Читать книгу Beautiful Liars - Isabel Ashdown - Страница 14

6

Martha

The e-mail from Liv had taken Martha by surprise yesterday morning. She hadn’t expected a reply so quickly—Liv’s family might have moved on from her childhood address long ago—but the pleasure of the quick response had been dulled slightly by its formal tone. Martha had at least thought she might recognize something more of the old Liv in it. Olivia Heathcote had been the joker of their group, the one most likely to swear and tell dirty jokes and scribble graffiti on the toilet walls at school. She was the daring one, the chancer, the one who had made her and Juliet take themselves less seriously.

Liv’s family had been big and noisy, a world of difference from the hushed void that was Martha’s home after her mother’s departure. Liv had complained endlessly about lack of privacy, having to share with an older sister, and then—the horror—having to give up her bed for a confused grandmother who called out in the night as Liv slept on the camp bed across the room. “In the pantry!” Nanna had taken to shouting in the night. “The eggs are in the pantry with the plums!” Liv’s impersonations were hysterical; every morning as they walked to school, she’d update Martha and Juliet on the previous night’s nocturnal wakings, clutching at their sleeves and rolling her head back in a pose of fitful sleep. “Me smalls are on the line!” she’d shriek. “I’ll ’ave ’is guts for garters if ’e don’t sort the sink out!” Sometimes Liv’s stories could leave Martha and Juliet gasping for breath, the joy of their laughter enough to eclipse the loneliness Martha had left a few streets away in Stanley House. Thank God for Liv and her crazy family.

“Gordon Bennett,” she groaned one morning in a mimic of her mother. “The twins are toilet training at the moment. Mum left Frankie on the potty while she made the porridge, but he got off it when her back was turned and laid one down on the bottom step of the stairs.”

‘No!” Juliet and Martha screamed, neither of them having experience of so big a family.

“All of a sudden Nanna shouts from the hall, ‘Joyce! What the ’ell are you feeding them? Could’ve broke my neck on it! Slippery as a whelk!’ Right up between her toes, it was. Dad had to leave his breakfast half eaten, he was retching that bad.”

Martha recalls having to stop on a bench, laughing so hard she thought she would actually wet herself, and the three of them sat for a while, catching their breath and sighing before sprinting the rest of the way to school to avoid missing the bell. Slippery as a whelk became their catchphrase, to be called out to one another over the toilet cubicles at school, a code for anything stinky or ugly or grim. When cauliflower cheese was on the canteen menu, Liv would make vomit fingers at it, silently mouthing, “Slippery as a whelk.” When Gina Norris brought her ugly little baby to show off outside the school gates in Year Eleven, the three of them whispered to one another that only a mother could love a face like that, what with it being “as slippery as a whelk.”

Martha misses that laughter, the camaraderie of a well-worn joke, the ability to communicate with another human being in so few words. There’s only her and Liv now; surely they owe it to each other to rekindle their friendship? She can’t have forgotten, can she? Not when they shared so much. Liv and Juliet were more than just her best friends; they were the closest thing she had to family.

The message had come through during Martha’s meeting with Toby yesterday, and she’d had to read it over several times, hardly able to believe she was so easily back in contact with her old friend. When Toby had returned with their coffees she’d handed him her phone, inviting him to read it too. “That’s great,” he’d said, and at the time she had agreed, yes, it was great that Liv was happy to help them. But something had unsettled her all the same. She supposed it wasn’t unimaginable that Liv’s formality was simply her unease making its way into her written words. Certainly, Liv would be shaken up by her letter, so it was natural her tone might be a bit off-key. But did Liv harbor any ill feeling toward Martha? Their relationship had all but evaporated with the disappearance of Juliet; was it possible that Liv held Martha in some way responsible? Or was this just Martha’s own guilt rearing itself, making her question herself and everyone around her?

She had slept on it, and by the time she rose at five this morning she’d got it straight in her head. Of course Liv sounded different: eighteen years was a lifetime ago. I’ve changed, Martha told herself. Liv has changed. Everything has changed. She had tapped out a brief response, purposely warming up her own tone, trying to inject something of their old dynamic into her words:

Liv! So great to hear from you! I can’t tell you how relieved I am that my letter found you. So you’re a bereavement counselor now? Wow, that really is impressive, though it doesn’t surprise me at all. You always were a good listener. Totally understand about your work commitments, so yes, why don’t I put together some starter questions and send them over to you in the next day or two? Perhaps we could meet up when you’re back in the country? Mart xx

Mart. No one but Liv and Juliet ever called her Mart. She hated it if anyone else tried to abbreviate her name in the same way; it sounded overfamiliar coming from anyone but her best friends. With them it had been different. Olivia was Liv, Juliet was Jules, and Martha was Mart. Martha feels reality tip every time she allows herself to voyage deeper into the memories of that era, and her breath catches as the train she’s now traveling on comes to a halt and Toby nudges her to get off.

