Lie to Me: A gripping psychological thriller with a shocking twist

by Jess Ryder

  As soon as she went back into the house, she knew she wasn’t alone, even though she couldn’t hear anybody moving about. The atmosphere had changed.

  ‘Hello?’ She walked through the kitchen and stood in the hallway.

  Jay came out of the rechristened dining room, his door keys still in his hand. Isobel had had copies cut for him and Toby so they didn’t have to ring the bell every morning, but there was an unwritten rule that they didn’t use their keys outside office hours.

  ‘I rang first, but there was no answer,’ he said, as if reading her mind.

  He’d come bearing gifts – a bottle of cheap vodka and some dope. Cara didn’t usually indulge in either, but she let him pour her a glass and had several puffs of the first, tightly rolled joint.

  ‘I picked this up at the market,’ he said, taking a tape out of his pocket and slotting it into Isobel’s radio cassette player. It was an album by Siouxsie and the Banshees – not Cara’s usual taste, but she didn’t object. She made some cheese on toast and they sat in the conservatory, squeezed onto the small sofa, hips touching, their feet resting on the coffee table. The closeness of Jay made her feel dizzy. Or maybe it was the marijuana. She took another drag and let Siouxsie Sioux’s ethereal whining reverberate through her body.

  ‘I’ve been wanting to get you on your own for a while,’ Jay said, when the track came to an end. So, thought Cara, he knows…

  They carried on drinking and smoking through the afternoon, stopping briefly for a game of chess, which descended into chaotic giggles as neither of them knew how to play. Then Jay declared he was starving and needed more food. They staggered to the corner shop and came back with beer, crisps, chocolate bars and several packets of Mr Kipling cakes, which turned out to be past their sell-by date, but they ate them all the same. Cara was so pissed she could barely put one foot in front of the other, all the time wondering why Jay hadn’t yet made a pass at her. Had she misunderstood? Had he just popped round to give her some company? She desperately wanted to kiss him, but didn’t dare make the first move.

  ‘Let’s play hide and seek,’ he said. ‘I’ll hide, you count to a hundred, then come and find me.’ She closed her eyes and listened to him climbing the stairs, the floorboards creaking above her. Then the noises stopped. He was in her room.

  She opened her eyes immediately and went upstairs. Jay had taken all his clothes off and was lying in her bed with his hands clasped behind his head and a cheeky grin on his face.

  ‘That was nowhere near a hundred,’ he said. ‘Tut, tut. Couldn’t you wait?’

  Cara smiled and started to undo her shirt.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Me

  After three hours in the library, glued to the microfiche reader, my head is swimming. I go down to the café and buy a cup of tea and a huge chocolate muffin. It’s half past five. Eliot’s bound to still be at work, although he did say Cold Case Review was much more of a nine-to-five job. No weekend shifts. Proper lunch breaks. I call up his new address on my contacts list and check the location of his flat. It’s only five minutes’ walk away. It would be churlish to be so close and not to visit. Dare I just turn up? I peel the wrapper off the muffin and take a large, hungry bite, feeling the sugar rush instantly through my veins. If I call ahead, he can easily put me off. Then again, maybe he’d like a visitor. He’s up here on his own; he doesn’t know anyone in Birmingham. Why wouldn’t he be pleased to see me?

  I hang around in the café for as long as I can, reading through my notes and the photocopied articles, checking the time every few minutes. Finally I leave and head for the International Convention Centre, stopping to read every concert poster and taking a detour around the gift shop. Canals seem to head off in every direction, lined with bars and restaurants and connected by pretty brick bridges. It’s gone half past six before I find Eliot’s apartment block on a side street that backs onto a mooring site for narrowboats. I position myself in front of the security camera, fixing a friendly smile on my face. Here goes… I punch in his apartment number.

  ‘Hello?’ His voice sounds uncertain. I imagine him peering at the little screen on the entryphone. ‘Meri, is that you?’ I tell him it is. ‘What the hell are you doing here?’

  ‘If you let me in, I’ll explain.’

  His tiny flat – one bedroom, kitchen/living area and bathroom – is on the second floor, overlooking the gated private car park.

