Where the Truth Lies Read online

  WHERE THE TRUTH LIES

  Julie Corbin

  www.hodder.co.uk

  First published in Great Britain in 2010 by Hodder & Stoughton

  An Hachette UK company

  Copyright © Julie Corbin 2010

  The right of Julie Corbin to be identified as the Author of the Work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  All characters in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead is purely coincidental.

  A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library

  Epub ISBN 978 1 848 94212 7

  Book ISBN 978 0 340 91989 7

  Hodder & Stoughton Ltd

  An Hachette UK Company

  338 Euston Road

  London NW1 3BH

  www.hodder.co.uk

  For my sister Caroline, with love and admiration. xx

  CONTENTS

  Where the Truth Lies

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Acknowledgements

  About the Author

  Also by Julie Corbin

  Prologue

  I didn’t see it coming.

  No black cats crossed my path. No clear-eyed crows cawed alarm from the trees. There was nothing to warn me about what was up ahead.

  An invisible clock was ticking, each beat drawing my family closer to danger and I was oblivious. Busy with the normal, everyday things that make up a life, I didn’t know about the threats or the blackmail, or about the brutal turn our lives were about to take. I didn’t know that someone close to me was on course to devastate my family. I thought my home was a safe place, that danger kept its distance.

  I thought wrong.

  1

  It’s the first of June, Bea’s fourth birthday. The party’s over and the other mums have arrived to collect their children. I move between the kitchen and the back garden, handing juice to children, tea or coffee to mums, catching snippets of conversations and adding a sentence or two myself before going back inside. My stepmother, Wendy, is tidying up the remnants of wrapping and streamers that lie across the kitchen floor, squashing them into the recycling bin. I start to clear the table: plates of half-eaten sausage rolls and sandwiches; over a dozen pudding bowls, most of them scraped clean of chocolate ice cream and tangerine jelly.

  ‘I can’t believe she’s four already,’ Wendy says, as she arranges Bea’s cards in front of the plates on the Welsh dresser. ‘It seems like only yesterday she was learning to walk.’

  ‘I know.’ I look through the big picture window to where Bea and another child are hanging on to my husband, Julian, one on each arm. He’s twirling them round. I lean my head against the window frame and smile, then laugh out loud as they drag him to the ground and start to pummel him with their small but persistent fists. They stop when he pretends to cry. Bea crouches beside him, trying to soothe, patting his hair until he jumps up and chases her and she screams with a kind of terrified ecstasy. When he catches her, he throws her up in the air and tickles her until her face is almost puce.

  ‘It’s such a pity Lisa can’t be here,’ Wendy continues, coming to stand beside me. ‘Her scan results will be out tomorrow, won’t they?’

  I nod.

  ‘Oh, Claire, I do hope it’s good news.’ She gives a small sigh. ‘It would be lovely to see her well again.’

  My heart squeezes. The last round of chemotherapy has left Lisa weak, emptied out, drained of almost everything that makes her my sister, and we’re all praying it’s been worth it.

  ‘When I visit her tomorrow, I’ll show her the party photos,’ I say, putting my arm round Wendy’s shoulder. ‘And I’ll take her some of the lovely birthday cake you made.’

  ‘Give her a hug from me,’ Wendy says, moving to one side as my friend Jem comes in from the garden, her arms loaded with a couple of discarded sweaters, a miniature cricket set and two Frisbees.

  ‘Julian’s going beyond the call of duty out there,’ she says, dumping all the stuff on the table. ‘They’re running him ragged.’

  ‘He’s enjoying it,’ I say, looking at my watch. ‘He has to leave for Sofia in an hour. He can nap on the plane.’

  ‘What’s he going there for, then?’ Jem asks.

  ‘It’s the case he’s working on. He needs to double-check some details with the Bulgarian police.’

  ‘He’s prosecuting Pavel Georgiev,’ Wendy says. ‘You’ll have heard of him, Jem. There’s been a lot about him in the papers.’

