The Perfect Liar: A completely gripping thriller with a breathtaking twist

by Beverley Harvey

  On legs he cannot feel, Brandon walks over to the jeep. Harry’s keys are in the ignition, his sunglasses and mobile phone are on the dash – all waiting for his return. Except that Harry isn’t coming back. He takes a deep breath. ‘Get in, Star.’ It’s an order, not a request.

  ‘Brandon, please… we can’t just…’

  ‘Star, we can. Come on, quickly. We’ll go straight to the villa now and then decide what we’re going to do,’ Brandon says, putting on Harry’s sunglasses and stashing his own in the glove compartment.

  He’d stopped for Star to throw up at the roadside, then she’d limped back to the car, and spent the rest of the journey home clutching her stomach and whimpering softly.

  Arriving at Villa Giardino, they’d gone into the kitchen – where Harry’s coffee mug and breakfast plate sat unwashed in the sink – before they’d each swallowed several nips of gin and taken long, hot showers.

  Afterwards Brandon had collected up the clothes they’d been wearing and piled them into the washing machine. He needed to take charge of the situation; he couldn’t expect Star to cope with something like this. Seeing Harry’s inert body staring up at them like that – it had brought back too many memories.

  Now, dressed in fresh clothes, her hair still damp, Star has stopped shaking and is sitting on the sofa, a throw across her knees, waiting for him to tell her what to do.

  ‘Right, listen to me. I know what happened is really awful, but we need to just get past it and carry on; keep it together, okay?’

  ‘Okay,’ Star whispers.

  Waking early to the sound of birdsong, Brandon feels that something is off, but in a distant and fuzzy way that is almost comforting, like when he’d had the flu once, and had turned the corner after a week of sickness. Now, opening his eyes, he finds Star lying with her back to him, dressed in pink T-shirt and strawberry red knickers, her hair matted at the crown. Why is she in his bed?

  And then it comes to him. The image of Harry falling; arms twirling and useless, his mouth a wet gash of fear. He breathes in sharply, sits up as the room seems to spin about him.

  Star emits a soft moan as she emerges from sleep. ‘Brandon? It really happened, didn’t it?’ she rasps.

  ‘Yes, but it’s fine and we’re going to get through this. Come on, get up. We’ve got loads to do today.’

  After a quick coffee, they tear around the villa, creating some semblance of order, before steeling themselves to go into Harry’s room, where his fragrance, verdant and expensive, still hangs in the air.

  Star’s eyes become moons of despair. ‘Oh no, I can’t… Don’t ask me to move his stuff, please,’ she begs as Brandon begins decanting Harry’s clothes into his own wardrobe. Feeling calm and industrious, he realises that Harry’s things will be useful props in his deception, that is until he’s unnerved by finding a black tin box, the key still in the lock, containing a wad of cash, some loose change and Harry’s passport. Hands trembling, he swallows the bile rising in his throat, thrusting the tin into the depths of his wardrobe among shoes and sandals.

  The arrival of Rosa provides the second shock of the morning. Silver hair forced into a bun, blue tabard over a shapeless dress, she manoeuvres past Brandon, wielding a sack of linen and a bucket of cleaning products.

  ‘I clean for ladies,’ she announces, brandishing a mop, adding, ‘I ’ave shits and trowels.’ It takes Brandon a moment to process sheets and towels but it’s a relief that she seems unsurprised to see him or Star; further affirmation that nobody has a clue who Harry is or what he looks like.

  After waving Rosa off at the door, he steers Star into the shower, helps her to pack her stuff and then loads the car.

  Brandon swallows hard. The man looking back at him from the rococo gilt mirror is smart and preppy – a student on holidays perhaps, or a young intern starting out in business. He glances at the salon floor and the long shining tresses that will soon be swept up and thrown away – years of growth; his precious hair. Oblivious to Brandon’s inner turmoil, the stylist fusses round him, crooning his approval and admiring his creation.

  Brandon pays the bill, puts on Harry’s sunglasses and goes outside to find Star, her eyes still puffy from crying. ‘You look nothing like him,’ she pouts, chewing her thumbnail.

