Beautiful Liars_a gripping thriller about friendship, dark secrets and bitter betrayal

by Isabel Ashdown

  He greets me in his usual way, and as always I say, ‘Please, you must call me Casey!’ and as always he laughs and carries on through to the kitchen, placing the bags down by the fridge, just as he had when Olivia Heathcote lived here. Without a word, but with the loveliest of smiles, he returns to his van and brings back a second load, and then a third, finally offering up his clipboard and asking me to sign at the bottom.

  ‘There are two substitutions,’ he says.

  I hold his gaze.

  ‘We didn’t have tinned mackerels in tomato sauce, so you’ve got brine.’

  ‘That’s an excellent choice,’ I reply, sweeping my long hair over one shoulder.

  He looks uneasy, and I think how endearing it is that he doesn’t wish to disappoint me. Then he says, ‘And, er, there were no Always Super Pads – so you’ve got Bodyform.’

  Well, I could die of shame, and all thoughts of inviting him to stay for a cup of tea fly from my mind as I scribble my name in the box and thrust the clipboard back at him, nodding that yes, those substitutions would be absolutely acceptable. In an instant he is out of the door and I am left in a cloud of apoplexy.

  For the briefest of moments, I hate Olivia Heathcote for putting me through this. If it hadn’t been for her I would never have started taking home deliveries, and this humiliation would never have occurred. But then I talk myself down – I’ve always tended towards overreaction – and I realise I’m being hysterical. If it hadn’t been for Olivia Heathcote, I wouldn’t be living in this wonderful house, and I’d still be running the gauntlet of the weekly shop and all the horrors and public embarrassments that the checkout can bring. Without Olivia Heathcote, I wouldn’t have Carl, or Martha, or anything to look forward to.

  I take a deep breath, smooth down my ruffled dress and head into the kitchen to unpack my shopping. I have a lot to do today. For starters, there should be a box of hair dye somewhere in today’s order, which I’ve been excited about for days. I’ve decided to sort myself out, get rid of this ugly grey hair and spruce up my appearance a bit. The shade I’ve chosen is so dark it’s nearly black, not dissimilar to Liv’s, and the instructions say it’s as easy as 1-2-3! And then there’s the list of questions Martha has said she will email to me, which, when they arrive, I will do my very best to answer as well as Liv herself would. Over the past twenty-four hours I have uncovered yet more treasures of information regarding Juliet and David Crown, and I will bring them into play so that Martha might never guess that I’m not who I say I am. She’ll never guess that I’m just a big, fat liar! I like being Liv, and I vow that next time Carl comes I will try to be more like her, more serene and graceful. I can be beautiful too. A beautiful liar.

  8. Martha

  Toby calls for Martha early and together they drive out to the canal, aiming to walk the waterside route that Martha and Juliet took that night, to take a look at the spot where her abandoned bicycle was found. Toby is hopeful they might also establish the location of the Square Wheels picnic shown in Alan Sherman’s old photograph, though Martha is less optimistic.

  When they arrive at Regent’s Canal, Sally and Jay are already waiting on the footpath, drinking coffee from paper cups, there to film some background footage and straight-to-camera pieces. It’s a bright, sharp morning, and Sally and Jay are dressed in matching parkas and skinny black jeans, their hoods pulled up against the icy air.

  ‘Can we do the distance stuff first?’ Martha asks them, anxious to find her bearings, to mentally warm up before putting herself in front of the camera.

  She feels strangely apprehensive this morning, having suffered a restless night’s sleep as she went over things in her head. Who was Juliet writing to in that letter she never sent? Martha can see how the police jumped to the conclusion that it was David Crown – the secret relationship she talks of, the fact of her turning eighteen seeming important in their timing of coming into the open – but still, something doesn’t ring true. It just wasn’t in Juliet’s nature. Was it? As she lay awake in bed, Martha’s mind had kept lighting on snatches of forgotten conversations with her friends, nothing to do with Juliet’s disappearance, just murmurs from a past they once shared. She’d conjured up the memory of that trip to London Zoo in Year Ten, when Dippy Stephens had got his ankle wedged in the railings near the monkey kingdom and Liv had tried to work it free with a dollop of cherry lip balm. In the end they’d had to leave him to wait for one of the first-aiders to arrive, and Liv had whispered, ‘That’s the last time I do a good turn. He smells of wet biscuits and Dairylea.’ Martha and Juliet had howled with laughter, and they’d all bought Twister lollies and lounged on the neat lawns of the picnic area, soaking up the sunshine and watching the world through their fringes. Dippy had plucked up the courage to ask Liv out on the walk back to school, and she’d said no as nicely as she could, careful to avoid Martha and Juliet’s teasing eyes. How the mind plays tricks, Martha thinks now, the way it effortlessly reveals useless snippets like this while so often concealing the memories we seek.