  ‘Yeah, I have.’ Jem looks from Wendy to me. ‘I didn’t realise he was working on that case.’

  ‘It’s really very serious,’ Wendy says, her voice hushed. ‘Georgiev and the men who work for him . . .’ She shakes her head at both of us. ‘Shocking stuff. It’s hard to believe that people can be so evil.’

  ‘And that’s not the half of it,’ I say. ‘There’s a lot the press can’t print because it could prejudice the trial.’ I think of some of the things Julian has told me, details I’ve avoided discussing with friends and family: young girls trafficked and used for sex, men tortured and then killed because they refused to hand over a percentage of their earnings. I shiver. ‘I’ll be glad when the trial’s over and he’s locked up for good.’

  Jem gives me a quick hug. ‘You’ll want some family time before Julian leaves.’ She tilts her head in the direction of the garden. ‘I’ll get the ball rolling on the goodbyes.’

  As good as her word, one mother and child after another come inside. A dozen children’s voices fill the hallway. Shoes and sweaters are found, goodbyes are said, and Bea hands each of her friends a party bag. She takes this very seriously, peering into each bag before handing it over. ‘That one’s for you, Adam,’ she says. ‘It has the red water pistol.’ She looks up at me. ‘He likes water pistols.’

  ‘OK, sweetheart.’ I stroke my hand across her forehead, bringing wispy blonde hair away from her eyes and tucking it back under her Alice band. She’s wearing a white party dress with a turquoise ribbon round the bodice. It exactly matches the colour of her eyes, still turned up towards mine.

  ‘I’m four.’ She touches the badges pinned to her chest, each one shouting out the same number.

  ‘You are.’ I kiss her pink cheeks. ‘But you’ll always be my baby.’

  ‘I’m not a baby, Mummy!’ She stares at me earnestly. ‘I’m four now.’

  ‘Well, still, you’ll always be my precious baby girl.’ I tickle her middle. ‘That’s just the way it is.’

  The corners of her mouth twitch in a smile and then she hands out the next party bag. It’s been a long day and I expected her to be over-wound by now, but she’s taking all the attention in her stride. It makes me feel very proud of her and I can’t help but g
ive her another hug.

  The front door opens and closes countless times, the late-afternoon sunshine warming the black-and-white chequered floor tiles in the porch. Almost everyone is gone when I leave Bea at the door with Wendy and find one of the mums a spare T-shirt for her daughter, Jessica, who has spilled juice down the front of hers. We talk in Bea’s room for a few minutes, about nursery and about the ubiquitous road works that have sprung up at the end of the crescent, and by the time we get back downstairs, Bea has left her post and the last remaining party bag is lying on the floor. Thinking nothing of it, I give the bag to Jessica and say goodbye to them both with a promise to arrange a play date soon.

  I walk back along the hallway to the kitchen and find Julian taking a glass from the shelf.

  ‘That went well.’ I cuddle into his back. ‘Thank you for being chief entertainer. When the clown didn’t turn up, I thought we were going to be in for trouble.’

  He holds the glass under the running cold tap until it’s full to the brim. ‘Couldn’t have done it without Charlie.’

  ‘You’re right. It’s great having him home.’ I look outside into the garden but can’t see our elder son, Charlie, or his girlfriend, Amy. Wendy is the only one there, righting chairs and picking stray sweet papers off the grass. ‘Being away at university has helped him grow up.’

  ‘It has.’ He swallows down the water, wipes the back of his hand across his mouth and then stretches out his spine. ‘I’m getting too old for children’s parties.’

  ‘Fifty is the new forty, you know.’

  ‘Tell that to my knees.’ He collapses down on to a chair and eases off his shoes.

  ‘There’s grass all over you.’ I brush it off his upper back, then let my hands slide round his neck and rest my elbows on his shoulders. I put my mouth next to his ear. ‘Do you really have to go to Sofia today?’

  ‘I do.’ He pulls me round on to his lap. ‘I have a meeting early tomorrow.’

