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

by Jess Ryder

  I gulp down a tear. ‘When did she send this?’

  ‘The first year after she left.’

  ‘Is it the only one?’

  ‘I don’t know. There could well have been more, but we moved, remember? She didn’t put her address anywhere so I couldn’t get in touch.’ His expression is pained, as if flinching from some invisible strike.

  Angry words form in my head. Couldn’t you have tried to track her down? She must have had friends. Somebody she kept in touch with. When my birthday came round, couldn’t you have checked with the owners of the old house and asked them to forward any mail? But I don’t say any of those things, because I made a promise.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he says, cutting into my silence. ‘I thought hearing from her would upset you. We were doing so well without her, I didn’t want to rock the boat. And then the years went by and… I thought it best not to mention it.’ He attempts a small forgive-me smile. ‘At least I kept it, eh?’

  I look back at the envelope. The postmark is smudged and faded, but I can just about make out the word Sevilla.

  ‘It was a very long time ago,’ Dad says. ‘There’s no guarantee she’s still in Spain. Or whether she stayed well. You mustn’t get your hopes up.’

  ‘I know…’ I hold the birthday card to my chest, cradling it like a beloved doll. ‘But if I’m going to go travelling, it’s as good a place as any to start.’

  Epilogue

  Becca

  The water from the tap runs clear and Becca holds her fingers under the stream for a few moments, enjoying the cold on her skin. Leaning against the sink, she stares at the view through the small window – a rectangle like an oil painting. The forest, the mountains, the sun rising in the lavender-coloured sky. They’ve been living here for twelve years and it still takes her breath away. All this space, and just for them.

  She likes to get up early and wander around the house, feeling the surfaces – cool stone walls, rough wooden furniture, the whiskery woven rug… She likes to stand on the front step and gaze at the still, dusty street, breathing in the village while everyone else is still in bed. She can’t hear a single unnatural sound. There are no shop shutters being raised, no trucks delivering crates of beer to the bars; no shops or bars at all. And the narrow single track leading from the road up to the village has fallen into such disrepair that you can’t get so much as a moped up it. That’s what she likes most of all. The isolation. The timelessness. It’s worth the sacrifices.

  She pulls on a jumper and slips her feet into her flip-flops, walking up the narrow cobbled street to the small square, with the dry fountain in the centre and the empty horse troughs. She sits on the cool stone and leans back, lifting her face to the sun. Yes, twelve years they’ve been here now, she and Luis, living la vida, the life, some would say, although people have no idea how tough it is up here. Before that they were in Seville. Luis was a struggling artist and she taught English as a foreign language to people heading off to the country she’d escaped from.

  They’d heard about the abandoned villages in the Sierra, small communities of people trying to live in a different way. They’d wanted to take themselves out of the system. Becca smiles to herself. Now they couldn’t get back into it if they tried. But it’s worked out well enough. They survive. Just. Feeding themselves from vegetables they grow on a patch of land behind the deconsecrated church. Luis does casual labouring when he can get it – general repairs, a bit of plumbing, painting and decorating.

  It feels about eight o’clock. She goes back to the house and wakes Luis. He’s got a small job in Aracena today and he’s got to catch a bus from the main road, which is a good forty minutes’ walk away, all uphill. She’s agreed to go with him, otherwise he worries that she doesn’t leave the village often enough. He thinks it’s bad for her spirits. She still has her low days, when she struggles to get out of bed, but meditation helps to keep the dark memories at bay and she’s no longer on the brain-numbing medication. She doesn’t drink alcohol or smoke weed; she takes long walks in the mountains and follows a vegan diet. Most importantly, she’s in a loving, supportive relationship. If she didn’t have Luis, it would be a lot harder to keep away from the edge. She knows she’s one of the lucky ones…

  The bus drops them off just before the Plaza Alta and Becca kisses Luis goodbye, wishing him a nice day at the office – their little joke. She passes a newsagent’s kiosk. There are a few English papers on the stand, some as much as a couple of weeks old. She doesn’t usually bother even to look at the headlines, but today she feels strangely drawn and chooses the Mirror, lifting it gently from its stand and unfolding it to look at the front page. The headline declares that there has been a ‘Day of Reckoning’. There’s a fuzzy mug shot of an older man, staring with dead eyes. Somehow he looks familiar. She skims through the first paragraph – Darkwater, Cara Travers, Christopher Jay… Hostia, she swears under her breath. That’s who it is.