  At the waterside, Sally and Jay stand side by side, sipping at their steaming cups. They’ve worked together for so long now they’ve become androgynous versions of each other, beachy-haired late thirty-somethings, casual in their easy confidence with the task at hand. Martha has worked with the pair for years, on and off, enabling the trio to bypass unnecessary small talk and get straight down to work.

  ‘Why don’t you trail me and Toby along the towpath, and when I spot anything of significance I’ll give you a wave? See that yellow dinghy – the one near the bend in the path?’ She points a hundred yards down the walkway. ‘Wait till we reach it, then start to follow. It’ll give a nice wide view of the location – set the scene.’

  The camera guys get to work prepping their kit, and Martha and Toby head off along the path. The verges are muddy with winter rainfall, and Martha tries to recall if this stretch was always paved, or whether it ran to grass back in Juliet’s day. The quiet activity of the morning plays out around them: houseboat dwellers emerging from below decks, morning commuters cycling into town, groups of children on their way to school. There’s nothing sinister about the towpath in the bright light of a Friday morning, when all of life continues around them, everyday movements of everyday people. But everything changes after dark, and night and day are two different worlds. As children they steered clear of the canal at night-time, afraid of its shadows, warned away by their parents and teachers fretful to keep them safe. What alters in those teen years, to make us so reckless and brave? Is it a chemical change, something we have no control over that makes risk-takers of the most sensible of us? Makes us believe we’re untouchable, invincible, immortal, even? Martha pauses by the small yellow boat, a jumble of images throwing confused lines across her conscious thoughts.

  ‘They’re on the move,’ Toby says, turning to check on Sally and Jay, and Martha raises her hand to silence him.

  She’s grasping for a thread: she sees Juliet on that dark night, not far from here, smiling and insisting I’ll be fine – reaching out to squeeze Martha’s forearm as she says goodnight. A reassurance, a gesture of affection. But there’s a feeling of wrongness about the exchange, because the reason Martha’s given for deserting her friend is a deceit, it’s all mixed up. She sees the frosty path again, through her own seventeen-year-old eyes, the path away from Juliet, back the way they came. She sees the flash of Juliet’s flowing hair as she heads away on her bicycle, and she feels relief as another Square Wheels volunteer passes in Juliet’s direction, mixing with the guilt of her lie. Now, Toby stares at her, waiting for her to speak. But what can she say? I lied that night? I lied to Juliet. I lied, but I don’t recall how or why, or what it even means. She takes out her phone and photographs the cluster of bankside dinghies, turning in circles as she captures the street beyond, the footpath, the meandering movement of the canal.

  ‘What are you thinking?’ Toby asks, unable to contain his curiosity any longer. ‘Have you remembered somethi
ng?’

  ‘I told her I had to go back for my bag,’ she says, more to herself than Toby. That was why she’d left Juliet on the towpath alone, wasn’t it? ‘I’d left my bag in the Waterside Café.’ Martha shakes her head, trying to bring her thoughts back, and sighs. ‘I don’t know,’ she replies truthfully, turning back to wave at the camera guys. She points out the boats as worth filming and then she continues along the path below the flyover bridge. Something has shifted in her, and her discomfort is acute.

  Her phone buzzes, breaking her concentration as she takes it from her pocket, checking the caller ID, crestfallen to see that it’s him again. She fumbles with the handset, trying to reject the call, failing to gain purchase through the thick fabric of those stupid spotty gloves, and the phone slips from her hands, skittering along the grass verge.

