Liars: A gripping psychological thriller with a shocking twist

by Frances Vick

  Jenny’s mind ran at full pelt. If she ran after Sal now, Mrs Mondesir might see them, Sal would talk, and everything would be over. On the other hand, if she allowed Sal to get to the pub, people would see that she wasn’t ill – pissed, but not ill. Freddie would find out through local gossip, and he’d be so disappointed. He’d never forgive her. Andreena wouldn’t want to be her second mum any more. And what about Kathleen? Jenny didn’t see much of her nowadays, but still, she needed to know that Kathleen approved of her, was proud of her. Cheryl? Christ… Cheryl could get her thrown off the course for this. Bye bye career and hello to a long life of temping. She’d lose her blog audience: that precious support network of all those people who loved her, admired her… Jenny opened her computer and scrolled: fifteen new comments.

  When things get too much for me, I re-read Jay’s latest piece and it always, without fail, gives me courage. She has the kind of honesty that I can only dream about…

  Please make sure you look after yourself, Jay.

  You’re such a diamond! Never stop shining!

  She turned the computer off. One tear plopped onto the keyboard, then another. God she’d miss these people. She’d miss this so much. The only person who wouldn’t turn on her was David. The only person she’d be left with was David. And he was very helpful with money; he was devoted to her but, she had to admit it… David was weird. He had been weird in school. You don’t forget someone like him in a hurry; he stabbed a kid with a compass, for God’s sake! And then there were the fires, all the rumours that went round about that. No. Hitching her wagon to David’s star would be… a last resort. David was someone you needed in your corner, but not the only one on your team. A little bit of David went a long, long way.

  The harsh light of the kitchen shone on the dirty linoleum, the smeared glasses, the cheap bottle of gin, and she hated this place. She hated Sal. All those years ago, Jenny – a child – had stepped up, saved them both, got them here, given them a whole new life. And now, all these years later, Sal still didn’t appreciate it. Not only did she not appreciate it, she brought up the Marc thing again, calling her a liar. Even now, when the bastard was long dead, she didn’t dare go against him. What sort of a mother didn’t believe her own child? Called her own child a liar? What kind of a mother…

  She went to the loo, stared at herself in the mirror until the welcome tears of self-pity started. Then she noticed the beginning of a bruise coming out on her chin from where Sal had flailed at her, and that intensified the tears. She looked just as bedraggled and put upon as she felt. Poor Jenny, all alone. Drunk Sal, bad Sal. Shittest Mum Ever.

  Pull yourself together, Jen. Come on now, if you leave now you’ll be able to catch her. Even if she’s already in the pub, she’s drunk enough that she won’t be making sense. Whatever she might have said, no one would believe her. After all, you’re the one with the bruised face, and she’s the town drunk. There’s still time. You can still stop this, just… just find her, muzzle her. That’s all. That’s not too hard, is it, now – what? What was that? A noise from the garden… A fox, or a dog or something? But not quite that… and there it was again. A pained sound.

  She stood on the toilet, opened the frosted window and peered out into the snow; she heard that same wail again in the hills, and something reddish flapped – The snow was coming down so fast it was hard to make out what it was.

  ‘Jen?’

  How’d she end up there?

  Thank Christ she’s there though, and not the pub… Lucky. Lucky.

  With renewed energy, Jenny ran back downstairs, shoved on some shoes and opened the back door, stiff against the snow, ran out into the garden, through the gap in the fence, and into the whirling monochrome of the hills.

  ‘Mum?’ She said it softly. ‘Mum? You there?’ Just a little louder, and she heard in response a faint cry that she moved towards slowly, being careful not to trip. The rocks here were sharp, and if she fell she might not get up again.

  ‘Mum?’

  ‘Jen!’ The cry came again, weaker, quieter, even though Sal was closer now. ‘Jen! I’m here. Come… come and help me. Hurt my leg…’

  Jenny stayed where she was. ‘What’s happened?’ she asked.

  ‘I fell down. My ankle. Hurt my leg. Jen, come and help me up!’

  ‘Why’re you out here? I thought you were going to the pub?’ Jen asked, almost conversationally. ‘You’ll miss last orders if you’re not careful.’

  ‘Don’t take the piss. I got… confused… the snow turned me round. Jenny, give me a hand, please? Jen!’

