The Liars

by Naomi Joy

  I logged into my work emails sitting at the kitchen island, ignoring the 890 that were unread since I last logged in weeks ago. But one caught my attention. The one on top of the pile.

  From: Jade Fernleigh RE: Josh, what do you make of this photo?

  I clicked into the attachment. This must have been the photo she’d tried to show me the night she’d turned up here looking like Edward Scissorhands. I shook as I craned my neck in closer to the screen, even though I wanted to recoil from what I was seeing. My first impression was that Ava looked drunk, passed out, maybe, that it looked as though David was carrying her to safety. But, on closer inspection, there were obvious red flags, really clear reasons why that wasn’t the case. Her skin was almost yellow, for starters, and David was taking her into a room that had a number of bolts on the door frame. His hands were gripped round her, like she had no control of her own body, and neither one of them was smiling. It was clear she was really unwell.

  Where did Jade find this? When was it taken? Why hadn’t Ava or David told me about this?

  These past few weeks had been a rollercoaster I couldn’t get off. First Charlie, then David and now Ava – did I know her at all? All these secrets she was keeping from me didn’t look good. I replied to Jade straight away. I noticed she’d sent it from her personal account, not much chance of her making it back to W&SP after the mess she made of everything on the AthLuxe account, I guess…

  Jade, when did you take this?

  As I pressed send I realised something, a penny dropped, Ava had told me about a gold dress she’d bought to wear to the summer party. So, this was David’s country house then, maybe; the carpet looked right, the surroundings.

  I chewed my fingernail as I felt out my next move.

  I should call David.

  Get some answers.

  59

  Ava

  ‘Who are you?’ I asked, letting the words ring in my ear.

  The intercom fell silent and I waited, standing stock still in the same ripped clothes I’d been taken in, the same chain round my neck. The familiar sounds of the door locks opening whirred into action, the clunks and squeaks which were always followed by food being delivered by Sheff. I started salivating, like a dog trained to associate a certain sound with an immediate action. The analogy wasn’t lost on me. I was his bitch; trapped in a cage, begging for food, howling for freedom. I could tell the door was heavy by the dull sound it made when it opened. It was probably reinforced with metal, bulletproof, even. There were a few scratches down its length and it crossed my mind that I might not have been the first person trapped behind it. The crack of light to the outside world widened as the door opened and the intoxicating fresh air of the hallway beyond flew in and hit my dirty face. The lithe silhouette in the frame wasn’t Sheff’s, though, and it took me a second to digest who was standing in its path with his yellow irises and cavernous face.

  David Stein.

  I pictured his face all those weeks ago when he’d convinced me to break up with Charlie, move into his house, live under his rules. His sad eyes, his persuasive mouth. The thought sent a stitch through my heart. I’d been played from the very beginning. He knows what I did. I retreated from my position in front of the camera and took small stumbling steps backward toward the bed. He knows about Olivia and I am here to pay for my mistake. His phone vibrated. He snatched it from his pocket and turned it off.

  Just the two of us.

  Just like the summer party.

  I tried my hardest to push the painful and grotesque memories I had from that night back where they came from, instead shifting my attention to the tiny window opposite the bed. It was drizzling in the world beyond these walls. Light rain hit the glass, painting the room a dismal grey. If only I could go back to that night.

  His face scrunched up as he breathed in the smell of me, disgusted and delighted in equal measure by the filth he’d forced me to survive in.

  ‘Ava,’ he leered in my direction. ‘I assume you’ve already worked out why you’re here?’

  I said nothing. He knows.

  He kept his volume low but changed his tone. ‘I don’t suppose that’s what you want to talk about, though. You’re probably wondering why you’re still here, why I’ve kept you alive?’ He rubbed his chin with his bony fingers. ‘Am I right, darling?’

  More nothing.

  ‘Ah, you had so much confidence a few moments ago! What a shame. Cat got your tongue?’

  His feline features dazzled me as he slammed the door shut and fastened the locks. Then he approached.

  The sudden movement was enough to shock me. The heavy thud of his footsteps and the sway in his shoulders. He looked bigger, somehow, as he drew nearer. The tarantula hawk of the wasp world. To think I’d spent the past year accepting help from this man. His palm raised in a rush of motion and he clattered it in one heavy blow across my cheek, sending my head into a spin, my body from seated to flat across the bed in a matter of milliseconds. Searing pain scorched down the side of my face, his hand like a whip, and every word, plea and protestation, was knocked clean out of me.

  ‘I’ve been wanting to do that for a while,’ he growled, and roughly tied my wrists together in thick winds of plastic, tight enough to dig into my flesh. I stifled a cry of pain, not wanting to give him the satisfaction.

  I didn’t move an inch, my eyes only open a fraction, an unhealthy tension buzzing between us. I could only see the lower half of his body from where I lay. His shoes were pristine, perfect creases in his pinstripe suit trousers. But even though his outward appearance was spotless I could tell inside was a different story as he tied a knot in the plastic then started to pace away from me, rubbing his hands together, muttering to himself. Scum lay beneath that polished exterior.

