Читать книгу Those Who Lie: the gripping new thriller you won’t be able to stop talking about - Diane Jeffrey, Diane Jeffrey - Страница 8

Chapter One

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Oxford, August 2014

Emily Klein doesn’t know she has killed him until the day of his funeral. Her loved ones, including, of course, her husband, are all at the church rather than at her bedside. That explains why there are no familiar faces around her this time when she regains consciousness.

The room swims in and out of focus, and, at first, she has no idea where she is. But then it comes back to her. She’s trying to remember why she’s here when a cough to her right startles her. She isn’t alone. Her neck hurts as she turns her head, expecting to see Greg, or her sister, or at the very least her mother. Instead, her eyes rest on the broad chest of one of the two strangers sitting beside her bed.

‘Good afternoon, Mrs Klein,’ the stranger says in a deep voice.

Emily looks up into the kind face of a burly man. He appears to be around the same age as her. He has a bushy moustache containing far more hair than he has on his balding head. He’s smiling at her a little lopsidedly. Emily attempts to smile back, but her lips feel as if they’re glued to her teeth.

Next to him sits a thin woman who also seems to be in her mid-thirties. She has a dour expression on her pretty face, and her hair is cropped very short and dyed a copper-red. She inches her chair forwards, closer to Emily’s bed. The legs of the chair make a scraping sound on the floor. Emily feels intimidated.

‘I’m Sergeant Campbell,’ the woman says, fixing her piercing, green eyes on Emily, ‘and this is my colleague.’ She waves her hand towards the robust man as she introduces him by name, but Emily only catches the word ‘Constable’.

Emily must look bemused because the constable smiles at her again from beneath his impressive moustache. He means this reassuringly, she supposes, but the right side of his face appears more animated than the left, and Emily finds his crooked grin rather unsettling.

What’s going on? What do the police want? Emily can’t shake off the unnerving impression that something is very wrong.

‘What can you tell us about your movements on Friday the first of August?’ asks the redhead officiously, whipping out a notebook and a pen from a pocket in her uniform. She has a lilting Scottish accent that mitigates the hard edge to her voice.

Emily tries to speak, but she’s very thirsty and no sound comes out. She clears her throat.

‘May I have a drink of water, please?’ she asks.

Her head is pounding.

The constable pours some water from the transparent, plastic jug on the cupboard and presses a button on the remote control to raise Emily’s bed. Then he gives her the glass. He watches her, a concerned look on his face, as she takes a few tentative sips before handing back the glass.

‘The first of August, Mrs Klein,’ the sergeant repeats, ‘what happened on that day?’

‘Well, that’s my mother’s birthday,’ Emily begins. Her throat is still dry and her voice sounds strange. ‘Oh, that’s right; I’d sent her some flowers and bought her a necklace. I rang to wish her a happy birthday. She turned sixty-five.’ Emily plucks at the stiff, white sheets before she adds, ‘She is…um, she has been ill recently, for a long time really, and…well, she’s doing a lot better at the moment. We’re so proud of her.’

‘We?’ the sergeant echoes.

‘My sister and I,’ Emily says, and then the thought strikes her. ‘Where is she? Where’s my sister?’ she asks. Amanda was there last time Emily opened her eyes, she’s sure of it.

The sergeant ignores Emily’s outburst. ‘What happened after that?’

Emily shifts her gaze to the friendlier face of the constable. Are these two police officers real? They seem like caricatures, characters from a bad television series.

‘I met my husband for lunch,’ she answers, wondering where Greg is.

The constable doesn’t give her a chance to voice her concern. ‘Where?’ he asks, sounding genuinely interested.

‘At Gee’s. It’s not far from my husband’s shop.’

‘Oh, I know that restaurant,’ the constable says. ‘The one on Banbury Road? I’ve only eaten there once, though. It’s a bit pricey, isn’t it?’

Emily isn’t sure if she’s meant to reply, so she remains silent, trying hard to think. She’s in hospital. She’s groggy. She’s in pain. She knows all that. But she can’t get beyond that. She’s having difficulty associating her two new acquaintances with her surroundings. Shouldn’t there be doctors and nurses or family and friends by her bed rather than police officers? What on earth am I doing here?

