their kids everything? Some things needed to be private. He cringed as he thought of the Halloween party the night Erica fell from their tree house. Yes, some things were best kept between the adults. ‘But unfortunately they can’t give us the IP address. Confidentiality. The police could get it, if they thought a crime was being committed, but free speech means this guy can say what he likes.’
‘Unless it’s libel,’ Brandon pointed out. His toast popped out of the toaster and he proceeded to butter it directly on the work surface, leaving beads of toast sweat and crumbs in his wake. ‘Then you can sue him.’
‘We’re looking into it.’ Karla walked into the kitchen, looking like death warmed up. She was still wearing her dressing gown, her blonde hair wild around her head like a frizzy halo, and dark rings of yesterday’s eyeliner under her eyes. ‘We could sue for loss of earnings if Real Housewives use this as a reason to refuse me a slot. And use a plate, for God’s sake.’
Brandon rolled his eyes. ‘Being accused of murder hasn’t affected your ability to bust my ass, I see.’
‘Bust your ass? God, these YouTubers have a lot to answer for. Besides, I haven’t— Oh, never mind. Stop winding me up and put the kettle on. What time is Dean coming?’
She crossed the kitchen to Marcus, who stooped to give her a kiss.
‘Morning, baby.’ He glanced over at the Alexa on the counter. ‘Half an hour, maybe. Did you get any sleep?’
It had been 2:30 a.m. before they had finally gone upstairs, Karla already half asleep when they got into bed.
She nodded. ‘Didn’t wake up once, actually. Although I must have dreamed a ton because I don’t feel rested. I’d better get ready before Dean shows up.’
‘I’ll bring you up a cup of tea.’ Marcus smoothed down her unruly hair, then reached down to squeeze her ass. Karla grinned and pretended to swat his hand away. He watched his wife leave the kitchen and sighed. He had no idea where this was all going, but he hoped they would still be a family by the end of it.
28
They sat on the swinging chair at the end of the garden, Erica’s husband and Miranda Davenport. Jack sucked on his cigarette wordlessly, Miranda fidgeting with her hands and wondering what on earth to say. None of the neighbours had seen anything of Jack or Erica’s children – Max and Emily – since the first podcast had been announced, and now Miranda realised that maybe she should have tried to contact him sooner.
‘We thought it best to give you some space.’ She settled on the easy lie.
The truth was that she’d been scared to go and knock on the door of the house Jack and Erica had shared for six years, scared that he might yell at her, or question her too closely about just where she’d been at the moment Erica ‘fell’. The truth was, Jack had no fight left in him. He’d been using all the energy he had to keep his family afloat since his wife’s death. He had always been the breadwinner, working all the hours God sent in project management, while Erica did the hands-on parenting. The last year had been like climbing a mountain of compromise and discovering that it was near impossible to do anything well when you were trying to do everything .
‘The kids don’t understand,’ he replied, letting her off the hook. ‘They haven’t heard the podcast and I intend to keep it that way. I snuck them out in the middle of the night after the first one, told them it was a surprise holiday. We went to Erica’s cabin.’
‘They’ll be back at school soon, Jack. You’ll have to tell them something before the other kids do.’
Jack nodded. ‘I know. I just don’t know what to say to them. It’s hard enough for them to accept their mum’s death as an accident – but to have to tell them someone might have hurt her, that someone took their mum away from them on purpose . . .’
His words trailed off, and Miranda looked at him sharply.
‘You believe what this guy is saying, then? That one of us hurt Erica?’
Jack sat in silence, the way he had when his father died, the way he had when Erica died. That was his way, he’d never been any good at opening up about what was on his mind. Then he began to talk.
‘This is going to sound weird,’ he said. ‘But part of me wants to believe it. Part of me – the part that has been furious at Erica for being so stupid, for leaving me and the kids. If it had been done to her, I could focus my anger on someone else, I could blame someone other than Erica – and myself.’
‘Why would you blame yourself?’
Jack hesitated. How much was he going to tell her? After all, it was easy to get carried away when you were talking one-on-one to someone, in such an intimate setting, light-headed from your first cigarette in nearly a year.
He recovered himself in time and shook his head. ‘Doesn’t everyone, when the person they love dies? If I’d been with her on the balcony, if I’d gone looking for her sooner – those questions haunt me every day.’
‘Have the police spoken to you?’
Jack scoffed. ‘Who, Harvey and his new sidekick? He’s different now, don’t you think? Harvey? Not so keen for the truth this time. He barely speaks, just lets his new lapdog ask all the questions.’
‘I don’t really remember much from when . . . from the first time he was here,’ Miranda confessed. ‘I think I was a bit o
f a mess. I remember him asking a lot of questions, though, and he didn’t seem to believe anything we said. I remember Felicity saying she thought he didn’t believe us. She was all panicked – I remember, because she’s usually so calm, so in control.’
‘They suspected me,’ Jack said, surprising Miranda.
She’d never considered Jack would be a suspect – he loved Erica, for all her faults.
‘Did you know about this diary?’
‘No,’ Jack said, a little too sharply. ‘Not until this fucking podcast. Who is it, Miranda? Who’s dragging this all up again?’
Miranda couldn’t answer. She had one more question, one she didn’t feel like she should ask, but she was going to anyway.
‘Did you know she was pregnant?’
Jack winced. ‘Not until afterwards. The coroner ordered a post-mortem because the death wasn’t a result of natural causes. Her pregnancy wasn’t mentioned at the inquest because they didn’t have any evidence it was related to cause of death – but the senior coroner told me. I didn’t even tell the kids. I didn’t want them to know they’d lost a mum and a brother or sister in the same night.’
‘I’m so sorry,’ Miranda breathed, and to her credit she looked it. ‘Did they say how far along she was?’
‘Thirteen weeks . . .’ Jack sniffed. ‘I spoke to her doctor. She’d already been to see him about the baby. The thing is—’ He stopped, put his face in his hands.
‘What? What is it?’
‘I had the snip, Miranda.’ Jack couldn’t meet her eyes. ‘I’m too old for more children. The baby wasn’t mine. Erica was sleeping with someone else. Maybe that’s why she was murdered. So no one would find out who the father really was.’
29
‘I told you. Didn’t I tell you?’
Felicity held in her sigh. She’d known as soon as she’d made the decision to call her sister that she was going to have to listen to the whole ‘I told you so’ thing before Melissa would switch on the sympathy. Plenty of other people would have held back, let the words go unspoken, but not Liss. The good thing about her sister, though, was that once it was out of the way, she wouldn’t dwell on it, or harp on about how she’d told her that Peter King was bad news. It was as though she had to get that superior ‘I was right all along’ spiel in so that it didn’t sit between them for the entire conversation. Felicity switched the phone to her other hand and flicked on the kettle.
Someone Is Lying Page 10
