Читать онлайн книгу «Those Who Lie: the gripping new thriller you won’t be able to stop talking about» автора Diane Jeffrey
Those Who Lie: the gripping new thriller you won’t be able to stop talking about
Diane Jeffrey
‘ scorchingly good thriller’ – Lisa Hall, bestselling author of mega-hit Between You and Me ‘A tantalising and taut thriller with more twists and turns than a corkscrew. Red herrings swim all the way through it. An excellent page turner’ – Sally (Goodreads)Emily Klein doesn’t know she has killed her husband until the day of his funeral.At first, signs point to a tragic accident. Yet, as Emily pieces together the events before his death – events which led to her own memory loss – she begins to suspect that her husband’s death may have been the result of more than a terrible twist of fate…But the accident is only the beginning. Because while Emily’s physical scars will heal, the trauma of the accident has awakened old ghosts. She hears strange sounds, catches things that can’t possibly be there in the corner of her eye. Before long, everywhere she looks, she seems to see her husband.And suddenly, Emily finds herself asking the most dangerous question of all.Can she really trust herself?Reviewers love Those Who Lie:‘This is a must read for anyone who lives to delve into psychological thrillers!’ – Linda Strong, Netgalley‘With brilliant main characters and a wonderful plot, this book is a real page turner. I would highly recommend this book.’ – Stephanie Collins, Netgalley‘I absolutely adored this book’ – Lu Dex, Netgalley‘Great book.. keeps you guessing!! If you love twists and turns then this book if for you!’ – Diane Merrit, Netgalley‘With twists and turns that will wrong-foot you all the way, a dash of dark humour and a strong emotional punch, this is an excellent debut that more than earns its place within the genre.’ – S.J.I. Holliday, author of Black WoodDon’t forget to leave a review and tell us what you thought!
Emily Klein doesn’t know her husband has died until the day of his funeral.
But, as she pieces together the events before his death – events that led to her own memory loss – Emily begins to suspect that his death may not have been such a tragic accident after all.
If only she could remember…
The question is: are there some memories that Emily should leave alone?
Those Who Lie
Diane Jeffrey
ONE PLACE. MANY STORIES
Contents
Cover (#u0e52ba24-7208-50c3-89b7-b17761604d3c)
Blurb (#uc8a44522-9a50-587c-ab76-2eab67d95c84)
Title Page (#uf512f75b-924b-594e-8e75-d3a138b70d6c)
Author Bio (#u8b6f6861-9a94-514f-b6d2-4f582e1cbea5)
Dedication (#u4bd119f4-a737-57b3-b6d3-0bbbb17088f4)
Part One (#ulink_7a30c73a-42dd-58d5-a99c-5778e9481f78)
Chapter One (#ulink_1f238fd1-f479-52a5-8422-f4e3cf468970)
Chapter Two (#ulink_9ccc563b-c0b1-5581-9275-0cec9bf7149c)
Chapter Three (#ulink_4ea96c23-a884-5458-9773-14d5dcf9fd6e)
Chapter Four (#ulink_b358ab4c-4d2e-59bf-bdbf-a164c9adef54)
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Part Two
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Epilogue
Acknowledgements (#u8dd5baed-ff73-55cd-b0ce-4482cbb4de7c)
Copyright
DIANE JEFFREY
Diane Jeffrey grew up in North Devon. She lives and teaches English in Lyon, France. She is the mother of three children, and the mistress of one disobedient Labrador and one crazy kitten.
THOSE WHO LIE is her debut psychological thriller.
Diane has a BA Joint Honours degree in French and German from the University of Nottingham and an MA in English Literature and Linguistics from the Université Jean Moulin Lyon III.
In her free time, she devours novels and chocolate. She also swims a lot and runs a little. Above all, she enjoys spending time with her family and friends.
Diane’s imagination often runs amok and gets her up in the night to scribble down ideas for her writing. Incredibly, her supportive long-suffering husband puts up with this.
Readers can follow Diane on Twitter or on Facebook
@dianefjeffrey (http://www.twitter.com/dianefjeffrey)
facebook.com/dianejeffreyauthor (http://www.facebook.com/dianejeffreyauthor)
For my grandmother, Carrie. We still miss you.
~ Part One ~ (#ulink_4b74e032-8657-59e3-b11d-4e41247b804b)
Chapter One (#ulink_ad500307-fbbf-56a0-98b9-cb967056d5d9)
~
Oxford, August 2014
Emily Klein doesn’t know she has killed him until the day of his funeral. Her loved ones, including, of course, her husband, are all at the church rather than at her bedside. That explains why there are no familiar faces around her this time when she regains consciousness.
The room swims in and out of focus, and, at first, she has no idea where she is. But then it comes back to her. She’s trying to remember why she’s here when a cough to her right startles her. She isn’t alone. Her neck hurts as she turns her head, expecting to see Greg, or her sister, or at the very least her mother. Instead, her eyes rest on the broad chest of one of the two strangers sitting beside her bed.
‘Good afternoon, Mrs Klein,’ the stranger says in a deep voice.
Emily looks up into the kind face of a burly man. He appears to be around the same age as her. He has a bushy moustache containing far more hair than he has on his balding head. He’s smiling at her a little lopsidedly. Emily attempts to smile back, but her lips feel as if they’re glued to her teeth.
Next to him sits a thin woman who also seems to be in her mid-thirties. She has a dour expression on her pretty face, and her hair is cropped very short and dyed a copper-red. She inches her chair forwards, closer to Emily’s bed. The legs of the chair make a scraping sound on the floor. Emily feels intimidated.
‘I’m Sergeant Campbell,’ the woman says, fixing her piercing, green eyes on Emily, ‘and this is my colleague.’ She waves her hand towards the robust man as she introduces him by name, but Emily only catches the word ‘Constable’.
Emily must look bemused because the constable smiles at her again from beneath his impressive moustache. He means this reassuringly, she supposes, but the right side of his face appears more animated than the left, and Emily finds his crooked grin rather unsettling.
What’s going on? What do the police want? Emily can’t shake off the unnerving impression that something is very wrong.
‘What can you tell us about your movements on Friday the first of August?’ asks the redhead officiously, whipping out a notebook and a pen from a pocket in her uniform. She has a lilting Scottish accent that mitigates the hard edge to her voice.
Emily tries to speak, but she’s very thirsty and no sound comes out. She clears her throat.
‘May I have a drink of water, please?’ she asks.
Her head is pounding.
The constable pours some water from the transparent, plastic jug on the cupboard and presses a button on the remote control to raise Emily’s bed. Then he gives her the glass. He watches her, a concerned look on his face, as she takes a few tentative sips before handing back the glass.
‘The first of August, Mrs Klein,’ the sergeant repeats, ‘what happened on that day?’
‘Well, that’s my mother’s birthday,’ Emily begins. Her throat is still dry and her voice sounds strange. ‘Oh, that’s right; I’d sent her some flowers and bought her a necklace. I rang to wish her a happy birthday. She turned sixty-five.’ Emily plucks at the stiff, white sheets before she adds, ‘She is…um, she has been ill recently, for a long time really, and…well, she’s doing a lot better at the moment. We’re so proud of her.’
‘We?’ the sergeant echoes.
‘My sister and I,’ Emily says, and then the thought strikes her. ‘Where is she? Where’s my sister?’ she asks. Amanda was there last time Emily opened her eyes, she’s sure of it.
The sergeant ignores Emily’s outburst. ‘What happened after that?’
Emily shifts her gaze to the friendlier face of the constable. Are these two police officers real? They seem like caricatures, characters from a bad television series.
‘I met my husband for lunch,’ she answers, wondering where Greg is.
The constable doesn’t give her a chance to voice her concern. ‘Where?’ he asks, sounding genuinely interested.
‘At Gee’s. It’s not far from my husband’s shop.’
‘Oh, I know that restaurant,’ the constable says. ‘The one on Banbury Road? I’ve only eaten there once, though. It’s a bit pricey, isn’t it?’
Emily isn’t sure if she’s meant to reply, so she remains silent, trying hard to think. She’s in hospital. She’s groggy. She’s in pain. She knows all that. But she can’t get beyond that. She’s having difficulty associating her two new acquaintances with her surroundings. Shouldn’t there be doctors and nurses or family and friends by her bed rather than police officers? What on earth am I doing here?
Emily’s gaze flits from the constable to the sergeant. She scans as much of her room as her neck will allow. Hers is the only bed, so she’s in a private room rather than a hospital ward. There are flowers and fruit next to the water jug, so she’s had visitors. Greg and Amanda, probably. But for some reason, they’re not here now.
‘Can we get back to the interrogation?’ Sergeant Campbell reprimands her colleague, clicking her pen off and back on.
‘Is this an interrogation?’ Emily asks, bewildered. She almost asks what she has done wrong, but stops herself just in time. She wonders if she’s dreaming. She certainly feels sleepy.
The sergeant looks vaguely uncomfortable and squirms in her seat. ‘No, not really,’ she says, her voice softening a little. ‘That wasn’t the right word.’
‘Not at all,’ the constable says. ‘It’s a routine investigation after—’
‘Mrs Klein…Emily, we just want to know what happened that day,’ Campbell interrupts. ‘For our report. Did you drink anything with your meal?’
Something doesn’t feel right. Emily’s mind is even foggier, and she’s struggling to organise her thoughts. What had the constable been about to say? A routine investigation after what? Into what? It must be serious if these police officers have been waiting for her to wake up. Or are they here for her protection?
Campbell repeats her question.
‘Yes. A Perrier water, with a twist of lemon,’ Emily replies. ‘That’s what I always have.’
‘I meant, did you have any alcohol? A glass of wine, for example?’
‘Oh, no. I don’t drink. And anyway, I was driving.’
‘Yes, you were,’ the sergeant says. ‘Why was Mr Gregory Klein, your husband, in the car with you?’ Her voice is silky now, but Emily gets the feeling she’s hiding something.
‘Well, he wanted to have a look at an Edwardian inlaid satinwood wardrobe.’
Now it’s the sergeant’s turn to look perplexed.
‘An antique wardrobe,’ Emily explains, seeing Campbell’s expression. ‘The owner lived in Staunton Road, in Headington. I didn’t have any urgent work that day, so I drove Greg there.’
