Here We Lie
Sophie McKenzie
Sophie McKenzie is the author of best-selling crime novels Close My Eyes and Trust in Me as well as over twenty books for children and teenagers including the multi-award winning Girl, Missing and Split Second series. She has twice been longlisted for the prestigious Carnegie Medal. Here We Lie is Sophie’s third book for adults. She lives in London.
Find Sophie online at www.sophiemckenziebooks.com, on twitter at @sophiemckenzie_ and on facebook at www.facebook.com/sophiemckenzieauthor.
First published in Great Britain by Simon & Schuster UK Ltd, 2015
A CBS COMPANY
Copyright © Rosefire Ltd, 2015
This book is copyright under the Berne Convention.
No reproduction without permission.
® and © 1997 Simon & Schuster Inc. All rights reserved.
The right of Sophie McKenzie to be identified as author of this work has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.
Simon & Schuster UK Ltd
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Simon & Schuster Australia, Sydney
Simon & Schuster India, New Delhi
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
TPB ISBN: 978-1-47113-318-3
PB ISBN: 978-1-47113-319-0
EBOOK ISBN: 978-1-47113-320-6
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either a product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual people living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
Typeset by M Rules
Printed and bound by CPI Group (UK) Ltd, Croydon, CR0 4YY
For Eoin
Contents
PART ONE
November 1992
August 2014
June 2014
August 2014
June 2014
August 2014
June 2014
August 2014
PART TWO
November 1992
November 2014
June 2014
December 2014
June 2014
December 2014
PART THREE
February 1995
December 2014
June 2014
December 2014
June 2014
December 2014
July 2014
December 2014
July 2014
December 2014
July 2014
December 2014
PART FOUR
November 1997
DECEMBER 2014
July 2014
December 2014
July 2014
December 2014
2 August
December 2014
3 August
December 2014
August 2014
December 2014
August 2014
December 2014
PART FIVE
September 2004
January 2015
August 2014
January 2015
August 2014
January 2015
August 2014
January 2015
August 2014
March 2015
Acknowledgements
PART ONE
November 1992
Rose Campbell took a step closer to the door. The floor on the other side creaked again: the loose board right beside Mum’s dressing table. Was someone inside, rifling through Mum’s jewellery? It was probably just Mum herself, home early from work like Rose. Except if it was Mum, why hadn’t she answered when Rose called? In fact, why had she shut the door in the first place? Mum never shut any doors.
Rose reached for the handle as the floor creaked yet again. She was tired. Too tired to think properly. She’d come home with a bad headache after one of the customers had been rude to her. Rose hated waitressing. And she hated how long it was taking to save the money she needed to go on the trip she had promised herself next spring. Gap year, they called it. A chance to explore the world before heading off to uni next autumn. So far all that Rose had explored was the grungy back room of The Bath Bun.
‘Mum?’ The word came out more softly than Rose meant it to. Her voice barely a croak. The floor had stopped creaking but now she could hear a thudding sound, as if the dressing table was being knocked against the wall. Surely there was no way a burglar would be making so much noise?
Rose reached into her handbag for her phone. Well, it wasn’t hers . . . it was her boss’s state-of-the-art mobile. He had let her borrow it while he was abroad for a few days in case there was any kind of emergency at The Bath Bun. Neither of her parents seemed to realize how extraordinary this phone was – Mum in particular was totally gadget-phobic, refusing even to learn how to work the CD player – but Martin thought it was really cool and predicted everyone they knew would have one within the next couple of years. This seemed highly unlikely to Rose, but at least having the mobile with her right now meant she could call the police if there was a burglar without having to get to the house phone.
‘Mum?’ Rose whispered again. There was still no reply from inside the room. She lifted her hand to knock on the door, then dropped it again. If a burglar was in there, knocking would just alert him to her presence. Better to open the door swiftly, see who was there, then turn and run. She could call the police from outside. She gripped the handle. Pushed open the door.
