You Can Trust Me: A Novel

  I shake myself. This isn’t the time to indulge in reminiscences. For one thing, I’m going to have to get Zack in a moment. For another, I need to focus on how I’m going to explain the mess on the grass to Will.

  Damian has stubbed out his cigarette and is poring over the small pile of items that survived the bonfire. So far, all we’ve found apart from some food waste, are various bits of metal, plastic, and charred cardboard.

  “I feel like paparazzi,” I say with a sigh.

  Damian looks up. There’s a dark smear across his cheek and ash in his hair. He really is ridiculously handsome.

  “Anything?” I ask.

  He kneels back on the grass. “Does it seem strange to you that Joanie and Robbie burned everything?” he asks. “It’s just so … final.”

  I shrug. “I guess. Joanie said having Julia’s things around was too upsetting, once she’d stopped accusing me of being a thief.”

  “Is that how you feel? That seeing Julia’s stuff is upsetting? I mean, even if it was, then wouldn’t you pack it away somewhere you didn’t have to look at it, not destroy it all two weeks after she dies?”

  A gust of wind blows more ash across the grass. I push my hair out of my eyes. “What are you saying? There wasn’t any information about Kara on the computer anyway—the police examined it before they let Joanie and Robbie take it.”

  “Maybe there was something else.” He holds up a crispy fragment of hard drive. “Look at this. I’m just saying it’s odd.”

  I check the time again. Only five more minutes, then I’m really going to have to leave to get Zack. I squat down beside Damian and finger the edge of one of Julia’s Moleskine notebooks. Its contents have been destroyed completely, just a scrap of the leather binding surviving. As I lift it up, I notice the edge of a business card with a row of tiny red hearts along the bottom underneath. I pick up the card. Each heart is slightly different. The first is whole, the second has an arrow through it, the third a zigzag separating the two halves for a broken heart; then the pattern begins again. It looks like a logo.

  The top part of the business card is burnt away, only the surname WALKER remains, and part of the first name:

  … NNON WALKER

  My heart skips a beat as I stare at the name. Could this be Shannon’s business card? I shove it under Damian’s nose.

  “What do you think?”

  He looks up at me. “Shannon Walker?” he says. “The same Shannon Julia was due to meet at Aces High last night?”

  “It’s got to be,” I say. “Which means Julia must have met her before, in order to have this card.”

  Damian nods. “Julia went to Aces High two days before she died. Maybe she met Shannon then.”

  “Maybe it was Shannon who told her who Kara’s killer was.”

  We stare at each other. “Let’s Google ‘Shannon Walker’ now,” Damian suggests.

  I check the time again. “I can’t.” I make a face. “I have to pick up Zack.”

  “Okay, I’ll do it,” Damian says. The wind whips a strand of hair across his face. He brushes it back, hesitating before he speaks again. “Shall I wait here until you get back? Or would you rather I left?”

  For a moment I’m not sure what to say. It feels like a risk to leave Damain alone in the house. Apart from anything else, what if Will comes home unexpectedly? On the other hand, Damian seems so genuinely in love with Julia, I can’t believe he meant her—or, by association, me—any harm. That look of pain in his eyes couldn’t, surely, be faked.

  “I know Julia didn’t let you meet her friends, but did she meet any of yours?” I ask.

  Damian shakes his head.

  Despite all my misgivings, my heart goes out to him. How awful to have no one to share such a huge loss with. Even if Will and the other people who knew Julia don’t agree with my beliefs about her death, at least they can share some of my pain at losing her.

  “Why don’t you wait in the house?” I suggest. “You can use my laptop to do the search.”

  I set off in the car to get Zack, leaving Damian at the kitchen table with instructions to help himself to tea and coffee.

  I’m distracted on the way to school, nearly running a red light. A couple of the other mums chat idly at the school gates. The end of term is next week, and the traditional summer fair is coming up on Saturday. Megan Matthews from the PTA committee is making a last-minute attempt to organize people to bring cakes and other edibles, as well as organize shifts to man the many stalls.