  ‘There have been too many lies, Ava. First Olivia—’

  This was it: I had to talk. If I wanted to stay alive, to plead my case, I had to speak up. Now.

  ‘I didn’t murder Olivia,’ I managed to croak.

  I lifted my head slightly from the bed, only his torso in view, my voice raspy and frail.

  He stopped and his hands fell to his sides. I angled my eyes upward. His chin turned first, pointing down, eyebrow raised, then the rest of his body followed as he pivoted towards me.

  ‘I know that, Ava.’ A smirk flashed across his face and he drew in closer once again. ‘Because I did. I killed Olivia.’

  ‘What?’ I was confused. Wasn’t that why I was here? Because Jade and I had abandoned her? Murder by inaction, or whatever you wanted to call it.

  ‘She disobeyed me, Ava. I’d told her she’d exhausted her final chance and that if she relapsed again that would be it. I cannot stand for betrayal. I’d done so much for that girl and she just kicked it back in my face, much like her mother. I had Sheff monitoring her, just as I had him monitoring you, but it wasn’t Sheff who’d alerted me to her deceit that night. I think that person might have been you.’

  I still couldn’t pave a way towards his words making sense and my mouth took over, working on autopilot, going through the motions. The words tumbled out of my mouth before I could stop them.

  ‘She overdosed.’

  ‘She’d taken too much, certainly. And that low-life ex-boyfriend of yours had given her something cheap and nasty. But it wasn’t enough to kill her. I went there that night, after someone, you, took her phone, sent that message asking for me, and helped me put an end to the maddening cycles of betrayal and dishonesty. I just gave her enough to finish the job.’

  My eyes widened with horror. Jade and I had killed Olivia all right, but not with our inaction: with our action, by sending that message to David. If we hadn’t done that, she might have survived.

  Something in David’s demeanour changed then, in the tone of his breathing and the set of his jaw, and he paced the floor with renewed intensity, the memory of killing Olivia bringing that different side of him to the fore.

  ‘Rules are set by the powerful for the weak for a reas
on: they need to listen, they need to learn. First my wife, then Olivia, and now you. Because none of you understood, none of you listened, none of you realised how serious I was.’

  He grabbed my neck and tore me from the bed, pushing my body back against the wall, the force of his weight against mine, knocking the wind out of me once again.

  ‘You’re the worst of the lot, though. I hope you know that. You made me believe you loved me, that you wanted to be with me.’

  Stars lit up my vision as my head cracked into the plaster behind. Blood flowed from my nose and I tried to shake myself free.

  ‘Stop, please, just—’

  He cut me off. ‘You used me, Ava. First, you came to me for help with Charlie, you let me in, you let me take care of you, made me fall for you and your sob story and your vulnerability. Only later did I realise what your true intentions had been: to get what you wanted out of me then stab me in the back.’

  ‘You offered to help, David, I didn’t force you to do anything.’

  ‘You knew exactly what you were doing, Ava, don’t play stupid. It’s far too late for that. I thought you just needed space, so I gave it to you, but the whole time you were in a relationship with Josh! Right under my nose! Such a reckless girl.’ He spat out the words, his saliva coating my eyelashes.

  His eyes were burning into mine, wide and furious, daring me to scream. I kept quiet, avoided his glare, and observed him only through my peripheral vision. I noticed that, during our tussle, a chunk of his dark hair had come loose from its gelled-back position and hung limply over his left eye. I’d never seen him lose control before, hadn’t thought it was possible for his hair to be in any other position than slicked-back perfection and, with his mask down, I saw for the first time how much he hated me, how much he hated everyone, how deep his need for revenge and control and order ran.

  ‘I took your phone, Ava, the night after you moved into Olivia’s. I wanted to make sure you’d been telling the truth about Charlie. I went through it in minute detail, every conversation, every email, every confession. I trusted you after that. I started to let you in.’

  His sentences were speeding up, his words quick-fire.

  ‘So I rewarded you: I sent Sheff to kill him.’

  I couldn’t look at him.

  ‘When I told you what I’d done – that I’d dealt with him and you’d never have to worry about Charlie again – I admired you for your reaction. I saw myself in you. Someone you loved had betrayed your trust and so they had to go. You understood that. You barely reacted. It was just the same with Olivia and her mother. I thought we had an understanding, you and me. A connection. So maybe you already understand why you’re here. Imagine if it were the other way round.’

  My stomach felt as though it was laden with quicksand.

  ‘And to think: things could have been so different.’

  I was starting to suffocate against the wall, the cuff round my bruised neck crushing even deeper with the force David was applying.

  ‘I wanted to keep you safe. I had you monitored and surveilled to make sure you felt loved. And then things started to change…’

  He pressed harder.

  ‘I uncovered your first betrayal: Charlie had proposed to you and you hadn’t told me.’

  Why was he still angry about that?

  ‘But you managed to talk me round. I believed it was meaningless, now I’m not so sure: now I wonder if I feel rather sorry for Charlie. Back then I had no idea what you were capable of.’

  ‘I wasn’t lying,’ I tried to say. ‘That proposal was nothing.’

