Let Me Lie

by Clare Mackintosh

  Mark points at her crib. It’s covered in shards of glass that glint in the glow from the overhead light, and in the center of the mattress is a brick. An elastic band holds a sheet of paper in place.

  Gingerly, Mark picks up the brick.

  “Fingerprints!” I remember.

  He holds the paper by a single corner and twists his head to read the typed message.

  No police. Stop before you get hurt.

  CHAPTER

  TWENTY-THREE

  MURRAY

  Anna Johnson looked tired. Dark circles ringed her eyes, and although she smiled politely when she opened the door, she had none of the determination Murray had seen in her the previous day. She showed him through to the kitchen, where Mark Hemmings was clearing the table from breakfast.

  Murray found the dynamic interesting. Despite Anna’s obvious strength, when the couple were together she seemed to let Mark take charge. Murray wondered if this was by choice or by design. Was it Mark who called the shots in this relationship? Had he really lied about knowing Caroline Johnson?

  “I’m sorry—am I interrupting?”

  “Not at all. We’re a bit late getting going today, after last night.”

  “Last night?” There were several wineglasses upturned on the draining board. Murray smiled, wanting to defuse the tension he didn’t fully understand. “Ah—a good time had by all?” He looked at Anna and then Mark, and his smile faded. Anna was glaring at him, her mouth open.

  “A good time? What the—”

  Mark crossed the room and put an arm around Anna. “It’s okay.” He addressed Murray. “Someone threw a brick through our daughter’s window, with a note wrapped around it. It could have killed her.”

  Murray got out his notebook. “What time was this?”

  “Around midnight,” Anna said. “We were—”

  Mark interrupted. “Do we have to go through this again? We were up till two A.M. giving statements.”

  It was then that Murray noticed the paperwork on the kitchen table. The card with contact details for the police inquiry center; the Victim Support leaflet with the phone number ringed in pen. He put away his notebook.

  “No, of course not. I’ll check in with the officers who attended and make sure they’ve got all the information they need.”

  Mark’s eyes narrowed. “They asked if we had a crime number.”

  Somewhere in the pit of Murray’s stomach, he felt a familiar sensation.

  “From the other job—the anniversary card.”

  When Murray had been a probationer, he had cuffed a job that had come back to bite him. The sergeant—a sharp Glaswegian—had hauled Murray into the office to ask why nothing had been done about “what seems to me to be an open-and-shut case, laddie,” then promptly assigned Murray to traffic duties. He had stood in the rain, water dripping off his helmet, and felt sick to his stomach. Three weeks into the job and he’d already been told off. Was that it? Would his skipper write him off as a bad lot?

  It wasn’t, and the skipper didn’t. But that might have been because, from that moment, Murray vowed to treat every victim with the consideration they deserved, and to play everything by the book.

  He hadn’t played this one by the book.

  “Not to worry,” he said, as brightly as he could manage. “I’ll sort all that out, back at the station.”

  “Why don’t we have a crime number?” Anna said. She picked up the baby from her bouncy chair and walked toward Murray. “You are investigating it properly, aren’t you?”

  Metaphorical hand on metaphorical heart, Murray nodded. “I assure you, I am.” Better than if I’d passed it straight to CID, he thought. Nevertheless, the knot of anxiety in his stomach remained, and he wondered if, even now, someone back at the police station was asking why Murray Mackenzie, a retired police officer now working on Lower Meads front desk, was investigating a possible double homicide.

  “I wanted to check something, actually,” Murray said. He reached into his inside pocket for the leaflet Sarah had found in Caroline Johnson’s datebook, keeping it inside his jacket for the time being. “Mr. Hemmings, you never met Anna’s parents?”

  “That’s right. I told you that yesterday. It was because of their deaths that Anna came to see me in the first place.”

  “Right. So, when you met Anna, that was the first you’d heard of her . . .” Murray searched for the right word, acknowledging his clumsiness with a sympathetic smile in Anna’s direction. “Her situation?”