The policewoman seems temporarily at a loss for words and purses her lips as she digests this piece of information. Her pale pink lipstick has been applied rather haphazardly, which makes Emily wonder if she had difficulty colouring inside the lines as a young child.
‘Did you need new bedroom furniture?’ the sergeant asks after a few seconds.
‘Oh, no.’ Under different circumstances, Emily might have found the question funny. ‘My husband’s an antique dealer. The wardrobe was for his shop. It’s odd, but I’m not sure whether he bought it or not.’
Before Emily can reflect any more on that, the sergeant resumes. ‘What did you and Mr Klein talk about in the car?’
‘I think we had an argument.’ A vague memory stirs and Emily tries to grasp it, but it fades away. Talking is making Emily’s head thump even more, and so is trying to call to mind the conversation they had in the car. ‘Greg told me something. I’ve forgotten exactly what it was he said. But I do know I was very angry about it.’
Emily pauses. Sergeant Campbell waits for her to continue. The constable gives her what is no doubt intended to be an encouraging look. ‘I just remember Greg asking me over and over: “Who was it, Emily? Who was it?” He was shouting.’
Emily has a sudden image of her husband’s furious face.
‘Who was what?’ asks the sergeant, somewhat impatiently.
‘I don’t know.’ Emily frowns.
‘Do you recall your answer to your husband’s question?’
‘Yes,’ Emily replies, surprised, ‘I do. The answer was: “My father.” I told him that it was my father.’ The mere thought of him makes her shudder.
‘So, you remember you were arguing,’ the sergeant recaps, looking down and pointing her index finger at the notebook on her knee, ‘but not what it was about.’
Emily glances at the sergeant’s pad. Although for her the notebook is upside down, Emily can clearly see that the police officer has taken no notes whatsoever. She has merely doodled a series of dots in a circular pattern, which reminds Emily of the recurrent spiral motif she uses in her own artwork.
‘That’s right.’ Emily nods, and then scowls as the pain in her head intensifies.
‘If it comes back to you, will you contact us?’
‘How do I get in touch with you?’
The policewoman produces a card from a pocket in her uniform and hands it to her. Emily looks at it and sees a series of addresses, telephone numbers and a shoulder number under the heading Sergeant Campbell, Roads Policing Unit, Thames Valley Police.
‘What’s your name again?’ Emily addresses Campbell’s colleague, thinking it would be infinitely preferable to deal with him than the scary sergeant.
‘PC Constable,’ he replies.
‘Police Constable Constable?’
‘Yes, I’m afraid so,’ he says wryly. ‘I desperately need a promotion.’
Emily tries again to smile at him, but yet another bolt of pain shoots through her head and she suddenly finds him far less amusing. She still can’t work out why she’s here. She seems to recollect being told last time she woke up that she’d been involved in an accident. A growing sense of alarm overcomes her initial disorientation.
Sergeant Campbell’s next question does nothing to reassure her. ‘Mrs Klein, do you know what caused you to crash the car?’ The police officer clicks her pen again.
Emily has a vision of her car hurtling off the road towards a tree. She feels a wave of panic break over her. Is this what really happened? Or is her imagination running wild? She takes a deep breath. So, she crashed the car. That makes sense. It would explain why she’s in hospital and why her head, neck and side hurt so much. But she can’t think straight. And she’s far too tired to answer any more questions.
At that moment, the door to her hospital room opens and in strides a tall, plump woman wearing a badge that identifies her as Staff Nurse Peterson. She reminds Emily a little of Chummy in Call the Midwife. Emily is now almost convinced she’s trapped on a TV studio set in a bad dream.
But then the nurse says, ‘Oh, Mrs Klein, you’re awake again.’ She puts her hand on Emily’s arm. ‘How are you feeling?’
‘Very confused,’ Emily replies, ‘and in pain.’
Staff Nurse Peterson checks the drip, and tells Emily that she’ll administer some more painkillers. As the nurse completes her clinical checks and records the data on Emily’s chart, Sergeant Campbell drops her bombshell.
‘I must say, Mrs Klein,’ she says, ‘you’re taking the news of your husband’s death incredibly well.’
Emily senses Staff Nurse Peterson freeze at Campbell’s remark. Words swirl round in Emily’s head. Argument…my father…car crash…husband’s death. She tries to suppress the scream rising inside her, and it erupts as a strangled whimper. That’s the only sound audible in the room. It seems to resonate in Emily’s ears. She cradles her sore head in her hands.
‘Mrs Klein hadn’t been told yet that Mr Klein was killed in the accident,’ the nurse hisses at Sergeant Campbell, who looks unperturbed.
Campbell’s mobile phone rings out and shatters the silence that ensues. The police officer takes the call.
Staff Nurse Peterson glares at the redhead while talking soothingly to Emily whose eyes dart from one woman to the other. The sergeant, impervious to the nurse’s disapproval, continues to mumble into her phone. When she has ended the call, Campbell taps her colleague on the shoulder.
‘Let’s go,’ she says to Constable. ‘I am sorry,’ she mutters to Emily who isn’t sure if Campbell is apologising or expressing her condolences. Then she turns and heads for the door without so much as a cursory glance in Staff Nurse Peterson’s direction.
PC Constable gets up from his seat, and tells Emily how sorry he is for her loss. Then he leaves the hospital room before his superior, who is holding the door open for him.
Emily clearly hears Campbell’s words as she follows Constable out: ‘The witness has finally turned up at the station to give his statement.’
Just as Emily is wondering if Campbell’s phone call and witness have anything to do with her, Staff Nurse Peterson hangs the chart up on the end of her bed and says, ‘Don’t worry. You concentrate on getting better. You’ll be home in no time.’
But Emily barely registers what the nurse says. Greg is dead, Emily thinks. I was driving the car. I didn’t kill him. I can’t have killed him. The thought of going home without Greg fills her with despair and dread.
Chapter Two (#ulink_428cc74f-60ce-5646-b1c3-ccc7717e54b5)
~
Devon, Christmas Eve, 1995
At half past nine, Josephine Cavendish was already snoring on the sofa in front of the television. Emily decided to go to bed although she knew there was no way she’d be able to sleep. Not tonight.
As she cleaned her teeth, she could hear Michael Stipe’s voice coming from the end of the corridor. Half a World Away. Amanda stayed up here a lot listening to REM. She also liked Pearl Jam and Nirvana. Even when she wasn’t listening to music, she seemed to spend as much time as possible in her bedroom. Perhaps she feels safe in hers, Emily thought.
Emily opened the door to her own room, which was larger than her sister’s. Through the window she could see it was pitch-black and wet outside. She switched on the lamp by her bed and drew the curtains to shut out the night. She smiled wistfully at the Sarah Kay design. Here the girl was cradling a puppy; there she was holding a basket of flowers. Everywhere she was carefree. The curtains had never been replaced even though they were faded from the sunlight and Emily had outgrown them long ago.
She thought about reading, and walked over to her bookcase. It was crammed with books, from the classics – Dickens, Austen, the Brontës – to modern bestsellers of different genres such as Jurassic Park, Diana: Her True Story,Captain Corelli’s Mandolin and The Silence of the Lambs. Her novels allowed her to escape. And she desperately needed to escape. But she couldn’t choose one. She wouldn’t be able to concentrate, anyway.
From the top row of her bookcase, at least a dozen teddy bears observed her bedroom through kind, beady eyes. She hadn’t played with her teddies for years, and they looked tatty, but she didn’t have the heart to get rid of them. Throwing them away would somehow have felt like giving up her childhood. Or giving up on it.
She turned around, imagining what the teddies could see from up there. They seemed to be looking at her double bed. Her parents had given it to her the previous year for her fourteenth birthday, although her mother hadn’t really been happy about it. Emily liked the colourful spiral patterns on the duvet cover, but the bed was too big for her.
She pulled on her nightie and climbed into bed. She could still hear the music faintly, although she couldn’t make out the song. Another one from the same album, no doubt. Out of Time. It occurred to her that her heart was beating too fast; it was out of time with the song. Lying on her side, she brought her knees up and hugged them to her chest. She felt cold in spite of the bedcover. She was wide awake. She looked at her watch on the bedside table. Ten o’clock. She felt sick with nerves.
She’d always been afraid at night-time, although when she was younger, her fears were unfounded. It was just that she was terrified of the dark. Amanda would make fun of her for that, but she’d often sung to her or stroked her head until she fell asleep. Sometimes they would even drag Amanda’s mattress along the corridor so she could sleep on Emily’s floor. In the end, their father said it was time Emily grew up and he forbade the girls to sleep in the same room.
The music stopped suddenly and a door banged. Emily’s throat felt tight and she couldn’t breathe. It’s too early. I’m not ready yet, she thought, alarmed.
Then she heard a floorboard creak on the landing, followed a few seconds later by the rattle of water pipes. She heaved a sigh of relief. It was only Amanda. There was the noise of the toilet flushing, then a gentle knock at her bedroom door.
‘I’m awake,’ she called out to her sister. She sat up in bed.
The door opened and Amanda came in and walked towards her. She was wearing tartan pyjamas. Her long, mousy hair was loose and wavy from the plaits she always let out at bedtime. ‘Night, Em,’ she said.
‘Goodnight.’
Amanda sat on the edge of the bed and Emily looked into her eyes. They were a murky brown, the same colour as their father’s. Emily had inherited their mother’s pale blue eyes. Amanda gave her a hug. Emily could feel herself trembling.
‘You’re cold,’ Amanda said, sounding concerned.
That wasn’t the only reason Emily was shaking, and she thought her sister probably knew that. But she didn’t contradict her. What could Amanda do anyway? She rubbed Emily’s arms as if to warm them. Neither of them spoke for a few seconds.
Canned laughter suddenly erupted from the sitting room below, breaking the silence.
‘Mum still in front of the TV?’
‘Yeah.’ Emily didn’t need to add that she was dead to the world.
After a while, Amanda pecked Emily’s cheek and got up.
‘Don’t go,’ Emily pleaded, but her elder sister had already left the room.