  He barrelled on without acknowledging me. ‘Then I found out something had happened the night of Olivia’s death – something you clearly still felt guilty for – and I wanted you to tell me, Ava. I really did. I gave so many opportunities to let me know the truth.’

  I groaned in pain as I tried to breathe against his force.

  ‘I didn’t want to ask you outright: I wanted you to tell me. There’s a big difference, you see. But you wouldn’t crack. Even after everything I put you through to try and pressure you into it: keeping you in Olivia’s house when I found out you were there the night of her death, making you wear her clothes, writing little love notes from Charlie and pushing them through the front door every night…’ He laughed when my expression dropped, my brain just about alive enough to register what he was saying and what it meant. ‘I like writing letters.’

  I thought back to the break-up note we’d written all those nights ago. I should have known. Charlie would never have had the patience to write.

  ‘I thought you’d ask me to look after you, to stay with you, that’s what I was hoping for. Then, when we were close enough, you’d tell me the truth about your part in my daughter’s final night. But you didn’t. Which was OK at first. I was waiting, I understood I couldn’t rush you: you’d just got out of a relationship and you didn’t want me to get the wrong impression. So you stayed there alone and I watched you closing the door to the lounge, trying not to think about her. To be honest, you dealt with it very well, I thought that might have been more difficult for you than it was. In a way it made me like you even more, Ava. You’re cold. Just like me.’

  The lack of oxygen was starting to cut the images in front of me and I thought he looked almost impressed as the grey of the room started to swallow me up.

  ‘And then you seduced me the night of the summer party and I was elated. Things were moving in the right direction, at last! But I didn’t want to force it, so I let you go when you changed your mind. And then you decided you wanted nothing to do with me. I couldn’t understand it. Why would you act so hot and then blow so cold? I thought you loved me. I thought we had an understanding.’

  My body started twitching uncontrollably and he loosened his grip, dropping me like a stone to the floor. I rushed to wrap my hands round my neck to quell the pain, taking huge, sharp, noisy breaths in, filling my deflated lungs with the sour air that surrounded me.

  ‘I sent in Sheff to make sure you weren’t seeing anyone else. He used to do the same job for me with Olivia. Part bodyguard part cook. He has a very particular set of skills…’

  I quivered and cowered in a heap on the floor. He was clearly so proud of himself and took great pleasure in running me through the lengths he’d gone to, to find me out. If only I’d had the foresight to ask to look at the CCTV system David had been so keen to install. Not that he would have shared the incriminating images of himself dropping letters through my door in Charlie’s name every night, but he would have refused to show me: and that might have helped me realise David wasn’t what he seemed. As it was, I’d rolled straight into his trap, causing him no hassle whatsoever.

  He eyed me up. ‘Why do those you love the most always let you down so spectacularly?’

  I shook my head.

  ‘Why did you lie to me Ava? Why did you betray me? Why did you use me?’

  There was nothing I could say.

  ‘Answer!’

  He kicked me in the ribs and all the wrong words spilled out of me. ‘We were never together, we were never anything.’

  ‘We slept together! You were living in my daughter’s home! I filled it with clothes and food for you. How can you say we were never in a relationship?’

  His furious temper, which bubbled unbelievably close to the surface, terrified me. ‘Perhaps this was a lucky escape.’

  I started to cry. I was backed into a corner.

  ‘Pathetic.’ He blinked a few times and sighed.

  David smoothed back the frazzled pieces of hair that had fallen free during his outburst to their usual position. He regained his composure and stood tall again, straightened out the suit jacket he was wearing.

  ‘Does Josh know?’ I bleated.

  I looked at him for a long second, daring him to tell me that Josh was involved, daring him to break my heart with the word yes.

  ‘Look at those puppy dog eyes, Ava, honestly! Josh is far too weak for this, this is th
e big league, darling.’

  My heartbeat steadied as that tiny silver lining covered me.

  ‘But he knows something’s up, I’m afraid. It turns out that Jade Fernleigh, despite being the world’s most useless employee, had a final trick up her sleeve. She followed me the night of the summer party and took a picture of us about to spend the night together.’

  I recalled her telling me about this photo weeks ago in the office. If only I’d realised back then it would be my only hope now. If only I’d asked to see it.

  ‘She sent it to Josh earlier – I intercept all office emails that contain my name, just in case – so now he keeps ringing me… I’ll have to talk to him tomorrow once I’ve figured out what to say.’

  He looked away, thinking, then continued his stream of consciousness.

  ‘So she’s dead now, I’m afraid. Collateral damage. Though it’s not as if she was very useful to me, or to anyone else, given the state she was in by the end.’

  The abrupt way he delivered the news was so shocking, I couldn’t believe the words he was saying.

  ‘What?’ I mouthed.

  ‘She crossed me by taking that photo. That night was private, she had no business being up there with us. Our first night together.’

  He leered. I stayed still.

  ‘Sheff will have dispatched her by now. Overdose. A very high number of people in mental health institutions commit suicide. They get drugs smuggled in. Oh God, that reminds me, I should probably do some sort of statement for the press tomorrow morning. She was a valuable member of our team, blah, blah, blah…’ His voice trailed off.