Deceive Me Read online

  He turns and carries on walking. ‘That made me think, I can tell you. So, I did a bit of research – looked at some old newspapers online. Do you know what I found?’

  I don’t answer.

  ‘I found out that Daisy Cooper would’ve been sixteen if she was alive – the same age as Grace. It was all there – how she had a strawberry-shaped birthmark on her back and how she’d gone missing from outside her parents’ house not far from where you used to live.’

  When we reach his hotel there’s no one on the desk at reception. Good. It feels like it’s meant to be, like the universe is giving me its blessing. ‘So that’s why you came to Cyprus,’ I say bitterly. ‘You came to tell her, so you could ruin my life − or was blackmail the idea? Was it all just about money?’

  He shrugs and grins. ‘There was a cheap flight online. Just fancied a bit of a holiday, didn’t I? I didn’t know it was going to be such an interesting trip.’

  ‘Did you tell Grace what you know?’ I ask as we wait for the lift. I’m trying to sound nonchalant. I don’t want to give him the satisfaction of seeing how afraid I am of his answer.

  He smirks at me, enjoying my discomfort. ‘No, course not. But I think I might have mentioned something about her birthmark. I wouldn’t be surprised if she’d worked it out.’

  Once we’re in his room, I hang the ‘Do not disturb’ sign outside his door, then I lift my bag onto the bed, open it and display the contents.

  His eyes light up and he rubs his hands together, chuckling like a pirate that’s discovered gold. ‘You clever little girlie. Where’d you get all that?’

  ‘I bought it from a friend of Grace’s.’

  The truth is, I slipped a couple of the little bags into my handbag the day I found the heroin in Andreas’s room. I thought it would be useful as a bribe to get Dave out of my hair, out of my life. But I know now that it won’t work as a bribe – that unless I do something decisive, he will always be in my life, threatening me and leeching off me.

  ‘This is good shit,’ Dave says, dipping his finger in and licking it. ‘Old school.’

  It doesn’t occur to him to ask why, after years of hating his habit even more than I hate him, I’m suddenly so willing to help him. He doesn’t care, I suppose. He has the tunnel vision of an addict.

  ‘You’re a good girl, Joanna,’ he says, handing me a tourniquet and needle. He lies back on the bed as I heat the heroin the way he taught me when I was a kid. I know the correct dose off by heart, I did it so often. He trusts me to get it right. He doesn’t check to see what I’m doing. If I give him a slightly higher dose than is safe, he’ll never know.

  I tie the ready-made tourniquet around his arm and squeeze until the vein pops. I hesitate just for a second, with the syringe in my hand. I know with what I’m about to do I’m crossing a line, but I’ve crossed so many lines already. What’s one more?

  Taking a deep breath, I dig the point of the needle into his flesh.

  ‘You do it,’ I say, feeling suddenly queasy. It will be useful to have his fingerprints on the needle in case there are any questions raised when they find him.

  ‘Okay.’ Dave takes hold of the syringe and injects the heroin into his own arm. Then he lies back, a beatific smile on his face.

  ‘Thanks, Joanna,’ he says.

  ‘You’re welcome,’ I say.

  And I watch him drift in and out of consciousness. Until I’m confident that I got it right.

  Tuesday, 3rd October

  Chapter 53

  It’s stopped raining as we arrive at the crematorium, but the sky is still grey and heavy. The ground is saturated, the grass swamped, the trees bedraggled and dripping. How appropriately grim, I think – as if there’s not enough world to soak up all our sorrow.

  There’s a large crowd gathered outside, spilling out from the waiting area, shaking their umbrellas, talking in subdued voices. Lots of Grace’s old school friends have turned up and even some of her friends from Cyprus have made the journey. I spot Maria and her parents talking to one of Chris’s friends, and Andreas is here as well, with his brother, standing apart from everyone else, looking out of place and uncomfortable. Chris’s relatives have turned out in force too and he’s soon whisked away in a crowd of Appletons, leaving me standing alone. The only representatives from my own family are my brothers and my mother sitting huddled together in a corner of the waiting room. Mum catches my eye through the window and half smiles, raising her hand. But I pretend I haven’t seen her. I’ve already had the sob story from her about how much she misses Dave and how lost she is now without him, and I don’t want to hear it again. It’s complete crap. She’s much better off with him out of her life, and she knows it.

  ‘I’m so sorry for your loss. Words can’t express . . .’ says a man I don’t recognise, patting my arm.

