Good Little Liars

by Sarah Clutton

  Harriet

  ‘Mum, can you take me to Jen’s house?’

  Harriet looked up from her book at Scarlett. She was standing in front of the fireplace in full make-up, wearing an eye-wateringly short, pink satin dress. The neckline plunged dangerously towards her navel, leaving the view of her breasts almost entirely at the disposal of Hobart’s male population. Female too, Harriet supposed. A loud sigh escaped her mouth. Her daughters were fortunate to have such a tolerant mother.

  When Clementine had finally left for the reunion dinner after their talk, it had left Harriet feeling odd. Lighter. As if a part of her had disappeared into thin air along with her revelation about Derek Liddle and his unsolved death. She had felt pleased, even though Clementine had gone strangely quiet. Well, it wasn’t a small thing to consider – the fact that your genetic lineage was not exactly as you might have wished it to be. Perhaps that’s why Harriet had held back the secret from her all these years. The tarnish wasn’t to be underestimated. And yet, suddenly it felt like it didn’t matter. That he didn’t matter. Clementine had always been here on her own terms. She was a good person, whoever her father might have been.

  Harriet averted her eyes from the place where Scarlett’s dress should have been and pushed her slippers back onto her feet.

  ‘What’s happening at Jen’s house that calls for only half an outfit, Scarlett?’

  ‘Mum! This is designer. It was expensive!’

  ‘Well, more fool you.’ She wondered if Ben had given her the money. Harriet gave Scarlett very little. In her experience, money was the cause of most problems. Sex caused quite a lot of the others.

  ‘Can you take me or not, Mum?’

  ‘You can take me, Scarlett. Evening driving hours – I’m sure you need some of those, don’t you? Good experience.’ Harriet closed her book and turned off the CD player reluctantly. Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony, with its primal emotional energy and defiant key changes, was her favourite.

  ‘Okay. I’ll get my licence.’ Scarlett stalked off down the hallway, teetering on absurdly high heels.

  ‘Get some better shoes to drive in. And your L Plates are in the kitchen. Your father left them there on the weekend.’

  Harriet walked to the closet and took out a jacket.

  ‘Where are we going?’ asked Harriet, after Scarlett had slid into the driver’s seat and adjusted the mirrors.

  ‘I think it’s Tighe Street. You remember Mum – near the school. I don’t know the number but I know the house so it doesn’t matter.’

  Scarlett pressed the button to start the BMW and flicked her eyes nervously between the reversing camera and the back windscreen. As they drove along quietly, Harriet relaxed a little. She was surprised at how she was enjoying this time with Scarlett. A small bell of happiness pealed inside her head as she watched her daughter perched on the seat, back ram-rod straight, arms clenched, eyes constantly checking. Scarlett was transforming before her eyes. Spreading her wings. A dazzling, nervous, semi-naked butterfly.

  A buzz from her mobile phone made Harriet grope around in her handbag. She pulled out her phone. Three missed calls – strange. The phone hadn’t sounded. There were two from Ben and one from Clementine.

  ‘Scarli, let’s just slow down up here for a minute and see if you can manage a parallel park up between those two cars.’

  ‘What? Why? I hate parallel parking!’

  ‘Exactly. You need to practise it. Come on, there’s plenty of room between them. Two car spaces at least.’

  Scarlett made a loud huffing sound in protest, then slowed the car.

  ‘Just pull up parallel with the car in front, then reverse about a metre before turning the wheel. You know how it’s done.’

  ‘Why can’t I just use the automatic parking function?’

  ‘Because, Scarlett, not all cars have an automatic parking function. This is an expensive car. You won’t always be in one of these!’ Harriet slowed her breathing. ‘Now, just reverse.’

  A text message pinged. Then another. Harriet looked down at her phone. The first one was from Clementine.

  Jon’s in trouble. He’s been reported to police as having killed Tessa Terrano. He’ll need a lawyer. Pick up your phone.

  Harriet felt a sick shot of terror.

  She read the next one from Ben, her hand trembling.

  Harriet, your brother will need legal counsel if what I’ve heard is true. Something about that girl’s death at Denham years ago that he’s been implicated in. You should call him. B.