  I agree distractedly to provide a batch of chocolate brownies and stand back, watching Megan flit around, a pen tucked behind her ear. She’s not carrying a clipboard, but she might as well be. Like me, Megan used to work for a law firm. Of course, I left over twelve years ago, when I was pregnant with Hannah, and was only ever a lowly junior solicitor. Megan didn’t give up work until her third child was born last year, and she was a high-flying commercial lawyer. I’d say, from the looks of it, she misses her job.

  Zack appears at his classroom door. He looks around for me, his face breaking into a huge smile as he spies me at the gate. He charges across the playground and hurls himself at me, hugging me fiercely.

  “Today I did a wonder goal at break,” he boasts. “I got past six players and there was a one-two, then I got the volley and put it in the back of the net.”

  “Hey, brilliant,” I say, hugging him back. I have only the vaguest idea what he’s talking about. It always amazes me how eloquent Zack becomes when he’s talking about football—he struggles to retell any other kind of anecdote.

  As I put my key in our front door fifteen minutes later, I have a terrible premonition that I’ll find the house empty, burgled, certainly our computers gone. After all, how much do I really know about Damian?

  But he’s still there, hunched over my laptop at the kitchen table. He stands up to say hello to Zack, who breezes past, barely noticing him. I settle Zack in front of the TV, then go back to Damian.

  “What did you find?” I ask.

  “Quite a few Shannon Walkers, but no one who obviously fits with the girl in the Aces High bar,” he says. “It’s hard to tell on places like Facebook or Tumblr, there are so many people with the same name.” He pauses. “Do you have a scanner? If we copy and paste the row-of-hearts logo online, maybe we’ll find a match for it.”

  “Sure, er, how do we do that?”

  “Easy.” Damian gives me a wink.

  I give Zack a juice carton and promise I’ll make him a sandwich in a minute; then I take Damian upstairs to Will’s office. The printer/scanner is set on a shelf above Will’s computer. I switch the machine on, and it whirrs into life.

  Five minutes pass. Damian scans the logo and fiddles expertly with the picture online, posting it on some kind of image-based search engine I had no idea even existed. A match pops up immediately: Honey Hearts.

  “What on earth is that?” I ask.

  “No idea.” Damian clicks on the link. A Web site flashes up. It’s gray on pink, with the repeated rows of hearts across the top, just above the menu. I peer over Damian’s shoulder and read the home page:

  Relationships are built on trust. But what happens when that trust is broken? Here at Honey Hearts, we understand just how hard it is to live with anxiety—and our mission is to help you understand the truth, so that you can move on, secure either in renewed trust for your partner, or with the knowledge you need. We help you to make all-important decisions that will enable you to live your life to the fullest.

  Our service is open to people of all genders and any sexual orientation. Our fully trained professional Honeys will test your loved one and report back with complete discretion. Is your partner a Trust-Staker or a Heart-Breaker?

  With Honey Hearts, you’ll know for sure.

  “It’s a honey trap agency.” I pull the spare chair over and sit down beside Damian, feeling confused. “I’ve heard of them, but…”

  Damian looks round. There’s a deep crease in the center of his
forehead. “Why would Julia…?” He trails off.

  I shake my head. “Let’s see if we can find Shannon on the site.”

  The home page menu offers links to Rates, About Us, Contact, and Honeys for Hire. The address given is in Exmouth, about half an hour’s drive from here.

  Damian clicks through to the Honeys for Hire page. It outlines the parameters of the Honey Trap Service, how users can “match” their partners to a man or woman they are likely to be attracted to. It stresses throughout that the women never take things beyond a conversation and act in an entirely discreet, professional way throughout.

  I’m fascinated. It never occurred to me six years ago that I could hire an investigator to tail Will. Such a dramatic course of action would have felt far too Hollywood. I thought about following him myself, though. I gaze at the picture of the kids by the computer, remembering how small they were at the time, how unaware of how close our family came to being torn apart.

