Someone Is Lying

by Jenny Blackhurst

  ‘It’s worth the grief, Liss, I promise. You should come and meet him. He’s . . . I just think you’d like him, that’s all.’

  ‘Yeah, maybe,’ Melissa replied, but Felicity knew from the tone of her sister’s voice that she didn’t mean it. She’d already decided she didn’t want anything to do with Peter, and she could hardly blame her. It wasn’t exactly a conventional relationship.

  ‘So go on, tell me what’s going on.’

  Felicity glanced at Mollie and Amelie, who were playing on the sofa at the ‘family’ end of the kitchen diner. They looked preoccupied enough and the front door was locked, as was the side gate. Despite how safe Severn Oaks was, she could never shake the feeling that she needed to know where the twins were at all times. They were only five at the moment, and so her overprotectiveness was fully justified – the only problem was that she didn’t think the urge to keep them close would miraculously subside when they were eight or nine, or even fifteen. If anything, this feeling of panic whenever they were out of sight would get worse as they got older. She knew what could happen to fifteen-year-old girls if they were allowed too much freedom – she’d been one herself once.

  Pouring her cup of tea, she carried it over to where the twins were playing with the modern equivalent of Barbies, wide-eyed female dolls with faces full of make-up.

  ‘You remember I told you about that woman who died at that party I was at last year?’

  ‘Erica Spencer.’

  Felicity rolled her eyes. She should have known that Melissa would remember Erica’s full name – her sister never forgot anything, and never missed a trick. There was no point in trying to keep secrets from her, she had a way of getting to the truth – and had since they were kids. Felicity had accepted it by now, and told her sister almost everything. Almost.

  ‘That’s the one. Well, someone has started a podcast claiming that Erica’s death wasn’t an accident.’

  ‘What’s a podcast?’

  Felicity almost choked on her cup of tea. ‘What’s a podcast? Liss, are you serious? Have you never heard of Serial ?’

  ‘I’m going to assume you don’t mean the stuff I had for breakfast,’ Melissa replied dryly. ‘So no, I’ve never heard of Serial . Is it a game?’

  ‘A podcast is like a prerecorded radio show.’ Felicity realised she had adopted the tone she used when explaining things to the twins. Only usually it was words like ‘obnoxious’, not ‘podcast’. ‘You listen to it on an app. You know what an app is, right?’

  ‘There’s no need for sarcasm. I don’t have kids like you to keep me up to speed with these new trends.’

  Melissa wasn’t old at all, she was Felicity’s twin. The difference was that she was ‘old school’. Unlike everyone they knew, Melissa had refused to start any social media accounts, she had never used Twitter or Snapchat or Instagram. She ran her own business making jewellery and didn’t even have a website – much to Felicity’s chagrin. As a brand awareness manager Felicity had asked – no, begged – Melissa to go digital but her sister claimed to have more customers than she could handle through word of mouth, and what would the point be of trying to garner more if she didn’t have time for more orders?

  ‘Don’t you want to expand?’ Felicity had asked. ‘You could take on some staff, have a team. You could get some machinery . . .’

  Liss had sighed heavily, as though the very thought of it all was exhausting her. ‘I just want to make jewellery, Flick. Not conquer the world.’

  ‘Okay,’ Felicity conceded now. ‘Although my five-year-old daughters didn’t tell me what a podcast is, by the way. You learn these things when you connect with the real world, not sit in a mud hut in the back garden all day like a hippy.’

  ‘It’s not a mud hut and I’m not a hippy.’ Melissa’s studio was a dilapidated old shed that she insisted she would have renovated when it gave up – probably one more year. That had been four years ago and the hut showed little sign of falling down, almost as though it had heard the conversation and was determined not to be euthanised. ‘Tell me about the podcast on the app.’