The door to Amanda’s bedroom along the hallway closed with a thud, and Emily glanced at her watch again. Half past ten. She became aware of the sound of her own breathing over the indistinct din of the sitcom. She could also hear the wind howling outside and the rain beating against the windowpane. She was alone and helpless. A sob welled up inside her but she fought to contain it. I have to stay strong, she thought. She needed to calm her nerves. She decided to read after all.
On her bedside table was a huge stack of books that looked like it would topple over at any minute. At the top of the pile was Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. Emily’s middle name was Alice. Her father’s mother, whose memory was getting bad due to Alzheimer’s, bought her a copy of Lewis Carroll’s novel every year for Christmas and she dutifully reread the book each time. It had always been her favourite story, and she never grew tired of it. Her grandmother had given her this edition – her sixth copy – just two days ago. When she was younger, Emily had traced and copied the illustrations, and after that she’d created her own sketches for each chapter.
She flicked through the blue leather-bound volume to the part she liked best in the whole book: the Hatter’s Tea-Party. She read the bit where Alice was told that they took tea all day long since Time had stood still at six o’clock, in other words, at teatime. If only time could stand still for me tonight, she wished silently. But it was nearly eleven now. Her stomach was heavy with dread. She was terrified she wouldn’t be able to go through with it.
It was hopeless. She couldn’t keep her mind on the book. She still felt cold even though the radiators hadn’t cooled yet. Shivering, she pulled the duvet up around her shoulders and contemplated getting out of bed to fetch some thick, woollen socks. Perhaps she should get up and hide. Somewhere he couldn’t find her this time.
It was too late. She could hear him swearing loudly from outside. The front door was directly beneath her bedroom window, and she imagined him fumbling with his key and then stumbling into the hall. There was a loud bang as the door was flung open against the wall.
Quickly, she replaced the book on her bedside table, switched off the lamp and lay down. She rolled over onto her side towards the wall, wrapping the quilt tightly around her. She pushed her hand under the pillow and groped around, holding her breath. Where is it? I know I put it here, she thought, panicking. Lifting her head slightly and sliding her hand further under the pillow, she found what she was looking for. Clutching it as if her life depended on it, she breathed out.
He’d turned off the television in the sitting room and for a moment there was an eerie silence in the house. She imagined him looking down at her mother disdainfully. He might even take a swig from her bottle of Jameson if there was any whiskey left.
But the silence was short-lived. She could hear his heavy footsteps making their unwieldy way up the stairs. Oh no, she thought. Please, no.
She sensed her bedroom door open. She heard him lurch into the room and flick the switch. The room was instantly flooded with light. Her heart began to hammer harder and faster. She huddled further into her covers, trying to gain a little more respite. Closing her eyes tight, she pretended to be fast asleep, although she’d tried that before and knew it wouldn’t work. She could visualise him looking at her from across the room. It made her skin crawl.
He weaved his way over to her bed, and practically collapsed on top of her. She lay still and tried to swallow down the lump in her throat even as the tears squeezed out from behind her firmly shut eyelids.
‘I love you so much, Emily.’ Her father’s voice was slurred and his smell – a mixture of sweat, alcohol and tobacco – invaded her nostrils and made her feel nauseous. ‘You make me love you so much.’
One evening, he’d passed out before he could begin. Perhaps that would happen tonight. But she realised this was just wishful thinking as he pulled back the covers, unwrapping the cocoon she’d enveloped herself in.
She didn’t move a muscle as he pulled up her nightie and opened the belt of his trousers. She remained immobile – there was no point in fighting. Instead, she concentrated on the place in her mind she always retreated to when this happened: the beach at Woolacombe.
In one of her happiest memories, she was at the beach with her sister, her parents and her mother’s parents. She was little then and this was long before she’d made her father love her too much. They must have gone to the beach often during the summer months and she was never sure if this was just one memory or a mixture of many trips to the seaside.
They were all eating Mr Whippy 99 ice creams with chocolate Flakes. Granny and Granddad said they didn’t like the Flakes so Amanda and Emily could have two each. Afterwards, the girls swam in the sea with Mum and Granddad. They stayed in until their lips turned blue and their arms and legs had goose pimples all over them. As the tide was so low, it was a long walk back to the place where their father and Granny were dozing on deckchairs. Their mum made them run to warm up. Panting with his tongue out like a dog, Granddad pretended to be too old to jog.
It was hard to find the right parasol at the top of the beach because they’d drifted along in the current while jumping over and ducking under the waves, and so they were several metres too far along the beach. Emily was the one who finally spotted the blue and yellow parasol. Granny wrapped a beach towel around her, and then another one around Amanda. Someone had taken a photo – it must have been their father because he was the only one not in the picture, and Emily had kept it. It was in a frame on her bedside table.
She turned her head and focused on this photo now as the familiar pain seared through her. She could almost feel the teddies’ cold, glassy eyes on her, and from the open pages of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, both the March Hare and the Hatter stared at her. It was as if they were all watching her, daring her to find the courage to put an end to this. Only the sleepy Dormouse had his eyes closed, as though averting his gaze out of consideration or turning a blind eye to what she was going to do.
As her father’s shudder and moan signalled that this was nearly the end for tonight, she reminded herself that there was only one way this would ever stop. She freed her hand from where it was pinned under her father. I have to do this, she thought. I have to do it now, or it will be too late.
Before she had time to think through what she’d really intended to do, the gun went off.
Long after her father’s lifeless body had collapsed onto her for the last time, soaking her in blood and almost crushing her beneath its dead weight, the shot continued to ring in her ears.
Chapter Three (#ulink_976ff5df-9ae7-53ae-9af6-b92b328815d6)
~
Oxford, August 2014
As Josephine Cavendish swings the car into the driveway of Emily’s Victorian home in leafy Summertown, narrowly avoiding the gatepost, Emily thinks that it’s a miracle she hasn’t been involved in another car crash on the way home. She realises she has been pressing her right foot down hard on the floor as though she has an emergency brake on the passenger’s side. The five-mile journey from the hospital seemed interminable.
Gently levering herself out of the car, she blanches as her broken ribs protest. She’ll take some more of her prescribed painkillers as soon as she’s inside the house, she decides. She tries to lift a bag from the boot of the car.
‘Go on inside,’ her mother says firmly. Peering at Emily over the top of her glasses, which have slipped down her nose, Josephine shoos her daughter away. Emily knows better than to argue with her mother. ‘I’ll carry these,’ Josephine says, hoisting the holdall onto her shoulder. Then she grabs the plastic bags containing clothes, which Amanda brought to the hospital for Emily, as well as the bunch of flowers and another one of grapes.
As Emily walks slowly up the drive, out of the corner of her eye she catches sight of her next-door neighbour. Mrs Wickens seems to be engrossed in her geraniums, but Emily suspects she’s burning with curiosity and ready to pounce on them. Anxious to avoid the elderly woman’s questions, Emily keeps her head down and escapes, but Josephine isn’t so lucky. Snippets of their conversation reach Emily’s ears as she takes her house keys from her handbag.
‘… a car accident … Mr Klein? … so sad … your elder daughter … she fed the cat …’
Entering the hallway, Emily lets the front door swing closed behind her, shutting out their voices. Mr Mistoffelees pads towards her, mewing. She tries to bend down to stroke the cat, but it’s too painful, so she stands still while he weaves himself in a figure of eight around her legs.
Looking around her, she spots several pairs of Greg’s shoes and his umbrella. A thought hits her like a punch in the stomach and hurts far more than her injuries: this is no longer their home, but only her home. Everything around her looks the same: the light grey walls, the mirror, the rug, Greg’s antique furniture incongruously juxtaposed with her own modern paintings. Something old, something new, Greg would often joke. And yet, despite the familiarity of her surroundings, Emily doesn’t feel at home. Everything looks the same, but everything has changed, she realises with a jolt. She has the strange impression that she has just stepped into someone else’s life.
She remembers Greg carrying her over the threshold when they came home after their honeymoon in Venice ten years ago. It had been so romantic, they were happy, and the unfortunate incident at their wedding had practically been forgotten. Emily hadn’t wanted to think about that, anyway. She’d needed to forgive Greg and build up trust in him again.
Greg spun her around in his arms – both of them giggling – and then set her down in the same spot she is standing in at this very moment. She imagines now that she can hear his laughter echoing in the hall. He’d always laughed louder and longer than everyone else; she’d found his enthusiasm contagious on many occasions. He’d been so full of life. It just doesn’t seem possible that he’s dead.
Oh, Greg. You can’t die. You can’t leave me. I didn’t mean to—
Emily’s thoughts are interrupted when Josephine opens the front door and hauls in the carrier bags, roses and fruit, not without some difficulty. The strap of the holdall has slid down from her shoulder to her elbow. She dumps everything on the rug.
‘Come into the kitchen, Emily. I’ll make some tea,’ her mother says, leading the way.
Emily kicks off her shoes and heads for the kitchen. ‘No, I’ll do it, Mum,’ she argues. ‘I need something to do.’
‘You’ll do no such thing. I’ve come to stay for a while, and I intend to take care of you until you’re feeling a bit stronger. Now sit down.’
Once again, Emily does as she is told. She notices the fridge is full when Josephine opens it to take out a carton of milk. She makes a mental note to thank her sister for her thoughtfulness. She studies her mother who is click-clacking her way clumsily around the kitchen in her high heels.
Having lost a lot of weight when she gave up drinking, Josephine is more discreet physically, but Emily finds her more sociable now, and less withdrawn. Her mother has always been slightly sharp-tongued, though, and this doesn’t appear to have changed. She keeps up an endless stream of chatter as she opens and closes the cupboard doors. Emily fixes her gaze on the kitchen table and tries to respond when it seems appropriate until her mother turns to face her and says something that catches her full attention.
‘If you need something to do, we could start clearing out Greg’s clothes and things.’
Emily is horrified at the suggestion. ‘Oh, no, I couldn’t do that, not yet.’
‘Well, I could do it for you.’
