Lies Between Us: a tense psychological thriller with a twist you won’t see coming
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RONNIE TURNER grew up in Cornwall, the youngest in a large family. At an early age, she discovered a love of literature and dreamed of being a published author. Ronnie now lives in Dorset with her family and three dogs. In her spare time, she reviews books on her blog and enjoys long walks on the coast. Lies Between Us is her debut novel.
Lies Between Us
RONNIE TURNER
HQ
An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd.
1 London Bridge Street
London SE1 9GF
First published in Great Britain by HQ in 2018
Copyright © Ronnie Turner 2018
Ronnie Turner asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.
E-book Edition © October 2018 ISBN: 9780008313029
Version: 2018-09-03
Table of Contents
Cover
About the Author
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Epigraph
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
Chapter 58
Chapter 59
Chapter 60
Chapter 61
Epilogue
Acknowledgements
Dear Reader
HQ Dear Reader
Keep Reading …
About the Publisher
For my family – Team Turner – who are always cheering me on.
Not all love is pure
Not all love is kind
Not all love is true
Some love is blind
Chapter 1
Miller
Let me tell you something I haven’t told you before…
One, two, three, finger by finger, I squeeze down into the soft, pale skin of her neck.
Four, five, six…
She reaches out and grasps and grasps at thin air, small fingers searching for some salvation, even as her young face submerges and her lungs fill with water.
Seven, eight, nine…
It doesn’t take long. I stroke her hair and smile into her frightened brown eyes.
Ten, eleven, twelve… I squeeze down until her arms grow limp and the last moments of life bleed into nothing.
Thursday 19 March, 1992
They come to you in waves, the wives clutching their hands to their chests, the husbands folding their arms in front of their stomachs, heads bowed, all wearing expressions they deem suitable for the occasion. Unbidden, they are trespassers on your grief and it’s as if they’ve pulled their expressions from their wardrobes, along with the black clothing they donned this morning. But their otherwise perfect appearance is bereft of the most crucial component: sincerity.
You and your parents barely notice. You accept their condolences and pats on the back with good grace, but I can see behind the well-mannered veneer to the part of you wanting to be left to the solitude of her absence. I’ve lost count of the times I’ve witnessed them smile, stroke your cheek and mutter to your parents, ‘Brave little soldier.’ You only nod and force a smile onto your lips, awaiting the next chorus of ‘Ohhs’ and ‘Ahhs,’ closely followed by the ensuing pulse of ‘Such a shame, such a terrible shame’.
As they leave, the expressions they wear already slipping, I walk up to your house and ram my nail into the puckered scratch that runs across my forearm, tears of pain slipping down my skin. Smudging them across my face, I knock on the door and wait. When you appear, you take in my appearance and I yours. Despite watching from afar all morning, I hadn’t realised how your posture has slumped, nor how your eyes are rimmed red.
‘I’m sorry, mate,’ I say, and like those before me I pat you on the back and smile; a mechanical act but an acceptable one.
You nod and step aside: an invitation into your home, to share in your grief, but most of all an invitation to comfort you. If only I could, properly. If only I could gather you up in my arms and stroke your short brown hair, kiss each of your fingers and banish the pain. The desire to do all of this, my beautiful boy, is nearly impossible to ignore. But I must. You need your friend. You need the person I’ve given you. You need the illusion. The good-little-boy pretence. The neighbour. Not me. Not the oddity. I realised a long time ago who I needed to be and what I needed to do to achieve in life. You don’t have to look hard to see that ‘good boys’ go further. They get what they want when they are as sweet as me.
It doesn’t matter that this is a pretence, though. Even being with you as someone else is good enough for me.
My hand lingers a second too long and you pull away, but you do not close the door. I follow you into her bedroom, where I can see you and your parents spent last night. Wads of used tissues are balled up like confetti across the bed. The pink duvet is rumpled and creased. And already, her posters are beginning to peel away. Strewn across the floor are her things: bears, dolls, storybooks, the shrapnel of four years of her life already slipping into the past. You perch on the bed and look at it all, hands tucked beneath your legs so I can’t see them shake. I sit close – this way you can feel me beside you. The smell of cheese and cucumber sandwiches wafts from your mouth. I imagine you ate them to assuage your mother’s concern, each bite tasting of ash on your lips.
