Shit. Lily. Mom was her best friend. Her only real one that I knew of. Lily’d always seemed a little lonely to me, despite a constant parade of unsuitable younger men. Maybe she’d needed Mom’s unflappable nature and unswerving loyalty to counteract her fun, sometimes manic ways. She must be devastated.
“Sorry.” Melissa slid back into her seat. “I’ve had to suspend Scott’s weekend visits with Claire. She caught him looking at porn last time she was there! Porn! Poor kid’s scarred for life. Plus he forgot to pay child support this month. He just sits in his basement jerking off and playing video games. Anyway.” She slashed a hand through the air. “Enough about him. I was thinking, maybe you should go back there. To your mom’s house.”
“Why would I do that? It’s—” I started to say it was a crime scene, then remembered that it wasn’t anymore, not according to Andrew.
“You need to trigger your memories somehow, right? Maybe going back will help you remember. And if you remember, you’ll get your answers.”
“I don’t know.…”
I wanted to open my head, to force the memories out. From the moment I’d woken in the hospital yesterday, I’d felt like I’d been snapped back to four years ago, the police shaking their heads, their dubious, sideways glances. But how do you feel guilty for something you don’t even remember?
“Well, look,” Melissa said. “It certainly can’t hurt to try. Just be careful if you do. Whoever killed your mom might come back.”
* * *
Back in the gallery, Melissa handed me a brown padded envelope that had come through while we were gone. “More mail for you.”
I took the package into my tiny studio at the back and set it on the desk where I painted. I rummaged around for a pair of scissors in the top drawer and carefully slit it open. Inside were broken pieces of ash-fired brown and pink pottery, which I slid carefully onto the desk.
“What is it?” Melissa asked. She was leaning against the doorway that separated the studio from the art gallery.
I read the accompanying note out loud:
“Dear Eva, You made this urn for me when my daughter passed away and this weekend my cat knocked it over. I know I’m asking you to perform a miracle, but can you fix it?
“Fiona Hudson.”
I paused. “I remember her. Her daughter died in a car accident. She stopped in here last summer and asked me to make an urn.” I tried to fit the pieces back together. “There’s a huge chunk missing here. How am I supposed to fix this?”
The bell above the door chimed. Melissa went to greet the customer and I set the pieces of the urn down, trailing behind her. I stopped abruptly when I saw who’d entered.
Detective Jackson.
And he was smiling in a way that made me very uncomfortable.
nine
kat
25 years before
“BLOODY POLICE,” SEBASTIAN GRUMBLED. The news story on the car radio had been detailing a crime squad convicted of fabricating evidence. “Always making shit up.”
He flicked the radio off as he parked outside the Regency-style house in Mayfair, London’s poshest neighborhood.
I did not reply—I knew when my husband required my input—but it was an extraordinary statement for Seb to make. Half the police in North London were in his back pocket. Seb’s shady dealings were no longer a big secret in our house. Be that as it may, it was necessary that I pretend I didn’t know.
I studied Rose’s house. The white stucco façade gleamed in the clean spring sunshine. Fluted pillars, elegant wrought iron balconies, and bow windows decorated the exterior. Even the lacy strands of ivy climbing over the door looked posh. Butterflies shivered in my stomach.
“Cracking house, right, Katherine?”
I kissed Seb’s cheek, which was already dark and rough despite having shaved only a few hours before. I didn’t reply as I didn’t know what he was playing at. Was he tricking me? At any rate, silence was usually safest these days. Seb’s temper had been more volatile than usual of late, likely a result of his new restaurant not doing as well as expected. The restaurant he was in direct competition with had initiated a special buy-one-get-one-free promotion to ensure its customers did not visit Seb’s. He was furious and had been simmering for days.
I unbuckled my seat belt and pushed my door open, but Seb reached across the console and roughly grabbed my left breast, eyes glittering. I froze, my skin itchy with a sudden fear. He did this sometimes, not in a sexual way, in a proprietary way.
“These people are inconsequential,” I said smoothly. “They were born into their wealth. They have not earned it.”