  ‘Of course not – but at least with the same haircut I could pass for him on paper. We’re about the same height and build. Star, don’t forget these women have never met Harry, and I’m guessing they know nothing about him. Come on, let’s have a coffee and some gelato for lunch, then we need to get you fixed up for a few days.’

  Star’s face crumples. ‘Can’t I stay with you? Please, Brandon, don’t leave me here,’ she begs, her voice cracking.

  ‘Shush, Star. Get a grip! People are looking. We talked about this last night. I thought we’d agreed to try and get you in at the hostel where Joe and Sander are staying. They said it was clean and comfy, and you’ll have them for company when I’m not around.’

  Star nods, her mouth a downturned crescent. It breaks his heart to see her like this. ‘Look, it’s just for a week or two, then I’ll come and get you and we’ll fly home together.’

  ‘But why can’t we go home now?’

  ‘Star, I’ve explained this once… Listen to me,’ Brandon pulls his sister into a narrow alleyway, looks around to make sure they are out of earshot of tourists and shoppers. He lowers his voice. ‘If I pretend to be Harry, nobody will miss him. The women won’t know the difference, will they? But if I’m not there, they’ll raise the alarm to Harry’s godmother, Veronica. Thank God Harry talked about her a bit… enough that I can blag it for a week or two.’

  ‘But then what?’

  ‘It’s simple. I’ll say I’m bored with Italy and that I’m moving on, and by then I’ll have them eating out of my hand and they’ll cover for me – for Harry, I mean.’

  Star frowns. ‘What about phoning home? Are you going to impersonate Harry’s voice as well?’

  ‘Now you’re being silly. Of course not. I don’t think twenty-four-year-old blokes ring Mummy and Daddy every day, do they? Anyway, I dumped his phone. I dropped it inside the hollow of a tree while you were being sick at the roadside. No one will ever find it.’

  Star’s eyes widen, then she shakes her head and clamps her mouth shut.

  ‘Good girl,’ Brandon says. ‘Big smile, you can do this. Come on, let’s find a café and we’ll give Joe a call, get the name of where they’re staying and book you in.’

  52

  Brandon

  Tuscany, September 2019

  Brandon shifts his weight awkwardly on the lumpy sofa, replaying his weird marriage proposal in his head. It hadn’t been quite the evening he’d planned. Then again, when did anything in his life ever go to plan?

  What even is his plan? Trying to figure out the logistics of what comes next makes his brain ache. And recently, the lies have been getting harder to manage. Some mornings, it takes him a minute or two just to remember who he really is and who he is meant to be.

  Harry’s ‘accident’ bothers him surprisingly little. He’d managed to convince Star that poor Harry had lost his balance and toppled to his death nine or ten metres below. And sure, for a few nights afterwards, Brandon had woken with a start, heart pounding and bathed in sweat, picturing the two of them suspended in mid-air, spitting venom and bile at each other like tomcats on a garden wall, the wind whistling around them. Harry, two steps above him, his mocking face an ugly twisted sneer. Star below, shielding her eyes from the sun, straining to catch what they were arguing about. Then he’d roared at Harry to shut up – to just shut the fuck up – before he’d lunged at him, his hands connecting with Harry’s chest.

  Because all control had deserted him as he’d listened to Harry’s insinuations, implying that he and Star were freeloading losers. What a fucking nerve the guy had. Harry had deserved it. End of. No wonder Brandon rarely thinks about him.

  But Star worries him. They’d made a pact right away to
never speak of it. And they’d stuck to it, but Brandon saw what it had done to his sister, her nerves already shot from finding their mother on the carpet of the flat, vomit caked around her mouth and chin, an empty pot of sleeping pills beside her and a dry vodka bottle still in her right hand.

  Thirteen-year-old Star, arriving home from school and using her own key, then screaming so loudly for her mummy to wake up, to please, please wake up, that the neighbours had broken down the door to help.

  Christ, had they ever had just one lucky break in their whole lives? Growing up in London, fatherless, after Graham had gone out for cigarettes on Brandon’s third birthday and had never returned. His mother Ingrid, beautiful enough to attract good-looking losers, but not bright enough to elevate them out of poverty and desperation. Office cleaning and the occasional handout from Grandma kept a roof over their heads, food in Brandon’s belly and vodka in Ingrid’s drinks cabinet.

