Liar Read online

‘I came here when I got back from the neighbour, hoping Daddy had got them out the back way.’ She led Amelia right down the garden to a large summerhouse at the bottom, flanked by trees. ‘I really thought they’d be in here, worrying about me. But they weren’t.’

  She fished in her bag, drew out a key and opened the door.

  It was immediately obvious that Kat was in the habit of coming here. It was clean, only a few cobwebs, and the cushions on the wicker chairs looked new. There was a kind of daybed, a small camping stove and various mugs, plates and a saucepan on a small table.

  ‘I stayed in here that night, watching the flames come out of the roof. I really believed my family were safe somewhere, but they’d forgotten about me. The firemen found me in the morning. I walked out into the garden in my nightie. I was told I was mute, didn’t say a word. But all that is like some strange dream. I don’t exactly remember any of it.’

  ‘Kat, that’s so awful,’ Amelia gasped. It was like something out of a horror film, and she didn’t know how anyone could continue to live normally after such a terrible trauma.

  Kat had sat down on one of the chairs, and Amelia took another. ‘I don’t really know what to say. It’s just too much to take in.’

  ‘It was for me too,’ Kat said. ‘A real brain overload. I spent some time in a hospital then. I know I didn’t want to talk about it. I think it must have baffled the doctors and nurses. But I was just thirteen, and it’s hard to process something like that when you’re so young.’

  ‘Yet you’ve been coming back here?’

  ‘This is the first time since November. I’ve never brought anyone else here. It’s kind of sacred.’ Kat’s voice was cracking with emotion. She was clearly finding it difficult to tell Amelia any more.

  ‘I can understand that. Does someone else own the house now?’

  ‘That’s a bit of a puzzle. I’m pretty certain it’s legally mine, but my mother’s sister, who lives in New Zealand, became my guardian back then as I was underage, of course.’ Kat’s voice became steadier, almost as if she knew she must tell Amelia the whole story. ‘There was talk of sending me out there, but she became ill, or just didn’t want to be responsible for me, I don’t know which. Anyway, I ended up being fostered. Of course, I couldn’t do anything about this house – I couldn’t afford a solicitor. Besides, I’d been working and living alone since I was sixteen and I hadn’t had any help, advice or even a birthday card from anyone.’

  ‘But you must sort it out now, Kat. Why haven’t you? You can’t just let it rot away.’

  Kat grimaced. ‘Apathy, I suppose – and, anyway, how can I get a solicitor to act for me without any money?’

  ‘You chump,’ Amelia said affectionately. ‘You don’t need any money up front. I would imagine the land the house sits on is extremely valuable, and it would be best for the house to be pulled down and rebuilt, but a solicitor will find out if your parents had insurance. It might have been claimed for you already and put in a trust account. I could come with you to a Citizens Advice Bureau to get you some help.’

  ‘Would you?’ Kat looked astonished that anyone would help her.

  ‘Of course! It’ll take my mind off bloody Max. Think how great it would be if you found you were a real heiress. You could buy a café then.’

  ‘Let’s make some coffee,’ Kat said. ‘I’ve only got powdered milk, but it’s not bad in coffee. In the summer I often come here, sometimes stay a few days. I live on pork pie, apples and biscuits mostly. There’s a tap in the garden – I’d thought the water would have been cut off, but it hasn’t.’

  Kat went off with the little kettle and came back smiling. ‘I put a nesting box up near the tap last year and I think some blue tits are in it. Mummy liked feeding the birds and putting up boxes for them. But all of them except this one are gone.’

  ‘A neighbour, I expect. I’m surprised you haven’t had squatters in here,’ Amelia said.

  ‘Me too, but it’s a bit out of the way. And it’s hard to get in here once all the bushes start to grow again. I usually come with secateurs. But for now I have to find my matches.’

  Kat had slung her bag on the daybed, and Amelia reached over to get it for her. But she only grabbed one handle and the entire contents fell to the floor.

