All Your Lies: A gripping psychological thriller that will keep you guessing to the very end

by O. C. S. Francis

  Now, looking at Genevieve, sitting in the dead man’s kitchen, Amber is certain. In her head, she can see Benny tearing up the road on his bike. She wonders if by the time she called him, he was on his bike, speeding to his end. Or was he already dead? And she wonders, if she had called earlier, what they might have said to each other.

  What was it you wanted to tell me, Benny?

  15

  Amber

  Amber is up with the sunrise. She opens the small window in the bathroom and looks across the stripes and patches of green beyond. She has long preferred mornings to evenings. The air is cleaner, the colours have more snap, and the light can only grow, not slip away.

  Her mind feels a little reordered by sleep. She tries not to dwell on the things she and Benny might have said to each other. She also finds she is able to think more calmly about the negatives she found. Even if someone else has seen them, on their own they say very little. They could record a completely platonic moment. And she tells herself that Benny would not have kept the rest of the film. Those few frames were all he ever held onto, just a keepsake of a moment before it all fell apart, squirrelled away in a random box where no one would think to look.

  It feels good to say these things to herself, even though she doesn’t fully believe them.

  Johnny is still sleeping, so rather than showering, she grabs her camera and goes out to walk the grounds. She lazily snaps a few photos, not really putting effort into the shots. In truth, she has always preferred photographing people. Objects and places might be beautiful, but for her they offer no real moment of connection. When you photograph people, you become part of the image. Even if you would rather not be.

  After a light breakfast, she goes to the studio. She works quickly and more systematically than yesterday, taking strategic samples from the box files rather than trying to delve through them one at a time. She pretends to herself that this method has nothing to do with increasing the odds of stumbling across the rest of the negatives from the cottage.

  All the thoughts she has this morning are in part an act of willpower. She is falling back on all the cognitive tricks she learned first from psychologists when she was a teenager, and then relearned from books when she was in her twenties. It is a little toolbox she can reach into when she needs to shut down the anxiety and catastrophic thinking.

  But as she works, the good and bad thoughts come and go in waves: relief she has not found the rest of the film, and dread that this means it might still be in there somewhere.

  Towards the end of the morning, Yvey saunters in and sits cross-legged on the floor, her headphones on. They smile at each other, but don’t say much. Yvey just lets Amber work, and Amber can see her flicking through Instagram on her phone. Amber thinks about their interrupted conversation yesterday, and Genevieve’s hope she might be someone Yvey can talk to.

  Amber puts down the frame of slide film she has been holding against the lightbox and spins in her chair to face Yvey. She tries to ease in, asking her about some of her video art, but Yvey only half engages. So she holds her breath and dives in.

  ‘Your mum told me about your dad’s diagnosis. That must have been really hard. If you need to talk about what you’re feeling…’

  ‘Does it help? The talking.’

  ‘Sometimes it can.’

  ‘Doesn’t stop him being dead though, does it?’ Her voice is calm, but there is a low note of anger that breaks through more clearly in the next sentence. ‘He should have had more time.’

  ‘I know, it doesn’t seem fair. Has your mum… has she said anything to you about…’ Amber deliberately leaves the sentence hanging. She doesn’t want to confront Yvey with Genevieve’s ideas. But she does want to know what the girl is feeling, how much and what she is trying to process. Yvey’s response is immediate.

  ‘Yeah, Dad didn’t kill himself, if that’s what you mean.’

  ‘I know it’s hard to accept.’ And why should she accept it? Amber never accepted it when people suggested that was what her own father had done. They were seldom direct about it, but they dropped their hints. They asked why such a knowledgeable sea swimmer would go out beyond those rocks in that tide.

  ‘I know Mum thinks it was suicide. But he wouldn’t do that.’

  ‘I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have…’

  ‘It’s okay,’ she says, but she doesn’t look it. She looks very sad and very lost. Amber wants to give her a hug, and has one of those moments where she realises how distant she has been from her close friends, how much she misses their physicality. She hopes this year will be different.

