Beautiful Liars. Isabel Ashdown

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      4

      Martha

      She’s been here before, recognizes the still-water tang of the moonlit path, the creaking murmur of houseboats and wooden decking moored along the frozen bank. It’s a shortcut home, one they’ve always taken in warmer months, but to be avoided alone after dark for fear of unseen dangers lurking in the shadows. To her right the frosted path meanders alongside the black water, disappearing into nothing as it stretches beyond the bridge. Her shallow breaths billow out in hot, white clouds, misting her vision. To her left a homeless pair sit huddled beneath sleeping bags on the wooden bench, not looking in her direction, more interested in the sandwich packet and steaming tea they’ve just been handed. You’re an angel, one of them says to no one in particular, his hand raised like that of a stained-glass saint. You’re an angel. The swishing burr of bicycle wheels; the ticker-tacker rush of air as they pass—six, eight, ten, twelve—it’s hard to know how many there are, but the riders are all young—teenagers, sixth-formers—hair and knitted scarves streaming, ivory teeth gleaming through the darkness, handlebars festooned with wicker baskets bearing fruit.

      Juliet! a voice calls out from the followers, a voice chasing after the beautiful girl at the front. Jules! Wait! And Martha realizes it’s her own voice she’s hearing, she who is calling out, the urgency knotting her stomach like rope burn.

      Incapable of movement, she watches the cyclists turn sharply where the path grows dim, and they nose-dive, bikes and all, one after the other, disappearing like fish from a bucket through the glittering surface of the Regent’s Canal. A fracture skitters across the frozen crust, breaking the waterway in two, causing the houseboats to tip and sway. She can’t bear it, the motion of the water undulating beneath the nearest boat, the brightest of them all, and she sprints over the crunchy grass and reaches out for its wooden rails, desperate to steady the boat’s movements, to silence the night. Her smooth school pumps slip on the frosty bank, and she feels herself disappear into the water, fish-like herself, the ice closing up behind her.

      It’s a dream she’s had before, or at least a version of it. Sometimes she’s the one on the bicycle, and it’s Juliet and Liv sitting on the wooden bench, eating sandwiches. Other times she’s watching, helpless, as Juliet floats by, trapped under ice, her eyes wild. And then there’s the version where nothing happens; where Martha roams back and forth along that lonely path, looking, looking, looking, and finding nothing—seeing nothing, hearing nothing. In some ways, that’s the worst dream of them all, infected as it is with the intangible qualities of helplessness and guilt.

      I should have walked on with her, Martha tells herself, running her hands up and over her sleep-softened face, willing herself to rise from her position on the sofa, where she had sunk into sleep within moments of arriving home this evening. If Martha had walked on with her that night as she’d planned to—if she hadn’t changed her mind and left her standing on that towpath alone—would Juliet be alive today?

      She’s been in the library all afternoon, going back over old newspaper articles about Juliet’s disappearance, rereading the media speculation, the sound-bite quotes from “close sources.” Her head is full of it, the loose ends and unasked questions pressing against the inside of her mind, and she fears she is destined to dream of Juliet forever, at least until she finds the answers she seeks.

      Wrung out, she glances around her living room, a study in contemporary design: a dash of minimalism here, a nod to the Baroque there. When she’d signed the papers, Martha hadn’t even asked about the décor—it was enough to know it would be new, stylish, and easy to care for. Safe. It’s a gated community of sorts, the kind Martha would once have scorned as pretentious, but she likes it: She’s grateful to be locked in and secure. It’s a long way from the damp-curled rooms of her childhood home in Hackney, social housing long since demolished to make way for gentrification. The clock on the far wall tells her it’s nine-thirty p.m. God, she’ll never sleep now, she knows. She’s been out cold for nearly two hours.

      When her mobile rings, Martha cries out, and without thinking she grabs it from the side table, bringing it to her ear with a brusque “Hello?”

      There’s a rustling sound at the other end, the suggestion that the caller has dropped the phone and is trying to retrieve it. “Shit,” the voice says, gravelly, fumbling, his breath labored and apologetic as he finally sorts the handset out. “Shit. Sorry, Martha. Shit.”

      Dread sinks through her like a weight. Why didn’t she check the caller ID before answering? She finds herself frozen, much as she had been in her dream, the sense of helplessness returning like a memory, and her words won’t come. Outside, the city roars past and the world keeps turning, life continuing on as ever.

      “Martha?” At first his tone is soft and persuasive, but it takes only seconds for impatience to materialize, to betray itself as the stronger emotion. “Come on, love,” he says, and his words are mashed. Drunk. Growing singsong nasty. “I kno-ow you’re the-ere. I can hear you. I can hear the traffic. I can hear you breathing. Martha? Martha? Martha! Answer me, you hard-nosed cow!”

      At his roar she snaps into movement, jerking the receiver from her ear and pressing the red end-call button. It’s been months since she last heard from him, a year even. What does he want with her? She made it clear she was done with him, done with that chapter in her life. She’d given him money, hadn’t she? More than enough to set himself up, to make his own way. What more could he possibly want from her?

      * * *

      The following morning Martha and Toby are meeting at the café in the British Library, and when she arrives five minutes early she finds him already seated at a wall table with two coffees steaming in front of him. She started the day in a bad mood, having heard from Juney that they’re still unable to establish the name of the girl at the center of David Crown’s school allegation, as it was never formally reported on at the time. Apparently no public records exist. Surely it shouldn’t be so difficult to get this kind of information? How hard has Juney actually tried? But perhaps Martha is being unfair: How can she expect Juney to access information that doesn’t exist in the public domain? For that, Martha needs an insider. Perhaps it’s time to call in a few favors. She’ll phone Finn Palin when she’s finished here, see what he can do for her. Of course, he’s retired now, but Martha knows how the old boys’ network operates inside the police force; she’s certain he’ll be able to track down that girl’s name without too much fuss. He owes her that much at least.

      Toby rises as she approaches, and she hates him for arriving ahead of her.

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