Each Little Lie: A gripping psychological thriller with a heart-stopping twist

by Tom Bale

  Encouraged, he sped up until he was on the ridge, slowing when he saw the house in the distance, a dark knot against the silvery gleam of the lake. Jen had paused, and was observing the property from a safe distance.

  Freddie didn’t trust himself not to stumble and make a noise, so he kept still and waited. For a moment, apart from birdsong, there was silence, and then he heard a car approaching from somewhere to his left. It grew louder as it passed, began to fade, then seemed to cut off.

  Straining to listen, he thought he heard a door opening, but not the corresponding clunk of it closing. Below him, Jen had glanced round but hadn’t seen him. She must have decided it was safe to move, for she set off towards the house, while keeping within the cover of the trees.

  Now he was torn. Go after Jen, or check out the car? For a minute he did neither; just watched Jen get further away from him, his insides turning to water every time she was lost from sight behind the trees.

  It was a no-brainer, or should have been – stick with Jen – but the car niggled at him. There were clearly very few houses around here, so the chance of someone turning up at the same time. . .

  He lost track of his thoughts when he saw Jen burst from the trees in a fast, crouching run. She was heading to one side of the building, rather than the front, probably because the place was sealed up. The only signs of occupation were the van parked outside and a light on the top floor.

  Then she vanished again, but only for a second. She was climbing onto a handrail where the jetty was fixed to the house. He stared, uncomprehending, as she stretched to get hold of an ancient-looking drainpipe.

  ‘Oh, shit,’ Freddie exhaled in a nervous judder.

  She was going to climb.

  As she got closer to the building, Jen saw a way she could get in. With the windows sealed by the shutters, the best option was the middle of the three large skylights, which she could see was partially open.

  The route to it was far from clear-cut. There was an old cast-iron drainpipe that ought to bear her weight, providing the brackets that anchored it to the wall were still secure. But the next stage – going from the pipe to the roof – was a lot more tricky, and very dangerous.

  There certainly weren’t any better options, and all her instincts told her that Dean couldn’t be taken at face value. Therefore, any small advantage she could gain had to be worth a try. And as a form of climbing, ‘buildering’, as it was known, had a long and noble history, and wasn’t so different to what she did every day at the centre.

  That was how she tried to reassure herself as she climbed onto the handrail and reached for the drainpipe. Clutching it with both hands, she jabbed her foot against the corner of the windowsill and let the pipe take some of her weight. It made a dull grinding noise that might have been audible within the house, but she had to hope that Dean would put it down to the natural creaks and groans of an old building.

  Gripping the pipe, she tested its strength a little more by slowly leaning back, then planting her feet flat against the wall on either side. It felt pretty sturdy. Most of the brackets looked intact, though she could see one near the top that wasn’t as tight to the wall.

  As she started to climb, she could feel the pipe straining against the brackets. She prayed it would hold – there was a very hard landing if she fell, with little chance of escaping a broken limb, or worse.

  Stay confident, she told herself. You’re good at this.

  And so she was. But at thirty feet up, almost at the top, the bracket came away.

  There was a quiet grinding noise, a rusty bolt dropped onto her shoulder and bounced off, and the drainpipe lurched about a foot out from the building. Jen clung on, knowing that panic would only compound her problems. For one long, hideous second she felt sure the sudden added force would blow the next bracket, and then the next, causing the pipe to collapse, but thankfully it held. . . just about.

  At least she was close enough now to reach out for the roof: the crux of the climb. Even though the drainpipe had come loose, the thought of letting go filled her with dread. To get over the lip of the roof, there would have to be a second or two when her only purchase would be a one-handed grip on the overhang at the corner of the rear gable. And the act of swinging away from the wall could easily be enough to send the drainpipe crashing to the ground, taking her with it.

  She inhaled slowly and willed herself calm. When the bouldering centre had opened, she’d spent a lot of time on pull-ups and other upper body exercises, as well as increasing her finger strength by hangboarding, but in recent months she hadn’t been quite so diligent. Did she still have the power and control?