Toby has made contact with Juliet’s father, and together Martha and he have taken the Northern line as far as Archway, following Toby’s mobile app to navigate the twenty minutes to Mr. Sherman’s new home on foot. It’s a ground-floor flat on a good terraced street, but not a patch on the nice detached place Juliet’s family owned when the girls were growing up. Martha feels a rush of relief that they made the decision to hold off on the camera crew until they’d had this first interview with him; it would seem so wrong, turning up here mob-handed to rake over his tragic past. Martha has been dreading this meeting more than any of the others they hope to line up over the coming days. So far they have been able to establish that Mr. Sherman—Alan, as he asked to be called when Toby and he spoke on the phone yesterday—took a sabbatical from his work as a bank manager around five years after Juliet’s disappearance to return to the family home and care for his ex-wife. It was a late diagnosis of breast cancer, for which she refused any kind of treatment, and so after four months Mr. Sherman had found himself a widower of sorts, living alone in a four-bedroom house with no income. A year later, the old family home had been sold, and he had moved here.

“How did he sound to you?” Martha asks Toby as they stop outside the front door, her finger poised over the button labeled SHERMAN.

“He sounded like a nice guy,” Toby replied, pushing at the roots of his hair. Martha suspects this is something he does when he feels uneasy. “But profoundly sad. Like a man who’s had years to become that way, if you know what I mean? Lonely, perhaps. He seemed happy to talk.”

Martha presses the buzzer, and they wait for only a few seconds before Alan Sherman opens the door, shakes them by the hand, and gestures to the back of the hall, where the door to his flat stands open. Martha is struck by the reduced size of him. Her memory of him was as a tall man, straight-backed and broad-shouldered, always in a shirt and tie, even on weekends. She would never have recognized this man as Juliet’s father. This man is stooped, all-over gray, dressed in shapeless tan cords and a brown V-neck sweater, and as she walks along the hall she wonders if she can make out anything at all of the Mr. Sherman she once knew. It seems as though his illness has altered him almost beyond recognition. But when she enters his tidy little home and he closes the door softly behind them, he turns and she sees it there, unmistakable. The same haunted look in his eyes that she saw on their very last encounter, a day eighteen years ago when he’d stood on her doorstep, pleading with her to tell the police if she knew who Juliet had been seeing. To think that that look has never left him, that Juliet’s disappearance has haunted him across the years and lives on in him still.

“We want to find out what happened to Juliet, Mr. Sherman,” Martha says. This is not how she had planned to start this conversation, this interview, but it seems suddenly imperative that she’s clear with him about their intentions. She has to say this now, now that she perhaps has the power to do something, to change something. “We want to find her. We won’t sensationalize it, I promise. The show—well, the show will simply give us a louder voice. It’ll make people listen.”

The three of them are standing close in the small space of Alan Sherman’s living room. He scrutinizes them each in turn, like a man deciphering another language, and then he unclasps his hands from where they rest at his sternum and pulls Martha toward him in a fierce embrace. From nowhere, a sob rises up in her chest and she’s a teenager again, stifling the sound against Mr. Sherman’s woolen sweater, grateful for his arms around her, mourning more than just the loss of her best friend. They all lost so much that winter. In losing Juliet, they lost their connections to one another, and over the years they must have forgotten what those connections really meant. They must have forgotten, all of them, otherwise why else would they have let them go so easily?

Mr. Sherman had always been kind to Martha. There had been an unspoken acceptance that he knew how things were for her at home, having unintentionally witnessed Martha’s family at its worst one Friday night when he’d called to pick up a textbook of Juliet’s that Martha had borrowed. Martha’s dad had been on one of his benders, roaring his rage from the far end of the flat as Martha fled through the front door, straight into the chest of Juliet’s father before he’d even had a chance to knock. Even now, she recalls the shame of that collision, the lies that poured from her mouth as she tried to explain that her parents were just mucking about, that it wasn’t a real argument, just a bit of harmless fun. Behind her the fury continued, audible even through the closed door, and she had steered Mr. Sherman away, agreeing to walk back to Juliet’s house and join them for their fish and chip supper. It wasn’t always like this, she’d wanted to say. Remember my old house? Remember when Dad wasn’t so bad?