  ‘It’s been so nice having you home on a weekday.’ I rest my head close to his neck. ‘I hope the trial’s over before the summer ends. We could go to Dorset, take Lisa with us and have a family holiday, all of us together.’

  I feel his body tense ever so slightly.

  ‘We’re not going to get a holiday?’ I say.

  He doesn’t answer me. I sit back so that I can see his expression. Almost twenty-five years of looking at his face and I’ve yet to grow tired of it. He has good bone structure: high cheekbones and a straight nose. His mouth is wide and made for smiling. His eyes are the colour of rich mahogany; his hair is jet black and curly with a smattering of grey at his temples. Not for the first time I think that he’s far too handsome to be a barrister. But today the way he’s looking at me, staring in fact, is puzzling.

  ‘Are you OK?’ I say.

  The phone rings, high-pitched and intrusive. I reach behind Julian and take it from its cradle on the dresser.

  ‘Hi, Mum. It’s me.’

  ‘Jack!’ I automatically smile at the sound of my younger son’s voice. ‘Bea’s had a great party. She loved the present you sent. How’s the revision going?’ Jack is at boarding school and in the throes of his GCSEs. ‘You prepared for the last couple?’

  ‘Getting there.’

  In the background, I hear a voice shouting his name.

  ‘I just called to wish Bea a happy birthday,’ he says.

  ‘OK. I’ll pass you over to Dad while I find her.’ Julian takes the phone from me and I go to the bottom of the stairs. ‘Bea!’ I call. ‘Jack’s on the phone.’

  No answer. There’s no way she’d want to miss out on a call from him. Although separated in age from Jack and Charlie by twelve and fifteen years, Bea loves both her brothers with a blind, full-on passion. She must be listening to a story tape or else all the excitement of the day has caught up with her and she’s fallen asleep somewhere.

  I have a quick look in the sitting room – empty – then climb the stairs to her bedroom, calling her name as I go. I push open the door, but she isn’t in there either. I check the master bedroom – it wouldn’t be the first time she’s decided to raid my make-up or try on my shoes. I go into our en suite bathroom. I even open my wardrobe, but there’s no sign of her.

  The shower is running in the family bathroom and I can hear Charlie singing quietly. Our house is on four floors and I go quickly up to the top floor, where we have two spare rooms. I don’t expect to find her here and I don’t. Both rooms have an unlived-in feel.

  ‘Jack’s on the phone!’ I call, going down the stairs again. ‘Bea, if you’re hiding, you have to come out now.’

  I go all the way down to the basement level, where there’s the utility room, Julian’s study and Jack’s bedroom. There’s nobody here. The utility room leads straight out on to the garden at the back and I shout to Wendy, ‘Bea’s not out there with you, is she?’

  ‘No. I last saw her in the sitting room.’

  I climb the stairs again and am almost back in the kitchen when I remember. ‘Wait!’ I’m speaking to myself. I raise both my palms in the air in front of me, then turn back along the hallway, my sandals drumming a hectic beat on the tiles. Bea has a den under the stairs. She keeps her soft toys and a pile of cushions carefully arranged for optimum comfort. She can often be found there, playing with her animals or simply lying with her thumb in her mouth and a faraway look in her eyes. I pull aside the curtain that conceals the space. She isn’t there. I take a deep breath, feel it catch in my throat. With all the comings and goings today she could easily have slipped out through the front door. Perhaps she followed one of her friends. But why would she do that? It’s more likely that she’s playing somewhere in the house, somewhere I haven’t thought of.

  I go back to the kitchen. ‘I can’t find her,’ I say, fully expecting Julian to smile and remind me of some obvious place that I’ve forgotten to look.

  He doesn’t. His eyes hold mine for a split second and then he’s out of his seat so quickly that I lurch back against the work surface. He slides his feet into his shoes and speaks curtly into the phone. ‘Jack, we’ll call you back.’ He puts the handset on the table and looks at me. ‘What do you mean you can’t find her?’

