You Can Trust Me: A Novel

  “How do you know all the Kara information was destroyed … deleted?”

  “Partly from the police, partly from Julia’s mother.” Damian sighs. “I told the detective—DI Norris, his name was—to look on her computer and in the trunk.” Damian groans. “Of course, I was in shock and when Norris said there was no sign of any files, I didn’t know what to do.” He sighs. “The police were nice enough—they took my details, said I’d be questioned later. I gave a statement, but I’m not even sure they believed I was a serious boyfriend. It didn’t help that Julia had told literally no one my name, just ‘Dirty Blond.’ Anyway, I’ve heard nothing from the police since the suicide verdict.” He pauses, frowning. “Not that it’s surprising they didn’t take any notice of me. They wouldn’t believe anything I said.”

  “What do you mean?” I ask.

  “Nothing.” Damian says. “Just that in their eyes I was simply her latest squeeze, nobody significant.”

  I turn the conversation back to his mention of Julia’s mother. “You said before, you’d talked to Joanie as well as the police? What did she say?”

  “Nothing helpful.” Damian grimaces. “The police gave her Julia’s computer after they examined it. They’d told her what I’d said, about all the missing files. She dismissed it out of hand. Then, when I called her, she said the same to me—that there was nothing about Kara’s death on the computer or in any of Julia’s papers, but I don’t even know if she looked properly—”

  “I think Joanie might have taken stuff from Julia’s flat,” I say. “Jewelry, pictures, even a couple of handbags.…”

  “Probably.” Damian sighs. “She won’t talk to me now. I told her Julia had a whole folder on Kara, that if I could just get someone to look properly—more than the police would have done—there’ll still be info stored on the hard drive, but Julia’s mother refused to let me take the computer. She’s just accepted that Julia was odd, therefore unstable, therefore suicidal. Just like everyone else.”

  I open and shut my mouth without speaking. I can’t take in what he’s saying. It’s impossible. Surely, it’s impossible? There’s a tight feeling across my chest. I don’t know whether it’s the idea of Julia acting for so long outside my knowledge, or the thought that she might have found out who murdered my sister all those years ago. I look closely at Damian. What did Julia really feel about him?

  Damian meets my gaze. His lips glisten from his drink, soft in the lamplight. “I loved Julia and she loved me,” he says quietly, as if reading my thoughts. “She hated how vulnerable her feelings made her, she fought herself over it. That’s why she refused to tell anyone about me, but it’s true, look.” He takes out his phone and scrolls through to a picture. He turns the phone so I can see the screen. It’s a photograph of the two of them together. Damian is handsome in a thin sweater, his eyes sparkling straight at the camera, which he is clearly holding. Julia sits beside him, her face turned toward his. She is radiant … smiling … her eyes full of what I can only describe as adoration. I’m transfixed. I’ve never seen her look like that. Damian presses the dot in the center of the screen, and the picture comes to life. Julia is laughing, watching Damian’s face. He carries on facing the camera, sexy as hell as he stares into the lens. But it’s Julia I can’t take my eyes off. She looks so soft, so in love. With a jolt, I remember the cold rigidity of her face in death. A sob twists in my guts. I look away.

  “I’m sorry,” Damian breathes. His voice breaks. “I know how difficult it is to see … her…” He trails off.

  A million emotions around my head. This is a Julia I did not know: her heart in Damian’s hands and apparently so consumed with guilt over my sister’s death that she spent the second half of her life trying to find Kara’s killer.

  “I asked her to marry me just a week before she died.” Damian’s voice swells with emotion.

  My mouth gapes with shock as Damian meets my gaze. “She said yes,” he goes on, his lips trembling slightly.

  “But…” I can’t believe it. Surely he is making this up. “But Julia said nothing,” I splutter.

  “I know.” Damian sighs. “I know it must sound mad to you, but we’d planned to buy a ring at the end of the month … that was when she was going to tell everyone.”

  I gaze out the window. The street is busy, a group of shrieking girls rushes past. The lights of Aces High glimmer along the road.

