The Lies He Told: a gripping psychological suspense thriller

by Valerie Keogh

  ‘But you think you buried him in the garden?’

  ‘The fuchsia…’ It all made sense to me now. ‘They’re out of alignment.’

  44

  Misty

  I sat back, suddenly overwhelmed by what I’d done… by what I’d become.

  Hopper and Collins exchanged glances, eyebrows rising. ‘Ms Eastwood, I’m sorry,’ DI Hopper said, ‘but that doesn’t make much sense to us. Can you explain?’

  ‘Explain?’ I wanted to laugh. How could I when none of it made any sense. I dabbed my lip with the sleeve of my kaftan again, pleased when it came away dry. I dropped the sleeve, conscious of the detectives’ eyes on me as they patiently waited for me to say something. ‘I didn’t lie about the gardener. His name is Seb and he’s the kind of worker who takes incredible pride in his work. It took him two weeks to build those raised flower beds because he wanted them perfect. I swear he faffed with a spirit level with almost every brick.

  ‘But when he was finished, I had to admit it all looked lovely.’ The memory brought a smile that faded quickly. ‘Yesterday, with the odd thought going through my head that I had killed Toby and buried him in one of the raised beds, I went outside to look.’

  Hopper’s puzzled expression cleared as enlightenment dawned. ‘Are you saying that Seb planted those fuchsia plants in a row, and now they’re out of line.’

  ‘Exactly. I must have taken them out, emptied the brick container of soil, put Toby inside, then put everything back.’

  Deep lines cut across Hopper’s forehead again. ‘We’re going to need to dig out that bed, Ms Eastwood. And you’re going to need to come to the station with us.’

  ‘Yes. I know how it works.’

  ‘You write about it, Ms Eastwood. I’m sure you write very well, too, but you might find the reality a bit tougher.’ Hopper indicated my kaftan. ‘For starters, I think you’d better change into something else. DS Collins will go with you in case you need a hand while I make some phone calls.’

  I accepted this without argument. In fact, I needed help to get up from the sofa and grimaced when Collins gripped my bruised arm roughly.

  She walked behind me as I went up the stairs. I wasn’t sure if she would support me if I fell backwards or simply let me fall. The doubt made me cling to the banisters with both hands as I ascended, one slow step after the other.

  She stayed watching as I opened the wardrobe and searched for appropriate clothing, settling for jeans and a long-sleeved T-shirt. I thought she might turn away while I changed, instead, she propped a shoulder against the wall and kept her eyes on me as I slid the kaftan over my head. Everything was out in the open now, even my naked body was exposed to critical eyes.

  I wrote about crime, but my characters were left in the police station, their stories ending with them being taken away. I’d never researched further and everything I knew of what happened afterwards was learned from TV shows. Nothing I’d seen gave me any confidence in my future.

  With no idea what I’d be allowed to bring, and unwilling to ask the unsympathetic detective, I grabbed a holdall and packed some spare underwear, another T-shirt, and basic toiletries.

  I didn’t think I’d been more than a couple of minutes but when I went downstairs two uniformed police officers were waiting. Hopper introduced them, the names dissipating as soon as said, my sad, confused brain no longer able to process something as simple as names.

  I went with them without question or comment.

  45

  Misty

  When we arrived at the police station, I was taken to an interview room that bore little resemblance to the fictional ones in my books. There, they were grim, odorous places with sticky floors and scarred tables. This room, on the other hand, could have been a conference room. The table was clean, the chairs comfortable, walls painted a relaxing sage green. The air-conditioning was set too low, however, and the room was so cold I shivered.

  I had phoned my agent, Theodora, on the way and given her a brief account of my position. She’d been understandably stunned and unusually lost for words.

  ‘I don’t know what to say,’ she’d finally said, ‘but I know what to do… get you a good solicitor. I’ll contact the legal team the agency uses, see if they can recommend someone. Okay? Meanwhile, hang tight.’

  Hang tight was an expression I never used, had never really understood what it meant. Now, perhaps I did. I was hanging tight to what was left of my sanity.