You look at her toys and books, your lips parted in an ‘O’ shape as if you can’t quite believe the ferocity with which life has taken a swipe at your family. Tears trickle down your cheeks. My hand itches to wipe them away but I keep myself in check and instead pat you on the back again. That is the limit, the boundary. You slump into me as if I have stolen your remaining strength and begin to weep. And even as you do this, you are silent. We sit like this for what seems like hours. But it can’t be because when I leave you in her room, the sun is nudging its way into the middle of the sky. I take off down the street, words that have been bandied about by the neighbours repeating themselves over and over again in my mind:
‘Sweet girl. Funny girl. Happy girl.’
I stop and look back at your house. Through the crack in the curtains, I can see you, curled up in your mother’s arms, bright-red cheeks scarred by the pale tracks tears have made down your skin. Your mother rocks you to and fro. The last vestiges of strength that have kept you on your feet all morning burn up and slide away. And I turn away and smile.
Sweet girl. Funny girl. Dead girl.
Chapter 2
John
Tuesday 17 November, 2015
John Graham lovingly ties the red bow in her wavy brown hair and breathes in the sweet scent of his daughter, treasuring these swiftly vanishing moments before he has to put her down and watch her grow again. Now she is six years old. A bright, bubbling age in which every exhalation carries a sentence tumbling from her lips, and the hodgepodge of styles she favours catches the eyes of passing strangers. But soon she will be seven, soon she will be eight. And in no time at all, she will be gliding through their house cloaked in the confidence that comes in with the tide of adolescence, a red stripe of lipstick glistening on her lips, fingers adorned with bold rings and earplugs stuck in firmly like oversized earrings. But for now, he revels in the love she is not yet embarrassed to give.
‘Daddy, can I have some crisps?’ She peers into his eyes, and John laughs, knowing even before she asks the question that his answer will be yes.
‘OK, sweetheart, but you have to ask Mummy first.’
She gives him a firm nod and crawls out of their makeshift tent, trailing behind her the hem of a dress five sizes too big. ‘Don’t trip!’
‘I won’t, Daddy.’
John pulls himself into a sitting position and lets his eyes roam across the fabric of their tent: three duvet covers pegged together and tied to a hook in the ceiling, joining Bonnie’s three favourite cartoon characters in a splash of garish pink. She’d woken him and his wife, Jules, that morning with a trumpet call of excitement because she’d had a ‘really, really, really good idea’.
Despite the way his back lets off a volley of cracks when he crawls out of the tent (he’s in his thirties; he’s allowed to have aches and pains now, surely?), he can’t bring himself to regret even a minute of building the monstrosity with his daughter that morning. And he can’t imagine a better way to celebrate his book becoming a bestseller than with his family, curled up in a very pink tent.
John closes his eyes and listens to his daughter rattling around in the kitchen cupboards, his mind floating back to yesterday when his friend Don called to congratulate him. He has worked hard to get where he is. The path of an author was one paved with blood, sweat and rejections. Mostly rejections. Deception, his latest thriller, is climbing the charts and, after a clutch of published books, he finally feels happy with what he has made for himself.
Bonnie hurtles into the lounge, stumbling over her dress, gripping a packet of crisps in her fingers. ‘Mummy is making sandwiches!’
John wraps his arms around her and pulls her, giggling, onto his lap. ‘Oh, is she? Are you going to share those crisps, monkey?’
She grins. ‘Yes, Daddy.’
John kisses her head and pops a crisp into his mouth, smiling at Jules as she carries a platter of sandwiches into the lounge. She has managed to retain the youth people their age seek out in overpriced lotions and potions. Her skin is smooth and clear, hair bouncing with the rhythm of her gait, eyes bright and curious. She still looks like the Jules he met in his youth, the young woman he knew, with a certainty in the centre of his bones, that he loved, and would love for the rest of his life. They had moved from their home county to the rush of Oxford as soon as they were able, clutching delicate dreams like paper hearts in their hands. In the spare time they managed to hook away from work, they sat side by side, Jules painting to her heart’s content and he jotting down his stories, their fingers brushing when they leant back to judge their work.
