The First Lie
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''A.J. Park is a master of suspense who knows how to keep readers hovering tensely over the edges of their seats.''Sophie Hannah
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Synopsis
We've all had sleepless nights thinking about it.You're home alone. Someone breaks in.In defending yourself, you end up killing the intruder.Now you're the one the police want.
That is the situation that criminal barrister Paul Reeve arrives home to find.
His wife Alice stands in the bedroom, clutching a bloodied letter opener in her shaking hand.
"What have you done, Alice?""I didn't have a choice..."
We would all believe the person we love most. But would we all make the same choice Paul and Alice make next...?
Release date: June 13, 2019
Publisher: Orion Publishing Group
Print pages: 384
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The First Lie
A.J. Park
When I see the front door is open, I slam on the brakes.
Six missed calls.
I grab my mobile from the passenger seat and leap out of the car.
Why didn’t Alice answer any of the times I tried calling her back? Why the hell is the front door open? Why is the house pitch-black inside?
It’s 9 p.m. and just as dark outside.
As I charge towards the front door, passing Alice’s soft-top Mercedes, everything replays in my mind: I’m returning late from work, I’ve had six missed calls from my wife, I haven’t been able to reach her since noticing them, and I’ve arrived to find the house completely dark with the front door open.
Alice would have been expecting me three hours ago, but I was called back to work. I should have let her know I’d been delayed, but work is busy and things got the better of me again; I was putting the finishing touches on what will hopefully be my final case as a barrister for Blacksmith’s, one of London’s leading law firms, before the committee interviews and then the panel’s final decision about who will be named the UK’s next Circuit Judge. If I’m chosen, at thirty-seven, I’ll make UK history by becoming the youngest ever, and I’ll be based in part at the High Court, or the Old Bailey as it’s more commonly known, and in other courts around the south-east of the country.
Alice is patient with me; she knows the pressure I’m under, so she never calls to badger me if I get held up. Which is why six missed calls means something’s very wrong. And now I find myself at the edge of a black hole, not knowing what I’m about to encounter.
I leap into the house, barely able to discern any of the objects in the reception area, even though I know the location of every item and feature. I call out Alice’s name, trying to contain my alarm, but failing I’m sure. My heart skips a beat when there isn’t a response. I flick on the corridor lights and barge into the toilet, which is on the right. Then the kitchen, which is straight ahead. And then around the corner to the lounge, and to the right beyond that, the spacious dining room.
Nothing, no sign of Alice.
The house would normally be lit up like Christmas. Alice would normally be in the lounge, a glass of red wine in her hand. The television would normally be on.
She’d normally walk towards me as I enter. We’d normally share a kiss, my hands on her hips, her hands tracing my face, sensuous as the day we first met thirteen years ago.
Normally, but not today.
I take the stairs two at a time, moving too quickly to catch the light switch on my way up. Reaching the landing, there’s a wall of silence, so I stop, every door before me closed. ‘Alice?’ I repeat, more tentatively this time. Something doesn’t feel right.
I try the two nearest doors. Nothing. Then the third, my office. As my head’s in it, a sound, something muffled, emanates from our bedroom at the far end of the corridor. I move towards it, passing the bathroom on the left-hand side. ‘Alice?’ I repeat, almost in a whisper.
Reaching the door, I breathe in deeply, clasp the handle and turn it, opening the door onto thick darkness. Suddenly, without much thought, I shoulder-barge my way in, fists clenched, body tense. Expecting something, but I don’t know what.
It takes a moment for my eyes to adjust to the black cloud. Something comes into focus.
Someone’s sitting on the bed.
‘Alice,’ I say softly. I can tell it’s her because of the shape of her silhouette. She’s facing the built-in wardrobe, her head in profile to me. She hasn’t seen me, or if she has she doesn’t react to my presence.
‘Alice?’ I say, now at normal volume, no longer as alarmed.
She turns slowly.
When she doesn’t reply, I reach for the light switch.
