Sweet Little Lies: The most gripping suspense thriller you’ll read this year

by Caz Frear

  Nate Hicks and Saskia French. I feel sick for her.

  She continues, ‘So I said – and it was impulsive and stupid, I know – she could stay at one of our properties for a bit, if that would help, and Saskia’s place in King’s Cross was the only realistic option if I wanted to keep it from Nate. Like we said, she’s been so quiet a tenant that we almost forget she’s there. Nate especially, seeing as the property’s mine.’

  I frown. ‘And Saskia was fine to have a roommate all of a sudden?’

  ‘I said she was a family friend, that it’d only be temporary and I’d reduce the rent for that month.’ Her mouth twists into a scowl. ‘Saskia knows she’s on to a good thing. Do you know, I haven’t upped the rent on that place in seven years and how does she repay me – by turning my property into a bloody brothel!’

  ‘So it’s true you didn’t know about Saskia’s . . . profession?’

  She looks horrified. ‘God no, I didn’t. I really didn’t.’

  ‘Saskia must have worried about it getting back to you through Alice?’ I write motive in my pad. ‘Did you have much contact with Alice once she’d moved in?’

  ‘No, none.’

  ‘Did she have your number, email address?’

  ‘No, I changed my email account a few years ago. We got burgled, you see. I wanted to change everything. And no, I didn’t give her my number, I just wanted the least communication possible. I said if she needed to get in contact with me, let Saskia know and I’d call her.’

  I give her a dubious stare. ‘And that was it? You were going to let her stay there indefinitely?’

  She brings her hands into her lap, clenches them tightly. ‘Well, no, initially I thought I’d leave her be for a few weeks and then see what her plans were. But then Christmas took over, and what with my dad, I didn’t exactly forget about her but it took a backseat. And I wouldn’t have asked her to leave just before Christmas. Bit Ebenezer Scrooge, don’t you think?’

  I sit forward. ‘Gina, we know that Alice was in the Donatella Caffé on Friday December 12th, just a few days before she died. Do you think she might have been coming to tell you about what was going on in your flat? What Saskia was up to? I mean, it’s the least she could do, given the kindness you’d shown her.’

  ‘I’ve no idea. All I can tell you is I didn’t see her. She certainly didn’t come to the house, thank God.’ Her hand slams to her chest. ‘Oh my God, you don’t think Saskia has anything to do with this?’

  ‘Not necessarily,’ I lie, ‘but Saskia did lie to us. She gave us some cock-and-bull story about meeting Alice in a bar. About Alice also being a prostitute. Why would she say that?’

  She thinks about this. ‘Well, look, I had nothing to do with that particular lie, but I did make it clear that I didn’t want Nate finding out about Alice being at the flat, so whatever Saskia said, she was just trying to make sure it didn’t lead back to me. As I say, she knows she’s on to a good thing. Is she going to get in trouble for this? Christ, am I?’

  I ignore this, let her sweat a bit longer.

  ‘Gina, did Alice ever use the name Maryanne, either recently or when you knew her before? Saskia referred to her as Maryanne from the minute we met her whereas you knew her as Alice. Any idea why she’d have used a different name?’

  ‘None whatsoever.’ She throws her hands up. ‘Honestly, I’ve told you everything I know now. And I’m so sorry that I lied, I’ve never had so much as a library fine in my life, but I panicked. I just wanted to stay out of it. But really, this is just horrendous and I’m devastated by it all. I keep thinking if she’d just gone back to her husband, maybe she’d still be alive.’ She’s edging towards hysterical now, talking faster and faster. ‘I should have told her to go back to her husband, shouldn’t I? But I was honestly just trying to do a kind thing.’

  ‘I know, I know,’ I say, calming her. Then to bring her back to focus, I ask, ‘Can you remember the names of any of these forums you visited?’

  She pulls at her lip, still edgy. ‘No. No, I’m sorry, I can’t. It just seems like a lifetime ago. And I don’t have that laptop anymore or you’d have been welcome to check. The bastards took it when we were burgled.’

  Can’t say I’m too disappointed. If Alice had been on the forums recently, Forensics would have found them.

  Although she could have been using her phone.

  ‘What happens now?’ Gina leans right forward and for a second I think she’s going to grab my hands but she stops about an inch short. ‘What happens about the fact I lied?’

