Someone is Lying, page 28
Kay hangs her head to one side. She is trying to take in what I’m saying.
‘We are going to tell the truth,’ I tell her.
She parts her mouth but it looks like she’s too scared to utter a word.
‘I am going to speak to Inspector Melo and tell him Issie was driving, not Dylan.’
Kay’s hand clutches onto the doorframe, her hand flinging to her mouth. She looks like she is about to collapse, though I can tell she doesn’t know whether to believe me.
‘You have my word,’ I add. ‘Though I also appreciate it might not mean much to you.’
‘Issie made this decision?’
I frown, pause.
‘No,’ she says. ‘It isn’t Issie then?’
‘She’s finding it hard—’
Kay laughs harshly. ‘She’s finding it hard?’ she says, sarcastically.
‘Issie’s going to pay for what she did,’ I tell her. ‘So yes, she is finding it hard.’
Kay bites her lip. She will be imagining my daughter in prison, she must be realising what this is doing to me. Maybe even wondering if she would do the same herself.
What I wish I could do right now is tell Kay all the memories I have of my daughter. Of who Issie really is. The times she has made me laugh until we are both crying, how she has always made me something for my birthday because she hasn’t had a father to help her buy a present. How she sobs when we watch Comic Relief and always buys the homeless man who sits by the gates of the priory a coffee and a sandwich.
But what I say is, ‘My daughter lost her way and I think some of that is my fault. I also made some judgements about Dylan that weren’t right. I got him wrong, and I’m sorry for that.’
‘He was intimidated by you,’ Kay says. ‘He knew you never liked him.’
‘I thought he was manipulating Issie. Like I said, I got it wrong.’
‘She manipulated him,’ Kay says.
I nod. ‘I am sorry,’ I say again as I turn to leave. There’s nothing more to add. I remind myself I have done what I came for and it is the right thing.
I am at my car on the other side of the road when she calls out after me. I stop and turn back. She has walked to the pavement and there’s something else in her face now when she looks at me that feels more like relief. ‘Thank you,’ she tells me. ‘I …’ She pauses. ‘Thank you, Jess.’
GONE: true crime podcast
Lucy Hawes
EPISODE 106: ISSIE ADAMS AND DYLAN WHITING: UPDATE
Hi, listeners and Happy New Year! This is the first podcast I have released this year and it’s only a short one, as it’s an update on a case I aired last August.
You’ll likely remember Issie Adams and Dylan Whiting, the teenagers who went missing in Lisbon, and were then associated with the death of Beatriz Motto.
With all fingers pointing at Dylan Whiting, there was a shocking turn of events on the day the Portuguese police filed for his extradition from the UK to Portugal. Issie’s mother, Jess Adams, admitted that it had been her daughter who was driving the car that killed Beatriz Motto on the night of the fourth of July.
This was a massive bolt out of the blue for the case. Dylan had professed his innocence one month earlier but it was still very much a battle of stories with the Adams versus the Whitings.
Defended by a top criminal barrister Jacob Gordon, on the third of January Issie was sentenced to eighteen months in prison. Prosecuted as a child, as she was seventeen on the night of the fourth of July, and taking into account factors such as previous good character, and that she eventually admitted to the offence, it’s expected she’ll get out after twelve months.
So that’s a wrap on this case, and I’ll say goodbye until next week when I am back with another exciting episode on the strange disappearance of fifty-three-year-old Moira Lowley fifteen years ago.
Stay safe, everyone.
Kay
CHAPTER FORTY
4 January
‘I’ve made a decision,’ Mike says as Kay sits opposite him in the empty café. It is 8 a.m. and he’s asked her to come in before he opens up for the day. ‘Things can’t keep going like they are. Last summer was hard enough, and the winter’s been dire. People don’t want greasy bacon baps and a cup of tea any more, they want coffees with fancy names and shots of caramel, and breakfast has to include a bloody avocado.’
Kay smiles though she can guess what’s coming.