  Harriet observed the sensations of her fight or flight reactions, as the adrenalin coursed through her body. She understood the science of fear, and right now only small parts of her bodily responses would serve her. The adrenalin was making her blood pump more forcefully towards her muscles to make them move faster. She was shaking and edgy, alert. Her blood pressure was rising. Her instincts were ordering her body to act, quickly. But she needed her brain to be in control right now, not her body. She took a millisecond to speak sternly to the fright hormone as it pulsed through her. Enough! That is enough. I am in control now.

  She looked at her daughter fumbling with the wheel, unaware that a chasm had opened up inside Harriet’s head.

  ‘Mum, I can’t do it. I’m going to hit the curb.’

  A beat. A moment too late. ‘Yes, I see. Your angle’s wrong.’

  ‘What should I do? There’s a car up my arse!’

  ‘Drive on Scarlett. Drive to Jonathan’s place. Quickly, it’s not far. Something’s happened.’

  ‘What? No! I’ve got to go to Jen’s. You can go after you drop me.’

  A monstrous force was rising inside Harriet’s chest. Taking her over. Threatening to drown out rational thought. It frightened her. All these years. The terrible, stupid death of the Terrano girl. The decades of living with the nightmares. Of protecting her brother. Protecting the Maples girl. And now that awful, clever girl was sleeping with the only man who ever loved her. But if Marleen Maples was brought down with this, Harriet and Jonathan would be too. There was no choice but to step in. She didn’t have a choice. She needed to get to Jonathan. To protect him. To protect them all. To make sure the only words spoken to the police were the ones that told the story in the right way. Jonathan was precious. He had been gifted to her – his chubby hands, his beautiful blond curls – delivered to save her from the loneliness and the pain of growing up smart and poor and not so good at making friends. She couldn’t break through the barriers, the disdain for her circumstances. The jealousy over her pretty face, her ability to synthesise a thousand conflicting thoughts into a coherent chain and deliver them back as a whole, beautiful concept. She was the stuck-up scholarship girl always on the fringe. Then pregnant. Pregnant! After all that investment they’d made in her education! An abomination. But she had something worth more than all of them and their fancy cars and houses – a precious jewel who gave her strength through the horrible days of her adolescence. Who snuggled into her lap and wiped away her tears on all the days that Derek Liddle had raped her, and once again on the day she realised she was carrying his bastard child. She had her beautiful, clever boy. Her brother. She was not about to let him down.

  The car behind them began tooting.

  ‘Drive! Now, Scarlett. Drive as fast as you can. I need to get to Jonathan’s place.’ Harriet looked at her daughter, a shiny pink deer caught in the headlights.

  ‘I said drive, Scarlett! Now!’

  Thirty-Four

  Harriet

  25 November 1993

  ‘What’s happened?’ Harriet looked into the trench, then withdrew, shock widening her eyes.

  Jonathan looked at her, panicked. ‘Oh no! I shouldn’t have let this happen. What have I done? What do we do?’

  ‘You need to get an ambulance. Please! It was an accident. You need to get it now!’ It was the head girl speaking to her. Marleen Maples. She was wearing a birthday cape that was flipping against her legs in the wind.

  Harriet
looked into the trench again, taking a moment to assess the situation. A girl was lying, unmoving, about three or four metres down. Harriet saw Marleen look briefly across the barriers towards the main school buildings in the distance. She had a wild look in her eyes.

  ‘Mrs Andrews, I hurt my foot. Please can you go?’

  Harriet looked down again into the hole. Something was very wrong. The girl’s eyes were open. Her neck was crooked. It dawned on her then. Jonathan’s words. The danger in them.

  ‘What’s happened, Jon?’

  ‘Oh, Hattie! She was running to the office to tell them about being in my cottage. Saying I got her there for sex. Marleen tried to stop her – it was an accident. She knocked her… we were just trying to get her to tell the truth.’

  Harriet felt the oxygen recede around her. She tried to take a slow breath as her brother’s words sank like rocks into the pit of her stomach.

  ‘Why was she in your cottage, Jon? The truth. I need the truth or I can’t help.’