  The glum look goes from Yvey’s face, as if she is forcing herself to seem brighter. She stands up and comes over to the lightbox. The slide film on the box is a set from the early 2000s, right at the end of the film era: vivid Kodachrome of India, a deluge of reds and greens and rich browns.

  Amber is about to start talking to Yvey about the images when a buzz from her right distracts her. It is her phone, glowing softly with a new notification. She picks it up. A WhatsApp message. She unlocks the phone with a press of her thumbprint. Probably Johnny being lazy, she is thinking.

  It’s not Johnny. It’s an account she doesn’t have in her phone. Just a mobile number and a white silhouette in a grey circle. She thinks back to the message and missed call the night Benny died. But it’s not that number either. And it’s not Sam. It’s someone new.

  The message is a picture. She has her WhatsApp set so it doesn’t automatically download the images. There is just a blurred box on the screen, teasing a preview of the photo. But even in the blur she can see the frame within the frame. She can see there is a sitting figure. Even before she taps to download the full image, she has a tingling sense of what she is going to see.

  It is a woman holding a wine glass, sitting in profile. She is framed in the rectangle of a sliding door, pushed open. It is Amber at the cottage beside the sea.

  The phone buzzes again. Another message. Just words this time.

  I see you.

  Amber feels the floor go underneath her.

  16

  Friday, 31 January 2020, 2 a.m.

  The road ahead is a tunnel of black. Just the small rolling cones of light from my car’s headlamps and the weaving red dot of the motorbike’s tail light. He is going fast, taking the curves in the middle of the road.

  I accelerate to catch him. My lights flash off the pale trunks of the passing trees and glow in the patches where the rain hasn’t dried. The vibrations of the uneven tarmac rise up through the car, into my hands wrapped tight around the steering wheel.

  I’m closer at the next corner. I watch as the rider leans strongly into it. When he straightens, he flicks his head back to see who is behind him.

  We are on a straight. My foot is right down on the accelerator. My headlamps are on full. A few more seconds and I’m right behind him. He tries to move a little to the side to let me overtake, but I’m not interested in that. I ease off.

  I think for a moment he is going to brake, pull out to the right and drop behind me. Or squeeze by on my inside. I give the wheel a flick back and forth, swerving in the road. He opens up the throttle again and pulls away.

  We take the next curves more steadily, and it feels as much a race as a chase.

  ‘Are you enjoying this, Benny?’ I say to him in my head. ‘I think a little bit of you is. Is there a void that’s felt empty for a while? Have you missed this thrill? Isn’t this how you would rather it happened?’

  The road is open now, fields on either side, long and straight, rising up. Both of us are pushing our speed. He is getting away from me. But then we’re back in the cover of trees, and the road starts to wind again.

  I’m a bit too eager on a corner, and I nearly lose it, the side of my car fizzing as it scrapes along the undergrowth. But it gets me close, really close. I’m almost touching the bare back tyre of his bike with my bumper.

  I know my lights must be blinding him now if he looks in the mir
ror, but he keeps his head down and forward, giving it all he dares on the next bend. Another brief straight and he’s away. But I know the next corner. A zigzag warning sign in its red triangle zips past, then the black-and-white stripes of the chevrons are ahead.

  He brakes at the last minute. I brake a moment later, slamming to a halt, but not before I’ve caught the back wheel of the bike as it turns. My car skids a little, and I steer into it, just on the edge of control. But Benny has lost his. I see the bike wobble, Benny struggling to hold it, then the front wheel goes the wrong way, and it almost flips. It is down, on top of him, still moving. It’s ploughing forwards along the road and into the crash barriers. They bend and buckle with the impact.

  I cut my engine, and the noise of the bike fades too. For a moment there’s no sound at all other than my own breathing in my head like a hurricane.

