House of Lies: A gripping thriller with a shocking twist

Nabbing a cab, I turn up with an hour to kill before my appointment later at the police station in Hesters Way. I don’t want sex and I don’t think I can iron things out, hey presto, but checking in might, at least, help me to appreciate my lover’s point of view. Maybe he’s plain scared of being a dad. Lots of blokes are like that. His parents died in a boat accident when he was eleven and an elderly godmother brought him up, a lady I never had the chance to meet because she passed away not long after we met. Despite the tragedy of his childhood Tom never gives the impression of having a messed up life, and he rarely talks about his past, although it would be fairly impossible to emerge from that sort of thing unscathed. And true, I occasionally catch him with a lost look in his eyes. My upbringing, punctured by divorce, seems like a saunter in the sunlight by comparison. When Tom walked into my life he seemed such a good fit because he was so different. We certainly clicked on a sexual level. Naively, I never factored in his apparent lack of commitment when it came to kids.

I open the door and almost trip over Tom’s sturdy sports bag. About to call out, I hear his low voice humming from the kitchen. Probably talking to Reg, although one o’clock in the afternoon counts as dawn in my brother’s eyes.

Intrigued, I creep towards the kitchen door, which is ajar. I hope to surprise him, in a good way, of course, but instinctively I hold back and, as sneaky as it is, find myself listening. It becomes clear that Tom is on a mobile, a fairly rare event. Do I imagine a thread of panic in Tom’s low and urgent tone?

“Don’t you understand? Anyone could see it … What do you mean, hang loose?… It’s all right for you, but what if there’s another cock-up?… She doesn’t suspect … No way … Well, you’d better find out.” I blink. Was she me? My head spins. Gripped with nerves, I’m only thinly able to process that the person on the other end of the line is delivering a lecture. Eventually, Tom says, “Yes, I think that’s best … When?… No sooner?… All right, if you say so, the usual place … Wednesday.” He hangs up.

Now I was in a bind. Burst in and shout “Honey, I’m home,” better still, “What the hell was that all about?” Or should I hightail it back to the front door and pretend I never set foot in the house? Crushed with indecision for all of two seconds, I blunder in at the very point the landline rings.

“No worries, I’ll get it,” I say, retreating and glad of the diversion.

“Is Tom there?” I recognise the voice immediately. It’s the sour-faced manager of the hotel and restaurant where Tom works. A call like this spells trouble. At once, I see my rare evening alone with Tom vanishing into next week.

“I’ll get him.”

Tom pops his head around the door. “For me?” He is unflustered and not remotely guilty. He is back to his default position: calm as a secluded reservoir in high summer.

“Work.” I hand him the phone.

I leave him to it and stroll into the kitchen. Surprisingly, Reg’s laptop is open on the kitchen table. My naturally inquisitive nature kicks in. At a glance I see that it’s open on Facebook. Tom is one of those people who ‘lurk’ but don’t post. What’s he up to?

I look. Compute. Stare. A strange buzzing sound rattles through my brain, only half of which absorbs what I’m viewing.

A good-looking brunette called Stephanie Charteris looks back at me. Casually dressed. Smiling. Pleased with life. A more detailed inspection reveals an oval-shaped face, olive skin and bone structure. Only her eyes, brown like Tom’s, are different to mine. Her hair would be similar too, except mine is currently dyed deep magenta. Other than that, she’s a dead ringer for me.

Unable to take it in, the other part of my brain jots down the setting. A castle with a cannon in the foreground. Park with benches. People sitting, cartons of coffee clutched, some eating sandwiches. My eyes scroll down to the message: ‘Happy times. I miss you so much.’ Instantly, I recoil and my blood sprints. What is Tom doing viewing a woman who looks so similar to me?

“There was a mix-up over a game order,” Tom says, striding in. I jump aside, desperate to quiz him, yet not keen to be caught snooping. A pulse flutters above my top lip that I can’t control as Tom, with a cool half-smile and without a word, reaches over, closes down the page and switches off the laptop. He doesn’t explain that he borrowed it from Reg, although I know this is not unusual and that Reg doesn’t mind.

I nod rapidly. My skin feels raw, irritated, physically reflecting my state of mind. Jealousy is an alien emotion to me, yet following on from the morning’s revelation, I register something dark, bitter and corrosive, which is how I imagine it to feel.

