Those Who Lie, page 15
Lucy looked up and grinned. Emily tried to find something to say. ‘What a coincidence!’ she exclaimed at last.
‘I didn’t know if you’d settled in Oxford or moved somewhere else, but I’m rather amazed now that we’ve never bumped into each other before,’ Lucy said. ‘How are your mum and sister?’
‘Amanda’s fine. She’s still in Oxford, too. She has her own private practice and she specialises in adolescent and adult psychiatry. She’s very involved in her Amateur Dramatic Club. She’s always been a good actress.’
‘And your mum?’
‘Um…she has her ups and downs.’ Emily realised Lucy had never met Matt. ‘I have a brother!’ she said.
‘Really?’ Lucy furrowed her brow.
‘A half-brother. Mum had a baby the year after…’ Emily trailed off. She had been about to say the year after she’d had her own baby. ‘The year after I left the Centre,’ she said instead. ‘His name is Matt. He’s thirteen. He’s a typical teenager. Spotty, moody, unruly.’
‘Tell me about it!’ Lucy said, rolling her eyes. ‘Does he live in Oxford, too?’
‘Oh, no. He lives with Mum in North Devon. He’s giving her a hard time of it by all accounts.’
‘And what about you? Have you got any children?’
‘No,’ Emily said.
Lucy slurped her tea, staring over the rim of the mug at Emily, as if waiting for more information.
‘My husband had a son from a previous marriage. He didn’t want any more kids,’ Emily added. ‘What about—?’
‘So, what’s it like being a stepmum?’
‘Er, well, you know…’ Emily replied evasively. ‘How are your children? You had two girls and two boys if I remember correctly.’
‘Good memory.’ Lucy’s smile widened at the mere thought of her children. ‘They’re all grown up now. Well, supposedly. One of my boys still brings his washing home! The youngest will be eighteen next February – gosh, that’s only two months away – and the oldest is twenty-seven and expecting a baby for next May. I’m going to be a grandmother! Isn’t that awful?’
‘You don’t look old enough,’ Emily said, ‘but I think that’s wonderful!’
‘So do I. Can’t wait really!’
Lucy took another gulp of tea. Emily marvelled that she could drink it so hot. She blew on hers.
‘You know, what you said about this being a coincidence earlier, well, I was talking about you not long ago to someone. I was working with a young client.’
Lucy’s mobile started ringing loudly and it startled Emily who spilt some of her tea. As she mopped it up with some paper napkins, she noticed her hands were shaking. Lucy answered the phone and talked briefly to a member of her family. Then she ended the call and made an apologetic face.
‘What was I saying?’
‘You mentioned a young client.’
‘Oh, yes, it was Mrs Justice Taylor QC’s last case. She’s retired now. Thank God. Oh, Emily, she wasn’t a bad judge, but she should never have sent you to Exmoor Secure Children’s Home. You were given diminished responsibility. She was just so enthusiastic about this new Centre that she sent you there instead of finding a more appropriate solution.’
‘Where else could I have gone?’
‘I think you should have been allowed to go home, and failing that into foster care since there was a lack of mental health beds at the time.’
‘I think given the choice I would’ve chosen the Centre,’ Emily said. ‘I wasn’t so badly off there. I got treatment and I continued my sessions with Dr Irvine; I did my GCSEs and had art classes. I wouldn’t really have been happy anywhere, but it was all right.’
Lucy nodded.
‘So you were talking about me to the judge?’
‘Sorry?’
‘You said you were talking about me to someone a little while ago.’
‘Ah, yes. Not the judge, no. Do you remember DI Hazel Moreleigh?’ Lucy asked.
‘DC Moreleigh?’
‘Well, she’s detective inspector now, but yes.’
‘Of course,’ Emily said, wondering how she could ever forget her.
‘After your case, I came into contact with her a few times professionally, and we’ve socialised on several occasions.’
‘Socialised?’
‘Yes, you know, gone out for a quick drink after court, that sort of thing.’
‘I see,’ said Emily, puzzled as to where this was going.