‘That’s not me,’ he says. ‘I’m not interested in things like that. And the rent on this place is going through the roof. I’ve been approached by developers,’ he adds. ‘They want to build flats here.’
‘No,’ Kay says. ‘You can’t do that.’
‘I’m not going to,’ he agrees. ‘But I have been talking to someone who wants to build some restaurant-cum-yoga place.’ He runs his fingers across the table between them, distractedly drawing circles. ‘They’re offering me good money – not as much as I’d get for the flats, but this is single storey. It won’t affect anyone’s views.’
‘You’re actually going to sell?’
‘I don’t have a choice,’ Mike mutters. ‘And I’m sorry.’ He waves a hand in her direction. ‘Are you going to be all right?’
‘Yes.’ Kay laughs. ‘Of course I will. I’ll just have to get another job. There are enough coffee shops on the high street, one of them might need a waitress.’ She smiles thinly, she knew this was coming but she also knows the reality of finding something that’s flexible isn’t going to be easy.
‘Honestly,’ she adds. ‘Don’t worry about me. If the last year’s taught me anything it’s that there’s always a way.’
Mike nods as he gets up, scooping their empty mugs off the table and asking if she wants a refill.
‘Please,’ she says as she follows him into the kitchen.
‘I see Issie got eighteen months,’ he says.
‘Yes.’ Kay lingers by the sink while Mike turns the coffee machine on. She’s relieved the trial is over and done with and she knows Dylan is too. They’ve been living in limbo for the past four and a half months, in part because Kay couldn’t quite allow herself to believe something wouldn’t come back on Dylan.
‘I can’t help but think if it were Dylan it would have been a longer sentence,’ Kay murmurs. ‘And not just because he was an adult. But anyway. That doesn’t matter. It isn’t him. I guess I’m struggling to put it all behind me.’
Mike passes her a coffee and she wraps her hands around the mug. Paige has left her job at the café and moved to Bristol, Lucy’s hometown. Maybe it’ll do her good to find something new when everyone around her is moving on. Even Dylan, who has paid back his debts to Ron and met a new girl. Kay thinks she’s probably not ‘the one’ but still, he is only nineteen. There are years ahead of him yet. And Billy, who has made a new friend at school.
‘Time to focus on you,’ Mike says to her.
Kay smiles. Yes, possibly. Changes she makes won’t be anything grand but that’s the way she likes it. She won’t be taking the opportunity to try her hand at something new. She doesn’t have the financial luxury of swapping her life for another one, but if she can get a job making coffee for other people again, she’ll be happy.
Kay doesn’t need anything more than enough money for them to get by on. She’s seen first-hand that it doesn’t buy happiness. Everyone around her can have their dreams and plans. All she knows is that she wants back what she had before – a life without drama and for her sons to be happy. She thinks there’s a lot to be said for that.
Jess
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
One year later
It’s hard to imagine that a year of our lives has seeped away. Issie is nineteen now, she will be twenty this summer. The teenage years I had fretted about are nearly over. Now I wish I’d spent less time worrying about all the little things.
She is coming out of prison today. We are finally going home. It took four and a half months for her to be tried and sentenced, our defence barrister assuring me she would be out in a year.
During those months our relationship frayed, clinging on by threads with Issie either refusing to speak to me or crying, scared as to what the future held for her, layering the blame on me for it all, as if she had played no part.
My role as a mother was put to the test more than ever during the twelve months beforehand. Then, it was hard not to stay patient and take the battering from her, to be there at the drop of a hat in the moments when she needed me. Because I blamed myself too. Scott blamed me also, but I did not care about that.
I have two hours to kill before I meet Issie outside the prison. To pass the time, I find a small café where I grab a seat indoors by the window. There is a photo of her online today, alongside an article that reminds its readers she was the girl who killed a young woman in a car she wasn’t licensed to drive. They haven’t got all the facts right, but I’m used to this now. I usually skim past the headlines and don’t bother reading the rest. But, for some reason, today, I can’t help myself.
