Lies of the Dead

by Shauna Bickley

  She didn’t want to stay in the house, but it probably wasn’t a good idea to invite Vincent round at the moment. She changed into her exercise gear, and drove to the Downs. The early afternoon had been mild, and there was still some warmth left in the day.

  She ran around the paths avoiding the families with prams and young children on bikes, and, as some sort of punishment, she made herself run up the hill to the observatory. She stopped and looked at the shiny rock slide on the steep side of the hill. They hadn’t visited here for years, but she remembered Sophie and Kristen’s happy shouts as they slid down.

  The first few times they would come down individually, but invariably they would slide down together, taking it in turns to be the one in front. They would laugh and scream as she and Steven watched.

  A memory of Saul flickered as she worked through her cool-down stretches. Why him again?

  The circus at Poldrayth was the most exciting thing that had happened in years. She’d hung around the field that Friday afternoon and watched them put up the big tent, flashing looks at one of the guys. He had come over to talk to her once they were finished, and they spent the rest of the afternoon together. Obviously he’d been on the look-out for a local innocent, but she’d been thrilled someone like him would notice her. He must have been in his early twenties, she was fifteen. The same age as the twins.

  He showed her how to get into the back of the tent to watch the show. Once his part was over, they’d crept away and had sex in the wood surrounding the park. It was her first time, but Saul was more experienced.

  She had gone home, pretended she was tired and went to bed, then climbed out of her bedroom window and spent the night with him. She did the same every night they were in the area.

  Andi’s cheeks burned as she remembered the day the circus packed up to move on.

  She was so desperate to leave home, and so sure Saul wanted her, that she hid in the caravan he shared with another performer. When he found her, Andi knew from the look in his eyes she was wrong. He didn’t want her there. She was just another girl in another town.

  At least she hadn’t had any boyfriend trouble with the twins. Or was that something else she didn’t know?

  As she drove home along the river, the new apartment blocks reminded her of Liam’s flat high above the Thames. As a child he wound her up so easily, and when she reacted it was always her who got into trouble. As a teenager she had ignored him, and stayed out of the house as much as possible. Even as adults they hadn’t got on, and she was happy to have little to do with him.

  He had always found the chinks in her armour. He would have laughed if he knew about Kristen. You’ve got a good one there, just like her Uncle Liam.

  Her knuckles were white on the steering wheel – even dead, he had this effect on her. As though he could reach out from the grave and taint her children.

  Now she had let her imagination take over. Then she recalled Kristen’s words – this wasn’t the first time.

  *

  As soon as she got home, Andi went up to Kristen’s bedroom. She looked through her make-up bag, but she had no idea what Kristen might have taken and what she had bought. She looked in the wardrobe, and recognised clothes she had bought them, but there were other things the twins might have chosen when they were out together.

  This felt worse than when she had listened to their conversation. She pushed away the guilt. If Kristen hadn’t been shoplifting, then Andi wouldn’t have to look through her possessions.

  She opened the top drawer of the dressing table. There were some items that definitely belonged to one or the other of the twins, and others they both liked and shared. When she did the washing, she would put the clean clothes in one of the bedrooms and they would sort it out.

  Andi picked up a pile of underwear, and a photo fluttered down to the floor. The one she’d found in Liam’s cottage. She couldn’t recall if Kristen had asked whether she could have it. She was struck once again by how happy she, Tom and Liam looked that day. How happy she looked. She put the photo back in Kristen’s drawer, but recognised a scrap of fabric mixed in with a pile of T-shirts. The scarf that had been wrapped around the letters. Now it was folded around some other items. She picked up a pair of earrings she’d lost months before. They weren’t expensive, so she’d shrugged and forgotten about them. A pair of Steven’s cufflinks; he rarely wore them so probably wouldn’t have missed them. The largest item was a man’s hairbrush, or the type men used to use. It looked like the one her father had kept on his bedside table, the silver back now tarnished. He had inherited it from his father. A small key fell out of the scarf. Andi picked it up. The key had a distinctive floral pattern worked into the tiny handle, but Andi hadn’t seen it before.

  She thought the scarf had belonged to her mother. Why did Kristen have these things?

  When the twins were little, Andi used to make their clothes. Kristen had loved Andi’s old button box, and spent hours playing with the buttons she called treasures. Andi had given her an empty biscuit tin for her own treasures, usually beads and marbles, shells off the beach or stones she picked up on walks. Sophie had then wanted a box, but she never collected things in the way Kristen did.

  Andi wrapped the items in the scarf, and put them back in the drawer. She hesitated, and then opened the second drawer. Underneath the clothes she found a green, heavy card folder.

  She took the folder over to the bed. The first drawing showed a busker, a young man with dreadlocks, playing a guitar, lost in his music. Beneath that was a sketch of Steven as he worked on his laptop. Andi recognised the slight indentation between his eyebrows. He always had that expression when he concentrated. If she mentioned it, he would say he wasn’t frowning, merely lost in thought. She brushed her fingers lightly over the lines.

