The Lies We Tell Read online

  The Lies We Tell

  Table of Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Acknowledgements

  Copyright

  For mum

  Prologue

  Surrey Hills – July 1989

  Two girls walked ant-like towards the copse in search of shelter as the sun crept towards its highest point in the sky. Everything, from the parched footpath across the heath it had taken them three quarters of an hour to traverse to the scabbed earth beneath their plimsolls, shimmered like beaten silver in the pulsing heat. It was the hottest day of the year by far. A day dense with the drumming of insect battalions; its air tainted by an acrid tang like distant smoke. An intense heat that made the cotton of their sundresses suck their thighs.

  ‘Come on Kat, this way,’ urged Jude, the taller of the two and clearly the leader. Her full-bodied voice was self-assured. Confident her companion would follow as she always did, she pressed on without breaking her stride. Her steps were punctuated by frequent shakes of her head to toss loose the raven swathe of hair from the hot skin at the back of her neck. For both girls had quickly tired of tying back their hair school-style now they no longer had to.

  With an anxious frown, the second girl paused and fumbled for a moment to disentangle damp fabric from pale skin flecked with the tell-tale blotches of nettle burn. It had taken longer than she hoped to retrace their tracks to the spot where they sunbathed the previous day and she felt light-headed and weary. Slipping the tin water bottle out of the side pocket of her rucksack, she hastily drained the last mouthful of body-warm fluid then straightened up to run a sticky palm through her bobbed, chestnut hair.

  ‘Wait for me,’ Kat called in the truculent whine of a heel-dragging child. But Jude was impervious. Single-minded, too, as she strode on towards the copse.

  With a final rub to the back of her legs, Kat set off in her wake. What was Jude’s problem? she wondered, miserably. For her so-called friend had blown hot and cold since before the exams. If Kat only knew what she’d done wrong she could make things better. But she hadn’t the courage to ask Jude direct, not like that, for fear her friend would interpret this as a sign of weakness. So she’d decided to keep quiet. To smother the resentment now bloating her insides. Because she knew – and had done since their first meeting two years earlier – that if they fell out she, not Jude, would come off worst.

  The copse was a welcome blemish on the heath's gnarled face, a kind of sanctuary. Yet the world inside was thick and sticky; the air beyond full-blown. Above the ragged branches now shading their heads, criss-crossed vapour trails looked like wire threads.

  Kat rubbed her eyes with heat-swollen fingers. Ahead she would soon see the tiny clearing just beyond the clump of rhododendron where Jude was headed. But try as she might to catch up, she was forced to halt every few steps by limbs of bramble trailing across her way. Then, just before she could draw level, she was halted by an unexpected sound. A dull metallic click, undeniable though barely heard. The sound of a lighter. A Zippo perhaps like the one her brother, Andrew, used to have.

  At one with the copse’s dank stillness, blood pounding her skull, Kat's ears strained for further clues. Despite the heat she shivered. What was it they were told on their arrival at the outwards bound centre at Gallows Hill? To remain in pairs. Stick to the designated footpaths. Watch out for adders. Keep at hand their emergency whistles. What a joke it had all seemed at the time.

  Yet since she and Jude first visited the copse earlier in the week, a vague sense of unease had dogged Kat like a distant echo. Earlier, out on the wide expanse of open heath, she’d felt vulnerable; exposed. Then, once inside the copse, she’d been reluctant to follow Jude’s lead and strip down to her pants to sunbathe – for fear of being seen.

  Always the timid one, just like Jude was always leader. Though that was only part of the story, wasn’t it? For aside from all the fuss that had been going on at home in recent weeks, there was how Jude’s behaviour towards her had changed. Kat had grown sore from the poison tip of her friend’s ill will. The way Jude looked at her sometimes through angry, slitty eyes. The things she said, quite unprovoked. Those barbed grenades, meticulously lobbed then swiftly de-fused by a jovial dig or encouraging smile.