  “Why did you say you kept going back to the club?” I ask.

  “Because Julia went there two nights before she was killed.” Damian finishes his beer and sets it firmly on the table. “When we met later, she was all … agitated. I pushed her to tell me where she’d been. You can imagine what it sounded like, when she said she’d been to a singles bar and she wouldn’t say why.…”

  I gasp, remembering the initials A.H. from Julia’s diary entry two days before her death. I hadn’t seen the connection before, but perhaps A.H. stood for Aces High. I stare at Damian. This is the first real evidence I have that he is telling the truth. “Go on,” I say.

  “So I let it go, but the next day, Friday, Julia went out again and this time she wouldn’t say anything about where she’d been. I saw her that evening. I was so pissed off that she was refusing to tell me what she’d been doing. I mean, she’d agreed to marry me less than seven days before, so it felt like she was totally pulling away. But Julia kept saying she couldn’t say anything, so I stormed out. Then we spoke the next day, Saturday, in the early evening. That’s when she finally admitted she’d found out who Kara’s killer was, that she had to speak to you.”

  “And you argued again?” I ask.

  He nods, shamefaced. “I didn’t understand why she couldn’t tell me what she’d found out.” He groans. “I can see now that I overreacted, but it was so frustrating. Julia just kept saying that she had to speak to you before she did anything else. I thought she was exaggerating, to push me away, like she had done before.” He gives a miserable shrug. “I was an idiot. But I was fed up of her putting up barriers between us. She was already insisting we waited to tell people we were getting married.… I said she had to trust me or everything we’d ever said to each other—including our being engaged—meant nothing.”

  “Did she mention anyone called Shannon?”

  “Not that I remember. No, I’m sure she didn’t. Why?”

  “Shannon was the girl you saw me talking to in Aces High.” I explain about the entries in Julia’s diary and her planned meeting with Shannon tonight. As I talk, a shiver scrapes down my spine. Is it possible Julia thought there was some connection between Shannon, Aces High, and Kara’s killer? I can’t imagine what it could be, but if Julia did go to Aces High two nights before she died, and if her behavior really changed from that point on, then there was surely some sort of link?

  “Maybe the link is the place, not Shannon,” I suggest. “After all, Shannon would only have been a kid when Kara died.”

  “Mmm, except kids can still see and hear stuff,” Damian says with a frown. “Perhaps Shannon witnessed something to do with Kara’s murder. Whatever it was, we need to find her.” He takes a long pull of his beer.

  “The bartender at Aces High knew who she was,” I say. “Maybe he has a surname or a phone number?”

  We head back to Aces High, but the barman refuses to give out any information about Shannon. After all tonight’s revelations, it’s a frustrating dead end. As we walk out onto the sidewalk, I check the time on my phone. It’s nearly midnight, far later than I’d thought, and my mobile, which I switched to silent hours ago, is registering a missed call from Will. I chew my lip, feeling guilty.

  We stroll to my car. My head is spinning, I feel, almost overloaded with information, and yet I’m also wired, full of purpose. Just before I drive off, Damian and I swap phone numbers and agree to speak again tomorrow, to work out what to do next.

  * * *

  At home, the house is in darkness, save for a light in the upstairs front room. Our bedroom, where poor Will m
ust be waiting up.

  I find him sitting up in bed, his laptop balanced on his knees. “Good time out clubbing?” he asks sarcastically.

  I wince, irritation and guilt twisting inside me. “Don’t, please.” I sit down beside him and start telling him how Shannon ran away when I approached her and how I talked with Damian.

  “He’s Julia’s Dirty Blond,” I explain. “I think she liked him more than she let on.”

  Will raises an eyebrow. “That doesn’t sound like Julia.”

  I don’t really want to go through the whole conversation, but I also feel somehow that I owe Will an explanation, so I tell him everything Damian and I discussed and then look up, expecting to see shock on Will’s face. Instead I see skepticism.

  “What is it?”

  He shrugs.

