Lie to Me: A gripping psychological thriller with a shocking twist

by Jess Ryder

  The screen goes black.

  Chapter Three

  Me

  I slam down the lid of the laptop and jump off my bed. The DVD spins and slows to a stop – I want to stamp on it and break it into pieces, but I know it won’t help. I’ve watched it now, seen Becca in that strange, feverish state, holding me down, making me cry, forcing me to say horrible, crazy things. The image of my tiny self, stabbing the air with an imaginary knife, is lodged in my brain forever. No matter how many times I press delete, I’ll never get rid of it.

  It’s already dark outside. My reflection hovers uneasily in the bedroom window – adult-sized features, weary eyes smudged with the remains of the day’s make-up, hair lank with London dirt. I’m worried about the little girl in the video, even though she’s tucked away safely inside me, an inner layer of being, like the centre of an onion. I feel I should be doing something – calling Social Services or taking her to a psychiatrist. It’s as if her life is still being played out in a parallel universe and she’s in sudden danger, reaching out to me through time and space to rescue her from harm.

  I rest my forehead on the cool glass, but it doesn’t soothe me. My insides are all churned up with emotion, anger for me and pity for Becca. Sadness for Dad because he tried, as ever, to protect me and I refused to listen. Thought I knew better. I was so determined to have my own way, I pushed him to the ground, just a few weeks after he’d had a heart attack. God knows what made me do it. Will he ever forgive me?

  I pick up my phone and call his number again. It rings out for several seconds and I imagine him staring at his screen, deciding whether to accept or reject me. I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve tried calling him these past few days – he hasn’t picked up once, or replied to any of my texts. The voicemail kicks in and I hesitate, not knowing what to say.

  ‘Dad? It’s me. Please, please call me… I’m sorry… Really, really sorry. Please, let’s talk.’

  The air in the room feels contaminated. I open the window and look down into the back garden – dishevelled flower beds and overgrown trees, last year’s dead leaves rotting on the cracked paving stones of the patio. I hate this house. It’s dark and damp and I live with two girls I hardly know. When Eliot and I split up, neither of us could afford the flat on our own, so we had to move out. I was in a panic and not in a good place emotionally. I should have moved back home with Dad until I got myself sorted out, but that felt like too much of a defeat. I wanted to be strong, deciding it would be better to live with new people and make a fresh start. But Lizzie is hardly ever here, and I don’t really get on with Fay. I can hear her playing music in her room, but I can’t go and talk to her – not about something as personal as this. Can’t confide in any of my girlfriends either. They don’t know about my mad mother. When the subject of parents comes up, I always say she walked out when I was very young and leave it there. That’s all I knew for years anyway – it’s a half-lie I’m comfortable with telling.

  When I was little, I lived very happily with just one parent and rarely thought about my mother. But when puberty struck, I started to miss her, despite the fact that I had so few memories of her and didn’t even know what she looked like. I needed help with agonising period pains and hair sprouting in embarrassing places; I needed someone to explain all these mixed-up emotions I was feeling. In short, I needed a woman in my life. But my mother wasn’t around and nobody seemed to know where I could find her. Sometimes I blamed myself for her absence. At other times, I was angry with her for never once getting in touch – not so much as a birthday card or a phone call at Christmas. The feeling of rejection was so painful it was as if she’d only just walked out of the door. Dad refused to talk about what had happened, so I concluded she must have run off with another man. My feelings became even more complicated then; I wanted to find her, but I hated her too. For hurting Dad. I had so many questions going round and round in my head, but another two years passed before I plucked up the courage to ask them.

  It was the summer holidays, about eleven o’clock at night, and Dad and I were still in the garden, sitting at a table bathed in candlelight. It must have been a heatwave. Dad was wearing a T-shirt and baggy shorts, flip-flops on his feet, a bottle of beer in his hand. He was a heavy smoker back then, and was showing off his ability to blow rings into the star-filled sky. I was drinking Pepsi, secretly laced with shots of Bacardi that I’d stolen from the drinks cabinet. I’d stuffed my tall tumbler with ice cubes, just like I’d seen in the adverts, and the glass was so slippery I could hardly hold it.