  ‘Pity you haven’t got a canal-side view,’ I say, trying to sound casual and cheerful, as if I’m always popping round on the off-chance.

  Eliot’s not pleased to see me. He’s obviously only just got in and is unpacking his shopping, trying to make as much noise about it as possible – banging cupboards, plonking jars down on the worktop, slamming the fridge door so the beer bottles jangle. I pretend not to notice, studying the bare white walls, the neutral beige curtains, the glass coffee table, the empty bookshelves, thinking about how homely I could make it with a few pictures and cushions, a warm colourful rug on the cold laminate floor. I want to feel welcome. I want Eliot to offer me a beer, stick a couple of those pizzas he’s just bought in the oven. I want him to sit down and pull his shirt out of his trousers, put his feet up on the sofa, point the remote at the telly and ask me if there’s anything worth watching tonight.

  ‘I got my DNA done,’ I say.

  He tries to slash open the cellophane wrapping on a box of tea bags. ‘You can’t just turn up like this, out of the blue. You should have called. I’m… I’m busy.’ He waves his knife in the direction of his work satchel. ‘You wouldn’t believe how much reading I’ve got to do. And we’re not supposed to be in contact, remember – my boss is already making remarks about me and Durley; if anyone finds out you’re here…’

  ‘They won’t, though. Unless they’ve installed secret cameras.’ I force a laugh.

  He liberates the tea bags and then imprisons them again in a shiny white canister. ‘Are you going to tell me why you’re here or what?’

  ‘I’ve been doing some research.’ I hold up my plastic carrier bag by way of explanation.

  ‘What sort of research?’

  ‘You know, into the murder case. Local newspapers, mainly. Everything else has restricted access.’

  He raises his eyebrows. ‘But why?’

  ‘Why do you think?’

  ‘Okay!’ he says, raising his hands in a not-guilty gesture. ‘No need to snap.’

  At last his shopping is all unpacked and tidied out of sight. The beers stay in the fridge, but he makes me a cup of tea and offers me a biscuit. Things are looking up. He finally sits down too, but on the white wicker chair opposite the sofa, at a safe distance. There are a few moments of heavy silence. Then he leans back into his seat and folds his arms.

  ‘I understand why you want to know more about Becca’s part in the case. But I don’t see how it’s going to help you come to terms with what’s on the tape. Counselling maybe, but…’

  Fuck counselling, I think, but instead I say, ‘I have a feeling her disappearance had something to do with the murder case.’

  He almost laughs. ‘But they happened several years apart.’

  ‘Yes, but the videotape was made only a few months before she disappeared. In it, she says, “The bad man knows. If you don’t help Mummy, he’ll come and get me.” She’s got to be talking about Jay. What if he did come and get her?’

  Eliot wrinkles his nose as he considers the possibility. ‘Unlikely. He’d moved to London by then. Still there, actually, teaching at some FE college. I’ve got to go and see him next week.’

  ‘Did she feel guilty about lying at the trial and tell him she was going to tell the police?’

  ‘Why would she? It doesn’t make sense. Anyway, they didn’t know each other, there was no connection between them.’ He runs his hands wearily over his new haircut, and I think how hard and distant it makes him look. Detective Sergeant Myles – leading light of the High Potential Development Scheme. Is this what happens wh
en you get promoted? I want the old Eliot back, with the semi-Afro, soft and fuzzy and smelling of almond oil. The old Eliot who listened to me and took my ideas seriously; who liked having me around.

  ‘It’s obvious, isn’t it?’ I say. ‘The answer’s been staring us in the face. We know Jay killed one woman. Maybe he killed two.’

  He twists his mouth. ‘That’s a bit of a leap.’

  ‘He needed to shut Becca up.’

  ‘That’s pure speculation.’

  ‘She’s a missing person.’

  ‘Not exactly.’

  ‘That’s what Siobhan Gerrard called her. There’s no record of her death, and no record of her being alive.’

  He gives me one of his wry, patronising smiles. ‘So, where do you suggest we start digging for a body?’

  ‘I’m serious. It needs investigating!’

  Eliot stands up and stretches his arms. ‘I’m sorry, Meri, but nobody’s going to allocate resources when there’s no evidence. Particularly not when there’s a history of suicide attempts.’