It took a second to register what she was looking at. A woman – a stranger – with long, flame-red hair was bent over the dressing table, Mum’s dressing table. She was sideways on to Rose, her skirt hitched up, her fingers clutching wildly at the edges of the table, her profiled mouth open in lipsticked ecstasy. Behind her was Rose’s father, his trousers around his ankles, his right hand pressed lightly on the back of the woman’s neck. He was watching himself in the mirror.
The woman turned her head and saw Rose. She froze, her look of triumph turning to horror. Necklaces and rings bounced silently to the carpet as Rose’s father followed the woman’s gaze to the door.
But Rose had already fled.
Sarah had suspected Iain was having another affair even before she found the long red hair on the dressing table. It was the usual story: late nights at the office, a sudden interest in Sarah’s own timetable of nursing shifts, an inability to meet her gaze. But the hair was something tangible, something Iain surely wouldn’t be able to explain away. Especially seeing as Sarah had found the hair in their own bedroom. And after all Iain’s promises . . . she couldn’t bear it. She was going to talk to him. Now.
‘Rose?’ Sarah called up to her elder daughter. Rose was listening to pop in her room. Sarah wondered at her taste, all sugar-coated boy bands, no one who could play a proper instrument. When Sarah had been eighteen back in the early seventies, teenagers were into real musicians like Jimi Hendrix and Joan Baez.
‘What?’
Sarah sighed. Of her three children Rose was the one she had always struggled with, right from the start when it had been such a battle to breast-feed.
‘Come down here, please.’
There was a thump, then a loud sigh from the landing, and Rose trudged sullenly downstairs. Sarah watched her. What on earth was she wearing? Couldn’t she see how revolting that fluorescent windcheater was? All hot pink and neon green, nothing of the natural world about it at all.
The other two had always been easier. Emily was the youngest, the sweetest of children, Sarah’s angel, while Martin was her special, precious boy. In the deepest, most secret place of her heart, Sarah knew that Martin was the love of her life. It wasn’t that she di
dn’t love the others – or her husband – but she had fallen in love with Martin the second he was born. And, somehow, Martin always knew how to handle her in a way that no one else in her life ever had. Her beautiful boy, now turning into a wonderful young man. Sarah could totally understand all those queens from history who stood behind their sons, proud to make them powerful.
‘What is it, Mum?’ Rose asked. She didn’t make eye contact, but Sarah was used to that.
‘I’d like you to keep the others busy, please. I need to talk to your father.’
Rose’s eyes widened. She still wasn’t looking directly at Sarah, but the surprise and resentment in her expression were evident nonetheless. There was something else, too, a self-consciousness. Sarah frowned: what was that about? She braced herself, expecting Rose to insist – as she had many times – that it wasn’t fair to expect her to babysit the younger ones. But Rose said nothing. Instead a flicker of guilt crossed her face.
And in that moment Sarah was certain her daughter knew exactly what Iain had been up to.
Her stomach fell away. How could Rose know? What did she know? Sarah itched to ask questions, but she held herself back. It wasn’t fair to drag Rose into her parents’ drama.
‘Thanks, Rose.’
Rose gave a quick nod and raced back upstairs.
Sarah took a deep breath and headed to the kitchen, where Iain was reading the paper.
The kitchen door was shut, but Rose – standing just outside – could hear the conversation clearly enough to tell that Mum was in tears and Dad was furious. She could picture them standing there – Mum’s eyes all red, Dad crumpled and handsome in his grey suit, his olive skin so like Rose’s own.
‘Iain?’ Mum’s voice wavered as she spoke. ‘Iain, please answer me.’
Silence.
Rose’s heart beat hard. How much had Mum guessed? Thud. Thud. Thud.
‘Was someone here . . . with you . . . yesterday?’
The silence grew deeper. Darker. Rose held her breath.
‘No.’ Her father’s voice was low and cross. ‘You’re being stupid.’