Emily’s gaze flits from the constable to the sergeant. She scans as much of her room as her neck will allow. Hers is the only bed, so she’s in a private room rather than a hospital ward. There are flowers and fruit next to the water jug, so she’s had visitors. Greg and Amanda, probably. But for some reason, they’re not here now.

‘Can we get back to the interrogation?’ Sergeant Campbell reprimands her colleague, clicking her pen off and back on.

‘Is this an interrogation?’ Emily asks, bewildered. She almost asks what she has done wrong, but stops herself just in time. She wonders if she’s dreaming. She certainly feels sleepy.

The sergeant looks vaguely uncomfortable and squirms in her seat. ‘No, not really,’ she says, her voice softening a little. ‘That wasn’t the right word.’

‘Not at all,’ the constable says. ‘It’s a routine investigation after—’

‘Mrs Klein…Emily, we just want to know what happened that day,’ Campbell interrupts. ‘For our report. Did you drink anything with your meal?’

Something doesn’t feel right. Emily’s mind is even foggier, and she’s struggling to organise her thoughts. What had the constable been about to say? A routine investigation after what? Into what? It must be serious if these police officers have been waiting for her to wake up. Or are they here for her protection?

Campbell repeats her question.

‘Yes. A Perrier water, with a twist of lemon,’ Emily replies. ‘That’s what I always have.’

‘I meant, did you have any alcohol? A glass of wine, for example?’

‘Oh, no. I don’t drink. And anyway, I was driving.’

‘Yes, you were,’ the sergeant says. ‘Why was Mr Gregory Klein, your husband, in the car with you?’ Her voice is silky now, but Emily gets the feeling she’s hiding something.

‘Well, he wanted to have a look at an Edwardian inlaid satinwood wardrobe.’

Now it’s the sergeant’s turn to look perplexed.

‘An antique wardrobe,’ Emily explains, seeing Campbell’s expression. ‘The owner lived in Staunton Road, in Headington. I didn’t have any urgent work that day, so I drove Greg there.’

The policewoman seems temporarily at a loss for words and purses her lips as she digests this piece of information. Her pale pink lipstick has been applied rather haphazardly, which makes Emily wonder if she had difficulty colouring inside the lines as a young child.

‘Did you need new bedroom furniture?’ the sergeant asks after a few seconds.

‘Oh, no.’ Under different circumstances, Emily might have found the question funny. ‘My husband’s an antique dealer. The wardrobe was for his shop. It’s odd, but I’m not sure whether he bought it or not.’

Before Emily can reflect any more on that, the sergeant resumes. ‘What did you and Mr Klein talk about in the car?’

‘I think we had an argument.’ A vague memory stirs and Emily tries to grasp it, but it fades away. Talking is making Emily’s head thump even more, and so is trying to call to mind the conversation they had in the car. ‘Greg told me something. I’ve forgotten exactly what it was he said. But I do know I was very angry about it.’

Emily pauses. Sergeant Campbell waits for her to continue. The constable gives her what is no doubt intended to be an encouraging look. ‘I just remember Greg asking me over and over: “Who was it, Emily? Who was it?” He was shouting.’

Emily has a sudden image of her husband’s furious face.

‘Who was what?’ asks the sergeant, somewhat impatiently.

‘I don’t know.’ Emily frowns.

‘Do you recall your answer to your husband’s question?’

‘Yes,’ Emily replies, surprised, ‘I do. The answer was: “My father.” I told him that it was my father.’ The mere thought of him makes her shudder.

‘So, you remember you were arguing,’ the sergeant recaps, looking down and pointing her index finger at the notebook on her knee, ‘but not what it was about.’

Emily glances at the sergeant’s pad. Although for her the notebook is upside down, Emily can clearly see that the police officer has taken no notes whatsoever. She has merely doodled a series of dots in a circular pattern, which reminds Emily of the recurrent spiral motif she uses in her own artwork.