Seb dropped his hand and smiled. I breathed a silent sigh of relief. I knew my husband. He did not like to feel inferior.
I got out of the car and unbuckled Eva from the backseat. I tugged her out, but the seat belt had looped around her leg.
“Oww!” she howled.
“Christ, Katherine! Be careful!” Seb glared at me. He was not a large man, my husband, but he had this ability to seemingly inflate his body, like a peacock.
“Sorry,” I muttered.
I finally managed to wrestle Eva’s small body out of the car onto the pavement. We waved as Seb drove away. I dropped to my knees and smoothed Eva’s blond hair behind her ears. “Today you will get to play with Laura, but you mustn’t misbehave. Promise you’ll be on your very best behavior?”
“I promise, Mummy!” She nodded, her blue eyes earnest as she clutched her teddy bear tightly to her chest. “And Barnaby does too.”
I rang the doorbell, and after a minute Rose answered. She had made rather less of an effort today than she had at the park: no makeup, bare feet, jeans and T-shirt, but still lovely.
“Katherine! I’m so happy to see you!” she exclaimed. Her cheek was impossibly soft when she pressed it to mine.
She pulled me into a very grand entry. A glittering crystal chandelier hung two stories above the entry, an elegant stairway sweeping to the second floor. I caught sight of my reflection in a gilt mirror. A neat and sensible woman stared back: brown wool skirt, clunky-heeled shoes, dishwater-blond hair scraped into a bun, bloodless lips. And next to me was Rose, beautiful and enigmatic, with skin creamy as morning milk, wide-spaced gray eyes, a generous mouth. We could not have been more different if we had tried.
I unglued my tongue from my sandpaper throat. “Thank you. It’s lovely to be here.”
“Mummy, is this a castle?” Eva whispered.
“This is Mrs. Ashford’s house.”
Eva smiled shyly and held up Barnaby. Rose knelt in front of her, shaking first Barnaby’s, then Eva’s hand. I immediately liked her for it.
“Hello, Eva,” she said. “You may call me Rose if you like.”
“Like the flower?” Eva asked.
Rose laughed. “Exactly like that! Now!” She straightened and clapped her hands. “Let me show you around. Laura appears to be hiding. She thinks it’s jolly good sport. But hopefully we’ll find her as we go.”
Rose walked quickly through the house, her movements fast, excited, her hands flapping around her face like small birds. We followed Rose through an arched doorway that framed a formal living room with a white-stone fireplace, white couches, silvery drapes, and a series of framed black-and-white photos. More sitting rooms with equally luxurious decor followed, then the bathrooms and the designer kitchen.
“Your home is truly stunning,” I said.
“Thank you. I did nothing to deserve it, I’m afraid. It’s been in my family for ages. When my father passed a few years back, we moved in and renovated rather than selling.”
A small, thin man wearing a navy suit and round wire-framed glasses bustled into the entry.
“Darling.” Rose held a hand out to him. “This is Katherine, our new nanny. Katherine, this is my husband, David.”
“Ah, Katherine.” David smiled politely and shook my hand. His hand was small for a man, the bones of his knuckles sharp under pale skin. “Lovely to meet y
ou.”
“Likewise.”
He glanced at a flashy silver watch on his wrist. “I must dash, I’m afraid. I’m rather late. I have a client arriving at the gallery this morning.”
He slipped a black overcoat on and quickly vanished outside. Rose sighed, seeming irritated. She smoothed her hair over one shoulder, but a flame-red lock escaped, brushing the skin of her neck.
She looked up and caught me staring. I flushed and dropped my gaze, feeling exposed, as if I had been caught naked.
“I shall paint this morning,” she announced. She glanced over her slim shoulder. “Now, where is Laura? That cheeky little monkey should be around here somewhere.”
* * *
The morning passed in a whirl of childish games: coloring, playing dress-up, and learning letters, numbers, and animal sounds. Laura and Eva got along splendidly, so it was a pleasant morning indeed. I made sandwiches for lunch, and when I found the girls they were lying next to each other on their stomachs in the playroom, their legs kicking in the air as they colored.