  And then, a brief window of hope in the form of Ziggy, a gigging bass player from Peckham who’d moved into the flat in Catford as soon as the baby was showing. For the first time, eight-year-old Brandon had someone to kick a football with on Saturday afternoons before the three of them would line up for burgers and milkshakes at Catford Island. Ziggy had even let Brandon hold his electric bass guitar once or twice, and he’d marvelled at its glassy smoothness.

  Then one day, Grandma had met him from school and taken him to her house for tea. Brandon would always associate beans on white toast and Mr Kipling French Fancies with the day Star was born. Star because she sparkles, Ingrid had said, as light tripped from the baby’s topaz-blue eyes and white-blonde hair.

  Having a baby sister to cuddle and play with had made Brandon feel ‘normal’ for the first time, until one rainy Friday afternoon, Grandma was back at the school gates with little Star, only just walking, clinging to her hand.

  ‘Your uncle Ziggy’s gone away with the band for a while, and your mum’s feeling poorly,’ was her only explanation as they’d walked the five blocks to her house for more pink cake. Surprise visits to Grandma’s became a regular feature of Brandon and Star’s lives after that, as Ingrid took to her bed, sometimes for days on end.

  Yet at the comprehensive school he went to, other kids called Brandon lucky – jammy, they said; all because he was several inches taller than the others in his year, and the bones of his face hung a certain way.

  By the time poor Ingrid checked out of the world, Brandon had a model agent, a decent portfolio and a shedload of ambition. But over time, the dream had been diluted until he was spritzing perfume in department stores by day and escorting women older than his mother to the theatre several nights a week.

  ‘Screw this shit,’ he’d said one day to Star, for whom he was now wholly responsible thanks to a stroke that had confined Grandma to a care home. ‘If this is all I’m doing, we might as well live somewhere warm.’

  And he’d made it happen, kicking off with three months on the Costa del Sol one balmy summer, where they’d slept on the beach for a week before meeting Tracey, the vivacious landlord of an English pub, and it wasn’t long before Brandon was pulling more than pints.

  It was fun at first – naughty, harmless; a few weeks here, a couple of months there, and an endless supply of Deirdres and Dianes, of Jackies and Janets, Sandras and Simones. A swirling sea of women, sometimes pretty, often wealthy and usually lonely.

  Ah, but Susanne. Susanne was different – top drawer, as his Grandma would say. A beautiful, middle-class mother used to the finer things in life; not from Brandon’s world at all.

  At first, she’d treated him not as a hustler or a gigolo, but like the spoilt rich kid she perceived him to be. But the more he revealed himself to her, the warmer her response. He’d held it together pretty well, all things considered – had made a decent fist of being Harry, adopting his superior manner, mimicking his accent, wearing his clothes and driving his car – even using his aftershave.

  Not that Dale had been convinced; she’d had a sixth sense about him all along, the cynical bitch. Between her buzzing like a mosquito in Susanne’s ear night and day and the incessant whining from Harry’s family about the lack of contact, it was amazing he’d pulled it off.

  Brandon shudders beneath the thin duvet. A low point had been on the afternoon of his fake-birthday party when he’d driven out to the monastery and parked up on the hillside where he’d once stopped to let Star puke. It had taken him half an hour to identify the right tree trunk, before getting scratched and filthy trying to retrieve Harry’s phone. Then he’d driven to San Gimignano, charged the handset at a mobile network store and used Harry’s contacts list to text Mrs Klein a few words of love and contrition.

  He’d done it for Susanne. She’d seemed so sad – outraged, even – that a son could neglect to ring his parents, no doubt thinking of Cody; did the spoilt brat know how lucky he was?

  Shit. He is too wired to sleep, and anyway, he should be celebrating. Toasting his engagement to Susanne, drinking to his new life. With a flicker of hope, Brandon remembers the last joint he rolled, which surely remains hidden away at the back of the cutlery drawer. A little weed, a couple of shots of gin… maybe three: he doesn’t need a hangover for his last day with Susanne, not when he needs to pull off an Oscar-winning performance about the shining future they’ll have together.

