The Liar's Sister (ARC)

by Sarah A. Denzil

  ‘Nothing you do will bring him back,’ Rosie says. I suspect her attempts to talk him out of this are pointless, but I admire her for trying. ‘Killing us won’t make you feel any better.’

  ‘Oh,’ he says. ‘You don’t know that.’

  ‘I know it was your fault,’ Rosie continues. ‘Everything that happened that night. You could’ve stopped it. But you didn’t, did you?’

  ‘Be quiet,’ he says, still calm, but now with a vicious edge to his voice.

  The two of them are talking as though they were both there the night Samuel disappeared. Which means Samuel, Rosie, Colin and Dad were all in the woods together. The pieces of the puzzle are finally coming together.

  Nothing you do will bring him back. Rosie said that about Samuel which means that he’s dead and Colin knows he’s dead. But when I visited the farm, Lynn Murray stared me straight in the eye and told me she thought he was still alive. She felt that he was alive. I believed she truly thought that. Has Colin lied to his own family all these years? How can he go to bed at night with a woman who still doesn’t know what happened to her son after ten long years? How could he carry on seeing her pain every day and not tell her what happened?

  He moves away from the edge of the hole and stares at his phone.

  ‘What are we going to do?’ Rosie says. ‘We can’t climb out now, or he’ll just shoot us.’

  ‘I don’t know. Maybe Jack heard us scream.’

  ‘Maybe.’

  She gives my hand a squeeze and we share a sad smile. Both of us know that our plan is wishful thinking. Who knows whether Jack would even want to help us, and who knows how many people from the village are in on this witch-hunt. And then I remember – Peter. I’d almost forgotten that I sent him a text about going into the woods.

  I wish I could see my phone to check whether he saw the message or not, but at least it gives me some hope that we’ll get out of this alive. Surely Peter can talk some sense into his father.

  The freezing cold of the night air seeps into my bones. Colin’s back remains a silhouette against his bright spotlight. He’s been planning this revenge, waiting for an opportunity to trap Rosie in a cage. What else does he want to do to her? If we’re to escape, I need to know more about this man’s motives.

  ‘What happened that night? You need to tell me, Ro.’

  ‘Please remember that I only wanted to protect you,’ Rosie says. ‘Okay?’

  ‘Fine. Just tell me.’ If Peter doesn’t make it in time, I refuse to die without finding out what happened ten years ago. I need to know the truth.

  She takes a deep breath and begins. ‘I snuck out of the house and went to meet Samuel in the woods. We couldn’t meet during the day because if anyone saw us together they’d go apeshit. We met in secret near the bluebell field. As you know, it was April, and they were in bloom. Easy to find with a torch.’

  ‘That was where I found your bracelet.’ I glance up at the hole to see if Colin is listening in, but he still has his back turned to us.

  ‘We were just going to talk for a little bit,’ Rosie continues. ‘He was upset with me because of the lie I’d told and I wanted to tell him to stay away from you because I’d seen you together in the woods.’

  ‘But if he didn’t try to rape you, why would you want him to stay away from me? I don’t understand. Were you jealous of me and Samuel?’

  Rosie’s face contorts into something ugly as she relives her memories of that night.

  ‘What the fuck have you done, Colin?’

  The sound of another voice prompts us both to lift our heads towards the sound. A second man has joined Colin above the place where Rosie and I are trapped.

  Thirty-One

  Rosie

  Then

  ‘Dad, no!’

  The rain came down hard as I stood there frozen. It was as though my heart restarted when I realised that I had to stop him before he took Samuel’s life. But even when I grabbed hold of him, I couldn’t pull him away. I didn’t have the physical strength against an adult man, and my hands were slippery with the rain.

  ‘Dad, stop! You’re going to kill him!’

  He had his big builder’s hands around Samuel’s throat, and I was so afraid that I started to cry.

  ‘I lied!’ I blurted out, now almost shouting over the downpour. Tears ran down my face, washed away immediately. ‘Samuel didn’t attack me; no one did. I made the whole thing up.’

  As he slowly let go of Samuel, I fell back into the wet bluebells.

  ‘What?’