“The textbook can wait,” Mr. Sherman had said, and even at thirteen she had understood the kindness he’d shown in just those few words.

“I’d forgotten . . .” Martha starts to say as she pulls away, but she doesn’t know where she’s going with the sentence, and she trails off with a shake of her head.

Mr. Sherman gives a small nod as he releases her, and indicates for them to take a seat while he puts the kettle on for tea.

“Are you OK?” Toby whispers when they’re alone, but Martha waves his sympathy away with a flick of her hand, telling him to get his notes out. Stiffly, she sits beside him on the pale leather two-seater.

The room is warm, the heat on at full blast; Martha loosens the collar of her shirt and shrugs off her jacket. I can do this, she tells herself, drawing strength as the adult Martha returns, the grown-up, prime-time Martha. It’s something she unwittingly mastered in childhood, the ability to go from broken to unbreakable in the matter of minutes, to present a smiling mask of resilience to the outside world while beneath the surface all might be far from well. I can do this. Within moments she is focused again, and quietly she and Toby run through the questions they have prepared, ready for Mr. Sherman when he returns with the tea tray. He places it softly on the coffee table between them and takes the armchair opposite, sitting on the edge of his seat as he pours tea and offers them biscuits. It’s such a civilized scene, slow-moving, punctuated by the soft tock of a wall clock, that it seems wrong to launch into questions of so dark a nature. But that’s what Martha is here for, and she fixes her gaze on his face, anchoring herself to the job at hand: the task of finding Juliet. A momentary flash comes to her: the tabloids’ suggestion that Juliet’s father was responsible for his daughter’s disappearance. Why had they suggested that? He must have gone in for questioning early on, and after all, didn’t police always treat the parents with suspicion until they could be clearly ruled out? But it had made it to the newspapers, and she can see the headline in her mind’s eye: “Missing Juliet: Does Dad Know Where She Is?”

‘Are you happy for me to get straight down to the interview?” Martha asks.

‘Yes, please.” Alan Sherman’s faded expression is attentive, business-like. As he perches on the edge of his seat, only his hands give away his emotions, his fingers turned under as they grip on to the soft velour fabric of the armchair, his knuckles pale.

‘Here’s how it will work,” Toby tells him. They have rehearsed this. “Initially, Martha and I will be talking to everyone connected with the case, hopefully building up a clear-enough picture to persuade the police to share more of their initial findings with us. Once we have a stronger argument, and the police on board, we’d like to return with the cameras, to reinterview you as part of the program. This way, you’ll know what to expect—and, if necessary, we can tailor your interview to appeal to members of the public who may have information to share with us.”

Alan Sherman nods, and Martha feels as though he is fading before her very eyes, his skin growing more sallow, the lines of his shape growing translucent against the backdrop of his neat living room. He’s a ghost, she realizes. The real Mr. Sherman left years ago, soon after his daughter. This man is nothing but a ghost.

Toby pauses, waiting for Martha to pick up the thread. When she doesn’t, he continues, seamless as the most practiced understudy. “The program could go one of two ways: (a) we build up a clearer history and reconstruction of events, and use the program to appeal to witnesses, or (b), which is our preference, we solve the case and present the investigation as a finished outcome.”

Alan Sherman listens carefully, nodding throughout.

“How does that sound, Mr. Sherman?” asks Toby.

“Alan, please.”

“Sorry, of course. Alan. Are you happy with that approach?”

Alan Sherman turns to Martha. “Are you happy with it?” he asks, and she fears there is criticism in the question until she reads his face and sees his need. He just wants her to tell him what to do.

“I think it’s a good approach,” she says. “The more we can find out from the people who actually knew Juliet, the more likely the police are to give us an audience. At the moment, they’re resisting.”

He sighs deeply and gestures toward the modest plate of biscuits between them. They’re bourbons, Juliet’s favorite. “Then I’m happy with it.”

They start with the easy questions, the ones they already know the answers to, a warm-up of sorts. How did Juliet seem on the night she disappeared? Normal. Did they notice any changes in her behavior leading up to her disappearance? No. Was she a good time-keeper? Yes. Was Juliet in the habit of keeping secrets? No. Were there many family arguments—with her parents or older brother? No. How often did she volunteer at Square Wheels? Once or twice a week.

A couple of times he hesitates before answering. “You know this, Martha. You were there.”

And Martha can only nod, and agree, yes, she was there, but they need it in his words.

“Did Juliet have any boyfriends?”

