You Can Trust Me: A Novel

  I stare at him, surprised again that Julia has told him all this. Except for our conversations about Hannah and Kara looking alike, Julia and I hadn’t talked properly about my sister for years. We mentioned her, of course, but it was Mum and Dad whom I turned to on all the anniversaries: the Christmases and the midsummer birthdays that left Kara eternally youthful while the rest of us aged. Julia used to try to talk about Kara more, but all her memories revolved around their shared life at uni, the boys and the parties. I didn’t really recognize the Kara Julia knew, the young woman my little sister was trying to become.

  “I’m sorry I didn’t come and see you before.” Damian sits back. “I’ve just been in shock since … Julia. I didn’t know whether it was right to—”

  “What did Julia want to tell me about Kara?”

  Damian rubs his forehead. “Okay, I don’t know how to say this, because I know Julia never told you anything about it.…”

  “Go on.”

  “She told me that she felt guilty that she hadn’t protected Kara … that night. In particular, that she didn’t go home with her. She carried the guilt with her all the time. Always.”

  I’m seriously surprised now. I remember Julia expressing remorse eighteen years ago that she had stayed at their friend’s house, leaving Kara to find her way home alone. But everyone told her what had happened to Kara wasn’t her fault, and I suppose I’d assumed that, in the end, she believed us. In fact, I thought I was the guilty one. I was Kara’s big sister. I should have been there to keep her safe.

  “Always felt guilty?” I say. Surely Damian’s exaggerating.

  “Yes, always. Intensely. She said it was her fault Kara was even at the party, that she’d not wanted to go, that Julia had made her. Then Kara wanted to go home and she asked Julia to leave with her, but Julia was having a good time. There was some guy she liked.…” He takes another gulp of water. His glass leaves a wet ring on the cracked wooden table and he smooths out the stain with his hand. “I know she didn’t tell you, but she never forgave herself for not being there for your sister and she never stopped trying to find out who killed her. Every week, she spent hours tracking down leads. Sometimes she even went to different places, following clues.”

  “No.” I can’t believe it.

  “It’s true.” Damian leans forward, insistent. “It’s why she stayed in Exeter after uni. She could have a gotten a job in Bristol or London—maybe worked for a big-name fashion mag, but she settled for Exeter and the chance to follow leads whenever she could.”

  I stare at him. I’m so used to seeing my own life as curtailed and Julia’s as one big glamorous adventure, that it’s hard to think of her existence as in any way constrained. And yet it does make sense of Julia’s many short trips away from home. She was always haring off to seminars and conferences, or so she said. Sometimes she gave me details of the people and places she had visited, but other times she was strangely vague. I always took her at her word that her days away had been too boring to relate: Please, Liv, she would say, I already had to live it once.

  Could she really have been following up leads on Kara’s death? I can’t imagine what on earth she could possibly have discovered.

  “But the police effectively stopped looking sixteen years ago. They said there was nothing to go on. No witnesses. No DNA.”

  “I know.” Damian shrugs. “But Julia couldn’t let it go.”

  I sit back, absorbing this. “I can’t believe Julia kept all this from me.”

  “She didn’t talk to you, because she didn’t want to raise your hopes,” Damian says. “It was private. I came across the files by accident, though I think by then she wanted to tell someone. But the night she died, it was different. She needed to talk to you.” He takes a deep breath. “She was going to tell you that she knew who he was … that she’d found him.”

  My blood turns to ice. “Him?”

  Damian nods, the light catching the green in his hazel eyes. “Him,” he says. “Kara’s killer.”

  KARA

  To do all that one is able to do, is to be a man; to do all that one would like to do, is to be a god.

  —Napoléon Bonaparte

  My childhood was, as I have explained, a normal one. Ah, nostalgia, that “land of lost content,” those happy memories of that other country, where they do things differently. Blah, blah, blah. I’ve never been one to idealize the past. Suffice it to say, I experienced all the usual developmental stages, coming early to the realization that my mother and father, albeit in very different ways, were both deeply flawed human beings.