  Throwing off the duvet, Brandon puts on the clothes he’d worn in Siena and pads next door to the kitchen, the moon lighting his way.

  Then reaching for the gin bottle, he drinks it neat, feeling his eyes burn as its sweet oiliness hits the back of his throat. He slides open a drawer and feels for the joint. Perfect, exactly where he left it. Elsewhere, he finds matches used for lighting candles. Then, mindful of waking the women, he opens the French windows and steps onto the terrace to wander the garden, inhaling the scent of dew and jasmine. The shallow steps are just ahead. He hesitates, looks down at the pool below, which tonight is spilled ink, spattered by stars.

  Faraway, he hears the bark of a fox, or a wolf – did wolves live in Tuscany? Perhaps it has found Harry’s remains; a macabre but satisfying meal for the night. He pushes the grisly image from his mind, feels the weed permeate his nerve endings. The gin is sweet and pleasant as he swigs it straight from the bottle.

  ‘Hey, Harry. Can’t sleep? I can’t either.’ Dale’s voice. He is startled to see her, tension visible on the bones of her face.

  ‘Dale,’ he sighs, irritated that she has interrupted what is developing into a very pleasant buzz. Never mind, he’ll play the game and make small talk for a while if that’s what it takes. But then, whether it’s the weed, or the gin, or even the moonlight that have loosened his lips and resolve, for some reason, Brandon cannot resist sparring with Dale, goading her, before dropping the bomb.

  ‘We should get to know each other. Especially now. Seeing as Susanne and I are getting married,’ he brags.

  Dale’s dismissal is instant, as if he’s a liar or a fantasist. Brandon wounds her again and again, twisting the knife, enjoying her pain and confusion; telling her that Susanne sees her as a pathetic, sad stalker, and that she plans to cut her off once they are all back in England.

  Pick, pick, pick… all restraint vanished as they stand a few metres apart, regarding each other with utter loathing, until Dale’s words silence Brandon, and freeze the blood in his veins.

  ‘What the hell have you done with Harry?’

  Her words slice through the night air, silencing his mocking laughter. He raises the gin to his lips, then changes his mind.

  Why had he baited her, winding her up until she’d snapped? What had he been thinking? No! No way. He cannot have this – not now…

  ‘What did you say?’

  Dale stands her ground, her eyes fixed on his. ‘You heard me. Who are you and what have you done with Harry? And don’t even bother to deny it. I’ve seen Harry’s passport.’

  Shit! Think, Brandon. Think.

  He eyes her with distain. ‘How da
re you go snooping through my stuff. That’s not very nice, Dale – but I’d expect nothing more from you. Who else knows?’ He’s encouraged when Dale merely purses her lips and shakes her head.

  So it’s time; time for his cover story. The one intended for Susanne once she’d flown home and being Harry was no longer tenable…

  Brandon sighs as though exhausted, beaten. ‘Yes, the passport,’ he says, his tone regretful, ‘that was an oversight. Harry forgot to take it with him. I’ve been keeping it safe.’

  He sees confusion register on Dale’s face. Keep going…

  ‘Dale, I don’t know why you assume I’ve done anything with Harry. The fact is, we’re friends and he asked me to help him.’ He’d aimed for crisp, matter-of-fact, but he can hear the hesitation in his voice and the slur of his speech.

  Dale shakes her head, a deep furrow between her brows.

  ‘Fuck it. It will all come out sooner or later,’ Brandon says, embellishing his story. ‘Poor Harry – all that money but almost no freedom. His parents suffocate him,’ he pauses, checks Dale’s reaction; her expression is impassive.

  ‘Anyway, he met a girl in Rome, Marika. She’s Dutch, beautiful, but a complete space cake and not from Harry’s world at all. He was going to bring her here to party per due all summer, so to speak, but then he got word that you and the girls were coming and he asked me to cover for him by pretending to be him.’

  ‘Why on earth would you do that?’ Dale asks.

  ‘Because he paid me to. Look, I’m not proud of it, but Harry gave me five thousand pounds to stay here all summer, just so his family don’t find out about Marika. Easiest five grand I’ve ever made.’ Brandon smirks.

  ‘I don’t believe you,’ Dale says, folding her arms over her chest.