Here We Lie
Authors: Sophie McKenzie
Sophie McKenzie is the author of best-selling crime novels
Close My Eyes
and
Trust in Me
as well as over twenty books for children and teenagers including the
multi-award winning
Girl, Missing
and
Split Second
series. She has twice been longlisted for the prestigious Carnegie Medal.
Here We Lie
is Sophie’s third book for
adults. She lives in London.
Find Sophie online at www.sophiemckenziebooks.com, on twitter at @sophiemckenzie_ and on facebook at www.facebook.com/sophiemckenzieauthor.
First published in Great Britain by Simon & Schuster UK Ltd, 2015
A CBS COMPANY
Copyright © Rosefire Ltd, 2015
This book is copyright under the Berne Convention.
No reproduction without permission.
® and © 1997 Simon & Schuster Inc. All rights reserved.
The right of Sophie McKenzie to be identified as author of this work has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act,
1988.
Simon & Schuster UK Ltd
1st Floor
222 Gray’s Inn Road
London WC1X 8HB
Simon & Schuster Australia, Sydney
Simon & Schuster India, New Delhi
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
TPB ISBN: 978-1-47113-318-3
PB ISBN: 978-1-47113-319-0
EBOOK ISBN: 978-1-47113-320-6
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either a product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to
actual people living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
Typeset by M Rules
Printed and bound by CPI Group (UK) Ltd, Croydon, CR0 4YY
For Eoin
PART ONE
November 1992
Rose Campbell took a step closer to the door. The floor on the other side creaked again: the loose board right beside Mum’s dressing table. Was someone inside, rifling
through Mum’s jewellery? It was probably just Mum herself, home early from work like Rose. Except if it was Mum, why hadn’t she answered when Rose called? In fact, why had she shut the
door in the first place? Mum
never
shut any doors.
Rose reached for the handle as the floor creaked yet again. She was tired. Too tired to think properly. She’d come home with a bad headache after one of the customers had been rude to her.
Rose hated waitressing. And she hated how long it was taking to save the money she needed to go on the trip she had promised herself next spring. Gap year, they called it. A chance to explore the
world before heading off to uni next autumn. So far all that Rose had explored was the grungy back room of The Bath Bun.
‘Mum?’ The word came out more softly than Rose meant it to. Her voice barely a croak. The floor had stopped creaking but now she could hear a thudding sound, as if the dressing table
was being knocked against the wall. Surely there was no way a burglar would be making so much noise?
Rose reached into her handbag for her phone. Well, it wasn’t hers . . . it was her boss’s state-of-the-art mobile. He had let her borrow it while he was abroad for a few days in case
there was any kind of emergency at The Bath Bun. Neither of her parents seemed to realize how extraordinary this phone was – Mum in particular was totally gadget-phobic, refusing even to
learn how to work the CD player – but Martin thought it was really cool and predicted everyone they knew would have one within the next couple of years. This seemed highly unlikely to Rose,
but at least having the mobile with her right now meant she could call the police if there was a burglar without having to get to the house phone.
‘Mum?’ Rose whispered again. There was still no reply from inside the room. She lifted her hand to knock on the door, then dropped it again. If a burglar
was
in there,
knocking would just alert him to her presence. Better to open the door swiftly, see who was there, then turn and run. She could call the police from outside. She gripped the handle. Pushed open the
door.
It took a second to register what she was looking at. A woman – a stranger – with long, flame-red hair was bent over the dressing table,
Mum’s
dressing table. She was
sideways on to Rose, her skirt hitched up, her fingers clutching wildly at the edges of the table, her profiled mouth open in lipsticked ecstasy. Behind her was Rose’s father, his trousers
around his ankles, his right hand pressed lightly on the back of the woman’s neck. He was watching himself in the mirror.
The woman turned her head and saw Rose. She froze, her look of triumph turning to horror. Necklaces and rings bounced silently to the carpet as Rose’s father followed the woman’s
gaze to the door.
But Rose had already fled.
Sarah had suspected Iain was having another affair even before she found the long red hair on the dressing table. It was the usual story: late nights at the office, a sudden
interest in Sarah’s own timetable of nursing shifts, an inability to meet her gaze. But the hair was something tangible, something Iain surely wouldn’t be able to explain away.