Here, Alan Sherman pauses. “Well, we didn’t think so. But then there was the letter we found in her wastepaper bin.”

Martha stares at him blankly.

He frowns, tilting his head. “Didn’t the police ask you about it? They said they’d be asking her friends.”

She has no idea what he means. “About a letter? No—I mean, they asked me if I knew who Juliet was seeing, but they never mentioned a letter. I don’t know what to—” Her mind buzzes with confusion. “Who was it from?”

Alan pushes out of his chair and leaves the room, returning a moment later with a sheet of crumpled paper in his hand. “I dug it out earlier. I thought you might like to see it. It’s not a letter she’d received, it was one she was writing—but, as you can see from the state of it, she’d obviously had a change of heart about sending it.”

Martha takes the letter from him, placing it down on the coffee table between them, gently smoothing out its bumps and ridges. Her pulse is racing, her fingers shaking.

“Do you mind if I read it aloud?” Toby asks, reaching across for the sheet.

Thank God. Martha sighs inwardly. She doesn’t think she has the strength to do it herself. With a small hand gesture, Alan Sherman tells Toby to go ahead.

“My one love,” he reads, “I don’t want us to argue. Please can we stop? I want us to be out in the open too, holding hands when we want to, and no more secrets, but we have to be patient. Too many people could get hurt—think about your own family? I’ll be eighteen in a few months’ time, and I know it will be easier to talk to my folks then. Can’t we just wait and look forward to when we will be together ALL the time? Before we know it we’ll be free of all this, traveling the world where we won’t have to hide! Please understand. Love you love you love you xxx.”

Toby stops reading and places the letter back on the tabletop. “Do you know who she was writing to?” he asks.

“Not David Crown,” Alan replies. “That’s what you’re probably thinking. Am I right? That’s what the police thought. But Juliet would never—”

“Did she ever mention David Crown?” Martha asks, finding her voice again. This letter—what on earth did it mean? What secrets had Juliet been keeping from them, from her family, her best friends?

Alan’s expression is tired, resigned. “She liked him, but not in the way the police would have people believe. I think Juliet really admired his dedication to the charity. She told us that he ran his own business as a landscape gardener—that he was a good man, that he was fun to be around. He always made sure the volunteers went off in pairs for safety, and he always helped them give their bikes the once-over before they set off, to make sure there weren’t any slow punctures or loose chains. You were a volunteer there too, Martha?”

“I was,” Martha replies quietly. “But it was a bit sporadic, if I’m honest. I wasn’t there every week like Juliet. Liv and I both helped out quite a bit the summer before, but we lost interest as soon as the good weather tailed off. But I’d have agreed with Juliet’s assessment of David Crown. He seemed like a decent guy to me. On the surface.”

Alan raises his eyebrows and takes a deep breath. “I never met him,” he says. “It’s one of the things that has troubled me ever since. I mean, what kind of father doesn’t go and check out something like this? I should have gone down there, introduced myself, found out what kind of setup he had going on. Juliet thought he was a decent fellow, but she could’ve judged it wrong, couldn’t she? Maybe I would’ve spotted it, you know, if he wasn’t what he said he was?”

Martha shakes her head sadly. “You’re wrong. If David Crown was responsible. If he was this bad person we think he could be, none of us saw it. He was really nice. He looked normal, he was kind, caring—a charity worker, for God’s sake! Meeting him wouldn’t have made the slightest difference, Alan, I promise you.”

Alan Sherman picks up his mug, takes a long drink of his tea. A solitary tear escapes from the outer corner of his eye, traveling down over his sharp cheekbones and into his collar. He doesn’t seem to notice. “You just wonder, don’t you? What you could have done differently? I’ve often thought over the years—if I could just roll back time and change things somehow . . . ?”

Martha knows this feeling only too well. Even as he speaks, she’s asking herself, How did I not know about this person Juliet was writing to? Why didn’t I question her harder when I knew she was keeping secrets?

“What about her fellow volunteers?” she asks, clenching her jaw, trying to not be moved by his quiet grief. “Do you recall any names?”

Alan crosses the room and fetches a photo album from the bookcase, barely making a sound on the carpet. “I’ve got a couple of photos you can borrow, if they’re any help?” He slowly turns the pages before stopping at a pair of photographs, sliding them out and passing them to Martha before sitting again. “The first one was taken by the local newspaper—I think Square Wheels won some kind of community award. And the second one was from a boat trip out with David Crown. A reward for some volunteer work, I think?”