“A potential crisis averted,” he says. “Didn’t expect you to be home,” he adds with a loose grin, as if we might have an action replay of sex in the sitting room.

I force a smile that hurts my face. “Forgot something.” Improvising, I swipe an apple from the fruit bowl. “Gotta go. Appointment at the police station,” I say, with as much throwaway style as I can manage. Colour instantly drains from Tom’s face.

“What?”

“For work,” I say uneasily, making a fast exit. Inside, my heart is thumping.

Chapter 3

“Are you getting this all down?”

Detective Sergeant Mike Shenton seems like a no-nonsense copper. After making a wisecrack about my unusual surname, we get down to business. Except I don’t.

Tom’s phone conversation spins around inside my head, each damning sentence equal to the combination numbers of a safe. However I rotate, slice and dice them, I cannot open the contents.

“Mmm? Yes, of course, you said that violence was nothing like the media presented.” I recite like teacher’s pet, the statement an own-goal seeing as I am part of the ‘meedja’, but I can’t give a rat’s arse. “We’re more likely to be the victim of someone we know than be attacked by a stranger.”

Detective Sergeant Mike Shenton’s Air Force-blue blue eyes smile back, my reward for giving him the impression I’m keeping up. He’s nice looking, clean-shaven and with even features, but I’m too ensnared in analysis of Tom’s phone call to pay much attention.

“That’s not to say you can’t take simple measures,” Shenton reminds me. “And of course if you suspect …”

I tune out. She doesn’t suspect … Suspect what? If the alarm in Tom’s voice is anything to go by, I don’t think a nice surprise is on Tom’s agenda. And who the hell was on the other end of the line? Could it be ‘that’ woman – the pretty brunette on Facebook? If so, oh my God. Was that why he doesn’t want a child? Does he ever plan to marry me? Is he cheating?

Attempting to shut Tom off and look interested, I gaze at Shenton, who is still talking. Elliott is a dinosaur for detail and I worry I missed something important. I nod and grin as Shenton runs through a list of bog-standard safety precautions that any sensible person past the age of twenty should automatically know. Two stand out from the crowd: walk with confidence and, if suspecting trouble, notify the police. Hmmm. A mate of mine once alerted the police when a brawl broke out in the street. He got arrested.

Thirty minutes later, I wrap up the session with my tame copper and head back to the newspaper office. Helen is out and Elliott, thank the deities, is tucked away in his office engaged in a high-level meeting with the publisher of our newspaper and sister magazine. Rumour has it that both are in trouble. This should bother me more than it does, but I’m a glass-half-full merchant. Or I was until Tom took a dirty great gulp out of it.

Sneaking a quick glance over my shoulder, I slip my laptop from my bag, log on to Facebook and check out the brunette. I gawp again at the pile of ruins in the background and wonder where exactly it is.

Stephanie Charteris’s profile tells me that she lives in Shropshire, not a part of the world with which I’m familiar. My face clouds when I see how old she is: twenty-sodding-nine, nearly a decade younger than me. It turns out that she is a sales advisor for Argo Homes, a national property developer. Clearly, she has friends, both male and female. She also has a fat black cat called ‘Theo’. She makes no political statements. She doesn’t push what she does for a living. She doesn’t get into rants or scrapes.

My eyes strain so tight they feel as if they are about to eject from my eye-sockets. I squint again, but there is no mistake. In one photograph, Stephanie holds a baby of indeterminate sex. I shoot through the rest of her details but there is no other reference, pictorial or otherwise. Could be anybody’s child, yet from her wide-hipped stance, the evident pride in her eyes, I don’t think so. Not every mother plasters their profile with their offspring, especially if they are uber-private about their personal life. More common ground with Tom, I think, jolting with alarm from a ton of mashed-up feelings. The only saving grace is that Tom does not appear in any of her photographs. My relief lasts less than a nano-second. Why would he? Tom doesn’t allow a digital or pictorial record of his existence.

With the beginnings of a headache, I check out new development sites in Shropshire. Not one belongs to Argo Homes. Click and tap, a scroll through the website reveals two developments in the neighbouring county of Herefordshire. Shared with two other developers, the first site encompasses six hundred houses that include starter, town house, and three-, four- and five-bedroom properties geared for working people and families. Another smaller development in which Argo is the sole developer seems more appropriate for the retired. My eyes graze through the spiel and cut to the chase. I write down the telephone number of the sales office at which there are three advisors, including Stephanie Charteris, her name seared into my psyche with the equivalent of a branding iron.