  ‘So sorry.’ Amelia jumped up and began to scoop up a packet of tissues, a box of matches, a purse and makeup bag, letters … and there beneath them was what looked like a telescopic umbrella in a polka-dotted fabric cover. Amelia grabbed it, but it was far too heavy for an umbrella. There was also a long thin kitchen knife in a plastic sheath. She couldn’t resist pulling back the polka-dotted fabric and, to her astonishment, she saw what looked like a piece of heavy pipe.

  ‘What on earth?’ she exclaimed.

  Kat lunged at her, snatching the two objects, as if they were top secret, and pushed them right under the daybed, her face turning scarlet.

  Had Kat laughed and said she’d brought the knife to cut something, and the piece of pipe would be useful, Amelia wouldn’t have thought there was anything odd about them being in her friend’s bag. But, like a ray of light in a dark place, she knew why the two objects seemed familiar. A length of lead pipe and a long thin kitchen knife were the Creeper’s tools.

  18

  ‘Get your head out of the clouds, son, and finish that report,’ Sergeant Roper said to Sam Hamilton, when he noticed he was staring into space instead of typing.

  ‘Sorry, Sarge,’ Sam replied. ‘One of those goose-walking-over-my-grave moments. Do you ever get that when someone pops into your head unexpectedly and it feels like a warning?’

  ‘I’ll give you a warning in a minute,’ the older man growled.

  Sam returned to his report as instructed. His sergeant lacked a sense of humour, but perhaps forty years in the job did that to you.

  Not that Sam’s sudden warning flash was funny: it was a feeling that Amelia was in danger. She’d told him she was going to Chislehurst with Kat. PC Graham Ford had confirmed this, saying no security was needed until late that afternoon. It all sounded fine, but what if this feeling, premonition or whatever it was, meant Max was lurking somewhere, waiting for her?

  As the feeling would not go away, and Graham wasn’t on the protection rota until later that day, he went up to the canteen, knowing he’d be there.

  ‘This is going to sound a bit odd,’ he said, looking down at his colleague who was eating egg and chips. ‘Would you mind calling in to speak to me when Amelia White gets home today? I’ve been having a bad feeling about her.’

  Graham grinned. ‘Don’t be daft, Sam. She’s with her pal, and glad to be out of that flat. I bet she won’t be back till late.’

  ‘I thought that’s what you’d say.’ Sam tried to make it sound as if it was no big deal. ‘But do me a favour and ring in anyway.’

  ‘She’ll be flattered you care.’ Graham laughed. ‘I’ll tell her when I see her.’

  Kat was behaving as if nothing unusual had happened. She lit the gas, put the kettle on, then opened a biscuit tin that held coffee, sugar, and the dried milk.

  ‘These look a bit damp,’ she said, ‘but I’m sure they’ll taste all right.’

  Amelia’s head was swimming. Was she imagining what she’d just seen? And if she wasn’t imagining it, did that mean Kat was a killer? The Creeper?

  She looked down and could just see the polka-dotted umbrella cover under the daybed. She certainly hadn’t imagined that.

  ‘Why have you got those things in your bag?’ she asked, for the second time.

  She really hoped Kat was going to give her a good reason, but Amelia couldn’t think of one except that she was the Creeper.

  Yet it was preposterous to think that. For a start everyone, including the police, assumed it was a man, because murderers mostly were. Yet couldn’t a tall woman in trousers, a woolly hat and a long black coat – the long black coat she always wore – pass for a man in the dark? She was strong, too, with broad shoulders. In fact, the mor
e Amelia thought about it, she knew Kat could pass for a man.

  Kat had also shown an intense interest in what the police were doing, and it was odd that she had turned up yesterday with flowers, knowing that Max was no longer there.

  Had she brought Amelia here to kill her? Or had that been the plan and she’d changed her mind?

  ‘Do I need to repeat my question again, Kat?’ Amelia said. She was still sitting, perched on the edge of the chair as if ready to flee. ‘Please answer me.’

  She didn’t think Kat had brought her here intending to kill her. After all, it would be the first place the police would look as she’d told Sam she was going to Chislehurst with Kat.

  But was Kat even her real name? She suddenly realized she actually knew very little about the girl. Questions never answered, subjects changed. That hadn’t seemed important until now, but was this place her old home? Or just some burned-out house she’d found, then made up the story about her family dying in it? Only someone mad or very disturbed would come up with such a story, but surviving an ordeal like that could surely send you mad.