  “Don’t you believe Julia found Kara’s killer?”

  Will makes a face. “I believe she wanted to, but I don’t see how she could have when the whole Devon and Cornwall police force failed to eighteen years ago.”

  “But what about all the stuff that Damian said was missing from her flat when he went round the evening after she died? All the papers on Kara gone and the computer wiped clean of information?”

  Will falls silent.

  I head for the bathroom and brush my teeth. I have to see Joanie. I have to ask her about the stuff missing from Julia’s flat—plus get a look at Julia’s computer too. Damian agreed that Joanie probably took the valuables. Maybe she took the paperwork as well. I can examine it. I knew Julia and Kara better than anyone. I should be able to spot references … notes or clues that maybe wouldn’t mean anything to other people.

  I walk back into the bedroom. Will has set his laptop on the chest of drawers. He is leaning back against his pillow, hands behind his head. His eyes follow me as I cross the room to my side of the bed.

  “The police didn’t find anything suspicious in the flat, did they?” he asks. “Nothing on the computer, no papers?”

  “That’s right—like I said, the killer took or deleted everything.” I get in beside him. Will is still looking at me, his face serious.

  “What?”

  He takes a deep breath. “Livy, I’m not trying to undermine you here. I understand this is really important to you. But I think you’re overlooking something.”

  “What’s that?”

  “You only have Damian’s word that Julia had found out who Kara’s killer was or that there were any papers or information on the computer. The police obviously didn’t take him seriously. Why should you?”

  A shiver snakes down my back as I remember what Damian said about the police not believing anything he said. What did he mean by that? Why wouldn’t they? Was it really just because they didn’t take his relationship with Julia seriously?

  I know Will is right to be suspicious. But I don’t want to hear it. I turn pointedly away from him and pull the duvet over my shoulders. Will turns out the light with a sigh.

  I close my eyes, but it takes a long time before I fall asleep.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  “Mum, Zack’s eaten all the Kashi. Again.”

  Hannah’s whine shakes me from my reverie. Will may have dismissed Damian’s claims out of hand, but I need to know for sure. I’m still determined to persuade Joanie to let me look at Julia’s papers and get on Julia’s computer. However, from our encounter at the funeral, I’m not hopeful that Joanie will even listen to my suspicions, let alone let me act on them.

  “There’s another pack in the cupboard,” I say absently, glancing over at the kitchen table, where my children are sitting at either end, each indulging in their own particular style of breakfasting. Will, of course, left for work long before they were up.

  Zack sits in front of a huge blue bowl of cereal, slopping milk over the side as he wolfs it down, intent on finishing and getting on with the next thing. Hannah, on the other hand, languishes over two seats, like a Victorian lady on a fainting couch. Her makeup and several mirrors are positioned around her own, as yet empty, bowl and she touches each item with trailing, delicate fingers.

  “Why do I have to get it?” She looks up at me, pouting. “It’s not fair. You make me do everything.”

  “For goodness’ sake.” I’m in no mood to argue with her. We’ve already had one fight this morning over the state of her room. I stomp past her chair, pull out the fresh pack of cereal, and run my finger under the flap. I’m not concentrating, and the cardboard catches the skin. It smarts, a thin line of red oozing up from the cut. I wince, then feel irritated at myself for being so clumsy.

  Zack finishes his cereal in two massive mouthfuls. He stands up and carries his bowl to the sink, using both hands as I’ve taught him. I put the new box down beside Hannah’s place and she snatches it up angrily. Having deposited his bowl, Zack turns and flies up the stairs. I know he’s going to brush his teeth, that he will come down in a minute and bare them for me with an out-breath to show they are “minty fresh”; then he will put on his shoes and give me a big hug. Sometimes it seems to me that while my son fits effortlessly into the running of the house, my daughter exists purely to throw wrenches in the works. This is one way in which she is most unlike my sister, who specialized in a more passive kind of resistance.