I get rid of the page and wonder how to talk to Tom later. Should I confront him and reveal what I overheard, and entirely ruin the evening? Perhaps it would be best if I wait and see if he speaks first. There could be a simple explanation, surely, one I’m missing? I remind myself that I rarely flare up at everyday inconveniences and that I’m a slow-burner in a crisis. Yet this has the makings of a catastrophe and one I’m not sure I can handle. Honestly, I feel impossibly jumpy – an alien emotion. Truth is I love Tom. I envisage spending the rest of my life with him. I planned a family and …

In a dilemma, I do what all women do in this predicament: phone a friend. My best mate, Victoria Braiche, is an actor, code for she works in a call centre. I’m a little unfair. She used to have a top London agent, did a couple of commercials and took small parts in Rep and, according to her, had a walk-on part in a gangster movie nobody’s heard of. When she isn’t ‘resting’, she acts in local amateur productions held at the Playhouse at the end of the Bath Road. Last time I saw her, she played a ‘weeping woman’.

“Vick, it’s me, Roz.” All my friends shorten my name.

“Hiya. Luckily, you caught me on a toilet break.”

I squirm at the very idea. These call centres work their staff like dogs. “Are you free straight after work for a quick chat? I’m having dinner with Tom, but if I could pop in first …” My voice peters out. Vick knows me well. She’ll fathom that something’s up.

“You okay?”

“Yes.” No.

“Half-past five?”

“Fabulous, see you then.”

Elliott’s door swings open and burly men’s voices bloat the dry office air. I put my cell phone away and get busy looking busy. A stout man glides past and throws me a disdainful glance. Probably my hair, although it’s not as striking as the peacock blue I sported last month, my way of paying homage to Picasso’s Blue period. Not really – Vick made the facetious remark and it remains a kind of private joke between us. Thank God he can’t see my latest tattoo – a humming bird – discreetly positioned on my left shoulder blade and covered by my warm winter dress. Two other men follow. They are dressed in suits with ties. Official. Elliott fills the doorframe of his office, hulking and broody. I can tell that things are bad, but don’t say a word. I’ve my own shit to deal with.

“All right?” Elliott finally says when they are gone.

I nod.

Anything but.

Chapter 4

Vick lives in a terraced home that makes an IKEA interior look sterile. Muted Cream. Muted Blue. Scandi-Mute. In person, she is not in the least washed out. Big-boned, she has a wide, open and honest-looking face, great skin and generous figure. Her nose is straight. Her eyes are hazel, flecked with green. Unlike me, her hair is short, curly and blonde. She wears jeans with a cerise- coloured shrug over a French-grey shirt. She is the kind of person who engenders trust. Anyone would talk to her freely and reveal his or her secrets. Obviously in the wrong career, she’d make a great investigative journalist.

“Coffee?”

“Lovely,” I say. “How’s it going?”

We sit at her scrubbed-pine kitchen table. Nothing on the work surfaces bar essentials: a toaster, kettle and coffee-making machine. Makes my kitchen look like a hoarder’s paradise.

“Not bad. Work is shit.”

I watch as she spoons coffee beans into a grinder. Serious stuff. Me, I reach for the nearest jar of instant.

“But I had a call from my new agent today.” She says it with a flourish, a ‘ta-da’ in her tone.

“Really?”

Vick offers a toothy grin. “Don’t look so surprised.”

“Didn’t mean it like that. You know I’ve always been your biggest fan.”

“I couldn’t have kept the faith without you.”

“Nonsense. So what’s she got planned?”

I don’t hear the answer because it’s blasted out by the sound of beans pulverised to dust. The smell is better than the blare.

“Sorry,” she says, screwing up her eyes in apology.

“You were saying?”

“Only a role in some Agatha Christie number.” She finishes with a glorious smile.

“Wow, when did you find out?”

“Message on my answerphone when I got back. I phoned her straight away and bingo!”

“God, tell me more.”

“Later,” she says, a stern expression in her eyes. “What gives?”

I take a breath and tell her everything about my morning with Tom, bar the sex, and then motor through the overheard conversation and my find on Facebook in the afternoon. Vick fiddles with the coffee-making contraption.

