Beautiful Liars. Isabel Ashdown

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      “Decaf?” Toby replies. “That’s what I ordered.” He’s unflustered, unflappable, gently pushing the white cup across the small table and taking his seat. “I got us a flapjack to share too—in case you’re hungry?”

      Martha could eat a horse, having skipped breakfast to make it here on time, but still she shakes her head. God, she hates herself sometimes.

      Giving no acknowledgment of her bad attitude, Toby places the case files on the table between them and flips open his reporter’s notebook to reveal a page annotated with small, neat handwriting. He pushes at his floppy fringe. “Well, I’ll save you half anyway—in case you get peckish. So,” he says, taking a sip of his drink, “yesterday seemed to go quite well, don’t you think? The production meeting. I reckon Glen Gavin has put together a really good team—Juney is an excellent researcher. She’s given us quite a lot of useful stuff already.”

      Us. Jeez. Out of the Cold is not some kind of bloody partnership; Martha is the lead on this project. Toby Parr is her deputy. He’ll get what, five or ten minutes of airtime if he’s lucky, and here he is behaving as though he’s her copresenter rather than some pipsqueak who’s been foisted upon her by management. She eyes him coldly, trying to unbalance him, willing him to drop his cheery posh-boy mask and show what he really thinks of her. That she’s just an estate girl made good, a poorly educated nobody to clamber across on his trouble-free, well-heeled way to the bloody top.

      “Can you give me a summary of what we’ve got so far?” she asks him. It’s a test, and from his change in expression he knows it.

      “OK.” He pulls his notebook closer, studies it for a moment. “First off, Juney has been in touch with the Metro, to place that “Can You Help?” ad you drafted. Should go in tomorrow at the latest, to run for five days.”

      “Good. I don’t hold out much hope of anyone useful coming forward, but you never know.”

      Toby returns to his notes. “To summarize: We have Juliet Sherman, age seventeen, goes missing at around nine p.m. on a Friday night in January 2000, on a towpath beside the Regent’s Canal. Last-known person to see her alive is you, Martha Benn, seventeen-year-old school friend. That evening she’d also been with your mutual friend Olivia Heathcote and her own brother, Tom Sherman, at the Waterside Café bar, where you’d all had two, maybe three alcoholic drinks before Juliet had to leave for her voluntary job at Square Wheels. You walked with her along the canal, with your bicycles—it was dark, but lamplit—halfway to the Square Wheels cabin, before leaving her to walk the remainder alone as you returned to the bar for your forgotten bag. The roads nearby were fairly busy, with it being a Friday night, and you said you saw a number of other walkers and cyclists along the path and that Juliet was in good spirits when you parted. As far as we know, no one else saw or spoke to her before she disappeared, but we don’t believe she can have gone much farther, because her bicycle was found the next day only meters from the spot where you’d parted. The person of interest is David Crown, leader of Square Wheels and local landscape gardener, who vanished a day after Juliet went missing, having withdrawn a large sum of money. Ultimately, the police concluded that Juliet and David had been involved in a secret affair and that they left together of their own accord.” Toby pauses, looking for Martha’s approval.

      “Which is, of course, bollocks.”

      “We know that the police interviewed everyone who saw Juliet that night, including her parents and David Crown before he disappeared—but no one could shed any more light on the mystery. We now also know that there was a previous sexual assault allegation made against David Crown when he was a teacher, but that it was dropped and written off as a pupil’s fabrication.” Toby runs his finger down his list. “Have I missed anything?”

      Martha gazes past him toward the busy foyer of the library café. “Olivia and Juliet fell out earlier that night,” she says, bringing her focus back to Toby.

      “Really?” He looks back at his notes, frowning as though he might have overlooked something.

      “It wasn’t reported on, because Liv didn’t mention it in her interview.”

      “But you knew about it?”

      “I heard them—it was just before Juliet set off for work and the two of them had left the café ahead, while I said good-bye to Tom and a few of the others. When I got outside, I saw them round the corner—Juliet was unlocking her bike—and they were having a heated argument. Really heated. Liv was trying to stop Juliet from leaving, grabbing her coat, but Jules shook her off, pushed past. It stopped the minute they saw me.” Martha can see their panicked faces now, their rage quickly shutting down to avert her questions.

      “You didn’t mention this in the meeting yesterday.”

      “No. And I didn’t tell the police at the time either. Liv asked me not to.”

      Toby’s eyebrows furrow. “Really? Didn’t you think it was important to let them know? It could have been vital to the case.”

      “Bloody hell, Toby. Were you ever a teenager, or were you born fully grown? We were seventeen—our best friend had just vanished, and we were terrified and guilty and grief-stricken. Liv didn’t want anyone to know that they’d argued, because she was just so ashamed that her last moments with Juliet were bad ones.”

      “Do you know what the argument was about?” Toby asks.

      “No,” Martha replies. “I asked Juliet at the time—as we were walking away from the bar—but she dismissed it. Said Liv was just being a drama queen and it would blow over. She made it clear the subject was closed, so I didn’t push it.”

      Toby looks unconvinced.

      “I was fine about not telling the police they’d been arguing. I mean, I knew Liv didn’t have anything to do with Juliet’s disappearance. But it always bothered me that Liv never told me what the argument was about. Those two—Juliet and Liv—their relationship was always just that bit tighter than it was with me. They went back further, they’d known each other since primary school—I met them at the start of secondary. Of course, they bickered from time to time, but it never got serious or nasty. I don’t think I’d ever seen them exchange cross words before that night.” She picks up her coffee cup. “Or ever again.”

      Toby adds a few neat lines to his notebook. “You’ve written to Liv, you say? We really need to speak to her next, don’t we? Find out what they were arguing about—see what else she might know. That’s got to be a priority.”

      “I’m on it,” Martha replies, suddenly irritated, sensing a suggestion that she doesn’t know what she’s doing. Scowling, she adds, “And I’ll give the orders, thanks, Toby. You do know I’m the lead here, don’t you?”

      There’s a moment’s silence as she stares him down, challenging him to disagree.

      “Martha,” he says in a soft voice. “I think we need to get this out of the way, don’t you? Look, I really want this to work, and I really want to do the best I can for the show—for you. But it’s going to be hard if you’re going to pick on me for every little thing. It feels as if you don’t trust me.”

      “You have to earn someone’s trust,” she replies, feeling her cheeks flush as she realizes how uptight and clichéd she sounds. “How can I trust you when I don’t even know you?”

      He smiles, not unkindly. “But that’s not true, is it? And even if СКАЧАТЬ