‘No!’ she screams suddenly, a painful sound. ‘Don’t switch on the—’
I step back, but my hand remains outstretched and touches the switch. The room lights up.
Her face is pale, her cheekbones and eyes moist. Her white shirt, which is undone, is covered in blood, her exposed skin also smeared red. There’s blood on her hands, in her hair. Specks of it are on her face. She looks like Lady Macbeth after Duncan’s murder.
The sight of her shocks me and I struggle to catch a breath. ‘Alice, what’s hap—’
‘The bathroom,’ she sobs. I try to reach out to cradle her, but she swipes a hand at me. ‘Please, the bathroom!’
I leave her there and rush to the bathroom. Pushing open the door, I switch on the light, and double over at what I find.
There’s a man draped over the edge of the bath, his face in its water. There are bubbles in the bath, and blood. The back of his neck has been torn to pieces. Protruding from it is my letter opener, whose design is the shape of a dagger. It’s normally on my office desk, but this morning, after opening yesterday’s post while in the bedroom, I left it on Alice’s dressing table.
I want to call out but, struggling to take in what I’ve walked into, am without voice. Then, suddenly, hands are pulling me away from the mess. In the doorway, Alice presses me up against the wall.
‘Paul,’ she says, squeezing my shoulders.
All I can see is the blood that layers her skin and clothing.
‘It’s not what it looks like,’ she says in a panic, sensing my concern and confusion. She looks me deep in the eyes, making sure I see her. ‘You know me. I’m your wife. Please believe me.’
I try to hold her gaze, even though my mind is wandering and it’s difficult. ‘Alice,’ I say, ‘what have you done?’ Then more slowly: ‘What have you done?’
‘It’s not what it looks like. You know me. I’m your wife. Please believe me.’
There’s a period of time when he stares at me without saying a word. I can tell he’s in shock.
Then, finally, he whispers, as if we might be overheard, ‘Alice, what have you done? What have you done?’
‘I didn’t have a choice.’ I clutch the lapels of his jacket and uselessly hit his chest with my fists. ‘I didn’t have a choice.’
He hugs me. ‘How? Why?’
‘He was in our house!’
Releasing me, he glances back into the room where a strange man’s body lies half in, half out of the bath. A place where I normally relax, soothing candles lit, soft music playing in the background.
‘What happened?’ Paul asks, breathless.
I draw him back towards the bedroom and speak as quickly and clearly as I can, despite what feels like a stabbing pain in my chest. ‘I was running a bath. There was music. I had music on … Music coming through the Bluetooth speakers, in there. I was about to come out of the bedroom and saw him – he came, he was just there, from nowhere – but he didn’t see me, somehow, God knows how. Some kind of, some kind of wire in his hands, I could see it, and he was walking towards me, where he thought I was, I saw him going into the bathroom. He was … oh Paul, I knew he was coming for me, I just knew it.’
He looks confused. ‘But why?’
‘I don’t know,’ I cry. ‘All I know is, I thought he was going to … he was going to kill me, Paul. I’ve never been so scared in all my life. Oh God, I’m so scared now. I didn’t know what to do. I saw the letter opener on the dressing table and grabbed it. I didn’t think. I barely knew what I was doing and then I was in there and it was over so quickly. I hit him in the back of his neck. Then again and again, I didn’t stop. Couldn’t, Paul, I thought he was going to kill me. There was a man in our fucking house! We’re supposed to be safe here.’ I stare at my blood-soaked hands and my body shakes uncontrollably. ‘Why, Paul, why? Why was he here? Why did he have to come into our home?’ I sob and he once again cradles me in his arms, trying to shush me. ‘Why our home? Why me? Oh my God, what have I done, Paul, what have I done?’
He squeezes. I want the pressure to be reassuring, but it isn’t. I fear nothing will ever be able to change how I’m feeling.
Nothing will be able to make this better.