  Now, with urgent eyes, Kat scanned the barricade of foliage encircling her. Until, a beat later, she heard another sound. A muffled cough, low in timbre. Male. Someone else was in the copse. Close by, too. Unseen. A realisation that yanked Kat’s world inside out, triggering her charge back towards the footpath.

  Running fast, she barely felt the twigs and thorns tearing into her limbs; the ground, pitted with knotted roots and jagged stones, jarring her body. Or how the undergrowth was starting to thin. Not daring to look behind her for fear of slowing her pace, Kat headed towards the lunar light of the open heath. But as she hit the dusty path dumb panic was replaced by the searing pain of rational thought: Where was Jude?

  Casting an urgent glance over her shoulder and seeing no-one behind, Kat stopped.

  The copse was still; the day silent, apart from the sound of her lungs rasping the soupy air. She slipped off the canvas rucksack Andrew had lent her. Let her fingertips skim pale skin beneath her arms where the webbing had chafed. What had possessed her to bring her sketch pad, watercolours tin and box of pencils? Still panting, she took four or five deep breaths then pinched the stitch ripping into her side.

  ‘So. Here we are, then, thrown together by fate!’ Tears of relief poked Kat’s eyes as, straightening up, she saw Jude leaning against a nearby tree. Her arms were loosely folded. Her face was calm; her expression almost serene. A cream-coloured flower freshly picked from a nearby rhododendron nestled in her hair. ‘Hey,’ Jude continued in a languid drawl. ‘What’s got you all steamed up?’

  ‘Where were you?’ Kat gasped.

  ‘In the clearing. I came looking for you when you didn’t come.' A shard of something hard glinted in Jude’s pale grey eyes. 'Why, what’s the matter?’

  ‘We have to leave. Now,’ said Kat, reaching for her bag. ‘Come on.’

  ‘But we’ve only just got –’

  ‘Now.’

  Amused by the unfamiliar urgency in Kat’s voice, Jude shrugged. ‘OK. I’ll just go and get my …’ But her words were lost as she turned away and stepped back into the undergrowth.

  ‘No. Wait!’

  Yanking Andrew’s rucksack back over her shoulders, Kat plunged into the bushes towards the spot where Jude had just been standing. Once inside the depths of foliage it was hard to ignore the tiny flies as white as ash that clung to the leaves; the fetid air that hung heavy with the smell of something rotten
.

  With mouth clamped shut, barely daring to breathe, Kat parted the branches and saw her companion adjusting the fastening of her bag. Slipping a strap over her sunburnt shoulder, Jude rose to her feet. But as she straightened up her body froze, her attention snagged by something in the tight-lipped bushes. A vague movement perhaps, or an unexpected noise. Shadow shifted in the leafy darkness as a man stepped into view.

  Fearful of revealing herself, Kat struggled to stifle her cry. But neither figure before her seemed to have noticed as they stood just a couple of feet apart. Face to face, they waited for what felt like a lifetime until, without warning, the man lunged forwards and grabbed Jude by the neck. Deftly, he clamped his other arm around her waist.

  One moment Jude was standing upright, mannequin-still, the next her slender frame was crumpling beneath his superior force. Cream flecks of petal tangled from her hair. The strap of her dress slipped loose off one shoulder. The stranger’s face pressed against her ear as if poised to share some intimate confidence. A tense flinch signalled her mute acquiescence before he roughly tugged her back towards the bushes.

  ‘Run, Jude! Run!’ bellowed Kat, slapped back to her senses by the sudden brutality of it. But it was too late. One minute Jude was there, the next the foliage was closing around her like a final curtain.

  Chapter 1

  London – July 2013

  She wakes with a jolt, her heart pounding, swallows hard then winces at the acid taste of her throat. Shouldn’t she be used to this by now, the persistence of memory? Yet it’s not surprise Katy feels but a familiar, downward tug on her spirits that comes this same time each summer, year after year, until the day passes and the shadow of it retreats between the cracks in her protective shell.

