Those Who Lie, page 20
Emily is pensive for a few moments. She can see Will is making an effort to refrain from probing deeper into the events of that night. He had never asked her if she’d killed her father – he’d never needed to. He already knew the answer. But there are details about that night that he still doesn’t know.
Will pays the bill and they leave the restaurant. Side by side, they walk along the pavement outside, their arms touching at times. He tells her that he’s driving home straight away as he’s working tomorrow. He walks her back to her car. They hug each other, and the moment fills Emily with warmth. Then Will kisses her cheek close to her mouth.
‘Promise you’ll keep in touch this time?’ These are the last words he says to her on this first day of spring.
‘I promise.’
As she watches her childhood friend walk away, a memory comes to Emily. She was sitting next to him on a bale of hay in his father’s barn. He’d put his arm around her and he whispered something in her ear. She can’t remember now what he said, but she does recall the electric shock she felt when his leg touched hers. The picture is so vivid that she imagines she can smell the straw.
She realises for the first time that it’s possible for her to desire and love the same person. She can only describe to herself the sensations of happiness and safety she experiences in Will’s presence as feeling like she’s at home. Home, but without all the negative thoughts she associates with that single, complicated word.
Emily’s warm feelings of happiness last only as long as the drive home. As she gets out of the car in the driveway, she spots Mr Mistoffelees on her front doorstep. He isn’t moving. Emily realises immediately that he isn’t breathing, either. Her hand in front of her mouth, she forces herself to walk towards her front door. She can see blood all around her cat. She retches, but stops herself from throwing up. Then she screams so loudly and for so long that Mrs Wickens comes out of her house next door.
‘I’m so sorry, Mrs Wickens,’ Emily says, seeing her neighbour appear in her dressing gown. She moves a few steps forwards to shield the elderly woman from the view of the dead cat. ‘My cat’s dead,’ Emily offers by way of an explanation, somehow remembering to speak loudly.
Mrs Wickens’s cat had come outside when the old lady opened the door. She scoops it up, and holds it tightly to her, as if she’s afraid that Mr Mistoffelees has died of a contagious illness. Sensing this, Emily tries to reassure her neighbour: ‘He seems to have been run over, Mrs Wickens.’ Emily only realises she has been holding her breath when she goes to speak. She makes herself breathe in and out slowly.
‘Anything I can do, dear?’
‘No, thank you. Goodnight.’ Emily tries to keep her voice even, but she’s close to screaming again.
Hearing Mrs Wickens’s door close behind her neighbour and her cat, Emily looks down again at what remains of Mr Mistoffelees. She feels another wave of nausea come over her, and this time she doesn’t manage to keep her dinner down. When there’s nothing left inside her, she sinks down onto the step, taking care to sit as far away from the cat as possible. She can smell and taste her own vomit. She starts to cry, and she tries to think.
She remembers the suspicion she voiced earlier to Will that what was happening in the past was somehow connected to the events in the present. The gruesome sight lying at her feet has just confirmed that. It reminds her of Smokey, the cat she’d had when she was a child. This is no coincidence. Emily’s thoughts are lucid in spite of the shock she’s in. This is obviously supposed to make me think of Smokey. It’s deliberate.
‘Poor Smokey. Poor Mr Mistoffelees,’ she sobs out loud.
My two cats have met the same end, Emily thinks. If they were killed in the same way, they may have been killed by the same person. She looks at Mr Mistoffelees again. She feels another wave of nausea. It’s such a horrifying sight. Just like Smokey, Mr Mistoffelees’s head has been severed from his body.
Chapter Twenty-Two
~
Oxford, 2nd – 4th April 2015
Nearly two weeks later, Emily still hasn’t sorted out the problem with her phone. At first, without the phone numbers of her friends and family, she felt cut off from everyone. She felt scared of being on her own; at the same time, she needed a few days alone to think about everything that had happened. Really, she has been feeling far too exhausted to do anything about her mobile. At least, that’s what she has told herself. But then she scolds herself for her inertia. So, when she stumbles upon Josh’s advert – with his number on it – in a drawer in the coffee table, she decides to ring him.