  We’d been sitting there since dinner, talking about this and that – how my GCSEs were going, what I might study at university, whether he should apply for an internal promotion or look for a new job elsewhere, how I’d feel about moving house… It was one of our first proper ‘grown-up’ conversations and I remember feeling pleased that I’d stayed at home for the evening instead of going out with my friends.

  I don’t know how the subject of Becca came up. Maybe it was the unusual weather, or the secret alcohol running through my veins, but there was a relaxed atmosphere between us I had never experienced with Dad before. We’d reached a natural pause in our conversation and were sitting in easy silence, listening to the night sounds, watching the candle flames flicker in the darkness. Without warning, the words just drifted into my mouth.

  ‘Can we talk about Becca?’

  He didn’t reply immediately, just took another swig of his beer and gently set the bottle down on the table. ‘What is it you want to know?’

  ‘Everything. What happened. Why she left us.’

  ‘She was schizophrenic,’ he said. ‘Not her fault, but it nearly destroyed all of us.’

  I’d vaguely heard of schizophrenia, but I thought it was something to do with having a split personality, like Jekyll and Hyde. Dad explained that it was more of a destroyed personality than a split one. He told me the illness had come on very gradually and taken several years to diagnose. It had probably started when Becca was a teenager, but her family hadn’t realised at the time – they just thought she was moody and difficult. Her parents chucked her out and they were estranged. Dad said his relationship with Becca had always been volatile, but he’d thought that was just her personality.

  ‘If only I’d known…’ he muttered, blowing smoke rings into the sky as if he were setting the memories free.

  I let the ice in my glass melt, not daring to drink in case I broke the spell. Dad had never opened up to me before like this and I didn’t want it to stop.

  He carried on, speaking without looking at me, as if pretending I wasn’t really there.

  ‘We met during teacher training and hit it off immediately, moved in together after a few weeks and got married the following summer. She wasn’t the easiest person to live with – we had a few rows, but we had a lot of fun too. Life with Becca was never boring and I liked that. To begin with, anyway… After she qualified, she got a job in a primary school but instantly hated it. Things started to get a bit weird. She became convinced her colleagues were plotting against her, trying to get her sacked.’

  ‘And were they?’

  ‘No, it was all in her head. She was unreliable, didn’t turn up for work, or walked out in the middle of lessons. Sometimes she said really odd things to the kids and upset them. There were complaints. She went off on long-term sick leave with stress. Spent all day lying in bed, stayed awake all night. She’d wander the streets in her nightdress and come home at dawn, her feet covered in mud.’

  ‘Didn’t she have counselling?’ I asked. I’d started to become aware of such things at school. If you had emotional problems, you were supposed to ask for help.

  ‘We tried, but after a couple of sessions she refused to go. The doctor put her on antidepressants, but the drugs weren’t right – they seemed to make it worse. At that stage, nobody mentioned the possibility of schizophrenia.’ Dad paused to take another drink. His hand was trembling slightly as it held the bottle, and I
remember thinking that he was recalling something specific – something too horrible or painful to express.

  ‘We had a very difficult year,’ he said finally, ‘but then she became pregnant with you and things seemed to improve for a while.’ He chose his next words carefully. ‘She wanted you very much, but, when you were born, she found it hard to cope. The doctors said it was postnatal depression and it would pass eventually, but…’

  ‘They were wrong.’

  ‘Things went rapidly downhill. She was on her own with you all day and she felt very isolated. She wasn’t looking after you properly. Sometimes I’d get home from work and find her asleep on the sofa with you crying in your playpen. I sent you to full-time nursery – she hated me for that, but it was for your own safety. Then the voices started. They told her I was evil and was trying to poison her. She wouldn’t eat any meal I prepared and was rapidly losing weight. Every night she woke up screaming, said the house was full of devils and monsters and I was one of them. She was terrified of mirrors and we had to cover them all up. It was crazy stuff. She was self-harming almost daily; her arms and thighs were in shreds. Then she tried to kill herself. I had no choice, Meri. I had to have her taken away. You do understand, don’t you? I did what I thought was best.’

