The Last Lie

by Alex Lake

  Alfie nodded. If Bryant showed up, he needed to be close, but not for the reason Claire thought.

  ‘There’ll be Carl and Kevin as well,’ he said. ‘Remember that.’

  ‘I suppose we’d better tell them.’

  ii

  It was fair to say Carl and Kevin did not take it well.

  ‘Are you fucking joking?’ Carl said. They were sitting at a table in the B & B, a pot of tea in front of them. ‘You want us to ambush this guy? And then what?’

  ‘Call the police,’ Alfie said. ‘We need to sort this out. We can’t live like prisoners.’

  Carl shook his head. He turned to Claire. ‘Is he putting you up to this? Is it some kind of macho bullshit plan he cooked up to impress you? If it is, say the word and we can forget it ever happened.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Claire said. ‘But it’s for real. And it was my idea. At least, partly.’ She stared at Carl. Please. Help us do this.’

  Carl closed his eyes. ‘Fine,’ he said. ‘But if this goes wrong, it’s all on you.’

  Claire nodded. ‘And if it goes right, you’ll get a handy bonus. So. Alfie’s going to leave. I’ll close my bedroom window to signal that he’s gone. I’ll stay in the bedroom, door locked. If Bryant arrives, I open the window, and you two get here as fast as you can.’

  ‘OK,’ Carl said. ‘You’re on.’

  Later that morning, Alfie followed the river north of the village. He was wearing a backpack with some water and a sandwich in it, just like a real hiker. The path he was on, according to the pamphlet he’d picked up at the information centre at the entrance to the car park, would loop to the right at some point, before heading back towards Cartmel Priory.

  The pamphlet also informed him that the Priory had been founded in the late 1100s and had been an active part of the local community since then.

  Alfie could not have cared less.

  The Priory – some kind of ancient church – was close to the cottage, and it had a cell signal. As soon as Claire heard anyone in the house she would text him and he would be there in minutes. She would also open the window and alert Carl and Kevin. They, too, would text him in case her phone failed.

  And then the real plan started. Claire wanted Bryant caught so he could be put in prison.

  Alfie wanted him dead.

  Of course, he’d arrive after Carl and Kevin, so he’d need to come up with an excuse to be alone with Bryant. He would, and when he was with him he’d kill Bryant. He’d get him in the kitchen, maybe. There was a set of kitchen knives there.

  He attacked me! I had no option.

  No option but to hack Henry-fucking-Bryant to death on the stone tiles.

  And if he couldn’t kill him, well, Alfie had already decided what he would do if Bryant told Claire, Carl and Kevin about him.

  He’d go to Workington, and find a fishing boat that would land him, for a fee in cash, somewhere on the European mainland. He’d brought five thousand pounds with him to buy the silence of the skipper and five thousand euros, which ought to be enough to get whatever false papers he’d need to start again somewhere.

  Italy, maybe. That seemed an easy place to hide for a while. Fleeing might be a drastic step, but it wasn’t, not really. The marriage had been a mistake and he wanted out. If this was the only way he could escape it, then so be it. It wasn’t ideal, but he’d get back on his feet. He always did.

  The path forked to the right. Up ahead he saw the Priory. He walked towards it.

  He spent an hour inside the building sitting in a pew and pretending to pray, then another hour wandering around the cemetery looking at the headstones. It was amazing how many people were buried with their wife or husband. Hadn’t they had enough of each other in life? He couldn’t fathom how anyone could want to get married in the first place, but to stay together after death? It was baffling. Not that it made any difference. When you were dead, you were dead. There was no afterlife, and there was no coming back.

  ‘Aren’t they wonderful?’

  He turned to see a woman, plump and grey-haired, perhaps in her late seventies, a cheap raincoat draped over her shoulders. She was holding a guide to the Priory and peering at him.

  ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Very.’

  ‘It’s quite remarkable,’ she began. ‘The history of this place. This is my seventh visit, and each time I discover something new. Last time it was the tomb in the—’

  Alfie’s phone buzzed.

  ‘Excuse me,’ he said. ‘I’m a doctor. It could be a patient.’

  He glanced at the screen. There was a text message. Another withheld number.

