Liar Read online

  It was that memory which made Amelia feel she must go there. If Kat had been anywhere else, she would probably have handed the letter to the police and let them deal with her. But imagining her in the shed she’d once played in, dying from an infected wound with perhaps no food or water, needing forgiveness and someone to hand her confession to, that was too distressing to ignore.

  It wasn’t sensible to go alone. In fact, it was completely hare-brained: she knew what a liar Kat was. But what would Kat gain by trying to lure her there? A hostage, she supposed, but that would only work if Kat had a gun or other weapon to threaten to kill her, and the police were standing by, ready to negotiate terms. Somehow, she didn’t think Kat wanted to harm her.

  She decided to go at lunchtime – it was always less hectic on Friday afternoons as the paper went on sale on Friday morning. If she came back with a ripping story Jack wouldn’t be angry she’d taken a long lunch hour. As for Peanut, he always had Friday afternoons off as he attended sporting events on Saturdays, which he’d be writing up, so he wouldn’t be suspicious.

  As a precaution in case something nasty did befall her she decided to write a letter to Jack, telling him where she was and why and leave it on her typewriter. He always had a long boozy lunch on Friday and was rarely back before four. By which time she would be back too.

  ‘I’m going up to Oxford Street to get new shoes,’ Amelia said to Stephanie, the girl who sat at the next desk. ‘Cover for me if I’m a bit late back – you know what it’s like when you get to the shops.’

  ‘Will do.’ Stephanie grinned. ‘But don’t get so carried away you forget to have some lunch too.’

  Amelia assured her she wouldn’t.

  It was lovely to feel the sun on her face – the winter seemed to have lasted so long. The joy of sunshine and a glimpse of summer on its way appeared to be affecting everyone. People were smiling, and most had abandoned their coats as she had. So instead of feeling nervous about seeing Kat, she was happy to be outside, and even to be going back to a childhood haunt.

  Once on the tube she was at White City in just a few minutes. As she had remembered, it was about a ten-minute walk from the tube to Addison Road. Everywhere looked smarter than it had when she was a child: neater gardens, not so much rubbish and a great many new houses to replace the old prefabs that she remembered from her childhood.

  While walking she considered Sam and Mavis’s suggestion that she should go home to lay some ghosts to rest. Perhaps it was only because she was so close to her old home, but for the first time she thought they might be right, and it would be good for her. But not today: she had to see Kat first.

  She saw the pillar box where Kat must have posted the letter. It was right at the end of the road, by the old allotments. As she got closer the brambles didn’t look as impenetrable as they had at her last visit. On the other side of the broken fence there was a narrow but obvious way through. She looked around her before going in, just to check no one was watching. The road was deserted, so she ducked down and went through the broken fence, remaining stooped to cross the thicket of brambles.

  At first it didn’t appear to be the same place. No clear paths or patches for vegetables, as it was all overgrown. In a few weeks’ time, when the leaves appeared on the brambles and other bushes, and weeds began to sprout, she doubted there would be any soil or paths visible. But the hut was exactly as it had been on her last visit. The door had been painted bright blue back then, but now it was faded and weather-worn. Yet it still looked a sturdy little building and equally sturdy was the bench outside it.

  She went to the door and pushed it open. The first thing she noticed was an unpleasant smell. ‘Kat,’ she called, as it was dark inside after the bright sunshine.

  ‘Is that really you, Amelia?’ a thin, wavering voice replied. ‘Push the door wide open so you can see.’

  Amelia was so shocked by Kat’s appearance she couldn’t speak. She was lying on the floor on what looked like an old mattress and a pile of army-style grey blankets. Her face was just skin and bone, like an old woman’s. The smell was coming from her, almost certainly her wound, which had to be badly infected. She was wearing men’s trousers, and a thick grey sweater, which was blood-stained.

  ‘I was afraid you wouldn’t come,’ she said weakly. ‘I’d resigned myself to dying here alone.’