‘Recently we were both involved in a case that was similar to yours, and that got us talking about you.’
‘I see,’ Emily repeated, still failing to see where this was leading, but fearing that Lucy was about to dredge up memories from the past. Memories that were best left forgotten, or at least buried.
‘Hazel agrees with me,’ Lucy said, locking her large brown eyes onto Emily’s. ‘The evidence against you just didn’t add up. I’ve always felt bad, Emily, that I didn’t do better for you.’
‘What do you mean?’ Emily heard herself ask.
‘I mean, you didn’t deserve to have to go through all that – the trial, the sentence, everything.’
Emily didn’t know if she should console Lucy; she couldn’t really understand what she was feeling sorry about.
‘Hazel and I have discussed this many times. Do you know, DS Tomlinson was dismissed a few years after your court case?’
Emily shook her head.
‘Gross misconduct. Coerced false confession. Hazel blames him for the outcome of your case, too.’
‘Why?’
‘He was so pleased to have your confession on tape, but he put words into your mouth, Emily. No, it was worse than that: he force-fed whole stories down your throat. It was an open and shut case for him. He didn’t bother delving any deeper.’
‘What would have been the point?’
Lucy looked at Emily as if she were looking at a child. There was a mixture of compassion and reprimand in her expression, and it unsettled Emily.
‘The point is, Emily, that you know as well as I do, and as well as Hazel does, that you should never have been convicted of that crime.’
Lucy waited for Emily’s reaction. Emily sat still and said nothing. She wanted to ask: why? But she was afraid of the answer.
‘The ballistic report and the bloodstain pattern analysis gave contradictory evidence,’ Lucy resumed. ‘You’d said initially that you shot your father as you both lay in the bed. ‘And you were absolutely covered in your father’s blood,’ Lucy continued, ‘which would tend to suggest you were next to him in the bed when he was shot.’
Under him, I was under him, Emily thought to herself, but she didn’t correct Lucy.
‘And yet, the gun, which was found placed parallel to your father’s body in the bed, had relatively little blood on it.’ Lucy was becoming more and more agitated.
‘So?’
‘So, if you’d fired it from beside him, wouldn’t there have been as much blood on the gun as on you?’
‘I don’t know,’ Emily muttered. ‘I probably put the gun down before I pushed my father’s body off…away from me. Or maybe it was protected by the bedcovers.’
‘It was your father’s clay pigeon shotgun, Emily, not a pistol. How could you possibly have fired it from that position in the first place?’
Emily didn’t answer.
‘And why would you need a shotgun as well as a steel-bladed razor?’
Lucy paused, but continued when it became obvious that Emily wasn’t going to shed any light on the discrepancies in her case.
‘You were sitting on the floor, in your sister’s arms, holding the razor in your hand when the police arrived. You said in your statement that you’d taken the razor to bed with you. It had blood on it, but it hadn’t been used to injure your father.’
Emily lowered her head to avoid Lucy’s penetrating gaze.
‘According to the ballistic evidence, the trajectory and spread indicated the rounds were fired from a distance of ten to twelve feet away.’
Lucy paused and let this sink in. Emily had never been told about the ballistic report in any detail.
‘Tomlinson suggested your father had fallen asleep and so you got up to fetch the shotgun. You agreed that was indeed what had happened.’
Emily became aware that she was rubbing the scars on her right arm with her left hand inside the woollen sleeve of her knitted jumper. She withdrew her hand and sat on it. But Lucy had noticed.
‘You’re left-handed. Nowadays, they would be able to tell for sure whether someone was shot by a left-handed or a right-handed person. There would be no case against you if it had taken place in this day and age. Back then, they could have done better, but they didn’t bother. It was Christmas, which didn’t help. They didn’t even think to have your body examined at the hospital to check for a recoil mark.’
Emily looked up and met Lucy’s eyes. The kind eyes Emily remembered seemed to see inside her now.