  Enjoying your romantic break? Don’t want to spoil it, but remember I know what you did. Don’t forget it now, Alf. PS Interesting Priory, no?

  He froze. Bryant. He was here. He looked around, expecting to see a man waving mockingly at him.

  There was no one.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said to the old woman. ‘I have to go.’

  As he ran towards the cottage, he looked at the bedroom window. It was shut. If Bryant was there, Claire would have opened it.

  If she could.

  He sped up.

  Could Bryant have got in without Carl or Kevin seeing him? Could he have stopped Claire opening the window? He doubted it. She was up in the bedroom, and as soon as she heard a door open she would have signalled the guards.

  Unless she thought that the person coming in was safe. Unless she knew them.

  But there was no one here she knew apart from Carl and Kevin.

  Fuck. How had he been so stupid? It was obvious. What better way to get close to Claire? He should have seen it earlier. He’d not asked who they were, or how long they’d been with the company. They could be brand new.

  One of them was Bryant.

  He could not believe he’d missed it. It was the first place he should have looked.

  The front door was shut. He tried the handle and it turned immediately. Thank God it wasn’t locked. He opened it and stepped inside.

  Claire was standing in the hallway. She was next to a dark wood table. It was beneath a mirror, and had two heavy brass candlesticks on it. A drawer, half open, ran the length of it. She was frozen, staring at him, her eyes wide, as though she’d been caught doing something she shouldn’t have been.

  ‘It’s only me,’ he said. ‘Don’t worry. Why aren’t you upstairs?’

  She didn’t answer. She blinked, then shook her head. She gave a slight backwards nod, as though wanting to indicate something behind her, without letting anyone else know.

  ‘Claire? Are you OK?’

  ‘Yes,’ she said. Her voice was high and strained. ‘Fine. Let me give you a hug to welcome you back.’

  Alfie frowned.

  She beckoned to him, stiffly. ‘Come here, darling.’ There was a pleading tone in her voice. ‘A hug. Please.’

  He took the few steps he needed to get to her, and then put his arms around her. She kissed his cheek, and then whispered quickly in his ear.

  ‘He’s here.’

  Alfie squeezed her tighter.

  ‘Don’t say anything,’ she murmured. ‘He’s here. Bryant.’

  ‘Where?’ Alfie muttered, pretending to kiss her temple.

  ‘Here,’ she said, her voice suddenly loud. ‘Right fucking here.’

  And then she pushed him away, something hit him in the back of the head, and the world went dark.

  PART THREE

  Alfie, Claire, and DI Wynne

  Alfie

  When he woke up, Alfie had no idea where he was. He was lying on something quite soft, which he assumed was a bed. He didn’t remember going to bed, but then he didn’t remember much. Everything was very slippery, which could have been because his head was throbbing with the worst headache he’d had in a long time. The pain came in waves, all starting at a spot at the back of his skull. He couldn’t remember ever having had such a bad headache. A hangover, then? He didn’t think so. There was no foul taste in his mouth.

&
nbsp; He opened his eyes, then shut them again. The light was painful. He part-opened them, adjusting to the light. He was looking at a ceiling. Dark beams ran across it. He recognized them. He was in the bedroom at the cottage, the bedroom where Claire had been waiting for Henry Bryant.

  Who had showed up after all.

  He’d sent Alfie a text message, knowing it would bring him running to the cottage, and when Alfie had got there Bryant had hit him, knocked him unconscious and dragged him upstairs to the bedroom.

  Well, well. Bryant was better at this than Alfie had expected.

  And Claire had known. She hadn’t been able to warn him – presumably because Bryant was pointing a gun at her, or something like that – but she had tried, by whispering that Bryant was there. It hadn’t worked. And now Alfie was up here and she and Bryant were, he assumed, in the cottage somewhere, unless Bryant had taken Claire again.

  He didn’t think he had.

  Alfie was almost certain Bryant was still there, waiting for Alfie to wake up so he could do whatever it was he had been planning.

  He thought he had Alfie where he wanted him. He thought he was in control, that Alfie was helpless. But Alfie was never helpless. And even in this situation there was something he could work with.