  Amelia had never seen anyone close to death, but she instinctively knew this was what she was seeing now. With no regard to the dirty floor or the smell, she sank onto her knees and took Kat’s hands. They were just bone, the skin covering them like flimsy paper. ‘When did you last eat?’ she asked.

  ‘I can’t remember. The days and nights have all blurred into one. The hardest thing was going out to post that letter to you. But now you must collect up that notebook.’ She pointed to it by a Primus stove. ‘That’s my confession. Give it to the police, and please call an ambulance for me now.’

  ‘I will.’ Amelia began to cry. She couldn’t believe any human being could let herself get into the state Kat was in rather than give herself up. She looked skeletal. ‘I’m sorry I stabbed you, but I thought you were going to hurt me.’

  ‘I would’ve done,’ Kat admitted, putting her hand onto her wound. ‘I’m not right in the head, Amelia, I never was. Since my wound got bad and I couldn’t get up and move around, I saw that for myself. But I’m asking for your forgiveness because, until that moment when I felt cornered, I never intended to hurt you. I used to watch you long before I met you in the launderette. Long before I took my revenge on those girls too. I thought you looked terribly sad, and I didn’t understand why because you’re so pretty. You’re clever too, and so truly kind.’

  ‘Where have you been all this time since Chislehurst? How did you know about this place?’

  ‘I was fostered by some people near here. I made my way to this shed the day after I last saw you. I knew the police would keep going back to the summerhouse.’

  ‘Strange, really – we could’ve met all those years ago when we were children because I came in here too. I’m going to call for the ambulance now, Kat,’ Amelia said, wiping away her tears with the back of her hand. ‘I may have to wait out in the road so I can direct them into here. But I won’t go away. I’ll come with you to the hospital.’

  With that, Amelia picked up the notebook and backed out of the hut, still looking at Kat on the makeshift bed. She didn’t think she’d ever felt such sympathy for anyone before. Maybe she should be more on the side of the three women Kat had killed, but they had been loved and privileged: Kat had never had that.

  It seemed an awfully long wait between rushing down Addison Road to the phone box, calling the ambulance and the police, then waiting for them to arrive. In fact it was less than ten minutes before she heard the siren. She didn’t tell the men anything other than that a woman was gravely ill and injured on the allotments and gave her own name. To say more would only cause complications.

  The ambulance arrived first, and as the men jumped out, she said her piece and wriggled through the fence and bushes, only looking back to check they were following.

  ‘Kat, the ambulance is here now,’ she said, at the door of the hut.

  She thought Kat had lost consciousness as her eyes were closed but she opened them at Amelia’s voice.

  ‘Oh, my goodness,’ Amelia heard one of the men murmur as he saw Kat. ‘How long has she been here?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Amelia said truthfully. ‘I got a letter today to say she was here, and I came. She has a stab wound in her side, which must be badly infected.’

  Amelia stood back and let them look at Kat. As they pulled up the blood-stained shirt beneath her sweater and peeled back a soggy dressing, the smell was so bad that she had to cover her nose and look away.

  ‘Okay. We’ll have to open that gate to get a stretcher for you. Just hold on. We won’t be two ticks,’ the older ambulance man assured Kat.

  When the police arrived, Amelia went outside to fill them
in about Kat, and her own involvement. The more senior officer, a sergeant, appeared to be the most knowledgeable about the case. He told his two colleagues that Kat was what had been known as the Chiswick Creeper.

  ‘Clearly no danger to anyone now,’ he said, as he stood at the shed door looking in.

  ‘May I go to the hospital with her?’ Amelia asked. ‘I don’t think she’s got long, and nobody should be alone at such a time.’ She handed him the notebook. ‘She told me in the letter she sent me that this was her confession.’

  ‘Why didn’t you ring the police when you got the letter?’ he asked, his face frosty.

  ‘Because of the tone of it,’ she said. ‘Because this is a place I came to as a child. Because it was me who stabbed her, if you remember.’

  ‘Are you sure it wasn’t because you wanted the final scoop on her story?’

  She looked him in the eye. ‘That, Sergeant, never crossed my mind and I think you’re very cynical to suggest it. Are you judging me by your own standards?’