‘It’s okay. Sshhh. It’s okay, sweetheart. I’m here for you.’
I press myself deeper into his shoulder, wishing I could be absorbed and taken far from this place. Away from what I’ve done.
He’s breathing heavily, but there’s a calmness about him. It should be soothing. I want it to be. ‘Kiss me, please,’ I murmur into his jacket.
He tries to lead me out of the crevasse I’m hiding in, but my body resists.
‘Please,’ I repeat, fighting my body’s resistance, ‘kiss me.’
He strokes my hair. His touch makes my body tingle and my head tilts backwards. I gaze into his eyes. He brings his lips to mine and, for a moment, I’m uplifted, like I’m on a cloud and looking down on a happier time, some other time, like when we shared our first kiss, or our first kiss as Mr and Mrs Reeve, which we shared on the makeshift altar on the Caribbean beach where we were married. His kisses, the feel of his touch, have the power to make all my fears disappear. Now he’s pulling me away from a tragedy I fear will ruin the rest of our lives. And thank God it’s working.
‘Oh Paul,’ I sigh, sinking.
He holds the kiss until I’m ready to let go. I place my head against his chest, my arms around his back, his around my shoulders. We hold on for dear life.
‘Life will never be the same again,’ I whisper.
He says softly, ‘Yes, it will. We’ll figure it out. Everything will be all right.’
After several minutes, he gently leads me into the bedroom and onto the bed. ‘Stay here,’ he says and he disappears downstairs. Without him, the shivering increases and I mouth his name, tears welling up in my eyes. He’s back in a few moments and I’m overwhelmed by relief. He’s carrying a large bowl and a cloth. ‘Let’s clean you up,’ he says, crouching down beside the bed. Slowly, delicately, he dips the cloth into the water and traces it across my face, its warmth penetrating my body’s resistance. I look down into the water. Each time he puts the cloth into it and squeezes it, a red waterfall drips down and a deeper red puddle appears.
‘Don’t look,’ he urges. ‘Just let me do this. You’ll feel better when I’m finished and it’s all gone.’ My body shudders and I shed more tears. ‘We’ll work everything out.’
‘How?’ I say, the sound barely coming out.
‘I just need time to think. I’ll help us make this right.’ He wipes my face, my neck, my chest, then my stomach.
‘I’ve killed a man, Paul.’
‘He broke into our house, Alice. You had no choice.’
‘But I’ve killed a man! These hands’ – I hold them up, watch as they shake – ‘I’ve killed.’
Stopping what he’s doing, Paul looks me in the eye and then brings his lips to mine. He puts the bowl on the floor and I feel his hands in my hair, massaging my scalp. Then he kisses me on each cheek. ‘You’re not alone here. I’m with you. I will help you. We’ll get through this together.’
He lifts up the bowl and starts drawing the cloth along my forearms.
‘What’ll happen to me?’
He puts down the bowl again and runs the back of his fingers across my right cheek. I know he has an answer, but he doesn’t want to say it.
‘Will I go to jail?’ I ask.
He smiles at me. It looks like a happy smile, but it masks a wistfulness. And still he doesn’t speak.
‘Should we call the police, Paul?’
When he remains silent, only offering a smile that’s beginning to look pathetic and unhelpful and full of doubt, I repeat, now with some force, ‘Shall we, Paul?’ My tears have stopped.
I can see he wants to say yes, that he’s thinking how to. He starts to nod his head, but lowers it and then shakes it. ‘No,’ he says, his eyes facing the ground. ‘No, we shouldn’t call the police.’
‘Because you know what will happen? Because you’re a barrister?’
‘Because I know.’ He shakes his head forcefully, winces and places his hands on my knees, squeezing too tightly. ‘Of course we should call the police, Alice. We should call them and tell them exactly what’s happened.’ He looks devastated, like he’s been given some awful news and has only partly digested the reality of it.
‘But I’ve killed a man, Paul.’
‘I know—’
‘And you know better than most people what that must mean.’