John runs a hand over his face, fingers picking out the lines and wrinkles in his skin like the brushstrokes in one of Jules’s paintings. He hasn’t aged as well; the sun has wiped a blanket of freckles over his cheeks, drying out his skin and making him look older. But he doesn’t mind. Jules and Bonnie seem fine with the way he looks. And they, in addition to Don and his parents, are the ones who mean the most to him.
‘Here we are.’ Jules beams, settling the platter on the duvet they have laid across the floor. Her hands find a way to her swollen stomach, tapping a loving rhythm to their unborn child. John is looking forward to meeting their baby with an intensity that sends a tremble through his body. Who will it look like? Who will it be like? Bonnie repeatedly tells them she is going to dress it up in one of her princess dresses. Complete with as many bows and frills and sparkles as she can find.
‘You have some paint on your neck, sweetheart.’ He gestures to his wife’s skin and smiles. He is proud of her, proud of the way she runs her successful gallery, proud of her for juggling a career with a family. It isn’t always easy but they share the care and chores and it works well for them. They have found a pattern and a routine that eases them into the day and eases them back out with enough energy left over for each other.
Jules wipes the paint mark off with a rub of her finger and says, ‘I’m going to look like a Smurf if I get much more on me!’ Bonnie giggles, nestling deeper into the duvet.
John shuffles to the edge as Jules lays herself down, a sigh slipping from her lips like a secret whispered to a friend. He wraps an arm around her and she wraps an arm around Bonnie. And like this they stay, until it is time to start the day again.
Chapter 3
Maisie
Thursday 14 January, 2016
‘So, how was your day?’
Maisie Green runs a hand through her hair and stifles a yawn, sinking back into the sofa cushions as the ache in her shoulder shoots sharp fingers of pain down her back. ‘Good. My new patient was transferred today so it was a bit hectic. How about yours?’
‘I’m trying to think of a really funny anecdote or something to give you but it was terrible. Bill had to break up this brawl, then he got a glass of red thrown in his face, and somehow managed to blame it on me.’ Ben, her partner of three years, chuckles and props his feet on the coffee table, leaning his head back on the sofa cushion.
Maisie smiles, dropping a kiss on his cheek, loving him for transforming any unpleasant situation into something that tempted a giggle rather than a tear. ‘That sounds rough. One day we’ll win the lottery and you’ll be able to tell that boss of yours what you think.’
‘Can we win it in time for my shift tomorrow?’
‘I’m not sure I can pull it off that quick.’
‘That’s a shame.’ Ben weaves his fingers through hers and grins. ‘How is everything else at work?’
Maisie is an ICU nurse and her days are usually divided between assessing her patients’ conditions, monitoring and safeguarding their care, acting as an advocate for them and their families, and supporting them through the veil of turmoil that cloaks their lives. So much of what she does is emotional. Yes, she administers medication to her patients, bathes them, and cleans and tests the equipment that keeps their bodies ticking over while they heal, but she also has to be on hand to advise, support and talk to her patients’ families, stapling together their pasts with their panicked new lives.
Maisie has seen the varying shades of grief and loss. Wives, husbands, mothers, fathers, people from all walks of life… her job is to help them cross the border into this clinical world of disinfectant handwash and soggy tissues. It’s a savage world, one in which they’re no longer authors of their fates, but living with the influence of brain scans, bed sores, antibiotics, drips, and the sudden impulse to pray when they haven’t prayed before. She has seen men and women clinging to hope with steel in their fingers, chanting comforting words, hands shaking and lips wobbling. They walk up to her, telling themselves that today – today! – she’ll give them the news they’re hoping for. Today, they’ll sit beside their loved one and no longer have to cling to hope, but feel it, truly feel it. For the first time in a long time it will seep into their bones. For the first time in a long time, they will find the parts of themselves they thought they’d lost.
Maisie squeezes Ben’s hand and smiles. Although Maisie knows she shouldn’t share her patient’s details, she trusts Ben implicitly. ‘Emotional, exhausting. My new patient, Tim, was attacked and found in the middle of the street a couple of weeks ago. At least that was what I was told. The detective investigating didn’t tell us much else. They’re not sure whether it was some random attack or something premeditated. They’re looking for the culprit now but I don’t think they’re very optimistic about finding him or her.’