I have been approached by too many journalists wanting my side of the story for their own gossip and entertainment. My name has made headlines of its own. Mother hands over daughter to the police. You only have to read a line like that to form a judgement of who we are, and to imagine my daughter as some wild-eyed crazy killer who smiles as she’s led out of the courtroom in handcuffs.
At least, this is what I torment myself with. For the last eighteen months I have been agonising over most things to do with Issie and the case. Not least whether or not I did the right thing. Because this is, of course, what everyone wants to know.
Other mothers are the worst – even those I once thought of as friends. ‘How could you do that to your daughter?’ another grammar school mother asked me on an old WhatsApp group, no doubt hoping to encourage a tirade of abuse against me for her own warped amusement. ‘Don’t you care about Issie?’
‘I did it because I care about her,’ I replied, before removing myself from the group and calling Lois in shock.
‘She didn’t even warrant a response,’ she’d said angrily. As always, Lois has been in my corner, defending me. But the truth is, these are only questions I ask myself.
I order a latte and open a book called Rescue and Restore, which could be about my life but is actually about furniture. I have been running an online version of my business over the last year, having moved to Portugal where I’ve been renting a small flat near to the prison.
As I flick through its pages my mobile rings and I glance at the screen to see Scott’s name.
I exhale a loud breath as I pick up. ‘Hi.’
‘What time are you getting her?’ Any pleasantries between us are long gone since I supposedly went behind his back. Scott has not forgiven me for what I did, and I am not sure if this is because I did it without telling him, or because of how it’s inadvertently affected him. I assume it’s a mixture of the two.
He’d yelled at me with such anger the day Issie had been sentenced. ‘What do you think she’s going to turn into after a year of being in prison?’ he’d asked.
‘What’s she going to turn into if we keep picking up the pieces?’ I’d retorted.
‘This is on you, Jess,’ he’d spat. ‘You’ll be the one picking up the pieces at the other end.’
I had laughed then. Of course it was on me, it has always been on me, though I wasn’t sure he realised what he’d said. But still Scott believed it would be his relationship with Issie that won through.
I might be the one who told the police the truth, but I am also the one who has visited Issie every week. Meanwhile Scott has flown over no more than three times in the last year, enduring half-hearted conversations that neither of them wanted to be part of. He hasn’t seen his daughter in over three months.
After two hours, I gather my things and make my way to the prison where I wait for her to be led out. It is a cold day but the sun has broken through the clouds by the time she appears in the doorway. I tell myself to keep breathing as I hold up my hand in a wave.
Issie stops when she sees me. It feels like an eternity passes before she lifts her hand back in response. A small smile hangs off the edge of her lips. It takes me back to when she walked away from me, through the gates at Gatwick airport.
I hold out my arms and she walks over to me, allowing me to wrap them around her and pull her in for a hug. She stays there, even as I kiss the top of her head. ‘Hey, darling,’ I whisper.
‘What time is our flight?’ she says when we eventually pull apart.
‘Six o’clock,’ I tell her. ‘We’ve got a couple of hours but we can go straight to the airport.’
Our relationship has improved over the last year. Bit by bit, I have seen the old Issie coming back to me, the one who is confident, who wants to work hard and go to art school. The one who isn’t defined by the things that make her father who he is.
I don’t know if she forgives me. Maybe she never will. It is a conversation I will have when we are home, but I’m also working on forgiving myself.
In the airport I grab us both a coffee. Issie sits beside me, hunched over her phone, furiously poring over snapchats and messages, drinking in everything she has missed.
‘Is that Dylan?’ I say, pointing to a photo. The image is swiftly replaced as Issie shrugs, placing her phone face down on the table as she picks up her coffee.
‘He’s met someone else,’ she tells me.
I nod, not quite knowing what to make of her interest as I study her reaction, trying to figure it out. Is she angry about this? She chews down on the edge of her coffee cup, her mind a million miles away and I watch the way her eyes narrow. ‘What is it?’ I say.
She shrugs again but won’t look at me.