“He went absolutely schiz,” I say, miserable at the memory.

She puffs out through her cheeks. “Blimey, that’s a lot to take in. So are you suggesting Tom is cheating on you?”

“I don’t know, but after his revelations about no children and, frankly, no wedding, not that this bothers me so much,” I add hastily, thinking that I’m a liar, “it seems a distinct possibility.” Now that I say it aloud, the full force of its implications shrivels me.

“Sugar and cream?” she says, pouring out a thick stream of strong dark liquid into two white mugs, no adornment.

“Cream, please.”

She pushes my drink towards me; sits down opposite. “The kid in the Facebook photograph could be someone else’s.”

I agree without conviction.

“Repeat the conversation you overheard again.”

I do, word for horrible word.

“So, he’s going to meet someone, maybe this woman, on Wednesday,” Vick suggests. Less than a week’s time, I think anxiously. “Simple. Follow him.”

“Wednesday’s our busiest day at the newspaper. I can’t take off.”

“But I could.”

“You can’t. He’ll recognise you.”

Vick arches an eyebrow and flashes a smile. “I’m an actor, mistress of disguise.”

I have a sudden vision of my best friend dressed in a raincoat with a false moustache and spectacles with milk-bottle lenses. Scrub that thought. “You won’t be allowed to take time off work.”

“Who said anything about asking? I’ll throw a sickie.”

“They’ll fire you.”

“So what? If this role comes off, I’m packing my job in anyway.”

“Goodness,” I stutter. This really is a dream come true and I’m pleased for her. I’m less thrilled by her next piece of news.

“Could be away for several months. It’s a touring theatre company.”

I make all the right noises despite the sense of impending abandonment.

“Anyway, this isn’t really helping. Why don’t you check Tom’s phone?”

I baulk at the prospect. It displays such a blatant lack of trust. If Tom did that to me, I’d be furious. I burble the same.

“Desperate measures,” Vick says, as if Tom’s behaviour hands me carte blanche to do as I please. Truth is, part of me doesn’t want to know. If I find a string of texts or calls to an unknown number, I’m sunk.

“Pity he isn’t more active online,” Vick muses. “A quick search could yield all manner of results.”

Simply because Tom appears to have no digital footprint does not rule out that somewhere, some place he is as busy as hell online. There’s the Dark Net that people keep banging on about, usually with heavy associations with child sexual exploitation. Hell, what am I thinking? Thankfully, Vick interrupts my more wild-card thoughts. “What about the castle?”

“What about it? A pile of ruins isn’t that identifiable.”

Vick flicks a smile, tips her head to one side. Her earrings catch the light and jangle. “You know, there could be a rational explanation. I mean the woman could be ancient history. A hanger-on. She could be nobody at all.”

I wish I could believe my friend. She peers at me over the rim of her coffee cup. “Is there something you’re not saying?”

My mouth tightens in dismay. “She looks like me.”

“What?”

“Here, I’ll show you.”

I drag out my laptop, fire it up and point out Stephanie Charteris. Vick’s strained expression, the way her cheekbones tug, tells me that she’s as astonished as me. She looks again. “The child definitely looks like the mother.”

My head snaps up. “Oh God, do you really think so?”

“I didn’t say the child looks like Tom,” Vick says in reproof.

“What about the rest of the stuff,” I say, shutting the laptop down, “the phone call?”

“Only way to find out – ask him.”

I sip my coffee. I know this.

“Or you could ask her.”

“God, Vick, I don’t think I have the nerve.”

Her expression infers that I’m not normally lacking when it comes to courage. I might be horizontal – admittedly not at this very moment – but I don’t lack fire when the need arises. I haven’t managed this long without a shred of steel in my adult backbone.

“Do you really think Tom means what he says?” Vick says after a pause. “You know, about kids.”

“Vick, if you’d seen him this morning, you’d understand he meant every single word.” I look her in the eye. Honest people find it difficult to be dishonest. Something about the way in which Vick fails to hold my gaze, the way in which she cradles her drink, the slight hunch in her shoulders, reveals there is something she isn’t saying.

“What?” I push her.

She returns the mug of coffee to the table, untouched. I hold my breath so tight I feel dizzy. Her eyes remain fixed on the scrubbed wood. “I like Tom. I like him a lot. I know he makes you happy, Roz.”

“You think he’s a player, don’t you?” I blurt out.