  A cold shudder went down Amelia’s spine. She didn’t feel it was a lie, just as she really didn’t think Kat wanted to kill her. But she would have to if she really was the Creeper. Amelia knew too much.

  So what was she to do? She could make a run for it, but Kat, with her long legs, could almost certainly outrun her. Besides, attempting to flee would make Kat feel threatened and angry, which could be extremely dangerous.

  Kat turned away from fiddling with the coffee-making things to look at Amelia, her face cold and unreadable. ‘If you must know, I picked up the pipe in the front garden of my house. I thought it would double as a hammer if I couldn’t get the door open here. It does tend to stick. As for the knife, well, I haven’t got one here and I often need one, to cut up a pie or peel fruit.’

  That was plausible, and had she said it straight off, and not snatched up the items when they fell out of her bag, it might have been believable.

  ‘Such a long knife?’

  Kat’s lip curled, almost like a dog about to turn savage. Or was that Amelia imagining things?

  ‘I picked that one as it had the plastic cover, so I wouldn’t cut myself on it. Just as I put the bit of pipe in a bag because it was rusty. Why do you find me having these things sinister? What’s so odd about them being in my bag?’

  ‘You know very well why I think it’s sinister,’ Amelia said quietly. Her voice was shaking but she tried to control it. ‘Tell me, should I make a run for it?’

  ‘I don’t know what you mean.’

  Despite what she’d said, Amelia knew she was on the right track. Two red spots of colour had come up on Kat’s cheeks, and she couldn’t look her in the eye.

  ‘You do know what I mean, Kat. I realize from what you’ve already told me today that you’ve had a hard, lonely life. I think you met up with Lucy, Carol and Rosie many years ago and they did something awful to you. So you took your revenge.’

  ‘No! I don’t know them, and I could never kill anyone.’

  Her denial did not ring true. Her voice was strangled, as if she’d had a job to get the words out, and she was hanging her head. Wouldn’t an innocent person shout in anger at being accused of something so terrible?

  Amelia held her nerve. ‘Tell me the whole story, Kat. You’ll feel better if you do. I don’t mind if we stay here all night. I want to help you.’

  Kat took a step nearer Amelia. She looked scary, towering over her, but she was determined not to be intimidated, so she leaned back in her chair as if she was relaxing.

  ‘You’re being utterly ridiculous,’ Kat said, but she still wasn’t making eye contact. ‘You’ve got far too much imagination and no common sense. And you’ve got those murders on the brain. How do you think someone like me could kill three girls and get away with it?’

  ‘Because those three girls did something horrible to you and you were hell bent on revenge. But you’re also clever and I suspect you didn’t much care if you got caught because there’s nothing but anger towards those girls inside you.’

  The truth was written on Kat’s face, almost delight that her pain was recognized, and pride that she’d been clever. But an expression on someone’s face wasn’t proof.

  ‘When my family died in the fire, I saw some of the top psychiatrists in the country, but they were unable to find out why I couldn’t or wouldn’t speak,’ she said, her voice silky. She thought she had the upper hand. ‘What makes you, a little gofer in the newspaper office, think you can work out what’s in my head? And have the cheek to pin something like this on me?’

  ‘Sit down, Kat. It’s giving me a crick in my neck looking up at you,’ Amelia said calmly. To her surprise, Kat obeyed. ‘That’s better! I wouldn’t be so crass as to imagine I could fully understand how terrible it was for you to lose your family in that way. But I do understand the feeling you must have had afterwards, of no one caring, of being totally alone, even though there were people around you.’ She paused. She’d been told that people don’t take in what you’re saying unless you break it up, and speak slowly.

  ‘My life was all disappointments,’ she went on eventually. ‘A bully of a father, a useless mother, awful living conditions. I was moved into my room in Godolphin Road by social workers after I’d been savagely beaten and taken to hospital. They didn’t care whether I turned to drink or drugs, they just stuck me there. And it became my refuge from the world.

  ‘But I wasn’t full of hatred for anyone. Maybe if I had been, I could’ve done what you’ve done.’

