Beautiful Liar: a gripping suspense thriller

by Louise Mullins

  My eyes were still resting on hers, when Erica appeared in the doorway ten minutes later. Neither of us heard her enter the house.

  'What's going on?' she said, noting the flush of guilt on Rose's cheeks.

  I pleaded with my eyes for Rose to keep our conversation a secret, not caring less about what almost happened afterwards, but it only seemed to cause friction in the air between us.

  The pause forced me to speak. I've lived so long in a silent house; I cannot bear it any longer.

  'Rose was just dropping by to see you. I offered her lunch while she waited.'

  'Looks cosy,' said Erica, slugging off her coat and leaving it to hang on the back of a chair, spinning around to switch on the kettle. 'Tea?'

  Rose didn’t detect the hint of jealousy in Erica's voice, but I wouldn't expect her to. She thinks she knows everything about Erica, but she doesn't know her like I do.

  'Erica, why don't you sit down,' said Rose, nodding her head, motioning for me to leave.

  I feigned confusion, pretending not to understand what her head nodding and eye rolling meant.

  'Joel and I have been talking, and…'

  'About me, I presume?'

  I offered Rose a scornful look, hoping she didn’t mention what I thought she was going to.

  'I love you, doll, why didn't you tell me?'

  I breathed a sigh of relief.

  'Tell you what?' she questioned, visibly enjoying the fact with Rose here, Erica can say what she likes, and I cannot stop her.

  Both of them were playing me.

  I really didn't think this through. I had assumed I'd taken precautions for events like this; I'd made Erica understand how dangerous it would be for her to divulge any part of our intimate life to another person, especially an interfering slag like Rose.

  'I really think we should discuss this in the living room,' I said, knowing Erica couldn't possibly be stupid enough to say the wrong thing in front of our wedding photograph, hanging on the wall above the fireplace in the living room; a visual metaphor she was mine, and I would never let anyone, or anything, come between us. I also hoped Rose noticed, too, and didn’t tell Erica she almost betrayed her.

  Rose hesitated, before following me out of the kitchen, and into the open doorway of the living room. Erica stayed rooted to the spot behind us.

  'Come on.' Rose motioned for Erica to hurry.

  I grasped Erica's hand in mine, and gave it a little squeeze to confirm she understood I expected to do all of the talking.

  Once seated, I selected my words carefully, reiterating my prior conversation with Rose, missing out the parts where I'd instigated discussion on the state of Erica's psychological health. And, of course, failing to mention Rose and I had almost fucked over the dining table.

  'I . . .' she stopped, not sure what to say.

  'It's okay,' I pressed her. 'Tell her.'

  'It's true. I haven't felt the same since the attempted break-in. But, that's not the reason I've been a little withdrawn lately. I feel like I'm losing myself.'

  'Oh, honey, I had no idea.' Rose sat on the armrest, placing her hand on Erica's shoulder, offering me a warning glance.

  She looked down to where Erica's hand sat below mine, and I deliberately pulled it away, not wanting Rose to think I was, in any way, trying to control the conversation.

  'You need to get out more. Tell her, Joel. She has to come out with us. It's the only way to break the cycle.'

  I sensed a deliberate plot in Rose's words to unsettle me so I acted nonchalant in my reply.

  'I agree. Why don't you both do a spot of shopping on Saturday?'

  'Really?' Erica said.

  I could feel my jaw clenching so I took Erica's hand in mine, and jabbed my thumbnail hard into the skin of her palm in warning, making sure Rose couldn’t see what was happening right in front of her big nose.

  Erica's eyes widened slightly, and her eyes watered.

  'Oh, don't cry, honey. It'll be okay. I'll look after you. You know I won't let anything happen to you.' Rose squeezed Erica’s shoulder.

  I thought maybe I had gotten away with my silent warning, but when Rose spoke again it was, without a doubt, the most well-versed and oddly fitting question she could have conjured. 'What are you afraid might happen to you, if you leave?'

