Little Liar: A nail-biting, gripping psychological thriller Page 5

  Barry would snigger at her when he caught her talking to herself. He said she sounded completely bonkers.

  When she saw her phone lying on the table where she had left it last night, she wondered if maybe she was. Gemma Bradley had come across as a charming, affable woman, albeit a little neurotic. Perhaps Rosie was simply a spoilt brat who made her mother’s life a misery. Who was Mira to judge? She remembered how she had left their house. How rude she had been, flying out without a proper goodbye. What would Peter have made of her? With a shiver, she realised she must have looked like a loony, and not just in the quaint way Barry viewed her.

  As she sat dipping her toast into her egg, dip, dip, dip, thinking more than eating, she heard children’s voices next door. She charged up the stairs, knelt on the toilet seat and pushed open the window, just a crack, to see down into the Bradleys’ back garden.

  Peter Bradley was crouching at Rosie’s feet, straightening her tie. She was sulking. He kissed her nose. Her smile was almost there, but not quite. Her cheeks looked tear-stained, unless they were the shadows from the apple tree. The little boy – Noah, she remembered he was called – struggled to put his rucksack on his back. Peter stood by the door in his suit, sipping his cup of coffee as he watched his children walk across the lawn to school.

  Noah sped ahead, leaving Rosie slouching behind.

  With a horrible start, Mira noticed Rosie was cradling one arm in the other. All the feelings of last night came rushing back. The lightness of Rosie’s arm. The fear on the child’s face. Somewhere inside her, she recognised this fear.

  If she didn’t do something about this, she would never forgive herself.

  She ran downstairs, checking her watch, knowing she would be late for work if she made the call, knowing she had to make the call.

  Her flesh trembled as she scrolled down.

  The police station telephone rang and rang. Come on, pick-up. Pick-up! If she didn’t do it now, she might lose her nerve. Barry would persuade her out of it. He might not understand what it was like to have a gut feeling about something, to feel with such certainty that something wasn’t right. If she waited around for conclusive evidence, it might be too late.

  She kneaded her fingers into her thigh, through the cotton of her skirt. Another memory was rolling up through her like nausea. She looked down at her knees. She saw small, wet prints. She saw salt water marks. She saw little brown flowers.

  Then she remembered standing in the bathroom of the house she grew up in, at the plastic pink sink with the mirrored cabinet above it. The soap was too thin and it broke in two. She had rubbed it into the brown flowers of her dress until the salt marks had dissolved away. Her sister, Deirdre, had banged on the door. Mira had scrubbed until the skin on her fingers was sore. The dress was limp and sodden on the hanger, like a sad, deflated version of herself. She had run out of the bathroom, ignoring Deirdre’s taunts, downstairs to the airing cupboard, where she had draped the dress carefully over the padded red cover of the boiler. It would be dry in time for the party and her mother wouldn’t be angry with her.

  Forty-five minutes later, she had opened the airing cupboard, ready to slip the warmed material on over her pants, only to find that it had fallen down into its own puddle on the floor. It was as wet as it had been in the sink.

  In the car, her grubby corduroy flares and Airtex shirt had crawled with insects, or so she had imagined. She had wanted to rip Deirdre’s velvet party dress at the sleeve.

  ‘You’re going to be the only one in the whole party who isn’t dressed properly,’ her mother had ranted as she manoeuvred their Ford Cortina out of their drive. Slumped in the backseat, Mira had watched the 1970s bungalows pass by her window. ‘Always the same, you are, just like your father,’ her mother had hissed.

  Always the same, always causing trouble.

  Mira hung up the phone and wiped a layer of sweat from her forehead.

  The troublesome Mira had grown-up. The new Mira was a much-loved and relied-upon teaching assistant, loved by the children, loved by the staff, loved by Barry. She was Mira Meerkat, no less.

  After work, when Barry was home, she planned to present her dilemma about Rosie Bradley to him, over a glass of something in a relaxing bath, where she could think straight. She would tell him every last detail of last night. If Barry decided she should call PC Yorke, then she would. Nothing was real until she had talked it through with Barry.