  She turns to the double-page spread inside – more photos, more text. Her knees start to dissolve and the newspaper shakes violently in her hands. The kioskero asks if she’s okay, but she can’t speak. A small photo of a smiling young woman stares out at her. She doesn’t understand; this is a picture of her, isn’t it? Taken years ago. But no, it’s not her, just someone who looks almost identical. But how can this be? Nothing’s making sense and the paper is shaking so much she can’t read the words. Just one leaps off the page, as if illuminated: Meredith. The past rears up and knocks her over.

  She told the truth at the trial, as far as she understood it. Cara had definitely spoken to her; she was sure she hadn’t imagined it. But years later, when the voices started – confusing her thoughts, telling her lies – she began to wonder. Had Cara’s voice been in her head? There had been signs at the time that she was losing her hold on reality, but she’d been afraid to admit it.

  That summer, her behaviour had become secretive and weird. She’d become obsessed with Darkwater Pool, couldn’t keep away from the place. She felt as if someone, something was pulling her there and she couldn’t stop it. She’d had night terrors for years and was frightened of sleeping; kept leaving her bed and ending up at Darkwater, not knowing how she’d got there. Sometimes she forgot to dress and went in her pyjamas. She’d stare for hours at the deep, murky water, returning to the house at dawn, her arms covered in bramble scratches, her feet black with dirt. Graeme found out what she was doing and thought she was suicidal. He tried to keep her locked in at night, but she always found a way to escape.

  She never told him about the couple, though. She would creep up and hide behind the trees, holding her breath as she watched them humping and grunting and tearing at each other’s hair. At the time, she had no idea it was Cara and Jay. They didn’t seem like humans. Or even wild animals. They were unearthly beings – water sprites, wood demons, creatures of the night. Darkwater Pool belonged to them and she was an intruder, but she couldn’t stop watching them, couldn’t stop going to see if they were there. They haunted her imagination, day and night. She heard their moans and cries behind every door, smelt their sweaty passion on her hands. Their dark, shadowy forms lurked in the corners of her vision, beckoning her to join them.

  That night in August, the night of the murder, her urge to go to Darkwater was stronger than it had ever been. She couldn’t bear to be locked indoors in the suffocating heat, and even contemplated jumping out of the window. Graeme had woken up and caught her rummaging in the bedside cabinet for the deadlock keys to the front door. He lost his temper, told her she was a danger to herself and that he couldn’t deal with her any more. She ran out of the house and through the streets, her desire deepening with every step. She wanted to lose herself in the pool’s sinister darkness, wanted to disappear into its shadows. She shudders now as she remembers taking the narrow, overgrown path, creeping as quietly as she could until she got to the boathouse. She had been expecting – hoping – to see the couple fucking, but when she got there, it was just the girl. Lying
on the ground in a pool of her own blood.

  The memory of finding Cara wouldn’t leave her; it seemed to intensify rather than fade, complicating itself with new details that emerged gradually, like a film coming into focus. As the months passed, she kept finding herself back at Darkwater Pool – standing in that very spot in the middle of the night, reliving the moment over and over again until she collapsed, exhausted and sobbing, to the ground. It was a kind of emotional self-harm and she felt compelled to keep doing it. By the time it came to the trial, the memory was at its darkest, an elaborate patchwork of fact and fiction. She couldn’t separate the good pieces from the bad, so she gave it to the court whole, in its most recent incarnation. She doesn’t know to this day whether Cara was still alive and spoke to her. But at the moment she took the witness stand, that was the only version of the story she knew.