  PRESENT

  ROSE

  I've been following the case online, and it seems some kind of agreement between the investigating officers has been reached. The pathologist's report states Joel died from a perforated artery caused by an accidental and fatal injury. An unavoidable incident caused by the force of the weight, as the car fell onto the torque he held in his hand; he stabbed himself in the chest.

  I haven't seen Erica since the funeral. She acted the grieving widow, read her eulogy, without so much as a hint of relief, and afterwards, we came back to the house for a wake. It seemed the only people upset over Joel's death were a handful of old clients and his boss. His parents didn't attend. A second-cousin did, though. We spoke briefly, while Erica brought out the canapés and wine to toast Joel's life. I graced his death with one look and a wink toward Erica, who stood in the doorway with a tissue to her eyes, rubbing them until they grew sore, making her look as though she was crying.

  Kate, the cousin, told me when Joel was a little boy, he loved animals. He had an affinity with younger children. Anyone weaker than him became an instant friend. She told me his cat went missing when he was eight years old, and he howled the place down for days. His mum had to keep him home from school. It seems he wasn't always a manipulative, lying, bastard, so I've no idea what made him become the man he was.

  As I left the funeral to return to my car, I found a man leaning against the wall, smoking a cigarette. I joined him, and we got talking. He had something interesting to say about Joel. Something which made everything click into place. You see, I suspected there was another reason Erica was too frightened to leave him, but what he had to say shook even those thoughts away.

  I know what really happened in that house between her and Joel. I noticed the thick atmosphere the moment he invited me into the lifeless but beautiful home. A house I'd never seen past the entrance from the front door. I knew the moment I had been allowed to enter their secret world something awful had gone on in there. You could almost taste it in the air; a sickness. It was like the house sat below a dark shadow.Something must have changed. Joel had kept Erica from me for years, so why would he invite me in then?

  I found out the moment he stood up from the table with his hand wrapped around mine. I pushed the chair back and made to leave, yanking my hand away from his, but he stuck one foot between mine. With his legs separating my own, pushed me backwards, so I had to place a hand behind me to steady myself on the glass dining table.

  'What are you doing, Joel?'

  'I know you want me.'

  'No, I don't.'

  'You're a worse liar than her,' he spat.

  He shoved me down hard so the edge of the glass table was pressed against my back. A sudden wave of nausea flooded me. I was terrified the bloody table was going to collapse beneath me and shatter, cutting me all over. I dared not move. I could barely breathe.

  'Get off me.' I thumped his chest.

  But he didn’t react.

  'Erica is my best friend. What do you think is going to happen?' I plead, for a pliable side to him, but he doesn't waver.

  He leaned over me. I could smell the thick aroma of his aftershave, and feel his hot breath on my face.

  'You can't do this!' My voice broke.

  'Who's going to stop me?'

  I knew the moment his eyes glazed over. What was about to happen to me, he had done before. He was going to rape me.

  I glanced down to where his hands lay, faced-down at either side of the table, stopping me from moving. He was not going to let me go, I thought, as I looked up, his empty eyes meeting mine.

  'I said get off me!'

  I kicked out with my knee, jarring him momen
tarily, but only long enough to jump up away from the table, and grab my handbag from the floor beside his foot.

  'You cunt.' The malice in his voice betrayed his cold, emotionless glare. 'You're a slag, anyway. Nobody wants you,' he sneered. 'What the hell was I even thinking?'

  Seconds later, Erica appeared in the doorway. It didn’t take him long to find some excuse to touch her. As he took her hand in his, he held onto her a little too tightly. But, it wasn't love I saw in his eyes, because they were blank.

  He wasn't clinging onto her, in the hope she would feel secure in the knowledge he was there for her during the difficult conversation we were having over Erica's agoraphobia. His actions were aimed at controlling what she said.