  Now I was the one on the ground with my father looming tall above me. The shame of what I’d done washed over me in a wave and I thought I might throw up. But at the same time, relief flooded through me. I’d said it out loud. I’d finally spoken the words that had been in my heart ever since the incident. Ever since I stood in the kitchen in my torn clothes, tears dripping on the tiles, with the family staring at me asking me what had happened.

  I’d lied.

  And then Emily and Rhona had taken the lie even further. I think they’d wanted to be part of it. They saw the attention I was getting and wanted it for themselves. I’d always hated them for that, but to hate them was to hate myself, because I was the worst of them all.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I muttered.

  ‘What did you do, Rosie?’

  He took a step towards me, face shadowed by darkness, hiding his expression from me. But I heard everything I needed to hear in his voice. He was disgusted. And I couldn’t blame him.

  Behind him I noticed Samuel climbing to his feet, unsteady and awkward after the beating. But I was too focused on Dad to say anything about it.

  ‘I didn’t mean it,’ I said, wiping away tears and rainwater. ‘It just came out. I didn’t do it on purpose. And then everything kept going forward and I couldn’t take it back.’

  ‘Yes you could,’ Dad said. ‘You could’ve taken it back at any time. Do you know what you did to that boy? Do you know what you’ve done to this village?’

  I buried my face in my hands. I always knew I would be the one to let Dad down. Out of me and Heather, it was always me who made the wrong choices and did the wrong thing. Deep down, I think he’d been waiting for me to mess up.

  ‘What did I do wrong, Rosie? Why have you … Why are you like this?’

  It was at that moment that the sound of my tears blocked out the rain. What had he done wrong? Was it the long absences from his family? Was it because he never asked me how school was at the end of the day? Or that he never seemed to care about any of us? Or was I making excuses for my behaviour?

  ‘Now you know.’ Hearing Samuel’s voice came as a surprise. ‘You can stop them all from lying about me. You can tell the police and everything can go back to how it was.’

  ‘Get up, Rosie. We need to deal with this. You can’t just cry and hope it’s going to go away.’ Dad’s hands grabbed my elbows and hauled me to my feet.

  But by the time I’d wiped the tears from my eyes and opened them again, Samuel was gone. Dad followed my gaze.

  ‘Fuck!’ he exclaimed. ‘Now he’ll go to the police and tell them I assaulted him.’ He set off to follow Samuel, but I caught hold of his jacket.

  ‘No, Dad. Don’t. I want to go home.’ I was tired and wet through and wished I’d never come to the woods. I had a terrible feeling that if we did catch up with Samuel, there would be even more arguing and someone would lose their temper and lash out. I didn’t want anyone else to get hurt.

  ‘He’s running towards the back road,’ Dad said, as though in his own world. ‘He’ll be back at the farm in less than half an hour. We need to stop him and convince him to work with us. I can’t go to prison, Rosie.’

  ‘Dad, please.’

  He pulled himself out of my grip and backed away. ‘Jesus, I don’t even know what to think about what you’ve done.’ He shook his head and began walking away.

  My fingers withdrew. I folded my arms around my body.

  That was when I hear
d the screech of brakes, followed by the crunch of metal, and then silence. Neither Dad nor I spoke; instead we started running towards the back road. I was younger and faster than him, and I took the lead, dodging between trees barely visible in the dark. My feet caught on the thorny undergrowth, slowing me down, but I pushed on. All the time my heart was beating as fast as my mind was repeating: nonononono.

  When I reached the fence that separated the woods from the narrow road, I dropped to my knees and wriggled underneath the wire. As I squeezed through onto the road, Samuel’s face was almost level with mine. His mouth was open, jaw slack, eyes glassy, body bent at the kind of angle you instinctively know is wrong. There was blood, but the rain was coming down in sheets, washing the red stain away.

  It took me less than a second to realise that I was face to face with a lifeless body.

  Samuel was dead, and it was all my fault. If I hadn’t lied. If I hadn’t arranged to meet him …

  And then I thought of Heather, and of how much she loved him. She was going to be heartbroken. I closed my eyes, but it didn’t stop me from seeing his bloodied body in my mind’s eye.