  He knew something Bryant didn’t. He knew Carl and Kevin were watching the window. All he had to do was get it open and they’d be here and then, in the melee that ensued, he could kill Bryant.

  He sat up.

  At least, he tried to. Something was holding him down, and it was totally unyielding. He lifted his head and looked down the bed. He was under a duvet, on top of which three thick cargo straps encircled him, one around his knees, one around his waist and one on his chest and arms. They looped under the bed, and they were tight.

  He struggled against them. It was pointless. They didn’t give a millimetre. They were designed to secure furniture to a truck bed, so securing him to a bed was nothing.

  He opened his mouth to shout – since that was all he could do – but he stopped himself. On second thoughts, he didn’t want Bryant to know he was awake, not yet. He didn’t want Bryant here when he had no idea what to do. He at least needed a plan of some kind before that.

  But he had no idea what.

  Ten minutes later he still had no plan. He’d tested the straps some more; he’d tried sliding down towards the foot of the bed and sliding up towards the headrest, but any movement was totally impossible. He’d wondered whether he could somehow rock the bed enough to tip it over, but even if he could, he’d more than likely end up strapped to a bed on its side, and in any case, the noise would alert Bryant to the fact he was awake.

  So there was only one thing he could do. He needed to get things in motion. Right now he was trapped; there was nothing to work with. Once things were moving he could steer them. And for that he needed Bryant here. He took a deep breath.

  ‘Bryant!’ he shouted. ‘Where are you? I want to see Claire!’

  He tensed, waiting for a reply, but the words were met with silence.

  ‘Bryant!’ he shouted again. ‘BRYANT!’

  Even though he was pinned to the bed, motionless, adrenaline was flooding his body. He felt sharp, alert, focused.

  He listened for a response.

  It was a while coming, but eventually there it was. The creak of a stair, then soft footsteps approaching the door. The worn, brass handle turned, and the door began to open.

  And an idea of how to get out of this came to him.

  Wynne

  DI Wynne sat opposite Jodie, DS Lawless on her left. She had called early – apologizing for disturbing a Sunday morning – and arranged to interview her again. Jodie was a link – the only one – between Pippa Davies-Hunt and Claire Daniels, and Wynne was hoping there would be some clue to who Henry Bryant was.

  She didn’t hold out much hope, but she had no other lines of inquiry to pursue. Bryant’s trail was running cold.

  Jodie had taken her through the events before Pippa Davies-Hunt had disappeared. Wynne had encouraged her to share every detail, no matter how small or irrelevant it seemed, and Jodie had obliged, walking through everything she could remember.

  ‘She moved in. She was obsessed with Bryant. It was all she talked about,’ Jodie said. ‘I tried to change the topic, but it was impossible.’

  ‘What kind of things did you talk about?’ Wynne said.

  ‘Anything. The weather. EastEnders. I showed her photos.’

  ‘Of anything in particular?’

  Jodie shook her head. ‘Whatever was in my phone. We went through the photos of Claire’s birthday one evening. She didn’t like those much.’

  Wynne replayed the words in her mind. ‘What do you mean, she didn’t like them?’

  ‘I don’t know. After we looked at a few she got up and went to her room.’

  ‘Was she upset by them?’ Lawless said.

  ‘I guess so,’ Jodie replied.

  ‘Did she say why?’ Lawless added.

  ‘No.’ Jodie shrugged. ‘To be honest, I was glad she’d left me alone.’

  Wynne thought for a second, then looked at Jodie. ‘Were there any in particular that she reacted to?’

  ‘I don’t think so,’ Jodie said. ‘I think she was just upset to see photos of the party. All the happy couples.’

  ‘So she didn’t focus on any specific photo?’

  Jodie took out her phone and scrolled through the photos of Claire’s birthday party. They were the usual kind of thing: guests pausing to look at the camera, drinks in their hands, couples posing for photos, arms around each other. She stopped on one of her, Claire and Alfie. In it, Claire and Jodie were smiling; Alfie was expressionless, as though he’d been caught out.

  ‘She looked at this one for a while,’ Jodie said. ‘She’d met Claire before and she asked about her, whether she was married to the guy in the photo. I told her she was.’

