Here We Lie (17 page)

I don’t even feel anything about it now, like it’s just the way things are. I’m doing my homework and paying attention in lessons and it’s just during break time and
after school that it’s bad. Mum’s still upset about the divorce. She keeps asking me how I feel about it. I know she wants me to say I’m really upset too and that I hate Emily,
but I don’t like saying that because it feels mean to Daddy. Anyway, the truth is – and I can’t tell Mum this OBVIOUSLY – but I like Emily. She’s really pretty and
she’s fun and she makes Daddy laugh. She’s cool, too. She teaches little kids who are, like, SO cute and she talks to me like she cares how I am but without pushing me into saying stuff
or trying to be like she’s all ‘my mum’. She wears great make-up too and has awesome clothes. She lets me go through all her stuff and doesn’t mind at all. I think she sees
things in people too, not like being psychic but just understanding them. She knew I was upset soon as I arrived on Friday. I don’t know how. She hadn’t seen it the time before, but
maybe I was trying harder to cover it up then. Anyway, earlier today when Daddy was up in his office and we were in the kitchen, I was checking my phone to see if Ava or Poppy had sent me a message
which of course they hadn’t and Emily was making bread in the breadmaker which is funny because I remember Mum saying she wanted one and Daddy saying ‘women never use things like that,
they just clutter up the kitchen’ and here he is now and Emily has one and DOES use it.

So Emily looks over and asks if I’m all right and I say ‘sure’ and Emily says ‘Ah, well, if you ever need to talk, if there’s ever a problem . . .’ and I
didn’t even look up but she carries on and says ‘my parents died in a car crash when I was a bit younger than you so I know about problems’. And then I DID look up because I
really wasn’t expecting that, like Daddy never said a THING. And I said ‘really, you mean in a car accident, all sudden?’ and Emily looked sad and said ‘yes, afterwards my
sister looked after us, me and my brother, I’m the youngest like you’. And I didn’t know what to say so I just looked at her and Emily went on and said her big sister was called
Rose and was like half a mum and half a sister to her and her big brother was called Martin and he was five years older than her, like Lish is six years older than me so almost exactly the same.
And then she said she hoped I’d meet Rose and Martin soon and I still didn’t know what to say so I just nodded but when I left for Daddy to bring me home earlier I gave her a big
hug.

Dan and I reach the hedgerow that separates the front yard of the small apartment block from the street. ‘Okay,’ Dan says. ‘Give me the ring.’

I tug my diamond engagement ring off my finger. Dan examines it for a moment. ‘It’s beautiful,’ he says.

‘Thanks,’ I say, though in actual fact I had nothing to do with picking the thing out. Jed presented it to me on my birthday in July, eyes shining, irrepressible, irresistible. He
told me how he’d already spoken to Dee Dee and Lish about his plan to propose, and how delighted they had been. Lish must have been lying about that. Oh, God, if Jed knew I was here –
with Dan, spying on Lish – he would feel betrayed. I feel a deep twinge of guilt, then shake myself. This has to happen. And better that I spare Jed any details until I know beyond doubt the
truth about Lish’s drug dealing.

Dan crouches down and presses the ring into the crusty earth. The diamond sparkles in the bright sun.

‘Will it be safe?’ I ask.

‘Yes, once we’re past the next thirty seconds,’ Dan says with a grin. ‘Ready?’

I nod, then creep around the far side of the hedge. From here I can see the front door of the block. Dan crosses the front yard. Weeds poke up between the broken concrete slabs. I shiver as Dan
reaches the door. He straightens his jumper, smooths his hair. He rings the doorbell.

A few moments later a girl – presumably Lish’s female flatmate – opens it. She looks about his age, in skinny jeans and hot pink DM boots. Her long dark hair is dyed blue at
the ends – a straight line, as if it’s been dipped in ink. Dan immediately steps back, head down, slightly hunched.

‘I’m sorry to bother you.’ He offers up an anxious smile. The girl stares at him suspiciously.

My heart thuds.

‘I was just passing. I’m in a bit of a rush, actually. I saw some jewellery over by the hedge. I wondered if someone here dropped it?’

‘Not me.’ The girl starts to shut the door, but Dan is talking again.

‘Okay, look, I’m not usually such a good Samaritan, but it’s a beautiful ring. I don’t know much, but I can tell it’s worth over ten grand. I’m in a crazy
hurry to get to my mum in hospital, otherwise I’d take it to the police myself, but someone should look after it. The owner must be going mad.’ Dan backs away, pointing to the hedge.
‘It’s just on the ground there.’

The girl is still looking at him suspiciously, but she is no longer shutting the door.

Dan reaches the hedge. He points to the ground where the ring is, then holds up his hands.

‘I’ve got to go, do what you like, but it’s there and someone should look after it.’ Then he turns and crosses the road.

I watch the girl. She walks out of the building a little way so she can see Dan reach his car. He gets into it without looking around, revs the engine and drives away. I hold my breath. The girl
glances back at the building. The front door is still open, but no one is around.