‘No! Don’t do that, Mum. I’m not ready. He…’
Emily had been about to say that Greg might still come back, but she closes her mouth as Josephine places a mug of tea in front of her. The tea looks as if it has been made without a single teabag. Emily blows gently across the steaming cup and sips at the hot drink. Her hands are unsteady, so she puts the mug down, making a face as she does so. The tea tastes as disgusting as it looks. She is staggered by her mind’s ability to think like this when she has just lost her husband. I’m a widow, she reminds herself, but it hasn’t sunk in yet.
‘That’s all right,’ Josephine says. ‘All in good time.’
Emily smiles weakly and asks her mother for some water to take her tablets. She holds the cool glass to her head for a while and closes her eyes. In her mind, she sees an image of herself as a patient, not in the John Radcliffe Hospital in Headington from which she has just been discharged, but in the hospital of her nightmares. The one she stayed in for just one week as a child. It was a long time ago, but the memory still haunts her. She opens her eyes again to make the image disappear.
Just then the phone rings, making Emily jump. Her mother rushes out to the hall, unsteady in her high heels. Then she teeters back into the kitchen with the handset pressed against her ear.
‘Well, I don’t know if she’s well enough to talk…’ Josephine’s voice trails off as Emily nods, holding out her hand for the telephone.
‘Hello? Emily Klein speaking.’
‘Sergeant Campbell, here.’ Emily immediately regrets taking the call. She has had a strong mistrust of the police ever since she was a teenager. And she has already taken a strong disliking to Campbell. ‘PC Constable and I would like to ask you a few more questions, if we may, about the crash,’ the sergeant continues, sounding almost friendly, much to Emily’s surprise.
‘Yes?’ she says expectantly. She starts to chew one of her nails.
‘Not now. Tomorrow. If you’re not feeling up to coming in to the station, we could come to your house. At three p.m.-ish?’
‘Fine,’ Emily hears herself agreeing while a knot of anxiety twists in her stomach. ‘What sort of questions?’
‘Just corroborating the statement of an eyewitness to the incident. It would be easier to do it in person. Tomorrow at three.’
‘OK. I’ll see you then.’ Emily tries to keep her voice even, but she can hear it quaver. Hopefully, Campbell can’t. ‘Do you need the address?’
But the sergeant, true to her original form, has already hung up. Emily becomes aware of the metallic taste of blood in her mouth and realises she has bitten her nail to the quick.
Why did Campbell say ‘incident’? Emily wonders disconcertedly. Surely she’d meant ‘accident’?
‘Was that the nasty ginger policewoman you told me about?’ Her mother doesn’t wait for an answer. ‘What did she want?’
Emily is still asking herself the same thing. ‘She and her colleague want to ask me some more questions,’ she says. ‘They’re coming round tomorrow afternoon.’ She picks up her mug and holds it to her lips, but she can’t bring herself to drink any more of it.
Emily wants her mother to reassure her; she wants her to say that this is normal police procedure after a traffic accident. After all, Greg died in this crash. And Emily was driving. She has been trying to shut that thought out, but she knows the grief and guilt will catch up with her.
Instead Josephine says, ‘I thought you couldn’t remember what happened. What’s the point in bothering you about it?’
‘Sergeant Campbell said she wanted to follow up a report by a witness.’
‘I still don’t see how you can help with your amnesia.’
Josephine pulls out a chair and sits down opposite her daughter at the kitchen table.
‘I’m not really suffering from amnesia, Mum,’ Emily says, avoiding her mother’s eyes and staring instead at the mark left by her mug on the table. She puts her mug down, placing it exactly inside the wet circle. ‘I’ve just blanked out the accident itself and what Greg and I were argu…um…talking about. That’s all.’
‘What did they say about that at the hospital? Will you get your memory back?’
‘I haven’t lost my…’ Emily begins, but gives up mid-sentence. Unbidden, the image of her car about to crash into a tree replays in Emily’s mind. She blinks and focuses on her hands gripping the mug. ‘They said it might be due to the concussion, or, more likely, the emotional trauma of the accident. I may never remember exactly what happened in the car. According to the doctors, that may be just as well.’
‘Well, I suppose it’s not the first time you’ve forgotten something important.’
Emily snaps her head up and looks into her mother’s cold, blue eyes. They appear magnified behind her glasses, but Josephine’s expression is inscrutable. Emily thinks she knows what her mother was referring to with that barb, but she doesn’t know what reaction she was hoping to provoke, so she ignores it.
‘And it’s not the first time the police have questioned you about a suspicious death.’ Emily is still holding her mother’s gaze and it takes her a split second to realise Josephine hasn’t spoken. This remark has come from a voice in her own head. Deep down, this is what she’s afraid of. What if Campbell and Constable don’t think it was an accident? If they find out anything about my past, anything at all, they won’t believe me, no matter what I tell them, she thinks.
Emily sighs. She feels irritable and overwhelmed. Her mother opens her mouth to say something, but Emily doesn’t want to hear it. She doesn’t want to talk any more.
‘Mum, I think I’ll go and take a shower and then sleep for a while,’ she says, adding, ‘if that’s all right with you.’
‘Yes, that’s fine, Emily. I’ll potter around down here and make something for dinner later.’ Josephine slurps her tea loudly. Then she gets up to busy herself in the kitchen as Emily leaves the room.
Minutes later, as Emily lathers her body with soap under the scalding jet of the shower, she wonders how long her mother plans to stay. She immediately berates herself. Her mother is trying to be helpful. And, anyway, does she really want to be alone right now? As she rinses the shampoo from her hair, a line from the end of Perfect Blue Buildings, one of her favourite songs by The Counting Crows, comes into her head. But she can’t think of the tune.
Stepping into the master bedroom from the en suite bathroom, she notices Greg’s red jumper. It’s slung over the back of the antique chair next to his side of the bed. He wore it recently when they went out as it was rather chilly for a summer’s evening. They ate at a nice restaurant, then went to a concert at the Sheldonian Theatre. A few bars from the Schubert Sonata that the pianist performed begin to play in Emily’s head. She and Greg both thoroughly enjoyed themselves. When they arrived home, Emily recalls, Greg wanted to make love, but Emily pretended to be too tired. She regrets that now.
She wraps the towel around her head, pinning up her shoulder-length hair, and walks over to the wooden armchair to pick up his jumper. She buries her face in it and inhales deeply. She feels weak as she breathes in Greg’s cologne mixed with the faint scent of the laundry detergent that he liked her to use to wash his woollen jumpers. There’s also the odour of beeswax and polish that permeated all of Greg’s clothing. It’s a smell Emily would usually find comforting, but in this instant it symbolises everything she has just lost. Her legs give way beneath her and she sinks onto the worn, unwelcoming cushion of the chair.
In spite of herself, Emily presses the jumper harder against her face and breathes in again. This time she can detect the hint of a more floral fragrance. She stiffens as a memory hovers at the back of her mind, but it stays stubbornly out of reach. The smell is vaguely familiar, but disturbing at the same time. As the towel slips from her hair, releasing her chestnut curls, she tells herself it’s just her conditioner, her own smell mixing with that of her husband. Her late husband. Tears start to stream down her cheeks as she clings to the jumper, rocking her body backwards and forwards.
Emily doesn’t remember getting up from the chair, but when she wakes up an hour or so later, she finds she’s lying in her dressing gown on Greg’s side of the bed, still clutching his sweater. She gingerly raises herself to a sitting position, grimacing. She stays on the bed, in a daze, gently rubbing the faded scars on her right forearm with the fingertips of her left hand. It’s an unconscious gesture and as soon as she realises she’s doing it, she stops and tugs her sleeve down. She can hear the muffled noises her mother is making in the kitchen downstairs, but she doesn’t want to join her just yet.
Scanning her bedroom, she notices that most of the things in it are hers. Her paintings are displayed on the walls; her perfume bottles, hairbrushes and make-up are on the dressing table; her ornaments are lined up neatly on the shelves. The antique armchair, on which Greg’s clothes were always strewn, was his. She has always found it ugly and uncomfortable, but suddenly she feels fond of it.
Her eyes fall on her MacBook Pro on top of the chest of drawers. Greg bought it for her because she wasn’t very computer-literate and he said it was user-friendly. But really Josh, the computer whizz she’s employing to set up a website for her artwork, uses her laptop more than she does.
Emily remembers how much Greg had loved new technology. He and his friend Charles would sometimes talk about computers for hours on end, which she found intensely annoying. Thinking how much she would love to listen in on one of those conversations now, a lump comes to her throat. She remembers spending evenings sitting next to her husband, losing herself in the novels on her Kindle while Greg, who had never been much of a reader, was on his laptop or smartphone replying to emails or searching for antiques on the Internet or catching up with friends on Facebook. She makes an effort not to start crying again.
It dawns on her that although all of Greg’s close friends and family know he has lost his life in a car crash, several of his old classmates from school won’t have heard about it. Now she comes to think of it, many of his work contacts won’t know either. She decides to type a short message on Facebook to tell them. She brings her laptop over to the bed, props up the pillows behind her and, sitting with her legs out straight and the computer on her thighs, she boots it up. She knows Greg’s password, so she brings up his account. She mulls over each sentence, but in the end she’s satisfied with her announcement.
It is with deep sadness that I inform you that my husband Greg passed away on 1st August following a road accident. His funeral was held last week. I’m very grateful for the support I’ve received at this tragic time. Emily Klein.
Although she doesn’t go on Facebook much, Emily does have an account, and she tags herself so that the message will appear on her Timeline, too. Wondering if some people will find an obituary on Facebook distasteful, she hesitates briefly. Then she posts her comment, logs out of Greg’s account and connects to her own to check that the message has appeared on her Facebook wall.
Just as she has logged in, she hears the four notes of the message notification sound. She clicks to open the message. The first time, she reads it without fully taking in the meaning, staring uncomprehendingly at the screen. As she rereads the words more carefully, she feels dizzy and struggles to breathe.
Alice, I don’t know what’s going on. I’ll get back to you as soon as I can.
The blue and white bar at the top of the Facebook page seems to flash as if in warning. Then the message becomes an illegible blur. Emily pushes the computer off her lap and jumps up from the bed. The pain in her side is excruciating. The room begins to spin so fast that she feels herself falling. It can’t be. That’s impossible. That’s the last thing that goes through her mind before she faints.