  And Jenny looked up into the sky at the falling snow. It felt like she was racing through space, shooting past stars. It felt like she was the only person alive.

  ‘Jenny! Love, please!’

  An image came into her mind – a long plank over a cliff, Jenny astride it on safe ground and Sal perched over the ravine, teetering. ‘You said some bad things about me,’ Jenny said after a pause. ‘Say sorry.’

  ‘You what?’ Sal’s pain-filled voice was filled with wonder. ‘What? I’m hurt, I can’t feel my leg now – come and help me!’

  ‘The stuff about Marc – you know it’s true. You always knew. Admit it and I’ll help you up.’

  ‘Sssorry! Sorry! Jen I—’

  ‘Tell me you always knew.’

  ‘I didn’t though, Jen, love, just get me up, will you?’

  ‘Admit that you always knew.’

  In the dark, she could hear Sal trying to get up herself – that creak of pressure on fresh snow. Jen heard dragging steps, and a muffled fall, a little yell of pain, and a sob.

  ‘Jen! Where are you?’

  ‘You can’t tell anyone that you’re well either. The blog. You can’t talk about that to anyone, OK?’

  ‘There’s something wrong with you!’ Sal managed. It sounded like she was trying to heave herself up again. ‘There is. You’re not right!’ Jenny sighed, took a few steps back. ‘No! Jen, listen. I didn’t mean anything, love, I didn’t. I won’t tell anyone either. You’re right, and I’m wrong, and… just, please, help me up, OK?’

  Jen left a pause. She could hear Sal’s exhausted gasps. Fear and pain mixed with gin. She sounded tired. She sounded too tired to shout any more. ‘I’ll have to go back for a torch,’ she said.

  ‘What? What you need a torch for? Just, help, will you?’

  ‘I’ll be a minute. Don’t go anywhere.’

  ‘Ha bloody ha,’ Sal muttered.

  When she was halfway back to the house, Sal called once, just one cry, weak and kittenish. Jen waited for another few minutes, body tensed in the cold, waiting for a scream, but didn’t hear another sound. Then she walked back to the house as quickly as she dared. It was freezing out there, her feet were numb, even through leather boots… Sal in her thin coat and slippers would probably have frostbite by now. When she got back into the garden she noticed that her boot prints were already obscured by snow.

  In the bright kitchen, she sat.

  Time ticked…

  57

  Jenny. The Windsor Castle, Scarborough

  Waking up in The Windsor Castle, Jenny didn’t at first realise where she was. Then everything came swimming back to her, and her heart began to pound painfully. She reached for her phone. Nothing. No calls. No texts.

  What could this mean? If it meant anything, could it be good? After a few minutes of panic, she forced herself into the shower, then forced herself out into the drizzling cold of the morning to the one and only cafe already open on the seafront. It was called Kirsty’s Baps, and Jenny thought instantly of Freddie, how funny he’d find that, and he’d laugh his honking laugh, pause, take a photo and put it on Twitter. But thinking about Freddie was simply too painful at the moment. Don’t do that. Work your way up to that.

  The cafe had one other customer: a malodorous man in a trench coat. His hands, palsied, shook, and his tea dripped onto the Formica tabletop. When the waitress – one of those creamy-skinned adolescents with star
fish mascara and a faintly insolent smile – drifted over, Jenny ordered tea and toast and changed seat so she could look out of the window at the sea over the railing, merging sinuously with the grey horizon. She’d never been here in winter before. Summers. Summers with Mum – the first week of August staying at The Windsor Castle, bacon sandwiches in the morning in the quiet dining room. Lights out at ten and the creaky floorboards and the sound of the waves.

  God she was tired. So tired. Even though she’d slept she hadn’t rested, and everything she thought was fixed… wasn’t. If David had been arrested, surely she’d know by now? If he hadn’t been arrested, why hadn’t he called her? She’d come to Scarborough to escape for a day or two, but now it felt more like she was imprisoned here, in a foggy vacuum, cut off from the world, powerless. God, what a mess. More than a mess. There wasn’t a word for what this was.