  My mind instantly went back to the last time I had seen her. The visit to the peculiar hospital. The nets in the stairwell and the plastic windows. Finally I understood where I’d been all those years earlier.

  ‘Was that when they finally diagnosed her schizophrenia?’ He nodded. ‘So what happened next? Where did she go?’

  He sighed, leaning back and looking up at the stars. ‘I don’t know, my darling. After a few months, she escaped from the psychiatric unit and disappeared. My guess is she tried to commit suicide again and succeeded. I’m sorry, it’s hard to take, but I think you’re old enough to know the truth.’

  I picked up my glass and downed the secret Bacardi in a single gulp. ‘But you don’t know for sure – she could still be alive…’

  Dad shook his head. ‘I doubt it. Please don’t look for her, Meri. She’s dead to us – let’s leave it that way. For all our sakes.’ He stood up, blew out the candles and went indoors. That was the last time we talked about her.

  I leave the memory at the window and sit back on the bed, tracing my fingers across the lid of the laptop. Why did Becca make the video? What was she trying to say? Dad never mentioned it that night in the garden, but I have a feeling it was significant. A turning point, perhaps. At the very least, the video is evidence that he was right to have her sectioned. The whole family was suffering. The long-term psychological damage she could have done to me doesn’t bear thinking about. But I survived, thanks to him. I was lucky.

  I play the tape again, distancing myself this time, watching coolly as if viewing a documentary, listening carefully as I try to work out what’s really going on. Some of what Becca says has no grip on reality – tell them who you were before you were Meri… if we don’t tell the truth, the bad man will come and take us away. But other bits are very specific. Names are mentioned – Cara Travers, Christopher Jay. Did she make them up, or were they people she knew? Perhaps there was an actual murder. I type the names into my phone and wait for the search engine to do its stuff, but the results are inconclusive. There are such people in existence, several in fact, but nothing linking them together. Of course there’s nothing. I click out of Google and slam my phone down on the bed. Why am I taking this at all seriously? There’s nothing to investigate here; it’s just a load of pitiful, insane rambling – a random chapter in the life of my poor schizophrenic mother, that’s all. It has nothing to do with the real world, or with my life now. And yet…

  I lie back and gaze up at the cracked grey ceiling. A cold shiver runs through me and I reach for the duvet, pulling it across my body. I want to forget I ever saw the video, put it on the top shelf and leave it to gather dust. But I know I won’t be able to. Something inside me has changed. A light has been turned on; a door to a forgotten room has been opened.

  Chapter Four

  Cara

  January 1984

  It was gone eleven by the time they got to the house, taking it in turns to carry Cara’s huge suitcase from the bus stop at the top of Darkwater Lane, the weight of it propelling them down the hill towards the pond.

  ‘It’s known as a pool – not that you can swim in it,’ Isobel explained, stopping to catch her breath. Cara looked at the flat black expanse of water, its surface lit by a couple of street lamps, and shivered at the mere thought of anyone jumping in.

  ‘What’s that?’ she said, pointing to the dark shape of a building at the far side.

  ‘The old boathouse. You used to be able to hire these sweet little rowing boats. I’ve got a very dim memory of Grandpa taking me out and the ducks following us around.’ Isobel laughed softly. ‘Our garden backs onto the footpath that goes round the pool – there’s a gate in the fence. I’ll show you properly tomorrow.’

  Cara peered around her in the darkness, impatient to understand the geography of her new surroundings. Tall silhouettes of houses curved in a gracious arc around three-quarters of the pool; that must be Darkwater Terrace. They were standing on the open side, by the road. Two wooden benches overlooked the water and there was a gate in the low brick wall – leading, she presumed, to the footpath, hidden by the trees and bushes lining the banks. It was very secluded. They were only a couple of miles from the city centre, but it felt almost rural.