‘That’s right.’ Emily nods, and then scowls as the pain in her head intensifies.

‘If it comes back to you, will you contact us?’

‘How do I get in touch with you?’

The policewoman produces a card from a pocket in her uniform and hands it to her. Emily looks at it and sees a series of addresses, telephone numbers and a shoulder number under the heading Sergeant Campbell, Roads Policing Unit, Thames Valley Police.

‘What’s your name again?’ Emily addresses Campbell’s colleague, thinking it would be infinitely preferable to deal with him than the scary sergeant.

‘PC Constable,’ he replies.

‘Police Constable Constable?’

‘Yes, I’m afraid so,’ he says wryly. ‘I desperately need a promotion.’

Emily tries again to smile at him, but yet another bolt of pain shoots through her head and she suddenly finds him far less amusing. She still can’t work out why she’s here. She seems to recollect being told last time she woke up that she’d been involved in an accident. A growing sense of alarm overcomes her initial disorientation.

Sergeant Campbell’s next question does nothing to reassure her. ‘Mrs Klein, do you know what caused you to crash the car?’ The police officer clicks her pen again.

Emily has a vision of her car hurtling off the road towards a tree. She feels a wave of panic break over her. Is this what really happened? Or is her imagination running wild? She takes a deep breath. So, she crashed the car. That makes sense. It would explain why she’s in hospital and why her head, neck and side hurt so much. But she can’t think straight. And she’s far too tired to answer any more questions.

At that moment, the door to her hospital room opens and in strides a tall, plump woman wearing a badge that identifies her as Staff Nurse Peterson. She reminds Emily a little of Chummy in Call the Midwife. Emily is now almost convinced she’s trapped on a TV studio set in a bad dream.

But then the nurse says, ‘Oh, Mrs Klein, you’re awake again.’ She puts her hand on Emily’s arm. ‘How are you feeling?’

‘Very confused,’ Emily replies, ‘and in pain.’

Staff Nurse Peterson checks the drip, and tells Emily that she’ll administer some more painkillers. As the nurse completes her clinical checks and records the data on Emily’s chart, Sergeant Campbell drops her bombshell.

‘I must say, Mrs Klein,’ she says, ‘you’re taking the news of your husband’s death incredibly well.’

Emily senses Staff Nurse Peterson freeze at Campbell’s remark. Words swirl round in Emily’s head. Argument…my father…car crash…husband’s death. She tries to suppress the scream rising inside her, and it erupts as a strangled whimper. That’s the only sound audible in the room. It seems to resonate in Emily’s ears. She cradles her sore head in her hands.

‘Mrs Klein hadn’t been told yet that Mr Klein was killed in the accident,’ the nurse hisses at Sergeant Campbell, who looks unperturbed.

Campbell’s mobile phone rings out and shatters the silence that ensues. The police officer takes the call.

Staff Nurse Peterson glares at the redhead while talking soothingly to Emily whose eyes dart from one woman to the other. The sergeant, impervious to the nurse’s disapproval, continues to mumble into her phone. When she has ended the call, Campbell taps her colleague on the shoulder.

‘Let’s go,’ she says to Constable. ‘I am sorry,’ she mutters to Emily who isn’t sure if Campbell is apologising or expressing her condolences. Then she turns and heads for the door without so much as a cursory glance in Staff Nurse Peterson’s direction.

PC Constable gets up from his seat, and tells Emily how sorry he is for her loss. Then he leaves the hospital room before his superior, who is holding the door open for him.

Emily clearly hears Campbell’s words as she follows Constable out: ‘The witness has finally turned up at the station to give his statement.’

Just as Emily is wondering if Campbell’s phone call and witness have anything to do with her, Staff Nurse Peterson hangs the chart up on the end of her bed and says, ‘Don’t worry. You concentrate on getting better. You’ll be home in no time.’

But Emily barely registers what the nurse says. Greg is dead, Emily thinks. I was driving the car. I didn’t kill him. I can’t have killed him. The thought of going home without Greg fills her with despair and dread.