  My suspicions started early one morning when Will arrived home after claiming to have pulled an all-nighter at work. I didn’t think anything of it when he’d checked in the evening before; he often worked very late. But there was something furtive in his manner the following morning—and he smelled different too, as if he’d washed using a new, heavily perfumed soap.

  I hinted around the subject for most of the rest of the day and then, stung by Will’s irritation at my persistence, finally asked straight-out if he’d slept with someone. Will denied it indignantly. In fact, he carried on denying the affair for the next two weeks. He said I was being paranoid and I started to think it was true. His letting me think that is what has always hurt the most. After that first night away, he made sure he came home on time, but still something felt wrong and twice he wasn’t in when I called the office after failing to reach him on his mobile. For thirteen days I almost went insane, full of suspicions that he dismissed and derided. Until the Thursday of the following week, when he received a text and went into the next room to read it. Later, while he showered, I sneaked a look at his mobile. With trembling fingers I found Catrina’s message—WISH YOU WERE INSIDE ME RIGHT NOW—and a whole conversation between the two of them going back almost two months: explicit and obsessive and like a knife to my heart.

  Damian clicks through to the Gallery link now, and the sound brings me back to the present. Here are twenty or so pictures: women, mostly, though also a few men. I scan them quickly. Is Shannon here? The Honeys come in all shapes and sizes: from blondes with huge cleavages to slim, athletic brunettes. They are all extremely pretty, though in very different ways, and all, bar one or two, clearly under thirty.

  “There.” Damian points to a blonde in the middle of the selection.

  I peer more closely. It’s Shannon, without a doubt, the same big blue eyes and wavy, highlighted hair.

  “Disgusting,” Damian says with a hiss.

  I look at Shannon again. She is dressed more discreetly than most of the other girls, curvaceous in her T-shirt and jeans, but not revealing much skin. Just like at Aces High. “She doesn’t look that trashy,” I say.

  “I don’t mean her,” Damian says. His voice is terse. “I mean the whole thing. Hiring girls to entrap men. It’s wrong. You’re just asking for trouble if you send a pretty girl after your average guy. And what does it prove, anyway?”

  I stare at him, shocked by his response. And then I think I understand. “D’you think Julia hired her to … to, er, approach you?”

  “No,” he snaps. “At least, that girl”—he points at Shannon—“she didn’t approach me. There must be some other reason for Julia meeting up with her. I can’t see what yet, but—”

  “Maybe she wanted Shannon to entrap the man she thought killed Kara?”

  Damian nods. “I guess that’s possible, but why? Why not confront him herself? Or go to the police? And how does involving some random girl help, anyway? What was she supposed to find out?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t get it.”

  “I don’t get it either.” Damian indicates the screen. “But then, like I said, I don’t get any of it.”

  I shrug. “I do. Not why Julia hired Shannon, but I can totally see why a wife who’s been cheated on would want to be sure her husband wasn’t going to do it again.”

  “Where’s the trust in that?”

  “Well, maybe he destroyed the trust first.” My words come out with more force than I intend. My cheeks burn hot.

  Damian clearly senses he’s touched a nerve. I suddenly remember all the details Julia shared with him. It’s highly likely she told him about Will’s affair too. My face reddens further.

  Damian touches my arm. “I’m sorry, it just seems wrong to me. At least we’ve found Shannon Walker. So what now? How are we going to speak to her?”

  I look back at the screen. The answer is obvious. “I’m going to have to contact Honey Hearts,” I say. “I’m going to have to pretend to hire Shannon myself—I can’t see another way of finding out what Julia wanted her to do.”

  * * *

  I make the call late the next morning, when the house is empty. The phone rings three times before a woman answers.

  “Honey Hearts, Talullah speaking. How may I help?”

  I take a deep breath. “I’d like to make an appointment. I’m interested in…” I hesitate, not knowing how to put it.

  “In our service?” Talullah says matter-of-factly. “Of course, let me take some details.”