  I have to. She braced her feet and shifted a little more weight to her left side, then whipped her right hand out and grabbed the edge of the roof. She tested it, applying more force, and couldn’t feel anything working loose. The roof was old but made with slate, a good durable material that wouldn’t crumble as readily as clay or concrete tiles.

  Then came the toughest part – a lock-off as she let go of the drainpipe and grabbed the roof with her left hand, then let her feet swing to the right, building momentum so that she could sweep them back the other way, at the same time bending her arms at the elbows and rising enough to lift her left foot onto the roof.

  The pressure on her fingers, wrists and arms was extraordinary, but she banished the pain by an act of sheer will, refusing to let her nerves speak to her brain. Another huge effort was required to bring the rest of her body over, her mouth wide open in a silent scream and her mind whirring on an incoherent loop – don’t fall don’t fail don’t fall don’t fail – and then, suddenly, somehow, it was done.

  She was up.

  Stemper drove the length of the private road, turned round and parked some way short of the property. He took a leather bag from the back seat and put on latex gloves, a long dark coat and a wool cap. An incongruous look for the time of year, but one that concealed any meaningful information about his appearance.

  The bag was heavy, and he switched it, gingerly, from hand to hand as he climbed the pothole-ridden tarmac of a narrow driveway, over a rise that gave him the first view of the house. It sat beside the lake on a patch of muddy ground, and seemed to be in the midst of some half-hearted renovation.

  The security shutters on the windows were a gratifying sight; perfect for what he had in mind. He crept closer, then froze as he detected movement, high up on the building.

  There was somebody on the roof. In the premature dusk of the woods it was difficult to make her out, but definitely a woman.

  It seemed Gerard was right. Jennifer Cornish had come to find her son.

  66

  For a moment Jen lay sprawled face down on the sloping roof, still precariously balanced, with a potentially fatal drop just inches away. There weren’t any hand or toeholds, so she didn’t risk trying to kneel or stand. Instead she stretched out her left arm and leg, then pushed with her right side and shuffled a little further away from the edge.

  It was a strange, ungainly form of motion, like trying to move by making snow angels, but on the third go, her left foot bumped over the ridge and landed on the flat central section of the roof. A few seconds later she was in a crouch, looking out over the waters of the lake and then down at the jetty, which seemed very far below.

  Aware that the roof space would echo like a drum, she tiptoed along to the open skylight. It was set into the top of the sloping roof, with a hatch that opened like a jaw.

  Jen knelt down and peered carefully through the glass. The room below was an enormous junkyard. It seemed to run at least half the length of the building, with several internal walls having been removed. Almost every inch of floor space was piled with furniture, mattresses, bedding, clothes and boxes.

  But it also appeared to be unoccupied, which was good news. She studied the skylight and saw that the hinges were at the top. To get in she’d have to descend the slope a little, but at least this time she had the skylight itself to hold for support.


  She pulled it open as far as it would go, then stepped onto the slate, both hands still gripping the open window as she positioned herself at the widest point. It didn’t open enough for her to step inside easily; she had to bend down, place one foot and then the other over the frame, then wriggle in backwards with her upper body out over the roof and her legs dangling in mid air.

  She heard a noise from below, like furniture shifting, but couldn’t see anyone. It hardly mattered: she was committed now. Directly beneath her there were a couple of dining chairs and a grubby-looking mattress. Jen swung and dropped onto the mattress, landing heavily but without injury.

  She half expected Dean to leap out, and tensed as a cardboard box scraped along the floor. Then a small, pale face popped up, gorgeous brown eyes widening with shock and delight.

  Freddie had quickly moved position for a better view of what Jen was doing. It was something he instantly regretted. Watching her climb a three-storey building with no ropes or safety equipment was the most terrifying thing he’d ever witnessed.

