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

by O. C. S. Francis

  50

  Amber

  The studio is in darkness. Amber was sure they would find Yvey here, but there is no sign of life as they break into the clearing. Amber feels Genevieve’s eyes on her and keeps going towards the building.

  As she slides back the glass door, she sees Yvey sitting cross-legged on the floor in the gloom, her trendy little satchel bag in front of her. She is in the same spot she sat and chatted as Amber started to get to grips with the archive. That was less than a week ago, but it feels like a different time.

  Yvey curses at Amber when she sees her, but doesn’t move.

  ‘You’re not allowed in here anymore. This was Dad’s place. It’s mine now.’ Her voice is angry, pleading and uncertain all at the same time. As she speaks, she clutches her bag closer to her stomach.

  Genevieve comes in behind Amber and turns on one light that glows from the far corner. Yvey sits up a little straighter and stares hard at her mother. The girl’s face is now stern and motionless, but emotion bubbles and boils just below the surface. In return, Genevieve looks almost scared of her daughter, and Amber thinks about Yvey’s teacher, attacked outside her own home.

  Amber speaks first, bringing her out with a lie that can easily be punctured.

  ‘Yvey, tell your mum about last night, how you told me your scooter was stolen.’

  The girl’s mouth stays tightly shut. Genevieve’s face folds into a deep frown.

  ‘Stolen? I don’t understand.’

  ‘That’s what you told me, isn’t it, Yvey?’ says Amber. She is still tiptoeing towards the confrontation, because she knows it will also mean her own confession.

  Yvey is silent, but her mother speaks. ‘You promised me all the lies had stopped.’ Her hands are in fists, her voice querulous. ‘Are you lying about what happened to your face? Tell the truth.’

  ‘I’m not the one lying.’ Yvey’s hand flies up towards her face. ‘Someone attacked me. Amber’s the one who’s lying. She keeps on lying. Even now, she won’t tell you the truth about her and Dad.’

  ‘It’s okay, Yvey, you can tell your mum what you know. You can show your mum your phone and the messages you’ve been sending me. Yes, it’s all right, I know it’s you. And you can tell us both what’s really going on.’

  Yvey looks down. ‘I haven’t got my phone. The mugger took it. I’m telling the truth, I really am. I was using it, and this dude in a bike helmet just jumped me, grabbed it out of my hand. I tried to get it back, but he punched me and pushed me over.’

  Amber looks hard into Yvey, not trusting her words, but seeing that very real black eye, the blood spreading under her skin.

  ‘Tell us what you know, Yvey. Please.’

  ‘You won’t believe me if I do.’

  Genevieve has tears in her eyes again. ‘We will, my darling. I promise.’

  Yvey shifts like she wants to get up and run again. But then she shakes her head and starts to talk about how Benny was often up at night, pacing around the house. She talks about how Benny would go to his studio in the middle of the night, and how she used to creep out into the woods to watch him.

  ‘It was a way of spending time with him.’ Yvey dips her head and sniffs up a tear. The image that comes straight to Amber is the video from Yvey’s Instagram: the lights full on in the studio, the magic glass open, the camera moving around the clearing, and the white-bright building at the centre like a burning beacon.

  ‘After he got sick, he used to go there every night,’ Yvey is saying. ‘I guess he couldn’t sleep — even more than usual. I couldn’t sleep either.’ She throws a sudden sharp glance at her mother. ‘You never seem to have trouble sleeping, do you, Mum?’

  Genevieve’s mouth opens a little as if she is thinking of rebuking her daughter, but she holds her silence.

  ‘He had this old metal box he would keep getting down from the archive. He’d get it out, look at it, then put it away. Over and over. I worked out where he kept it eventually, but it was locked, so I left it alone. He was looking at it the night he died. No, not died, not killed himself. It was the night he was killed. So, yeah, he had the box, but then he put it down and picked up the phone. I crept right up close. The door was a little open, but he didn’t see me. I wish I’d never listened now.’

  ‘What did you hear, darling?’ Genevieve asks, shifting in her chair.