  I felt hands help me up, and when I opened my eyes, Dad was next to me. He didn’t linger, instead he sprinted to the body and dropped to his knees beside Samuel. But he knew as well as I did that there was nothing he could do. He placed two fingers beneath Samuel’s chin and then rose and stumbled away.

  When I heard the sound of a car door open, I tore my eyes away from the body. It was the passenger side, I remember that clearly, and it was Colin who stumbled out, almost tripping onto the tarmac. He rushed towards his son, but Dad caught him and held him back.

  ‘There’s nothing you can do, Colin,’ Dad said, his voice hoarse with shock.

  ‘Sammy!’ Colin cried helplessly.

  And then he sobbed. Deep, body-racking sobs. It’s the sound of his sobbing that I hear at night even now. The kind of heartbreak that I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy.

  ‘We need to call someone,’ I said. ‘The emergency services. The police …’ My voice trailed off. ‘I don’t know …’

  Dad simply nodded at me, then went back to comforting Colin.

  Not wanting to look at Samuel’s broken body any more, I turned away from the road. As I took my phone out of my pocket, I was vaguely aware of a second car door opening. There was the sound of heavy boots on the tarmac before the phone was slapped from my hand.

  ‘No one is calling anyone.’

  Thirty-Two

  Heather

  Now

  When Ian Dixon comes into view, his pointed face shadowed by the backlight, I don’t feel any surprise. This is what I suspected as soon as Colin answered his phone. But what I don’t know is why he’s involved with Colin in the first place. It’s not unfeasible that Ian is the first man people call when things go wrong. I’ve always suspected that he’s a dodgy copper who enjoys controlling the village. I’m sure he turns a blind eye to minor infractions when it’s convenient to him, and calls in favours in return.

  ‘You’ve fucked everything up, Colin, haven’t you?’ He talks to Samuel’s father as though he’s a child to be admonished. ‘Why couldn’t you stick to the plan? They were about to up and leave before you fucked everything up!’ His voice rises on the last few words, revealing a violent temper beneath his usually calm exterior.

  ‘If you let us go we’ll sell the house and get out,’ Rosie says. ‘We won’t say a word about this.’

  ‘That’s right,’ I chip in. ‘We’ll leave Buckthorpe and get on with our lives. I swear we’ll never come here again.’

  If only Rosie had been able to tell me the full story, I could try and use that knowledge to our advantage. My only hope is that she can do it for the both of us.

  ‘Shut. Up.’ Ian leans over the mouth of the hole and his spittle flies down in our direction. I cringe away from his ugly angular features.

  The revulsion I feel for both of these men is unlike anything I’ve ever felt before. I almost don’t recognise myself as I hope from the bottom of my heart that I get an opportunity for justice.

  ‘We’re not letting them go,’ Colin says, stepping forward. He points at Rosie. ‘She started this whole thing. She killed my son. She ruined everything we have in the village. She’s a lying little bitch and I’m going to kill her no matter what you say.’

  Ian shakes his head and begins pacing around, both hands balled into fists. His manic anger is a stark contrast to Colin’s detached brutality. ‘You’re an idiot.’

  ‘How is this so different to what we did to John?’

  Next to me, Rosie gasps. I feel a stab in my chest. Dad.

  ‘We had time to set that up,’ Ian says. ‘We did it properly. No one suspected a thing.’

  Rosie runs and leaps at the muddy side of the hole. ‘You killed our dad!’

  Ian barely even glances at us, and I realise we’re utterly worthless to him.

  I just mouth, ‘Why?’

  ‘They have lives outside Buckthorpe,’ Ian says. ‘They have jobs. Boyfriends. People will notice when they stop answering calls and messages.’

  ‘We’ll make it look like they’ve run off,’ Colin says. ‘They’re young and flighty. No one will care. No one gave a shit when my son went missing.’

  ‘Why did you kill Dad?’ I try again. This time my voice is louder, directed straight at them both. ‘What did he do to you?’