‘What about the hair I found? A long, red hair.’
An image flashed, unbidden, into Rose’s head of that henna’d hair, so bright against the dark wood of the dressing table, of her father absorbed in his reflection in the mirror and of the woman’s arched back, her white skin, her stretched-open mouth.
‘Either one of us could have brought that in on our clothes,’ Dad snapped. ‘Come to that, so could any of the kids.’
‘Iain, please, just tell me the truth—’
‘I am fucking telling you the truth, you stupid, paranoid bitch.’
Rose’s whole body froze. She had never heard her father speak with such contempt. Or lie so openly.
Inside the kitchen, Mum dissolved into sobs. Footsteps on the stairs sounded above Rose, first Martin’s heavy tread, then Emily’s light skip. Rose turned in alarm. What were they doing, coming downstairs? She’d left Martin reading to Emily in place of their mother. Her sister was really too old for such childish practices, in her first term at secondary school for goodness’ sake. Still, as the baby of the family Emily was indulged in many things.
Whatever, Rose definitely didn’t want her little sister seeing their parents in the middle of a row, so as Martin and Emily walked along the narrow hall she put her finger to her lips, then made a movement to shoo them both away and back upstairs.
Martin made a face at her, then bent down and whispered something in Emily’s ear that definitely included the words ‘bossy Rose’. Emily grinned adoringly up at her brother. Rose frowned. How could Martin be so thick? At least there was no sound coming from the kitchen at the moment. Did that mean Mum had stopped crying? Or was she just sobbing too quietly for Rose to hear?
‘We came down for chocolate,’ Martin said.
Rose shook her head, barring the way to the kitchen with her arm.
A second later, Emily had ducked underneath and was opening the kitchen door. Rose watched her little sister as she scampered across the room to the store cupboard. As she hurried past Mum, Mum wiped her eyes and stood up, sniffing back her tears.
‘Okay, Emily Sarah?’ she asked.
Dad didn’t turn around. He was gazing out through the kitchen window into the back garden.
Emily retrieved a bar of Galaxy from the cupboard. ‘For me and Mart, bedtime snack.’ Her dark eyes shone, all innocence and excitement. She strolled past Mum, clearly completely oblivious to Mum’s distress.
Mum caught her arm and pulled her into a hug, stroking Emily’s hair as she did so. ‘Bedtime, yeah?’
‘Okay.’ Emily gave Mum a swift hug back. ‘Night, Mum. Night, Daddy.’ She hurried out of the room, leaving the door open.
Rose could hear her brother and sister going back up the stairs, but her eyes were focused on Mum’s agonized face. She felt a surge of anger that Dad was denying his affair. It wasn’t fair on Mum, on any of them.
Dad turned. Without looking at either of them, he swept past like a thunderstorm, grabbed his coat and slammed the front door shut behind him.
Mum sank into a chair, her face in her hands, her shoulders shaking with sobs. Rose fidgeted by the door. Should she say something to Mum about what she’d seen yesterday? At least then Mum would know the truth.
Except it wasn’t Rose’s job to sort out her parents’ marriage. Resentment snaked through her. Some of this was Mum’s fault too – she never made any effort with how she looked now and she was always nagging Dad about how little he did around the house.
Anyway, maybe if she said nothing, the whole situation would just go away. Casting a final look at her mother, still slumped over the kitchen table, Rose turned and went upstairs.
It was the last time she saw either of her parents.
August 2014
It’s a near perfect day. Not that I appreciate it being near perfect at the time. In fact, after lunch I get a headache. It comes on suddenly, as we’re walking up the endless series of steps and pathways of the citadel at Calvi. Jed, bless him, notices straight away. He pulls me back as the others dart past an oncoming Audi and through a dark tunnel.
‘Are you okay?’