  Toby is a step ahead of her, scooping it up before any real damage is done, and still the ringtone blares out as he returns it to her, stealing a glance at the screen as he does so, a question in his eyes.

  ‘Who’s “D”?’ he asks. ‘Is someone bothering you? Martha? What’s wrong?’

  ‘I …’ she begins, swallowing hard, but she can’t seem to get her thoughts into any kind of useable arrangement.

  Toby puts a halting hand up to Sally and Jay, and steers Martha to lean against the railings for a while. ‘You’re very pale,’ he tells her. ‘Something’s upset you.’

  If she didn’t feel so shaken, Martha would be furious with herself for displaying such open vulnerability. But, right now, she feels close to nausea and there’s no point in pushing him away, in being the uptight cow she’s so comfortable with.

  ‘I just need a minute,’ she says, running her hands up over her face, breathing deeply. ‘It’s something and nothing – it’s some memory of that night, here, and there’s Juliet and me and someone else, and it feels fine, unthreatening, but I’m leaving her on her own and … and …’ She looks at Toby aghast, and speaks in a low hush. ‘Was it my fault, Toby?’

  To her astonishment he takes a firm grip of her shoulders and looks at her steadfastly, through eyes that are so familiar to her she’s rendered speechless. ‘No,’ he says resolutely. ‘No, it’s not. You didn’t snatch her, did you? You weren’t to know what lay in store for Juliet. You were kids – and you need to stop this. You’ll never get to the bottom of her disappearance if you fall apart now, Martha. Come on, you’re tougher than that.’

  All the breath she’s been storing up seems to leave her body in a rush and she blinks, signalling for him to release her. It’s a strange dynamic; rather than feeling reduced by his strength, she feels strengthened. She had a moment of weakness, and he steadied her, that was all.

  ‘Ready to carry on?’ he asks, and he gives Sally and Jay the thumbs-up and they continue on their way. ‘So, any sign of that picnic location?’ he says after a few minutes of walking in silence. He’s trying to lighten the atmosphere. ‘Or anything else?’

  Of course Martha isn’t sure exactly where that picnic site is, although she does recall it in part now, the detail of it is so vague. She can remember that they ate egg sandwiches on a red tartan blanket, but not what she wore, or where they moored up to eat. In her mind’s eye she can see Liv threatening to push Tom overboard when he kept twanging her bra strap, but she can’t recall how they came to be on the trip in the first place. How much is considered to be a normal amount of recollection, she wonders? Surely no one remembers everything that happened to them every day of their life. And how can we ever compare our powers of recall with those of someone else, when we can never live in each other’s heads, never really experience the same event, even when it’s a shared one.

  ‘Look, it was a long time ago,’ she says as he asks her again if there’s anything she recognises at all. ‘I only volunteered with Square Wheels for a few weeks that summer. Do you remember everything you did when you were a teenager?’

  ‘Most of it,’ he says, tugging at the collar of his jacket, loosening it against the growing warmth of the sun. ‘Except for some of the drunken bits, I suppose. Some of those memories are a bit of a blur.’

  A blur, she thinks. If only. She was drunk for a large part of that period. Blind drunk. At the time it was just one of the things that had started to push the friendship group apart, and even now she feels the shame of it. She has an oddly clear memory of a different moon-hazed summer evening, the London streets softly murmuring with the sounds of homeward drinkers, the distant clunk of car doors and pub landlords shutting up for the night. The low, meandering slap of the water’s edge. Juliet and Liv, sitting either side of her on that canalside wooden bench, holding her hair and rubbing her back as she heaved up on the path between her feet. They’d stuck by her that evening – and so many others like it – way after their own curfews had passed, until she was sober enough to be delivered home, ever hopeful that her house would be quiet with sleep. But that was just a blip, the wilful bingeing of a lonely girl, dealing with her sadness and confusion the only way she knew how. It wasn’t just because her parents were boozers, though she’s sure there are plenty of psychoanalysts out there who’d like to bundle it up in so neat an explanation. Lots of kids go through binge-drinking phases – even Toby, by the sounds of it – and Martha was just one of them. She’s always scoffed when others said, conveniently, that they couldn’t remember a thing after a night’s drinking; Martha nearly always knew what had happened when she was drunk. That was the problem. In fact, that was why, in her late twenties, she gave up drinking once and for all. By then, she didn’t have a problem with remembering her misdeeds; it was forgetting them that she struggled with.