  I found the first few teenage years a difficult time, but once I had filled out a little and come to terms with the inevitable changes to my body, I settled into an easy groove at school. The work wasn’t hard and I had friends enough, when I wanted them.

  I look back now on my teens as a time of experimentation and discovery. Of course, it was a different era back then, but the hormones were the same and it took me a while to work out how to deal with girls. There were several who stick in the mind:

  Kerry-Ann from Scotland, with her zits and straggling hair, was the first girl I had sex with. She gave up her virginity—gratefully and pathetically—in a bus shelter overlooking the sea. Then came slutty Samantha, and then, a while later, Melissa, with whom I went out for a few weeks—and who attempted suicide soon after. I learned a lot from these girls—I found out that being clean, open, and smiling was usually enough to win them over and that what little allure they held for me soon passed. I enjoyed female company. I still do. But none of these girls had anything special to offer me. I liked pursuing them but bored of them quickly.

  All that changed with Kara.

  We met at a bar one autumn night. Years had passed since the girls I named earlier, and my adult life had so far proved a massive disappointment. Despite an easy flow of lovers, I had never experienced any emotion akin to actual love. But that night, when I walked into the bar and saw Kara, it was as if all the other people in the room evaporated, like mist swirling around a beautiful work of art.

  Kara was an angel, the picture of innocence. Slim with long legs and small breasts, she looked fresh and demure, certainly compared to most of the other girls in the bar, with their heavy makeup and slutty clothes. Kara’s hair was tied off her face in a ponytail that hung like a sleek, blond whip halfway down her back. She wore a short black dress and flat black shoes. Nothing revealing, nothing ostentatious.

  Reader, I wanted her. I planned my attack. She was surrounded by other students, so I picked my moment, waiting until she went to the ladies’ alone and then happening to pass by on the way to the cigarette machine. No one saw as I asked her how she was getting on at uni, insisting that if she found anything in Exeter confusing or overwhelming, she could talk to me about it … that I knew the city well and would only be too happy to help. Blah blah blah. Except I meant it.

  Kara offered me a shy smile and I asked her more questions: about her home life, her hopes and dreams. We didn’t talk for long, and frankly, I remember none of her answers, just the smooth perfection of her sweet face and the promise of her scent. She seemed younger than the girls she was with and yet an old soul too.

  * * *

  I was desperate to have her. But Kara was shy, unwilling, chaste. One of the reasons I have evaded detection for so many years is that I leave no “tell,” no signature. I chose my methods to suit the moment, the bird in the hand, so to speak. (The other main reason is that I am phenomenally careful.) And so there is no pattern to my actions, but there is a purpose … and that purpose was formed that night with Kara and all she stood for. Even then, I knew that Vonnegut—or whoever the guy was he took the line from—was right when he said the saddest words were “it might have been.”

  Because despite every secret attempt I made to win her over, she only ever saw me as a friend. And so time passed. Time stretched out in front of me, a deathly horizon. Objective time. Subjective time worn, as Barnes says (and I par
aphrase) on the inside of the wrist, close to the pulse. Eternities passed. I was waiting for inspiration. I see that now. Of course, I was learning, studying too. But in limbo, sleepwalking, treading water. Not truly alive.

  Until that night in February. I had followed her many times before and did so again that evening. I was alone, naturally, while Kara—my shy bird, happiest to flutter in company—was at a party. Music blared from the first-floor windows as I waited. And waited, biding my time “like patience on a monument.” Ha! “Was this not love indeed?”

  To my amazed delight, Kara emerged alone from the party shortly after 1 A.M. I followed her along the road. She wore jeans and a jacket and was looking around nervously as she scurried along. I waited until she was past the surveillance camera, then rushed over, exclaiming at the coincidence of her being here, and she smiled, all shy and trusting, looking up at me with those big doe eyes of hers. Kara wasn’t like most of the young girls I saw around town, who talked about sex in a loud, crude, and unpleasant way. My poor Kara was surely mortified by whores like that. I knew, though she had of course never said, that she was a virgin.

