Nicholas Searle - The Good Liar

that. I’ve simply learned not to trust people – not you, that goes without saying. I don’t like talking about myself, and that won’t

change. But if you have any questions . . .’

‘No,’ she says absently.

1ST_9780241206935_TheGoodLiar.indd 90

05/05/15 5:32 PM

Flooding

1

A hard, hard frost. Like the whole of the last three months or so. So cold it became difficult to think. Especially on a Sunday morning

when you’d been dragged from your pit at no notice, from that

snug fastness into this. He shivered as he thought of it and yearned for his bed again.

Fog. Bitter blank freezing fog wafting across the Fens. There was

no wind. Snow remained thick on the ground, the snow of weeks

past, accumulated like memory. The roads had been cleared several

times but were coated in black ice yet again.

He leaned against the driver’s door of the lorry, his fingers numb

and shaking as he commanded them to light his cigarette. He was

on his own, waiting for Bob. Mr Cole had long ago left, taking the

lorry driver with him. This was something that required the deft

ministrations of Bob, and Mr Cole had not had the patience to wait.

‘You’ll be all right, won’t you, Roy?’ he’d said. ‘I’d better get the driver back to town. Took the poor bugger an hour to get to Old Ma

Forsyth’s and the phone.’ The poor bugger would probably be hun-

kering down by Mrs Cole’s stove and drinking her tea. More than

could be said for Roy at present.

It had taken them forty- five minutes to locate the vehicle down

the old King’s Lynn road, a solitary spot which on a day like today would hardly ever be passed. When he had broken down the driver

had simply struck out on foot for the nearest sign of habitation

without noting his location. The fog was almost impenetrable and

Mr Cole had inched the van along the road from Essenham village,

91

1ST_9780241206935_TheGoodLiar.indd 91

05/05/15 5:32 PM

the driver sitting uncomfortably in the back and giving vague

instructions. He had little idea where the lorry was.

Eventually they had found it, straddling the main road. The driver

claimed he’d hit a patch of ice, braked and slid to an uncontrolled halt, stalling the engine in the process. He had been unable to restart it. Undoubtedly something as simple as a flooded carb; but Mr Cole

insisted that Roy wait for Bob. Presumably he could charge more

that way.

Bloody Norfolk, thought Roy. For the past five years he had been

a glorified odd job man in the village. The market garden in the

summer he enjoyed, but that was entirely seasonal. Mr Brown was

far too much of a mean sort to keep him on for the full year. So

when October came he was forced to search around for whatever

was available. More often than not Cole’s Garage was the only port

of call. Still, it kept him in beer and fags more or less. It was far from fulfilling a destiny, though. It was scratching a living.

A shudder ran up his spine and back down. Where was Bob,

effortlessly cheerful Bob, fifteen years younger than he, with optimism to burn and a wedding in the offing? Bob, the qualified

mechanic, who did have prospects, especially when Old King Cole

decided eventually to sell up and retire. Cole had a soft spot for Bob.

Roy he always regarded with curious suspicion, as if he had com-

mitted some infraction that Cole could not call precisely to mind. In fact Roy had been on his best behaviour since washing up here.

He tried again to light his cigarette and this time succeeded. He

sucked greedily at the paper tube and heard the crackle that was

little more than a rustle as it burned. He took the cigarette out of his mouth and observed it critically for a moment, teasing a stray fleck of tobacco from the unburning end with a numb finger and thumb.

The cigarette gave him at least the apparition of additional warmth.

Silence. That was the main thing about these parts at the best of

times. Stranded here in the middle of nowhere in a winter fog was

a world separated. A world of forlorn silence and isolation. It was as if he had died and his soul had been untethered. Not that he had

many ties, but now he felt unmoored entirely. He found this ener-

gizing rather than concerning: no safety nets but no constraints.

92

1ST_9780241206935_TheGoodLiar.indd 92

05/05/15 5:32 PM

2

In essence Bob was a good lad. He had grown up in his remote vil-

lage and had never left it.

Bob had his sweetheart, Sheila. She too had grown up here. Bob

would tell him regularly that they’d been destined for each other

from their first day at the infants’ school in the village. Their families, amused, had conspired in this myth and so it had turned out.

They were engaged to be married in the summer and Sheila was

busy filling her bottom drawer.

Bob had energy and enthusiasm and could, to his credit, envisage

a world beyond. This was a trait Roy encouraged, generally in their sessions at the pub. Invariably Roy would have to escort Bob back to his parents’ house and knock on the door with a wry smile and eyebrows raised, much to the chagrin of Bob’s father.

Speed and horses were Bob’s passions. He was small, wiry and

athletic, like his father, and had once had aspirations to become a jockey. His father had forbidden it because twenty- five years earlier he himself had been a promising stable boy at a prestigious training stable near Newmarket, but had broken his leg badly in a fall. It had taken years to rebuild his life and he didn’t want Bob to go through the same anguish. But Bob still hankered and went to the races at

Newmarket and Doncaster as often as he could afford it.

He sped around his little world on his Triumph motorcycle, for

which he had spent some years saving and which he kept in pristine

condition. This too was to be a casualty of married life, potentially traded in for an Austin A35 or perhaps an Anglia in a year or so. But in the meantime he accelerated along the straight fenland roads,

sweeping the flat monochrome before him in a rush of air and roar

of motor.

93

1ST_9780241206935_TheGoodLiar.indd 93

05/05/15 5:32 PM

3

Was that the sound of a distant motorcycle Roy could hear on the still air? No, it was a trick of the disorientating fog, or of his expectation.

He climbed into the cab again, hoping for a hint of greater

warmth, and slammed the door with a tinny clang.

Five years. At times it seemed a lifetime in the stifling fenland

gloom, all damp and turned in on itself.

He observed his calloused hands, toughened by manual labour.

Physically, he was more than up to it, but that wasn’t the point. It just wasn’t supposed to be like this. Roy wasn’t meant to be one of life’s also- rans, doing the hard work that sustained the successful in their positions. Things must change, soon.

He could hear only the sandpaper scrape of his hand across his

jaw as he felt his face. He had had just a matter of minutes at five in the morning to pull on his trousers, his boots and his shirt and tie before finding the thickest sweater he could wear under his jacket

and overcoat. He would have been grateful for a slurp of hot, sweet tea to run through his body. He exhaled experimentally and watched

as the vapour from his breath drifted in a cloud to the windscreen of the vehicle before beginning to dissolve into condensation. For

want of anything better to do, he delved around the interior of the cab, reading the invoices collated neatly on the clipboard, perusing an old copy of the Daily Sketch and finding a paper bag half full of pear drops in the glove compartment. There was a grubby grey