  I give her my maiden name, Small, so there’s no link with my married name, Jackson, which I’ve been using for most of my adult life.

  “And you suspect your partner of a possible infidelity?”

  “Er, yes.”

  “My sympathies,” Talullah says, brisk but kind. “I’ll set up a meeting for you with Alexa Carling. She’s our account director.”

  “Okay.”

  Talullah and I exchange a few more practical details; then I hang up and slump into a chair. Will’s suit jacket from yesterday lies in front of me on the coffee table. He has no idea I’m planning to visit Honey Hearts. After his reaction to my visit to Aces High—and his skeptical response to Damian’s claims that Julia had discovered the identity of Kara’s killer—I don’t feel inclined to confide in him. Anyway, once I’d deleted Damian’s scan, there seemed no point in explaining that he’d ever been in the house. Zack barely noticed him, and Damian was gone before Hannah got back. If I’d told Will about Damian being here, I would have had to explain my visit to Joanie and the “theft” of the garbage bags, not to mention the discovery that Shannon Walker works at Honey Hearts. I told the kids some trash had spilled in the garden and made a game out of clearing up the debris. Hannah sniffed at getting involved at first, of course, then became competitive, sweeping up her ashes into a pile with great gusto. It was easy not to talk when Will arrived home at eight thirty. He was tired and irritable, barely able to make the effort to ask after my day and not really listening to my vague reply.

  My appointment at Honey Hearts is made for Monday morning. I call Damian and tell him what I’ve done. He sounds as troubled as he did yesterday. He must be wondering, though he denied it, if Julia had been using a Honey Hearts girl to entrap him. What that could possibly have had to do with finding Kara’s killer, I can’t imagine. Anyway, this version of events would be totally uncharacteristic of Julia. Surely, if she suspected Damian of being unfaithful, she would have confronted him, as she’d urged me to confront Will all those years ago when I told her I thought he was having an affair.

  I can’t believe how in just a few days, my life has been turned on its head, that my thoughts no longer revolve around school pickups and laundry but seduction and murder. Even so, the weekend passes slowly. Will takes Zack to his Saturday morning football game. This used to be a time when Hannah and I would do stuff together—arts and crafts when she was little, more recently baking cakes or shopping in town. Now Hannah wants to do none of those things with me. How has she grown up so quickly? She is
n’t even a teenager yet. I expected she would pull away, but not this fast or this soon. We have yet another argument over her room, which is messy now on an epic scale. Hannah hates me going in there, but I insist I have to pick up the mugs and bowls and that she needs to sort out her laundry or I refuse to wash any more clothes. As I shove a pile of clean sweaters into a drawer, my eye is drawn to a flash of fake leopard skin. It’s a padded bra, made from cheap nylon. I gasp as I take it out and find a matching thong underneath. Both items have the price tags still in place. I am horrified. When did she buy these? When on earth was she planning on wearing them? Does she realize what kind of signals such cheap, vulgar underwear sends out? I try to stay calm, but soon I’m shrieking these questions at Hannah, frustrated beyond endurance with her sulky, tearful refusal to acknowledge she is too young to dress up like this.

  We both grow hysterical, and I leave her bedroom trembling with fear and fury. My instincts are to call Will, but I know he will just tell me this is normal adolescent behavior, that Hannah is simply “trying on being a woman” for size.

  I call Mum instead.

  “I’d get it if she just wanted nice underwear—she used to love looking at Julia’s lingerie,” I wail down the phone, “but these things—”

  “Isn’t it just part of growing up?” Mum asks gently. “You wanted a bra when you were twelve, and you didn’t really need one.”

  “It’s not that she wants to grow up that gets me,” I sigh. “It’s that the clothes she’s picked are so completely inappropriate.”

  Mum sighs too, then points out that on Hannah’s pocket money, a scrap of cheap nylon is all she’d be able to afford and asserts, quite rightly, that the real villains in this scenario are the manufacturers and shops selling trashy lingerie for little girls.