Let Me Lie(63)

My mind whirs. My father was a violent man. So cruel to Mum that she faked her own death to escape him.

And now he’s coming after me.





THIRTY-FOUR


MURRAY


When Murray woke up on Christmas morning, Sarah’s side of the bed was cold. He felt the familiar clutch of panic as he searched the house for her. The back door was unlocked, and Murray cursed himself for leaving the key out, but when he tore it open and ran out into the garden, he found Sarah sitting quietly on the bench.

She was barefoot, dew from the bench soaking into the cotton robe she wore over her nightdress. Her thin arms encircled the knees drawn up to her chest, a mug of tea warming her hands, which were black with soil.

Ignoring the damp, Murray sat on the bench beside her. The garden was narrow, a once well-tended vegetable patch at the end, with a greenhouse, and a neat rectangle of lawn between two beds raised with railway sleepers. Closer to the house, where he and Sarah sat, was a square patio lined with pots. Murray watered them on the rare occasions the British weather failed to deliver rain, but didn’t know what to cut back and what to leave, and gradually the colour had disappeared from the patio.

‘Look.’

Murray had followed Sarah’s gaze to the largest pot, in which a willow obelisk was embedded. There had been something growing, Murray remembered, with pale pink flowers as thin as tissue paper, before it had dried and withered, nothing more than a collection of dry sticks clinging to the willow. The sticks were on the ground now, the earth cleared of weeds and freshly turned.

‘That looks a lot tidier.’

‘Yes, but look.’

Murray looked. Beside one corner of the obelisk, where the willow sunk into the earth, was the tiniest shoot of light green. Murray felt a glimmer of hope as Sarah slipped her hand into his.

‘Happy Christmas.’

Dinner was turkey crown and all the trimmings.

‘You sit there,’ Sarah said, pushing Murray into the sofa. ‘Relax.’

It was hard to relax when he could hear Sarah swearing as several things came to the boil at once, just as something else proved to be ‘fuck, that’s hot’. After a while Murray poked his head around the door.

‘Need a hand?’

‘All under control.’

There were pans everywhere, including several on the floor and one balanced precariously on the windowsill.

‘It’s still just the two of us, right?’

‘We’ll have leftovers tomorrow.’

And for the next three weeks, Murray thought.

‘Oh crap, I’ve burned the bread sauce.’

‘I hate bread sauce.’ Murray undid Sarah’s apron. He pushed her gently towards a chair. ‘Sit there. Relax.’

As he stirred the gravy he felt Sarah’s eyes on him. He turned around.

She chewed at a piece of skin at the side of her fingernail. ‘Tell me the truth: is it easier when I’m at Highfield?’

Murray had never lied to her. ‘Easier? Yes. As enjoyable? Nowhere near.’

Sarah digested his answer. ‘I wonder if he’s after her money.’

It was a while before Murray caught up. ‘Mark Hemmings?’

‘Anna thinks Mark never met her parents, but we know Caroline had an appointment with him. We also know that together, Caroline and Tom were worth a fuck-load of money.’ Sarah poured herself a small serving of wine, and stood to top up Murray’s glass. ‘Caroline goes to see Mark when she’s distraught over the death of her husband. She discloses that she’s worth somewhere in the region of a million pounds. Mark bumps her off and moves in on the daughter. Boom.’

Murray looked sceptical. ‘I suppose it’s marginally more convincing than your theory that Caroline was murdered for lodging a planning objection against the neighbour.’

‘I haven’t ruled that one out completely. But I think the money’s more likely.’

‘Mark and Anna aren’t married. He wouldn’t automatically inherit.’

‘Yet,’ Sarah said darkly. ‘Bet he’s working on it. And once he’s got his hands on her money and the house …’ She drew a single finger across her throat, making a melodramatic gargling sound as she did so.

Murray laughed at Sarah’s macabre mime as he started to dish up, covering the burned bits of potato with gravy, but the thought that Anna Johnson might be in danger sent a shiver down his spine. ‘As soon as the bank holiday’s over, I’ll see what the High Tech Crime Unit can do on the number used to make the Diane Brent-Taylor call. I’d put money on the fact that whoever put the brick through Anna Johnson’s window also made that call, and whoever made that call knows how Tom Johnson died.’ He put a plate, piled high with food, in front of Sarah, and sat opposite her.

‘It’ll be someone close to the family, though, mark my words,’ Sarah said, picking up her knife and fork. ‘It always is.’

Not for the first time, Murray thought she was probably right.

But who?





THIRTY-FIVE


ANNA


I haven’t held Ella all evening. She’s been passed around like a parcel, seemingly enjoying the attention, and offering no resistance to the arms of friendly strangers. Robert’s Christmas Day drinks party is the last place I want to be right now, but it has at least provided a respite from the scrutiny of Mark and his mother, whose sympathy for me on Christmas Eve had waned by lunchtime today. I was doing my best – opening a stocking for Ella I’d filled only hours before, sipping a weak Bellini at breakfast – but every conversation was an effort. Every word felt like a lie.