Especially seeing as Sarah had found the hair in their own bedroom. And after all Iain’s promises . . . she couldn’t bear it. She was going to talk to him. Now.
‘Rose?’ Sarah called up to her elder daughter. Rose was listening to pop in her room. Sarah wondered at her taste, all sugar-coated boy bands, no one who could play a proper
instrument. When Sarah had been eighteen back in the early seventies, teenagers were into real musicians like Jimi Hendrix and Joan Baez.
‘What?’
Sarah sighed. Of her three children Rose was the one she had always struggled with, right from the start when it had been such a battle to breast-feed.
‘Come down here, please.’
There was a thump, then a loud sigh from the landing, and Rose trudged sullenly downstairs. Sarah watched her. What on earth was she wearing? Couldn’t she see how revolting that
fluorescent windcheater was? All hot pink and neon green, nothing of the natural world about it at all.
The other two had always been easier. Emily was the youngest, the sweetest of children, Sarah’s angel, while Martin was her special, precious boy. In the deepest, most secret place of her
heart, Sarah knew that Martin was the love of her life. It wasn’t that she didn’t love the others – or her husband – but she had fallen in love with Martin the second he was
born. And, somehow, Martin always knew how to handle her in a way that no one else in her life ever had. Her beautiful boy, now turning into a wonderful young man. Sarah could totally understand
all those queens from history who stood behind their sons, proud to make them powerful.
‘What is it, Mum?’ Rose asked. She didn’t make eye contact, but Sarah was used to that.
‘I’d like you to keep the others busy, please. I need to talk to your father.’
Rose’s eyes widened. She still wasn’t looking directly at Sarah, but the surprise and resentment in her expression were evident nonetheless. There was something else, too, a
self-consciousness. Sarah frowned: what was that about? She braced herself, expecting Rose to insist – as she had many times – that it wasn’t fair to expect her to babysit the
younger ones. But Rose said nothing. Instead a flicker of guilt crossed her face.
And in that moment Sarah was certain her daughter knew exactly what Iain had been up to.
Her stomach fell away.
How
could Rose know?
What
did she know? Sarah itched to ask questions, but she held herself back. It wasn’t fair to drag Rose into her parents’
drama.
‘Thanks, Rose.’
Rose gave a quick nod and raced back upstairs.
Sarah took a deep breath and headed to the kitchen, where Iain was reading the paper.
The kitchen door was shut, but Rose – standing just outside – could hear the conversation clearly enough to tell that Mum was in tears and Dad was furious. She
could picture them standing there – Mum’s eyes all red, Dad crumpled and handsome in his grey suit, his olive skin so like Rose’s own.
‘Iain?’ Mum’s voice wavered as she spoke. ‘Iain, please answer me.’
Silence.
Rose’s heart beat hard. How much had Mum guessed? Thud. Thud. Thud.
‘Was someone here . . . with you . . . yesterday?’
The silence grew deeper. Darker. Rose held her breath.
‘No.’ Her father’s voice was low and cross. ‘You’re being stupid.’
‘What about the hair I found? A long, red hair.’
An image flashed, unbidden, into Rose’s head of that henna’d hair, so bright against the dark wood of the dressing table, of her father absorbed in his reflection in the mirror and
of the woman’s arched back, her white skin, her stretched-open mouth.
‘Either one of us could have brought that in on our clothes,’ Dad snapped. ‘Come to that, so could any of the kids.’
‘Iain, please, just tell me the truth—’
‘I am fucking telling you the truth, you stupid, paranoid bitch.’
Rose’s whole body froze. She had never heard her father speak with such contempt. Or lie so openly.
Inside the kitchen, Mum dissolved into sobs. Footsteps on the stairs sounded above Rose, first Martin’s heavy tread, then Emily’s light skip. Rose turned in alarm. What were they
doing, coming downstairs? She’d left Martin reading to Emily in place of their mother. Her sister was really too old for such childish practices, in her first term at secondary school for
goodness’ sake. Still, as the baby of the family Emily was indulged in many things.
Whatever, Rose definitely didn’t want her little sister seeing their parents in the middle of a row, so as Martin and Emily walked along the narrow hall she put her finger to her lips,
then made a movement to shoo them both away and back upstairs.