He squeezes his eyes shut and slowly nods his head.
‘What does it mean, Paul?’
He places his forehead in the palm of his hand. I look down into my lap, where my hands are. He hasn’t washed the blood off my palms. I bring them closer to my eyes, so that I can really see the proof of what I’ve done, and then I turn them towards him.
‘Look,’ I say pitifully, holding them up. He looks up. ‘Look and tell me, what do you see?’ I think I can see moisture building up in his eyes. ‘Tell me, what do I look like to you?’
An explosion of air comes out of his mouth and he lifts his hand, once again, to my cheek. ‘You were only defending yourself.’
‘It doesn’t look like that, does it?’
He shakes his head as he says, ‘No, it doesn’t, but you were defending yourself. He was in our home.’
‘Yes, our house.’
Paul, normally so confident, so sure about everything, looks lost. I’ve ruined everything.
‘I’m so sorry.’
‘Oh Alice—’
‘I’m sorry. I’ve destroyed … everything.’
‘You have nothing to be sorry about. You had to defend yourself. You’d be dead otherwise. I couldn’t lose you, Alice.’
‘You can still lose me. I’ll end up in prison.’
‘You had no choice.’
‘I can see it in your eyes, Paul. You know what will happen to me. And you’ll be ruined. Everything you’ve worked for. There’s no way they’ll give you the promotion if your wife’s a convicted murderer.’
‘No choice,’ he says more forcefully, and suddenly he’s up on his feet. I’m taken aback by the alteration in his movement and tone.
He becomes still. He looks down at me. ‘You had no choice,’ he says clinically, professionally. ‘He was going to kill you. So now we have no choice.’
I lean forwards. ‘What do you mean?’
‘Do you trust me, Alice?’ he asks.
‘With every breath in my body.’
‘If I’d only been here …’
I nod.
‘Now I’m here for you.’ And then he says quickly, suddenly, as if he doesn’t want to hear the words himself, ‘We’re going to get rid of the body.’
Detective Sergeant Katherine Wright and Detective Constable Ryan Hillier of the Major Investigation Team, or MIT, part of the Specialist Crime and Operations Directorate’s Homicide Command North-West, arrived in Kendall Green. She parked the car and they got out. Hers was one of many police cars, both marked and, like hers, unmarked, in the street and neighbourhood surrounding the apartment block. She was there to take charge of the scene and collate information from the current investigators and officers in preparation for the arrival of her boss, Detective Superintendent Jonathan Lange, who led the MIT.
Wright looked across the bleak panorama that made Kendall Green the eyesore it was. The apartment block was designed in the shape of an L, very wide, very brown, very neglected, and only four storeys high, yet it housed over one hundred homes and five hundred people. It was rundown and wholly unappealing, yet its properties could fetch mid-six figures. Its postcode was NW5, making it close enough to central London to warrant extortionate purchase prices and even more exorbitant monthly rents.
Wright and Hillier made their way past the police cordon after showing their ID cards and found themselves at the block’s entrance. Their destination: number 74. They had already been briefed on what they would encounter, but advance warning could do little to quell the unsettling stomach sensations that were a natural part of the job. Despite eight years of experience as a detective, the reactions were an intrinsic part of what made Wright who she was. And police officers, she maintained, were human, despite what movies conveyed, despite what kids thought. You never get used to it; you just find a way to compartmentalise what you see and deal with it.
Or you get out.
Which she’d thought about doing for a long time now.
As was usual in such circumstances, the two detectives stopped speaking as soon as they left their car. They needed, and were thankful for, time to prepare. They took the lift to the third floor and made their way along the corridor. An officer guarded the door to number 74. The front door was an immaculate, vibrant blue, the antithesis of the building’s exterior.
Wright and Hillier produced their ID cards and the officer on duty immediately stepped aside, nodding his head. Both detectives placed protective gloves on their hands and paper shoe covers on their feet, all of which would be returned at the end of their time here for careful inspection in case any evidence was inadvertently taken from the scene. Wright led the way in.