  She watched Marleen Maples stand up, edgy with fear. The girl took two steps backwards, then sank to the ground with a groan, grasping her ankle, tears running down her face.

  ‘Mrs Andrews, she might be alive. Please run. Please go now.’

  Harriet ignored her and kept her eyes trained on her brother. ‘Jonathan. Tell me.’

  ‘She broke in. She wanted sex. I told her no. Maybe I led her on, Hattie, but I swear, if I did, I didn’t know I was doing it. She got upset and said she was going to say we’d been together. Marleen was in my guitar lesson. She came down and found us. Then we followed her here and Tessa had a photograph, or something that blew away. They tried to get it but she fell.’

  ‘What was in the photograph, Marleen?’ asked Harriet.

  ‘It was Tessa, naked. It was for Mr Brownley.’

  Harriet felt Marleen slipping away, losing control of her emotions. She took a moment to gather her thoughts into order. Proffered sex, naked photograph, Jonathan’s cottage, a dead girl.

  ‘Marleen, an ambulance won’t make any difference. Look at her. She would have fractured her skull on the rocks and her neck looks broken. The drop would be fatal with that kind of head impact.’ Harriet looked across at the mountain of excavated dirt behind them, filled with odd-sized chunks of basalt.

  Tears were flooding down Marleen’s face. Harriet could see the panic rising up in her as she realised what she’d done.

  Harriet closed her eyes, her face turning towards the oval. Then after a few moments she opened them again, the clarity of thought finally distilling itself into a precise picture of what must now happen.

  ‘Marleen, you have a very bright future ahead of you. This was an accident. A terrible accident. But it was not of your doing. Not really. Tessa brought it on herself. She’s dead and there is nothing to be done about that. I think it’s best if you both say you knew nothing about this. An investigation would require you to give evidence about why you were in here with her. Where you had been earlier. What you had argued about. There will be dozens of questions. Hundreds. The answers you would give would be honest, but a shadow would be cast. Over you, and over my brother. It would tarnish your good names. Whispers would start. Why were you down by the cottage at all? What did you know? Were you having an affair with your teacher? Were you jealous of Tessa? Mr Brownley will also be under suspicion. His career would be finished. It has barely begun. Both of you have bright futures ahead of you. Now, I want you to listen to me. Listen very carefully.’

  Harriet watched the head girl’s face crumple as she began to lay out the plan. It was all down to Marleen now. Jonathan would do as she said. He’d always been an obedient boy. Completely trusting.

  The memories flitted through Harriet’s head as if they’d happened yesterday. In her mind’s eye she could still see her brother’s angelic five-year-old face hanging on her every word: ‘Jonny, don’t tell the teacher Mum’s gone away, okay? If I’m held up after school and they see you on your own, just say you’re waiting for your big sister because Mum’s at an appointment. I promise I’ll come and get you. I might be a bit late, that’s all.’

  Jonathan bit his bottom lip and nodded, his backpack jiggling against his shoulders and down to the back of his knees. ‘You must promise, Jonny. If they find out there’s no grown-up in the house, they’ll split us up and put you in a horrible home with strangers. They won’t let you take your books or Barney bear or anything. Okay? You wouldn’t want that, would you?’

  ‘No, Hattie.’ He shook his curly head of hair and stared back at her with huge trusting eyes.

  ‘Alright then. Soon I’ll be eighteen and a proper adult anyway and it won’t matter. Mum will be back though. Don’t worry darling. She’ll be back.’ Harriet knelt down and tied his shoelace, feeling her baby twist and kick in her stomach, as she wondered why Jonny wouldn’t try tying them himself. Surely you were meant to know how to do it at five? She remembered that she could do it by the first day of school. Their mother had insisted.

  She just hoped Mum would be back soon. She’d been good lately. Since she’d gotten out of the hospital. More reliable. Less prone to taking off on a whim. But it still happened. She’d be sullen and edgy and leave Harriet a note to find in the morning, returning days later, pretending she didn’t know what Harriet was complaining about. There was plenty of food in the cupboard (rarely the case) and no sewing jobs to be finished (Harriet had finished two skirts for Mrs Pulfreyman when she demanded they be ready on Thursday evening or she’d have her deposit back, thank you very much!).