When she was younger, she reflects, she knew several phone numbers by heart: her grandparents’ and Uncle Rod’s; the number for her father’s mobile, which was huge and heavy compared with today’s models; Will’s landline – incredibly, she can still remember that three-digit number to this day, although she has long since forgotten the one for the Old Manor House.
Now she doesn’t even know her sister’s and Pippa’s landline or mobile numbers. She knows her own, but that’s of no use to her. Greg bought Emily her first mobile phone about twelve years ago and since then she has made no effort to memorise contact details herself.
The previous day, Emily received a bizarre text message. It read: ‘Please tell Lenny his granny wishes him many happy returns. Love, Mum.’ On reading the word ‘Mum’, Emily’s eyes welled up with tears. Just after the message had come through, Emily received a selfie of a black lady from the same mobile number.
She zoomed in to examine the photo in as much detail as possible. The woman looked to be in her sixties, but Emily found it hard to tell. She had a beautiful, wide smile and very white teeth, and she was holding a present, gift-wrapped in childish paper, next to her cheek with one hand. Emily could make out the name ‘Lenny’ on the envelope sellotaped to the present.
She’d dismissed the message and the photo as a wrong number until that very morning when she received an alert for a calendar event. It was a reminder for Lenny’s sixth birthday on 1st April. Emily now wonders if this might all be significant. Somehow.
When she calls Josh, he suggests that Emily’s mobile is somehow synced to another phone of the same make via iTunes.
‘Can we find out whose phone mine is synced to?’ Emily asks.
‘I don’t know,’ Josh says. ‘If it was done on your computer, maybe there’s a way. If it was done on someone else’s computer, that might not be possible.’
‘But how does that even happen in the first place?’ Emily asks.
‘It happens quite often. My uncle and aunt had that problem, too. They both have iPhones and they synchronise them using the same computer, but my uncle once accidentally used my aunt’s iTunes account.’
Emily wonders if her phone has been deliberately synced to someone else’s phone. Could someone be keeping a close eye on her through her phone? She puts this to Josh.
‘It sounds a bit far-fetched,’ he says. ‘But I suppose your movements could be monitored to a certain extent via a synced phone.’
‘That might explain how this…vandal knew when it was safe to come round and destroy my paintings. And kill my cat. He knew I was out.’
‘Mmm. Do you know if a location app has been installed? Find My iPhone, for example? That would be the easiest way to spy on you.’
‘No. What’s that, exactly?’
‘It’s an app that helps you find your phone if you’ve lost it. But it could also enable someone to see exactly where you are if you’ve got your phone on you and you’re sharing your location with their device.’ Emily shivers. ‘I’ll have a look, but at the moment, I’ve got a few deadlines to meet,’ Josh continues. ‘If you just want to get your phone back to normal, I can talk you through that now if you like. It’s not difficult.’
‘No, it’s all right, Josh. I really need to find out whose phone mine is synced to. When you have a spare moment, will you let me know?’
‘Of course.’
Immediately after Emily’s telephone conversation with Josh, Pippa calls her. Then Matt rings to say he’s coming to stay. Thanks to them, she now has Amanda’s number. Emily knows she must get in touch with Amanda soon. Her sister will be worried about her as they rarely go for more than a few days without talking or texting.
Emily is starting to feel more connected to her loved ones again, and it’s a relief. She resolves to take matters into her own hands. Lately, she has been too passive, too inactive. She needs to get herself and her life sorted out. Starting with the phone. It may just be a silly idea she can’t get out of her head. Perhaps no one is tracking her movements and she’s just being paranoid. But she should check it out.
The next day, Matt arrives. He has been working on a building site, but he’s taking some time off, although he’s evasive as to why this is. While he’s staying with Emily, they’ll be going to see Amanda’s play, which is still running one evening a week, much to Matt and Emily’s dismay. Emily finds Matt’s presence in the house comforting, especially after finding Mr Mistoffelees dead on her doorstep.