  ‘Was this the last photo she looked at?’ DI Wynne asked.

  ‘I think it was,’ Jodie said.

  ‘And would you say it was the one that upset her?’

  ‘I guess. It was after this one that she said she didn’t want to look any more.’

  ‘Did she say anything about it? About Claire or Alfie?’

  ‘No,’ Jodie said. ‘She doesn’t really know them.’

  ‘In that case, it’s quite strange she would react so strongly to it, wouldn’t you say?’

  ‘I assumed she didn’t like looking at photos of happy couples,’ Jodie replied. ‘That’s all.’

  Wynne nodded. ‘This has been very helpful,’ she said.

  Jodie caught her eye. ‘You think this has something to do with Pippa’s disappearance?’

  ‘I couldn’t say. Not yet.’ DI Wynne glanced at DS Lawless. ‘Time to head back to the station. We have some work to do.’

  ‘So,’ Lawless said. ‘What was all that about?’

  Wynne started the engine. ‘I don’t know. But it’s interesting, if nothing else.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I’m not sure, yet. What do you think?’

  ‘About that?’ Lawless replied. ‘Not a lot. One thing did occur to me while we were interviewing Jodie, though.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Bryant had dumped Pippa Davies-Hunt,’ she said. ‘So why would he kidnap – and maybe kill – her?’

  ‘I don’t know. But go on. I’m not sure where you’re going with this, but I’d like to hear it.’

  ‘We’ve been working on the theory that he’s a sick bastard who preys on women he meets on the internet, but we’ve only been working on that theory because there are two of them. But say, for a minute, that Claire Daniels had never been abducted. Say Pippa was the only case. What would we be thinking then?’

  Wynne pursed her lips. ‘You tell me. What would we be thinking?’

  ‘We’d be thinking he got rid of her,’ DS Lawless said. ‘We’d be thinking they had a messy break-up and maybe had an argument or she threatened hi
m in some way, and he killed her. But because of Claire Daniels, we’re thinking he’s someone who gets off on meeting and abducting and killing women.’ She raised an eyebrow. ‘But in that case, why dump Davies-Hunt? Why dump her in such a mean way? All that does is draw attention to him.’

  ‘Yes, it does,’ Wynne said. ‘It’s a very good question, Lawless. So why did he do it?’

  ‘I think something triggered him getting rid of her. I don’t think he planned it from the start, but something happened and he needed her gone.’

  ‘Right,’ Wynne said. ‘So after he dumped her she did something to threaten him.’

  ‘Maybe not did something,’ Lawless said. ‘Maybe found something out.’

  Wynne looked at her partner. It was becoming clear what she was driving at. ‘Like his identity?’ she murmured.

  ‘Like his identity,’ Lawless said. ‘We know that Bryant is a fake identity. I think whoever created it did so to use the internet to find women. I think Davies-Hunt found out who he was. His real identity. And she let him know. So he killed her.’

  ‘That sounds plausible,’ Wynne said. ‘More than plausible. But it doesn’t help. We still don’t know why he went after Claire.’

  ‘No,’ Lawless said. ‘Unless there’s a link between Claire and Pippa.’

  ‘They knew each other, didn’t they?’

  ‘In passing.’

  Wynne took a deep breath. ‘Maybe there’s something else.’

  ‘Do you have a theory?’ Lawless asked.

  ‘Yes,’ Wynne replied. ‘I do.’

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘Before I say it, I know there’s an obvious flaw.’

  ‘Spit it out,’ Lawless replied. ‘We can deal with any flaws later.’

  ‘OK. What if the reason Pippa Davies-Hunt reacted to that photo was because she recognized Alfie Daniels? What if she knew him as someone else?’ Wynne looked at Lawless. ‘What if she knew him as Henry Bryant?’

  ‘Maybe,’ Lawless said. ‘Ms Davies-Hunt saw the photo of him and discovered that the man she thought was Henry Bryant was in fact Alfie Daniels, husband of Claire. She got in touch and told him. So, terrified his wife would find out, he killed her.’ She pursed her lips. ‘But you know, he really doesn’t seem the type.’