  ‘Well, perhaps that was it,’ she replies with a forced smile, pushing the images back into the shadows. ‘We were probably pissed.’ She stops at a point on the path where the hedge opens up to the street beyond. ‘This is it,’ she says, taking in the old bench that marks the first of the houseboats moored along the canal. ‘Where the bike was found.’ She approaches the bench and reads the inscription: Clara May Avery, beloved wife. It’s the same bench, the same inscription.

  Toby looks up and down the path, bringing out his phone to take pictures from various angles as Martha points to the grass verge at the hedge opening. ‘There were photos of it in the newspaper at the time, when the police were investigating. The bike was here, on its side with the wheel obstructing the path. Apparently the area was combed, but there was no useful forensic evidence collected at all.’

  ‘How do you know that?’ Toby asks.

  ‘I’ve got a contact in the Met – I spoke to him briefly last night and he’s agreed to help us as far as he can.’

  ‘Was he on the original case?’

  Martha nods. ‘Crime Squad. On the sidelines, but he remembers the case well. His name’s Finn Palin, but we’re going to have to tread carefully. He’s retired now and a lot of what he’s already told me is strictly off the record. So keep it to yourself.’

  Toby pulls a face, suspicious.

  ‘And no, I didn’t sleep with him to get the info, if that’s what you’re thinking.’

  ‘I never said—’ Toby starts to protest, before noticing the smirk on Martha’s face.

  She shoves her hands into her pockets, pleased they’ve managed to move on to steadier ground. ‘He knew my dad.’

  ‘Your father was in the police force?’ he asks.

  Martha simply nods, giving no invitation for Toby to probe further. ‘So,’ she says, back to business. ‘The bike was here, just three hundred yards from where I last saw her, according to the police interview I gave the following day.’

  Toby stares at the empty space where Juliet’s bike had once been. ‘It was hardly hidden, was it? If I were going to snatch someone here, I think I’d probably push the bike out of sight so as not to raise the alarm while I made my getaway. Maybe push it into the canal? I wouldn’t leave it sticking out like an advert.’

  Martha turns to Sally and Jay as they catch up. ‘I think thi
s is a good spot for a straight-to-camera piece. If the programme turns into a public appeal, this location may jog memories.’

  Sally removes her parka, tying the arms around her waist like a teenager. ‘You think this is where it happened?’ she asks.

  ‘Maybe,’ Martha replies. ‘Although one of the wheels was found to be flat. So it’s also possible that someone else picked the bike up further along, with a view to stealing it, but found the tyre was bust and dumped it. Someone unrelated to Juliet’s abduction. There were several sets of fingerprints found on the handlebars, none of them a match to anyone on the police database.’

  Jay is setting up the camera to face out towards the houseboats with the bench and path in view. He works silently, a stub of pencil sticking out between coffee-stained teeth, giving Martha a brief nod to indicate when they’re good to go.

  Toby appears deep in thought. ‘Did she normally lock it up?’

  ‘Always. It was a standing joke, because it was such a crappy old bike. Liv used to say no one would nick it even if you tied a ribbon around the handlebars with a sign saying “Help Yourself”. Juliet was a creature of habit, though. She always locked her bike.’

  ‘So the fact that it was found dumped and unlocked seems pretty clear evidence that Juliet was taken by surprise. Wouldn’t you say?’

  ‘Completely. And this is one of the reasons we – Liv and I – were so upset about the police’s conclusion that she’d run away. I know it sounds weird, but even if she was planning to run away, Juliet would still have left her bike neatly padlocked somewhere. She had a strong sense of order about her; she liked things to be a certain way. She was predictable, I suppose. When I heard that none of her belongings had gone from her room, I knew the theory was bullshit. Juliet would never have left without planning it very carefully and precisely – or without leaving a note to draw a line under things. Apart from anything, I know she would never have run away in the first place.’