Emily tells Matt about the phone problem. Matt spends some time checking the settings on Emily’s mobile.
‘Is this your number?’ he asks after a while, showing Emily the screen.
She examines the details concerning her mobile on the screen. ‘Yes,’ she says.
Emily watches over his shoulder.
‘The text from Lenny’s granny!’ he says after a while. ‘We have a phone number for “Mum”.’ Matt does the air quotes with his fingers. ‘Let’s give “Mum” a call and see what we can find out.’
‘Clever. But it’s not much of a clue. We just know thanks to the selfie that the person whose phone mine is synced to is likely to be of African descent or of mixed heritage.’
‘Oh, Em. When did you get all politically correct?’ Matt says. ‘Give her a ring. Ask her questions about her son or daughter.’ He hands Emily the mobile.
‘Which?’ Emily asks her brother. ‘Son or daughter?’
‘Just give it a go.’
Emily holds the phone in her hands for a while, biting her nail pensively. Then she smiles. ‘I’ve got an idea,’ she says. She presses the phone number of the sender of the text message and selfie, and activates the speaker mode so that Matt can hear both sides of the conversation.
‘Hello. You don’t know me,’ Emily begins when ‘Mum’ answers the call, ‘but I’ve just found a mobile, an iPhone, in the street and I have no idea who it belongs to. Your number was in there, listed under “Mum” in the contacts. Do you have a son or daughter who has an iPhone? I’d very much like to be able to give it back to its owner.’
‘Oh, it’s so reassuring that there are some honest people left in the world,’ comes a smooth, deep feminine voice in reply. ‘That would be my Frank’s phone. He was so proud of his new mobile. He showed me lots of things it could do, but I don’t understand smartphones. It’s so typical of him to lose it. He’s always losing his stuff. Ever since he was a little—’
‘Do you think you could give me Frank’s home number or address so I can get in touch with him? Or does he live with you?’ Emily is slouched in her armchair in the sitting room with Matt perched on its arm. She uncrosses her legs, moves so she’s sitting on the edge of the chair, leans over to the coffee table and grabs a pen and the pad.
‘No, he lives with his girlfriend. I know his home number, but I’d have to look up his address. He’s just moved.’ She reels off the number and Emily writes it down. Next, Frank’s mum launches herself into a description of his new house. Emily politely brings the conversation to a close and ends the call.
‘Not just a pretty face, Em,’ Matt says, stroking his chin. Emily realises with amusement that although he hasn’t let his goatee grow back after the funeral, he has kept this idiosyncratic gesture.
‘Your turn,’ she says, handing him the phone.
‘Perhaps we should hide your caller ID.’
Emily nods, so Matt does it. He taps in the landline number they’ve just been given. Emily holds her breath in anticipation.
The telephone sounds for several rings, and finally Matt is invited by an automated voice to leave a message.
He swears, using a word Emily doesn’t recognise. He doesn’t leave a message.
Matt and Emily try the number many times during the day, but no one answers the phone. Then they try to find the name and address for that number by using an online reverse directory. That doesn’t yield any results, either.
It’s only the following evening, once they’ve arrived home from Amanda’s play and the traditional drink afterwards in The Grapes, that they get through to Frank. It comes as such a surprise when he answers that Emily is rendered temporarily speechless.
‘Hello? Hello?’
‘Er, um, yes, g-good evening.’ There’s a slight pause. ‘Is that Frank?’
‘Yes.’ He has a gruff voice.
‘Er, I’m ringing you about your iPhone. I was wondering if… Could you tell me how…? Um… My phone seems to be synced to yours… Have you had any problems with your mobile?’
There’s silence from the other end. Emily and Matt look at each other. Frank has ended the call.
‘Shall I call back?’ Emily asks Matt.
‘No. What’s the point? He won’t answer.’
‘This is a dead end.’ Emily can hear the disappointment in her voice.
‘Maybe Frank bought the phone second-hand. Or stole it,’ Matt says. ‘Either way, we need to find out where he got the phone and who he got it from. We could send him a text message. But he’s not likely to reply. Let’s sleep on it. See if we come up with any other ideas.’
