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

by Isabel Ashdown

  Two days later a postcard arrived from Prague, bearing nothing more than the letter ‘D’ and a kiss. ‘I’ve seen him, Katherine,’ she told me as I sat at the kitchen table, turning the card over in my fingers. ‘I’ve seen him, and he looks so well, though he misses us terribly. But he’s alive and well! Isn’t that the most wonderful news?’

  ‘When will he be home?’ I asked then, and each subsequent year on the arrival of his postcard.

  ‘Soon, darling,’ she’d say each time, adding the postcard to our growing collection. ‘Soon, I’m quite sure.’

  As I sit here on this bottom step thinking about him and her, about the lies she’s told me over the years – the secrets she’s made me keep – I allow myself to wonder, is ‘soon’ now? Could Dad really be coming home?

  33. Martha

  Katherine is sitting at the foot of the steps, her face in her hands, the knife on the wooden floor beside her. As Martha sees it there are two barriers to their rushing past her to make their escape: the knife, and their impaired motor skills. Even if Liv and Martha did have speed on their side, they’d have to get past Katherine first, and right now her broad frame entirely blocks their passage.

  ‘Do you think she wants to hurt us?’ Liv whispers.

  ‘No,’ Martha is quick to answer, but in truth she’s growing increasingly worried about the way Katherine’s attention – and mood – flits from one extreme to the next. On the one hand she says she wants to be their friend, but on the other there is a tone of reproach in the way she addresses them, as though she’s working out unfinished business. Martha’s also concerned about Liv. She feels groggy herself, but Liv seems so much more so. It was the same when they were younger, she recalls, when Liv would start to show signs of inebriation after just one drink. Right now, if Martha were to make an attempt at overpowering Katherine, she couldn’t count on Liv’s ability to back her up.

  ‘Then why do you look so worried?’ Liv asks.

  ‘That phone call she made – I think she may have been speaking to David Crown.’

  Liv looks aghast. ‘But I thought … I assumed … you don’t think he’s on his way here, do you?’

  ‘I don’t know—’ Martha replies, just as Katherine struggles to her feet, crosses over to the bookcase and pulls out a photo album.

  She places it on the table between them, turning it sideways on so they can all view the pages together. The first few pages contain pictures of the young Katherine, on this very boat, some showing her with her father and in others with the large bearded man she must have referred to earlier as John. In all of the pictures, she’s smiling, relaxed – sitting in deckchairs, washing windows, waving at the photographer.

  ‘You look happy,’ Liv says.

  ‘I was,’ Katherine replies. ‘We were very close, Dad and I.’

  ‘And John? Did you know him long?’ Martha asks, aware that her words are coming out mushy. Even now, she can’t resist the urge to investigate, to add lines between the ever-increasing dots.

  ‘Oh, yes. I’d known John since I was quite small. I used to pretend he was my grandfather.’ Katherine conceals a smile and continues to turn the pages, pausing when she reaches the familiar news article photo taken at the Square Wheels cabin. She points to each of the volunteers in the picture: ‘Jo, me, Dad, Juliet, Tom.’

  The next photograph is one of her on a bicycle, a red cardigan visible beneath her white Square Wheels tabard, her extraordinarily long, dark hair fanning out in the breeze. Even through her blue jeans it’s clear to see that her knees are wider than her thighs, that there’s not an ounce of spare fat on her. She’s cycling along the towpath, and the image is so familiar to Martha that it quite halts her ability to speak. A flash of red and white in the darkness. A feeling of guilt and, what – relief? Gratitude? It’s there, and then it’s gone. Is it the effect of the drugs or simply her rubbish memory?

  To Martha’s surprise, the next few pages show a full set of pictures chronicling the summer boat trip David Crown took them on as a thank-you for their work on the Garden of Reflection. The details of this occasion have grown clearer to Martha over the past couple of weeks, to the point that she can now remember them all setting off together, having taken instruction from the boat’s owner at the canalside. What she also recalls now is that David Crown’s wife had been there too, as they boarded. She had been dressed immaculately in a pale lilac shift dress, her dark hair piled into a high twist, her carefully made-up eyes assessing each of them as she passed the hamper of sandwiches and drinks over the side. As David started the motors and they’d set sail, she’d squinted sternly against the bright sunshine and waved them off. It was that image and Liv’s whispered words that Martha recalls in particular: ‘Blimey. She looks like she just lost a pound and found a penny.’ They’d laughed behind David’s back as he steered his way along the lock; laughed at his grumpy-looking wife and joked that it was no wonder he’d rather hang out with a bunch of teenagers. The hairs rise on Martha’s arms, and she shudders at the thought.