  ‘I couldn’t hear all of it. He kept moving around. But he was saying it was time for the truth. He was talking to the person on the phone like they’d done something bad. Like Dad had too. How he should’ve gone to the police. And Dad was talking about someone else — a girl. Saying he wanted to take the blame before he died.’ She stops and sniffs. ‘I should have tried to record it,’ she adds sulkily.

  Genevieve is frowning at Amber, but Amber is still not ready to speak, still waiting to see where this all leads.

  ‘Then Dad hung up, and he was looking at that box again. Then he… I think he tried to make another call that wasn’t answered. Then he sent a text or put something else in his phone, I dunno.’

  Amber knows what that text must have been. She knows exactly what it said:

  I don’t know if this is still your number. Can we talk?

  ‘Then Dad came out and I hid. I thought he’d gone to bed, so I did too, but I couldn’t sleep. A couple of hours later, I heard him go downstairs.’ Yvey stops. Her eyes are scrunched up, and she buries her face in a hand that rubs and pulls at the skin. ‘I should’ve talked to him. I shouldn’t have let him go out on his bike.’

  She is crying openly now. Genevieve moves towards her daughter and crouches down. She puts her arm around Yvey, who doesn’t protest, but doesn’t lean into the embrace, either.

  ‘I went out of the house and watched him ride off down the drive,’ Yvey goes on. ‘Then I thought I saw a car’s lights go past the end of the drive. Just, like, ten seconds after Dad went. I didn’t really think anything of it then, y’know. I went back in. I went into your room, Mum. He’d left his phone by the bed. Maybe it was wrong to look, I dunno, but I did anyway.’

  ‘I suppose you know my password too,’ says Genevieve ruefully.

  Yvey just looks at her with something approaching pity.

  ‘He’d cleared the phone. His messages, call log, WhatsApp history, all of it. Why would you do that unless you want to hide who you’ve been talking to? Then it started ringing, and I saw who was on the caller ID. I should’ve answered it. Shouldn’t I, Amber?’

  Mother and daughter look at Amber. The similarity to Benny’s face has fallen away from Yvey’s, and for the first time Amber can see a resemblance between mother and daughter. Part of it comes from their shared expressions — faces full of questions and suppressed anger.

  51

  I feel exhausted by everything I’ve seen on Yvey’s phone, but there’s a sense of relief too. There’s nothing in here that identifies me, not directly. There is that picture of Finn, but on its own, it isn’t enough proof for anyone.

  I still don’t understand what Yvey wants from Amber, or what she really knows, even what her game is. Maybe I don’t have to worry about her. From what I’ve heard, she’s pretty cracked. Not a reliable witness.

  Amber is a different problem. Is she really going to tell? I don’t want to have to stop her like I stopped Benny.

  Because I had to do what I did. I didn’t have a choice. He brought it on himself.

  Maybe I shouldn’t have paid attention to a few words thrown out on a late-night interview that no one watches. But it went round and round my head. Then I got wind he was dying. Did he really want to clear his conscience? So I called him. I asked him what he meant, whether he was going to tell.

  ‘Don’t you think it’s time to let it all out into the open?’ he said. That was it. Then he hung up.

  Did he mean it? Was it a joke? I started to think I shouldn’t have called him. Had my call solidified an idea in his head? Had the fear in my voice pushed him over the edge — a drop of vindictiveness to go w
ith his regret?

  After that, he didn’t return any of my calls and messages. Not for weeks, not until that night. Genevieve was away, but Yvey was there. I knew because I’d been watching him for days.

  I messaged him again. I said I was going to come to the farmhouse if he didn’t call me back. It was a bluff. I didn’t want Yvey to see me any more than he did. But it worked. He called me.

  I think deep down he was glad to speak to me. If he really didn’t want to, he would have blocked my number. I knew I would wear him down eventually.

  So now we could talk. It was the first time we’d spoken about it since it happened that wasn’t in coded reference. I tried to draw him away from his mad idea of the truth, but he kept winding closer and closer to it. I told him he couldn’t betray me, that he had to remember I’d done it all for him. I told him the truth wouldn’t help anyone — not his wife, not his daughter, not the girl he’d been with that weekend.