Even if the sender’s name hadn’t appeared in bold at the top of the message, Emily would have known it was from him. Only one person has ever called her by her middle name.
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Diane Jeffrey
‘ scorchingly good thriller’ – Lisa Hall, bestselling author of mega-hit Between You and Me ‘A tantalising and taut thriller with more twists and turns than a corkscrew. Red herrings swim all the way through it. An excellent page turner’ – Sally (Goodreads)Emily Klein doesn’t know she has killed her husband until the day of his funeral.At first, signs point to a tragic accident. Yet, as Emily pieces together the events before his death – events which led to her own memory loss – she begins to suspect that her husband’s death may have been the result of more than a terrible twist of fate…But the accident is only the beginning. Because while Emily’s physical scars will heal, the trauma of the accident has awakened old ghosts. She hears strange sounds, catches things that can’t possibly be there in the corner of her eye. Before long, everywhere she looks, she seems to see her husband.And suddenly, Emily finds herself asking the most dangerous question of all.Can she really trust herself?Reviewers love Those Who Lie:‘This is a must read for anyone who lives to delve into psychological thrillers!’ – Linda Strong, Netgalley‘With brilliant main characters and a wonderful plot, this book is a real page turner. I would highly recommend this book.’ – Stephanie Collins, Netgalley‘I absolutely adored this book’ – Lu Dex, Netgalley‘Great book.. keeps you guessing!! If you love twists and turns then this book if for you!’ – Diane Merrit, Netgalley‘With twists and turns that will wrong-foot you all the way, a dash of dark humour and a strong emotional punch, this is an excellent debut that more than earns its place within the genre.’ – S.J.I. Holliday, author of Black WoodDon’t forget to leave a review and tell us what you thought!
Emily Klein doesn’t know her husband has died until the day of his funeral.
But, as she pieces together the events before his death – events that led to her own memory loss – Emily begins to suspect that his death may not have been such a tragic accident after all.
If only she could remember…
The question is: are there some memories that Emily should leave alone?
Those Who Lie
Diane Jeffrey
ONE PLACE. MANY STORIES
Contents
Cover (#u0e52ba24-7208-50c3-89b7-b17761604d3c)
Blurb (#uc8a44522-9a50-587c-ab76-2eab67d95c84)
Title Page (#uf512f75b-924b-594e-8e75-d3a138b70d6c)
Author Bio (#u8b6f6861-9a94-514f-b6d2-4f582e1cbea5)
Dedication (#u4bd119f4-a737-57b3-b6d3-0bbbb17088f4)
Part One (#ulink_7a30c73a-42dd-58d5-a99c-5778e9481f78)
Chapter One (#ulink_1f238fd1-f479-52a5-8422-f4e3cf468970)
Chapter Two (#ulink_9ccc563b-c0b1-5581-9275-0cec9bf7149c)
Chapter Three (#ulink_4ea96c23-a884-5458-9773-14d5dcf9fd6e)
Chapter Four (#ulink_b358ab4c-4d2e-59bf-bdbf-a164c9adef54)
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Part Two
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Epilogue
Acknowledgements (#u8dd5baed-ff73-55cd-b0ce-4482cbb4de7c)
Copyright
DIANE JEFFREY
Diane Jeffrey grew up in North Devon. She lives and teaches English in Lyon, France. She is the mother of three children, and the mistress of one disobedient Labrador and one crazy kitten.
THOSE WHO LIE is her debut psychological thriller.
Diane has a BA Joint Honours degree in French and German from the University of Nottingham and an MA in English Literature and Linguistics from the Université Jean Moulin Lyon III.
In her free time, she devours novels and chocolate. She also swims a lot and runs a little. Above all, she enjoys spending time with her family and friends.
Diane’s imagination often runs amok and gets her up in the night to scribble down ideas for her writing. Incredibly, her supportive long-suffering husband puts up with this.
Readers can follow Diane on Twitter or on Facebook
@dianefjeffrey (http://www.twitter.com/dianefjeffrey)
facebook.com/dianejeffreyauthor (http://www.facebook.com/dianejeffreyauthor)
For my grandmother, Carrie. We still miss you.
~ Part One ~ (#ulink_4b74e032-8657-59e3-b11d-4e41247b804b)
Chapter One (#ulink_ad500307-fbbf-56a0-98b9-cb967056d5d9)
~
Oxford, August 2014
Emily Klein doesn’t know she has killed him until the day of his funeral. Her loved ones, including, of course, her husband, are all at the church rather than at her bedside. That explains why there are no familiar faces around her this time when she regains consciousness.
The room swims in and out of focus, and, at first, she has no idea where she is. But then it comes back to her. She’s trying to remember why she’s here when a cough to her right startles her. She isn’t alone. Her neck hurts as she turns her head, expecting to see Greg, or her sister, or at the very least her mother. Instead, her eyes rest on the broad chest of one of the two strangers sitting beside her bed.
‘Good afternoon, Mrs Klein,’ the stranger says in a deep voice.
Emily looks up into the kind face of a burly man. He appears to be around the same age as her. He has a bushy moustache containing far more hair than he has on his balding head. He’s smiling at her a little lopsidedly. Emily attempts to smile back, but her lips feel as if they’re glued to her teeth.
Next to him sits a thin woman who also seems to be in her mid-thirties. She has a dour expression on her pretty face, and her hair is cropped very short and dyed a copper-red. She inches her chair forwards, closer to Emily’s bed. The legs of the chair make a scraping sound on the floor. Emily feels intimidated.
‘I’m Sergeant Campbell,’ the woman says, fixing her piercing, green eyes on Emily, ‘and this is my colleague.’ She waves her hand towards the robust man as she introduces him by name, but Emily only catches the word ‘Constable’.
Emily must look bemused because the constable smiles at her again from beneath his impressive moustache. He means this reassuringly, she supposes, but the right side of his face appears more animated than the left, and Emily finds his crooked grin rather unsettling.
What’s going on? What do the police want? Emily can’t shake off the unnerving impression that something is very wrong.
‘What can you tell us about your movements on Friday the first of August?’ asks the redhead officiously, whipping out a notebook and a pen from a pocket in her uniform. She has a lilting Scottish accent that mitigates the hard edge to her voice.
Emily tries to speak, but she’s very thirsty and no sound comes out. She clears her throat.
‘May I have a drink of water, please?’ she asks.
Her head is pounding.
The constable pours some water from the transparent, plastic jug on the cupboard and presses a button on the remote control to raise Emily’s bed. Then he gives her the glass. He watches her, a concerned look on his face, as she takes a few tentative sips before handing back the glass.
‘The first of August, Mrs Klein,’ the sergeant repeats, ‘what happened on that day?’
‘Well, that’s my mother’s birthday,’ Emily begins. Her throat is still dry and her voice sounds strange. ‘Oh, that’s right; I’d sent her some flowers and bought her a necklace. I rang to wish her a happy birthday. She turned sixty-five.’ Emily plucks at the stiff, white sheets before she adds, ‘She is…um, she has been ill recently, for a long time really, and…well, she’s doing a lot better at the moment. We’re so proud of her.’
‘We?’ the sergeant echoes.
‘My sister and I,’ Emily says, and then the thought strikes her. ‘Where is she? Where’s my sister?’ she asks. Amanda was there last time Emily opened her eyes, she’s sure of it.
The sergeant ignores Emily’s outburst. ‘What happened after that?’
Emily shifts her gaze to the friendlier face of the constable. Are these two police officers real? They seem like caricatures, characters from a bad television series.
‘I met my husband for lunch,’ she answers, wondering where Greg is.
The constable doesn’t give her a chance to voice her concern. ‘Where?’ he asks, sounding genuinely interested.
‘At Gee’s. It’s not far from my husband’s shop.’
‘Oh, I know that restaurant,’ the constable says. ‘The one on Banbury Road? I’ve only eaten there once, though. It’s a bit pricey, isn’t it?’
Emily isn’t sure if she’s meant to reply, so she remains silent, trying hard to think. She’s in hospital. She’s groggy. She’s in pain. She knows all that. But she can’t get beyond that. She’s having difficulty associating her two new acquaintances with her surroundings. Shouldn’t there be doctors and nurses or family and friends by her bed rather than police officers? What on earth am I doing here?
Emily’s gaze flits from the constable to the sergeant. She scans as much of her room as her neck will allow. Hers is the only bed, so she’s in a private room rather than a hospital ward. There are flowers and fruit next to the water jug, so she’s had visitors. Greg and Amanda, probably. But for some reason, they’re not here now.
‘Can we get back to the interrogation?’ Sergeant Campbell reprimands her colleague, clicking her pen off and back on.
‘Is this an interrogation?’ Emily asks, bewildered. She almost asks what she has done wrong, but stops herself just in time. She wonders if she’s dreaming. She certainly feels sleepy.
The sergeant looks vaguely uncomfortable and squirms in her seat. ‘No, not really,’ she says, her voice softening a little. ‘That wasn’t the right word.’
‘Not at all,’ the constable says. ‘It’s a routine investigation after—’
‘Mrs Klein…Emily, we just want to know what happened that day,’ Campbell interrupts. ‘For our report. Did you drink anything with your meal?’
Something doesn’t feel right. Emily’s mind is even foggier, and she’s struggling to organise her thoughts. What had the constable been about to say? A routine investigation after what? Into what? It must be serious if these police officers have been waiting for her to wake up. Or are they here for her protection?
Campbell repeats her question.
‘Yes. A Perrier water, with a twist of lemon,’ Emily replies. ‘That’s what I always have.’
‘I meant, did you have any alcohol? A glass of wine, for example?’
‘Oh, no. I don’t drink. And anyway, I was driving.’
‘Yes, you were,’ the sergeant says. ‘Why was Mr Gregory Klein, your husband, in the car with you?’ Her voice is silky now, but Emily gets the feeling she’s hiding something.
‘Well, he wanted to have a look at an Edwardian inlaid satinwood wardrobe.’
Now it’s the sergeant’s turn to look perplexed.
‘An antique wardrobe,’ Emily explains, seeing Campbell’s expression. ‘The owner lived in Staunton Road, in Headington. I didn’t have any urgent work that day, so I drove Greg there.’
