The Lies We Told: The exciting new psychological thriller from the bestselling author of Watching Edie

We took her to the doctor’s, insisting on a referral to a child psychologist – the three of us trooping over to Peterborough to meet a man with an earnest smile and a gentle voice, in a red jumper, named Neil. But though he did his best with Hannah, inviting her to draw him pictures of her feelings, use dolls to act out stories, she refused, point-blank. ‘NO!’ she said, pushing crayons and toys away. ‘Don’t want to.’

‘Look,’ Neil said, once the receptionist had taken Hannah out of the room. ‘She’s very young. Children act out sometimes. It’s entirely possible she didn’t realize how badly she would hurt you.’ He paused, fixing me in his sympathetic gaze. ‘You also mentioned a lack of affection from her, a lack of … emotional response. Sometimes children model what they see from their parents. And sometimes it helps if the parent remembers that they are the adult, and the child is not there to fulfil their own emotional needs.’

He said all this very kindly, very sensitively, but my fury was instantaneous. ‘I cuddle that child all day long,’ I hissed, ignoring Doug’s restraining hand on my arm. ‘I talk to her, play with her, kiss her and love her and I tell her how special she is every single minute. And I don’t expect my three-year-old to “fulfil my emotional needs”. What kind of idiot do you think I am?’ But the seed was set, the implication was clear. By hook or by crook it was my fault. And deep down of course I worried that Neil was right. That I was deficient somehow, that I had caused this, whatever ‘this’ was. We left that psychologist’s office and we didn’t go back.

That day, the day she killed Lucy, I stood looking in at my five-year-old daughter from her bedroom door and any last remaining hope I’d had – that I’d been wrong about her, that she’d grow out of it, that somewhere inside her was a normal, healthy child – vanished. I marched across the room and took her by the hand. ‘Come with me,’ I said and led her to my bedroom. Her expression, biddable, mildly interested, only made my fury stronger. I dragged her to the bed and she stood beside me, looking down at Lucy’s head on my pillow and I saw – I know I saw – the flicker of enjoyment in her eyes. By the time she’d turned them back to me they were entirely innocent once more. ‘Mummy?’ she said.

‘It was you,’ I said, my voice tight with anger. ‘I know it was you.’ I loved that bird. I had inherited her from an elderly neighbour I’d once been close to, and during those years of childlessness Lucy had become the focus of all my attention; a pretty, defenceless little creature to take care of, who needed me. Hannah knew how much I loved her. She knew.

‘No,’ she answered, and tilted her head to one side as she continued to consider me. ‘No, Mummy. It wasn’t me.’

I left her standing by the bed and ran downstairs to the kitchen. And there was Lucy’s cage, its door swung open, the tiny headless body lying on the floor beside it cold and stiff. I looked around the room, my eyes darting wildly about. How had she done it? What had she used? She had no access to the kitchen knives, of course. Suddenly a thought struck me and I ran back up the stairs to her bedroom. And there it was. The metal ruler from Doug’s toolbox, lying on her table. I’d heard her asking him for it the day before – for something she was making, she’d said. It lay there now, next to her craft things and I stared down at it as nausea rose in me.

I hadn’t heard Hannah follow me from the kitchen until she slipped into the room and stood beside me. ‘Mummy?’ she said.

My heart jumped, ‘What?’

Her eyes fell to my belly. ‘Is it all right?’

The slight lisp, that pretty, melodic voice of hers, so adorable – everybody commented on it. I bit back my revulsion. ‘What?’ I asked. ‘Is what all right?’

She considered me. ‘The baby, Mummy. The little baby in your tummy. Is it all right? Or is it dead too?’

I put a hand to my belly as defensively as if she’d struck me there. Her gaze bored into me. ‘Why would the baby be dead?’ I whispered. ‘Why would you say that?’ There’s no way she could have known of course that she’d touched upon my greatest fear – that this new baby, our second miracle, would not survive, would not be born alive. It was the stress of my relationship with Hannah that caused this paranoia, I think. I almost felt as though I would deserve it, because I’d made such a mess of everything with her. My unborn baby would be taken from me, as penance.

As I gazed into her eyes, fear stroked the back of my neck. ‘Stay right here,’ I said. ‘Stay here until I say.’

That night I described to Doug what had happened. ‘What are we going to do?’ I asked him. ‘What the hell are we going to do?’

‘We don’t know it was Hannah,’ he said weakly.

‘Who the hell was it, then?’

‘Maybe … God, I don’t know! Maybe it was a fox, or one of the neighbours’ kids mucking about?’

‘Don’t be ridiculous!’

‘We have foxes in the garden all the time,’ he said. ‘Are you sure the back door was closed?’