She looks back up. Straightens. Gathers herself. She doesn’t take her eyes off me. “Seems to be a popular pastime.” There’s a cynical, bitter, cheated-upon twist to her voice. I get it. Vick’s love life was, and is, a mess. “I’ve known a few chefs in my time. Some prone to alcohol addiction alcoholism and, occasionally, pathologically hostile, and every one of them is highly strung and angst-ridden.”

“But that’s not Tom at all.”

“He’s no drunk.” She speaks in a tone that leaves open the possibility of other unappealing traits. “I know you both seem loved-up.” Seem. Oh my God, what is Vick driving at? That I’m deluded, that my heart rules my head, that I’m bonkers to pin so much on Tom as prospective father material? Even as I think it, I recognise it for what it is: the truth. I’m so distraught I barely catch hold of what she says next. “I don’t know. Little things start to make sense.”

“What little things?” I repeat. My voice is dull, no energy, no shine. Aged. I think immediately of Tom’s fear of the dark, of his aversion to confined spaces, his rabid hatred of any record by Frank Sinatra. In the realm of ‘peculiar things I detest’, this is one of the strangest, surely. And then there’s the other thing, the big thing, the bloody elephant in the room thing that is not standing idly in the corner but running amuck.

“The packed rucksack under the bed,” Vick declares.

Why did I mention it, I silently wail, but how else to explain my discovery not long after me and Tom moved in together? When I delved inside I found a change of clothes, money in a separate wallet and a brand-new phone. I teased Tom about it at first until he explained it away as an adult-sized comforter, the residue of a damaged childhood and a sense of never feeling quite secure. Afterwards, he closed down every conversation when I brought up the subject.

“Maybe he’s about to make a run for it,” Vick said at the time, only half joking now, it seems. I remember dismissing it.

She scratches her temple, struggling. “He can be quite nervy.”

“Tom? Come off it, Vick.” And yet I know exactly what she means. Underneath the composed exterior, there is a definite edge.

And that lost look.

She seems suddenly as nervous as me, blinking, snatching at her coffee as if it’s medication for pain control. I don’t push it. I want to, but hope Vick will fill in the gap in her own good time. I can tell she finds the subject awkward and sensitive, and dread drips sweet nothings in my ear. The wait is almost intolerable and I nearly botch it, but then she takes a breath and shifts her weight in the chair.

“For a man who doesn’t socialise, he was well out of his comfort zone at the magazine bash. Every time the photographer got within sniffing distance, he literally slid off into a corner.”

Into the shadows. Feeling his way through the darkness or crouching in it? Goodness, where did that come from? I remember he made a deal about wanting to leave early, complaining of a headache. But that’s not what Vick is trying to tell me.

An anxious, face-saving smile breaks out, lighting her eyes. “Remember, we used to joke that he was the ‘doesn’t do’ man.” Another frown of bewilderment from me ensues. “Doesn’t have a passport. Doesn’t socialise. Doesn’t use social media in the accepted sense,” she explains.

“Mildly strange.” I force myself to sound relaxed, no sweat.

“Doesn’t have a driving licence either.” Her pupils suddenly dilate.

“It’s not a hanging offence.” She thrusts me a startled look and I realise that my volume control is switched to full. I dial it back. “Aren’t we speculating too much?”

“Yeah,” she says, pushing a smile, eager to roll the conversation to a less- contentious footing. “Probably,” she adds in a soothing tone that is usually mine to dispense.

I glance at my watch and stand up, my coffee unfinished. “Better fly. Dinner with Tom,” I remind Vick. In the past it would have elicited pleasure and thrill and anticipation. Now, I regard it with trepidation and fear. “Oh shit,” I burst out.

“What?”

“I forgot to ask Reg to make himself scarce.”

“No problem, I’m more than happy to feed him.” I catch the slow smile on her face. Vick doesn’t admit it but, in common with many women, she has the hots for Reg. I’d like to let on that offering to mother him is not the way into my brother’s heart, let alone his pants, but it would be too cruel.

“You make him sound like he’s five.”

Vick hoists an eyebrow. “In his head, he is.” But to your mind, he’s all man, I think.

We both grin at shared anarchic memories of my Peter Pan-like brother. Vick instantly relaxes. She sees me to the door, slides her arms around me and gives me a hug that would crush stone. “You know where I am if you need me.”