  Did Graeme secretly believe she’d killed Cara? He certainly had his doubts. He didn’t tell the police about her nightly wanderings or her obsession with Darkwater Pool. He said they’d had a row about something domestic and she’d stormed out – he covered for her, just in case. After the murder, things changed between them. Graeme seemed wary of her. Sometimes he’d gaze at her for ages and she’d see the wondering in his eyes. He no longer really trusted her. It made her angry and she wanted to make him pay.

  The affair with Jay was an accident waiting to happen. They were two damaged human beings in need of love, and she felt propelled towards him by powerful, unknown forces. The sexual chemistry between them was so strong, it transformed her into a woman she couldn’t recognise. Now she was the night creature rutting with Jay in the dark. It was a crazy, wicked, dangerous, wild, strangely beautiful time. But when she found out she was pregnant, reality hit home. She felt dirty and stupid and ashamed and ended the affair immediately.

  Graeme was besotted with Meri – so gentle and endlessly patient. When Becca gave up breastfeeding, he took over the night feeds with a bottle, even though he was the one with the day job. She’d lie in bed, half asleep, listening to him as he paced the bedroom with the child in his arms. ‘Who’s Daddy’s little girl? Best in all the world,’ he’d sing to a soft, made-up tune. It wasn’t hard for Meri to believe that Daddy loved her more – bathing her every evening, making up funny stories, deftly combing out the knots in her hair. Becca was too ill to compete. ‘First you have to learn to love yourself’ – that was what the psychotherapist told her, putting the child in a hopeless, endless queue. But she did love Meri. She has always loved her – in a deep, sad, silent way.

  They struggled on for a few years. Meri was a toddler now, but the postnatal depression hadn’t gone away and the Prozac just made her feel tired. She’d never been free of the murder memories, but now they attacked her with a new viciousness. Images of Cara dominated her night terrors, which were so violent and frightening she couldn’t bear to close her eyes. She started going to the pool again in the middle of the night, searching for wood demons. She refused to eat anything but fruit because she thought Graeme was poisoning her. Sometimes when she looked in the mirror, she only saw half her face.

  Then the voices started telling her she wasn’t Meri’s real mother. And Meri wasn’t Meri, she was Cara. A dead woman come back to life. It was all so confusing. She tried to talk to Meri about it, but the little girl didn’t understand – she said things to please her, then got upset and said they weren’t true. Becca didn’t know who was really who; everyone seemed to be tormenting her. The voices kept on and on, shouting in her head day and night. Cara wants Meri to tell the truth, they said. They wouldn’t stop until she told the police. One voice frightened her the most. She called him the bad man, but she knew he was the Devil. He made her fill little Meri’s mind with violence, forcing her to act out her own death. He made her make that tape.

  The doctor gave her yet more drugs, but nothing worked and her life was spinning out of control. Everyone seemed to agree that she was a danger both to herself and her daughter. She decided they were right, so one night she went to Darkwater Pool. In her confused and shattered mind it was where the trouble had started and where it had to end. She couldn’t fight the pool any more; she would let it claim her. She sat down beside the old boathouse, in the spot where Cara had died, and took forty-eight paracetamol tablets washed down with a party-sized bottle of Coke. By the time she’d managed to swallow them all, a pale dawn was breaking over the water. When Graeme woke up next to an empty pillow, he knew where to find her. It was his turn to find the body, his turn to run to the phone box and dial 999. But this time, it was not too late.

  She’s back there now, in the hospital, sitting on her bed in that little orange cubicle, waiting for Graeme and Meri to arrive. She can see it all so clearly: the large, lifeless room devoid of ornament, stinking of pine disinfectant and overcooked food. She can hear the click of knitting needles, their constant rhythm drilling into her brain. Her guard is sitting on a low stool at the end of the bed. Becca wants to grab the wool and tie it into a noose. For her own neck, not the knitter’s, although that wouldn’t be such a bad idea either. There’s nothing else to kill herself with here; they won’t even let you have a proper knife and fork.

  Graeme carries Meri into the ward and Becca tries to raise her arm in a vague wave. He spots her then and comes over, lowering himself onto a brown plastic chair and resting Meri on his lap. He doesn’t so much as give her a peck on the cheek to say hello.