  Perverting the course of justice would be a long shot. I doubt it’d be considered in the public interest to waste valuable resources taking down a misguided Good Samaritan. Obstructing a police officer might fly, though. We’ve certainly prosecuted for less.

  And yet when I look at her, all I feel is pity. Pity for a woman who tried to do a kind thing. Pity for a woman who’s run ragged looking after toddlers and policing teens while her father dies slowly under her roof.

  Pity for a woman whose husband sleeps with prostitutes.

  I push away my pity and summon my sternest tone. ‘We won’t do anything on this occasion, Gina. But mark my words, the threat of prosecution will be very real if I discover anything you’ve told me today to be false, or not the whole story, do you understand?’

  Her eyes fill up and she starts searching for tissues in multiple pockets. ‘Thank you, Detective Kinsella. Thank you. There’s nothing else, I promise you. I just want to forget this ever happened and go home to my family.’

  I stay seated as she gathers up her bags, pulls on her coat.

  I say, ‘You really should speak to your husband though. Once we make an arrest and this goes to court, there’s every chance we’ll need you to go on record. Alice’s last few weeks will become public knowledge and he will find out.’

  She shakes her head quickly. ‘No, no, I can’t, he’ll be so angry. If I have to in the future then so be it, but I’ll cross that bridge then . . .’

  I think of Nate Hicks and Saskia French. Of Saskia French performing acts that any ‘self-respecting girlfriend would do if she could be bothered’. I think of Gina’s cheating ex-partner. Of the humiliation she endured.

  I think about all the STDs that piece-of-shit husband has exposed her to.

  ‘Gina, trust me, you really need to speak to your husband.’

  And I really need to speak to my boss.

  *

  Steele’s still out charming the top brass so I download everything onto Parnell, barely coming up for air in the hope he’ll be so dazzled by the speed of information that he’ll forget to bollock me for not halting the interview and hauling him in.

  And he doesn’t bollock me. Far from it, in fact. It could be because it seems a little miserly, a little un-festive, to tear a strip off someone hours before waving them off on their hard-earned Christmas break.

  It could be because he trusts me. Which makes me feel a myriad of mixed emotions, none of them particularly pleasant.

  I made the right call not charging Gina, he says. However, it sounds like Saskia French might not be shown the same clemency. Her story about Maryanne working as a prostitute, especially the supposed ‘dodgy clients’ conversation, could have sent us completely in the wrong direction – hours and hours of time wasted chasing non-existent punters – and Parnell seems to view this in a much harsher light than Gina Hicks’ omission of truth. The CPS could well agree.

  But then Saskia was lying to protect Gina.

  Maybe I should have charged her?

  I make tea then Parnell and I pore over the incident board, underlining Saskia’s name in thick red marker twice – one for each secret she had to keep from Gina that Alice Lapaine could have uncovered; her affair with her husband and the way she was earning her living. Under instruction from Parnell, I call Saskia to arrange for her to come into the station on Monday – just a chat, nothing to worry about – but all I get is her voicemail. A clipped bored instru
ction to the caller to leave a message and she’ll try to call back.

  The try annoys me. The ‘I’m-just-so-busy’ self-importance of it.

  Which makes me a hypocrite as I’ve now had six missed calls from my sister in the past twenty-four hours.

  I’m a self-aware hypocrite though. A hypocrite with a conscience.

  I dial Jacqui’s number and she answers within three rings.

  ‘You called?’ I say, with the heavy dose of irony that Jacqui never seems to pick up on.

  ‘Half a dozen times, Cat. No one’s that busy, not even you.’

  There’s no nastiness there just that big-sister righteousness that sets my teeth on edge.

  ‘Look, I’m sorry, Jacqs, it’s just . . .’

  She cuts in. ‘Oh, I know how super-important you are so I’ll be quick, don’t worry. Are you coming for Christmas lunch tomorrow? Well, let me rephrase that, you are coming for Christmas lunch tomorrow. I just want to know what time you’ll be here. Finn wants help with his Lego Batcave and me, Ash and Dad are “rubbish” apparently.’

  Finn’s name seals it. I take a punt that his gorgeous little face and boundless effervescence will somehow balance out the crackling animosity that always threatens to surface when my family are gathered in a confined space. Textbook equilibrium, surely.