  I watch for a few moments. Then I see movement. A foot twitching and flapping, then a hand.

  I grab a small pouch from the glove compartment and reach down into the passenger seat footwell, where my hand finds a motorcycle helmet. Just to be safe. Just so he can’t see my face if anything doesn’t go to plan.

  Then I’m out of the car and round to the boot. I take out the petrol can, stick the pouch under my arm, and reach back in for the torch. It’s one of those big powerful Maglites that could double as a cosh.

  I get to him and am relieved to see he’s completely trapped by the bike. Still moving, but fitfully, and with no sounds coming from under his helmet. I shine the torch at his leathers. They seem to be intact, and I can’t see any blood, but I don’t know what it looks like inside. Even so, it’s hard to take. I almost throw up inside my helmet, but just manage to keep it down.

  I go a little closer. ‘I’m so sorry, Benny,’ I say softly. ‘But it’s better this way. Better for everyone.’

  I feel the weight of the petrol can in my hand and put it on the ground next to me. I take the pouch from under my arm, feeling the shape of the syringe full of the potassium chloride I’ve cooked up. Lots of low-sodium salt and a bit of bleach. Enough to stop his heart.

  Using either is a risk. But leaving him alive is a bigger one now.

  I lean over and see the petrol cap on the bike is still intact, and there is no petrol leaking from the tank.

  No, that won’t do.

  I take out the syringe.

  I feel sick again. This time I vomit in my mouth and have to swallow it.

  I’m weak. I can’t do it. I can’t breathe.

  I go back to the car, pulling off the helmet, gasping. I look at the dashboard clock. Quarter past two in the morning. How long can I wait? How long before someone else comes down this road?

  I give it ten minutes, then twenty, then half an hour. Each minute passes like a year.

  I get out and go back to the bike. Benny’s body is still. Carefully, I pick my way around the wreckage and pull the edge of a glove down. No response. I take his pulse. Nothing. I step back. It is over.

  Benedict Raine is dead.

  17

  Amber

  Amber is aware of Yvey speaking to her, but her words are white noise. Amber presses the side of the phone, and the photo disappears. She needs air. She goes to the door of the glass box and slides it open. Breathing slowly, she looks out into the clearing and the woods beyond.

  I see you.

  Yvey has come to her side. ‘You okay? What’s up?’

  ‘Sorry, I just… I just got some bad news about a friend.’ She reaches inside for a memory, something to embellish a story, but she lets the feeling go. Never elaborate on your lies until you have to. Buy time to think. She’s learned that.

  ‘Oh… sorry.’

  ‘Think I might just take a bit of a walk.’

  She steps outside, but doesn’t know where to go. She doesn’t want to leave the studio, gripped by a wave of agoraphobia. And she doesn’t want to be where anyone will see her — especially not Johnny, not Genevieve. But she’s committed now and goes on out, walking around the studio and into the woods away from the house. The wind plays in the trees around her as she imagines walking on and on, never turning back.

  She compels herself to look at her phone again, opening WhatsApp. But the image is gone. The message is gone. In front of her is written, twice over:

  This message was deleted.

  It takes a moment to remember that you can delete a message for everyone in a WhatsApp chat. Does it delete the image from your phone? Amber can’t remember. She searches through her image gallery, through all the folders, but the photo is gone, as if it never existed, as if she imagined it. She has to look back at the thread once more.

  This message was deleted.

  This message was deleted.

  She takes a couple of slow breaths, reaching for her mental toolbox, trying to repeat to herself the calm thoughts she had this morning about what she found in the archive. The thoughts feel even emptier now.

  She thinks about the negatives and images in her handbag. Where is the bag? Where did she leave it? She is gripped by a need to destroy the negatives and the photos, before being overwhelmed by a sense of hopelessness. What’s the point? Someone already has them.

  She goes back to WhatsApp and types:

  Who is this?

  But she can’t bring herself to send it. A tiny, childlike part of her brain is pretending that if she ignores it, then it’s not real. She starts to bargain in her head.