The policewoman seems temporarily at a loss for words and purses her lips as she digests this piece of information. Her pale pink lipstick has been applied rather haphazardly, which makes Emily wonder if she had difficulty colouring inside the lines as a young child.
‘Did you need new bedroom furniture?’ the sergeant asks after a few seconds.
‘Oh, no.’ Under different circumstances, Emily might have found the question funny. ‘My husband’s an antique dealer. The wardrobe was for his shop. It’s odd, but I’m not sure whether he bought it or not.’
Before Emily can reflect any more on that, the sergeant resumes. ‘What did you and Mr Klein talk about in the car?’
‘I think we had an argument.’ A vague memory stirs and Emily tries to grasp it, but it fades away. Talking is making Emily’s head thump even more, and so is trying to call to mind the conversation they had in the car. ‘Greg told me something. I’ve forgotten exactly what it was he said. But I do know I was very angry about it.’
Emily pauses. Sergeant Campbell waits for her to continue. The constable gives her what is no doubt intended to be an encouraging look. ‘I just remember Greg asking me over and over: “Who was it, Emily? Who was it?” He was shouting.’
Emily has a sudden image of her husband’s furious face.
‘Who was what?’ asks the sergeant, somewhat impatiently.
‘I don’t know.’ Emily frowns.
‘Do you recall your answer to your husband’s question?’
‘Yes,’ Emily replies, surprised, ‘I do. The answer was: “My father.” I told him that it was my father.’ The mere thought of him makes her shudder.
‘So, you remember you were arguing,’ the sergeant recaps, looking down and pointing her index finger at the notebook on her knee, ‘but not what it was about.’
Emily glances at the sergeant’s pad. Although for her the notebook is upside down, Emily can clearly see that the police officer has taken no notes whatsoever. She has merely doodled a series of dots in a circular pattern, which reminds Emily of the recurrent spiral motif she uses in her own artwork.
‘That’s right.’ Emily nods, and then scowls as the pain in her head intensifies.
‘If it comes back to you, will you contact us?’
‘How do I get in touch with you?’
The policewoman produces a card from a pocket in her uniform and hands it to her. Emily looks at it and sees a series of addresses, telephone numbers and a shoulder number under the heading Sergeant Campbell, Roads Policing Unit, Thames Valley Police.
‘What’s your name again?’ Emily addresses Campbell’s colleague, thinking it would be infinitely preferable to deal with him than the scary sergeant.
‘PC Constable,’ he replies.
‘Police Constable Constable?’
‘Yes, I’m afraid so,’ he says wryly. ‘I desperately need a promotion.’
Emily tries again to smile at him, but yet another bolt of pain shoots through her head and she suddenly finds him far less amusing. She still can’t work out why she’s here. She seems to recollect being told last time she woke up that she’d been involved in an accident. A growing sense of alarm overcomes her initial disorientation.
Sergeant Campbell’s next question does nothing to reassure her. ‘Mrs Klein, do you know what caused you to crash the car?’ The police officer clicks her pen again.
Emily has a vision of her car hurtling off the road towards a tree. She feels a wave of panic break over her. Is this what really happened? Or is her imagination running wild? She takes a deep breath. So, she crashed the car. That makes sense. It would explain why she’s in hospital and why her head, neck and side hurt so much. But she can’t think straight. And she’s far too tired to answer any more questions.
At that moment, the door to her hospital room opens and in strides a tall, plump woman wearing a badge that identifies her as Staff Nurse Peterson. She reminds Emily a little of Chummy in Call the Midwife. Emily is now almost convinced she’s trapped on a TV studio set in a bad dream.
But then the nurse says, ‘Oh, Mrs Klein, you’re awake again.’ She puts her hand on Emily’s arm. ‘How are you feeling?’
‘Very confused,’ Emily replies, ‘and in pain.’
Staff Nurse Peterson checks the drip, and tells Emily that she’ll administer some more painkillers. As the nurse completes her clinical checks and records the data on Emily’s chart, Sergeant Campbell drops her bombshell.
‘I must say, Mrs Klein,’ she says, ‘you’re taking the news of your husband’s death incredibly well.’
Emily senses Staff Nurse Peterson freeze at Campbell’s remark. Words swirl round in Emily’s head. Argument…my father…car crash…husband’s death. She tries to suppress the scream rising inside her, and it erupts as a strangled whimper. That’s the only sound audible in the room. It seems to resonate in Emily’s ears. She cradles her sore head in her hands.
‘Mrs Klein hadn’t been told yet that Mr Klein was killed in the accident,’ the nurse hisses at Sergeant Campbell, who looks unperturbed.
Campbell’s mobile phone rings out and shatters the silence that ensues. The police officer takes the call.
Staff Nurse Peterson glares at the redhead while talking soothingly to Emily whose eyes dart from one woman to the other. The sergeant, impervious to the nurse’s disapproval, continues to mumble into her phone. When she has ended the call, Campbell taps her colleague on the shoulder.
‘Let’s go,’ she says to Constable. ‘I am sorry,’ she mutters to Emily who isn’t sure if Campbell is apologising or expressing her condolences. Then she turns and heads for the door without so much as a cursory glance in Staff Nurse Peterson’s direction.
PC Constable gets up from his seat, and tells Emily how sorry he is for her loss. Then he leaves the hospital room before his superior, who is holding the door open for him.
Emily clearly hears Campbell’s words as she follows Constable out: ‘The witness has finally turned up at the station to give his statement.’
Just as Emily is wondering if Campbell’s phone call and witness have anything to do with her, Staff Nurse Peterson hangs the chart up on the end of her bed and says, ‘Don’t worry. You concentrate on getting better. You’ll be home in no time.’
But Emily barely registers what the nurse says. Greg is dead, Emily thinks. I was driving the car. I didn’t kill him. I can’t have killed him. The thought of going home without Greg fills her with despair and dread.
Chapter Two (#ulink_428cc74f-60ce-5646-b1c3-ccc7717e54b5)
~
Devon, Christmas Eve, 1995
At half past nine, Josephine Cavendish was already snoring on the sofa in front of the television. Emily decided to go to bed although she knew there was no way she’d be able to sleep. Not tonight.
As she cleaned her teeth, she could hear Michael Stipe’s voice coming from the end of the corridor. Half a World Away. Amanda stayed up here a lot listening to REM. She also liked Pearl Jam and Nirvana. Even when she wasn’t listening to music, she seemed to spend as much time as possible in her bedroom. Perhaps she feels safe in hers, Emily thought.
Emily opened the door to her own room, which was larger than her sister’s. Through the window she could see it was pitch-black and wet outside. She switched on the lamp by her bed and drew the curtains to shut out the night. She smiled wistfully at the Sarah Kay design. Here the girl was cradling a puppy; there she was holding a basket of flowers. Everywhere she was carefree. The curtains had never been replaced even though they were faded from the sunlight and Emily had outgrown them long ago.
She thought about reading, and walked over to her bookcase. It was crammed with books, from the classics – Dickens, Austen, the Brontës – to modern bestsellers of different genres such as Jurassic Park, Diana: Her True Story,Captain Corelli’s Mandolin and The Silence of the Lambs. Her novels allowed her to escape. And she desperately needed to escape. But she couldn’t choose one. She wouldn’t be able to concentrate, anyway.
From the top row of her bookcase, at least a dozen teddy bears observed her bedroom through kind, beady eyes. She hadn’t played with her teddies for years, and they looked tatty, but she didn’t have the heart to get rid of them. Throwing them away would somehow have felt like giving up her childhood. Or giving up on it.
She turned around, imagining what the teddies could see from up there. They seemed to be looking at her double bed. Her parents had given it to her the previous year for her fourteenth birthday, although her mother hadn’t really been happy about it. Emily liked the colourful spiral patterns on the duvet cover, but the bed was too big for her.
She pulled on her nightie and climbed into bed. She could still hear the music faintly, although she couldn’t make out the song. Another one from the same album, no doubt. Out of Time. It occurred to her that her heart was beating too fast; it was out of time with the song. Lying on her side, she brought her knees up and hugged them to her chest. She felt cold in spite of the bedcover. She was wide awake. She looked at her watch on the bedside table. Ten o’clock. She felt sick with nerves.
She’d always been afraid at night-time, although when she was younger, her fears were unfounded. It was just that she was terrified of the dark. Amanda would make fun of her for that, but she’d often sung to her or stroked her head until she fell asleep. Sometimes they would even drag Amanda’s mattress along the corridor so she could sleep on Emily’s floor. In the end, their father said it was time Emily grew up and he forbade the girls to sleep in the same room.
The music stopped suddenly and a door banged. Emily’s throat felt tight and she couldn’t breathe. It’s too early. I’m not ready yet, she thought, alarmed.
Then she heard a floorboard creak on the landing, followed a few seconds later by the rattle of water pipes. She heaved a sigh of relief. It was only Amanda. There was the noise of the toilet flushing, then a gentle knock at her bedroom door.
‘I’m awake,’ she called out to her sister. She sat up in bed.
The door opened and Amanda came in and walked towards her. She was wearing tartan pyjamas. Her long, mousy hair was loose and wavy from the plaits she always let out at bedtime. ‘Night, Em,’ she said.
‘Goodnight.’
Amanda sat on the edge of the bed and Emily looked into her eyes. They were a murky brown, the same colour as their father’s. Emily had inherited their mother’s pale blue eyes. Amanda gave her a hug. Emily could feel herself trembling.
‘You’re cold,’ Amanda said, sounding concerned.
That wasn’t the only reason Emily was shaking, and she thought her sister probably knew that. But she didn’t contradict her. What could Amanda do anyway? She rubbed Emily’s arms as if to warm them. Neither of them spoke for a few seconds.
Canned laughter suddenly erupted from the sitting room below, breaking the silence.
‘Mum still in front of the TV?’
‘Yeah.’ Emily didn’t need to add that she was dead to the world.
After a while, Amanda pecked Emily’s cheek and got up.
‘Don’t go,’ Emily pleaded, but her elder sister had already left the room.