  “Yes.” There was a touch of impatience in Mark’s reply.

  Impatience? Or something else? Something he was trying to hide? Murray produced the flyer.

  “Is this yours, Mr. Hemmings?”

  “Yes. I’m not sure I’m following . . .”

  Murray handed him the flyer, turning it over as he did so. Curious, Anna moved to see the writing, clearly visible on the reverse. There was a single, sharp inhalation, followed by a look of complete confusion.

  “That’s Mum’s writing.”

  Murray spoke gently. “It was found in your mother’s appointment book.”

  Mark’s mouth was working, but nothing was coming out. He brandished the flyer. “And . . . what? I don’t know why she had my leaflet.”

  “It seems she had an appointment with you, Mr. Hemmings.”

  “An appointment? Mark, what’s going on? Was Mum . . . a patient of yours?” Anna took a step back, unconsciously distancing herself from the leaflet, from the father of her child.

  “No! Christ, Anna! I told you, I don’t know why my leaflet was with her things.”

  “Right. Well, I just wanted to double-check.” Murray held out his hand for the flyer. The younger man hesitated, then dropped it into Murray’s open palm with such deliberate lack of direction that Murray was forced to catch it before it fluttered to the floor. Murray smiled politely. “I’ll leave you to it, then.”

  Light the blue touch paper and stand well back, Murray thought as he left the house. Mark Hemmings had some explaining to do.

  CHAPTER

  TWENTY-FOUR

  ANNA

  “You’d think he’d have known about last night, wouldn’t you?” Mark starts clearing the table again, transferring our cereal bowls from table to dishwasher. “The left hand doesn’t know what the right hand’s doing—it’s ridiculous.” He bends to stack the dishes, rearranging what’s already there from last night. It crosses my mind that he’s deliberately taking his time, deliberately avoiding looking at me.

  “Did you know my mum?”

  “What?” He drops our spoons into the rack. One, two.

  “Mark, look at me!”

  He straightens slowly, picks up a tea towel and wipes his hands, then folds it and places it on the counter. Then he looks at me. “I never met your mum, Anna.”

  If Mark and I had been together for a decade—if we’d met as teenagers, grown up together—I’d know if he was lying. If we’d been through the challenges other couples go through—ups and downs, breakups and makeups—I’d know if he was lying.

  If I knew him better . . .

  His face is unreadable, his eyes unflinchingly on mine.

  “She made an appointment with you.”

  “Lots of people make appointments with me, Anna. You made an appointment with me. We leaflet-drop the whole of Eastbourne, for Christ’s sake.” He breaks his gaze, turns back to the dishwasher, even though there’s nothing left on the side.

  “But you don’t remember speaking to her?”

  “No. Look, some people book with me direct; others go through Janice. The chances are, I never had any contact with her.”

  Janice sits in reception in the lobby of the office block that houses Mark’s Brighton practice, along with a dozen other small businesses that don’t need—or can’t afford—their own building, t
heir own staff. She manages their appointment books, welcomes their clients, and answers the phone, matching her greeting to whichever line is flashing on her phone.

  Serenity Beauty. Can I help you?

  Brighton Interiors. Can I help you?

  “The point is, she never kept the appointment.”

  “How do you know?” The words don’t sound like mine. They’re harsh and accusatory. Mark makes a sound like air escaping from a tire: exasperated, irritated. It’s the first time we’ve argued. Properly, like this, snapping at each other, turning away to roll eyes at an invisible audience as though trying to summon support.

  “I’d have remembered.”

  “You didn’t remember she’d booked an appointment.”

  There’s a beat before he answers.

  “It’ll be on the system. Janice updates it when they arrive.”

  “So you can check?”

  “I can check.”

  I hand him his mobile.

  He lets out a short, humorless laugh. “You want me to do it now?”