  ‘You can’t discount murder because the victim’s got a mental illness. That’s discrimination.’

  ‘No, it’s not. It’s making a realistic assessment of the situation.’

  ‘That’s just bullshit and you know it.’ I feel myself heating up. ‘Okay. Fine. If you can’t be bothered to find out what happened to your key witness, I’ll do it myself.’

  ‘Oh yes? Like how? You think you can do better than a team of detectives?’ I’m about to release a torrent of invective at him when his phone rings. He fishes it out of his trouser pocket and glances briefly at the screen. ‘Got to take this.’ He walks out of the room and into the bedroom, slamming the door behind him.

  Waves of anger start to build in the pit of my stomach. He’s trying to make me feel small – a bungling amateur with silly far-fetched theories. But I have this feeling that Becca didn’t abandon me voluntarily, that she would have come back eventually if she’d been able. Only somebody stopped her. Christopher Jay stopped her.

  I can hear Eliot’s muffled voice through the thin partition wall. He’s not saying much, but I can tell from the tone that he’s pleased to be talking to whoever’s on the other end of the phone. His mother? A new girl? There’s a sudden burst of easy laughter, as if everything’s fine and our row hasn’t just happened. As if I’m not even here.

  I suddenly feel a strong urge to do something. Nothing violent; I’m not going to start throwing crockery at the walls or put his laptop in the washing-up bowl, as tempting as that is. But I can’t just walk meekly away. I’m going to stand my ground and make him take me seriously.

  His old leather satchel is standing upright on the dining table. Eliot has always brought work home. There will be case documents in there: witness statements, notes, plans, photos. I stand up and go over to it, glancing back into the hallway at the closed bedroom door. Eliot’s still in mid-conversation, chuckling away. I unbuckle the straps and push over the flap. The satchel smells deliciously of secrets. I walk my fingers through the files and remove a brown card folder.

  Inside are photographs taken at the scene of the crime. Cara is barely recognisable from the smiling press shot. She’s lying on her back, legs twisted to one side, arms splayed. Dirty bare feet, scratched with running. Her pretty summer dress – sunflower yellow, patterned with large pink roses – is crumpled above her knees, the flimsy straps fallen from her shoulders, her face pale, eyes glassy and staring up at the sky. And blood. So much blood. On her clothes, her arms, her hands; it pools around her torso, dark and sticky. I run a finger across her face. Poor, poor Cara. She didn’t deserve to end up like this.

  I’m so absorbed, I don’t hear Eliot coming back into the room.

  ‘What the hell do you think you’re doing?’ he says, marching forward. He looms over me, holding out his hand, palm upwards, like a teacher about to confiscate some contraband. ‘Give them back, Meri. Now.’

  ‘Don’t talk to me like that!’ I reply, hugging the photos instinctively to my chest. ‘I wasn’t doing any harm.’

  ‘They’re police property, not for public consumption.’

  ‘I’m hardly the public!’

  ‘You’ve no right to go snooping about in my briefcase.’

  ‘I wasn’t snooping, don’t be ridiculous. You were on the phone and… Look, I’m actually trying to help.’

  ‘I don’t need your help… I don’t want your help – you’ll just get in the way. This is a police investigation, not some family fucking history project. The Cara Travers murder has nothing to do with you. Nothing! And nothing to do with your mother’s disappearance. You need to accept that, or you’re going to end up like her.’ He holds out his hand again. ‘Now give me back the photos.’

  I stand up and fling them to the floor. ‘Fuck you, Eliot,’ I say, pushing past him. I grab my things and storm out of the flat, marching indignantly along the corridor and down the stairs and landing furiously on the street. I seem to have emerged on a different side of the block and I can’t orientate myself, but I’m so angry I just set off regardless. I don’t care where I’m going. All I know is I’ve got to put as much distance as I can between the two of us.

  After a few hundred yards I glance over my shoulder, imagining Eliot chasing after me, shouting apologies, but there’s nobody there. In fact, the street is strangely quiet. I can’t see any other pedestrians, and only a couple of cars drive past. I know I should probably turn back, but I can’t. I’m still too angry, and more to the point, it would look like a retreat.