  There were several sketches of her. One showed her reading in the garden. Kristen must have drawn it from her bedroom window. When she was little, Kristen spent hours drawing, but appeared to lose interest at some point. There were dozens of sketches in the folder. Kristen must have hidden them away for a long time. Andi spread some of the pencil and charcoal drawings across the bed, the skill shown was incredible.

  She knew she would never win a mother-of-the-year contest, but not to know about this. It made sense of the conversation she’d overheard between the girls. She put the pictures back into the folder, and replaced it in the drawer.

  *

  Sophie rang a couple of times through the week to ask if she was okay. It felt like a role reversal. When Sophie rang the second time, Andi asked to speak to Steven.

  ‘I appreciate what you did at the store,’ she told him. ‘I was so upset before, I forgot to say thank you.’

  ‘I’m just glad they didn’t take it any further, and that you let the girls stay.’

  Vincent also rang and asked if she wanted to go out. She told him she had to work late. It wasn’t exactly a lie as she had some early evening focus groups, but there was plenty of time to meet afterwards.

  Every time she went out it felt as if somebody watched her. She didn’t see the maroon car, or the man she’d spotted at the mall, but her nerve endings jittered as though someone stalked her.

  By the end of the week, she didn’t think she could cope with another evening on her own. She rang Vincent, and asked if he wanted to go to the cinema. She thought it a reasonably innocent suggestion, and chose an action film rather than a romantic comedy.

  As they sat together in the cinema, she wished she’d rung Erin with the film suggestion, but Erin knew her too well, and Andi didn’t want to tell anyone about Kristen shoplifting.

  After the film Vincent suggested they have a drink, and they went to a bar close by. She watched him as he bought their drinks, and thought of the times she’d seen him. Her heart plummeted. This would be their third real date, as the visit to Bath had finished so abruptly. All the women’s magazines seemed to suggest the third date was it. Was that what Vincent expected? She wasn’t ready for sex with
him. Yes, her body responded when they kissed, but that didn’t mean it was the right thing for her. Why had she agreed to a drink? She could have got into her car at the cinema and gone home.

  ‘How are things from last Sunday?’

  She hadn’t even realised he was back from the bar. ‘Okay. It was some problems with friends and school.’

  ‘It sounded serious. You looked worried.’

  ‘You know what teenagers are like.’ She stopped. ‘No, you probably don’t.’

  ‘Only memories of myself at that age, and I was a bit of a horror.’

  ‘I’m sorry how Sunday turned out, and not being good company. You might regret this whole thing, and if you don’t want to see me again I’d understand.’

  She hadn’t planned the speech, but once the words were there she knew she wouldn’t mind if he agreed and walked away. It would be one less area of confusion in her life.

  ‘I like you, and life isn’t always smooth. I’m in London most of this week, and you’ll be with your daughters, so how about we meet up next weekend?’

  She wasn’t sure. That second or so felt good without this confusion. This wouldn’t help her decide about Steven. Deep down she already knew the answer.

  ‘It’s okay, I get it,’ said Vincent.

  Now she was puzzled.

  ‘If you’d like to meet up sometime, give me a call. If not, no hard feelings.’

  Chapter 12

  Tom

  Tom unlocked the door to Liam’s cottage and wandered through each of the rooms. Liam must have had a reason to visit the cottage before taking Kalina. Obviously to collect the diving belt, but maybe something else. Perhaps he had hidden something. A faint hope. Andi would consider it so faint as to be implausible, but better than no hope.

  He pulled towels and sheets out of the airing cupboard and shook them, and then shoved them back and banged the door. What an idiot. Who would hide something in there? He peered into every cupboard, and checked the garage.

  He looked through the bureau again, even though he and Andi had taken away the few things they found.

  The bright spot of optimism flickered, and he sat on the couch. The house was tidy, but the sun revealed a layer of dust. He could see his finger and palm marks on the wood of the bureau.

  It had belonged to his mother. She kept bills, bank papers and insurance policies in the upper part, along with letters to answer, pens and writing paper. The larger drawers below housed her best lace tablecloth, old recipes and photos. When Andi was young, she loved to rummage through the drawers on a wet Sunday afternoon. Tom guessed she dreamed of treasure maps or secret papers. She had been imaginative in that way, more than he and Liam. He always thought it was because she was a girl.

  Treasure maps and secret papers! He was as bad, and didn’t have the excuse of being a child. Something niggled at him, elusive, like a name he couldn’t remember. Just there, and then gone again before he could grasp it. Something to do with the bureau.

  He screwed up his face, trying to pull the memories from where they were buried.

  His mother had polished the bureau regularly. Said it belonged to her grandmother. She was proud of her Cornish ancestry, and always talked of how her several-great-grandparents-ago had money. How they owned a mine and were important. He ignored her stories as he got older; it was her way of feeling important.

  He had been ill, which was unusual for him, and he hated not going outside with the others.

  He scratched his arm and looked down at his tanned skin. He’d had chicken pox, and wasn’t supposed to mix with the other children while contagious.

  His mother brought him books from the library and comics from the local shop. He’d played on his own until he was fed up, and couldn’t believe how much he wanted to go to school. How much he envied Liam and Andi each morning.