  I wonder if this is what it’s like when you think your husband’s cheating, if this is what you turn into. I have become the sort of woman I’ve always despised: a folded-arms, pursed-lips harridan demanding on-the-spot answers from a man who has never once given her cause to distrust him.

  But his leaflet was in my mother’s datebook.

  He scrolls through his contacts, taps the entry for the practice. I hear Janice’s singsong tones on the other end of the line and know what she’s saying, even though I can’t make out the words.

  Holistic Health. Can I help you?

  “Janice, it’s me. Would you mind checking something on the system? Wednesday, sixteenth of November. Two thirty P.M. Caroline Johnson.”

  The bravado I felt a moment ago morphs into uncertainty. If Mark were lying he wouldn’t check right now, in front of me. He’d say he needed to look it up at work, or that the records didn’t hold that level of detail. He’s not lying. I know he isn’t.

  “And she didn’t rebook?”

  I busy myself picking up Rita’s toys and dropping them into the basket.

  “Thanks, Janice. How are the next couple of days looking? Any cancellations?” He listens, then laughs. “No chance of Christmas Eve off, then!”

  He says good-bye and finishes the call.

  Now it’s my turn to avoid his gaze. I pick up a stuffed pheasant from which Rita has extracted the stuffing. “I’m sorry.”

  “She was marked as a no-show. She didn’t make another appointment.” He crosses the kitchen and comes to stand in front of me, gently hooking his forefinger under my chin and lifting it until I’m looking at him. “I never met her, Anna. I wish I had.”

  And I believe him. Because why would he lie?

  CHAPTER

  TWENTY-FIVE

  MURRAY

  “Can we go inside now?”

  Murray squeezed Sarah’s hand. “Let’s do one more.” They were walking around Highfield, close enough for Sarah to trail a hand along the brickwork, anchoring herself to the building.

  “Okay.”

  Murray heard her breath quicken. She tried to speed up—to get it over with—but he kept the measured pace they had followed for the previous two laps of the building. He did his best to distract her.

  “Tom Johnson’s will left the house to his wife, along with his share of the business, and all his assets except for a hundred grand, which he left to Anna. His life insurance payout went to Caroline.”

  “Even though it was suicide?”

  “Even though.” Murray now knew far more about life insurance and suicide than he had ever needed to know. Most companies had a “suicide clause” in their policies that meant no payout if the policy had been taken out within twelve months of the policyholder’s suicide. It was to stop people committing suicide to escape debt, the helpful woman from Aviva had explained to Murray when he’d rung. Tom Johnson’s policy had been in place for years, the payout to his wife made as soon as the death certificate had been issued.

  “What about Caroline’s will?”

  Sarah’s trailing hand still followed the line of the wall, but now Murray saw air between her fingers and the brickwork. He kept talking. “A small sum to her goddaughter, a ten-grand legacy to a Cypriot animal rescue charity, and the rest to Anna.”

  “So Anna ended up with the lot. You’re sure she didn’t bump them both off?” Her hand dropped to her side.

  “And send herself an anonymous note?”

  Sarah was thinking. “Maybe the card was from someone who knows she killed them. Anna panics, brings the card to the police station because that’s what a normal, non-murderous person would do. It’s a double bluff.”

  Murray grinned. Sarah was far more creative than any detective he’d ever worked with.

  “Any fingerprints?”

  “Several. Nish is working her way through them now.” Tom Johnson’s car had been dusted for prints after his death, and elimination sets taken from his daughter and the staff at Johnson’s Cars. The anonymous card carried full prints from both Anna Johnson and her uncle, Billy, who had ripped it into pieces before Anna could stop him, and several partials that could have come from anywhere—including the shop where the card had been bought. None of the prints had triggered a hit on the Police National Computer.

  At the mention of their friend’s name, Sarah had brightened. Her hand relaxed a little in Murray’s. “How is Nish?”

  “She’s well. She asked after you. Suggested we have dinner together, when you’re up to it.”