  Having turned off her phone, she went straight into Barry’s office, knelt at the chest of drawers and brought out the album. She opened it up to the page where Deirdre was digging a hole in the flowerbeds next to their mother’s roses. Her blonde pudgy sister in red Mary Jane’s and a home-knitted cardigan. She was adorable. Seeing her cheeky smile and chubby wrists made Mira feel better. It replaced the vile memory that had resurfaced. It hadn’t been all bad when she was little.

  Her mind had lost its sense of direction. It seemed to be taking her back, not forward. This horrible business next door had triggered something deep down inside her, and it was bringing to the surface things she’d rather forget. The memories that came to her now felt worse than the reality had been for her back then. Or were they nightmares? Could you have nightmares while awake? Was she going mad?

  Stop that. Get over it, Mira, she told herself. Stop these destructive thoughts. Yes, her mother had been strict. So what. Bad memories were bound to pop up from time to time. There was nothing to be scared of.

  Before she replaced the album, she noticed the three old Tesco carrier bags that were stuffed full of instant photographs from her childhood. She shuddered. She and Deidre had found them under their mother’s bed after she had died. Although Mira had insisted on taking them, she had never dared to open them. They had been sitting there in the drawer, knotted up, for ten years.

  Decisively, Mira lugged each bag out of the drawer and dumped them onto the dining room table.

  She heaved a ragged sigh, slurped her cold cup of tea and glared at the bags. ‘There, now. I’m not scared of you, see?’

  Chapter Seven

  All of the clothes were pretty. Pink lace trims. Cream faux-fur shrugs. White ruffled shirts. It was a risk to buy a dress for Rosie without her with me.

  Nevertheless, I had decided that it was worth it to see the enchantment and surprise on her face when I presented it to her in a smart bag with ribbon and tissue paper. And it would be just in time for Charlotte’s birthday party at the weekend. More than anything, I hungered to get rid of the unpleasant aftertaste of our row, to paper over the memory of our disorderly tussle. The skin across my whole body flushed as I thought of her rolling around on the floor holding her wrist.

  I picked up the pink patent slip-ons. The shop assistant’s ironed blonde hair flicked onto the leather of my handbag as she bent down to straighten the rows I had disrupted.

  The minutes were ticking away. I had an hour before I was due back at work to meet my managing director for ‘a little chat’. I was nervous about the meeting and flustered with indecision about the dress.

  ‘They are our bestsellers,’ the shop assistant said, pushing her tortoise-shell glasses onto her head.

  The boutique was too quiet, exclusive, uncomfortably so. I was ready to bolt.

  ‘Very lovely,’ I replied politely.

  A little girl’s dream, surely. My mother had forced me to wear brown buckle-ups until I was twelve. Whenever Rosie had wanted patent leather shoes or slip-ons, I, too, had always said no. This time I would get her what she wanted. Was pink too babyish? Had she grown out of pink? I wasn’t sure. I wasn’t sure I knew what she liked. Although I pushed that thought aside.

  In the baby section, I spotted an adorable stripy Babygro. My hand moved under my coat, to touch, to connect with that tiny six-week-old embryo. I imagined folding new Babygros into the drawers in the spare bedroom, which I would transform into a nursery, with fresh paint and soft rugs. I would reassemble the wooden cot I had used for Rosie and Noah and position it by
the window with a view of the apple tree. I wanted to take care to tie the white waffle cot protector to the bars with proper little bows and position a colourful mobile above the changing table. My nesting instincts usually hit me towards the end of my pregnancies, but maybe I would give myself more time to fix the room up this time round.

  I refolded the soft Babygro. This was about Rosie, not the baby.

  My fingers danced across the dresses on the rail, and stopped at a blue polka-dot dress with a drop waist. I pulled it out, trying to imagine Rosie wearing it. She would look beautiful in anything I bought. I tried to think about what she would like. Did she like blue? What was her favourite colour? How awful that I didn’t know. I cringed, layering the guilt.