  The solicitor arrived a little over an hour later. A tall, thin, pale woman with an incongruous thick mop of ginger hair, she introduced herself and demanded a comprehensive account of what the police were accusing me of to which she listened in silence. There were none of the encouraging words or empathetic nods I’d have had my fictional solicitor give to someone in my situation.

  A page of an A4 pad was covered in her neat, tidy writing by the time I’d finished my story. She queried a few specific details and clicked her pen shut. ‘Okay, let’s wait to see what the police say.’

  She pulled a neat laptop from her briefcase, opened it, and proceeded to ignore me.

  I sat with my hands clasped on the table in front of me, my fingers interlaced. It was a strange moment to be aware of how ragged my nails were. Everything was strange. It was almost a relief to see the familiar detectives coming through the door.

  They sat opposite, their serious faces set into grim lines, and I knew what they were going to say before they said it. ‘You found him.’

  DI Hopper nodded slowly. ‘They’ve found the body of a man we assume to be Toby Carter buried in the bottom of that raised brick bed exactly where you indicated it might be.’

  Bizarrely, it was almost a relief to know the truth.

  ‘Ms Eastwood, you couldn’t defend yourself against Dee Carter who must be three inches shorter and several pounds lighter than you. Yet you had the strength to get Mr Carter’s body down the stairs, through the house and into the garden, then more strength to lift him up and put him in the bottom of that raised bed.’ Hopper shook her head. ‘Something doesn’t add up.’

  I felt her eyes boring into me. What did she want me to say? Hadn’t I confessed, wasn’t that enough for her?

  ‘Leaving that aside for the moment, there were also two holdalls beside the body. Are they the ones you mentioned Toby having that night?’

  I frowned. I’d dragged his body out, put him in the raised bed, then calmly went back for his bags before putting all the soil back on top of him. What kind of a monster was I that I could do such a thing? ‘He had two so I suppose that makes sense.’ My attempt at sounding rational was spoiled by the distinct quiver in my voice as panic increased its hold on me.

  ‘But you don’t remember putting them in beside him?’

  I shut my eyes briefly. Did they hope if they asked often enough, the lost memories would come tumbling back? I wished they would, wished there weren’t this horrible, scary blank, this dreadful space where a part of me I didn’t recognise was capable of such horror.

  ‘Ms Eastwood?’

  ‘I told you. I don’t recall anything about what happened.’

  ‘Okay. What about the rest of his belongings?’

  ‘The rest…’ Hadn’t I wondered the same thing? ‘I don’t know. He’d put the empty boxes up into the attic, I checked and they were gone so he must have taken them down and put the remainder of his stuff into them.’

  ‘Then where are they? Did someone come and pick them up?’

  ‘Not that I know of.’ I felt so weary, so numb. I’d killed Toby, what more did they need to know? I wished they’d stop asking questions and simply lock me away. My eyelids felt heavy, I was thinking about shutting them when Hopper’s insistent voice came again.

  ‘Mr Carter was supposed to be moving in with Gwen Marsham that evening, could she have come around and collected the boxes without you knowing?’

  I’d almost forgotten about the solicitor sitting to my right but at this, she held a hand up. ‘If it
was done without my client’s knowledge, she could hardly be aware now, could she?’

  I was almost amused at the solicitor’s pedantry. I knew exactly what the detective was asking but I sat back and waited for her to rephrase the question.

  ‘Let me ask another way then,’ Hopper said with a tight smile. ‘Could someone have called to your house, Ms Eastwood, rung your doorbell and be given those boxes by Mr Carter without you being aware that such an action was taking place?’

  I had come to that conclusion myself as being the only option. ‘If I was working, with my headphones on, yes, they could have done.’

  The interview room door opened and a uniformed constable appeared in the gap. ‘Sorry to interrupt,’ she said, ‘but it’s urgent.’

  I sighed and slumped down in the chair assuming the interruption would bring the interview to an end. When Hopper announced for the recording that it was being suspended I looked to my solicitor for… something, anything. I felt like a child wanting someone to say everything would be all right. When the solicitor merely raised a ginger eyebrow in response, as if this was all perfectly normal, I turned away.