  Isobel picked up the suitcase again. ‘Come on. Nearly there.’ They took the first road on the left and walked along until they reached number 31 – a large brick terraced house, bay-fronted on both floors with a small pointed attic window in the roof.

  ‘This is it,’ she announced, heaving the case up the path and resting it on the tiled step while she searched for her door key. ‘Welcome!’

  Cara felt again the surge of joy she’d had after Isobel’s phone call a week ago. In the six months since they’d graduated, her life had virtually ground to a halt; more accurately, it had gone back to how it had been before, as if the last three years had never happened. With no job to go to, there’d been no alternative but to return home. She’d written dozens of letters to agents and rep theatres, but nobody had shown the slightest bit of interest and her parents had more or less told her to give up the idea of acting. Her mother wanted her to do teacher-training, whereas her father – who disapproved of teachers almost as much as he disapproved of actors – thought she would do better in personnel. The one thing they were both agreed on was that she should start paying her way, so she’d signed up with a temping agency – photocopying and filing mostly, as she couldn’t type. She’d spent the last few months shuffling between construction companies, accountants, conveyancing solicitors and the local council, feeling more and more depressed. Then, last Monday evening, the phone rang.

  ‘It’s a beautiful house and it’ll make the perfect base for our theatre company,’ Isobel said. Her grandmother had died nearly a year ago, leaving her entire estate – including 31 Darkwater Terrace – to her only grandchild. The will had been contested and the whole business had caused an unpleasant rift between Isobel and her mother’s side of the family.

  ‘You will come, won’t you?’ Isobel had pleaded. ‘I couldn’t possibly do it without you.’ It had taken less than a second for Cara to make up her mind.

  Isobel was right – the house was beautiful. It was like wandering through an antiques shop, with ornaments and silverware crowding every surface, oil paintings of hunting scenes and sea storms and delicate Victorian watercolour landscapes on the walls. The contents alone must be worth a fortune, thought Cara, gasping at the sitting room with its enormous carved wooden mantelpiece, the large, graceful settee and small velvet armchair. She admired the contents of the half-moon display cabinet and the faded Turkish carpet on the floor. In the dining room she was suitably impressed by the huge polished table and its twelve matching cha
irs, and easily agreed that the long, thin kitchen, where the units looked like something out of the 1950s, was ‘perfect’. But her favourite room was the ancient conservatory, bursting with rickety bamboo furniture and overgrown cacti.

  ‘I want to use Gran’s old bedroom for rehearsals,’ said Isobel, leading the way upstairs. ‘So I’m in the attic – it’s where I used to sleep when I was a child – and I’ve put you in the back bedroom. It’s got a lovely view of the garden.’ She pushed open the door to reveal a rectangular room full of red mahogany furniture – a double bed with a high headboard, a small matching wardrobe and a dressing table decked with three hinged mirrors. Cara threw her bag onto the bed and walked straight over to the window, but it was too dark to see the garden below.

  ‘You’ll love it,’ said Isobel, standing behind her and folding her arms around Cara’s waist. ‘It was Gran’s pride and joy, so we’ve got to look after it.’

  ‘Yes, we must,’ Cara murmured, thinking that she didn’t know a thing about gardening.

  ‘Anyway, you must be worn out,’ Isobel said, releasing her with a final squeeze and moving back to the doorway. ‘Get some sleep and we’ll start work in the morning. I’ve already made a frighteningly long list of jobs, but now there’s the two of us…’

  ‘Can’t wait.’ Cara sat down on the mattress, feeling the ancient springs twang. ‘Have you had any thoughts about what we should call the company?’ She’d always liked naming things – dolls, pets, imaginary children…

  ‘Oh, didn’t I tell you?’ Isobel pulled a mock-guilty face. ‘It just came to me the other night.’ She gestured at her purple dress, mauve patterned scarf and woollen tights the colour of aubergine; as if Cara wasn’t already aware of her best friend’s obsession with the colour. ‘Purple Blaze. What do you think?’