  ‘He helped you.’ I don’t need to see Rosie to know she’s crying as she forces the words out. ‘That night he put himself on the line to help you. He wanted to call the police too, but you wouldn’t let us. And this is how you repay him? You put a gun in his mouth, pulled the trigger and left him for our mother to find.’ She beats the soil with her fists. ‘I thought it was because of me! I thought he killed himself because I wasn’t a good daughter.’

  I take my sister and fold her into my arms.

  ‘See,’ Colin says, arm out towards us. ‘This is why they have to die. No one can keep these secrets except for you and me. John was about to crack before we put an end to him. She’s a fucking alcoholic. She can’t keep her mouth shut either.’

  Rosie pulls away from me, wipes her eyes with dirty hands and turns to face Colin. ‘I’ve kept that secret for ten years. I didn’t even tell my sister.’

  ‘Until tonight,’ he says with a grin. ‘Why do you think I dug the hole here? I remembered more about that night than you thought, didn’t I? I knew exactly where you buried the headlight. See that tree behind you? There’s a camera there. I’ve been waiting.’

  Next to me, I feel Rosie’s body go completely rigid. She knows he’s telling the truth. I look up at the tree to see the trail cam fitted against the trunk.

  ‘I knew you’d come back here, because keeping the secret is eating you from the inside out. All I had to do was wait for the camera to record you falling into the trap I set.’

  ‘Fucking hell, Colin. You’re recording this?’ Ian says.

  Before Colin can reply, Rosie screams, ‘You’re a monster! You haven’t even told your wife what happened to her son! She thinks he’s alive!’

  Colin smirks. ‘And you never told your sister what happened to her boyfriend. We’re all monsters here.’

  ‘That’s enough,’ Ian says. ‘We need to decide how we’re going to handle this. The girls can’t live. They know too much now. They know about John and they know about the crash that killed Samuel.’

  Even though I already knew he was dead, hearing those emotionally detached words is still a blow. When I let out a small gasp, Rosie takes my hand in hers and squeezes it.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she says.

  The night Rosie met Samuel in the woods, he was somehow killed by a car. Dad, Ian and Colin covered it up. Rosie hid the broken headlight. She too played a part in all of this.

  ‘Where is he?’ I whisper to them all. ‘If you covered up his death, then there must be a body. Where is he buried?’ I pull my hand away from Rosie’s grip a
nd tighten it into a fist. ‘You could at least tell me that before you kill me.’

  ‘What do you even care about my son?’ Colin says. There is the first glimpse of emotion in his voice. It’s small, but it’s there. A slight thickness to the sound of his words.

  ‘I loved him,’ I say.

  Rosie’s chin drops to her chest while Colin merely lets out a hollow laugh. I don’t know whether he’s always been this monstrous, or if the years of grief have brought it out of him, but here he is, as evil as any person can be, standing over his quarry with a gun.

  ‘And yet you’re fucking his brother,’ he says.

  ‘How do you—’

  ‘I saw you together.’

  The thought of Colin stalking me, watching me with Peter, leaves me feeling nauseated. But of course he’s been following me. He’s no doubt been following both of us.

  ‘You enjoy sneaking around with my sons.’ His voice becomes lascivious, but I can’t decide whether the idea of me with his sons turns him on, or whether he’s using that tone to say something about my lack of virtue. ‘You and Sam thought you hid what was going on at the farm, but I knew. I always knew.’

  ‘Fuck. You.’ Rosie says the words with a quiet kind of power.

  Colin glares at my sister before nodding to me. ‘She isn’t telling you the full story.’

  ‘Why? What more is there to tell?’ I ask.

  ‘Enough!’ Ian lifts his hands in frustration. ‘Samuel’s buried on the moor. Now let’s get on with this. Murder and suicide. Rosie, you’re the fuck-up. You’re going to kill your sister and then yourself. We’ll get them out of the hole, kill them and fill it in.’

  ‘No you won’t.’ Rosie stands up straight.

  Ian rolls his eyes. ‘Couldn’t you have just sedated them? This is a mess.’

  ‘It is now you’re here. Let’s kill them, then get ourselves an alibi. It’s not hard.’ Colin turns, the barrel of the gun now pointing towards the sergeant.