But before bedtime, Emily receives another alert for an event in Frank’s calendar. She shows Matt.
‘Crocodile Zoo. Brize Norton. Lenny. Saturday 4th April,’ Matt reads aloud. He looks at Emily, a mischievous gleam in his eyes. ‘That’s tomorrow. Fancy going to the zoo, Em?’
‘Are you sure? I haven’t really got any proof that someone has tampered with my phone. This might turn out to be a wild goose chase.’
‘It doesn’t matter. This is fun. And I like crocodiles. We haven’t got anything better to do, have we?’
Emily manages a weak smile. She is disturbed by the children’s song that has wormed its way into her head. Going to the Zoo. She remembers singing it in the car with Amanda when they were little. Their father was driving, and their mother, in the passenger seat, turned round frequently to grin at her daughters in the back seat.
They were on their way to Paignton Zoo. Daddy’s taking us to the zoo tomorrow, zoo tomorrow, zoo tomorrow… That may well have been one of the last outings they’d had as a normal family. Two daughters who sang and played together, bickered together. A mother who didn’t often drink excessively, but who smiled a lot, and a father who protected his daughters instead of abusing the younger one. Em knows the song will be playing on an annoying loop in her head for several days now.
‘Em? Em?’
‘Sorry, Matt, I was miles away.’
‘I was saying, we’ll check every black or dark-skinned man with an iPhone who comes into the zoo until closing time if need be. We’ll find him,’ Matt says confidently.
‘Frank has a girlfriend, remember? His mum said he lived with her. He may be with her, and he’ll be with Lenny, who’s obviously his son. He’s just turned six.’
‘Good. That will make him easier to find. A man and a woman with a child at the zoo. On a Saturday.’
Emily isn’t sure if Matt is poking fun at her or not.
‘Well, I think we’ve hatched a cunning plan, Matt.’ Emily doesn’t feel nearly as jovial as she sounds, but she’s grateful for her brother’s help and support.
‘Yeah, it’s off the hook.’
‘If you say so,’ Emily says.
~
Matt is overjoyed at the opportunity to drive Emily’s Audi to Brize Norton. They aim to arrive for opening at ten o’clock, but an overturned lorry has shed its load on the A40, so they’re held up for over half an hour. They arrive at twenty to eleven. Emily pays for the tickets and they hang around the entrance for a while, looking out for a man who could feasibly be Frank.
After around twenty minutes, Emily sees a familiar figure paying for tickets for herself and two children around the age of seven. For some reason, her throat constricts.
‘Matt.’ Emily points her finger. ‘I know her.’ It comes out as a half-whisper, half-croak. It doesn’t occur to Emily that the woman is too far away to have heard her even if she’d spoken loudly.
But as the woman comes through the entrance turnstile, Emily sees that it’s not Lucinda Sharpe, as she’d thought. She reminds herself that her former solicitor’s children are all grown up. Lucinda would be a granny by now, and her grandchild would only be a baby.
‘Let’s go for a wander,’ Matt says.
They spend the next hour walking around the zoo, examining not the reptiles, but the visitors.
By midday, Matt is hungry and Emily is downhearted. She takes out her mobile and wonders if the icon for a location app such as Find My iPhone would appear on the screen. None of the icons seem unfamiliar to her.
‘Maybe Josh can find Frank using the location app if there’s one on my phone,’ she says.
‘Maybe,’ Matt says.
The two of them go to the cafe and eat lunch. Emily spends the whole time observing other people who come and go. Matt eats ravenously, but Emily picks at her food. By the time they’ve finished their coffees after lunch, Emily is fidgety.
They leave the cafe and walk around the Crocodile House again.
‘There!’ Matt says jubilantly to Emily, pointing at a man with black skin who is carrying a little girl in his arms. A woman next to him, who is also dark-skinned, is holding a young boy by the hand.
But as they walk up to the couple, they hear the woman say, ‘Steve, it’s the crocs’ feeding time. Let’s watch this before we take the kids to see the lizards.’