  ‘I’ll be there,’ I say to Jacqui, ‘What time’s lunch?’

  ‘Around threeish, but that doesn’t mean you turn up at two fifty-five. It’d be nice to have a proper family day for once.’

  My mind boggles at what she means by ‘proper’ but I make a noncommittal noise that she takes as a yes.

  ‘Oh, and Finn will probably want to call you in the morning to tell you what Santa brought, so answer your bloody phone, please.’ I make an affirmative noise this time. ‘I don’t know, Dad’s getting as bad. There’s definitely something going on with him.’

  I wish I wasn’t so highly attuned to all references to my dad but there’s a chink in my armour where the curiosity spews out. ‘What do you mean? Dad’s as bad at what?’

  ‘Answering his bloody phone! He’s usually so reliable but lately . . . take last Monday . . .’

  The words erupt. ‘Dad? Reliable?’

  ‘Yes.’ That scolding voice again. ‘You should try seeing the good in people now and again. He’s amazing to us.’

  ‘Oh really, how?’ Exasperation, intrigue and a bolt of unexpected jealousy surges through me. That I manage to sound disinterested is a minor miracle.

  ‘In a thousand different ways, Cat, but mainly with Finn. Did you know Dad stays at ours when Ash is on nights, just in case I need someone to come to the hospital with me? Well he usually does . . .’

  Everything stops for a moment. ‘Has Finn had any more seizures? You’ve got the neurologist any day, right?’

  ‘No, no, just that small one, last Monday night. It’s fine. He’s fine. But it was sod’s law, Ash was on nights last Monday and Dad had to cancel staying at ours at the last minute.’

  ‘Mr Reliable,’ I say without a hint of triumph.

  ‘But that’s what I mean,’ says Jacqui. ‘It’s so unlike him. And I couldn’t get hold of him all night either, to let him know what had happened. Voicemail, voicemail, bloody voicemail. To be fair, he was inconsolable the next day.’

  ‘And so where was he then?’

  I’m starting to feel queasy. I’ve barely eaten today but it’s not lack of food. It’s something else.

  ‘Oh, I don’t know. Something came up, he said. You know I don’t pry.’ Jacqui’s voice is light and I want to shake her. Shake her and shake her and shake her until the happy-mist lifts from her eyes and she sees him for what he is. ‘I mean, where would anyone be on a Monday night? In bed, I suppose.’ She laughs awkwardly. ‘Whose bed is the question. Noel reckons . . .’

  What ‘Noel reckons’ fades to nothing, exactly where it belongs, and Jacqui’s words fill my head. Deafening, like the peal of a warning bell.

  ‘I mean, where would anyone be on a Monday night?’

  I hear drawers opening and closing, cutlery rattling, and the familiar slam of the mammoth fridge door as Jacqui moves around her kitchen busying herself with actions so she doesn’t have to stop and think about the fact that Dad put ‘something’ before her and Finn.

  I try not to think about it too. I try not to think about the question I’ve been repeatedly asking people throughout the ten days of this investigation.

  ‘Where you were between eleven p.m. on Monday 15th December and five a.m. on Tuesday 16th December.

  ‘Something came up, he said.’

  1998

  Monday 1st June

  The Guards called at Gran’s the next day while I was playing Teddy Detectives – an awesome little game whereby I gathered all my bears in a Poirot-style denouement so that the secret of Maryanne’s disappearance could be dramatically revealed.

  Mum said the game was ‘in poor taste’ and wouldn’t it be nicer if I learned to play draughts?

  Dad said draughts was boring-as-shite and asked to join in.

  My stuffed penguin metamorphosed into Gabe McShea – a well-known drunk and the last person, according to Jacqui, to see Maryanne, heading up the Long Road towards the town. Dad mimicked him perfectly, slurring his speech as he swore his innocence and lashing out with his flipper when any other teddy so much as looked in his direction.

  I laughed so hard that my cheeks started to sting.

  Pat Hannon took the form of Brown Bear, an ancient scraggy thing we’d found wedged between a mower and a wheelbarrow in Gran’s dilapidated back shed. He smelt a bit of turps and his right ear wasn’t long for this world, but the frayed stitching around his mouth gave Brown Bear the kind of twisted, malevolent smirk we thought perfect for our prime suspect. He reminded me of some of the men who held meetings in the back room of our pub.