Inside, the décor was in keeping with the front door: flawless, bright, contemporary and expensive. The apartment felt completely out of place from the shell that housed it.
The hallway was empty, bar the occasional framed photograph on the wall. Wright and Hillier passed the kitchen on the right and a bedroom on the left. The bathroom was also on the right, sans people, and the lounge was at the end of the hallway, opening up into a spacious, light area. A dining table and chairs were directly ahead, a corner sofa to the left and a television on the wall in front of it.
Various scene investigators, dressed in white body suits, were dusting for fingerprints, bagging items, photographing and busy completing countless other tasks.
In the middle of the large sofa sat the property’s owner, its sole occupant, Richard Dollard. He was upright and his hands were in his lap. His head was tilted back against the headrest. His neck has been sliced through. A deep wound. So deep that from afar it looked as if his head was only held on by the skin at the back of the neck. Dried blood caked his white shirt, the top button open, and a significant proportion of the cream-coloured sofa.
Wright and Hillier walked round to the front of the sofa and stood next to a middle-aged man, who was the lead crime scene investigator. Heavily balding, Daniel Emerson was someone whom Wright knew all too well. Even though they got on, his presence was always a difficult reminder to her that death brought along countless mysteries, some too difficult to ever solve.
‘Dan,’ she said.
‘Katie.’ He was the only one of her colleagues who called her that. Although they weren’t friends outside of work, they were on friendly terms. Given what they had seen together, there was no other option. Every arm was needed for support, and friendliness and familiarity helped.
‘What have you found?’
‘Some kind of wire. Very sharp. Sliced right through. He didn’t even put up a fight. Wouldn’t have had the chance to, poor bugger. He was watching TV and probably didn’t even see it coming. Whoever it was, was behind him, leant over and pulled right back. It went through with ease.’
‘How did he get in?’ she asked.
‘Front door lock was picked. We haven’t found anything that looks out of place yet. Picking up lots of prints, but they could belong to him or any number of previous visitors. Probably do, if I’m honest. Will take ages to tell, maybe we never will. Not many people could pick that kind of lock and leave everything so clean. All this blood, not one footprint. Don’t know about you, but I couldn’t sneak up on someone as young as this and get away with it so easily. This one has confidence. Buckets of it.’
‘Tell me more about the weapon.’
‘Sharp wire, nothing more than that at the moment. But if I had to guess, based on the slice and how easily it seemed to go through the skin, how cleanly, I’d say piano wire. You want to use the technical term, or the old word, he’s been garrotted.’
‘Garrotted? Piano wire?’ she repeated.
‘Will do the trick every time,’ he nodded. ‘Effortlessly.’
The method was a first in Wright’s experience, even though she had almost a decade with a London MIT. ‘Not something just anyone would have lying around.’
‘Indeed not.’
‘Not something just anyone would think to use.’
‘You took the words right out of my mouth.’
‘Ryan,’ she said to Hillier, ‘find out where they sell piano wire locally and throughout the city.’
‘Lots of places, I’d imagine.’
‘Me too. But let’s try. You never know, there might be a local place that can connect us to someone from around here,’ she kidded herself, not believing it for a second. ‘And let’s see if method gets us anywhere. Find out if there are any unsolved or solved murders involving piano wire in the past, I don’t know, let’s say five years.’
‘Just five?’
‘Start with five, see what you get. Go to ten if you don’t get anywhere.’
‘May I?’ she said to Emerson, indicating the body.
‘With pleasure,’ he replied, stepping back, removing his gloves. ‘Needed a coffee and a pee anyway.’ He made his way out of the apartment without another word.
‘I’ll see you back at the station?’ Hillier asked.
‘Sure, Ryan. When Lange arrives, I’ll brief him and then make my way back. You take the car.’ She handed him the keys.
He gave her a friendly . . .
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