  “Maybe.”

  Maybe was okay. Maybe was better than no. Tomorrow was Christmas Eve, and Sarah’s consultant, Mr. Chaudhury, had decided Sarah should be discharged. Sarah had other ideas.

  “I’m not well,” she’d said, worrying at her frayed sleeves.

  People who proclaimed themselves to be champions of mental health issues were fond of comparing them to physical ailments.

  “If Sarah had broken her leg we’d all understand that it needed fixing,” Murray’s line manager had said when Murray had apologized for taking time off to support his wife. The diversity box had been duly ticked.

  Only it wasn’t like a broken bloody leg. A broken leg could be fixed. X-rays, a plaster cast, perhaps a metal splint. A few weeks on crutches. Resting, physio. And then—what? The odd twinge, perhaps, but fixed. Better. Sure, it might break more easily next time you came off a bike, or took the stairs awkwardly and tripped, but it wouldn’t snap spontaneously. It wouldn’t freeze in horror at the prospect of answering the door, or crumble into pieces if someone whispered out of earshot.

  Borderline personality disorder was nothing like a broken leg.

  No, Sarah wasn’t well. But she never would be.

  “Sarah, borderline personality disorder is not something we are going to cure.” Chaudhury’s Oxbridge accent was undercut by a Birmingham twang. “You know that. You know more about your condition than anyone. But you are managing it well, and you will continue to do that at home.”

  “I want to stay here.” Sarah’s face had creased into tears. She looked more like a homesick child than a fifty-eight-year-old woman. “I don’t like it at home. I’m safe here.”

  Murray had pasted a smile on his face to hide the right hook he’d felt to his stomach. Mr. Chaudhury had been firm.

  “You’ll be safe at home. Because for the last few days it hasn’t been us keeping you safe.” He had paused and leaned forward, pointing templed fingers toward Sarah. “It’s been you. You’ll continue with daily sessions; then we’ll move toward weekly visits. Small steps. The main priority is to get you back home with your husband.”

  Murray had waited for the left hook. But Sarah nodded meekly and reluctantly agreed that tomorrow she would go home. And then she had surprised Murra
y by agreeing to go for a walk.

  Murray stopped. “There. That’s three.”

  Sarah looked taken aback to see the main door again, their three laps of the building complete.

  “I’ll pick you up tomorrow morning. Okay?”

  She frowned. “It’s group in the morning.”

  “Lunchtime, then.”

  “Okay.”

  Murray kissed her and began walking down the path to the car park. Halfway down he turned to wave, but she’d already scuttled inside.

  Murray spent the next hour tidying the already spotless house, in preparation for Sarah’s homecoming. He changed the sheets in their bedroom and made up the spare bed, too, putting fresh flowers in both rooms, just in case she wanted to be alone. When the place was pristine, he got in his car and drove in to work.

  The fact that Diane Brent-Taylor—the witness who had called the police to report Tom’s suicide—had not attended the inquest was troubling Murray. Brent-Taylor had claimed she had been on Beachy Head that morning with a lover and that she couldn’t take the risk of her husband finding out where she’d been. CID had tried several times to persuade her, but to no avail. They had no address details for her—just a mobile phone number—and when that had been disconnected, they had given up. This was a suicide investigation, after all. Not a murder. Not then.

  Murray wasn’t going to give up.

  There were plenty of Taylors and lots of Brents on the Police National Computer and the electoral register, but no Diane Brent-Taylors. Neither did Murray have any joy on open-source systems—Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn—although he would be the first to admit he was hardly an expert in the field. His expertise lay in lateral thinking. He drummed his fingers on the desk and then started his search again, this time putting a fresh sheet of paper to the side of his keyboard. There was, no doubt, a system that would do this job for him in a fraction of the time, but pen and paper had never failed Murray yet. Besides, taking this to Force Intelligence would prompt questions he didn’t yet want to answer.