  I nod automatically. ‘Thank you,’ I say and stare over his shoulder at a woman just outside the waiting room talking to one of Chris’s relatives. She’s cradling a small baby in her arms. Who brings a baby to a funeral? I wonder. But I find that I can’t look away. I gaze at it, mesmerised. The way it’s staring up at her with its big, innocent eyes and trying to grab her earring with its tiny hands reminds me so much of Grace when she was that age. My self-control dissolves and the tears start flowing. Grace, forgive me, I beg silently. Grace, my love, I’m so sorry. But perhaps I’m thinking of the other Grace – the one I gave birth to. I get them muddled in my mind sometimes.

  ‘Mrs Appleton.’

  Someone taps me on the shoulder. I wipe my eyes and turn to see Tom standing behind me.

  ‘Tom,’ I say. I knew he would be here, of course, but it still comes as a shock seeing him.

  ‘Can I ask you something, privately?’ he says gravely. He’s wearing a black suit and his long hair has been cropped. It makes him seem much more grown-up and serious than before and I wonder with a twinge of unease if he knows something.

  ‘Er, yes, sure.’ I glance over at Chris who’s talking to his sister, Katie, Jack clinging to his hand. Good. I don’t trust him to be civil to Tom and I don’t want Grace’s funeral ruined by a scene. I watch Chris and Katie embrace each other and Chris’s big shoulders shake as she wraps him in her arms, and I usher Tom away around the corner to the car park.

  ‘What do you want to know?’ I ask as we huddle under a dripping chestnut.

  He stares at me. Opens his mouth, then closes it again.

  I wait patiently for him to build up the courage to ask what he wants to ask. Something about him has changed. It’s not just his hair. It’s his eyes – there’s a kind of hardness to them that wasn’t there before. More than ever they remind me of Grace.

  ‘The police said she was pregnant. Is that true?’ he finally blurts out.

  I nod. ‘I’m afraid so.’

  He stares, stricken, at the ground and his shoulders slump. ‘Is that why . . . ?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ Part of me wants to spare him but the other part thinks, Let him feel guilty. He should feel guilty. None of this would’ve happened if he hadn’t got involved with Grace in the first place.

  ‘Maybe in part,’ I say.

  He winces. ‘I don’t understand. I would’ve been there for her. I wanted to marry her, you know, eventually.’

  I don’t answer.

  ‘We were so similar, me and Grace,’ he says. ‘There was something so familiar about her from the moment I met her. It felt like coming home, like we were made for each other.’

  Maybe one day he’ll realise why, I think. It wouldn’t take much for him to put two and two together and what then? But it’s too late to worry about that now. What’s done is done.

  ‘I really loved her, you know,’ he says as we head back towards the crowd of mourners.

  ‘I know. Me too,’ I sigh.

  I rejoin Chris as we file into the crematorium and, sit
ting down, pick up the booklet the undertakers have left on the seats. There’s a photo of Grace on the front, beaming at the camera. Above the picture it says In loving memory of Grace Appleton in curling black letters.

  I did love Grace, even at the end, and did my best for her, I tell myself, as the coffin vanishes behind a screen. I loved baby Gracie more, of course, but nonetheless, a mother’s love doesn’t just die – it fades a little over the years, whittled away by a million small ingratitudes and insults. But it never completely dies, and I know I’ll be grieving for both Graces for as long as I live.

  But it’s not just grief I feel. I’m haunted by a memory – a nightmare vision that won’t leave me. Every morning when I wake up and every time I close my eyes at night, I see her.

  Grace.

  She’s standing on the parapet with her arms outstretched. She looks beautiful and wild. Her dark hair is blowing in the wind, whipping around her face, and her eyes are glittering in the morning light.

  ‘I hate you,’ she says. And her voice drips in the air like poison.

  ‘Grace, please . . .’ I take a step towards her.

  ‘I mean it. If you take a step closer, I’ll jump.’

  I’m thinking about Jack and Chris. I’m thinking about what it will do to them, my fragile little family, if they find out what I’ve done. I’m thinking about the huge mess I’ve created. And I’m thinking that Grace is part of that mess – that maybe it would all be simpler if she wasn’t here. And if I’m totally honest, isn’t there a moment, just a split second, when I wish her out of the way? It’s just a thought – a fleeting firing of neurones. I only think it for a second but in that second . . .

  I take another step.

  And watch, frozen in horror, as she turns and throws herself from the rooftop.

  Acknowledgements

  Thank you to the brilliant team at Quercus. First and foremost, to my fantastic editor Rachel Neely, who has played a huge part in whipping this story into shape. A big thank you also goes to Natasha Webber for her gorgeous cover designs. and Ella and Hannah for all their hard work.

  I’m grateful, too, to my friend Soulla Sophocli for reading the first three chapters and the useful and encouraging comments she made and to all the friends I’ve made in Cyprus, this country that I’ve grown to love and think of as home.

  And last, but definitely not least, to Jim Lodge. My love and gratitude always.