The newspaper photograph shows the group posed with food-laden bicycles, David Crown in the center, flanked by two volunteers on either side, the Square Wheels banner overhead, nailed to the side of the wooden hut where the sandwiches were prepared. It must be winter, because they’re all dressed in coats and hats and scarves, their skin showing the cold glow of exertion. Juliet stands on the right side of David; to her right is a girl whose face looks unfamiliar to Martha, and to David’s left are another girl and a boy. The caption reads, “Local Heroes Scoop Community Award.”

“Do you know the names of these other volunteers?” she asks.

Alan reaches across the coffee table and points to the faces in turn. “I don’t know the one next to Juliet, but this very thin one on the other side of David Crown—I seem to think her name was Karen, and the boy beside her—don’t you recognize him?”

Martha scrutinizes the picture more closely. “Oh, yes! God, I can’t believe I didn’t see it at first. Tom!” She turns to explain to Toby. “Tom was—is—Juliet’s brother. But I don’t remember Tom being a volunteer.”

Alan smiles and shakes his head. “I don’t know how well you knew Tom at the time, but he was never a sticker. He did help out there a handful of times, but that’s all. He just happened to be passing on the evening the newspaper guy took that picture, and they needed another body. Typical Tom: all the glory and none of the work.”

“Do you think we could talk to Tom? Ask him if he can think of anything particular about that night? He was there, at the Waterside Café, the night Juliet went missing.”

“I’m sure he’ll be happy to talk to you, but do you know he’s living in Paris now? We sold the house, after his mum, well—”

“Oh, yes,” Martha interrupts; she’s ashamed not to have mentioned it before. “I was so sorry to hear about Mrs. Sherman. I didn’t know about it at the time—but she was always so lovely. You both were. It must have been very hard.”

“You know we’d separated by the time she died? I only moved back in toward the end, to help Tom, really, although Ann and I still loved each other if we’re honest. But it’s difficult to carry on together when something like that happens. Juliet.”

Martha nods, wondering how Alan Sherman keeps on going. How does he keep getting up in the morning and dressing and feeding himself and telling himself everything will be OK? How can he believe everything will be all right when his entire life is living proof that life can turn out very bloody far from all right?

“How is Tom these days?” she asks. “I haven’t seen him for years.” Since that night.

Now Alan Sherman’s face breaks into an unexpected smile. “He’s very happy. Works as a sommelier—wines—something of that kind. Married, with a baby on the way. Imagine—I’m going to be a grandfather.”

And there Martha sees it: hope. That’s what keeps him going. Hope that the next day will be better than the last, that next week will be an improvement on the one before, that next year will be happier than the year just gone. “Congratulations,” she says, and can’t find more words, stunned into silence.

“I’d almost given up hope—of a grandchild.” He smiles, and he swipes away another tear, his eyes shining with the pleasure of this piece of joy. “They think it’s a boy.”

“When’s it due?” Toby asks, and Martha is glad to have him beside her more than she could ever have imagined possible.

“May. Spring baby. Good time of year.”

Same month as Juliet’s birthday, Martha thinks, and their eyes meet in this unspoken knowledge.

Mr. Sherman smooths down his trousers and gives a brief bob of his head. “I’ll give you Tom’s details before you leave.”

“And this other girl? You definitely don’t remember her?” Martha asks, returning to the photograph and pointing to the girl beside Juliet.

“As I say, no idea. I don’t recognize her at all. I think they had a fairly fast turnover of volunteers. Juliet said a lot of people came along and never returned once they realized it was hard work and bloody cold.”

“Like me and Liv,” Martha says, grimacing.

Alan smiles warmly. “She called them the ‘lightweights.’ This girl could’ve been one of them.”

Martha turns her attention to the second photograph and feels her insides flip. The image is of a summer’s day, four youngsters on a riverbank, wet-haired in underpants and T-shirts, smiling and waving at the person behind the camera. Three of them sit cross-legged beneath a tree on a picnic blanket surrounded by sandwiches and drinks, while Juliet’s brother Tom hangs like a monkey from the branch overhead, his sinewy legs kicking out. The three on the picnic blanket look equally carefree: young, vibrant, beautiful.

“Remember this one?” Alan asks, dewy-eyed again, and Martha finds she cannot speak.

The three on the blanket are unmistakable. Juliet, Olivia, and Martha. And the terrifying thing is, until now, she’d forgotten all about that day, forgotten about that boat trip with David Crown and her closest friends. But even as the details of the trip remain just beyond her reach, Martha can’t shake the feeling that by the time that day was over, nothing would ever be the same.