‘What happened that night, Emily?’ Lucy asked. She sounded harsh, and Emily realised Lucy felt very strongly about all this. She seemed cross, but Emily wasn’t sure if she was angry with her or with herself.
‘I don’t remember very clearly,’ Emily lied. There was no way she was talking about this now, fifteen years after her father’s murder, and certainly not to her former solicitor.
‘You didn’t do it, did you, Emily? I think you’re innocent.’ Lucy started to count using her thumb. ‘Hazel Moreleigh has always believed in your innocence –’ the index finger ‘– Rosamund Irvine said you didn’t do it –’ the middle finger.
‘Dr Irvine thinks “Em” did it,’ Emily scoffed.
‘Emily, I know you didn’t kill your father, no matter how much harm he caused you.’ Lucy’s tone had become almost aggressive. ‘Not only does the evidence suggest that you couldn’t have fired the shotgun, but it’s also clear you were incapable of doing something like that.’
Emily put her coat on. She hadn’t finished her tea, but it was time to go. Lucy, however, hadn’t finished with her.
‘I think you’re protecting someone. You didn’t shoot him, did you? Who did? Who killed your father, Emily?’
Chapter Seventeen
~
Oxford, January 2015
William Huxtable.
The funeral home has sent a list of all the mourners who signed the Sympathy Book or sent wreaths for Josephine’s funeral. Will had sent flowers. Emily didn’t even notice them, and that makes her feel inexplicably miserable.
She’s sitting at the low coffee table in her studio staring at the box of pre-printed Thank You cards, which arrived in the post today. Amanda said that Emily would find it ‘comforting and healing’ to send the cards out on behalf of the three of them, but Emily finds it depressing and irritating. She takes out a card and reads the message. Amanda, Emily and Matt would like to thank you for your sympathy at this difficult time. We deeply appreciate your support and kindness. It reminds Emily of the obituary she posted on Facebook after Greg had passed away. Or disappeared.
Her sister’s instructions were to try and personalise each card with a sentence or two. Amanda wouldn’t want her to send a card to Will, though. She remembers Amanda’s reaction when she discovered that Emily was ‘friends’ with Will on Facebook. She’d said he was a compulsive liar. Whatever happened between the two of them all those years ago, Amanda still hasn’t forgiven him. Emily knows that. But Will was always kind to Emily, and she wants to thank him.
She tries to spin her ink pen around in her left hand and drops it on the table. What can she possibly write in a card to William Huxtable? Thanks for the flowers, Will? No, that won’t cut it. Long time, no see? Not the type of individual message her sister had in mind, no doubt. Miss you? Even worse.
They used to be so close. He’d been part of her daily life and now she’d spent more than half of her life without him. How strange and sad.
Sod this, thinks Emily. I’m not up to this. What she really wants to do is swallow a Valium and go to bed early. She looks at her watch. Five o’clock. That certainly would be an early night! She knows, though, if she’s going to beat her depression, she needs to get out and be around someone. Keep going through the motions; keep up the act; keep going. She decides to ring Pippa.
As she picks up her smartphone, it pings with incoming mail. She has two email accounts and the messages are on the one she uses for business. She opens the first email. It’s a short message. Short, but certainly not sweet. As she takes in its meaning, she can feel the colour draining from her face. Then she opens the second message. It is written in a similar tone, although it’s not from the same person. Emily doesn’t recognise the pseudonyms of either of the senders.
She reads both of the messages again, staring at the screen of her phone. Is this someone’s idea of a sick joke? She struggles to catch her breath, as if the air has been stolen from her lungs. Why would anyone write something so malicious?
Now she definitely needs to go round to Pippa’s.
~
Emily doesn’t trust herself to drive safely to the Stuart-Barnes’ house, partly because her head is still spinning after reading the two emails, and partly because of all the medication she is on. So, she takes the bus. It’s a direct line. She gets off at the bus stop right in front of Pippa’s house. Andy, a tea towel slung over his shoulder, opens the door as soon as she rings the bell. He gives her a peck on the cheek.