  Right now, Hannah is casting me evil looks as she pours cereal into her bowl. One eye is made up—a job she does beautifully, with soft peach eye shadow and just a lick of mascara. I don’t like her wearing makeup to school at twelve years old, but the rules allow for a minimal, natural look, and if I don’t see what she puts on at home, I’m fully aware she will be applying cosmetics at school. Anyway, the makeup is slight, and like Kara before her, Hannah has a knack for the visual. I worry more that, like Kara, she is unhealthily obsessed with her appearance and often—though she tries to hide it—attempts to skip meals.

  “Kashi is so disgusting,” she says, her voice dripping with contempt.

  “You wanted some five minutes ago. And it’s organic,” I argue.

  Hannah fixes me with a hard stare. I know full well she’s capable of turning a disagreement over cereal into World War III, so I speedily change tack. “How about oatmeal, then?” I try to keep my temper by focusing on her long, skinny fingers as they trail anxiously over various pimple-cream options. She is still such a child, whether she knows it or not.

  “I hate oatmeal,” she snarls.

  Shaking my head, I leave the room.

  * * *

  My palms are sweating as Julia’s mother, her tone characteristically brisk, answers my call later that morning. I pretend that I have an appointment with an old friend in the Bridport area and would love to drop by on my way. Joanie agrees, though I can tell from her tone that she’s not exactly thrilled at the prospect of my visit.

  It’s a pleasant drive through the Devon and Dorset countryside. At this time of year, with the sun shining and the fields lush and green, the whole area is at its best. As the traffic slows for a stretch near Lyme Regis, I remember coming to a conference for work at a hotel near here many years ago. I didn’t know it at the time, but it was actually the high point of my working life. My boss valued me, wanted to fast-track me after I’d won an essay competition, and yet I was torn between the legal career that potentially lay ahead and my long-desired ambition to move back into academia. I glowed with confidence—as testified by the three men who, separately, tried to chat me up over the weekend. I turned each one down with a smile. Will had just proposed, and we were planning on buying a house in Exeter and doing it up. Life seemed full of possibilities, my work and home existences in perfect balance with each other.

  As I turn off the A35, it occurs to me that my life shrank when I got married. Ironic, I think, that in giving up my maiden name, Small, I started down a track to a narrower, more limited life.

  I park outside Joanie’s large detached home. It always amazes me that Julia grew up here. There is nothing of her wild, city persona in either the 1930s house or the quiet, leafy street
in which it’s situated. It’s a big place for Joanie on her own, but she has always refused to consider moving, even after Julia’s father died of cancer a couple of years ago and the bills started to mount up. Julia was dismissive of her mum’s reluctance to move on, sneering that Joanie was too set in her ways to consider it. I wondered at the time if the story was really that simple. Julia used to insist that her mother had been born with a “gene for martyrdom” and would go to her grave complaining that the world was against her, but then Julia had hardly spent any time with either parent since she went off to uni—so how would she really know anything about Joanie’s state of mind?

  I straighten my skirt as I walk over to the neatly manicured front lawn. A warm breeze ruffles my hair. Two black trash cans stand on either side of the gate, like plastic sentinels. My heart thumps as I ring the front doorbell. Joanie answers promptly.

  “Hi.” I offer up a smile.

  “Hello.” Joanie doesn’t respond in kind. Her voice is cold, and for a moment, I actually wonder if she’s going to invite me inside. She’s dressed in a cotton blouse and what my own mother would describe as slacks. Her hair is neatly styled, with no signs of any gray roots. Her skin is remarkably smooth and her figure still trim. I look deep into her face. There’s nothing of Julia about her, except, perhaps, in the shape of her eyes and nose.

  “Come in,” she says at last.

  “Thank you. It’s kind of you to see me.” I smile again, trying to ingratiate myself. Joanie purses her lips. There are lines around her mouth, a legacy from her two-packs-a-day smoking habit.

  “I’m going out later, for lunch,” Joanie says, opening the door. “But I can offer you a cup of tea.”

  I’m about to reassure her that I’m not intending to stay for long, when Robbie looms into view. I’m so startled to see him that I actually gasp.