  If only she’d handled things better, been more careful around David, never introduced him to Freddie, or maybe introduced him earlier? All those times she resisted meeting up with David by using Freddie as an excuse… ‘Freddie’s a bit jealous.’ ‘Freddie’s a bit sensitive.’ ‘Sorry, I’m out with Freddie… yes, I promise you’ll meet each other. When the time’s right. He’s so protective of me…’ All because of her long-cherished strategy of keeping friends separate, having her cake and eating it. Then she messed it all up by clumsily unveiling David at the funeral as The Stranger Who Gave Me an Alibi, and she hadn’t properly prepared the ground either. Of course Freddie would ask about David’s past, about school, of course he’d think it was strange they’d never met before.…. She’d tried- clumsily- to get them off the topic of school by talking about the cat limping, but that hadn’t worked. For god’s sake, why hadn’t she been more careful? Coached David a bit more? Prepared him? Here’s what we say when he asks about school... here’s what we say when he asks about That Night... If she’d only bothered to do that, David wouldn’t have opened with that stupid hole-in-the-heart-doing-GCSE’s-and-A-Levels-at-Hazlewood story. Freddie wouldn’t have even heard the name Hazlewood, and he wouldn’t have had any suspicions to go on, and none of this would’ve happened. Stupid. Even then, though, it might still have worked if she’d just done everything more gradually, casually… after-work drinks with Freddie, David, want to come along? Fred, the Alibi Man just texted me – Rose and Crown? If she’d just done that…

  Then Freddie wanted to arrange the dinner party, and it was such a big deal, and David was nervous, and when David got nervous he could be… odd. Even though they’d had many conversations about it, he was strange about psychiatry in front of Freddie… he hinted about that picture of her… made a fuss about childhood photos, had basically been a poster child for Asperger’s. The whole evening was a slow-motion car wreck, and she could tell, from the tone of Freddie’s text, that David had freaked him out on the drive home too. It all mushroomed from there.

  If it wasn’t for that night, Freddie wouldn’t have started digging around and David wouldn’t have gone nuts about him digging around. If only she’d handled it better from the start, Freddie might not have noticed how strange David was on the night she’d deliberately double booked them- he might have overlooked the suits, the shoes, the hairdresser… he might have thought it was cute rather than controlling… Then none of this would have happened, Freddie would still be alive and… There. That did it. She let herself sob. Freddie was dead. The shock had worn off, leaving brutal grief and now her voice would be the right kind of broken when she made the call to Graham and Ruth.

  She’d tell them as much about David as they needed to know.

  They’d tell her that David had been arrested.

  They’d sob together. And then she could go back home. Grieve with them. She didn’t have anyone else now, did she?

  She headed to the beach, to make the call as privately as possible. Someone answered almost immediately, but it was an unfamiliar voice and her tears turned traitor and dried in her throat.

  ‘Can I help you?’

  ‘Who’s this?’ Jenny managed.

  ‘Jane Westergaard. I’m a friend of the family,’

  Jane. She was a barrister. Jenny had met her once or twice. A tall, tweedy lesbian with no discernible sense of humour. She had a way of resting her grey, pebbly eyes on someone, and gradually widening them, until her face assumed an expression of baffled intrigue. She was Freddie’s godmother. Well, not any more.

  ‘My name’s Jenny? Freddie’s friend Jenny? Can I speak to Graham or Ruth?’

  ‘It’s not a good time,’ Jane told her drily.

  ‘I just wanted to call… to see how they both were; I know what’s happened,’ Jenny said lamely.

  ‘They’re not doing well, obviously,’ Jane told her. A pause gathered. The cold wind carried the senseless yapping of a dog – and the equally senseless bellowing of its owner. ‘Where are you?’ Jane asked.

  ‘I’m… I had to get away. Look, maybe you can help me. My boyfriend—’

  ‘David?’

  Jenny stopped. ‘How d’you know David?’

  ‘He’s just left the house.’

  Jenny stopped still then. Her body flushed with, sudden, scalding heat. ‘What was he doing there?’

  She heard a squeak – the sound of wicker under Jane’s weight – she must be sitting on the log box in the kitchen. ‘He came to see Ruth and Graham. Pay his respects.’ There was blithe condemnation in her voice.

  ‘Look, Jane? There’s something about David. Perhaps you’re the right person to talk to about this, I don’t know. David is—,’ Jane’s voice was muffled. She was answering someone. There was a rustle and Graham was on the line.

  ‘Jenny? Where are you?’