  What was it about the bureau?

  His mother told him about some maps one of his ancestors had supposedly hidden, maps of the mine and rich deposits of minerals. At that time he still listened and believed her. He was so bored he’d looked for the maps.

  That was it. His mother said there was a secret drawer.

  He had pushed and pressed every bit of the bureau for hours, but hadn’t found any sign of a secret drawer. His mother tried to find it when she got annoyed with his pestering, but with no success. Probably because it was another of her tall stories, and the secret drawer didn’t exist. But she had searched for it.

  Tom knelt at the bureau and pulled out the larger drawers at the bottom. He swallowed hard. Was this it? He pressed and prodded the back of the bureau. Nothing. Think, damn it. Had his mother removed these drawers?

  He sat back on his heels and stared, trying to remember that long-ago afternoon. She’d probably only searched for it to keep him quiet. He stood and pushed the empty drawers out of the way with his foot, and unlocked the pull-down front. He felt all around the back of the pigeonholes first. A stupid waste of space, that’s all they were. He pulled out the small drawers and dropped them onto a chair.

  He closed his eyes and ran his hands over the wood at the back. Should it feel different? The wood rougher, or smoother. It’s got to be here. Please let me find it. His fingers slipped over the wood. It all felt the same. He pushed harder. A splinter. He’d get a hammer in a minute and smash the thing.

  What was that? A tiny area where the grain was different. Got it.

  He pushed gently. The wood panel at the back of the drawers moved to one side. Hell, he’d done it. His mother had told the truth.

  He couldn’t see anything in the compartment.

  Tom ran his hands over the bottom and sides of the space. Nothing. Was there another hidden section? He prodded and pressed. Still nothing. He stood back, wanting to hurl the bureau through the window. All that effort. He’d been so sure he would find something. He hadn’t expected a full explanation from Liam, but there must be something.

  He felt exhausted, and sank back into the couch, closing his eyes. Damn Liam. He should have known nothing would be simple where his brother was concerned.

  Tom opened his eyes and looked straight at the bureau. He was now lower than the opening of the hidey-hole, and from this angle he could see something light against the darkness of the wood. He jumped up, and felt across the roof of the compartment. There was something taped to the wood. His nails slipped off the tape and scratched the wood several times before he caught the edge, and pulled it away.

  There were two driving licences. Liam’s face looked at him, but the name and the date of birth weren’t his.

  Christopher Toogood.

  Tom stared at the driving licence as if he had never seen one before. The year of birth was the same as Liam’s, but the date was several months later. Who was Christopher Toogood?

  Why did Liam have a driving licence in someone else’s name?

  Liam’s face looked at him from the second driving licence also, but it was in Tom’s name, with Tom’s date of birth.

  He looked at Liam’s photo and read his own name over and over, as if it might change if he looked at it long enough. What the hell had Liam done?

  He wasn’t sure how long he sat there, but when the sun dropped low enough to shine in his eyes, he hauled himself up, as confused as ever.

  All the way home, he felt the sharp plastic edges of the driving licences in his pocket. He stopped once and pulled them out to check he hadn’t been mistaken.

  Why would Liam have false licences? What was he mixed up in, and how had Liam involved him?

  Liam’s face stared at him, his mouth slightly upturned as though he was about to smile. Tom puzzled over the name Christopher Toogood. It was familiar.

  *

  He woke in the early hours of the morning, remembering where he knew the name. When he was in his early teens, there had been a family in the village called Toogood. They’d come from Dorset or Devon, and had a son, Christopher. For the year or two the family lived in the village, Chris and Liam were insepara
ble. The Toogoods, both parents and son, were killed in a car crash. Tourists, driving too fast around the blind bends and narrow roads, had skidded into their car. It was one of the few things that had quietened Liam for a time.

  Why would Liam have a driving licence in the name of someone who was dead?

  Chapter 13

  Andi

  Andi tried to get through her usual Saturday morning jobs, but she couldn’t find any enthusiasm for them, constantly listening for the sound of Steven’s car in the driveway.

  She hurried outside as soon as she heard it pull in. Sophie and Kristen were saying goodbye to Steven.

  ‘We’ll get ready for the fete,’ said Sophie, as she gave Andi a hug.

  The shoplifting incident hadn’t been mentioned since the previous weekend.

  ‘How was your week?’ she asked him.

  ‘Good.’

  ‘Anything more about the…’ Why was it so hard to talk about some things?

  Steven shook his head. ‘No. I tried to speak with Kristen about it. She did apologise, and said she didn’t know why she took the things.’

  They lapsed into silence. Andi tried to remember how it was before. Did Steven feel the same?

  ‘We’re off to the village fete. Do you want to come?’

  Why had she asked him? She wasn’t sure if she wanted him there.

  ‘Thanks,’ said Steven. ‘But I really need to go into the office. I’m behind with some reports. Stupid, I guess, but I left early every day so I’d be there when Sophie and Kristen got home from school. Probably wouldn’t make a difference, but I felt I should.’