‘Well, no,’ I said, ‘It was open. But …’

‘We’ve had to tell Hannah before about leaving the cage door unfastened,’ he added.

This was also true, she loved to feed Lucy, and though she knew she wasn’t allowed to open the door without me there, it was possible she had fiddled with the latch. ‘OK, but what about what she said about the baby?’ I demanded.

Doug rubbed his face tiredly. ‘She’s five years old, Beth. She doesn’t understand about death yet, does she? Maybe she’s feeling anxious about having a new sibling.’

I stared at him. ‘I can’t believe you’re saying this! I know it was Hannah. It was written all over her face!’

‘And where were you?’ he said, his voice rising too. ‘Where the hell were you when all this was going on? Why weren’t you watching her?’

‘Don’t you dare make this my fault,’ I shouted. ‘Don’t you dare do that!’ On we argued, our worry and distress causing us to turn on each other, sniping and defensive.

‘Mummy? Daddy?’ Hannah appeared in the doorway, looking sleepy and adorable in her pink pyjamas. She held her teddy in her hand. ‘Why are you shouting?’

Doug got to his feet. ‘Hello, little one,’ he said, his voice suddenly jolly. ‘How’s my princess? Got a cuddle for your daddy?’

She nodded and edged closer, but then said in a small, sad voice, ‘Is it because of Lucy?’

Doug and I exchanged a look. He picked her up. ‘You know how it happened?’

She shook her head. ‘Mummy thinks I did it, but I never did! Mummy loves her birdy and so do I.’ Tears welled, spilling from her eyes. ‘I would never, ever hurt Lu-Lu bird.’

Doug held her close. ‘I know you wouldn’t, of course you wouldn’t. It was only somebody playing a nasty trick, that’s all. Or a fox. Maybe a naughty fox did it. Come on, sweetheart, don’t cry, please don’t cry. Let’s get you back to bed.’ I knew he was fooling himself, too scared to admit the truth, but I’d never felt so lonely, so wretched, as I did at that moment. As they left the kitchen I looked up and caught Hannah watching me over her father’s shoulder, her expression impassive now. We held each other’s gaze before they turned the corner and disappeared from view.

4 (#ue70a4556-8226-543c-897a-85987657e7d8)

London, 2017

When Clara answered her intercom it was Mac’s voice she heard, crackling back at her as though from a different world; an innocent, ordinary place where emails weren’t sent that stopped your heart from beating, that turned your blood to ice. ‘Jesus,’ he said after she’d buzzed him up, ‘you look awful. I tried you at work but they said you hadn’t come back after lunch so …’ he paused. ‘Clara? Are you all right?’

Without replying she led him to the computer and pointed at the screen. ‘Read these,’ she said.

Obediently he sat. She watched him as he read, his head bowed, thick black hair sticking out in all directions, his rangy six-foot frame hunched uncomfortably in the small office chair, as though he might uncoil and come springing out of it like a jack in the box. It was good to see him, the band of fear that had been wrapping itself ever tighter round her chest loosening a fraction.

Mac had been Luke’s closest friend since school and spent almost as much time at their flat as they did. He was life as she’d known it only twenty-four hours before: nights out at The Reliance, evenings in with beers and a box set, long, hung-over Sunday lunches in the Owl and Pussycat; private jokes and shared history, the comfort and ease of old friendship: he was the mainstay of her and Luke’s relationship, witness to their happy, normal life – before everything had become so entirely not normal, before the creeping awareness that everything was very far from normal indeed.

‘Holy shit,’ he said, when he’d read the last message.

‘Did you know about them?’ she demanded.

He glanced at her sheepishly. ‘Well yeah, Luke told me he’d been getting dodgy emails, but I didn’t realize they were this bad, that there were so many of them.’

Clara’s voice rose in frustration. ‘Why the hell didn’t he tell me? I can’t believe he kept them from me. They’re so nasty – some of them are fucking sick.’

‘Yeah,’ Mac said. ‘He, um, he didn’t want you to worry …’

‘Oh for God’s sake!’

‘I know, I know. I think he was embarrassed they’re from a woman.’

‘Are you kidding me? Whoever this nutcase is broke into my flat! She’s been threatening my boyfriend. What the hell was Luke playing at, not telling me about it?’ She looked at him sharply. ‘Does he know who she is?’

Emphatically Mac shook his head. ‘No. Honestly, Clara, I don’t think he’s got a clue.’

She went to the screen and read the last email aloud. ‘“I’m coming for you.” I mean, what the fuck?’ She looked around for her phone. ‘I’m going to call the police.’

Mac got up. ‘I’m pretty sure they won’t do anything until he’s been missing twenty-four hours. Look, Clara, I think these emails are from some weirdo who wants to rattle Luke – an ex maybe, but I doubt they have anything to do with him not coming home last night.’