The door to Amanda’s bedroom along the hallway closed with a thud, and Emily glanced at her watch again. Half past ten. She became aware of the sound of her own breathing over the indistinct din of the sitcom. She could also hear the wind howling outside and the rain beating against the windowpane. She was alone and helpless. A sob welled up inside her but she fought to contain it. I have to stay strong, she thought. She needed to calm her nerves. She decided to read after all.
On her bedside table was a huge stack of books that looked like it would topple over at any minute. At the top of the pile was Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. Emily’s middle name was Alice. Her father’s mother, whose memory was getting bad due to Alzheimer’s, bought her a copy of Lewis Carroll’s novel every year for Christmas and she dutifully reread the book each time. It had always been her favourite story, and she never grew tired of it. Her grandmother had given her this edition – her sixth copy – just two days ago. When she was younger, Emily had traced and copied the illustrations, and after that she’d created her own sketches for each chapter.
She flicked through the blue leather-bound volume to the part she liked best in the whole book: the Hatter’s Tea-Party. She read the bit where Alice was told that they took tea all day long since Time had stood still at six o’clock, in other words, at teatime. If only time could stand still for me tonight, she wished silently. But it was nearly eleven now. Her stomach was heavy with dread. She was terrified she wouldn’t be able to go through with it.
It was hopeless. She couldn’t keep her mind on the book. She still felt cold even though the radiators hadn’t cooled yet. Shivering, she pulled the duvet up around her shoulders and contemplated getting out of bed to fetch some thick, woollen socks. Perhaps she should get up and hide. Somewhere he couldn’t find her this time.
It was too late. She could hear him swearing loudly from outside. The front door was directly beneath her bedroom window, and she imagined him fumbling with his key and then stumbling into the hall. There was a loud bang as the door was flung open against the wall.
Quickly, she replaced the book on her bedside table, switched off the lamp and lay down. She rolled over onto her side towards the wall, wrapping the quilt tightly around her. She pushed her hand under the pillow and groped around, holding her breath. Where is it? I know I put it here, she thought, panicking. Lifting her head slightly and sliding her hand further under the pillow, she found what she was looking for. Clutching it as if her life depended on it, she breathed out.
He’d turned off the television in the sitting room and for a moment there was an eerie silence in the house. She imagined him looking down at her mother disdainfully. He might even take a swig from her bottle of Jameson if there was any whiskey left.
But the silence was short-lived. She could hear his heavy footsteps making their unwieldy way up the stairs. Oh no, she thought. Please, no.
She sensed her bedroom door open. She heard him lurch into the room and flick the switch. The room was instantly flooded with light. Her heart began to hammer harder and faster. She huddled further into her covers, trying to gain a little more respite. Closing her eyes tight, she pretended to be fast asleep, although she’d tried that before and knew it wouldn’t work. She could visualise him looking at her from across the room. It made her skin crawl.
He weaved his way over to her bed, and practically collapsed on top of her. She lay still and tried to swallow down the lump in her throat even as the tears squeezed out from behind her firmly shut eyelids.
‘I love you so much, Emily.’ Her father’s voice was slurred and his smell – a mixture of sweat, alcohol and tobacco – invaded her nostrils and made her feel nauseous. ‘You make me love you so much.’
One evening, he’d passed out before he could begin. Perhaps that would happen tonight. But she realised this was just wishful thinking as he pulled back the covers, unwrapping the cocoon she’d enveloped herself in.
She didn’t move a muscle as he pulled up her nightie and opened the belt of his trousers. She remained immobile – there was no point in fighting. Instead, she concentrated on the place in her mind she always retreated to when this happened: the beach at Woolacombe.
In one of her happiest memories, she was at the beach with her sister, her parents and her mother’s parents. She was little then and this was long before she’d made her father love her too much. They must have gone to the beach often during the summer months and she was never sure if this was just one memory or a mixture of many trips to the seaside.
They were all eating Mr Whippy 99 ice creams with chocolate Flakes. Granny and Granddad said they didn’t like the Flakes so Amanda and Emily could have two each. Afterwards, the girls swam in the sea with Mum and Granddad. They stayed in until their lips turned blue and their arms and legs had goose pimples all over them. As the tide was so low, it was a long walk back to the place where their father and Granny were dozing on deckchairs. Their mum made them run to warm up. Panting with his tongue out like a dog, Granddad pretended to be too old to jog.
It was hard to find the right parasol at the top of the beach because they’d drifted along in the current while jumping over and ducking under the waves, and so they were several metres too far along the beach. Emily was the one who finally spotted the blue and yellow parasol. Granny wrapped a beach towel around her, and then another one around Amanda. Someone had taken a photo – it must have been their father because he was the only one not in the picture, and Emily had kept it. It was in a frame on her bedside table.
She turned her head and focused on this photo now as the familiar pain seared through her. She could almost feel the teddies’ cold, glassy eyes on her, and from the open pages of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, both the March Hare and the Hatter stared at her. It was as if they were all watching her, daring her to find the courage to put an end to this. Only the sleepy Dormouse had his eyes closed, as though averting his gaze out of consideration or turning a blind eye to what she was going to do.
As her father’s shudder and moan signalled that this was nearly the end for tonight, she reminded herself that there was only one way this would ever stop. She freed her hand from where it was pinned under her father. I have to do this, she thought. I have to do it now, or it will be too late.
Before she had time to think through what she’d really intended to do, the gun went off.
Long after her father’s lifeless body had collapsed onto her for the last time, soaking her in blood and almost crushing her beneath its dead weight, the shot continued to ring in her ears.
Chapter Three (#ulink_976ff5df-9ae7-53ae-9af6-b92b328815d6)
~
Oxford, August 2014
As Josephine Cavendish swings the car into the driveway of Emily’s Victorian home in leafy Summertown, narrowly avoiding the gatepost, Emily thinks that it’s a miracle she hasn’t been involved in another car crash on the way home. She realises she has been pressing her right foot down hard on the floor as though she has an emergency brake on the passenger’s side. The five-mile journey from the hospital seemed interminable.
Gently levering herself out of the car, she blanches as her broken ribs protest. She’ll take some more of her prescribed painkillers as soon as she’s inside the house, she decides. She tries to lift a bag from the boot of the car.
‘Go on inside,’ her mother says firmly. Peering at Emily over the top of her glasses, which have slipped down her nose, Josephine shoos her daughter away. Emily knows better than to argue with her mother. ‘I’ll carry these,’ Josephine says, hoisting the holdall onto her shoulder. Then she grabs the plastic bags containing clothes, which Amanda brought to the hospital for Emily, as well as the bunch of flowers and another one of grapes.
As Emily walks slowly up the drive, out of the corner of her eye she catches sight of her next-door neighbour. Mrs Wickens seems to be engrossed in her geraniums, but Emily suspects she’s burning with curiosity and ready to pounce on them. Anxious to avoid the elderly woman’s questions, Emily keeps her head down and escapes, but Josephine isn’t so lucky. Snippets of their conversation reach Emily’s ears as she takes her house keys from her handbag.
‘… a car accident … Mr Klein? … so sad … your elder daughter … she fed the cat …’
Entering the hallway, Emily lets the front door swing closed behind her, shutting out their voices. Mr Mistoffelees pads towards her, mewing. She tries to bend down to stroke the cat, but it’s too painful, so she stands still while he weaves himself in a figure of eight around her legs.
Looking around her, she spots several pairs of Greg’s shoes and his umbrella. A thought hits her like a punch in the stomach and hurts far more than her injuries: this is no longer their home, but only her home. Everything around her looks the same: the light grey walls, the mirror, the rug, Greg’s antique furniture incongruously juxtaposed with her own modern paintings. Something old, something new, Greg would often joke. And yet, despite the familiarity of her surroundings, Emily doesn’t feel at home. Everything looks the same, but everything has changed, she realises with a jolt. She has the strange impression that she has just stepped into someone else’s life.
She remembers Greg carrying her over the threshold when they came home after their honeymoon in Venice ten years ago. It had been so romantic, they were happy, and the unfortunate incident at their wedding had practically been forgotten. Emily hadn’t wanted to think about that, anyway. She’d needed to forgive Greg and build up trust in him again.
Greg spun her around in his arms – both of them giggling – and then set her down in the same spot she is standing in at this very moment. She imagines now that she can hear his laughter echoing in the hall. He’d always laughed louder and longer than everyone else; she’d found his enthusiasm contagious on many occasions. He’d been so full of life. It just doesn’t seem possible that he’s dead.
Oh, Greg. You can’t die. You can’t leave me. I didn’t mean to—
Emily’s thoughts are interrupted when Josephine opens the front door and hauls in the carrier bags, roses and fruit, not without some difficulty. The strap of the holdall has slid down from her shoulder to her elbow. She dumps everything on the rug.
‘Come into the kitchen, Emily. I’ll make some tea,’ her mother says, leading the way.
Emily kicks off her shoes and heads for the kitchen. ‘No, I’ll do it, Mum,’ she argues. ‘I need something to do.’
‘You’ll do no such thing. I’ve come to stay for a while, and I intend to take care of you until you’re feeling a bit stronger. Now sit down.’
Once again, Emily does as she is told. She notices the fridge is full when Josephine opens it to take out a carton of milk. She makes a mental note to thank her sister for her thoughtfulness. She studies her mother who is click-clacking her way clumsily around the kitchen in her high heels.
Having lost a lot of weight when she gave up drinking, Josephine is more discreet physically, but Emily finds her more sociable now, and less withdrawn. Her mother has always been slightly sharp-tongued, though, and this doesn’t appear to have changed. She keeps up an endless stream of chatter as she opens and closes the cupboard doors. Emily fixes her gaze on the kitchen table and tries to respond when it seems appropriate until her mother turns to face her and says something that catches her full attention.
‘If you need something to do, we could start clearing out Greg’s clothes and things.’
Emily is horrified at the suggestion. ‘Oh, no, I couldn’t do that, not yet.’
‘Well, I could do it for you.’
‘No! Don’t do that, Mum. I’m not ready. He…’
Emily had been about to say that Greg might still come back, but she closes her mouth as Josephine places a mug of tea in front of her. The tea looks as if it has been made without a single teabag. Emily blows gently across the steaming cup and sips at the hot drink. Her hands are unsteady, so she puts the mug down, making a face as she does so. The tea tastes as disgusting as it looks. She is staggered by her mind’s ability to think like this when she has just lost her husband. I’m a widow, she reminds herself, but it hasn’t sunk in yet.