  Felicity grinned. Satisfied that the girls would be fine on their own for ten minutes, Felicity carried her cup of tea into the front room, settled herself down on her oversized navy-blue sofa and pulled the mustard teddy bear throw from over the back and tucked it around herself. From this point she could see the entrance to Karla’s driveway, a portion of her best friend’s front door as well as – if she turned her head sideways – the entrance to the street, and Miranda and Alex’s house. The huge bay windows in the front room had been an absolute nightmare to buy blinds for but had served her well in the long run – she had one of the best views in the street, second only to Erica and Jack’s. Well, just Jack now. Speaking of Jack – had he just come out of Miranda’s side gate?

  ‘Flick? Am I going to hear the story, or do I have to wait until one of the twins tells me?’

  ‘Sorry . . .’ Felicity remembered her sister on the other end of the phone. ‘It started a couple of weeks ago. There was this post on Facebook – you do know what Facebook is, right?’

  The person who looked suspiciously like Jack Spencer made his way down Miranda’s driveway and down the street to Jack Spencer’s house. So he was back. No one had seen him since this whole mess had started. Where had he been? And what was he doing in Miranda’s back garden? Miranda and Alex were both home – Felicity had seen Alex’s car pull up much earlier than usual today. Was something going on?

  ‘I’ve heard rumours,’ Melissa retorted, dryly. ‘Go on, what did it say? This post.’

  ‘It was by a fake account and it said that there would be a podcast starting that would tell us the truth about what happened to Erica. That she was murdered and there were six suspects.’

  ‘Who were . . .?’

  ‘They didn’t give names but it was clear who they were talking about. For a start, there were only about eight of us there when Erica died – although I’m not sure why that doesn’t make it eight suspects.’

  ‘Well, because one of them is this podcaster, so that would be seven anyway,’ Melissa said.

  ‘Huh?’ Felicity was gazing out of the window so intently, waiting for something to happen on the street, that she almost missed what her sister had said. ‘What?’

  ‘Keep up, Felicity, you’re supposed to be the smart one. This person wouldn’t say eight suspects because they obviously don’t suspect themselves. The pod person has got to be someone who was there – otherwise, how would they know what really happened?’

  ‘Well, that’s not technically true, is it? I mean, there were eight of us there but Zachary’s tree house could be seen from any of the windows on that side of the street. No, not from number eight probably – that’s Simon and Gilly’s. Possibly the Pattersons’. But definitely from Jack and Erica’s—’

  ‘Who were at the party, so that’s useless information. Jeesh, Detective Goldman, thank God you’re not in charge of the investigation. Who else lives on that side?’

  ‘Mary-Beth and Peter, who were also at the party and have both been named as suspects. And number ten, which I think is still empty. It used to be that couple with the white dog – Julie and whatever her husband was called – but they split up. They were going to rent it out, but I haven’t seen any cars going up there.’

  ‘So the only people who could have seen what happened from their houses weren’t actually in their houses. Who does that leave?’ Melissa sounded triumphant. ‘The three people not named as suspects. Erica herself, and who else?’

  Felicity thought back to the people left at the end of the party, eight shocked faces drained of blood, blue and red lights lighting them up to the beat of her thumping heart. Red, Miranda. Blue, Marcus . Red, Peter. Blue, Mary-Beth . Red, Karla . Blue . . .

  ‘Alex,’ she whispered.

  Red . . .

  ‘And Jack.’

  30

  It had been one week since the last podcast and everyone in Severn Oak
s knew what that meant. Tuesday nights were no longer ordinary nights, and with tomorrow being the first day back at school for the children of Severndale Primary, tensions were particularly high in the houses behind the gates. What would they find out about the night Erica died tonight? What would be the topic of conversation tomorrow at the school gates?

  Over the last couple of weeks of the school holidays Felicity, Miranda and Karla had been able to pretend it wasn’t all happening to them – that the anonymous voice behind the screens of their smartphones and laptops could be referring to anyone – like any true-crime podcast that had gripped the nation, it belonged to someone else, other people’s lives that were good for a bit of salacious catching up around the water cooler or leaning up against the door of their cars after the kids had been safely deposited in school. Only this time the tragedy that was being played out in delicious detail every week was their lives, and there would be no escaping it tomorrow morning when they had to venture out into the wider world. Felicity assumed they had all been clicking ‘refresh’ on the blog as often as she had, cringing every time the photographs of them all loaded. Who had taken them? None of them felt safe any more, the one thing they had always taken for granted in Severn Oaks.

