Beautiful Liars. Isabel Ashdown

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СКАЧАТЬ see her now as though it was yesterday, wearing quirky patterned leggings and an oversized emerald-green sweater that looked quite stunning against her dark skin. On her wrist was a silver bangle exactly like one I’ve got at home, and I admired it, and that made her smile. She asked me all sorts of questions about my work, showing an interest that was so sincere that I knew I was in danger of boring the socks off her as I talked through the various books I’d proofread over the past year, showing off over my early access to some of the most hotly anticipated scientific journals of the year.

      “What an interesting job that must be,” Liv had said. “And how great that you’re able to work from home. I’m quite envious.”

      Her face showed me she meant envious in the good way, and I thought, My word, that someone like Olivia Heathcote—someone as faultless as her—should be envious of me! I put my hand over my mouth, conscious of the ugly snaggletooth that rears up whenever I smile too widely, and suppressed a giggle.

      There was a knock at the door, and I recall feeling quite irked by the idea of interruption, and Miriam and I stood in awkward silence for the few seconds it took for Liv to answer and invite her visitor in. To my surprise, a young man appeared in the kitchen doorway, bearing multiple bags of grocery shopping, and wearing a Sainsbury’s staff uniform.

      “Just the weekly shop,” Liv explained. “The twins are a nightmare to take around the supermarket, so I order it online now.”

      The young man bobbed his head at us, placing the bags on the floor beside the fridge and heading out again to fetch the next load. The back of his neck was smooth and tanned, the closely sheared hair growing crooked where he was due for a haircut.

      “Can you do that?” I asked, amazed. “Order your groceries online?”

      “Yes! I can’t tell you how much time—not to mention stress—it’s saved me over the past couple of years. They don’t charge for delivery if you order over a certain amount.”

      Well, I decided there and then, I shall do that. One less reason to leave the house. One more visitor I can call my own. I checked my watch and made a mental note: two p.m. on a Friday.

      And that’s what I’ve done ever since I took over the house as my own. Every Friday at two p.m., Carl arrives with my weekly shop. I stuck to the same slot as Liv in the hopes that I would get the same driver, and nine times out of ten it has been him. I feel we know each other quite well now, and I’m certain he doesn’t mind at all that I call him by his first name. He, on the other hand, insists on calling me by my formal title, and he won’t be moved. Perhaps one day!

      Today when Carl knocks on the front door I am right there, already with my fingers on the handle because I don’t want to miss a moment of our time together. I closed my laptop over an hour ago, stopping for a brief lunch of scrambled eggs on toast, before tidying myself up in anticipation of his visit. I brushed my hair for an additional fifty strokes, despite having already brushed it thoroughly this morning, and I dotted Mum’s 4711 cologne liberally about my person, on my wrists, and behind my ears like I’ve seen her do so many times in the past. I even put a dab or two around my panty line for good measure. It made me smile, having a little secret like that! The smell of it is so fresh, it lingers in the air around me, and I’m certain I can see Carl’s nostrils quiver when I invite him inside my home.

      He greets me in his usual way, and as always I say, “Please, you must call me Casey!” and as always he laughs and carries on through to the kitchen, placing the bags down by the fridge just as he had when Olivia Heathcote lived here. Without a word, but with the loveliest of smiles, he returns to his van and brings back a second load, and then a third, finally offering up his clipboard and asking me to sign at the bottom.

      “There are two substitutions,” he says.

      I hold his gaze.

      “We didn’t have tinned mackerels in tomato sauce, so you’ve got brine.”

      “That’s an excellent choice,” I reply, sweeping my long hair over one shoulder.

      He looks uneasy, and I think how endearing it is that he doesn’t wish to disappoint me. Then he says, “And, er, there were no Always Super Pads—so you’ve got Bodyform.”

      Well, I could die of shame, and all thoughts of inviting him to stay for a cup of tea fly from my mind as I scribble my name in the box and thrust the clipboard back at him, nodding that, yes, those substitutions would be absolutely acceptable. In an instant he is out of the door, and I am left in a cloud of apoplexy.

      For the briefest of moments, I hate Olivia Heathcote for putting me through this. If it hadn’t been for her I would never have started taking home deliveries, and this humiliation would never have occurred. But then I talk myself down—I’ve always tended toward overreaction—and I realize I’m being hysterical. If it hadn’t been for Olivia Heathcote, I wouldn’t be living in this wonderful house, and I’d still be running the gauntlet of the weekly shop and all the horrors and public embarrassments that the checkout can bring. Without Olivia Heathcote, I wouldn’t have Carl, or Martha, or anything to look forward to.

      I take a deep breath, smooth down my ruffled dress, and head into the kitchen to unpack my shopping. I have a lot to do today. For starters, there should be a box of hair dye somewhere in today’s order, which I’ve been excited about for days. I’ve decided to sort myself out, get rid of this ugly gray hair and spruce up my appearance a bit. The shade I’ve chosen is so dark it’s nearly black, not dissimilar to Liv’s, and the instructions say it’s as easy as 1-2-3! And then there’s the list of questions Martha has said she will e-mail to me, which, when they arrive, I will do my very best to answer as well as Liv herself would. Over the past twenty-four hours I have uncovered yet more treasures of information regarding Juliet and David Crown, and I will bring them into play so that Martha might never guess that I’m not who I say I am. She’ll never guess that I’m just a big fat liar! I like being Liv, and I vow that next time Carl comes I will try to be more like her, more serene and graceful. I can be beautiful too. A beautiful liar.

      8

      Martha

      Toby calls for Martha early, and together they drive out to the canal, aiming to walk the waterside route that Martha and Juliet took that night, to take a look at the spot where her abandoned bicycle was found. Toby is hopeful they might also establish the location of the Square Wheels picnic shown in Alan Sherman’s old photograph, though Martha is less optimistic.

      When they arrive at Regent’s Canal, Sally and Jay are already waiting on the footpath, drinking coffee from paper cups, there to film some background footage and straight-to-camera pieces. It’s a bright, sharp morning, and Sally and Jay are dressed in matching parkas and skinny black jeans, their hoods pulled up against the icy air.

      “Can we do the distance stuff first?” Martha asks them, anxious to find her bearings, to mentally warm up before putting herself in front of the camera.

      She feels strangely apprehensive this morning, having suffered a restless night’s sleep, as she went over things in her head. Who was Juliet writing to in that letter she never sent? Martha can see how the police jumped to the conclusion that it was David Crown—the secret relationship she talks of, the fact of her turning eighteen seeming important in their timing of coming into the open—but still, something doesn’t ring true. It just wasn’t in Juliet’s nature. Was it? As she lay awake in bed, Martha’s mind had kept lighting on snatches of forgotten conversations with her friends; nothing to do with Juliet’s disappearance, just murmurs from a past they once shared. She’d conjured up the memory of that СКАЧАТЬ