  Someone knows a secret about you, Amber. That’s okay. You’ve lived with this secret before. You’ve always lived with this secret. It did send you mad, though.

  A tiny laugh escapes from her mouth. Like a lunatic. She is allowed to think like that. She is allowed to call it crazy and lunatic and mental, because it is what she went through. It is hers. Hers like her secrets.

  She walks slowly back to the studio. Yvey is gone, and there is nothing more from her phone. It does not buzz, and the screen does not glow.

  At lunchtime, Amber steps through the French doors into the kitchen and feels as if her thoughts must be written all over her face. Johnny is at the table with his MacBook open and his headphones on, fiddling with tracks in mixing software. Genevieve is setting cold cuts out, and Yvey is dancing hot baked potatoes in her hands from the oven to the table. Mother and daughter appear to be in conversation, as if the force field that was there between them last night has broken down. The radio is on, lilting out classical music.

  The scene is so calm and convivial. It is as if they are all in cahoots. As if this is all some sort of sick practical joke, and someone is about to shout Surprise! and project the rest of the pictures from the roll of film on the wall.

  Amber sits down next to Johnny. He unplugs his headphones, leans over and kisses her on the cheek. She feels hot. He must notice her reddened skin.

  ‘You okay?’ he says very quietly, almost just mouthing it. She nods and forces a smile. ‘I came to see you…’ he says a little louder, but still under the hubbub of family conversation and music. ‘But Yvey said you got some bad news and went for a walk.’

  ‘Uh… yeah.’ Her mind scrambles. It fixes without premeditation on her old friend Grace, thousands of miles away. Someone Johnny knew, but only fleetingly. A keeper of secrets. ‘Yeah, it was Grace.’ Amber lets herself pause, thinking Johnny might take a few moments to catch up. He is narrowing his eyes.

  ‘You know, Grace Hughes. I was at school with her. Doctor, moved to New Zealand. Anyway, her… her husband, Dave…’ She reaches for just enough detail. ‘He had a nasty accident.’

  ‘What happened?’

  Her mind goes blank. She nearly says skiing, but quickly catches herself, remembering it is early autumn in New Zealand. Shit shit shit. ‘Dave’s into all sorts of extreme sports. It sounds like his quad bike rolled on him.’ She feels a breath of relief leave her, convinced at her own plausibility. ‘They think he’s going to be okay. I found myself thinking about their kids… and I just had a moment. I needed a bit of
air.’

  Johnny reaches across and squeezes her hand, then places it on her stomach. And she hates herself.

  It is a long time before she can think calmly and rationally about the message on her phone. It has helped to return to the studio, where she doesn’t need to look at anyone. With all the windows switched to opaque, she feels almost protected by the isolation of the place. She is pacing. The movement is helping her think.

  The names and intentions of the people who could have sent the message bounce around in her head. The actions of a jealous grieving widow tormenting her dead husband’s love? What is there to gain in that? It doesn’t square with Genevieve’s kindness and generosity. Nor does Genevieve seem like a woman who has time for games.

  And what might that picture of Amber mean to Yvey? It’s from a time before she even existed.

  She tries to think about Mika and Sam. She can see them less clearly and knows nothing of their history, their feelings, their real identities under the briefly glimpsed exteriors.

  She even thinks about Johnny. She can construct an idea of him finding the pen drive and sending the message — but it bears no relation to the person she knows. He couldn’t do this. He’s too much on the surface, too easy to read. At least that’s how he’s always seemed to her. Maybe that’s her blindness.

  She feels almost dizzy and stops pacing, trying to stay for a moment in one place. She thinks about the rest of the negatives: the pictures she knows about, and the ones she doesn’t. There are only two other photos on that roll she knows about for sure. Benny took one, and she took the other. Even though she’s never seen it, it’s the second of these, the one she took, that makes her feel cold to her core.