  It probably only took a few minutes but it felt like an hour, with Freddie frozen rigid the whole time. The slightest noise or movement might disturb her concentration, and the thought of Jen falling to her death because of something he’d done was more than he could bear.

  He was hoping and praying and willing her to succeed; when she made it to the top he felt nearly as proud as if he’d done it himself. Not that he had any illusions on that score: very few people could do what Jen had just done, and it came as a sobering reminder that marrying her had been probably the best decision he’d ever made, and cheating on her the very worst.

  After watching her disappear through the skylight, he punched the air: a brief moment of exultation before the anxiety returned once more. She was inside, but now what?

  Jen hadn’t even got to her feet when Charlie thudded into her. ‘It’s okay, darling.’ She held him as tightly as she could, and promised: ‘I’m here now. I won’t leave you again.’

  Charlie was sobbing, his face pressed to her chest. Jen checked to be sure they were alone. At ground level she could see the room was even more of a tip. Half a dozen radiators and several filthy toilet pans were stacked against one wall, next to a pile of mattresses stained and ragged from years of wear. Mould was growing on the walls and the piles of yellowy bed linen. The room was cold, and stank of decay.

  Apart from the skylights, the half dozen windows on three sides of the room were clad with shutters, which were crudely bolted to the wall. There was only one door, made of heavy timber. No sign of Dean, though he must have heard the impact as she’d dropped into the room.

  ‘Where is he? Has he looked after you?’

  Charlie didn’t answer either question. In a snuffling voice, he said, ‘I don’t like him, Mummy. I’m scared.’

  ‘There’s no need to be.’ Jen felt sick, not least because this was a lie. ‘Tell me, please, if he’s hurt you. . .?’

  She was dreading the response, so it was a relief when he shook his head. ‘But he’s nasty. He pretends to be my friend but he isn’t. He made me pretend, too, on the video, or he said. . . he said he’d do things. . .’

  ‘Wh-what things?’ she asked, her voice almost breaking.

  ‘Things,’ he repeated. ‘To you.’

  ‘Charlie, I’m so sorry. I came for you as soon as I could, but he didn’t tell me where you were. What about his mum – I hope she was a bit nicer to you?’ She forced a smile, but it was met with a blank look. ‘Last night. Didn’t you sleep. . .?’

  She aborted the question, aware that it could make things worse. She felt almost as angry with herself as she did with Dean. At least her decision to sneak into the building had been vindicated – without a chance to hear the truth from Charlie, she might have been suckered into believing yet more lies.

  ‘I want to go.’

  ‘We will. Where is he now, do you know?’

  ‘Cleaning up, he said. When we got here, he had to go out on the lake. To get rid of—’ He gulped, as if choking on the words.

  ‘Get rid of what?’

  ‘It was wrapped up in the back of the van. The smell was horrible. He told me it was an animal, to use for the meat, but I don’t. . . I don’t think it was.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘It was the shape of a person.’

  ‘Oh, darling. I’m sure it wasn’t – and anyway, I’m here now, and I won’t let anything happen to you.’ A pretty feeble display of bravado, she thought, just as Charlie’s gasp alerted her to a sound from outside the room. A bolt rattled back, the door opened and Dean stepped into view.

  67

  Stemper watched the woman climb in through a skylight, then waited for Freddie Lynch to show himself. Had he found another way in, or was he watching from somewhere?

  When no one appeared, he made the decision to creep down past the left side of the building. Jen’s covert entry was likely to take Dean by surprise, and he wanted to exploit this distraction. He checked the back of the house, which had once opened onto the lake. More security shutters covered a set of rear doors.

  Perfect. The steel door at the front was the only access point.

  Stemper headed back that way and took a crowbar from his bag. Up close he could see that the ground-floor windows had been removed; prising away one corner of the shutter would give him the space he needed to get the incendiaries inside.

  They were made to his own design, perfected on the basis of advice he’d received or extracted from sources that included Irish republicans, Chechen rebel fighters and a rogue Libyan scientist. He used jars the size of a coffee mug, designed to shatter easily and release liquid accelerant as well as an inner glass capsule that contained pyrophoric material, in this case tert-Butyllithium.