  Now, the wind whipped at Harriet’s face, dragging her back from her memories. She watched the Maples girl. She was attractive in an unusual kind of way, with her long red hair and intense green eyes; and she was smart. The girl’s doubts were written into her frown, making Harriet nervous about what she would do. But Harriet was not about to let that little Terrano slut bring down her baby brother.

  Everyone knew Tessa Terrano was trouble. Her father was a bully. A dishonest, entitled multi-millionaire with a penchant for paying off women he treated badly. Harriet kept her ear to the ground around the courts. She’d picked up whispers of complaints that never made it onto paper. Hobart was a small place. Enzo Terrano’s troubled, musically precocious daughter was probably lucky to be away from him. A spark of sympathy flared briefly for Tessa, but Harriet extinguished it quickly. Tessa’s home life was probably difficult, but whose wasn’t? Falsely accusing a teacher of abuse was completely inexcusable. It was a slap in the face to those students who had been abused. A shallow, pernicious thing to do. She took another look inside the trench. The girl’s vacant stare made her flinch with regret.

  ‘Marleen, are you listening?’ Harriet could see that the girl was grappling with a war between her conscience and the catastrophic possibilities Harriet was putting in front of her. Everyone knew Marleen was a straight shooter – clever, sensible, self-contained. Strong in the face of family adversity. Harriet needed to find a way in.

  ‘I’ve heard your mother has only weeks to live, Marleen. She doesn’t need her last days on this earth ruined by scandal, does she? You’re a wonderful daughter and a great asset to Denham House. The school and your family both need you to stay strong in this.’

  ‘Please, Mrs Andrews’ The words were followed by a suffocated sob. ‘I need you to get her some help. Please!’ Marleen had sunk to the ground and was holding her ankle.

  ‘I’m going to get help now. Of course I am. But listen to me, Marleen. The truth will make no difference to the outcome for Tessa. So – you were not here. Neither of you were here. You must go, both of you. Now! You were in a guitar lesson. Do you hear me? Together.’

  ‘In the music room,’ said Jonathan.

  ‘Yes, in the music room,’ said Harriet. ‘Marleen, did you hear that? Do you understand? You were nowhere near this building site. Now go!’

  ‘Harriet, I don’t know… I don’t know if—’ Jonathan stopped abruptly as Harriet turned to face
him. Fear was etched across his face like a wound. This was his moment of reckoning, Harriet knew. The split second in time where his gilded journey ended and something more sinister came to take its place. Because nobody as beautiful as Jonathan, as intelligent and precious, could be handed it all for free. Harriet knew full well that that was just the way life worked. She must not falter now. What he needed now from her was tough love.

  She clenched her teeth briefly and narrowed her eyes as she watched the Maples girl cup both hands over her face.

  Jonathan put his arm on Marleen’s shoulder, then he let it slide down and turned back towards her. ‘Harriet, I don’t think—’

  ‘Don’t think, Jonathan,’ hissed Harriet. ‘Just do it. Do it now!’

  Thirty-Five

  Harriet

  Scarlett accelerated down the street, knuckles clenched white around the steering wheel.

  ‘Left here,’ said Harriet.

  ‘Okay.’

  ‘Go a bit faster. There’s no traffic.’

  ‘What’s wrong, Mum?’

  ‘Nothing. Just focus on the road. Go across Ellery Way. You’ll avoid having to slow down at all the roundabouts on Johnson Street.’

  ‘Alright, Mum! Keep your hair on.’

  Scarlett stopped at the lights on Linden Road and Harriet punched in Jonathan’s phone number. It rang out. She dialled it again but the result was the same.

  ‘Blast him! Why isn’t he picking up?’ She knew it was unlikely the police would come out on a Saturday night to talk about such an old case. But without all the information, she couldn’t be sure. When had he been reported? What stage were the investigations at? Who had reported him? Perhaps he’d gone down to the police station already, some sort of misplaced guilt guiding him now that the truth was catching up with them. Harriet shuddered as Scarlett began accelerating through the green light and down the hill towards the school. Jonathan had a large old family home on the prettiest part of the school campus. Headmaster’s privilege.