She strides purposefully over to the hedge. As she disappears from sight, I race across the yard. Not looking back I tear inside, carefully closing the front door behind me, as Dan instructed.
The door to flat 1B is on my right, on the latch. I push it open, fly inside and shut the door. Dan said I could allow myself ten minutes. I need to make every second of each one count.

It’s a small flat and I find Lish’s bedroom in seconds. It’s the largest of the three and easily identifiable from the photo of Dee Dee pinned to the wall above the desk, which
is cluttered with text books and empty beer bottles.

I rummage through the books, pushing each one aside in turn. I open the drawers. They are stuffed with clothes apart from the bottom one, which contains a collection of hair gels and a pack of
green condoms.

I get on my knees and peer under the bed. Two cans of Lynx and a sheaf of papers nestle beside a suitcase. I pull the papers out, they’re just handouts from Lish’s Media course.

I open the suitcase. More clothes.

I shove it all back under the bed and cast around the room. Outside the flat I can hear the dim buzz of a doorbell. Lish’s flatmate has obviously returned and, as we planned, is locked out
of the building. I’m guessing she is trying all the other flats, hoping someone will buzz her through. I gulp. I’m running out of time. Where else might Lish keep his drugs?

My eyes light on the wardrobe in the corner of the room. Clothes litter the floor around it. I race over and fling open the doors. It’s a large closet with shelves on one side and a
hanging rail across the other. I search the shelves methodically, pulling out the jumpers and socks randomly hurled inside. I come across sweet wrappers and two empty cans of beer. No drugs of any
kind.

I sink to the floor to ransack the bottom shelf. I pull out two pairs of trainers. Outside in the hallway I can hear the girl’s voice, loud and clear. Someone has obviously let her into
the main building, though she is still locked out of the flat itself. She is swearing, angry that the latch must have slipped. She doesn’t mention my ring to whoever she’s talking
to.

My heart drums against my ribs as my fingers fumble at the very back of the shelf. There’s a piece of paper here. No, an envelope, addressed to Lish; something about the handwriting is
familiar. I am shaking as I pull out the letter inside. It’s dated 26 July, a few days after my birthday and Jed’s proposal, and is written in elegant, spidery writing over two crisp
white pages. My stomach clenches painfully as I read. The girl’s voice in the hallway fades away.

I shake my head. This isn’t true.
Can’t
be. Jed told me many times how the marriage had been over for years, how he had only stayed as long as he did for the children.

The first page of the letter ends. I force myself back to the girl’s voice in the hall.

‘Yeah, I think Lish left it with 3A,’ she is saying. ‘I’d call and ask him but my bloody mobile’s locked in the flat with everything else.’ Footsteps on the
stairs, then silence.

I look back down at the letter. Heart in my mouth, I turn to the second and final page.

I clutch the letter in my hand. Lines splash around my brain.

The whore must be stopped. And somehow you must help me stop her. She
cannot
be allowed.

With a jolt everything falls into place. Zoe
did
send me that text back in September:
IT SHOULD HAVE BEEN YOU, WHORE
. She has wanted me dead this whole time, since Jed left her in
fact. And just as she has the motive, so Lish, through his drug dealing, has the means.

Not Zoe
or
Lish, but Zoe
and
Lish.

Together they tried to kill me and Dee Dee died instead.

My legs are trembling as I stand up. I shove the letter in my bag then hurry to the flat’s front door. I open it carefully. Upstairs, I can hear the girl from this flat thanking whoever is
in 3A for the spare key.

There’s no time to get across the hallway and outside the building. Anyway, Dan insisted I should stay ‘even if you feel like running, Em’ – in order to get my ring back.
Hands shaking, I close the flat’s front door. A second later the girl reappears. She sees me loitering in the hall and slows her swift jog down the stairs.

‘Can I help you?’ she says, her voice as sullen as it is suspicious.

‘Hi,’ I say with an apologetic smile. I indicate the front door to the building. ‘Sorry to barge in but it was open so I came through. I think I dropped my ring outside
earlier. I was just calling by on the off-chance someone here picked it up.’

The girl’s hand goes to the pocket of her skinny jeans. I follow her gaze. I’m betting that’s where she’s put my ring. Will she admit to it? Earlier, Dan had said we
would be fine so long as the girl didn’t either stop to think about how he had spotted the ring from his car or pretend to me that she hadn’t found it.

‘She’ll take it in,’ he had said. ‘Either from greed or pity. But if she doesn’t confess she’s got it . . .’

I look her in the eye. No way am I letting her keep the ring. ‘Have you seen it?’ I ask, a steely edge to my voice. ‘I’m pretty certain it came off when I took off my
gloves. It’s a bit big, needs resizing.’

‘A ring?’ the girl asks.

‘Yes,’ I persist. I’m trying to focus but I keep thinking of the letter, stuffed in my handbag.
The whore must be stopped. And somehow you must help me stop her. She
cannot
be allowed.
‘An oval-shaped diamond on a platinum band. Did you see it?’

There’s a slight pause, then the girl digs the ring out of her pocket. She jogs down the remaining steps and hands it to me.