  The other detective, her with the painted face whose name I had once again forgotten, had stayed behind and sat staring at me. Meeting her gaze, I refused to look away until I saw amusement creep into her eyes.

  Amusement. Over the next few days, I supposed I’d have to get used to being greeted by a variety of emotions. My sisters would be shocked, devastated and would probably refuse to believe I’d killed Toby until faced with the proof; my agent and editor would be horrified; various friends would be stunned. It was all ahead of me, and their reactions would be out of my control but here, for the moment, I still had some power. I looked back at the detective, her name coming to me in time. ‘Perhaps you could tell me, and my solicitor, Detective Sergeant Collins, why you find the current situation so intensely amusing?’

  I was pleased to see her expression change to a more suitable grim one and was about to make a further comment when the door opened and DI Hopper returned looking even more inscrutable than usual.

  She sat and shuffled in her chair before announcing the resumption of the interview.

  ‘Ms Eastwood, I know you’ve told us you have no recollection of what occurred that night.’ Hopper hesitated and appeared to be searching for the right words. ‘You don’t remember throwing the glass paperweight at Mr Carter but you found it on the floor of your office the next day so you’re assuming you did. Is that correct?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You assume this blow was responsible for killing Mr Carter and in your panic you chose not to ring for an ambulance or the police, but instead dragged his dead weight down the stairs, through the house and across the garden to the raised flower bed and managed to get him inside.’

  I waited for my solicitor to say that I’d told them, several times, I couldn’t remember. When she remained silent, I shook my head in frustration. ‘I keep telling you, I don’t know what I did. But since you’ve found Toby’s body where I told you, it must have happened that way.’

  ‘I think you might have rung someone for help.’ Hopper leaned forward, her arms sliding on the table so that her clasped hands were almost touching mine. ‘Which is why we’ve asked to see your phone records.’

  The solicitor who’d been listening carefully suddenly shuffled in her seat. ‘Methinks you’ve had some news, Detective Inspector Hopper.’ She smiled. ‘You’ve found fingerprints that don’t match those of my client, haven’t you?’

  ‘Someone else was there?’ I was stunned. ‘Who?’

  Hopper sat back. ‘That’s what we’re going to find out.’

  46

  Gwen

  Two hours later, in another interview room in the same police station, Gwen Marsham sat drumming her nails on the table. She’d been given little choice by the two uniformed constables who had arrived at the gallery. Luckily, it had been empty, nobody to witness the embarrassment.

  She got to her feet when the door opened and the two detectives she was sick of seeing walked through. Agitation made her voice tremble. ‘I do not appreciate having uniformed officers descend upon my gallery,’ she snapped. ‘I have worked hard to build up my business, anything with a whiff of scandal can do it irreparable damage.’

  ‘Unfortunately, circumstances necessitated that we acted quickly, Ms Marsham.’ DI Hopper took the seat opposite, Collins the seat beside her. ‘Toby Carter’s body has been found. His wife formally identified him a few minutes ago.’

  Gwen sank back onto the chair. She tried to get her thoughts in order, tried to fix her expression into one resembling horror, shock, sorrow – aiming for Edvard Munch’s The Scream or maybe the Face Screaming in Fear emoji. She wondered if she should put her hands to her face to make it clear how she felt. Because she was horrified, of course she was. They’d found Toby’s body.

  When she saw Hopper’s lips tighten, she wasn’t sure she’d managed to convey the correct emotion and dropped her eyes to her clasped hands.

  ‘Mrs Carter was understandably upset, so much so, in fact, that she needed medical attention. Despite his infidelity, she referred to Toby Carter as being–’ Hopper crooked her index fingers in the air. ‘–the love of her life.’ She rested her forearms on the table, her fingers interlinked. ‘To be honest, Ms Marsham, I’m sorry not to have met the man. I find it staggering that he could behave as he did and still garner so much devotion.’

  Gwen kept her eyes down and twisted her hands together. ‘As you say, detective, you never met him so you couldn’t possibly understand.’