‘Are you angry that his life’s moved on?’ I guess this is only natural.
‘I’m angry because it’s his fault,’ she murmurs.
‘His fault?’
‘He didn’t want to see the view,’ she says. ‘He only took me up there because she wanted to go. He was always trying to make me jealous.’
‘Issie?’ I say. ‘What do you mean?’
‘Beatriz. He was flirting with her, trying to make me jealous. She asked him for a lift. She didn’t even know I was going with them until I got in the car. In the back of the car,’ she spits.
‘You said you didn’t know her,’ I say, gaping at my daughter.
‘Yeah, well,’ she murmurs. ‘I didn’t, not till that night.’
I feel a fluttering of something tightening my chest, something I can’t put my finger on, or rather that I don’t want to dwell on.
An announcement is made, a call for our flight, telling us to go to our gate. Issie is getting up, downing her coffee and gathering her bags. ‘Come on then, Mum,’ she says.
I nod, silently, following her in picking up my belongings and then trail her through the crowds as we make our way to the gate.
I don’t want to think about it but I cannot help myself, a tiny thought creeping in to my head. It was an accident. Of course it was.
We reach the gate and she stops. I frown as she turns around and for a moment I do nothing but stare at her, searching for who she is. A stranger, who I don’t know at all. Or my girl, who I love. Who I need to believe.
She smiles at me then, cocks her head to one side. ‘We’re going home,’ she says softly, her eyes are filled with tears and I make a decision in this moment.
‘We’re going home, sweetheart,’ I smile back.
Acknowledgements
I am so excited to finally be sharing Someone Is Lying with you. It has been a long time coming as this is a book I wrote in 2023. In some ways it is one of the hardest I have written, as the second draft took a major U-turn and I ended up scrapping and restarting 60 per cent of the book. But it was all for the best. I love how the story has turned out and I hope that you loved it too.
And, on this note, I want to thank you for buying it, reading it and sharing it. Thank you to all the book bloggers and journalists, and the readers who spend time reviewing it online too, as this undoubtedly has a huge impact on new readers and sales.
The idea for the story came about from listening to too many true crime podcasts, and in particular I want to mention the team at RedHanded: they have kept me enthralled throughout many a car journey. There is some inspiration from tragic true stories but, as you will realise now you have read it, this isn’t what Someone Is Lying is about.
As research for Jess and Issie’s trips, I spent a wonderful weekend in Lisbon with my beautiful friend Deborah Dorman. I now fully realise why writers base their books abroad. While nearly all of mine are based along the south coast of England, and for now they will continue to be, we had so much fun in this gorgeous city. Please note that any representation of the Portuguese police in this book is entirely fictional.
As always I am eternally grateful to my amazing agent, Nelle Andrew, who has been with me on this journey for the last seven years. I couldn’t imagine doing this without you by my side. To my wonderful editor at Cornerstone, Emily Griffin, who turned the book around and edited it before leaving to do something more important (become a mum!). And therefore thank you to Claire Simmonds, because I couldn’t ask for someone more dedicated and insightful to step in and look after me. It’s a joy to work with every one of you.
To the wider publishing and agency teams who have been crucial in making this book a success. At PRH, many thanks to Rachel Kennedy, Hana Sparkes, Jess Muscio, Issie Levin, Alice Gomer, Emily Harvey, Jade Unwin, Kirsten Greenwood, Phoenix Curland, Emma Grey Gelder, Faye Collins, Rose Waddilove, Anne O’Brien, Jane Howard and Gray Eveleigh. And, at RML, to Rachel Mills, Charlotte Bowerman and Alexandra Cliff.
As always there are some very special and helpful people who deserve a big mention. And firstly, I have to send huge amounts of gratitude to Chris Bradford, who has enabled me to tackle crime writing with his knowledge and insights and being permanently on the end of the phone whenever I have questions. Chris, this one is dedicated to you and I mean it when I say I could not have written any of my books without you. I really do appreciate your time.
