Let Me Lie(92)

‘I’m sorry to break this to you over the phone,’ Murray says, ‘but I wanted to let you know as soon as possible. Officers are at your house now. I’m afraid they’ve found a body.’

I put my hand to my mouth to stifle a cry. Mark.

We should never have gone. We should never have left him to face my father.

Murray Mackenzie is still going. He’s talking about fingerprints and deterioration and DNA and a tentative ID and—

I interrupt, unable to process what I think I heard. ‘Sorry, what did you say?’

‘We can’t be certain, but early indications suggest the body is your father. I’m so sorry.’

The relief I feel that we’re safe is instantly tempered by the knowledge that the only person at Oak View when we left was Mark.

I’ll wait here and call the police.

What if Dad showed up before the police arrived? Mark’s strong; he can take care of himself. Did he attack my father? Defend himself?

‘How did he die?’

I try to work out how long since the Shogun was behind us. Why would Dad go back to Oak View, when he knew we wouldn’t be there? Even if he doubled back straight away, how could he have got there so quickly? In the rearview mirror, my mother is frowning. Hearing half a conversation, even more confused than I am.

‘We’ll have to wait for the post-mortem to be certain, but I’m afraid there’s little doubt he was murdered. I’m so sorry.’

I feel hot, the nausea returning. Has Mark killed my dad?

Self-defence. It would have been self-defence. He can’t go to prison for that, can he?

There’s something pulling at the corners of my mind, like a child tugging my hand and telling me to look … I wonder if my mother is following this; if, in spite of herself, she feels a tug of sorrow at the death of a man she presumably once loved. But in the rearview mirror her eyes are cold. Whatever was once between my parents died a long time ago.

Murray is talking, and I’m thinking, and my mother is staring at me in the rearview mirror, and there’s something about the look in her eyes …

‘… in the septic tank for at least twelve months, probably longer,’ Murray is saying.

In the septic tank.

This has nothing to do with Mark.

I picture the narrow, well-like hole in the garden of Oak View; the bay tree in the heavy pot. I remember Mum’s insistence that we move the pot away; think of her obsession over Robert Drake’s extension. The extension that required digging up the disused tank.

She knew. She knew he was there.

My chest is too tight. Each breath is smaller than the last. My eyes are locked on my mother’s, and although the phone is by my ear, I can’t hear what Murray is saying. I can’t speak. Because I realise there’s only one reason she would know Dad was in the septic tank.

Because she put him there.





PART THREE





FIFTY-FIVE


ANNA


My mother’s eyes flick between me and the motorway. I remain frozen, the phone clamped to my ear. Murray Mackenzie is still talking, but I’m not taking anything in. Mum moves into the fast lane again and we overtake the same couple in the beat-up Astra. Still happy, still singing.

‘Miss Johnson? Anna?’

I’m too scared to answer. I’m wondering if there’s any chance my mother might not have heard what Murray had to say – might not have guessed from my expression what I’ve heard – but the look in my mother’s eyes tells me it’s all over.

‘Give me the phone.’ Her voice shakes.

I do nothing. Tell him, a voice inside screams. Tell him you’re on the M25 in a Volkswagen Polo. They have cameras, motorway patrols, response officers. They’ll get to you.

But my mother speeds up. Cuts back into lane sharply and without warning, the car behind pressing violently on the horn. The volume of traffic that earlier felt comforting now feels terrifying; every car is a potential collision target. Ella’s car seat, once so robust, now appears flimsy and insecure. I tighten the seatbelt around it; pull on my own. Murray’s no longer talking. Either the line’s dropped out or he’s ended the call; assumed I’ve hung up on him again.

‘Who was that in the Mitsubishi?’

Nothing.

‘Who was that chasing us?’ I scream it, and she takes a breath but ignores my question.

‘Give me the phone, Anna.’

She’s as terrified as I am. Her knuckles are white with fear, not anger; her voice shakes with panic, not rage. The knowledge should make me feel safer – stronger – but it doesn’t.

Because she’s in the driving seat.

I give her the phone.





FIFTY-SIX


It was an accident. That’s what you have to understand. I never meant for it to happen.

I didn’t hate you. I didn’t love you, but I didn’t hate you either, and I don’t think you hated me. I think we were young and I was pregnant, and we did what our parents expected us to do, and then we were stuck with each other, like a lot of people in relationships.

It’s taken a while for me to understand that.

For all of our marriage I was either drinking, or recovering from drinking, or thinking about drinking. Rarely enough to be drunk; rarely so little to be sober. On and on, for so many years that no one who had never seen me sober would ever know that I wasn’t.