  I see that now, and I wish to God I'd seen it before. But, I guess, we only attend to the things we believe matter. Reality is based solely on what we subjectively perceive. All the time I have been looking to Erica, hoping to understand what might be wrong with her, I have distracted myself from the real culprit. It is Joel. He is the one who is sick.

  As I left the house, Erica's eyes didn’t widen or water from fear of the unknown, or of what might happen to her if she dared to leave the house, but from the terror of what was going on inside her home.

  I'd always thought Joel was caring and attentive, but, right now, I see him for what he is—a control freak. Erica was right when she said he was nothing like Matt. Matt was an immature bully, but Joel is a cold, calculating manipulator. If only she had continued to study she might have realised she was living with a psychopath. It's obvious to me, now. Erica hadn't changed the day she said her vows, Joel had.

  As I sat beside her, I felt the cloying atmosphere. The way she latched onto the feel of my hand pressing down onto her shoulder. I hoped the pressure I left on her skin would be understood for what it was.

  I was trying to convey my understanding of her situation, trying to silently tell her she was safe, and she mustn't give up hope. If she doesn't have the strength, I would be her rock. She is my soul sister. And after everything that happened to me as a child: growing up in care, abused by the very people who were supposed to be looking after me, I was not about to walk away, and leave my best friend in the arms of a violent man. A man who could lie as easily as he could breathe.

  I didn’t know if in that moment, he had acted out physically toward her. If he hadn’t, it was only a matter of time. It had to end soon. I knew I had to get her to understand. She was never alone, always by his side, like a puppy, rounding her master's legs.

  I thought of Pippa then, and how Joel seemed to make it increasingly difficult for her to return to Erica, after they'd moved into their new show home, where guests had to leave their shoes beside the door before entering. That was if they were invited in, which I never was, until today. He didn’t want Pippa; he wanted Erica alone. I doubt he even wanted Lily.

  As I looked into Joel's steely gaze, I thought of how easy it had been to gain entry into their private world. I decided the only way I would be able to discover the truth was to secure an invitation into the house by pretending I'd come to see Joel, not Erica. But, just how I was going to do that, I had no idea.

  In the end, it didn’t quite work out as I'd planned, because though somebody had opened the gate for me to tread the long gravel driveway, as soon as I'd entered the open garage door at the side of the house, it couldn't possibly have been Joel. He was focussed on the task of fixing his car. He didn’t seem to be aware of my presence.

  As I closed the door behind me, I came face-to-face with Erica. I knew she'd been crying, but before I could reach out to touch her, she flinched and stepped back from me.

  'Joel is here,' she whispered.

  'You have to leave.'

  'I can't.'

  'Now.'

  I grabbed for her arm but she wrenched it free, and stared blankly into my eyes. 'I can't leave him, Rose. He said he will take Lily from me, and make sure I never see her again. I can't do it.'

  'You have to.'

  'Lily is all I have.'

  'She isn't here. She's with Jared. He won't let anything happen to her. Don't you see this is your chance?'

  Erica shook her head, moved toward the front door, waiting for me to leave.

  'Please, Rose. Let me handle this.'

  The words left my lips, before my brain acknowledged them. 'You're making a fine job of it so far, aren't you?'

  'Please?' she said, exasperated.

  'No. I'm not going anywhere. You have no idea what he's capable of.'

  'Right, okay. Leave. Now.'

  'I didn't lie to you, Erica. He tried it on with me.'

  'Yes, you said.'

  I couldn’t bear to tell her the full extent of his actions, though I’d tried, but it only ever dissolved into an argument.

  'I'm not leaving you this time. I walked away once, remember? I told you I would do anything for you, and despite how annoyed I am you won't listen, I'm still here. And I'm going nowhere.'

  Erica didn’t wait for me to leave. She turned and headed upstairs. I stood there for what felt like forever, trying to coax myself into believing she had a handle on it, but then, Lily's face zoomed into focus, and I knew then I could never leave them. They both meant too much to me.