  I walk on, ending up on a badly lit towpath – cold black water on one side and a high brick wall on the other. The bars and restaurants have petered out and all I can see is what looks like a derelict factory. I bend my head to walk under a bridge and am nearly knocked into the canal by a cyclist coming in the opposite direction. This is getting stupid. I need a taxi rank. I climb some uneven steps and find myself on another dismal side street. I seem to have overshot the main road, so I turn around and walk back towards the lights of the city centre.

  There are plenty of empty black cabs cruising past and I flag one down almost immediately. ‘Where do you want to go?’ asks the driver. I start to say ‘New Street station’, but then I have another idea. It’s as if someone’s just dropped the words into my head, calling me there.

  ‘Darkwater Pool. Do you know it?’ Fortunately – or unfortunately – he does.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Me

  The cab hangs a sharp right at the roundabout and we join fast-moving traffic out of the city, past large houses turned into cheap, miserable hotels and characterless blocks of flats. Asian music hums in the background, its delicate, summery tones at odds with the view out of the window, or indeed my mood. I try to concentrate on the dull urban scenery, but my heart is fluttering like a moth trapped behind a curtain. I don’t know why I’m doing this. Only that I have no choice.

  We reach a junction and the driver turns left. The area starts to look more residential – nondescript semis interspersed with short drags of small shops. We could be anywhere. We could still have miles to go, but something tells me we’re getting close to the scene of the crime. I imagine a square white tent, red tape, and a body bag being stowed in a hearse. It feels like the murder’s only just happened; that I’m going to turn up and see the place swarming with detectives and uniformed officers, pathologists in paper suits, police divers searching for the weapon, journalists, nosy neighbours…

  The driver turns right and the street sign flickers past, my eyes catching the word ‘Darkwater’. My pulse quickens. I try to picture the map I printed out for my files. This must be Darkwater Lane. Darkwater Terrace, where Cara lived, runs off this road in a semicircle around the pool, the rear gardens of the houses backing onto a path. I lean forward and peer out of the window. Maybe it’s because I’ve seen the photos, but the place feels familiar.

  ‘It’s the actual pool you’re wanting, yes?’ the driver
says, slowing down as we reach the bottom of the hill.

  ‘Please. If you could just pull over in front of it…’ The car splashes through a large puddle in the middle of the road and parks up.

  I stare out, arrested by the view. The pool is smaller than I was expecting, more of a large pond really, eerily lit by the two street lamps on the pavement in front of it and a few lights shining in the back windows of the surrounding houses. I wish I knew which one Cara lived in. Eliot will know, but I can’t ask him, not any more. From now on, I’m on my own. But I don’t want to think about Eliot, don’t want to think about myself either. I want to see the pool as Becca saw it, back on that hot August night in 1984.

  ‘Are you getting out or what?’ The driver’s voice makes me jolt. I don’t answer him straight away. I’m thinking. Am I getting out?

  ‘Er, yes, just for a few minutes. Would you mind waiting?’ He makes a tutting sound, like he doesn’t believe me. ‘Please. I need to go back to New Street station, I’ve got a train to catch.’

  ‘Okay, but I’ll have to keep the meter running,’ he says. I open the door and step onto the pavement, heaving my bag onto my shoulder. God knows what he thinks I’m doing. What am I doing?

  Skimpy silver birches list perilously over the water, the banks edged with clumps of dank brown reeds. To my left is the path that embraces the pool, where Cara’s body was found. I shiver as I walk towards it, my stomach gurgling with fear. It looks narrow and dark, hidden from the road, fencing on one side and scrappy trees and bushes on the other. I take my phone out of my pocket and activate the torch app. There’s a free-standing noticeboard sponsored by a local estate agent; laminated posters telling me about the history of the place and the wildlife I might expect to find. I’m invited to enjoy the natural surroundings and reminded not to drop litter, but as I step onto the path and start to make my way around, it seems like nobody’s been taking much notice. I shine the torch over beer cans, polystyrene chip cartons, wet newspaper and unidentifiable packaging bleached by the wind and rain. My shoes crunch on shards of broken glass. The tarmac bulges with invading tree roots and tufty weeds sprout through the cracks. The past is lurking just beneath the surface, looking for places to reassert itself.