“What’re you drawing?” Laura asked.
“A bear,” Eva said shyly.
“You can’t draw a bear inside a house, silly!” Laura giggled. She was rather more outgoing than Eva, the leader in their imaginative play.
I left their sandwiches and returned downstairs with a cup of tea and a sandwich for Rose. I found her at the back of the house in a glass conservatory that had been converted into a painting studio. Paint-splattered canvas throws covered the floor beneath a handful of oversize easels and a cluttered wooden desk with an array of half-empty acrylic paint tubes scattered across it. The room overlooked a vine-shaded terrace, beams of light falling directly onto the paintings.
Rose had changed into overalls and sat on a stool in front of a painting, her hair damp and sticking to her forehead. The painting was appalling, a truly pretentious mess of large, colorful blobs splattered in geometric patterns against a black background.
“I brought you a cuppa.” I held the mug out to her. “And a sandwich, if you’re hungry.”
Rose accepted the tea but set the sandwich aside.
“Thank you, that’s very kind. Look!” She gestured at the painting and moved to stand next to me. “What do you think?”
“Oh, I wouldn’t claim to understand art. I’m rubbish at that sort of thing.”
“Even better! I’ll get an honest opinion.”
I cleared my throat, pretending to study the canvas. “It’s … transformative. The colors are alive and so … revelatory.”
Rose was silent for a moment, then she giggled. Soon her giggles had turned into great belly laughs, so infectious that I too began laughing. Before I knew it, we were both howling, as if we’d known each other for ages.
“Oh, Katherine!” She wiped her eyes. “Transformative. You are entirely too much! I absolutely adore you!”
“In retrospect, I should have stuck with ‘it’s lovely,’ ” I said wryly. “Truly, I know nothing about art.”
“Here, sit.” She waved at the bench that circled the conservatory, and we sat next to each other. Without her makeup, she looked very young and also a little brittle, as if she would break if a fly landed on her. She was far too thin, her clavicles sharp, her cheekbones jutting out from her face like arrows. Honestly, she looked like she could use an extra sandwich and perhaps a rather good shag.
“How are the girls?” she asked.
“They’ve had lunch and are coloring.”
“Lovely. Thank you. Where are you from, Katherine? I can’t quite place your accent.”
“North of here. A village near Birmingham.”
“Do your parents visit often?”
“My mother left when I was a teenager. And my father passed away a number of years ago.”
“Oh, I do apologize.”
“There’s no need. I have my own family now. That’s what’s important.” I searched for something to say, to not appear so awkward. “Your husband, David, he must love his work.”
“Yes, he does. I apologize he rushed out so fast earlier. He’s expanding the gallery to focus on Asian art, so he’s quite busy right now. He spends quite a bit of time traveling, looking for new pieces. What about you? What does your husband do?”
“He owns a chain of restaurants in North London. He’s just opened a new one in Camden.”
“Is that how you met?”
“Yes, I was waitressing there whilst studying.”
“How romantic!” she exclaimed. “Was it love at first sight?”
I cast my mind back, trying to remember. It’s funny, in school I easily memorized pages of French parts of speech, recalled chemical interactions with astonishing ease. I’d once trained myself to memorize one hundred digits of pi. But I could not remember if I had loved Seb. My memory of our early relationship was like a journal entry: selective, incomplete, subject to interpretation.
“Not wholly, no,” I said slowly. “He was very … busy, of course. I was closing the restaurant one night, and he invited me to share a bottle of wine he was sampling. I was utterly swept away by him.”
I gulped a mouthful of tea, trying to stop the memory from rolling across my face.
At first, I’d been thrilled at Seb’s attention. I was square-shaped, shortsighted, not used to the attention of handsome, charismatic men. But that night, in the restaurant’s back office, his attention became overwhelming. I wanted to tell him to stop, but I feared losing my job. And then it was too late. His hand was in my knickers, his breath hot on my neck. His penis bulged against my thigh, a damp splotch already appearing on the thin material of his trousers. And whilst it didn’t disgust me, exactly, I couldn’t say it was truly what I wanted.