  And into this nonsense walked two Guards. A hefty great wardrobe of a man who plonked himself in the best chair while Gran stood crooked against the Aga, and a younger man who said very little, except ‘I will, yeah’ to every offer of biscuits and tea.

  The Big Guard picked up Brown Bear by his raggedy left paw and said, ‘Well, hello there, little fella,’ before making him dance a stupid jig on his knee. With this one silly gesture, he managed to strip Brown Bear of his ugly, threatening menace and I hated him in that moment for ruining our brilliant game.

  ‘Do you think Teddy might know where Maryanne is?’ The Big Guard said, winking at Mum and Dad, utterly charmed with himself.

  I told him Teddy didn’t talk to the filth and that shut him up good and proper.

  Dad let out a roar, a bone-shaking belly-laugh that startled Rosie, Gran’s dog.

  Mum didn’t look quite so amused.

  ‘So Jacqui’s name has come up,’ The Big Guard went on, all stern and business-like now after his failed attempt at being ‘good-with-kids’. ‘Could we just have a quick word? Nothing formal, just a chat at this stage.’

  The ‘at this stage’ seemed to irk Dad, who’d been friendly and chatty up to this point, laughing about various characters in the village with the Big Guard and ribbing the other one about a big match his Gaelic football team had thrown away at the weekend.

  ‘Jacqui’s not here,’ said Dad, landing another pot of tea on the table. This wasn’t a lie. Jacqui’d gone AWOL since breakfast when she’d got a pasting from Mum for asking whether it’d be insensitive to go over to Maryanne’s to get her Chili Peppers CD back. ‘But when she does get in, shall I send her up to the station for your “quick word”? Or is O’Malley’s a safer bet?’

  The Big Guard glowered at Dad but said nothing.

  ‘What?’ said Dad, laughing, his face now the picture of innocence. ‘Isn’t that where you lads drink nowadays? I tell you, they’ve gone awful strict on the drink driving back in England but if an officer of the law can’t have a pint or two at lunchtime, what’s the world coming to, eh?’

  The Big Gu
ard laughed too. ‘You’re very good, sir, very good.’ A nod towards Gran. ‘Quite the comedian you’ve got here, Agnes. He’d sell out the Royal Theatre, no bother.’

  Dad laughed again and I felt confused that people kept laughing at things that weren’t even funny, like Noel and his stupid South Park or Dad with that barmaid in the pub.

  ‘Just a bit of craic, Sergeant. No offence meant.’ Dad offered out his hand and the room held its breath. Eventually the Big guard grabbed hold. ‘Rest assured, I’ll send Jacqui your way as soon as she’s back, although God knows when that’ll be? You know how it is, we were all young once, eh.’

  ‘Ah sure, no bother, we’ll speak to her when we speak to her.’ The Big Guard looked at his watch then stood up quickly, a bit panicked. ‘Mother of God, we’ve been here over an hour, can you believe that? Come on you,’ he said to the younger one, ‘let’s not take up any more of these good folks’ time.’

  They walked to the door but then the Big Guard stopped, seeming to change his mind about something at the last minute. ‘Although, while we’re here, I might as well ask you, Mr McBride – have you ever had any dealings with Maryanne Doyle yourself?’

  ‘Dealings? No, none at all. I mean, I saw her around once or twice. In the Diner. Maybe Grogan’s? But I don’t know the girl, I’ve never spoken to her. Terrible business though, isn’t it? I hope you find her. I hope she’s OK.’

  The Big Guard opened the door a crack and the dog squeezed herself out. At school we’d learned about a panda who’d sensed an earthquake brewing in China.

  Dad had said it was a well-known fact that animals had a sixth sense for disaster.

  18

  Happy Christmas! Get anything nice?

  SMS 9.06 a.m.

  Parnell

  A load of flak for getting home late and a cordless hedge trimmer. You?

  SMS 9.23 a.m.

  Yes. A voicemail from Aiden Doyle saying it’s a shame he’ll miss me in Mulderrin – he could have shown me the sights, ha ha – and would I like to go for a drink when we’re both back in London. Oh, and his old fella’s still hanging on, although it’d be just like the ‘fucker’ to kick the bucket and ruin Christmas. He signs off saying Nollaig Shona Duit – Happy Christmas in Gaelic.