  ‘Look, I need to tell you something about David—’

  ‘Come home.’ Graham sounded heartbroken. ‘David’s worried sick. We all are—’

  ‘What d’you mean? Graham—’

  ‘He told us that you ran away from him at the hospital; he told us about the problems you’ve been having.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘It’s to be expected, what with your mother dying, and now… with Freddie.’ He stopped then, but his breath still whispered like a much older man.

  ‘What’s he been saying about me?’

  ‘That you struggle with stress. That you can become a little detached from reality. Look, Jenny, I really can’t—’ Graham’s voice fractured.

  ‘He killed Freddie!’ Jenny shouted. ‘I know he did! I even went to the police—’

  ‘Yes, we know you did, David told us.’ Graham’s voice hardened just a little. ‘And you ran away from there too.’ He sighed. ‘Jenny, come back. You’re not well. At least call David, plea—’

  She hung up then.

  David was worried sick. Kind, dependable David. Doggedly loyal David who still loved her despite her mental problems. He was good. He must have sailed through the police interview, if it even got that far. Now he would be trying to find her. And he was very good at finding her – he’d done it many times, after all.

  58

  David. The Night the Snow Fell

  It was David’s private sorrow that fate had forced him, again and again, into deceit. He comforted himself with the thought that his lies had all been to one end: to keep Jenny happy and safe. All these small Wrongs forming one large Right.

  She’d come back to the village months ago, and yet they still hadn’t met face-to-face. The problem was that Freddie was going through a ‘hard time’ – bad break up – and she didn’t want anyone to see them together, tell Freddie. It was a bit silly, but Freddie really needed her at the minute, and he could be a bit possessive… she needed just a little more time… get him over his break-up first and then, gradually, introduce him to the idea that she had a boyfriend. David could understand that, couldn’t he? And David, floating in a sudden bubble of joy (she said he was her boyfriend! She said it!) told her that, yes, of course he could understand that. And it wouldn’t be for long, anyway
, would it?

  ‘Only a few more weeks,’ Jenny said. That’s what she always said. It was beginning to seem like it was never going to happen… ‘I so nearly did it today! I was about to say how I ran into you in the village, but then he started getting all upset about his ex, and I just couldn’t do it.’ There was a sad smile in her voice. ‘Don’t hate me! You hate me, don’t you?’

  ‘Of course I don’t hate you,’ David answered. ‘I-I love you.’

  ‘You’re so sweet to wait like this!’

  But, after a while, the situation began to torment him. After all, he lived a mere mile away from the love of his life but he couldn’t see her! Sal was sick. Sal was drunk. No, you can’t come round and see me, David, she’s… it’s awful. Tomorrow? But it was never tomorrow either. Sal was sick, or Freddie was needy, or the house was a state, and she was so sorry. He was so patient. Please don’t hate me!

  It was driving him mad. It was too much. So he made a decision – if he couldn’t meet her, then at least he could see her. Just for an hour or two, while Mother slept.

  It was strangely exciting, how familiar it was – just like the old days with the same old hiding places – behind the bins at her kitchen window, and at the dip at the end of her garden by the hills, prepared as always with night-vision goggles, a thermal coat, gloves, even a pad to kneel on. Sometimes he filmed her silhouette, recorded her voice. This time it was safe because she was safe, and there was no haring off to the city, no Marc to deal with.

  The night the snow fell was the fourth time he’d watched. He almost didn’t go, but something told him he must. Something told him that this was a Significant Night, and so he kissed Catherine’s sleeping cheek, and made his way through the village, happy, happy, and the snow made everything beautiful, so beautiful, disguising the dirt. On the way the present and past collided in his mind, briefly merged, then pulled apart. The same image, the same memory. It happened again and again. He was sixteen and a recent growth spurt had pulled his school blazer tight across his shoulders, tighter still as he spied the pink paper, crushed like a butterfly in the middle of the street, and reached to pluck it up. Then, for a fraction of a second, he hovered between the decades, neither boy nor man, and then sank back into adult David, who only had to wait a little while, just a while longer, to go public as A Real Boyfriend. And again and again, and then there he was, teen and adult, crouched by the bins and the same incessant TV chatter, the same cigarette smoke drifting out of the open window, the same raised voices from the kitchen saying the same words: ‘… just to get your own room…’