  'Erica?' I called up the stairs in an urgent whisper, but she was already out of sight.

  As my hand reached for the front door handle, a noise alerted me to something down the hall. I crept silently to the open door of the kitchen, which leads straight into the garage.

  Joel was beneath the car. I watched his movements, and felt my body tense. I pictured his hands working away at the lower body of the car, imagining what else he's done with them, and the familiar nausea rising up in my throat, as he pressed me down hard against the glass dining table returned. He could have raped me. If Erica hadn't returned when she had, there was no doubt in my mind what would have happened. I had to stop him.

  They say time stands still before a traumatic experience, and you act on impulse. I guess that's true for murderers, too, because my mind was blank, as I slipped the heels from my feet, and moved stealthily along the concrete floor of the garage.

  I took one last glance at his body, unmoving beneath the car, the blood forming a pool around his med-section, soaking through his trousers. I closed the door behind me, just as Erica's shadow disappeared from view. I didn’t glance back, not trusting myself not to fall apart in front of her.

  I moved along the hall, unfeeling and opened the front door, catching Erica's shadow creeping back up the staircase. She saw her husband's dead body, knowing I've been with him, and she doesn't say anything. That was all the confirmation I needed to reassure myself I'd done the right thing. Any other wife would be horrified, but not Erica. It was almost as though she'd been expecting it.

  She didn't see him die, but she knows it was me who released the jack. Erica hasn't spoken to me about that day. We have a silent agreement we never will. A promise built on eye movement and sad smiles.

  I snap back to the present with a jolt, grabbing the remote control from the arm of the sofa. Jared is asleep upstairs, having just returned home from a night shift. I turn up the sound on the television screen in front of me, with my eyes glued to the female presenter.

  '…disturbing images found on his computer. Police sources suggest there is evidence Mr. Heath was involved in a pornography collective, although the extent to which how far this obsession went is unknown…'

  I try to reassure myself the imagined images which dance across my eyelids are far worse than those found on Joel's laptop, but the thought of what that vile monster might have put Erica through sends an ice-cold shiver down my spine. I should have known. I should have protected her. But, it was impossible, at the time, because Joel seemed like the perfect gentleman. I was deceived by his good looks and charm, just as Erica had been.

  Joel entered Erica's life in a whirlwind of false promises, a fake smile, and a well-versed tale, and she fell for it. I
did, too. She may have been keeping her pain a secret from me, but I cannot do the same. I have to tell her what I discovered this morning, after a little digging. It seems the elusive Joel has a much darker past than the media, or the police, are aware of. I doubt even Erica knows what happened to Jessica, but I do.

  ERICA

  I get the impression Rose is avoiding me. She has ignored all of my phone calls this morning, and Jared must be working, because his mobile phone is switched off, so I cannot get hold of him, either. I'm desperate to tell Rose the police have confirmed Joel's cause of death as an accidental, fatal injury. I am no longer a suspect. Nobody suspects I had anything to do with it, which is very well, as I didn't. It was Rose who killed him.

  I reread the text message Rose sent to me late last night, but still cannot fathom why she would say to me I need to talk to you urgently, if she hasn’t replied to my phone calls.

  As I make my way across the bedroom I once shared with Joel, taking with me only a small luggage bag containing essentials, I dare myself to take one last glance at our bed, holding back the sickness which erupts in my stomach, as the awful memories of what happened in there threaten to flood my head. I step over the smashed picture frame containing the photograph of our wedding—the day my life began to fall apart—closing the door behind me, but as I near the top of the staircase, the doorbell chimes, and I drop the bag onto the floor in fright.

  I edge down each step, willing myself not to panic. Telling myself the person on the other side must be a reporter, taking their chance to interview me, because I left the gate open, something Joel insisted must be kept shut at all times. But, as I open the front door, Rose's face catches me off-guard.