  ‘I’ve called her, but she isn’t answering. I think I’ve looked everywhere.’

  ‘She couldn’t have gone off with one of the mothers?’

  ‘No, of course not.’ I shake my head. ‘Nobody would take her without asking.’ I look around helplessly. ‘She must be in the house somewhere.’

  He moves past me and goes to the stairs. ‘Bea!’ He calls her name several times, both up and down the stairwell, his voice so loud it’s almost a roar.

  ‘Julian!’ The volume of sound is making me jump. ‘That will frighten her.’

  He ignores me and, taking the stairs two at a time, goes up to the first floor. ‘Charlie!’ He bangs on the bathroom door.

  Charlie, looking bewildered, comes out into the landing, a towel round his waist and another in his right hand which he’s using to rub his hair. ‘What?’

  ‘Have you seen Bea?’

  ‘Amy’s taken her to the park. Didn’t she tell you?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘There we are, then.’ I allow my shoulders to relax down from my ears. ‘Whew! Panic over.’

  But Julian isn’t reassured. He goes into our bedroom, looking through the front window. We live in a terrace of white town-houses in a crescent in Brighton. The road curves round a grassy play area with three swings, a slide and a chunky wooden climbing frame. I follow Julian’s eyes and see at once that Bea isn’t there. The park is empty apart from Jem, who’s pushing her son, Adam, on the swing. Without looking at me, Julian goes down the stairs again. I follow him.

  ‘Julian?’

  He’s not listening. He’s out the front door and crossing the road. He shouts to Jem, ‘Have you seen Bea?’

  She shakes her head and Julian starts to pace in front of the iron railings. I try to catch his arm, but h
e doesn’t even register I’m there. His expression is strained, his pallor strangely grey considering the speed of his breathing and the heat of the afternoon sun. But worst of all is the frantic look in his eyes, as his gaze trawls from one end of the street to the other. I reach for his arm again, but still he isn’t seeing me, his attention gripped by whatever has sparked his panic. This behaviour is so shocking, so un-Julian-like that I’m stunned. It’s as if I’ve woken up in a parallel world where the sky is down and the ground is up. My head fills with a heavy, stifling blackness and then a succession of flashing lights blind me. I hold on to the railing next to me and try to breathe. Blood booms against my eardrums with a forced, almost manic intensity. And behind all of this, I have only one coherent thought – for some inexplicable reason, Julian thinks Bea is in danger.

  As soon as my vision clears, I grab on to his shirt. ‘Julian!’ I jerk him towards me. ‘What’s going on?’

  His eyes when they finally look into mine are flooded with apprehension and I flinch, draw back. ‘What’s the matter with you?’ I say. ‘Why are you reacting like this?’

  ‘Where are they?’ His eyes scan the street again.

  ‘I don’t know, but surely . . .’ I take a deep breath. ‘Surely you don’t think Amy’s going to harm Bea?’

  ‘I don’t know, Claire.’ His lips, his face, his whole body is held still, tight with tension. ‘But think about it. What do we actually know about this girl?’

  ‘Well . . .’ I pause. ‘She’s studying biological sciences. Charlie’s been going out with her for about nine months. Her parents used to live in Manchester but now they live in Cyprus. She is—’

  ‘Mostly unknown to us,’ Julian says. Then he holds my shoulders and shakes me, not roughly, but enough to make my aching head feel an increase in pressure. ‘Where else could she have taken her?’

  ‘The corner shop. But—’ He’s gone before I can finish the sentence. ‘Bea normally only goes there with one of the boys,’ I say quietly to myself. The truth is that Bea isn’t particularly fond of Amy and has told me several times that she likes it better when Charlie comes home on his own. I can’t say that I’ve warmed to Amy either, but not because she monopolises Charlie, more because of her manner. She is abrasive, direct to the point of being rude. Charlie told me this is one of the reasons he’s attracted to her – she tells it like it is, unlike most of the girls his age, who say one thing and mean another.