  ‘Hey, are you OK?’ Michael whispers softly in her ear.

  Though his breath warms her face she keeps her eyes firmly shut; wills him to believe she’s still sleeping. To leave her alone. Morning will come soon enough and then they can talk, but not now, she thinks as a bead of sweat trickles down one side of her cheek. The night is heavy – too close even for a sheet. But lying beside him naked on her back, she feels vulnerable. Exposed.

  Resisting the urge to roll over, Katy listens to Michael's breath as he undresses. Feels the mattress dip as he lowers himself down beside her. Then he tries again, gently squeezing her shoulder this time. Getting no response, he runs his hand downwards and strokes her breast. His touch is light but determined and despite herself she feels the nipple harden. Strengthening her resolve, she lies still. Registers the smell of cigarette smoke in his hair. Wonders about the time. Well past midnight from the sporadic pulse of distant traffic through the open sash, she guesses. Where did he go after leaving the pub? Back in twenty minutes he texted, but that must have been at least an hour ago. As Katy rolls away and onto her side, Michael’s disappointment is tangible.

  ‘Then you won’t mind if I take matters in hand, then,’ he murmurs.

  The mattress begins to shift rhythmically in time to the movement of his hand, like a tiny boat on a swelling tide. Sweat wells at the base of her hairline but Katy resists the urge to wipe it dry as his body stiffens and the rhythm grows more intense. Then, at last, a muffled gasp marks the breaking of the wave and he lies spent and still beside her until his breathing returns to normal and, at last, he falls asleep.

  Shifting back onto her front Katy carefully positions her arms and legs so they aren’t touching any other part of her body. Or his. Stifled by the dull weight of the city's night time heat, she marvels at the fact that little more than two months ago it was snowing. That this time last year, vast swathes of the country were being lashed by torrential rain. Further evidence of a displaced Gulf Stream, the papers said when they weren’t bemoaning the latest austerity measures or the sickening situation in Syria.

  Turning her head towards the bedside clock, Katy's eyes sift the grainy darkness. 2.07am Wednesday July 3, the digits taunt like angry eyes. Can it really be that long ago? Over twenty years. More time has passed since that distant summer day than how old she was when she last saw Jude. She thinks about this for a moment then tries to erase it from her mind, but it’s too late. Now she’s wide awake and in the instant she knows it recalls, with a sinking heart, the big morning she has ahead at Janssen’s, the design agency in Victoria where she's worked for the past six years.

  Following a recent promotion her boss Sally-Anne, the company’s UK managing director, has asked Katy to present the strategy behind a new corporate identity for a top five high street bank to Janssen's founder and four of his senior management team who are flying in from Amsterdam. The redesign is likely to be as controversial as it's so far been top secret when it goes live thanks to the State bail-out that's kept the bank afloat since the 2008 crash. A reluctant public speaker, Katy has been dreading the presentation – though she knows the morning will provide an opportunity to shine, if she can master her nerves. For she loves her job and the meritocratic nature of the world she works in. A creative environment in which a self-starter like Sally-Anne can rise to the top propelled by street sense and stubborn determination rather than formal qualifications. Unlike banking, the dusty realm her father, Charles, had always hoped she'd follow into for a 'proper' career.

  Katy stares at the dark mass of Michael’s back. Is he already asleep? Then, as if on cue, the shape beside her emits a deep sigh, blindly rearranges itself then starts to snore with a soft rumble on the inward breath then a low whistle on the outward. It’s a cartoonish sound that, despite the late hour and her eagerness to sleep, makes her want to laugh.

  On the floor beside her bed is the pocket radio Katy keeps for restless nights like this. Reaching down with her hand, she pats the floor for a moment until she finds it, tucks in the tiny ear-pieces, then turns it on to hear a late night phone-in debating the risk climate change poses to indigenous insect species. Gently, Katy rests her fingertips on Michael’s hip as the presenter bemoans an infestation of ants in his ground floor flat. Carefully, she adjusts her other arm, placing her right hand on the barely perceptible doming of her belly.