  ‘I wasn’t there that day,’ Katherine says, with something like sadness. ‘They’re Dad’s pictures. Mum said I had already overdone it, helping out at the old swimming pool the weekend before. She and Dad had quite an argument about it, but, of course, she won. I was desperate to come. It was so unfair. I just wanted to be part of it all.’

  Martha and Liv pull the album towards them, for a moment forgetting themselves as they pore over these ancient images of them paddling in the water, climbing the riverside trees, picnicking on the bank. There’s the two of them, along with Juliet and Tom, with David Crown only featuring in a couple of the photos, in which case Tom’s absence suggests it must have been him taking the picture with David’s camera. In one, they’re lined up on the boat giving a silly military salute, David in central position in a tatty captain’s hat, Juliet and Liv on one side, Martha on the other. All of them smile towards the camera’s lens, except for Martha, whose laughing face looks up towards David, as though he’s said something hilarious.

  Her stomach lurches at the picture, and all at once that earlier image collides with a new realisation.

  That night, when she’d walked away from Juliet on the towpath, a cyclist had passed her, travelling in Juliet’s direction, and Martha had been relieved to see it was another Square Wheels volunteer. Martha had been a bit worse for wear, and the cyclist had passed by in too much of a blur for her to see exactly who it was, but she’d caught enough of a glimpse to know the girl was wearing a red top beneath her white tabard, with a dark ponytail flowing behind her, as long as a horse’s tail.

  ‘It was you on the towpath that night,’ Martha says, roughly turning the pages back until she reaches the image again.

  ‘What do you mean?’ Katherine asks.

  ‘You were there, weren’t you? When I left Juliet that night, Katherine – you saw her, didn’t you? You saw her on the towpath before she went missing.’ Martha’s head is throbbing, and she feels nauseous. She wants to ask Katherine what she put in their coffee, but she has to keep her focused, has to keep herself focused.

  Katherine snaps the album shut and snatches it to her chest, her eyebrows knitting together. ‘I saw all sorts of things, Martha Benn!’ she barks, a petulant rise in her voice. ‘And not just on that night!’ She looks like a child, rebuked for stealing biscuits from the jar.

  Could Katherine be Juliet’s killer? Is Toby’s theory possible – that David Crown covered up his daughter’s crime before disappearing himself, in a bid to divert suspicion from her? Katherine is certainly crazy enough, and she has a strength and reckless temper that Martha knows only too well. If Katherine is behind Juliet’s death, she and Liv are in real danger. They have to get off this boat and away from her as quickly as possible.

  Overhead, there’s a distinct clunk as a hard heel lands on the deck, and with hope Martha visualises Toby clambering over the side in his polished Italian brogues, more suited to the boardroom than the waterside. Is it on
e o’clock yet? Please, please let this be Toby, come to help them out of this mess.

  Katherine’s head snaps towards the staircase and back to her two captives, warning in her fierce expression.

  ‘Katherine, you can’t keep us here forever,’ Martha says gently. ‘Toby’s here now. Why don’t I go up and see him, while you make him a drink?’

  ‘It’s not Toby, silly!’ she replies tartly. ‘I told you, we’re expecting a visitor. Now, please, best behaviour!’

  Martha’s worst fears are confirmed when she realises that there are no voices as she’d expect if it were Toby and the others, but just a single set of footsteps that have come to a halt beyond the wooden hatch at the top of the staircase. Could this really be David Crown, after all those years in hiding? Does he really think he can just return to the scene of the crime, and start again as though nothing ever happened?

  ‘Who is it?’ Liv asks, but Katherine is too preoccupied to hear her, too busy straightening her blouse, running her fingers through her hair.