  My dithering was bothering me. At work, I was considered focussed and purposeful. I was trained to coolly assess corporate lawyers for the firm, grill them and charm them; analyse them with rigorous psychometric testing, run workshops and make notes on their behaviour. I was employed to recruit dependable workaholic sociopaths to head departments and make the corporate world go round. But I was flummoxed by the task of choosing a dress for my own daughter.

  The shop assistant was refolding the Babygro I had just folded. I needed her help. ‘Excuse me. I think I do need some help actually. I’m looking for a party dress for my ten-year-old.’

  ‘Of course, madam. What is her colouring?’

  ‘She has beautiful long black hair,’ I smiled, warmed by the vision of her. ‘And she has lovely pale skin. And big blue eyes.’

  The shop assistant’s head was cocked to the side. ‘She sounds beautiful.’

  ‘She is.’ I was slightly embarrassed. All mothers thought their children were beautiful. This woman must have heard it a thousand times before.

  ‘And what’s she like?’

  ‘Ummm, well,’ I began. The question panicked me. ‘She likes to be the boss,’ I laughed.

  ‘Okay, so she’s quite sophisticated then.’

  She walked straight over to a navy-blue dress that was hanging near the shop window. It had one long silk sleeve and the other was shoulder-less.

  ‘It’s very elegant...’ I began.

  ‘It was featured in Teen Vogue last month.’

  ‘I’d wear it. But I think it might be a little too sophisticated for her.’

  ‘They grow up too fast these days, don’t they?’

  ‘Yes, they do,’ I agreed with a tingle of dread as I imagined Rosie as a teenager.

  ‘What about this one?’

  It was more like a sundress, with a white sweetheart bodice, detachable spaghetti straps and little daisies dotted across the skirt. It was the kind of dress I would have dreamed of wearing as a child. I took it from the shop assistant, felt the crisp cotton and noticed the yellow gauze that filled out the underskirt.

  ‘Perfect. The yellow will look lovely with her dark hair. Have you got any shoes that might go with it?’

  The woman helped me choose some silver slip-ons, and also persuaded me to buy a matching bag, white socks and even a children’s perfume that smelt sickly like sweets. With the receipt, she added a packet of Love Hearts into the bag, which I removed as soon as I left the shop.

  As I raced back to the office, I felt lighter, wishing I could go home early to give it to her now. Two fingers to you, Mira Entwistle, and to all your nasty judgements. How dare she check on us like that? She knew nothing about Rosie and me.

  When I walked back into the office, swinging the pale grey shopping bag, my assistant gasped. ‘I love Coco’s. I bought my niece a little scarf in there once.’

  I resisted the urge to unpick the sticker on the tissue paper to show her.

  Lisa had impeccable taste. She wore black pencil skirts and silk blouses and very high heels, like a secretary in American romantic comedies. I had always felt rather plain next to her in meetings. My hair was cut well, but it never shone like hers, and my skinny legs got lost in my unfashionable suits. I resolved to make the time someday to take notes on where she bought her make-up and clothes so that I could refresh my tired, conservative wardrobe and buy some face creams or foundations that weren’t supermarket brand for a change.

  ‘I must be paying you too much, Lisa.’ I winked at her.

  ‘I wish,’ Lisa retorted, leaping up and following me into my glass office.

  She reeled off a list of all the people who had called while I was out and stuck the Post-its on my desk next to the various aphorisms I had written on a cluster of neon pink Post-it notes:

  Live life to the fullest!

  * * *

  If you don’t believe in yourself, nobody else will!

  * * *

  Carpe diem!

  * * *

  It always seems impossible until it’s done!

  * * *

  Failure will never overtake me if my determination to succeed is strong enough!

  and so on.

  ‘Have you managed to find out what this “little chat” with Richard is all about?’

  ‘No,’ Lisa shrugged, and avoided eye contact.

  ‘Lisa?’

  ‘Don’t know a thing, honest.’ A crinkle arrived on her flawless young forehead. ‘Richard said two o’clock remember,’ she added, swivelling away to tap at her keyboard.

  It was obvious that Lisa was holding something back. She and Richard’s secretary, Becky, were close friends, and wickedly indiscreet with each other.

