The Woman Who Lied
Claire Douglas
For Ty – here’s to the next twenty years!
Prologue
May 2022
There is a film of sweat on DC Anthony Haddock’s top lip and his fringe is stuck to his forehead, his tie askew. He has purple smudges under his eyes and his shirt is creased. Emilia must look as exhausted as he does – she had no sleep last night. She can’t even remember if she brushed her hair this morning （definitely not her teeth） and she’s still in yesterday’s clothes.
‘I want to say again how sorry I am for your loss,’ he says sincerely. He has a large Adam’s apple that bulges in his skinny neck as he swallows. She can’t stop looking at it. She digs her nails into her palms to prevent herself from crying. She can’t really blame him, this man in his rumpled short-sleeved shirt that makes him look like a sixth-former. She should have made more fuss when she was first introduced to him last month, and then maybe they wouldn’t be here now, in this stifling, claustrophobic room on the hottest day of the year so far.
She shifts in her seat, her skirt sticking to the backs of her legs. The notebook – the one she started using on the advice of another police officer, back when all this began – sits between them on the table. Her fifteen-year-old daughter, Jasmine, had given it to her for her birthday in January to plot out her new novel idea, her first standalone. It has colourful butterflies in descending sizes on the front and Emilia always felt it represented renewal, a change. Growth. Yet it never fulfilled its purpose. Instead, it contains all the warped events that have taken place over the last few months. The macabre echoes of stories already written. And now a murder. Someone she loved.
‘We’re doing everything we can to catch whoever is behind this.’ He’s silent for a few moments, his pale eyes never leaving hers, then says, ‘And you’re sure this is someone you know?’ DC Haddock glances down at the list of names she’s just given him.
‘Yes. I’m sure of it.’ She wishes she was wrong but she knows she’s not. ‘Only my close friends and family have read Her Last Chapter, apart from my editor, of course. It hasn’t been published yet. And some of what’s happened, especially in the last few weeks, well, it’s come from that manuscript.’
He nods sagely, his thin lips set. He doesn’t say anything. He doesn’t have to. His silence speaks volumes and the implication is clear.
Because she, Emilia Ward, bestselling crime writer of the popular Detective Inspector Moody series, is running out of time. At the end of Her Last Chapter she kills off her beloved main character, DI Miranda Moody. If the pattern continues, if whoever is doing this is keeping to the plot of the book, it means there’s only one main event left in the manuscript.
DI Moody’s death.
And, therefore, hers.
Part One
1
March 2022
Emilia is on the bus home, staring out of the window at the overcast sky and thinking she’d eaten too much for lunch, when it happens.
A blur of flashing lights and the blare of sirens as a police car whizzes by, followed in quick succession by two more.
She doesn’t think much of it. Another accident. She’s used to them. This is London after all and it’s 4.45 p.m. on a Friday, the beginning of the weekend rush hour. She leans back against the seat, wondering if she can find a way to loosen the waistband on her skirt. She shouldn’t have said yes to that apple crumble and custard. Grazia pokes out of the bag at her feet. She’d bought it before catching the bus from High Street Kensington, but the journey has taken so long and she feels so confined that she hasn’t picked it up for fear of travel sickness.
An elderly woman wearing a patterned orange headscarf sits next to her hugging a long-haired sausage dog on her lap. As the bus chugs to a halt, belching fumes that blow in through the open window, she tuts impatiently. She turns to Emilia with an exasperated expression. ‘Rigsby’s going to need a wee in a minute.’
The dog looks up at Emilia with sorrowful brown eyes. She smiles reassuringly at the woman, but bends down and moves her bag so it’s between her thigh and the window, just in case Rigsby decides to release his bladder on her beloved Mulberry tote.
They are on the Kew Road. Soon they’ll be passing Kew Gardens but due to the tube strikes the roads are busier than usual. So here she is, stuck on a bus with the aroma of the Cornish pasty that a young guy is devouring in the seat in front of her, and the threat of a urinating dog. She can’t wait to tell Elliot about her meeting with her editor when she gets home. She’d rung him briefly as she left the restaurant, mainly to remind him to collect Wilfie from school but hadn’t had the chance to tell him everything.
She’d been so anxious this morning: she couldn’t find her favourite leopard-print scarf, then forgot where she’d put her house keys.
‘You’ll be fine,’ Elliot had said, when she was finally ready to leave. He kissed her cheek so as not to mess up her lipstick. ‘Just be honest. She’ll understand. It’s your career, after all.’
So, honest she had been – to an extent anyway. Her editor, Hannah, had paled beneath her make-up when Emilia admitted she wanted to kill off the main character in the book she was writing, her tenth in the series. Hannah is nearly eight months pregnant and Emilia was worried she’d send her into early labour. Her elegant fingers curled around her glass of lemonade as though frozen while Emilia explained that with book eleven she wanted to write a standalone thriller and that she felt DI Miranda Moody’s story was over. She didn’t admit that this book had been one of the hardest to write and, at one point, had doubted she’d ever be able to come up with a good enough plot.
It had taken Hannah a few moments to respond. Eventually, in a strained voice, she said, ‘The Moody series has sold over two million copies in the UK alone. It’s a huge risk.’
Emilia knew that, of course she did. And it terrified her. But she felt it was the right time. Ten books in ten years, and writing Her Last Chapter had been a struggle.
The lunch ended on a kind of truce: Emilia would send over the first draft of Her Last Chapter, which included DI Moody’s death, and Hannah would see if it worked. If not, Emilia would change the ending, take a break and write something else but keep it open for a DI Moody return in the future.
The bus still hasn’t moved and all Emilia can see is the queue of traffic ahead. She wonders if she should continue her journey on foot, it’s only twenty minutes from here, but if the bus driver refuses to let her off she’ll have to do the walk of shame back to her seat in front of all these people.
The double doors at the front of the bus ping open with a sucking sound and a police officer boards. Instantly the passengers fall silent, glancing at each other questioningly. The woman next to her leans to the right so she has a view down the aisle, then turns to Emilia and barks, ‘What’s he doing on here?’ as if Emilia’s going to know.
‘Maybe he’s telling the bus driver there’s been an accident,’ she replies politely. ‘Or that the road’s blocked.’
The policeman exits the bus and the driver stands up to address them.
‘I’m sorry, everyone,’ he says, his face ruddy and his jacket straining across his large belly. ‘But I’m afraid there’s been a serious incident further along this road. Unfortunately you’ll have to disembark here.’