  ‘My God, you think you’re so superior, don’t you?’

  ‘No, Kat, I don’t. The truth is, I’m a mass of insecurities. I expect that’s why Max turned on me, and all the other men I’ve met soon lost interest. I’m like you, Kat. I haven’t got any real friends either. I’m a loner. That’s why it was so lovely being with you. If it hadn’t been for those things falling out of your bag, it would never have occurred to me that you were the killer. So, were you, or are you, planning to kill me too, Kat?’

  Different expressions flew across Kat’s face. Indecision, fear – and cunning. Maybe she was aware she felt no hatred towards Amelia, which would have made it easier to stick the knife into her, yet at the same time she knew she must kill her, or she would be caught and tried for murder.

  ‘Let’s have that coffee.’ Amelia got up and walked over to the camping stove. She was very scared, but she forced herself to appear calm because that was the only way she’d perhaps get out of there alive.

  The kettle was close to boiling now. Kat had sat down on one of the ordinary chairs, and the pipe and knife were under the daybed. If she could make the coffee and sit down on it, she could snatch up the knife when Kat was distracted.

  ‘How many sugars?’ she asked, as she spooned in the coffee. Kat was right: it was a bit damp.

  ‘Two sugars, but three of the dried milk. Of course I didn’t plan to kill you, Amelia. I like you. But you’ve spoiled everything now.’

  Amelia glanced over her shoulder. Kat was picking nervously at her nails. She didn’t look like a killer, just a girl with a problem. ‘I can imagine how difficult it is for you.’ Amelia stirred the coffee noisily. ‘Let’s just have our coffee and you tell me about those girls and what they did to you. Where did you meet them?’

  She handed Kat hers, and sat down on the daybed. She turned her right foot onto its side and felt cautiously for the knife. She found it. Now, bit by bit, she must nudge it out.

  ‘I knew Rosie Lark first,’ Kat said, astounding Amelia that she was going to admit to knowing them. ‘I was fostered by some people in Chiswick and they got me to join the Guides. Rosie was kind then – she even invited me to tea once. She went to a private school, so I didn’t see her much, except at Guides. But then we went to the World Camp, at Windsor, and that’s where I met Lucy Whelan and Carol Meadows.’

  In a flash Amelia realized Kat was the fourth girl, the
one they’d called Hairy Hilary.

  She was suddenly saddened that she was right about Kat. She didn’t want to be: she had grown to like her. Coming here and sensing what her life with her family had been like before the fire, she could understand that such a trauma in adolescence was likely to cause permanent mental damage.

  But was it bad enough to kill? And how could someone so unbalanced plan those killings? Amelia could understand someone killing an old adversary in the heat of the moment. But all that plotting! And she didn’t know how unpredictable Kat was – she could lash out at Amelia at any moment.

  All she could do was try to stay on an even keel, to choose her words carefully too. ‘So how did you feel about them? When you first met, I mean.’

  ‘Those three other girls and I were all put in one big bell tent. I think the idea was to mix up the different groups of Guides to make us all friendly to one another. I knew Carol was going to be trouble straight off. She pushed a black girl out of the tent and told her to go somewhere else because she smelt.

  ‘Lucy didn’t like that any more than I did, but maybe she was afraid of Carol picking on her because she said nothing and started sucking up to Rosie, admiring all her badges. I think she already knew Rosie’s father was rich and they had a big house because she lived quite close to both of us.’

  ‘Did the black girl smell bad?’ Amelia asked. The question was only to keep Kat talking. She was still trying to get the knife to where she could reach it easily.

  ‘No, not at all. Carol was just incredibly nasty. I saw later that she was cruel to any of the Guides who came from abroad. But the reason she turned on me was because I tried to stop her hurting that girl. I said she should be ashamed of herself, that Girl Guides were supposed to be kind to one another, regardless of colour or creed.’

  ‘That was brave of you, Kat. What did she do to you?’

  ‘She saw I had hair on my back when we were getting changed and she told everyone and called me names.’

  So Amelia had been right in thinking Kat was Hilary. ‘How did Rosie and Lucy get involved?’