  The girl, the girl. I still didn’t know who it was then, not for certain. But I know now. I can’t avoid the fact anymore, not now I’ve seen what’s on Yvey’s phone.

  ‘I can set her free from this,’ Benny said to me that final night. ‘I can make people understand it wasn’t her fault.’

  ‘It’s way too late for that.’

  ‘Is it? I was the one who wouldn’t go to the police. I was the one who put that stupid idea in your head in the first place. That girl… that poor girl has lived with what she did for long enough.’ Benny sucked in a breath. He had said too much.

  ‘What she did? Oh, that’s news. So you didn’t even do it? She killed Finn. Jesus, Benny. I always thought you’d done it, that all she did was help clean up your mess. You’ve let her live with this all this time, and you think she’ll thank you if you…’

  ‘I’ll call her. Right now, if I have to. We’re the only people who know what happened there. I can take all the blame. If I die without saying anything, it will be with her forever.’

  ‘You know it’s not going to work like that.’

  He couldn’t find an answer, but I couldn’t find any words either. I wanted so much to be able to say something that would stop all this from happening. I wanted to be able to press a reset button for Benny and me and wipe all of this away. Then I hated myself for that thought. And I was angry at him again, at this man who only ever took, never gave. A man who had lied to me and to himself, who wanted forgiveness, but didn’t really care who his confession would hurt.

  After he hung up on me, I sat in my car, the darkness of the country lane all around me. I played the conversation in my head again and again, trying to decide how much he really believed in what he’d just said. Would he really ruin all those lives — ruin my life — when his was already finished? I wanted to look him in the eye and know.

  But it was too late for that. I couldn’t take the chance any longer.

  And here I am again. Sitting in my car in the same place I waited for Benny on his bike that night. Just a little back from the entrance to the driveway, half-shielded by a soft bend and a clump of trees.

  I get out of the car, go round to the boot, and make sure my bag is packed with all the things I might need. If it comes to it. Best to be prepared. Somehow I have to stop all of this.

  I get out my own phone, and I send a message.

  52

  Amber

  ‘Was it you speaking to my husband that night?’ Genevieve asks.

  ‘No. I had a missed call and a message. I called back, but he didn’t answer. I never spoke to him, I swear. I wasn’t the person you heard him talking to, Yvey.’

  Yvey looks crestfallen, and they are all silent for a moment. Then the girl speaks, her voice soft and sad.

  ‘I remember when Dad first showed me your photos, Amber. And when he asked Mum to hang that one of yours in the hallway. I love that picture. You know what, your surname didn’t even come up on his phone. It just said Amber. But I knew. I knew it was you. So when Mum started talking about maybe asking you to do the archive…’ Her voice falls off, and Genevieve jumps into the gap.

  ‘Why didn’t you say something about all this, Yvette? To me, to the police? If you thought something had happened to your father…’

  ‘Because I didn’t know. I wasn’t sure. Because you wouldn’t have believed me.’

  ‘That’s not true.’

  ‘Isn’t it? Isn’t it? You didn’t believe me about Miss Richardson. None of you did. You still don’t. She’s the one who lied about what happened between us, the gaslighting bitch.’

  Genevieve’s eyes are full of doubt. She stands and walks away from her daughter.

  Yvey’s voice comes back softer. ‘After what I found in the box, there was no one I could talk to.’ A hand goes to her satchel and takes out a small brown envelope. It is stuffed full, the distinctive shining blackness of negative strips protruding from the open end. Moving with a studied slowness, Yvey pulls herself to her feet, hooks a few strips from the envelope and places them on the table with the lightbox.

  Genevieve goes for them, but Amber is closer and quicker, grabbing them as if she has just won a round in a fast-moving card game. She has been watching Genevieve’s reaction all this time, but it has been hard to discern, emotion hidden behind a hard frown of concentration.

  ‘I’ll explain, I promise,’ Amber says to Genevieve, then turns her attention back to Yvey. ‘Did you really think I had something to do with your father’s death?’