In fairness, Seb was chuffed to bits when I told him about Eva. We married soon afterward, and he had been an absolutely brilliant father to Eva.
“My father was David’s mentor. David took over the art gallery for him.” Rose smiled, but it didn’t quite reach her eyes. “Dad thought the world of David. I did—I do too.” She looked at her painting, drying on the easel, and bit her lip. “You must think me daft. So spoiled and entitled! All this domestic perfection, and yet here I am longing to retreat into my painting.”
“No, you’re mistaken,” I denied, although that was exactly what I had thought.
“It’s kind of you to say. I do realize how ridiculous it is. I started out rushing to perform my domestic duties, laying the dinner table, stocking the fridge, changing nappies, not to mention the bloody laundry, earning my A-plus as a housewife. These are surely happy problems, but I didn’t realize fulfilling these duties wouldn’t insulate me from wanting other things—painting, friends, late nights walking along the Thames. To be perfectly honest, I thought by now I’d be a successful artist living in New York, maybe Paris, carefree, child-free. Perhaps I sound selfish.” She sighed.
“Certainly not,” I replied. “There’s more to raising a family than baking cookies.”
She laughed. “Thank you, Katherine. I suppose sometimes life just doesn’t turn out how you expect.”
I thought of the nights when Seb got home late, his skin smelling of the sickly scent of other women. Or the nights he slid into bed, running his thick fingers over my flesh, and I’d recoil with a loathing so thick and black it was like tar. I had no family, no money, no security, but sometimes the idea of escape dangled tantalizingly in my mind.
No, I thought. Sometimes life doesn’t turn out how you expect.
“I understand,” I said.
Rose smiled slowly, understanding coloring the smooth planes of her face.
“I rather think you do,” she said. “Would you like another cuppa?”
ten
eva
DETECTIVE JACKSON GLANCED AROUND the gallery. He picked up a sculpture and raised his eyebrows at the lofty price tag. Melissa’s dark eyes ping-ponged between us.
“I’ll just go for a cigarette,” she said, sidling toward the door.
Jackson gestured toward my head as I stepped out from behind the counter. “How are you feeling?”
I gingerly touched the lump on my temple. The lightning marks on my arm buzzed with that strange electric thrumming, as if I’d put my tongue to the end of a battery.
“I’m okay. I mean, I’m better. I don’t remember anything, but physically I’m better.” I flushed. My teeth found a tiny piece of skin on my thumbnail. I tore it off, blood oozing along the nail. “I thought our interview was tomorrow?”
Detective Jackson pulled a small notebook from an inner coat pocket and thumbed the pages. “Yes, your fiancé made an appointment, but I told him I’d head up this way. I’ve always wanted to see Whidbey Island. I only moved here last year from Boston, and I’ve heard it’s beautiful.”
Liam knew he was coming? Why didn’t he warn me?
“I know you’ve been through a lot the last few days.” He whistled low and shook his head. “Struck by lightning. You have to be incredibly unlucky to get struck. Or maybe just lucky not to die, right? I mean, what are the odds?”
“One in three thousand in your lifetime.”
He lifted his eyebrows.
I shrugged. “I looked it up.”
He nodded toward the studio behind me. “That where you work?” His face was relaxed, but his pale eyes were sharp, calculating, the way a wolf looks when it’s stalking its prey.
“Yes. It’s my studio. I rent it for painting my pottery.”
He skirted past me and went inside. I followed him, watching as his eyes landed on the broken urn I’d left on the desk. He picked up one of the pieces.
“What happened to it?”
“A client’s cat knocked it over. She sent it to me asking if I could fix it.”
“Can you do that?”
“I’m not sure yet.”
Jackson picked up another broken piece. He held both up to the light and tried to slot them together. “It won’t ever be the same again, no matter what you do.”
Behind Every Lie Page 6