‘That’s terrible! How are his family coping?’
‘They’re struggling. Heidi, his wife, is broken up. He was in a coma until two days ago; now he’s progressed into a vegetative state. She can’t quite wrap her head around it, I don’t think. And she’s heavily pregnant – only a month away from her due date – with a little kid at home.’
‘God, poor lady.’
‘She’s dealing with it well. She’s a strong one, I think. And she has the support of their friend Watson. He seems like a good guy. I really feel for them both.’
‘How long have she and Tim been together?’
‘Fifteen years.’ Maisie nods, thinking of Heidi with her wild blonde curls and bright-green eyes, black bags hanging like small thunderclouds beneath. She’d stood over her husband’s bed, hand sailing back and forth between her chest and swollen stomach, as if it couldn’t quite decide where it needed to be. For the most part, she simply looked lost. Someone suspended in a state of shock. But, for a moment, all of that had given way and Maisie had thought she’d glimpsed something else. A swift shift in expression, a bowing of her shoulders, a balling of her hands, lips thinning to pale strips of ribbon, fear-laden eyes locked on the floor, then suddenly skittering across the room as if searching for the source of a noise. It was as if a film of something had settled across her face, a reality, a truth that, for a few seconds, was laid bare for those around her to see, all before her composure returned and she wiped away this look like she would wipe away dust on a shelf.
Maisie didn’t ask Heidi why. She didn’t want to intrude on her grief. She had never seen a reaction like that before, not from the other distraught wives who sat weeping by their husbands’ sides, or the girlfriends who looked like big-eyed children as she gently explained treatment and tried to buoy their hopes. Heidi wept for her husband, fear and pain painted clearly across her face, but there was something else too. Something she was trying to keep hidden.
Her friend Watson, a tall, bearded man, fetched her tea and snacks although they were only pushed to the side and steadily grew into a small tower of food. He constantly held her hand, his eyes finding their way to Tim, his fingers removing a tear from his cheek when he thought no one else was watching. Maisie spoke words of comfort and eased them into a new world as she had done with so many others before.
Some families struggled to talk in front of the patient but, when they did, it soothed their fears and lightened the atmosphere. She always asked them questions that allowed them to open up a little more easily. ‘Jam or marmalade? Rainy days or sunny days? Cats or dogs? Which does he or she prefer? Tell me the simple things.’
‘I hope this chap, Tim, recovers. Does he have a fair chance?’
‘He does but then it’s early days. Heidi was telling me this really sweet story about how he injured himself when he was little and his mum bought him a pair of Mickey Mouse socks to cheer him up. He kept them on for weeks, literally, wouldn’t take them off because he thought they were lucky. He still has them.’ Ben inches down the sofa, resting his chin on his hand. ‘His daughter had to read this story out to her class a few months ago – she was so nervous. Apparently Tim washed his socks with a pair of her own and told her she’d have some of his luck. It worked a treat because the little girl pulled it off.’
‘That’s adorable.’
‘Mmm. Heidi’s not sure about letting her visit Tim. It’s tough. She had a mishap at school – a kid pushed her off the climbing frame and she broke her hand so she’s feeling a bit vulnerable. Heidi’s worried it might be a bit much for her to see Tim like that. Sometimes it helps, sometimes it just upsets everyone. Always depends on the people.’
‘What do you think?’
‘I think it’s worth a shot if it helps the little girl.’ Maisie nods, visualising Heidi’s expression; how, despite fishing for a look of calm, her anguish had been brushed across her face like black paint over a white wall. Her reaction to seeing Tim was one of the strangest Maisie had experienced. She had cared for countless VS patients over the years, and each one seemed like a shell, their personality replaced with an abyss that crippled those around them. In her precious moments of quiet, Maisie sometimes wondered if it would have been easier if they had stayed in a coma for ever. At least then they’d look as if they were sleeping. In a vegetative state they were watching, moving, reacting to the environment around them. But it was only reflexes, would only ever be reflexes. Until the brain had had a chance to heal, Tim would still be lodged firmly in the landscape of his mind.