  Closing her eyes, she finds herself back by the canal near where she once used to live. Picnicking with her brother, mum and dad. Lying on her front, head resting on her hands, watching soldier ants. A meticulous procession marching in time to the bitter beat of parents’ arguing.

  *

  Michael is lying spread-eagled in the middle of the mattress as Katy wakes just before the alarm a few hours later. Careful not to disturb him, she disentangles herself from the knotted earphones, turns off the alarm then settles back onto the pillow to observe his slumbering form.

  How she loves the early morning contradiction of his body. Its strength and vulnerability. The decisive jaw line and the baby softness of the skin. The soft tuft of armpit hair she yearns for yet dares not touch for fear of how grumpy he will be if she wakes him too soon. Her eyes pan down his body past the firm contour of his undulating chest, the nest of dark hair below, the rounded firmness of his thighs before settling on the symbol tattooed on the small, triangular piece of skin just beneath his right ankle. It is a cross, arms bent at right angles, with a tiny dot nestled within each quadrant.

  He had it done long before they met on a night out in Sydney, or was it Hong Kong – he could never quite remember. My mate’s idea of a laugh, though I can’t say I got the joke, is all he’d said, dismissively. Then one day, with nothing better to do, Katy had searched on Google to discover it to be an ancient spiritual symbol still widely used throughout Asia. But when she mentioned this to Michael later he’d seemed indifferent. Reluctant to push him, she hadn’t mentioned it again. Isn't everyone entitled to a little secret?

  Restless, Katy slips out of bed. Stepping over the clothes from the night before which Michael has left scattered on the floor as usual, she picks up a discarded sarong and wraps it around herself before padding downstairs to the bathroom on the second floor to shower.

  Standing at
the mirror a few minutes later, damp-haired and flush-faced, she scrutinises the freckles that always come with summer for any sign of change before applying moisturiser then a dusting of bronzer. She turns her attention to her eyes. They are slate-blue, a colour quick to transmit whatever mood she is in: dull grey when tired, dark and leaden when angry, azure when all is well.

  Carefully, she applies a light brush of mascara. Only then, as her fingers arrange her hair, is her gaze drawn to the ring she now wears on her left hand. A tiny silver band with a single diamond that had belonged to Michael’s mother. Elegant but a bit tight – she shouldn’t really wear it until she’s had it adjusted, though she won’t do this for another few weeks. Not until she’s begun to feel a bit more like her old self. Which she would do any time now, everyone says. When the sickness starts to ease and the swelling in her joints subsides.

  Katy frowns. For it is taking time for her to come to terms with the unplanned pregnancy. More time than it has taken Michael, to be sure.

  Throughout her twenties – a restless decade during which Katy drifted from one dead-end job to the next, struggling to find her way after what happened and then her parents' separation and all those messed up exams – the idea of having a child had never entered her mind. As she entered her thirties, tentatively assembling foundations, the thought of fitting responsibility for someone else into her life just as things were finally starting to take on some kind of shape seemed laughable.

  Following secretarial college, she acquired a business administration qualification. After years periodically scouring small ads for the next flatshare, she bought a small place in Balham using what her father left her for the deposit. Then came Janssens, where she not only met Michael but a champion in Sally-Anne – if she could earn the woman's respect. You know how it is, Katy would shrug if ever pressed. I'm just not the maternal type. Though she hopes she'll become so now, of course. And will, too, just as soon as Michael stops making a fuss.

  Throwing open the window of the first floor kitchen, Katy leans out into the sunshine as she waits for the kettle to boil. The back of the upper maisonette overlooks the garden they share with the downstairs flat which has been empty for the past six weeks since its owner Phil, a TV producer and one of Michael's best friends, left to shoot a documentary about urban farming in Detroit.