  The journalists weren’t letting up. It would have been bad enough if none of them had been under suspicion, with cars parked outside the gates all day, beady eyes glinting through the windscreens and dictaphones glued to the hands of those whose job it was to turn real life into entertainment. Karla and Marcus’s celebrity had notched the story up a level – who would dare accuse Cheshire’s power couple of murder?

  ‘I wonder what she’d have done,’ Felicity mused, accepting the glass of wine that Karla handed to her in her own kitchen. ‘Thanks.’

  ‘Who, Erica?’

  Erica’s name hit the air like a noxious fart. It was funny how they’d all avoided talking about her in the weeks since the revelations had been rolled out by the stilted, slightly robotic voice they had all grown to hate. The conversation Miranda had had with Jack in her back garden – so out of left field and surreal that she wasn’t even sure it had really happened now – was the first time Erica had actually been front and centre of anyone’s mind. They were all so busy worrying about what it meant for them.

  ‘She’d have been the one holding the cards.’ Miranda spoke for the first time since they had all arrived at Felicity’s house, twenty minutes ago. It struck Felicity that this was the first time they would all be in the same room since the first podcast aired. No, not all, of course – Mary-Beth still hadn’t come home.

  ‘True . . .’ Karla sat down next to Miranda at the breakfast bar. ‘How was it that she always knew so much about everyone?’

  ‘Knowledge is power,’ Felicity offered. ‘She made it her business to squirrel away every nugget of information she could about us, about everyone she knew, so that she had a level of control over everyone. There aren’t six suspects, there are bloody dozens. Do you remember when Marianne Gilespie’s daughter wanted to play the violin in the talent contest?’ She took a slug of her wine, finding it easier with every mouthful to speak ill of the dead. ‘And we all knew that Emily was going to play the violin. What did I say to you, Karla?’

  ‘That Mary-Beth would be on stage doing a striptease before Erica would let her daughter be upstaged by Tiffany Gilespie.’

  ‘And what happened?’

  ‘If the answer is that Mary-Beth did a striptease then I’m going to start attending the school talent shows.’

  The three women looked up to see Miranda’s husband, Alex, in the doorway. ‘Sorry, the front door was open.’

  Miranda scowled. ‘Do you always have to be so inappropriate? Mary-Beth is missing,’ she practically hissed.

  ‘And Erica is dead, but that hasn’t stopped you three sitting here like the Witches of Eastwick stirring your cauldrons.’

  ‘Oh, do fuck off, Alex.’ Karla grinned and stood up. ‘Do you want a drink? I don’t suppose you saw my husband on your way over, did you?’

  ‘He was on the phone in the garden. Something about getting a refund on a hit he’d organised.’

  Miranda looked as though she was about to be sick. Alex grinned and Karla shook her head. Karla had often wondered how it was that someone so laid-back and mischievous (not to mention attractive) as Alex Davenport ever ended up married to the hot mess that was Miranda Clarke (as she was back then). Oh yes, to the outside world Miranda might appear to be completely in control of her life, but these days Karla was beginning to suspect the truth. Miranda had always been desperate to be top of the heap, valued, important . It was so crucial to the core of her being, her self-worth, that she be seen as super-organised, always the one that people turned to in a crisis. She’d have been hosting the crisis meeting they were at now, if Felicity hadn’t flat-out refused to leave the twins in bed alone while she went across the road. It had annoyed Miranda – what did she think would happen, for goodness’ sake, they lived in the safest neighbourhood in England – but she’d acquiesced, of course. As she frequently reminded herself, arguing with people only got you a name for yourself. There was more than one way to skin a cat. Instead, she’d ordered a selection of biscuits from Selfridges Foodhall, arranged them on expensive porcelain, and popped a tub of Whittard’s Rocky Road Hot Chocolate in her handbag for the opportune moment.