‘It’s bath time, I’m afraid,’ he says, as he makes his way back into the kitchen. ‘I’m cooking. Are you staying for dinner?’
‘I don’t want to intrude…’ Emily says, following him.
‘I’ll be insulted if you don’t,’ Andy says in a jocular tone. ‘Anyway you’re all skin and bones; you look like you could do with a decent, good meal.’
‘You’re confident of your culinary talents.’ Emily leans against the door frame and peers into the homely mess of Pippa and Andy’s kitchen.
‘Yeah, no pressure on me now I’ve said that, hey?’
Emily forces a grin, and heads upstairs. Pippa is sitting on the closed toilet seat, breastfeeding Imogen while Harry splashes around in the bath. Seeing Emily, he fills up his plastic boat and attempts to throw water across the room at her, but both the boat and the water end up on the floor right beside the bath.
‘Behave!’ Pippa says. She beams at Emily who grabs Harry’s flannel and mops up the water from the floor next to the bathtub.
‘I am hay-ving,’ Harry retorts, and smiles. This was something he’d said as a toddler. At the age of five, he now knows better, but it has become a family joke and Emily is in on it.
Emily kisses Pippa’s rosy cheek, and strokes the back of her god-daughter’s head, careful not to touch Pippa’s breast in the process.
‘Time to come out,’ Pippa tells Harry.
‘Mine is the red one,’ Harry points towards the towel rack. Emily fetches his towel and wraps him in it when he stands up, then lifts him out of the bath and pats him dry.
‘Where are your pyjamas?’ she asks. Harry points to the radiator. ‘You can put them on yourself, can’t you? You’re a big boy.’
As Emily gently combs Harry’s hair, Imogen emits an impressive burp for a two-month-old, and Pippa sighs with motherly pride.
‘Can you read me my bedtime story, Em’ly?’ Harry implores.
‘Please,’ Pippa automatically prompts her son.
‘Plee-ase,’ Harry repeats.
So Emily puts Harry to bed and reads The Gruffalo, although Harry knows it by heart and ‘reads’ most of it to her. He coaches her on what each character’s voice should sound like. She gets caught up in this lovely moment and breathes in the clean, fruity smell of Harry as he snuggles against her. For a moment, she almost forgets about the emails she has received.
When she has finished the story, Emily can see that Harry’s eyes have become heavy. She tucks him in, kisses his head and tiptoes out of his bedroom. To Emily’s disappointment, Imogen has already fallen asleep and Pippa has just laid her down in the cot. Emily hasn’t held her god-daughter yet. She asks herself if Pippa hasn’t given her Immie to hold because she thinks Emily will be reminded of Melody. She held Harry as a baby every time she came round for a visit.
Andy’s meal is indeed delicious. Emily hasn’t eaten that well for months. She waits until they’ve all polished off their plates of lasagne to tell Pippa and Andy about receiving the two disturbing emails.
‘Are they still on your phone?’ Pippa asks.
Emily takes her smartphone out of her handbag, which is hanging on the back of her chair, and opens the first message before handing the mobile to Pippa.
‘Murderess! First your father, then your husband! I certainly won’t be buying any of your paintings!’ Pippa reads aloud. ‘That’s terrible! And you have no idea who this person is?’ Emily wonders if Pippa knows how her father died. She hasn’t told her, but Amanda might have done. She shakes her head. ‘I don’t even know if that’s their usual address, or one they set up just to write to me. It’s a Hotmail account.’
‘Have you still got the other message?’
‘No,’ Emily lies, grabbing the phone out of Pippa’s hands as her friend starts to fiddle with it. The other email was worse. The sender called her an ‘incestuous bitch’. Emily really doesn’t want to have to explain that.
‘Have you checked your website and your professional Facebook page?’ Andy asks, clearing away their empty plates.
‘No. Good idea.’
‘Come with me.’ Andy closes the dishwasher and leads the way out of the kitchen and into his study. He wiggles the mouse until an image appears on his computer screen. Then he steps aside and gestures for Emily to sit down on the leather office chair. She logs in to Facebook.
