Let Me Lie(80)

‘Just a moment.’

Throughout our brief exchange he has been walking towards me, and now he’s on the bottom step, the middle, the top …

‘Thank you.’

It isn’t that he forces his way into the house, more that I can’t think of a way to refuse him. Blood sings in my ears, and the tightness in my chest makes my breath come fast and shallow. I feel like I’m drowning.

Rita pushes past me and onto the drive, where she squats for a pee, then sniffs at the marks left by unseen cats. I call her. The lure of the cat is stronger, and selective deafness takes hold.

‘Rita – get here now!’

‘Through here?’ Murray’s on his way into the kitchen before I can stop him. There is no way he won’t see Mum. The back wall of the kitchen is an almost unbroken sheet of glass.

‘Rita!’ There are cars in the road – I can’t leave her. ‘Rita!’ Finally she lifts her head and looks at me. And then, after a pause long enough to make it clear that the decision to come inside is hers, she trots back into the house. I push the door hard, leaving it to slam on its own while I run after Murray Mackenzie. I hear a sharp sound – an exclamation.

Not now. Not like this. I wonder if he will arrest her himself, or whether he will wait here for uniformed officers to arrive. I wonder if he’ll let me say goodbye. If he’ll take me, too.

‘You have been busy.’

I move to stand next to him. Our neat pile of leaves and prunings is the only evidence that anyone has been in the garden. A finch flies across the patio to the fence, where Mum has replenished the bird feeder. It hangs upside down, pecking at the ball of peanut butter and seeds. Aside from the birds, the garden is empty.

Murray walks away from the window. He leans against the breakfast bar and I keep my gaze steadily on him, not daring to glance again at the garden. This man is too perceptive. Too shrewd.

‘What was it you wanted to speak to me about?’

‘I wondered how many mobile phones you had.’

The question takes me off guard. ‘Um … just the one.’ I slip my iPhone out of my back pocket and hold it up in evidence.

‘No others?’

‘No. I had a second phone for work, but I handed that back when I went on maternity leave.’

‘Do you remember what the brand was?’

‘Nokia, I think. What’s all this about?’

His smile is polite but guarded. ‘Just tying up some loose ends from the investigation into your parents’ deaths.’

I go to the sink and start washing my hands, scrubbing at the dirt under my fingernails. ‘I told you I’d changed my mind. I don’t think they were murdered. I told you to drop it.’

‘Yet you were so adamant …’

The tap runs hotter, burning my fingers until I can hardly bear to hold them under the water. ‘I wasn’t thinking straight.’ I scrub harder. ‘I’ve just had a baby.’ I add using my daughter as an excuse to my mental list of things to feel guilty about.

There’s a noise from outside. Something falling over. A rake; a spade; the wheelbarrow. I turn around, leaving the tap running. Murray isn’t looking outside. He’s looking at me.

‘Is your partner at home?’

‘He’s at work. It’s just me.’

‘I wonder …’ Murray breaks off. His face softens, losing the sharpness that makes me so uneasy. ‘I wonder if there’s anything you want to talk about.’

The pause stretches interminably.

My voice is a whisper. ‘No. Nothing.’

He gives a brief nod, and if I didn’t know he was a police officer, I might have thought that he looked rather sorry for me. Just disappointed, perhaps, not to have found what he was looking for.

‘I’ll be in touch.’

I walk him to the door, standing with one hand on Rita’s collar while he crosses the road and gets into an immaculately polished Volvo. I watch him drive away.

Rita pulls away, complaining, and I realise I’m shaking, holding her collar too tight for comfort. I drop to my knees and give her a fuss.

Mum’s waiting in the kitchen, her face ashen. ‘Who was that?’

‘The police.’ Articulating it makes it even more frightening, even more real.

‘What did he want?’ Her voice is as high-pitched as mine, her face as drawn.

‘He knows.’





FORTY-SEVEN


MURRAY


Nish was still talking to Sarah when Murray returned home.

‘That didn’t take long.’

‘She wasn’t exactly hospitable.’ Murray was trying to pinpoint exactly what had been wrong with the scene at Oak View. Anna had been jumpy, certainly, but there had been something else.

‘Did you ask her outright?’

Murray shook his head. ‘At this stage, we don’t know whether she’s only recently found out her parents are alive, or if she’s known from the start. If she’s guilty of conspiracy, she needs to be interviewed under caution by a warranted officer, not questioned in her kitchen by a has-been.’

Nish stood up. ‘Much as I’d like to stay, Gill will be sending out a search party if I don’t get back soon – we’re supposed to be going out later. Let me know if you turn anything up, won’t you?’