  ‘I knew you were lying.’

  ‘Why didn’t you just ask me?’

  ‘I did. I kept asking you, and you kept lying.’

  ‘Then why not show me the photographs and demand the truth?’

  ‘Would you have told me? All of it?’

  ‘I would’ve tried.’ But Amber doesn’t believe her own words. She knows she would have lied, made up a hollow story, tried to make it all go away.

  ‘I thought if you trusted me, and if you were scared, then I could make you tell me. I didn’t think you’d just keep on lying.’ Yvey pauses, the steel gone from her face. ‘But I’m sorry. I’m sorry I went too far. I’m sorry about scaring you… I’m sorry you fell… You just wouldn’t tell me the truth.’ Her voice is pitching deeper into the whine.

  ‘And you had help, didn’t you? Someone to send the messages when you were with me.’

  Yvey laughs. It comes from nowhere, and the contrition is gone from her face.

  ‘Man, you are well analogue. You didn’t even think someone might be using a scheduling app?’ She shakes her head as if she is disappointed in Amber, as if she has not turned out to be a worthy adversary.

  ‘But what about the scans of the negatives? The man at my house? Was that Mika? How did you get him to help you?’

  Yvey looks confused for a second. ‘Mika? What? C’mon, you think I don’t know how to scan a negative? Jeez.’

  ‘And who was that who came that night to scare me at my house?’

  Yvey looks down. ‘It doesn’t matter who that was. Leave him out of it. He doesn’t know anything.’

  ‘Who, Yvey?’

  ‘If you have to know, he’s just some guy who’s had a crush on me. Boys are so basic. They’ll do anything if they think they’ll get some.’

  Amber laughs. She can’t help it. It’s that slightly mad laugh. She almost wants to congratulate Yvey. She can see it all much more clearly from her point of view now: the frame, the subject, the intention.

  First the simple questions about her and Benny, then the strip of negatives left among her work, just enough to unnerve her. Next, the photo timed to arrive just when Yvey was with her — the simple misdirection of a scheduled message.

  I see you.

  I see, and I am watching. Watching for a reaction, for a change in Amber’s behaviour.

  What happens next?

  A question, a threat, an invitation to confess. Tightening the ratchet, seeing how much Amber would give at every stage.

  Then the confrontation at her hom
e. Was that the moment Amber was supposed to fold and tell it all? Because after that, the tone in the messages changed: the plaintive demands for the truth, the widening cracks of uncertainty. Not messages from someone who knew the truth and was using it against Amber, but from someone who was still desperately looking for it.

  And in the end, Yvey’s plan has worked in a way. Here they all are, just waiting for the rest of Amber’s confession.

  Amber looks at Genevieve. She has said nothing this whole time, nervously waiting as Amber extracted the truth from Yvey. Amber takes the negatives from under her hand and gives them to Genevieve. Silently, Benny’s widow takes them, switches on the lightbox and begins to examine them.

  Time stretches out as Amber waits for the reaction. Even at this distance she can see the reversed patches of light and shade in the negatives. She knows they are of her body, lying naked on the bed.

  ‘This is you?’ Genevieve says eventually. There isn’t anger or shock in the question. It’s flat, tentative, as if not really wanting to know the answer. She turns away from Amber and looks at her reflection in the studio glass.

  ‘I’m so sorry,’ Amber says to her, and she doesn’t stop talking until she has told all of her story.

  53

  Amber

  She has to get it out, every detail, every syllable. The affair, the cottage, the aftermath. When Amber talks about the intruder, she proffers her phone with the photo of the man illuminated on the screen.

  Genevieve looks at it for a long time, bringing the image towards and away from her face, and tilting it as if it might give her a three-dimensional view into the past. But even when Amber says his name, there is no sense of recognition. Genevieve has no great revelation about who Finn Gallagher might have been to Benny.

  Then Amber relates the events of the last weeks and days, bringing Yvey’s stuttering confession into full view in front of her mother. It feels like a purgation and its own penance. The words hurt to say out loud.