  She thought she saw a faint blush, which pleased her.

  ‘You can go in the ambulance, but you’ll have to make yourself available later to give a statement.’

  ‘Of course. Thank you,’ she said politely.

  Half an hour later at Hammersmith Hospital’s Casualty Department, Kat had been taken into a small side ward. This was partly because of the seriousness of her condition but also because of who she was. A policeman had been posted on the door, and Amelia was waiting to be allowed to see her. An initial cursory examination when she first came in proved her wound was badly infected and had spread internally. It was clear from the doctors’ and nurses’ faces she hadn’t long to live.

  Amelia had rung the office and told them where she was. Jack was still out, on his usual Friday-afternoon binge.

  A nurse went in to see Kat and came out a few minutes later. ‘You can sit with her now. We’ve given her pain relief and cleaned her up. She’s drifting in and out of consciousness, so I doubt she’ll talk, but she’ll know you’re with her.’

  She looked better, with her face washed and hair brushed, but nothing could improve the shocking skeletal look. Amelia pulled up a chair and took her hand. ‘I hope you feel better now you’re here, warm and comfy,’ she said. ‘I’m playing truant from work, but I expect they’ll be fine about it. I didn’t tell you I’ve left Godolphin Road. I’m staying with a friend from work now in Barnes.’

  She couldn’t think of anything further to say. She certainly didn’t want to mention Max, or that she really liked a policeman. What did people say to those who were dying?

  ‘I’m glad you’re here,’ Kat said, just as Amelia thought she couldn’t talk. Her voice was just a whisper, but she turned her head towards Amelia and smiled. ‘Write that book, won’t you? You could put me in it.’

  ‘Maybe I will,’ Amelia said, and stroked Kat’s hand. ‘Do you want me to talk to your parents, or anyone else?’

  Kat’s head moved from side to side, like she was saying no.

  She was silent for at least ten minutes, her eyes shut, but then she opened them again. ‘Don’t be sad,’ she whispered, her voice as soft as wind blowing through grass. ‘I love it that you are, but I’m happy to go. I made a real mess of this life, didn’t I?’

  ‘I just wish I’d met you when I first moved into Godolphin Road. Maybe I could’ve changed how you felt,’ Amelia said.

  ‘You’re a collector of lame dogs,’ Kat whispered. ‘No more now. Live your life for yourself.’

  Amelia felt a small movement in Kat’s hand and suddenly realized she’d slipped away. Tears ran down her cheeks. She laid her head on the bed and cried.

  23

  Amelia called the nurse in as she dried her eyes. It was all over. She was sad but, like Kat, also glad it was the end. She felt stronger for having been with her.

  As she walked along the corridor to go back to the office, then home, she saw Sam coming towards her. His face broke into the widest of smiles. ‘I heard you found her and called the ambulance,’ he said, putting his hands on her shoulders. ‘I feel I ought to say, “What were you thinking of, going to meet her?” but I won’t because I understand.’

  ‘Do you?’

  ‘Yes.’ He sighed. ‘You’re one of those people who need to see things through, and that’s a good thing. But now I must see things through too and take you back to the station as they want a statement. Afterwards I’ll drive you back to Barnes.’

  That night, when Amelia went to bed, she felt not wildly happy but optimistic and complete. At the police station she was treated as a bit of a heroine because the case could be wound up now. The knot of anxiety she’d had inside her ever since Kat had disappeared was gone now. So was Max. Instead she had lovely Sam.

  After she’d made her statement he’d driven her to the river between Hammersmith and Chiswick and they’d just sat in the car, looking at the sun going down, and talked.

  He said he thought she should write a book about the triple murder; nobody else knew all the strands of it as well as she did. ‘The public love true crime,’ he said. ‘I think from what you’ve told me about Kat, she’d want to be immortalized in print too.’

  He kept kissing her and, as much as Amelia liked living with Mavis and Peanut, she wished she had a flat of her own so she could sleep with him. She even admitted that, blushing as she did so.