  Fast or slow, it was going to be a noisy job. Since speed was of the essence, he wedged the crowbar between the wall and the shutter and jerked it forward, putting all his weight into a single decisive movement. The bolt on the corner was prised out with a bloodcurdling screech, opening a gap just wide enough for his purposes.

  He tossed a couple of the incendiaries through the opening, aiming for the area in front of the door. He heard the glass break and the pleasing whump of ignition, then hurried around the right-hand side of the building, intending to repeat the process and ensure the fire spread as quickly as possible. He’d set the bag down when his lizard brain screamed danger, a fraction of a second before he felt the vibration of footsteps.

  Dean stopped and gaped at her, then looked up at the skylight. ‘You came in through the roof?’

  ‘I didn’t know if it was safe to knock on the door.’ Seeing his displeasure, she added, ‘I had no way of knowing who else might be here.’

  ‘Just me.’ He nodded at Charlie. ‘Us.’

  ‘Okay. That’s good.’

  He was still suspicious. ‘You followed the route I told you? Only I thought I heard a car.’

  ‘I heard that, too. I assume you have neighbours?’

  ‘Not many. That’s what I like about it.’ He stared at her for a long moment, as if debating whether he could trust her. Then he pressed his hands against his cheeks and let out a long breath. ‘I’m sorry if I sounded hostile, but this place is so important to me. My sanctuary.’

  Jen took in the squalor and tried to mask her revulsion. ‘This is where you live?’

  ‘Not exactly.’ He gazed around, pensively, as if seeing it through her eyes. ‘There was a bad flood last year, so a lot of stuff had to come up here. Obviously now I’ll have to bring my plans forward, but if we both set to work, we can soon get a few of the rooms into shape.’

  ‘You want me to stay here? With Charlie?’

  He looked bemused. ‘Well, of course. This is where we can all be safe.’

  ‘Dean, I’m not sure—’

  ‘You’ll love it, honestly.’ He smiled. ‘This was my dream, from the moment I saw you at the Skyway. I watched you at work, helping tho
se less fortunate, and knew I had to rescue you from the pain, the injustice of what your father-in-law was planning.’ He paused, with an embarrassed glance at Charlie, then said, ‘I’d hoped for a bit longer to get everything in place, but as I said, when I saw Charlie looking so unhappy I had to act fast.’

  Jen listened in disbelief. She could feel herself trembling but had no idea if it was fear, adrenaline, suppressed rage – or all those things combined.

  ‘Look, Dean. . .’ She was nervous about contradicting him, but knew it would be equally dangerous to reinforce his delusions. ‘It’s really not practical for Charlie and me to hide away up here. I can’t break off all contact with my family, my friends, the police.’ He was about to interrupt when she quickly added: ‘They’ve been speaking to me about Russell Pearce. I was one of the last people to see his wife before she died. Everyone’s looking for him, and if I were to go missing as well. . .’

  Shaking his head, Dean sighed. ‘You ought to know that Pearce was a horrible pervert. He was a threat to you, Jen. I took care of that threat.’

  He said it as if expecting to be thanked. ‘Wh-what about his wife?’ she asked.

  ‘That had to be done, I’m afraid, to give the police a scenario that stopped them looking elsewhere. And she wasn’t a nice woman at all, was she? I was there, on Sunday afternoon. I saw her spitting at you.’ He seemed to register her shock and added, in an encouraging tone, ‘You don’t need to worry, especially now we have Gerard on tape. That’ll get the cops off your back, and then we’re home and dry.’

  He’s insane, she realised. Brushing off murder as little more than a minor detail. She understood that there would be no reasoning with him, and nor would he agree to let them leave. Her only option was to take him on and hope that Charlie, at least, was able to get away.

  She handed him the recording device, suppressing a shudder as his fingers brushed against hers. ‘Can we listen to this, and find out—’