‘That’s all right,’ Josephine says. ‘All in good time.’
Emily smiles weakly and asks her mother for some water to take her tablets. She holds the cool glass to her head for a while and closes her eyes. In her mind, she sees an image of herself as a patient, not in the John Radcliffe Hospital in Headington from which she has just been discharged, but in the hospital of her nightmares. The one she stayed in for just one week as a child. It was a long time ago, but the memory still haunts her. She opens her eyes again to make the image disappear.
Just then the phone rings, making Emily jump. Her mother rushes out to the hall, unsteady in her high heels. Then she teeters back into the kitchen with the handset pressed against her ear.
‘Well, I don’t know if she’s well enough to talk…’ Josephine’s voice trails off as Emily nods, holding out her hand for the telephone.
‘Hello? Emily Klein speaking.’
‘Sergeant Campbell, here.’ Emily immediately regrets taking the call. She has had a strong mistrust of the police ever since she was a teenager. And she has already taken a strong disliking to Campbell. ‘PC Constable and I would like to ask you a few more questions, if we may, about the crash,’ the sergeant continues, sounding almost friendly, much to Emily’s surprise.
‘Yes?’ she says expectantly. She starts to chew one of her nails.
‘Not now. Tomorrow. If you’re not feeling up to coming in to the station, we could come to your house. At three p.m.-ish?’
‘Fine,’ Emily hears herself agreeing while a knot of anxiety twists in her stomach. ‘What sort of questions?’
‘Just corroborating the statement of an eyewitness to the incident. It would be easier to do it in person. Tomorrow at three.’
‘OK. I’ll see you then.’ Emily tries to keep her voice even, but she can hear it quaver. Hopefully, Campbell can’t. ‘Do you need the address?’
But the sergeant, true to her original form, has already hung up. Emily becomes aware of the metallic taste of blood in her mouth and realises she has bitten her nail to the quick.
Why did Campbell say ‘incident’? Emily wonders disconcertedly. Surely she’d meant ‘accident’?
‘Was that the nasty ginger policewoman you told me about?’ Her mother doesn’t wait for an answer. ‘What did she want?’
Emily is still asking herself the same thing. ‘She and her colleague want to ask me some more questions,’ she says. ‘They’re coming round tomorrow afternoon.’ She picks up her mug and holds it to her lips, but she can’t bring herself to drink any more of it.
Emily wants her mother to reassure her; she wants her to say that this is normal police procedure after a traffic accident. After all, Greg died in this crash. And Emily was driving. She has been trying to shut that thought out, but she knows the grief and guilt will catch up with her.
Instead Josephine says, ‘I thought you couldn’t remember what happened. What’s the point in bothering you about it?’
‘Sergeant Campbell said she wanted to follow up a report by a witness.’
‘I still don’t see how you can help with your amnesia.’
Josephine pulls out a chair and sits down opposite her daughter at the kitchen table.
‘I’m not really suffering from amnesia, Mum,’ Emily says, avoiding her mother’s eyes and staring instead at the mark left by her mug on the table. She puts her mug down, placing it exactly inside the wet circle. ‘I’ve just blanked out the accident itself and what Greg and I were argu…um…talking about. That’s all.’
‘What did they say about that at the hospital? Will you get your memory back?’
‘I haven’t lost my…’ Emily begins, but gives up mid-sentence. Unbidden, the image of her car about to crash into a tree replays in Emily’s mind. She blinks and focuses on her hands gripping the mug. ‘They said it might be due to the concussion, or, more likely, the emotional trauma of the accident. I may never remember exactly what happened in the car. According to the doctors, that may be just as well.’
‘Well, I suppose it’s not the first time you’ve forgotten something important.’
Emily snaps her head up and looks into her mother’s cold, blue eyes. They appear magnified behind her glasses, but Josephine’s expression is inscrutable. Emily thinks she knows what her mother was referring to with that barb, but she doesn’t know what reaction she was hoping to provoke, so she ignores it.
‘And it’s not the first time the police have questioned you about a suspicious death.’ Emily is still holding her mother’s gaze and it takes her a split second to realise Josephine hasn’t spoken. This remark has come from a voice in her own head. Deep down, this is what she’s afraid of. What if Campbell and Constable don’t think it was an accident? If they find out anything about my past, anything at all, they won’t believe me, no matter what I tell them, she thinks.
Emily sighs. She feels irritable and overwhelmed. Her mother opens her mouth to say something, but Emily doesn’t want to hear it. She doesn’t want to talk any more.
‘Mum, I think I’ll go and take a shower and then sleep for a while,’ she says, adding, ‘if that’s all right with you.’
‘Yes, that’s fine, Emily. I’ll potter around down here and make something for dinner later.’ Josephine slurps her tea loudly. Then she gets up to busy herself in the kitchen as Emily leaves the room.
Minutes later, as Emily lathers her body with soap under the scalding jet of the shower, she wonders how long her mother plans to stay. She immediately berates herself. Her mother is trying to be helpful. And, anyway, does she really want to be alone right now? As she rinses the shampoo from her hair, a line from the end of Perfect Blue Buildings, one of her favourite songs by The Counting Crows, comes into her head. But she can’t think of the tune.
Stepping into the master bedroom from the en suite bathroom, she notices Greg’s red jumper. It’s slung over the back of the antique chair next to his side of the bed. He wore it recently when they went out as it was rather chilly for a summer’s evening. They ate at a nice restaurant, then went to a concert at the Sheldonian Theatre. A few bars from the Schubert Sonata that the pianist performed begin to play in Emily’s head. She and Greg both thoroughly enjoyed themselves. When they arrived home, Emily recalls, Greg wanted to make love, but Emily pretended to be too tired. She regrets that now.
She wraps the towel around her head, pinning up her shoulder-length hair, and walks over to the wooden armchair to pick up his jumper. She buries her face in it and inhales deeply. She feels weak as she breathes in Greg’s cologne mixed with the faint scent of the laundry detergent that he liked her to use to wash his woollen jumpers. There’s also the odour of beeswax and polish that permeated all of Greg’s clothing. It’s a smell Emily would usually find comforting, but in this instant it symbolises everything she has just lost. Her legs give way beneath her and she sinks onto the worn, unwelcoming cushion of the chair.
In spite of herself, Emily presses the jumper harder against her face and breathes in again. This time she can detect the hint of a more floral fragrance. She stiffens as a memory hovers at the back of her mind, but it stays stubbornly out of reach. The smell is vaguely familiar, but disturbing at the same time. As the towel slips from her hair, releasing her chestnut curls, she tells herself it’s just her conditioner, her own smell mixing with that of her husband. Her late husband. Tears start to stream down her cheeks as she clings to the jumper, rocking her body backwards and forwards.
Emily doesn’t remember getting up from the chair, but when she wakes up an hour or so later, she finds she’s lying in her dressing gown on Greg’s side of the bed, still clutching his sweater. She gingerly raises herself to a sitting position, grimacing. She stays on the bed, in a daze, gently rubbing the faded scars on her right forearm with the fingertips of her left hand. It’s an unconscious gesture and as soon as she realises she’s doing it, she stops and tugs her sleeve down. She can hear the muffled noises her mother is making in the kitchen downstairs, but she doesn’t want to join her just yet.
Scanning her bedroom, she notices that most of the things in it are hers. Her paintings are displayed on the walls; her perfume bottles, hairbrushes and make-up are on the dressing table; her ornaments are lined up neatly on the shelves. The antique armchair, on which Greg’s clothes were always strewn, was his. She has always found it ugly and uncomfortable, but suddenly she feels fond of it.
Her eyes fall on her MacBook Pro on top of the chest of drawers. Greg bought it for her because she wasn’t very computer-literate and he said it was user-friendly. But really Josh, the computer whizz she’s employing to set up a website for her artwork, uses her laptop more than she does.
Emily remembers how much Greg had loved new technology. He and his friend Charles would sometimes talk about computers for hours on end, which she found intensely annoying. Thinking how much she would love to listen in on one of those conversations now, a lump comes to her throat. She remembers spending evenings sitting next to her husband, losing herself in the novels on her Kindle while Greg, who had never been much of a reader, was on his laptop or smartphone replying to emails or searching for antiques on the Internet or catching up with friends on Facebook. She makes an effort not to start crying again.
It dawns on her that although all of Greg’s close friends and family know he has lost his life in a car crash, several of his old classmates from school won’t have heard about it. Now she comes to think of it, many of his work contacts won’t know either. She decides to type a short message on Facebook to tell them. She brings her laptop over to the bed, props up the pillows behind her and, sitting with her legs out straight and the computer on her thighs, she boots it up. She knows Greg’s password, so she brings up his account. She mulls over each sentence, but in the end she’s satisfied with her announcement.
It is with deep sadness that I inform you that my husband Greg passed away on 1st August following a road accident. His funeral was held last week. I’m very grateful for the support I’ve received at this tragic time. Emily Klein.
Although she doesn’t go on Facebook much, Emily does have an account, and she tags herself so that the message will appear on her Timeline, too. Wondering if some people will find an obituary on Facebook distasteful, she hesitates briefly. Then she posts her comment, logs out of Greg’s account and connects to her own to check that the message has appeared on her Facebook wall.
Just as she has logged in, she hears the four notes of the message notification sound. She clicks to open the message. The first time, she reads it without fully taking in the meaning, staring uncomprehendingly at the screen. As she rereads the words more carefully, she feels dizzy and struggles to breathe.
Alice, I don’t know what’s going on. I’ll get back to you as soon as I can.
The blue and white bar at the top of the Facebook page seems to flash as if in warning. Then the message becomes an illegible blur. Emily pushes the computer off her lap and jumps up from the bed. The pain in her side is excruciating. The room begins to spin so fast that she feels herself falling. It can’t be. That’s impossible. That’s the last thing that goes through her mind before she faints.
Even if the sender’s name hadn’t appeared in bold at the top of the message, Emily would have known it was from him. Only one person has ever called her by her middle name.
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