  Now – for the sake of appearances – she forced a smile. Alex smiled back over his beer glass, knowing he would pay for his flippancy later, no doubt.

  ‘It’s all right for you, joker,’ Felicity said. ‘You’re the only one who hasn’t been called out as a suspect by this guy.’

  ‘It’s my innocent face.’

  ‘Oh, yeah?’ Marcus Kaplan appeared in the doorway. ‘Picture of innocence, you. Sorry I’m late.’

  ‘It hasn’t started yet,’ Felicity said, checking the huge black-framed clock on the wall. ‘Five minutes. I thought Peter was coming?’

  ‘He’s having a cigarette,’ Marcus replied. ‘I didn’t know he smoked?’

  ‘He’s not supposed to,’ Felicity said, without thinking. Quickly she added, ‘Mary-Beth wouldn’t like it.’

  ‘Have we heard anything about Mary-Beth yet?’ Miranda spoke in hushed tones, as though Peter might hear his wife’s name through the two walls that separated them.

  ‘There wasn’t anything in the car that proved where she might be. But it was right next to the river, so . . .’

  ‘So what’s our best guess? Mary-Beth kills Erica, then does a runner when this Andy guy threatens to out her on his podcast? Jumps in the river? Or fakes her death to live in Mexico?’ Alex offered.

  The doorbell rang before anyone could answer.

  ‘Saved by the bell,’ Marcus quipped. ‘That must be Peter. I’ll let him in.’

  ‘At least someone has some manners,’ Felicity frowned, ‘although I hope he hasn’t woken the girls.’

  Peter and Marcus burst into the kitchen and slammed the door shut. Marcus flicked off the light, and everyone in the room began to shout at once.

  ‘Hey, mate, what’s the problem?’

  ‘Marcus? What’s going on? Is it the police?’

  ‘Sssshhhh! Sssssshhhh! ’

  Felicity made her way over to the light switch and flicked it back on. She looked seriously at the two men. ‘We’re at the back of the house. The gate is locked. And the blinds are closed. Is there any need for the panic? Who’s out there?’

  ‘Jack!’ Peter put a finger to his lips. ‘He looked like he was coming here, so we hid behind the fence and legged it inside when he went back to check his front door was locked. Are you sure the side gate is locked?’

  ‘I always keep it locked, except on bin day. The girls disappeared over to play with Emily once without me knowing, and I was frantic. Anyway, what’s so wrong with Jack coming over? He might not want to be alone, knowing another one of those hideous episodes is coming up.’

  ‘And you want him in here listening to it,
do you?’ Marcus raised his eyebrows. ‘While one of us is dissected, while all the reasons we had to kill his wife are laid out in stereo?’

  Felicity’s face coloured. ‘I suppose not. I guess I just don’t like to think about him sitting there, night after night, all alone. And now, with all this going on, I just feel . . .’

  ‘Guilty?’ Alex offered, with a grin. ‘Maybe it’s your episode tonight, Flick.’

  Felicity saw Miranda’s face slacken. She’d obviously never heard her husband call Felicity by her childhood nickname before, and Felicity wanted to thump him. He only did these things to wind Miranda up, and she’d walked right into it at one of their community barbecues at the beginning of the summer. They’d all carried their meat over to Miranda’s front garden, where Alex had held court at the barbecue while Miranda pulled out a steady supply of couscous and potato salad. Felicity had made the mistake of telling Alex that her sister didn’t call her Fliss, like her new Severn Oaks friends – mostly because her name was Melissa and they hadn’t wanted to be Liss and Fliss. Instead, they’d ended up as Swish and Flick, which neither of them had liked any better.

  Felicity glowered at him now.

  ‘We’re about to find out . . .’ Karla held up her phone. ‘It’s gone up.’

  31

  Good evening, listeners, you’re listening to The Truth About Erica, and I’m your host, Andy Noon. Regular listeners will know that each week we delve a little further into the unexplained and so-called ‘accidental’ death of Severn Oaks resident Erica Spencer. Tonight, on week three of The Truth About Erica, we hear about the exact order of the events of that night.