  ‘Do I look alright?’ she asks Martha and Liv, but neither of them replies. Like her, their attention is fixed on the wooden hatch, intent on finding out who is on the other side of that door. Terror courses through Martha as her mind flits about, searching for any possible ways in which they might escape from this madness unscathed. If it is David Crown, what can he want with them? Does he want to silence Martha as he did Juliet, knowing as he must by now that her evidence has caused the police to reopen Juliet’s case? But what good would it do him?

  The door at the top slams open, and, to Martha’s pulse-thumping astonishment, the feet that appear don’t belong to David Crown at all. They are the court-shoe-clad feet of his wife, Janet Crown. And, unlike the last time they met, she looks really quite well. And really quite fierce.

  34. Katherine

  ‘Katherine,’ Mum says curtly, hesitating on her way down the steps to bolt the door behind her. She’s dressed up, her face fully made-up, her patchy scalp hidden beneath her favourite French twist wig. She pauses at the bottom step and surveys the small space, running her eyes over Martha and Liv, before fixing back on me. ‘You’ve put on weight, I see. And your hair, God help us!’

  I daren’t look at my friends, I’m so embarrassed. I should say something! I should show them, and her, that I’m not afraid any more. That I’m my own person these days, with my own house, making my own decisions!

  ‘That’s rude,’ I say, but really it’s just a mumble by the time it comes out.

  Mum walks over to the seating area, tippy-tappy on her shiny shoes, but she doesn’t sit down, instead choosing to stand with her back to the sink, her patent handbag still hooked over the crook of her arm. There’s a sneer on her face and I know it’s because she hates this lovely boat. She always has.

  ‘So that hairy old tramp left this floating heap to you, did he?’ she says, because she’s only just getting over the news of it. When I called her and told her where I was, she refused to come until she heard I had Martha and Liv here, and that I was going to tell them everything I know. Well, that did it, because here she is now, not half an hour later. She may seem calm and in control, but she must be worried because why else would she set foot on this ‘floating heap’ as she calls it?

  I jut out my chin. ‘If you’re talking about John, yes, he did. And I’m very grateful for it!’

  ‘So what about that house you bought with my money? How’s it working out for you, living on your own? Not very well, I’d say, judging by the size of you.’ Now, incredibly, she looks to Martha and Liv, pulling a face that says: Isn’t she a selfish girl? Isn’t she a disgusting fatty?

  ‘You gave me that money, after Granny died.’

  ‘You extorted it from me, you mean.’

  Extorted is a little on the strong side, I want to say, and I open my mouth to speak but she holds up a silencing hand. I know what she’s thinking. Not in front of the guests.

  ‘I’ve told you before, Katherine, don’t call her Granny. You never even knew the woman.’

  It’s true. I had a grandmother somewhere, and I never even met her. Mum would visit her once a year, but always alone, packing a small suitcase and disappearing for a few nights at a time. I suspected that Granny was rich, because my mother would return every time with a new outfit and hairdo, smelling of expensive perfume. Once I heard Dad ask her, ‘Have you told her about us yet?’ and I wondered what on earth he could mean.

  Martha is staring at Mum with an intensity that I can’t quite read, and I think I need to take control somehow, though I’m not entirely sure how. I have no plan, no clear idea what I think will happen now that Mum is here. All I know is that I want to get to the truth of it all, before I go mad with the not knowing. I have so many conflicting versions of the past, so many adaptations of the same events that now I can’t tell which were dreams and which were real, or which were put there by other people. By Mum. That’s all I want: the truth – that, and Martha and Liv’s friendship.

  I pick up the stove kettle and refill it at the sink, trying to conjure up some semblance of normality. ‘Mum, this is Martha and Liv. This is my mother, Janet.’

  ‘We’ve met,’ Mum says with a cursory hand flick towards Martha. ‘She came asking questions about your father. Another vulture, I’m afraid, Katherine.’

  ‘Martha’s not a vulture!’ I protest, but Mum dismisses my comment with the slow arching of one eyebrow.

  ‘She’d got it into her head that your father is dead. But I put her straight, and showed her all the postcards he’s sent to me over the years. You’ve seen them, haven’t you, Katherine?’