  Meri is staring at the knitter, fascinated by the quick click of her needles, the twitching ball of fluffy white wool, like the tail of a rabbit. ‘Meri,’ Becca says, patting the bed. ‘Come and sit next to me.’ But the child behaves as if she hasn’t heard, doesn’t even look at her mother, just carries on staring at the other woman, her little blonde head nodding in rhythm. Click-click-click-click.

  ‘Come and sit with Mummy,’ Becca tries again, but Meri turns away from her, burying her face in her father’s shirt.

  ‘She doesn’t want to,’ he says. ‘She’s scared of you.’

  ‘I don’t see why.’

  Graeme starts whispering something in Meri’s ear. Secrets he doesn’t want his wife to hear. Meri nods and puts her arms around his neck.

  ‘We’re leaving. We won’t come again,’ he says. ‘It doesn’t do any of us any good.’

  ‘No. You’re probably right.’

  ‘She was doing fine until today. Hadn’t even asked about you.’

  Becca finds that hard to believe. How long has she been in here? She’s lost track of time. A week, perhaps. Maybe two.

  Graeme leans forward. ‘I’m sorry, Becca,’ he whispers, ‘but we can’t go on like this. Meredith needs stability, she needs parents she can rely on, who’ll look after her, be role models. She can’t come home every day from school not knowing whether she’s going to find her mother dead or alive. You can’t do that to her, I won’t let you.’ He draws Meri into him, holding her even more tightly.

  ‘Yes, I understand,’ Becca says, the tears welling up behind her eyes.

  ‘I’m not sure you do understand. You’re nowhere near ready to leave yet, but you need to know that when that time comes…’ He takes a deep breath. ‘I’m sorry, but you can’t come home to us.’

  ‘But… but I need to be there for Meri. She’s my daughter.’

  ‘My daughter too.’

  ‘No, she’s not.’ The words just fall out of her mouth, before she’s had a second to think. The big secret she’s been holding inside her, like a wild, wriggling thing, has finally broken free. He looks at her, uncomprehending. ‘I had an affair,’ she says. ‘I’m almost certain the child is his.’

  He puts his hands over Meri’s ears. ‘Stop it, stop it. This is what I mean, this is the damage you do.’

  ‘I’m not making it up. When I told you I was pregnant, you were really surprised, remember? Because we hardly ever had sex.’ A glimmer of anxiety crosses his face. ‘Meri’s father is Christopher Jay.’

  ‘What? That’s impossibl
e.’

  ‘We got together after the trial.’

  He shakes his head. ‘That’s the most preposterous thing I’ve ever heard in my life.’ He takes Meri by the waist and plants her on her feet. ‘Come along, love, time to go.’

  But Becca hasn’t finished yet. The wild, wriggling secret has been released and is running around the room; she’s powerless to stop it. ‘He needed someone to turn to and I needed someone too. It was…’ she searches for the right word, ‘good. For a while. Exciting. But I wasn’t really in love with him.’ She pauses. ‘He doesn’t know, by the way.’

  ‘You’re lying,’ Graeme says, hurriedly putting on Meri’s jacket, pushing his fingers into the ends of the sleeves to pull out her hands. ‘I know you can’t help it – it’s the illness, the voices, the fantasies – I understand.’ He looks up, his eyes full of tears. ‘I’m sorry, Becca. I tried. I really tried…’

  ‘Believe what you like, but it’s true.’

  ‘You think I wouldn’t know my own flesh and blood?’ Graeme picks her daughter up and carries her out of the ward. The last glimpse Becca has is of Meri’s blonde hair draped over his shoulder, her spindly legs wrapped round his waist.

  They don’t visit again. The doctors try yet another drug and this one seems to work. Over the next few months, the voices fade and the nightmare visions subside. Her therapist teaches her strategies for dealing with the memories of Darkwater, and most of the time she succeeds in keeping them at bay. When she looks in the mirror, she sees a whole human being she almost recognises. She puts on half a stone, goes to yoga sessions, does a pottery class and makes an ashtray, even though she doesn’t smoke. There are real signs of improvement and the doctors are delighted, especially because she’s achieved it on her own, without any help.