My Mother, The Liar. Ann Troup

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СКАЧАТЬ I think I know who he is, and given that his wife is missing, I think I can make a conservative guess at who killed him. The deceased may well be one Roy Baxter, husband of the eldest Porter girl.’

      ‘Stella,’ Angie added for clarity.

      Ferris frowned. ‘Doesn’t mean she killed him, if it is him, which I admit is likely but we don’t actually know yet. What about the baby? Any ideas?’

      ‘Not a clue, yet. Anyway, what’s with the sand? I don’t get it.’

      Ferris stripped off the latex gloves she had been wearing and wiped a powdery hand across her forehead. ‘Whoever did this to them attempted a rudimentary form of mummification by the looks of it. It’s sharp sand, the kind builders use, so it contains salt. Salt absorbs the moisture that bodies release as they decompose. It’s also a good preservative. Whoever did this didn’t do a bad job – the bodies are in pretty good nick.’

      Angie suppressed a shudder. ‘But why mummify them? Why not just dig a hole and bury them?’

      Ferris shrugged. ‘Could be anything: keeping them as trophies à la serial killer maybe, or couldn’t be bothered to dig the hole. Let’s face it, it’s a lot easier to tip sand in a box than it is to dig a grave deep enough to bury a body without risking being seen – or the body being dug up by a curious dog or an overenthusiastic gardener. Dunno – you tell me? There’s one thing: mummified bodies don’t smell so bad. It’s why they don’t decay. They don’t attract flies and bugs and so don’t betray their presence so easily.’

      Ratcliffe nodded thoughtfully. ‘Gruesome though, implies a lot of thought. How long do you think they’ve been there?’

      ‘I’m not sure, but a fair few years. When did your Baxter guy disappear?’

      ‘Quite a long time ago, we think,’ Angie said. Hopefully the sisters would help them pinpoint the exact time period, and she and Ratcliffe might be able to corroborate it by finding other witnesses. Unfortunately, what the sisters hadn’t helped with was the preservation of the crime scene and potential evidence. Anything that might have offered clues to what had happened had more than likely been burned or was now languishing somewhere on ten acres of landfill site.

      The clearance guy, Sid, had been more than happy to tell them of Frances’s enthusiasm in disposing of her family’s belongings. Information that told Angie that Frances wasn’t going to be an easy woman to deal with.

      So far, all they had managed to salvage were a few boxes of Stella’s possessions, some kids’ books, an old and seriously ugly wardrobe, and some bags of rubbish. With so little to go on, Angie suspected they weren’t going to find out anything worth knowing any time soon.

Chapter 3

      At half past four in the afternoon when Rachel finally reached her hotel room, she could barely keep her eyes open and flopped, fully dressed, onto the bed. The next time she looked at the clock it was ten past eight. It wasn’t until she opened the heavy curtains that she realised she was looking out of the window onto the beginnings of a bright new day rather than on the quiet twilight she had been expecting.

      There were two things she liked most about hotels: the anonymity that was afforded by them and the oodles of hot water that allowed a bath to be drawn in minutes. In the rare moments when she felt as though she might like to rejoin humanity, she would just book a room for the night and pretend she was a tourist. On a whim, she’d walk into a random hotel in London, get a room, and spend the time there watching TV, ordering room service, and having baths. For a night or two she could make believe that she wasn’t lonely, that she had purpose, that she had a life.

      It wasn’t that Lila’s flat didn’t have a bath – it did, a huge, deep, claw-footed cast-iron thing that emptied the tank at five inches and chilled the water within seconds. Maintaining personal hygiene at the flat was a puritanical experience, akin to self-flagellation with cold water and rough towels. Having the option of a proper soak in hot water was more than a small pleasure. With this in her mind she opened the taps in the beautifully modern bathroom, perched herself on the edge of her rented bath, and watched the steam rise with comforting anticipation.

      The epileptic fits of the day before had been an unpleasant surprise; it had been a long time since she’d had to face the humiliation of having a seizure in public, even longer since she’d experienced one so bad that she’d wet herself. The medication she took daily had kept them in check for years, and if she had one at all, it was when her defences were down and she allowed dark thoughts to run riot. More often than not, the fits were transient partial seizures, which to anyone else would look like daydreaming or drunkenness. A full-blown fit was so rare she could remember the exact day the last one had happened, but she didn’t want to think about it.

      Dwelling on that period of her life was something she actively avoided, doing anything she could to distract herself. Coming back had brought some things way too close for comfort already, but questioning herself about why she had come in the first place was pointless. It didn’t matter; she was where she was. What did matter was how soon she could get away.

      Soaking in the bath, she chose not to think about anything other than coffee and food. Fits made her hungry, and she needed caffeine before the headache that had begun to niggle at her turned into a full-blown howler. She bathed quickly and only half dried her hair before she dressed and went out of the door in search of breakfast.

      As she wandered up Westgate Street, towards the cathedral and to the only café she could remember, she thought of Stella and wondered where she had gone, and why. Perhaps Frances had finally managed to drive her out. As an accomplished escape artist herself, Rachel didn’t question why her sister had disappeared. Anyone who had known their family would have been able to answer that.

      However, she was utterly puzzled as to where Stella might have gone. To the best of Rachel’s knowledge, Stella had spent the last nineteen years looking after Valerie. She didn’t have friends or a social life, or a bolthole like the flat. She was hardly the type to reinvent herself in the way that Frances had. Besides, she was the quiet type – timid, nervy, and not the sort of person who could disappear easily. She was probably avoiding Frances, a motivation that Rachel could entirely understand.

      Once inside Café Milano, she immediately experienced a rush of nostalgia. The place had hardly changed since the days when she and Stella had lingered over their milkshake and coffee, pretending for an hour or so that they didn’t have to go home. She took a breath, filling her lungs with the scent of vanilla and fresh-ground beans, smiling as she recalled that she had discovered Italian coffee in this place, long before the big chains had flooded the world with their skinny lattes and pretentious chai.

      There was a seat at the back, half hidden behind a bamboo screen, a perfect place to people-watch without being seen herself. She ordered coffee and a bacon roll, then sat back and looked around at the other customers, soaking in the normality of them and hoping it would rub off a little. Then she saw him, a tall man striding across the room. The way he moved was painfully, heart-stoppingly familiar and the recognition sent a cold shard of fear slicing through her gut. He was heading straight for her and her only escape was the bad wiring in her brain and the way it could opt out of trouble whenever it saw fit.

      ***

      He was sure this time. He had caught glimpses before, the turn of a head, or the sound of laughter so painfully familiar that it induced a sensation of time grinding to a standstill. His heart flip-flopped and fluttered pointlessly like a moth battering at a light bulb. So many times over the years he’d found that it СКАЧАТЬ