  This was my chance. I was prepared. The tools were already in my bag: my knife, my plastic coat, my gloves and mask. It had to be tonight. And fate had thrown me a helping hand in terms of our location. We were right by the canal—a quicker route home than the one Kara had been going to take, but perfectly safe now that she was with me. The steps were nearby and I led her straight down to the canal towpath, thereby missing the next street camera as I had missed the last. The nearest bridge was just a few meters away. The thrill of anticipation throbbed through me. It was going to happen.

  We wandered along the towpath, by the dark water, gazing out over the shimmering ripples. I kept close to the wall, in the shadows. I could have taken her there, but I knew I had to wait for the bridge. One scream—and this was my first time, remember, I had not yet mastered the art of how to grip a throat so there is no room for either air or words—would have brought all sorts running.

  When I think of Kara now, it is as she looked then, in jeans and sneakers, gazing out over the canal as she walked, the breeze lifting her soft blond hair with invisible fingers. I wanted that hair in my fist. So badly. As we strolled along the path, my excitement mounted. I look back now and feel nostalgic for the purity of my intent that first time. All of me focused on all of her. I listened to her soft pad along the damp stone, to the canal water lapping at the banks, smelling the tarnish of the stale depths. I kept my distance, hidden in the shadows, until we reached the bridge. All shadow. For a moment I couldn’t see. I glanced around. The world was silent. Deserted. I ran over, swift and soft. The plastic casing was already over my shoes, no risk of footprints. A flash of her blond hair as she turned toward me. In the silence, I heard her draw breath. An excited gasp. She knew I would come for her.

  Then I took my knife. “Your first time,” I murmured, sweet, in her ear. “And mine.” I could see in her eyes that Kara wanted me, but did not know how to express this. She was a goddess, a virgin queen.

  She had to die, because it was simply impossible to imagine her living. Not in our real world, where lives are “nasty, brutish, and short.” But she lives on in my mind. It is true that when the pupil is ready, the teacher arrives. Kara was my teacher. She changed everything. Made me the man I am.

  After it was done, I turned to leave, and the glint of metal caught my eye. An old-fashioned locket around her neck. I took it and added it to my bag. Then I left, knowing at last my life’s purpose. Since that night, I have never felt the life of “quiet desperation” I know that most men endure. For there is nothing hidden that shall not be revealed, and my work on earth is to know a person’s darkest shame and have them face it in their final, glorious moments.

  With Kara, I came of age. She was the touchstone for all that followed. My guiding light, to see me safely home.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Julia knew who killed Kara?

  No way. I’m instantly suspicious again. And angry.

  I stare at Damian. He’s watching me intently. “I don’t believe you,” I say, my fury building as I speak. “Julia wouldn’t have persisted in a pointless, one-woman investigation for eighteen years. And she would certainly have told me if she had.” I stand up. “She would also have told me if … if she had feelings for you. She didn’t say any of it.”

  “I know.” Damian’s forehead creases in a deep frown. “I know this is out of the blue, but—”

  “How come I’ve never met you?” I say, drawing back and crossing my arms. “If you and Julia were so serious, why didn’t she say something? You’re not even in her diary.”

  “You don’t put people you see almost every day in your diary,” Damian says. “Anyway, Julia didn’t want to admit how she felt—not even to herself.” For a second his face relaxes into a crooked, sexy grin. He seems so … I struggle to think of the right word. Authentic. Confident. It’s hard to disbelieve him. He leans forward, his expression beseeching. “I knew Julia. Better than anyone. I saw her. All the fears she hid away, all the little insecurities. And practical stuff too—how she liked to drink Pouilly-Fuissé and Jack Daniel’s and how her favorite place was Bolt Head, looking out to sea. I know I probably sound delusional, but the truth is that Julia tried to stop seeing me several times. Every time, after a few days, she called. And I always knew she would.”

