Nicholas Searle - The Good Liar

awaited the knock on the door. He had no story for this eventuality but thought that a repeated assertion of total ignorance might just see him home. If the police interviewed him it would be tempting to paint in some detail that might lead them to conclude that Bob had

been waylaid by person or persons unknown – some hint at strange

voices in the area where he had been waiting patiently by the lorry, for instance – but he knew this would be unwise.

As he had anticipated, Mr Mannion quizzed him on Bob’s state of

mind before his disappearance.

‘Did you think Bob was behaving funny?’

‘No, there was nothing unusual, though it was odd he didn’t turn

up Sunday morning. He’s usually pretty reliable.’

‘Did he talk to you about wanting to be a stable boy?’

‘Yes, I know all about him and horses. He did talk about it a lot,

to tell the truth, but I didn’t take an interest.’

‘Did he ever talk about going to work for some Hurst?’

‘Hurst? Nah, can’t remember. Doesn’t ring a bell. He talked about

Cheltenham, though. Thought it was the usual pie in the sky, if I’m honest. In one ear and out the other.’

‘Was he having second thoughts about getting married?’

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‘Yes, now you mention it, he did say he felt marriage was a bit like a noose around his neck. Have you thought of going to the police?’

He knew he must sit tight, ticking over the minutes and the hours

and the days and the weeks. After three weeks, he took a few days

off and, saying that he had to visit an aunt in Weston- super- Mare, took the long train journey to London and from there to Cheltenham. He found a boarding house, where he was on his most

charming behaviour and took a room for two nights, paying in

advance. Over breakfast he told the landlady that he was from Lon-

don and considering taking up an executive post with the local

council.

‘Would you object to receiving mail for me until I move up

permanently?’

‘No, Mr Mannion, not at all,’ she had said.

‘There’s no need to forward anything. I’ll be back regularly to

pick stuff up. There’ll be nothing urgent.’

He opened a new account at Lyons Bank in Cheltenham in the

name of Robert Mannion, giving his newly acquired address. He

showed the clerk Bob’s driving licence and chequebook as evidence

of identity, together with the letters and statements he had gathered from Bob’s room. At Martins Bank, just down the same street, using

the name Mannion again, he said that he was moving permanently

to Cheltenham to work with horses, and requested that his account

be transferred to the local branch.

Back in Essenham, there was still no word of Bob Mannion’s

whereabouts. When he saw Roy in the pub that weekend, Mr Man-

nion told him conspiratorially that his wife wept every evening.

Mr Mannion was spending much more time in the pub now than he

ever had.

‘At least we got a postcard this morning. From Cheltenham. It’s a

relief. At least he’s alive.’

‘I should still contact the police if I were you,’ said Roy.

‘No. He obviously doesn’t want to be here. The agony his

mother’s been through, though.’

Nearly four months after Bob’s death Roy was ready to make his

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move. Summer had arrived, days that seemed almost never- ending.

The skies across the Fens were unimaginably large and the high,

long clouds that dashed through did not threaten rain. He gave his

notice to Mr Cole in a low- key fashion and said he was going to try his luck in the Smoke, paid his landlady, packed his belongings in a small suitcase, newly purchased from Parke’s department store in

King’s Lynn, and took the evening train to Liverpool Street.

Having found lodgings in south London, he paid a brief final visit

to Cheltenham as Robert Mannion, to transfer his remaining funds

from Bob’s Martins Bank account to the new Lyons Bank account.

He left instructions to transfer that account and its funds to its Clapham branch. He relayed the bad news to his prospective landlady

with an expression of deep regret that the post, after all, had sadly fallen through.

Now he was able to start afresh.

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1

Bob Mannion. How odd that he should come to mind. Roy cannot

recall any particular sense of sadness. It was all utility, the requirement for immediate response and action. Even today he is impressed

by his ability to corral his thoughts and proceed logically. And that winter. The coldest for over two hundred years. No one had thought

it would ever come to an end. For Bob it hadn’t.

Roy now feels, if not sorrow, a kind of regret at Bob’s death,

mindful at the same time that in dying Bob had delivered him a

route out of his plight, stranded on the Fens, left behind by the

floods. Having moved back to London, he had become submerged

in the metropolis, after a short time cautiously able to dip into the bank account he had opened in the name Robert Mannion with

Bob’s money, even occasionally to be Mr R. Mannion, indeed Roy

Mannion, when it served his needs.

Over the years the natural accretion of identity had occurred,

that circular evidencing and self- referencing that came to prove

beyond doubt that he was Mannion. The availability of an alterna-

tive persona, backed by official documents, has been more than

useful. At times the challenge had been to maintain the flickering

self that was Roy Courtnay. It is possible, though unlikely, that

shortly he may need again to take the wraps off Mannion and give

him one last lap of the circuit. Depending, that is, on how things go with Betty and how assiduous and litigious her family choose to

become.

Regrets? He’s had a few, especially when he and Vincent had had

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to do over Martin, Bernie, Dave and Bryn. Especially Martin, the

poor sod. But not really. Live by the sword et cetera, et cetera.

But Bob Mannion. Really. What has triggered that thought? The

strange chemistry of the brain.

To his surprise, he is crying. His reflection in the mirror confirms this. He sees his long, tired face, those eyes once fierce and now

merely mournful, and the streaks of tears running down sagging

cheeks. He places his razor carefully on the basin and grips its sides with both hands to steady himself as he sobs.

Bob was like all those others left behind, he tells himself. Once in the past they might as well be dead. Thinking about them: to him,

it’s a waste of time and energy. For him, they are dead anyway.

Maureen, he knows, is in the public eye. Formerly a junior minis-

ter in the Department for Education, she now pronounces from on

high in the House of Lords, a vociferous and rather irritating sup-

porter of the deprived and sundry minorities. Easy from such a

privileged vantage point. Perhaps he should have backed that par-

ticular horse for a little longer. It had, though, just been a fork in the road. For him she too is as dead as Bob, and has been since that day he walked out of their dingy Clapham flat.

Those sisters, all those years ago. They had needed a lesson too.

And received one. The elder ones had laughed at his gaucheness.

The younger one had humiliated him. They had all learned.