  ‘No, obviously not.’ Hopper sat back, her hands flat on the table, the pads of her fingers tapping, a dull thud beating in rhythm to some unheard music. She stopped, linked her fingers together again and slid them forward, bringing her closer to Gwen. ‘You didn’t ask where we found him, Ms Marsham.’

  Gwen opened her mouth, then shut it again. She’d seen cats toying with mice they’d caught, the almost bored pat with a paw that sent the mouse flying, the quick grab again, the pressure of sharp teeth, then the drop and the mouse’s attempt to escape. Did the poor mouse know that whatever he did the outcome was going to be the same? But as the mouse did, Gwen decided to try to escape.

  ‘No, I didn’t.’ Let the detective make of that answer whatever she wanted.

  ‘Mr Carter was buried in Misty Eastwood’s back garden. As a result, Ms Eastwood is in custody helping us with our enquiries.’

  ‘Poor Toby, what a sad end.’ At least with these words she could be sincere. How Toby would have hated being given such an undignified resting place. ‘I am, of course, pleased to have an answer to the mystery of why he didn’t arrive as he’d promised, but I’m puzzled as to why you thought it necessary to bring me here.’

  She saw a sweep of satisfaction cross both detectives’ faces, a subtle shade of it on the older detective, a gleeful waft of it across the painted face of the younger. She knew in that second that the mouse had been caught.

  ‘You were arrested and charged with a drugs offence when you were twenty-two,’ DI Hopper said. ‘For which you received a suspended sentence.’

  Gwen opened her eyes wide and raised one perfectly plucked eyebrow. ‘My one and only foray into recreational drugs and it’s still being brought up! That’s simply ridiculous and can’t possibly have anything to do with what I’m doing here. If you’re thinking Toby was into drugs I can tell you you’re totally wrong.’

  ‘We’re not looking at a drugs connection. At least,’ Hopper shrugged, ‘we’ve not considered one yet. No, what we have been looking at is your fingerprints and thanks to your arrest, they’re on the system. But before we go any further, we need to caution you–’ Hopper tilted her head toward Collins. ‘–my colleague will do the honours.’

  The strands of tension that had been wrapping themselves around Gwen since the uniformed police had arrived at the gallery suddenly jerked tightly cutting off her breath. She hid her
gasp in a grating, ‘What?’

  Collins made no effort to hide her satisfaction and rolled off the words. ‘You do not have to say anything. But it may harm your defence if you do not mention now something which you later rely on in court. Anything you do say may be given in evidence. Do you understand this caution, Ms Marsham?’

  She suddenly understood everything. Her damn fingerprints. She licked her lips. ‘Yes, I understand.’

  ‘You might prefer to have a solicitor with you before we go any further.’

  Gwen almost smiled as she imagined the stunned expression on the face of the petite, delicate solicitor who handled the legal affairs of the gallery. She’d have to ring her eventually, but not yet, not until she found out exactly what the police knew. ‘No, I’d like to get whatever this is over with.’

  Hopper opened the slim file that sat on the desk in front of her and withdrew an A4 colour photograph. ‘For the record, I’m showing Ms Marsham a photograph of two holdalls.’ She slid it across the desk. ‘Do you recognise these?’

  Gwen felt the colour slide down her face and vanish. Of course, she recognised them and worse, she knew they were going to be her undoing.

  ‘You need to answer for the record, Ms Marsham.’

  Instead of answering, Gwen lifted her hands, palms up, and rubbed her thumbs over her fingertips. ‘My prints are on them so there’s no point in my lying, is there?’

  ‘These holdalls–’ Hopper tapped her index finger on the photo. ‘–were found buried alongside Toby Carter’s body. Did you help Misty Eastwood bury him?’

  Gwen was still rubbing her fingertips but she looked up at that and met Hopper’s gaze. ‘Help Misty bury him…’ She shook her head. ‘No, you’ve got it all wrong.’

  Collins muttered something unintelligible and Hopper let out a grunt of frustration. ‘Perhaps then you’ll tell us what did happen.’