  I study his face, the intelligence in his eyes. I can certainly see the attraction. His light, thoughtful manner complementing Julia’s sharp wit beautifully.

  “Okay … never mind you and her.” There’s clearly no way I can prove how long Damian and Julia were together or how strongly she felt about him. But the stuff about Kara—that’s surely nonsense. “If Julia really thought she’d found out who killed Kara, how come she didn’t go to the police?”

  “She was going to—as soon as she’d told you. With you,” Damian explains. “But then she was killed, so—”

  “So why didn’t you go to the police?”

  “I did. That is, the police were in her flat when I went round the evening after she … after it happened. I’d been too angry to call before but … but I wanted to make up, so I went in person.” Damian closes his eyes, and a shadow passes over his face as he remembers. “The place was packed. They’d taken her body away, but there were police swarming all over everything. That was how I found out.…” He shudders, then opens his eyes. “I knew it wasn’t, it couldn’t be suicide, though that was clearly what the cops thought. But to me it was obvious: Julia had found out who Kara’s killer was and the killer had murdered her to keep her quiet. I told the police everything I knew, but I guess I sounded mad, especially when they couldn’t find anything to back up what I was saying. In fact, I think me telling them Julia thought she had identified the killer after so many years just made them more convinced she was … troubled … a bit delusional … just like they interpreted the text she sent you about ‘needing to talk’ as a cry for help—”

  “Wait.” I hold up my glass to stop him saying any more. I can’t believe any of this is true. And yet, why would Damian make it up? “If Julia really carried on an investigation, she must have had files … records. I’ve been in her flat a million times. I never saw anything like that.”

  “Of course she did.” Damian runs his hand through his hair. “She had maps and paperwork from the coroner and copies of all the police records—God knows how she got hold of half the stuff. I think there was some police guy she had wrapped round her little finger at one point, wasn’t there?”

  I nod. The policeman Damian’s referring to is the man who gave Julia the diamond and emerald ring missing from her flat and who left her the cottage in Lympstone when he died. He was a chief inspector, way older than Julia’s usual lovers; I never met him. At the time, so many years after Kara had died, the connection with her murder didn’t occur to me, but Alan Rutherford was a local guy who must have had access to all sorts of files.
r />   What did occur to me, hearing about his obvious devotion to Julia, was whether a steady, older ex-cop wasn’t just what she needed. My guts coil into a sickening knot as I remember that Julia dumped him a few weeks after his retirement, saying he was getting too keen. I can’t help but wonder now if, once he’d left the force, his usefulness had come to an end. By the time he died, a few years later, I’m certain Julia had virtually forgotten all about him—the terms of his will certainly came as a big shock. “His name was Alan Rutherford.”

  “Right, so Julia used him to get all sorts of information. And she added to it herself. She kept everything hidden in that trunk at the end of her bed. She covered it up with old clothes, things she never wore.”

  I know the trunk he’s talking about. I’ve sat on it a million times. When Julia was a student, she would routinely show me some of the more outrageous items she kept inside it, but that was a long, long time ago. I haven’t seen the contents of the trunk for years; I have no idea if Damian is telling the truth.

  “So what happened to all this stuff, all the records?”

  “That’s the point. It wasn’t there when I went round on the Sunday evening, when the police searched her flat after she died.”

  The knot in my guts twists again.

  “I think whoever killed her—whoever came round and made her take the Nembutal,” Damian goes on. “I think they deleted everything about Kara on the computer and took all the notebooks and paper records. That’s why the police couldn’t find anything.”

  I stare at him. Is he really serious?

  “There’s more,” Damian persists. “Whoever it was must have known she had research on her computer about suicide. All they had to do was leave the Nembutal brochure on her desk to reinforce what was already on the Mac.”

  My blood feels like ice in my veins. “But that means she must—”

  “—must have known the person who killed her,” Damian says grimly. “I know. Which explains why there were no signs of a struggle. Julia must have let whoever it was into the flat; then, after they killed her, they must have taken the paperwork, deleted the electronic files on Kara, and added that suicide note to her computer.”