  ‘Yes …’ I reply, but I’m feeling uncertain now, because I know that tone of voice. It’s the one she uses when she’s trying to make something sound better than it really is. When she’s lying.

  ‘What about Juliet?’ Martha asks, speaking for the first time since Mum’s arrival. ‘Do you really believe he had nothing to do with her disappearance?’

  ‘Of course he didn’t,’ Mum replies. ‘Her disappearance was nothing to do with us. What reason could David possibly have for doing harm to that girl?’

  ‘If he wanted to be in a relationship with her,’ Martha replies. ‘Perhaps she spurned his advances? Maybe he couldn’t risk her letting anyone know?’

  Mum slams the palms of her hands against the tabletop, thrusting her face forward until it is just inches from Martha’s. Liv has shrunk as far back against the window as is humanly possible.

  Mum spits out the words with precision. ‘David was NOT interested in that girl! And she did not “spurn his advances” as you so disgustingly put it!’

  ‘How can you be sure?’ Martha replies, unmoved.

  ‘Because I can!’ Mum shrieks, and she turns towards me, grabbing hold of my coat sleeve and tugging me to her side. ‘Tell them, Katherine!’ she says. ‘You tell them exactly what you told me. Tell them what you saw!’

  And now I don’t know what to say, because it was all my fault, what happened that night, me and my stupid pride, and my stupid mouth! Mum slaps me hard across the cheek, and it’s Liv who screams at her to stop, not me, and I want to throw my arms around Liv and say, thank-you-thank-you-thank-you for being my friend. For taking my side over hers!

  ‘If she won’t tell you what happened, then I will,’ Mum says now, picking up the knife that I’d left on the side, tapping the flat of the blade against the heel of her hand. ‘It was David who spurned her advances. She was all over him, and he rejected her! There! What do you make of that?’ She looks so pleased with herself that I think perhaps she will just leave now, just clip-clop her feet back up those steps and disappear forever. I wish I’d never asked her here in the first place.

  Liv is shaking her head, and Martha looks stunned. They don’t believe it; they don’t believe anything could have happened between Juliet and my dad. And they’d be right.

  ‘Jules wasn’t interested in David Crown,’ Liv murmurs, to herself as much as anyon
e else.

  Martha’s expression grows distant, as though she’s searching for something just outside of her grasp. Now she looks at me. ‘Katherine, what does your mother mean, “Tell them what you saw”?’

  No more lies. No more lies, I tell myself. That’s why I wanted Mum here, so that the truth might come out once and for all. No more lies! ‘It was you, Martha,’ I say at last. ‘The week before Juliet disappeared. It was you I saw kissing Dad in the Square Wheels cabin.’

  The bitter cold of that night had been almost intolerable, and Mum was growing increasingly belligerent about the fact that Dad was working so many evenings at Square Wheels lately. He’d tried to explain to her that there had been a new influx of homeless along the riverside recently, that the meals service was needed more now than ever before, but she’d got jealous and spiteful, and I was taking the brunt of it in his absence. Things between Mum and me had deteriorated steadily, ever since I’d had to pull out of sixth form with ill health before the first term had even started, only to find out some weeks later that she’d been poisoning my breakfast with laxatives to keep me thin. To keep me weak. I’d been rebelling, in some small way, spending more time on John’s boat, earning a bit of money here and there, running errands for him and his neighbours. Every penny went on feeding myself up again, albeit unconsciously, on doughnuts and crisps and chocolate bars and fizzy drinks. Each mouthful was a victory, a punch in the air, a two-fingered salute; a secret of my own that she could never take away from me. If I’d been less of a coward I’d have confronted her, told her about my secret bingeing, but no, instead I used Dad against her and it all backfired in the most horrible of ways.

  I’d been on John’s boat that evening, delaying the moment of returning home as I knew Dad would be at Square Wheels until late. I didn’t want to see Mum, not if there was a chance she’d still be in the cutting mood I’d left her in earlier. As I cycled along the towpath, it occurred to me I could meet Dad at the cabin instead – I’d help him to clear up with the other volunteers, and we could walk home together. Mum would leave me alone if Dad was with me. She’d be too preoccupied with questioning him to bother with me.