  Sam chuckled. ‘I think of little else,’ he said. ‘You’d be shocked if you could look inside my head.’

  ‘Well, maybe it’s time to pull out all the stops and find a new flat,’ she said. ‘I need to get myself a typewriter too. I didn’t realize straight away, but Max must’ve made off with the one he got me.’

  ‘Good. You don’t want any reminders of him,’ Sam said. ‘You and I, Amelia, are going places.’

  ‘What places?’

  ‘Well, I plan to be at least a DI in ten years. And you’ll be a best-selling novelist. Maybe we can live in one of these lovely houses near the river. I did hear that Vanessa Redgrave lives somewhere around here. If it’s good enough for her, it’s good enough for us.’

  ‘So you think we’re going to be together for ever?’

  He cupped her face in his hands, his blue eyes shining. ‘Amelia, I think I fell in love with you the first time I saw you – your ability to work out what people are about, that innate kindness you don’t even know you have. You’re brave and forthright, and as I’ve watched you dealing with all this stuff, my respect and admiration for you has grown. You’re special, and you’ve no idea. But maybe I can show you.’

  24

  August 1971

  ‘It’s so hot, Sam.’ Amelia fanned herself with a magazine. ‘I was going to put those asters I bought into that bare patch where you dug out that horrible prickly bush. But all I can do is sit here and roast myself.’

  ‘Well, you’re looking great on it.’ He laughed, looking admiringly at her svelte figure in a pink spotted bikini. She turned golden brown effortlessly after what seemed like only minutes in the sun, while he burned equally easily. He had no idea why Amelia always claimed she was fat: she had a perfect body. Not a stick insect like Twiggy, but womanly and curvy. He thought perhaps her false view of herself was her mother’s doing.

  Amelia had found the little flat in Barnes, the ground floor of a Victorian house, soon after Kat had died. It had one bedroom, a lounge, kitchen and bathroom, but to Amelia the real appeal was that it had cute little wrought-iron steps down to a garden.

  She had attacked it, turning the somewhat seedy neglected rooms into a stylish home with the same energy and passion she had clearly used in Godolphin Road.

  In the first few weeks she had lived there, whenever he had called round with the intention of helping with stripping wallpaper or painting doors, they had ended up ripping each other’s clothes off, sometimes even having sex on the floor. They would roll around laughing afterwards and despaired of ever getting the flat finished. But fortunately, for th
e flat at least, Sam had become involved in a murder investigation of a wealthy man in Holland Park who had been tortured and strangled. This meant all leave was cancelled and he was working fourteen-hour days.

  Yet each time he came to see Amelia he was always stunned by the amount of work she’d done on her own. She had kept it very white and light, but with splashes of bright colours here and there. She told him she could never wait to get home from work to start, and she’d still be at it at midnight. He thought she was amazing.

  Peanut and Mavis often came over to help too. Peanut was great at carpentry and he’d put up bookshelves in the lounge and built a big wardrobe with mirrored doors in the bedroom. Most of the furniture was second-hand, bought from junk shops in Shepherd’s Bush and painted. Peanut and Mavis had given her a couple of armchairs, and a lovely old carved bedstead. All Amelia had had to do was buy a new mattress.

  Sam didn’t intend to move in with Amelia. He remembered a Leonard Cohen track, ‘The Stranger Song’, something about the man being another Joseph looking for a manger. He didn’t want to be that man. He intended to marry her and do it all properly.

  But then at the start of June, when he was swotting for his sergeant’s exam, she pleaded with him to move in. She said the bed was too big without him, and if spiders came in, who was going to get them out for her?

  The thought of being chief spider-remover and bed-filler had clinched it. In any case, he was fed up with living in the section house, the constant noise and the other guys always trying to drag him out drinking when he was studying.

  Amelia had won that battle easily but he had insisted they would get married the following spring.

  ‘About you going to see your family,’ Sam said later. ‘You said you would once you were settled here. Well, you are now. And look how good the whole Chiswick Creeper thing turned out for you.’