‘I’m fine,’ I say, though in fact the Corsican summer heat and the steep climb are making the tight band across the back of my head worse. I don’t want to spoil the afternoon. Everything has been so blissful up to now – being here with all the people I love best in the world, secure in Jed’s adoration, both of us looking forward to the rest of our lives together. ‘It’s just a bit of a headache.’
‘Well, let me know if it gets worse.’ Jed puts his arm around me as we head into the tunnel. We emerge into the bright light of the fierce August sun and Dee Dee hurls herself at me.
‘Emily, Emily, come and look!’ she says, grabbing my hand and tugging me away from her father.
‘Gently,’ Jed cautions.
But Dee Dee is so intent on showing me the view before anyone else gets a chance that I’m already halfway across the cobbles, Jed left several metres behind. This is typical Dee Dee. Caught almost exactly between child and adolescent, she was thirteen back in early June and is plumper than either she or her father would like. I’ve told Jed she isn’t properly fat, just hormonal, a little lumpy and uncomfortable inside her own changing body, and he murmurs that I’m probably right, but I know he worries that she should be more in control of her eating – and of her behaviour. Dee Dee herself is certainly hard for any of us to get a handle on: one minute she’s all excitable puppy, the next moody and withdrawn. At least she has seemed happy most of this holiday so far, enjoying the relative harmony of our extended family group – and away from her mother’s histrionics. Right now she is pointing at the yachts moored in the bay, her thick dark hair – so like Jed’s – shining in the sunshine.
‘Is that Martin’s boat?’ she asks, indicating one of the larger motor launches that, like its neighbours, resembles a floating photocop
ier.
I shake my head, amused. My brother would be horrified if he could hear Dee Dee’s question, but he’s already around the next corner with Cameron. Their yacht – the Maggie May – is a far more elegant affair than the boats in the bay below. ‘No, sweetheart, that’s on the other side, near all the restaurants.’
‘Oh.’ Dee Dee rounds her eyes, making a little-girly face at me. ‘Stupid, Dee Dee.’ She gives her face a slap.
‘Hey, no.’ I’m shocked – and unsettled – by the gesture. As a primary school teacher I’m used to young kids showing off and acting out, but I’m finding it hard to keep up with Dee Dee’s constantly changing attitudes. It’s like she’s whipping masks on and off her face so quickly that the real Dee Dee is a blur. Rose says such behaviour is normal, that – at thirteen – I was the same. But it still troubles me. After all, my relationship with Dee Dee has always been one of the bonuses of my time with Jed. Even when her older brother hated me and their mother stalked me to my school and shouted obscenities at me in the staff car park, Dee Dee and I have been close.
‘Stupid, stupid Dee,’ she says again, her voice even more little-girly than before though, thankfully, without the slap.
‘You’re not stupid.’ I squeeze her shoulder and she flings her arms around me in a breath-defying hug. I hug her back, more gently. There’s a desperation about Dee Dee sometimes – as if she is eager to please but knows she is no longer a cute little girl and hasn’t worked out how to be appealing in a more adult way.
‘Stop mauling Emily,’ Jed orders, catching up with us. I know he doesn’t mean to sound so brusque, it’s just his manner, but his daughter lets go immediately, her head bowed. I sigh, feeling for her.
‘I’m fine, Jed, seriously, Dee Dee’s just being affectionate.’ I hesitate. Everything I’ve been told about step-parenting stresses the importance of not interfering in parental discipline, especially in front of the child. Rose has told me time and again: ‘never challenge them on their kids’. Trouble is, I worry Jed is getting it wrong. The very qualities that make him such a successful criminal lawyer – his quick, incisive mind and ruthless ability to sift facts, casting away whatever isn’t needed – leave him ill-prepared to deal with his daughter’s ever-changing emotions. Indeed, despite the fact that it means the world to him to have both his kids here on holiday, for most of the past week he has seemed at a loss with Dee Dee, with little understanding of the awkward teen she has become. Whereas I have every sympathy, remembering clearly how awful it felt to be thirteen and out of sorts with myself.