  ‘You’re making me nervous,’ I said, pulling on my suit jacket, feeling the heat in the room suddenly, wondering whether it had been wise to spend all that money on Rosie. Redundancies were a daily occurrence these days.

  ‘Please don’t be late for him, will you?’ Lisa urged, waving me away with one hand.

  Richard’s office was five floors up on floor twenty-five.

  Floor twenty-five was very different to floor twenty.

  The vast room was open-plan with rows of desks where the bankers sat in front of their huge screens, scrutinising indecipherable columns of numbers and talking heatedly into headphone receivers.

  I recognised some of the men I had employed for the company: Matthew Willoughby – 32, First from Bristol, requested a salary way past his pay-grade, scored four out of five on the performance grades, letting himself down on ‘openness’; Jonathan Pressfield – 29, worked the trading floor from sixteen years old, just made redundant, two children to feed, three out of five, hence the redundancy. He wasn’t ruthless enough. I liked him. He made the team a happier place, which was why I had originally hired him, against Richard’s advice. I made a note to pass by his desk after this meeting to see how he was getting on.

  Becky was not at her desk to act as gatekeeper to Richard, so I tried to lurk in plain view. Through his open door – the only door on the whole floor – he beckoned me in while still holding the phone to one ear. My throat felt tight and I wondered if any sound would come out when I said hello.

  Did he look shifty? Did he look like a man who was about to sack me?

  His hair was tamed into black, smooth waves across his skull. His cheeks looked buffed, as though he’d been given a rigorous face scrub from his mum, or his wife, who were probably interchangeable.

  Richard wouldn’t look shifty if he was about to shoot me in the head.

  He hung up. ‘Sorry about that. Hello Gemma, please, sit,’ he smiled, beckoning me over to the Chesterfield sofa, incongruous within the modern glass office.

  I sat at the other end and crossed my legs, and then uncrossed them. The leather creaked.

  ‘So, how are the kids?’

  ‘Great, yes.’ I nodded, thinking ‘get the fuck to the point!’

  ‘Noah still playing tennis?’

  To uphold good relations, Richard always held one key personal fact about his employees to trot out at appropriate moments.

  ‘His serves are better than mine,’ I replied.

  ‘Good lad! Right, well, let’s get to the point, shall we?’

  Another nod was
all I could manage.

  He continued. ‘You’ve probably heard the rumours that Cathy is leaving us?’

  My palms tingled. ‘Yes?’

  ‘We wondered,’ he began, jiggling his leather brogue in my direction, ‘if you would consider filling her shoes?’

  His smile had hit his eyes now. A rush of pride overshadowed any of the practical considerations about my undeclared pregnancy and I sat up poker-straight, as though called to attention. Cathy Knowles was Head of Recruitment across Europe. It was a significant promotion. My salary would leap.

  ‘I would be delighted to,’ I answered firmly, trying to sound measured.

  He clapped his hands. ‘That’s great news. Now, I can’t talk salaries or contracts yet, we’ll have to go through the proper channels, as you well know. We’ll be going ahead with the boring bloody process of advertising and interviewing externally, but I wanted to reassure you that, in my book, it’s just a formality. We don’t want to lose you to some headhunter while we fanny around with protocol, now, do we?’

  ‘No fannying around,’ I grinned. ‘Thank you very much for the opportunity. I’m really looking forward to the challenge.’ I was eager. My head spun. Although I knew the job wasn’t quite mine until contracts were signed, I couldn’t wait to tell Peter.

  * * *

  On the train back home, I thought practically about what a promotion would entail. I hadn’t been honest with Richard about the baby. I had been swept up in the moment, desperate to enjoy the accolade. The promotion was flattering. No, it was more than that, it was what I had worked fifteen years towards. But if he knew I was pregnant, I doubted he would want to ‘fanny around’ finding maternity cover for me. I had six weeks to declare it before the three-month mark. I had to work out what this new job would mean for the baby, for the family, for me.

  It meant longer hours. It meant working weekends. It meant regular trips abroad. It meant much more stress. And it meant even less time with the children. This baby would be my third child to experience nannies when very young.